The Dark Mirror Read Online Free PDF Page B

you say?”
    The lesson in swordsmanship kept Bridei occupied for some time, and while it lasted there was no place in his mind for anything beyond strength, balance, concentration. It was only in the afternoon, when the sky grew dark and rain began to fall in drizzling gray curtains, and his arms had begun to ache fiercely in belated protest at the morning’s hard work, that Bridei feltsadness creep over him. Donal was out doing something with the men at arms. Mara was fussing over linen and the impossibility of getting it dry. Ferat, the cook, was in a foul temper that had something to do with wet firewood. There was nobody in the house to talk to.
    Bridei’s small chamber was next to the place where Donal lodged with the other men at arms, although in practice Donal usuallyslept in the hallwayoutside Bridei’s door. He said the others snored and it kept him awake. Through Bridei’s tiny window, hardly big enough to admit a squirrel, could be seen a silvery glimpse of the lake between the branches of a birch. Sometimes Bridei could see the moon from his window, and then he would leave an offering on the sill, a white stone, a feather, or a charm woven from grasses.Broichan had taught him the importance of the moon, how she governed the tides, not just in the oceans, but in the bodies of man, woman, and creature, linking her ebb and flow with the cycles of nature. The Shining One was powerful; she must be honored.
    Today there was no moon to be seen, just the clouds and the rain, like endless, sorry tears. Bridei lay on his bed and stared up at the window,a small, dim square in the stone wall, gray on gray. He knew what Broichan would say:
Self-pity is a waste of time, and time is precious. Use this for learning
. Then the druid would talk about the rain, and where it fit into the pattern of the seasons, and how the element of water was like the moon in its fluctuations. There was a lesson to be learned from every single thing that happened. Evenwhen people went away and left you. But right now Bridei didn’t feel like learning. Without his foster father, nothing seemed right at Pitnochie.
    He sat cross-legged on the bed and recited the lore to himself until his lids were drooping over his eyes. Then he made himself stand up, and practiced balancing on one leg with one arm behind his back and one eye closed, which was what druids did formeditation. Then he folded his blankets perfectly, so that the edges were a precise match, and he took everything out of his storage chest and replaced it in a different, more orderly arrangement. He polished his boots. He sharpened his knife. It still wasn’t time for supper.
    Bridei stood by the window and looked out into the rain. He thought about the day, and about the expression in Broichan’seyes as he said farewell. He thought about the Vale of the Fallen, and all those men killed before their time, and their families with a whole life of sadness before them. He wondered which was the more difficult: having to go away, or being left behind.

    DONAL WAS EXTENDING the scope of Bridei’s combat training. It involvedgrips and holds and tricks, balance and strength and speed, and also the proper care and maintenance of weapons. Bridei learned to use a bow and tohit the center of the target nine times in ten. Donal began to move the target farther away and to add degrees of difficulty, such as a distraction at the moment of releasing the string or a sudden command to close his eyes. The lessons were neverboring. With the careful instructions on cleaning and oiling his blades, on retrieving and refletching his arrows, on maintaining the bow in perfect condition, Bridei came to realize that long-limbed, wry Donal was, in his way, as self-disciplined a man as the tight-lipped druid.
    In the afternoons, when he would once have spent time with Broichan in the recitation of lore or the study of themysteries, he was now left to his own devices. They had been studying the elements. He did his