The high-priestess seemed haggard. Her grey hair, loose and fallen about her shoulders, was dull, her face ashen. The golden torc about her neck gleamed in the firelight of the many braziers mounted around the long, white-walled grotto. With a short gesture, she dismissed the Huntsmen, and Eithne with them.

To either side, the anonymous, boar-hooded Huntsmen pulled Eithne down the rows of living trees that formed the columns of that strange underground shrine.

“Where are you taking me?” Eithne pulled against the grip on her right arm, but they drew her from the hall and out into the torchlight corridor. “What of Eowain? Is he well?”

The Huntsmen turned her left, back the way she’d come. “Silence,” said one. His tone was terse, his leather-bound body strong and stout.

“I’m not a child, I’ll not be hushed like one.” Eithne tugged again at their grip as they passed up the hall.

“You’ll be silent.” The other Huntsman spoke through gritted teeth and redoubled his hold on her arm.

The Huntsmen on her left looked down at her. “The Bán-Drúmór commands.” The face Eithne saw beneath the hood was young but stern and rigid.

The corridor turned once, then again, and they led her through two iron-bound oak doors with torches on either side.

Beyond, a strange, disembodied light glowed above an altar of stone. Set into alcoves on either side stood beautiful robed women, statues carved in pale granite. One held a sheaf of grain. The other a jug as for water. Ahead stood another, a white- robed woman bearing shield and spear.

“I said, let go of me.” Eithne tugged again at her arms as they drew her past the altar.

“Sorry, my lady.” The Huntsman on her right dug fingers into Eithne’s biceps. Eithne winced at the pain. “The Bán-Drúmór wants you safe and settled. You must come.”

“I will, you needn’t drag me!” Eithne strained and struggled.

“You mustn’t be down here any longer. It’s forbidden.”

“Forbidden by who? Damn it, where’s Eowain? Is he still here in the shrine?” She’d passed before through those familiar halls under Corchen’s dream-magick, her attention dulled. She cast then about for other ways, other passages, anywhere to which she might escape if she could just get free—

They came to an arched section of rock. Inside it was blackness.

The Huntsmen stooped and entered, pulling Eithne along. Together, they had to squeeze through the narrow opening.

All at once, the roof lifted and Eithne could stand straight.

It was absolutely black, as if a door that didn’t exist had been shut behind them. There was no light. The dark seemed to press like wet cloth on her open eyes.

Eithne reached out, her groping hands touched damp, rough-hewn rock. The Huntsmen tugged her back.

She whispered, as one does in the the dark, “Didn’t you bring a light?” The air that had been close touched her face then with cooler dampness. Faint movements in it gave the sense of a vast expanse.

“Light is forbidden here.” The Huntsman’s voice too was lowered, his whisper sharp. It had an odd sound, as if he were frightened.

Even as he said it, Eithne knew it must be so. There was the very home of darkness, the inmost center of night.

Eithne’s heart jumped, the blood pounded in her throat, but she said to herself, fiercely: I’ll not be afraid!

Eithne took a few cautious steps forward into the utter blackness. A pebble slipped under her sandaled foot, struck another pebble, and the tiny sound wakened echoes, many echoes, remote, and more remote. The space seemed immense, high and broad, yet not empty. Something in its darkness—surfaces unseen—shivered the echoes into ice-cold fragments.

They went forward, there was no other way to go. “Here, we are beneath the Stones.” The Huntsman’s whisper ran out into the hollow blackness, frayed into threads as fine as spiderweb, and lingered to the hearing for a long time. All the weight of the hill above them, with its jagged crown of standing stones, pressed down on that darkness. “These are the Barrows. Come. We can’t stay here.” He led them to the right. “Follow the wall, to the second opening.” His whisper hissed, and tiny echoes hissed after it. He didn't like it there, in those caves, in the dark. It wasn't his place, he didn't belong there, and Eithne knew he was afraid.

The Huntsmen breathed heavily, their garments brushed and scraped against the rock.

Ahead, firelight glowed and their pace quickened. They squeezed together through another arch, and a square chamber of granite blocks, with a slab of stone in the center, opened around them. A fire burned in a hearth set into the wall on Eithne’s left.

The young Huntsman whispered to the elder, “The Goddess— Do you think she’s truly angered?”

Eithne yanked again at their grip. “Why? What’s happening? Where did they take Eowain?”

The grim Huntsman glared at the younger, set his jaw and revealed nothing.

“Damn it, I’ve had enough!” Eithne twisted her right arm. She pulled free of the elder Huntsman, then turned and shoved at the younger.

But the younger wouldn’t release his grip.

Strong hands grabbed Eithne’s shoulders from behind and shoved her down on the stone altar. The stout Huntsman seized Eithne’s free arm and wrenched it painfully behind her back and hissed in her ear. “Enough, my lady!”

They hauled her from the altar and spun her about, propelled her away the hearth, toward an upward spiral of wooden stairs. The stout Huntsman seized her around the neck and choked her.

She put her feet against the stone walls, pushed back against them, hissed, “Let—me—go!” through the pressure on her throat. They twisted, and pulled her back. Her feet came away from the wall and she fell to the floor.

The stout Huntsman knelt into her back. In a rush, darkness crowded her vision and she…

…awoke as the stout Huntsman shoved her into a small cubicle.

Eithne’s knees struck a wooden frame. Vertigo lurched in her stomach. She fell.

And sprawled heavily across a reed-matted bed.

“Stay here! For your own safety, my lady.”

A door closed, Eithne gained her feet again, metal bolts and cylinders rattled, and Eithne lunged across the room and seized the knob.

She yanked, the door rattled in its frame. But it held firm against her.

Damn it! She beat on the stern oak planks with both fists. “Where am I? Why are you holding me? Where is Eowain? Where’s my father?”

The door offered no answers.

“Damn you!” She kicked the planks, turned and fell back against the door.

The stone-walled room before her was small, three strides on a side. Two of the reed-matted beds stood on opposite walls. At the foot of each bed was a small wooden chest, banded with iron. On one stood a brass candlestick. Flame flickered from a beeswax candle set in the socket. A squat earthenware decanter and cup sat beside the candle.

She turned again and battered the wood. “Open this door, damn your eyes! Open it now! I know you’re out there!”

But in fact, she wasn’t sure at all.