The Greener Shore

by Morgan Llywelyn

  My spirit would be free.

  Still partially anchored to my body, I yearned outward. Almost immediately I was met by a sound that was not music but greater than music, a harmonic emanating from the Source of All Being. The darkness took on texture and formed itself into a spiral, the most sacred configuration in the cosmos, the dance of the sun and the stars. I was carried on the surface of the spiral like a leaf on a whirlpool. Darkness above and below and around me. One deep note ringing through me. Ecstasy!

  Movement ceased; I floated. The darkness turned crimson. The experience was strangely familiar. Was it something I once dreamed? Or something I remembered?

  I must not let myself be afraid. Rix was never afraid.

  Rix. Briga. Ainvar.

  Think, head!

  Three is the number of fate.

  With a sickening swoop I dropped toward a lake of light. Toward, not into. Beings swam upward from the light. They moved; I moved. Yet in opposite directions. We did not communicate with one another.

  They passed me and were gone.

  The light was no longer below me but ahead of me, glimpsed through the thinnest of membranes. The light was warm and soft, pulsing in rhythm with that singular continuous note. If I could reach it my fractured self would be whole again.

  While I struggled forward the light melted into a shimmer of rainbow colors. Surely the great gates lay just ahead. One bold stride would carry me through.

  I was confused. Was Briga on the other side? Or was she still in the place I was about to leave?

  As a druid I had been taught that each life contains one test to pass, one task to complete, and one lesson to learn. Which was this?

  Think, I commanded my head.

  I had last seen Briga as an old woman. She must be waiting for me in the Otherworld by now. One bold stride and…

  A furious female voice—not Briga’s—shouted from somewhere behind me, “This is your fault, Ainvar! I could kill you!”

  You can’t kill me, I thought smugly, if I am already dead.

  I gathered myself, relieved that the moment had finally come. Now all the mysteries would be solved and all the questions answered.

  Yet something was holding me back. Invisible hands clutched me and pulled me. How dare they! I fought as hard as I could, but to no avail. If this was my test, I was failing. Despair was added to my agony.

  The pain was a ferocious beast that gnawed and tore at my vitals. I would not be allowed to escape. Grimly, I set myself to endure the worst that living had to offer. At the final extremity there is nothing else to be done. Perhaps this itself was the test.

  Drawing on the strength my spirit had accrued in a hundred forgotten lifetimes, I waged my solitary battle.

  A voice that sounded like Briga’s murmured in my ear.

  The pain flared in a final burst of excruciating agony. Then it faded.

  I was alone in a vast silence.

  The Two-Faced One. The three faces of Briga. Three, not two, is the number of fate.

  “Briga?” I whispered. And opened my eyes.

  She was sitting beside me.

  For a moment I could see all three Brigas, the young, the mature, and the old. Then they melted into one and there she was, the living breathing woman.

  “I’m here, Ainvar,” she said.

  My face felt as if I was smiling at her. I hope I was. But before we could speak, my eyes closed of their own accord and I fell into sleep. An easy, healing sleep, as warm as Briga’s arms around me.

  When I awoke again I realized that the wheel of the seasons had turned. I had fallen ill during a golden autumn. Now a cold, blue light filtered in through the open doorway, heralding the onset of winter.

  Briga bent over me, tucking blankets around my shoulders. “How do you feel, Ainvar?”

  “Better.” My voice was weak and my chest was still sore, but there was no pain.

  Had I left it behind at the gates? I tried to remember the gates but they were fading from my memory. The entire experience was vanishing like a pattern etched in the sand, then deliberately rubbed out.

  Rubbed out by whom?

  My senior wife’s voice interrupted my musings. “You have visitors,” she said. “They wouldn’t wait any longer, they want to see for themselves that you’re getting well.”

  Looking past Briga, I saw that the lodge was crowded with people. All three of my wives and most of our children were there, together with Sulis, Keryth, Grannus, Teyrnon, and Damona, the Goban Saor. Everyone I loved.

  Except…“Where’s Cormiac?”

  “You should be asking ‘Where’s Labraid?’” cried an angry voice. Brushing past Briga, Onuava bent over me. Her face was crimson, her breasts were heaving with emotion.

  Briga said, “Not now, Onuava, Ainvar’s not strong enough yet. I said you could see him only if you behaved yourself.”

  “Would that make any difference tomorrow or the next day? Labraid will still be lost to me.” Onuava’s voice skittered on the brink of the condition the Greeks called “hysteria.” “I’ve been robbed of a king’s son!” she shouted at Briga. “You couldn’t possibly understand what that meant to me! I’m no one now, not even the wife of a chief druid because that wretched Ainvar isn’t the chief druid anymore.”

  The Goban Saor caught my third wife by the elbows. It took all his considerable strength to turn the big woman around and march her out the door. Over her shoulder she screamed, “You shouldn’t have done what you did, Briga! This is Ainvar’s fault. You should have let him die!”

  As the Goban Saor led her away, her cries increased in volume until they were diminished by distance.

  “I’m sorry about that,” Briga said to me.

  “Obviously something’s very wrong. What’s this about Labraid and where’s Cormiac Ru?”

  Lakutu tugged at the sleeve of Briga’s gown. “We do not know the worst,” she said, “but Ainvar will imagine the worst unless you tell him.”

  “You must, Briga,” Sulis chimed in. “He won’t be able to rest otherwise.”

  Keryth added, “None of it is your fault, Ainvar. You have to believe that.” Her words were enough to make me feel guilty even before I heard the whole story.

  Briga gave me a wooden cup containing cool water, then sat down beside me. “Drink this slowly, Ainvar. It will do you good.”

  Keeping my eyes on her face, I sipped obediently.

  “After you collapsed,” she said, “I could not wake you up again. I tried everything I knew but it was no use.”

  “Briga sent for me, of course,” Sulis interjected. “Yet even I could not restore you. We finally decided it would be best just to let you sleep and hope the illness would wear itself out.”

  Briga said, “Lakutu and Onuava took turns sitting with you, but I was here all the time.”

  “I knew,” I told her.

  “We women were not strong enough to tend you by ourselves, so I asked Cormiac Ru to help us lift you and keep you clean.”

  “I’m surprised he was willing, under the circumstances.”

  “Oh, Ainvar, you know how he is. He was angry because you made me cry, but when he realized how ill you were he was very upset. Like me, he never left your side—until the day you cried out, ‘Bring her back!’ Cormiac thought you were calling for Maia. He convinced himself that seeing her again would save you, so he’s gone for her.”

  “He what?”

  “He went to bring Maia back, and Labraid went with him.”

  I could not take this in. “Labraid? He’s just a child.”

  “He’s facing into his fifteenth winter, when he must be counted a man—as he reminded his mother when she shouted at him and tried to stop him. But no one ever stops Labraid from anything he wants to do, you know that. I’m only surprised Cormiac was willing to take him along.”

  chapter XIII

  I WAS NOT STRONG ENOUGH TO WORRY ABOUT THE TWO OF THEM simultaneously. My spinning thoughts concentrated on the Red Wolf. “Cormiac can’
t be gone, Briga! It’s not possible.” He had become a fixture of our lives, as certain as the sun. Whatever else might happen to us Cormiac was always there.

  “Well, he is. Look around.” Jumping to her feet, my senior wife circled the lodge, pretending to seek the Red Wolf in one ridiculous place after another. “Is he in the hen’s box? He is not. Is he hanging from the cloak peg? He is not.” My Briga could be playful, it was one of her most endearing qualities. She might almost have been playing a joke on me. But when she turned back to me and reiterated, “He’s gone, I tell you,” there was no mistaking the pain in her voice.

  “This makes no sense, Briga. Cormiac would never leave you, not for anything.”

  Her shoulders slumped. “That’s where you’re wrong, Ainvar. No one is ours to keep forever. Not in this life.”

  I spent long days and nights lying on my bed while Briga fussed over me and made me drink vile-tasting potions. When I held my hand in front of my face, the skin was so thin as to be translucent. If I turned over on my side my bony knees pressed painfully against each other. But at least I was alive.

  We could not be so sure about the Red Wolf and Labraid Loingseach.

  They had set out together with their swords in their belts and their faces resolutely turned toward the east. Briga had done her best to dissuade them but it was no use. I was not surprised; when the Red Wolf made a decision he never turned back. But the problems were insurmountable. To begin with, how and where would they acquire a boat? The Plain of Broad Spears was well inland; Maia, wherever she might be, was on the other side of the sea.

  Recalling that vast expanse of turbulent water made my stomach churn.

  Labraid’s arrogance was such that he might truly believe he could challenge the sea and win. Cormiac Ru had a wiser head, but he was impelled by his heart. By the time I knew they were gone, they probably both had drowned.

  To grieve is to surrender to death. I knew death was not final, but still the loss of the Red Wolf was heart-wrenching. Briga felt the same, though she kept her pain to herself and put on a hopeful smile for my sake.

  As for Onuava, every few days she came storming into my lodge to upbraid me further. I tried to defend myself by saying, “I never told either of them to undertake this madness, Onuava. If I had been in my right mind I would have stopped them.”

  “You speak to me of madness? You’re the mad one, Ainvar, to think that child of yours could still be alive after all this time. Even if she were, how could they hope to find her?”

  “I never asked anyone to bring Maia back. Cormiac jumped to that conclusion on his own.”

  Onuava said bitterly, “He’s paid for his foolishness. You haven’t. You’ve cost Vercingetorix his son.”

  If she had stabbed me through the heart she could have hurt me no worse.

  The next time she came Briga tried to keep her out, but Onuava simply brushed my senior wife aside and renewed her vituperative attack on me. No amount of protestations on Briga’s part could deter her. Like Vercingetorix—or Labraid, for that matter—Onuava recognized no obstacles to her will.

  Help came from an unexpected source. Of her own volition, my second wife stationed herself outside the door of my lodge. Lakutu slept curled up in a ball at night and sat on a little three-legged stool during the day, steadfastly refusing Onuava admittance. She was half the size of my third wife, yet when the Egyptian narrowed her dark eyes and hissed through her teeth, Onuava backed off.

  She did not have to be present to cause trouble. Hatred becomes a ball of poison that lingers in the atmosphere, feeding on itself and constantly growing until it damages everyone in its vicinity. My clan, shaken by the violence of Onuava’s emotion, began snapping and growling at one another.

  What I wanted to do was stay in bed indefinitely, while Briga stroked my forehead and little Gobnat fed me bits of honeycomb. What I did was drag myself off the bed as soon as I was strong enough, and go to see Fíachu. “You’ve heard about Cormiac and Labraid, I suppose?”

  “Everyone’s heard about them, Ainvar. When she was refused admittance to you, that big handsome wife of yours came down here wailing and moaning. There’s no ignoring her. One of my own wives,” he said with a careless laugh, “has even suggested I take her into my bed to keep her quiet for a while.”

  I looked surprised, but I was not. That was a mask of convenience. Damona spent much of her time in Fíachu’s fort gossiping with the older women, a pastime that I encouraged because it does no harm to have extra ears working for you. Teyrnon’s wife had already passed this tidbit on to me, and I had been mulling it over.

  “Do you want to bed Onuava?” I asked Fíachu.

  “Would that keep her quiet?”

  “In my experience, no.” You should always be honest with someone from whom you seek a favor.

  Fíachu still had no sons. Onuava had just lost the son of a king, for which she blamed me. If she had a son by the king of the Laigin, under Gaelic law the child would inherit his father’s rank and Onuava could once again boast of being a prince’s mother. Besides, Onuava was a woman of considerable appetites. Even if she forgave me, in my present condition I would not be able to satisfy those appetites for quite some time.

  Selfishness serves no one. By being unselfish with Onuava I could benefit a number of people.

  “You might not be able to keep Onuava quiet,” I told Fíachu, “but if you wish to take her to your bed I can promise you a most remarkable experience.”

  “Are you serious? You wouldn’t mind?”

  “It’s an honor to serve the king,” I replied solemnly.

  Afterward Briga congratulated me on my cleverness. She was as eager to see the back of Onuava as I was, and Lakutu would be glad to spend her nights in her own lodge again.

  But Cormiac Ru was gone. All my cleverness could not change that.

  If I had expected Fíachu to be diplomatic about his bedding arrangements, I was mistaken. He was a chieftain. He simply took Onuava into his fort and installed her in a lodge near his own. He could not marry her because she was married to me, but he treated her at least as well as he treated his wives.

  His wives were not favorably impressed. Even the one who had suggested the arrangement was disgruntled. “I meant it as a jest!” she protested. Which only demonstrates that women have a different sense of humor from men.

  I did not visit the fort again during my convalescence, but members of my clan reported back to me. “Fíachu looks absolutely drained,” said the Goban Saor, sniggering. “His women are at one another’s throats and even a chieftain can’t control a situation like that.”

  Rescue was at hand. By the time the meadows were drowsy and blowsy with summer, a new war—or rather, a renewal of an old war—broke out between the Laigin and the Ulaid. The king of the Laigin summoned the warriors bound to him by their tribal chieftains. Led by Fíachu, the men of the Slea Leathan rushed off to enjoy a good fight far away from home.

  And Onuava had returned to us. Even the tough shell of her spirit was not proof against the barbs of Fíachu’s other wives when the chieftain was not around.

  My third wife no longer stormed into my lodge to berate me. Instead she moved around our little settlement with the dreamy, abstracted expression women get when they carry new life.

  “A male child,” Keryth announced after reading the omens.

  Perhaps that would mollify Onuava, though it could never replace the son Vercingetorix had lost. In some future life I must face him. The Source demands that balance must be achieved in all things, no matter how long it takes. Would I be given a chance to replace Rix’s loss with something of equal value? Or would he mete out a punishment to even the scales?

  We still did not know the fate of Labraid and Cormiac Ru. I even sent Dara to Cohern, with a request that he ask his tribesmen along the southern coast if any bodies had washed up on shore. None had. They were simply…gone. Swallowed up in immensity; swallowed up by the sea.

  Such a death would be ap
propriate for Onuava’s son, who had foolishly called himself Labraid Loingseach. The Speaker Who Sails the Seas had nearly drowned once before due to his rashness. That Which Watches must have decided it was time to close the circle.

  But I could find nothing in the Pattern of Cormiac Ru that would have led him to such an end. Against all the odds, I was forced to conclude the Red Wolf must still be alive.

  I paid a professional visit to Keryth.

  “What you suggest is not possible, Ainvar,” she told me.

  “Why not? We made the voyage successfully.”

  “Yes, but we had two boats and an experienced crew.”

  “Cormiac may have acted impulsively, Keryth, but he knows how to take care of himself; he’s a survivor by nature. Examine the omens and see if he lives.”

  She looked dubious. “If you’re right, they might even be in Latium by now. I don’t think my abilities reach that far.”

  “The same stars shine over both sides of the sea,” I pointed out. “Their positions may have changed, but they’re the same stars.”

  “For this divining I’ll need more than stars, Ainvar. Can you bring me a wolf? A live wolf?”

  “A dead wolf is one thing, a live wolf is quite another. Wolves are strong and quick and clever. I’d need someone like Cormiac to…”

  “Exactly,” said Keryth. “We need a wolf to find a wolf.”

  I am no hunter; the requisite skills were more the province of Grannus. When I asked him, and explained the reason, he agreed to try. “It’s going to take more than one man to capture a wolf alive and bring him back unharmed,” he told me. “You’d better come with me, Ainvar.”

  We planned to set out on the following morning.

  When I awoke my nose reported damp air and cooking smells before I opened my eyes. I had slept later than was my habit. Briga had already left on some woman’s business and Lakutu was preparing a meal for me.

  I stood up and stretched. Slowly, thoroughly. Another valuable lesson learned from observing nature. A man who stretches himself first thing in the morning will spend the day in a more comfortable body.