by Janzen, Tara
Looking down at the flesh of her palm, she saw that she’d been burned with a symbol she’d never before seen. It glowed on that tender space in graceful curves, and the hurt caused her to cry the tears of Arianrod. The drops of salt water splashed into her hand, healing the mark and relieving her suffering.
Moriath had been wrong. She could not open the weir alone. Woman and man together made the bond that ruled the elf-man’s gate, one into the other. There was no harm for Dain in this journey through the scrying pool.
Wiping the tears from her cheeks, she reached for him, calling his name in silence, and his hand came through the mists to take hers, the iron-and-teeth bracelets of Ceraunnos still banding his wrist. There was no hesitation in his action, no doubt in his touch, only sureness. Where their hands clasped, pale ivory light surrounded them with a soft glow... Amor, lux, veritas, such is the way to the stars.
But they need not go so far, not this day.
She tightened her fingers around his, looking past the pagan bracelets and into the fog. He was naught but a dark shape half-hidden within the swirling rising mists. She called to him again, and one by one the layers between them dissipated, until she could see the charm marks on his gambeson and his hair rippling like a veil in the wind of the abyss. Wisps of fog clung to him as the final mist lifted, crowning him in gossamer and trailing down the length of his body in wind-driven tatters.
“Dain.” She spoke his name, and he took her in his arms.
Strength was his magic, his body the shield and haven she needed to do what must be done—to yield, and yield yet more, with all of her being, to soften and release her mind so the ethers of the weir gate could come into her and be consumed by the fire of the sun in the Mother Goddess’s heart, and thus the pryf would be free and the way opened to Yr Is-ddwfn.
“You have come where Moriath has warned you not to tread,” she said, her cheek resting against the softness of his Quicken-tree cloak, “but I swear all will be well.”
“Aye.” He drew her nearer with an easy flex of his arms, bowing his head closer to hers, and his breath came warm and soft in her ear. “In the hours we have watched and waited, I feared only that you would not need me, Ceri, not that you would call for me.”
Hours, she thought, not the mere moments she’d felt. “Then have not even that fear, sorcerer”—she looked up at him—“for this door Rhuddlan has set us to cannot be breached without you. ’Tis why he bound us.”
At that, he smiled. “The one thing I have learned in this place is that we were bound long before Beltaine, Ceri. Mayhaps even before the night Ragnor brought you to Wydehaw.”
She understood. Standing before the weir gate, she felt a familiarity with him that went far beyond the time she’d known him. One short season of spring could not hold all the love of him that ran through her heart, for ’twas even more than she had for the lost Merioneth. When the time came to go north, she would be by his side; her love for Dain Lavrans would set the course of the rest of her days. She raised her mouth to his and gave him a kiss of peace, the sweetest blessing she could bestow, before turning to face the door.
Dain kept one arm around her waist, holding her close and regarding the strange place she had brought him. Jalal had never known such, nor such a woman. In these things he had surpassed his desert master.
But not Rhuddlan, elf-man, Moriath had said, and he knew it to be true. Not the elves of imagination, fanciful creatures, but a man-child of nature, tylwyth teg. ’Twas Rhuddlan, even more than the maid, who had forced him to the weir, waiting all these years, it seemed, for only the right bait to bring him to heel—Ceridwen ab Arawn.
The gate was nothing to fear, Rhuddlan had said as they had watched Ceridwen glide through the mist toward the weir gate. Journeying to it through the waters kept them from the gate’s dangers, of which there were many, as Moriath had warned, but what was merely seen could not harm, Rhuddlan had assured him, and what was felt would be mitigated by the scrying pool. Dain had turned to the Quicken-tree man where they both stood by the edge of the steaming water. He’d held Rhuddlan’s translucently gray gaze, and he’d known the other man had not told all. There was danger for him somewhere in this place. He sensed it strongly enough that he would have turned away rather than walk into the thick of it, if not for Ceridwen.
Aye, the elf-man had chosen well the lodestone with which to draw him in. He had glimpsed the weir through the vapors while watching Ceridwen, yet still felt awe standing before it. As he’d waited by the pool, the heat of it had emanated from the water and warmed the great cavern. Heat from the past, Rhuddlan had told him, for the weir was a thing of the past, and the past was hot. Dain trailed his hand through the mist and watched the fine strands of it leave his fingers and twist into tiny green, white, and heliotrope whorls.
This was true magic, this place out of time where Nemeton had stood. The bard’s marks were upon the emerald surface of the gate. Not all of them, not the Latin or Arabic, nor the runes Dain had found amongst all the other writings in the Hart, but only the most mysterious signs, the ones he’d never deciphered. The key to ultimate transformation? he wondered. Or that which would seal his doom?
“Ma-rahm, maa-aa-rahm, la shadana may-am,” the Quicken-tree chanted, drawing power into their voices from deep in their bodies, then filling the cavern with that power. “Ma-rahm, ma-ma-rahm.”
“Now we begin,” he heard Rhuddlan say with satisfaction.
Ma-rahm, Ceridwen thought, and began to sing, matching her voice to the wild ones as her mother had done before her. The word had no simple translation, but she knew that in the way the song to Domnu had led her to the womb of the earth, ma-rahm allowed entrance, as a blossoming bud allowed entrance into the heart of the flower. ’Twas all the same, an opening and a release, the bringing of one into the other.
Dain heard Ceridwen’s voice and the echo of it off the weir. He felt the resonance of it caress his skin and set up a counter vibration inside the vortex. On the other side of the mists, the Quicken-tree chant grew stronger, the words sung into the air where they were captured by the swirling edge of the abyss and pulled down inside with him and Ceri.
He knew the use of sound and voice—was a master himself in the skill—but he had heard naught like this, a hundred voices in concert to work magic.
“Ma-rahm, ma-rahm,” they sang, and the drums answered with a quickening of their rhythm. A faint color change washed over the bright green surface of the weir, leaving an opalescence in its wake.
This was the way then.
“Take heed, Dain,” he heard Moriath warn him. “You can go farther than you can come back.”
Mayhaps. But his journey was yet young. He joined his voice with Ceri’s, and when she laid her hand once again upon the gate, he laid his beside it.
The gate was warm and silky to the touch.
A hand came down on his shoulder, Rhuddlan’s, and Dain felt the elf-man’s strength flowing into him, along with a pressure to hold him where he stood. Rhuddlan would have this thing done, he thought, yet no force was needed to hold him at the door. The thing had its own allure, a lush mix of history, ritual, and arcana sliding beneath his hand and being made known to him through the skin of his palm—wondrous trick. Woven through it all was a rich vein of the ageless mysteries of mankind.
Moriath’s warning came back to him, for no matter the cost, he feared he would follow that seductive thread to its core. Thus he cautioned himself to let reason be his guide, then he spread his hand wider on the door and glided it slowly, warily, across the green surface. To die for knowledge would be self-defeating at best. He would follow the vein for a moment, no more.
And so the moments passed, one after the other, each more intriguing than the one before, as he learned secrets of time and space and here and there; a map of death showing a progression of states and colors, most interesting and not what he’d imagined; and a flicker of life beneath his hand where he held Ceridwen about the waist —genesis. He looke
d to her and found her deep in concentration, her eyes closed, her face lifted, the light of the weir dancing over it; a woman looking inward and seeing all. She knew, beautiful woman, radiant within his embrace. The gate could be opened; he learned that. The seal, an ether concoction of earth and seawater, could be broken—if a man would but wean himself from the luxury of the door’s touch.
He continued the slide of his hand, soaking it all in, thinking not to deprive himself just yet. He was strong, and here was all he’d ever sought: the keys to transformation, redemption, salvation, even immortality—he was sure—and all of them within his reach. He pressed his hand flatter against the gate, wanting more, and it suddenly gave way, leaving nary a hairbreadth between him and the surface. An instant of fear was quickly ameliorated by a pleasurable heaviness filling his body, a sensation worth the risk and proving the wisdom of his action, for he would have more. Sweet ease. The heaviness caressed him from the inside out in deepening shades of oblivion, sinking him into a life so rich, he wondered if he was nearing the place where death began.
He removed his arm from around Ceridwen, letting her go. She need not follow him here. In fact, ’twas best if he went alone. He knew this country too well.
Another hand reached for him then, much less gentle than the one on his shoulder, and smaller, but no less strong. It cupped his chin and pulled his head up to meet a set of fiery green eyes.
“Fool man,” Moriath said, her voice as fierce as her grip on his jaw. “You are at this too long. Follow not that path in your mind—cursed thing from out of the desert. In this place, it can only lead you to a strange death. Fight for what you would have, Dain, before your weakness destroys you.”
She released him, and he looked back at the weir gate. It would consume him if he did not break away. Already his hand was sunk into it nearly full across the backs of his fingers, yet the desire to go even deeper was greater than his will to fight, more a need than a temptation, a desperate need. Aye, he knew the way of yielding to pleasure and a thousand ways of surrendering to solace. ’Twas his mortal weakness, as Moriath had said. A strange death, she’d promised him, and long ago she’d told him Nemeton had died here. Had it been thus that the wage had met his demise? In desperate longing?
The question no sooner formed in his mind than it was answered with blood, a red wash of it beneath his hand, obscuring the emerald surface of the gate. The Beirdd Braint of the Quicken-tree, Nemeton, did not die in search of pleasure or knowledge, but in battle with a blade through his heart, killed by Gwrnach the Destroyer; and behind the Druid, raped and gutted by a golden-haired youth, son of the Destroyer, the lady Rhiannon died in a pool of her own blood.
Dain jerked his hand away and stumbled back, freed by the truth and the horror and the blood. Always blood. An uncontrollable trembling seized him along with a flash of pain so sharp, it made him cry out and sent him to his knees. He slid his arm around his middle, a vain attempt to contain his body’s yearning to return to the insidious bliss of the door. He’d felt such before, which only made it worse, for he’d succumbed again.
Save me.
Grim-faced, he looked down at the red stain covering his palm. Revulsion churned to life in his belly, and he fought the urge to lose the contents of his stomach. Damned, blessed sight. He would have died there, if not for his damned gift of sight. More than words had been upon the gate. A vision had been there: he’d seen the Druid’s death and heard Rhiannon’s last scream, her voice like Ceridwen’s, her hair the same, her body, her face—’twas all of the daughter.
Save me.
He held himself tighter and tried to draw a deep breath into his lungs, vaguely aware of the tears tracking down his face. He had thought it Ceridwen lying there, raped and cut down by Caradoc’s blade, the life within her flowing onto the cold stone like wine from a broken cup. The shock and horror of it had overridden every other instinct in his body.
Moriath could not have known, for no matter the gains to be had, the witch would not have sanctioned a betrothal between Ceridwen and her mother’s murderer.
He lifted his head to look at Ceridwen. She was still entranced, still working her magic upon the gate. Christ, Ceraunnos save me. He’d thought he’d lost her.
Ceridwen knew of Dain’s pain, had felt it as it had washed through the weir. She had heard his cry and could feel his tears as if they ran down her own cheeks. He was a part of her, as was the gate and the creatures and the place beyond. She had put her hand upon the emerald surface again and felt not heat, but oneness. The warmth of the whole had lain up against her like the softest coverlet, molding itself to her, to every part of her body, and through its touch, expanding her existence beyond the boundaries of her skin. Then she’d brought the whole of it inside herself.
Her lips were curved by their own accord in a smile. Pure light radiated from the center of her being, the bright core pulsing. The Mother Goddess heart.
Rhuddlan removed his hand from Dain’s shoulder, knowing there was no more to be done. Nemeton’s and Rhiannon’s deaths had initiated the weir’s existence. The vision that relived those moments had been the key to unlocking the ether’s hold—that fateful wash of life’s blood brought forth by Lavrans’s gift. And Ceridwen had proven him somewhat wrong. She was quite capable of bringing about and containing the gate’s destruction. The dismantling had already begun, with one opening where Dain’s hand had been and another where the gate symbol had burned hot in the maid’s palm.
He shifted his gaze to Ceridwen, and for her sake was grateful she was no more than she was, surefooted in the mists, a good tracker, and, in the end, strong enough to yield herself to the heart of the Mother Goddess. Without the gift of deep sight, though, she would be useless in the gateway of time; yet the lack had spared her from seeing her mother die. He wished another could have been spared.
He did not need to see Moriath’s tears to know she was crying. That one always saw too much. She was her father’s daughter and would have claimed a place as Magus Druid Priestess at the scrying pool, except for Rhuddlan himself denying her. She had been bound to him as the Beltaine goddess in her seventeenth year, and he would not see her bound to another for any reason, with or without the magic of sex. She was a weakness he would not renounce, and in the end, his patience would outlast her stubbornness.
For certes she’d saved the mage. Lavrans suffered from a strange malady beyond Rhuddlan’s experience, but Moriath had recognized it and known enough to intervene.
A fresh wash of opalescence cascaded through the weir gate, causing it to lighten and thin, and he felt a familiar restlessness begin deep in the earth. Rhuddlan smiled. ’Twouldn’t be long now.
Dain reached for Ceridwen as the first tremor hit, pulling her close and bracing himself against the stone surrounding the gate. Her eyes opened with a slow sweep of lashes, and though the ground shook beneath their feet, she appeared profoundly calm.
“It’s time to leave,” he said, swiping the back of his hand across his eyes. He felt sick, shaken, but was still of a piece. The gate was ripping in places, starting to shred and tear, and the holes they’d made were growing larger. Their work was done. He made to turn back to the mists and was stopped by her hand taking hold of his.
“Wait,” she said. “I would see.”
He had no time to ask her what it was she would see, for they came then, up from out of the abyss with furious speed, streaking across the other side of the weir as dark shadows, making the earth tremble in their wake.
Pryf.
Larger than he had thought.
Much larger.
The size of castle towers, but alive, serpentine worms of the highest order.
Their keening cry resounded against the back of the weir, and where the seal was broken, a hot, gushing wind poured through, smelling of rich earth. The first worm rolled into a turn behind the gate, its body sliding across the emerald surface, twisting in a tight curve and heading back down into the bore hole. The second worm was bigger
, its sheer bulk causing a collision with the weir. The force of the crash knocked both him and Ceridwen over as the ground lurched underneath them. The seal bulged out with a stretching, tearing sound, nearly touching Ceridwen where she’d fallen.
The thing would not hold under another onslaught, yet another would come, for through the gaping emerald holes, he could see tens and hundreds of the giant creatures, their bodies slickly black with a deep green cast, a clew of pryf—prifarym, the Quicken-tree had sung—twisting and spiraling up and down the whole interminable length of the abyss. Born of the froth of a thousand serpents tangled in a frenzy beneath the stones of Domh-ringr.
The Doom Rings of Judgment. Dain looked at the rim of rock encircling the weir and again into the wormhole, to the chaos at its core, and knew he dared not be judged here.
A bolt of purple light crackled in the center of the clew, and a single pryf broke free to make its run.
“Now, Ceri!” he yelled above the growing rush of wind and cries, tightening his hold on her. “We must leave now!”
Aye, he was right, she thought. The prifarym would break through soon, some to slide into the deep caves of the Canolbarth, others—the pale, silvery-gold ones farther down than she would ever see—to continue their swirling patrol of the abyss... infinite chasm from whence came the world.
