A Fading Sun
Page 13
He gave a laugh that was mostly a cough, but there was no amusement in his face. “That may be, but you’ve chosen a bad time.” He spread his hands as if to encompass the entire island. She saw the red stain on both. “Onglse is besieged by Commander Savas and his army.”
“And my coming here was as little a choice of mine as where I was born,” Voada told the man. There was an arrogance to Greum Red-Hand that reminded her too much of Voice Kadir. She could feel everyone staring at her. “As it happens, I’ve met Commander Savas,” she said. “In Pencraig, where I was once Hand-wife. I even liked the man—he did my husband and me a kindness. But if you believe that makes me a friend of the Mundoa after what was done to me, you’re mistaken. I didn’t choose the time to come here.”
“A Hand-wife,” Greum said slowly, as if trying to taste the words. “A friend of Savas. And yet also claiming to be a draoi, the very thing the Mundoa hate and fear most. You have to admit those are strange and conflicting attributes.”
“She only recently found her anamacha, Ceanndraoi,” Ceiteag broke in quickly. “She was touched by Elia even in Albann Deas, and she might have been a menach alone, as she can see taibhsean and guide them to the sun-path and peace. But this anamacha also sought her out—the anamacha of the Moonshadow, Ceanndraoi, that was believed to be lost. The others here have felt that also, and Voada has confirmed it. She is draoi, and she needs your mentorship.”
Voada saw Greum’s gaze flick over to where her anamacha stood, and this time he regarded the emptiness there for a long time, his head cocked as if he were listening. She wondered whether his own anamacha was talking to him.
“We’ll discuss this,” Greum said finally. “I’ll let Daibhidh show you where you’ll be staying, and we’ll meet in the temple in two stripes. I have other things I must attend to now. Daibhidh, after you’ve shown them where they can rest, have the clan heads come to me.”
With that, he inclined his head once more, turned, and walked quickly toward the temple. Voada watched him go, his stride that of a person certain of himself.
“This way,” she heard Daibhidh say. “I’ll have food and drink sent to you as well, though there’s little enough of that here of late.”
“Do you trust him?” Voada asked Ceiteag.
“Ceanndraoi Greum? Of course I do. Why would you ask that?”
“I don’t know. There’s just something …” Voada shook her head. “He reminds me of someone I wish I’d never come to know.”
The room to which they’d been shown was in the gate tower of the high fortifications: a stone-walled chamber that was barely large enough for the two beds it held, with a single small window looking out over the valley of Bàn Cill and admitting a dim shaft of light. The food and drink that Daibhidh had sent them was a hunk of dry bread, a slab of hard cheese, and a jar of tepid, watered small beer. Voada plucked off a bit of the bread and chewed the stale crust.
“Greum Red-Hand has forgotten more about being a draoi than I ever knew,” Ceiteag said, sipping at a mug of the beer. “He’s a hard and ungentle teacher, but a far better mentor than I. He always said that I was more menach than draoi, and he was right. Greum is who you need to show you how to be a draoi, Voada. But you need to understand that with the Mundoan forces here …”
“I do understand that. He has far more important and pressing matters to worry about than me. Maybe I’ve made a mistake, coming here.”
“Does your anamacha believe that?”
In the darkness of the room, they could see their anamacha easily, Ceiteag’s near her and Voada’s a stride away to her left. The multiple faces were watching her; Voada wondered if any of them heard or understood their conversation. Voada lifted a shoulder. “No,” she admitted. The anamacha had said little to her since their arrival, but it had made its feelings clear before they’d taken ship. “They wanted to come here. All along.”
“Then this is where you should be,” Ceiteag responded, as if that answered all the questions and uncertainty Voada might be feeling.
It didn’t. Voada went to the window, gazing out at Bàn Cill. She could feel the chill of the anamacha’s presence at her shoulder. She wondered what it saw and what it felt at seeing this place where the souls that composed it had once lived and walked.
13
The Shadow of the Moon
THE TEMPLE AT BÀN Cill was far larger and more elaborate than any that Voada had seen before. The central eye open above the altar was bordered with blue and white tiles in an elaborate knotted pattern. The crystalline windows of the sun-path allowed in a milky, thick light. The altar was a jet black, glossy stone, unlike any in Voada’s experience, and the statue of Elia was as tall as Voada and painted in eerily lifelike colors. The sun-paths were gilded and broad, and there were small private rooms along the walls, something Voada had seen in no other temple at all. Their footsteps echoed loudly off the distant roof as they took the long walk from the door to the altar.
Greum Red-Hand emerged from one of the side rooms as they approached, along with two men bearing weapons and shields, their cloaks mud-spattered and torn. One of them had a jagged, old scar running white through his dark beard along his left cheek and jaw and long black hair in a braid down his back. He wore an outer cloak of deep red, sewn at the hems with silver threads in a knot pattern, and his forehead was stained with streaks of blue. “This news is troubling. Keep me informed, Ceannàrd Iosa,” they heard Greum say to the scarred man. “Let me know how Commander Savas responds or if he tries to move from the fort he holds.”
Both of the warriors clashed spears on shields and strode quickly away, giving the draoi only fleeting glances.
“I apologize,” Greum said to the group. His gaze seemed to linger on Voada and her anamacha—barely visible in the temple’s brightness—for a breath longer than any of the others.
“We understand, Ceanndraoi,” Ceiteag answered. “The Mundoan army is on Onglse. How can we help? That’s why we’ve come.”
“Once I’ve reacquainted myself with your individual abilities, you’ll be sent to the south and east of the island. The Mundoa have only a tenuous hold here. They have a beach on which to land men and supplies, and they hold one hill-fort. That’s more than they’ve ever taken before; their Commander Savas isn’t the total fool that his predecessor was. If it came to warrior against warrior alone, there are so many of them that I would despair of holding Onglse, even though we Cateni are more fierce than these southern people.” His lips tightened under his beard. “Despite that, we’ve managed to stop them. They’ve more fighting men than we have, aye, but they’ve no answer to our draoi, especially not their useless sihirki.”
Laughter rippled through the draoi at that, echoing in the temple, but Greum’s stern look quickly silenced the laughter. “Our draoi are increasingly drained,” Greum continued, his ruddy hands slicing through the window light. “I myself spent the last hand of days casting spells at the Mundoa and at the fort where they huddle. My anamacha can no longer help me. I came back to pray to Elia for her aid and to allow my anamacha to recover before I go back. There are two more hands of draoi here now who are doing the same.” Greum drew himself up with a sigh. “But enough. I would know each of you again so I know where you’ll be best used. Ceiteag, come with me …”
Greum took each of the draoi, one by one, into his room in the temple. Ceiteag emerged after half a stripe. She merely told Conn to go in, then left the temple without another word, with only a glance and a shrug to Voada. Voada waited, pacing the temple as the others went in and departed, and finally knelt down before the altar and looked up to the statue of Elia. She brought the silver oak leaf pendant out from under her léine, closing her hand around it for the comfort it gave her. She tried to pray but found it difficult to keep her concentration. Being in the temple brought back memories of Pencraig, of Meir, Orla, and Hakan, of the day when her old life had been wrenched away from her.
Why am I here? Why did I come when Orla and Hakan are so
far away and lost? Did I do the right thing? Elia gave Voada no answers to those questions. There was only silence and the wintery presence of her anamacha at her side.
It was perhaps two stripes of the candle later when Marta, the last of the draoi, came out of the room. Greum emerged with her. As Marta left, Voada could hear Greum’s footsteps approaching her where she knelt. She heard him stop a few strides away, could feel his gaze on her, or perhaps he was looking at her anamacha.
“So that does contain the Moonshadow,” he growled. “Her anamacha is still with us.”
Voada brought her head down and looked over her shoulder. “That’s what I’m told.”
“Why did it choose you?”
“I don’t know.” Voada let the pendant drop to her léine. She groaned as she leaned back, flexing her knees—which protested with twin cracks—and sitting cross-legged on the floor of the temple. Slowly and more gingerly, Greum imitated her, sitting so they were facing each other with Elia’s statue gazing out over their heads.
“Ceiteag told me what happened to you in Pencraig,” the Ceanndraoi said. “I have four children myself—three sons and a daughter—and I sent them to fosterage with their uncles on Beinn Head only half a moon ago. It wasn’t safe for them here. And if the Mundoa can reach them on Beinn Head … well, then we are lost indeed, and it won’t matter.”
“Do you miss them?” Greum nodded. “And their mother?” Voada asked.
“She’s in Tirnanog. She died a moon after birthing our last child, two summers ago.” What might have been a bitter smile touched his lips. “And aye, I miss her also.”
The unshielded pain in his eyes made Voada regret what she’d said to Ceiteag about Greum earlier. At that moment, he seemed all too vulnerable, all too normal—no different from herself. “I’m sorry.”
He shifted his gaze to Elia’s statue, then back to her. “I know you understand that loss. Tell me, Voada, what is it that you hope to gain here? If you could have your full ability as a draoi, what would you do with it?”
Her answer surprised even her with its ferocity. “I would have my stolen children returned to me. Then I would drive the Mundoa from their homes the way I was driven from mine. I would make every last one of them feel the pain I’ve felt, doubled and redoubled. I would send them all back across the Barrier Sea to Rumeli, wailing bitter tears. I would give them fire and blood and death.”
She wondered whether she’d spoken too harshly, but Greum’s fingers only spidered through his beard. “Ceiteag said there was rage inside you. I don’t think she understood how much.” With a groan, Greum pushed himself up from the floor. “Stand,” he told Voada, holding out his hand to her. She ignored his proffered hand, standing on her own, and she saw Greum grin momentarily at that. “What do you know about the anamacha?” he asked.
“Only what Ceiteag has told me—that an anamacha is the collected souls of all the draoi it has chosen before, and that it’s through the anamacha that a draoi gains power.”
“True enough, but far too simple. You need to understand this, Voada—a living draoi is simply a vessel to hold what the anamacha can give. A draoi can only be as powerful as his or her anamacha, and then only if that draoi can bear to merge completely with them—an anamacha is properly a ‘them,’ not an ‘it.’ Plural, not singular, though we all sometimes think of them as one entity or refer to them that way. A draoi has to be a perfect vessel and strong enough to contain the anamacha. And if you aren’t able to contain your anamacha, they will consume you.”
“Why does everyone whisper about my anamacha containing Leagsaidh Moonshadow? Why should that matter?”
“It doesn’t, perhaps. The Moonshadow is a great figure among the draoi, but as I said, an anamacha isn’t one but many, and some who held the anamacha of the Moonshadow were mediocre draoi at best. But not all. The anamacha of the Moonshadow was last held by Iomhar of the Marsh, who was killed in the first battle with the Mundoa at Íseal Head; he was ceanndraoi at that time. We thought this anamacha gone—lost, as many of anamacha from Albann Deas remain lost.”
“So this Iomhar is in my anamacha too.”
Greum was nodding. “And hand upon hand upon hand of others, all the way to the Moonshadow, who is the Eldest of those we know. That’s why the anamacha are dangerous. To be with them, to use what they can give you … that can be like trying to swallow glowing coals from a hearth.”
“You want to frighten me.”
“I want you to understand the risk you are undertaking. As I said, the draoi is a vessel, and sometimes a vessel can’t hold what’s poured into it and bursts.”
“I don’t care about that,” Voada told him. She glared at Greum defiantly. “Let them break me, if that’s what they demand. I want my children; if this is the only way I can have them, then this is what I’ll do. Show me how. Teach me.”
“If I do and you can’t hold this anamacha, they will shred your mind. You’ll become mad, lost in the Otherworld Magh da Chèo, and you will die. They will consume you completely. Forever.”
“Teach me,” Voada repeated.
Greum’s gaze held her own for several breaths, neither of them speaking. She could see his anamacha alongside him; like her own, the faces caught within flickered across its face like shadows from a fire.
“Then we’ll begin, since that’s your wish. Give me your hands.” He held out his own hands toward her; reluctantly, she obeyed. His grip was stronger than she liked, on the verge of hurting her, but she forced herself not to react. “Call your anamacha at the same time that I call mine,” Greum said. “Bring them into you so you can hear their voices.”
Voada looked at her anamacha. “Come to me,” she mouthed, and the ghost slid toward her silently. She felt their cold touch entering her, felt Greum’s hands tighten even more on hers as his anamacha did the same to him.
Then her anamacha was entirely inside her.
“Open yourself, Voada,” she heard Greum say, his voice doubled with those of his anamacha.
“How?” she asked. “I don’t know what you mean. That’s nothing Ceiteag showed me.”
She gasped.
She’d glimpsed Magh da Chèo before with Ceiteag, but she realized now that what she had seen had been like looking at a landscape through a fog.
Now, the temple where they’d been standing was gone. Greum was gone, though she could feel his touch on her hands. She inhaled, smelling a storm-odor, as if the very air had been altered by lightning and rain. In front of her, in a terrible world lanced with brilliant colors—shifting, swirling, sparking—stood a crowd that moved endlessly around and through her. Ghosts, all. As they passed, they stared at her: faces she didn’t recognize, male and female, some wrinkled with time and some smooth-skinned and young. Yet when she tried to focus on any one of them, the image slipped away, as if she could only glimpse it in her peripheral vision no matter how she turned her head.
There was sound, too: their voices calling to her, shouting, cajoling, comforting, a cacophony which no one voice dominated, from which she could catch only fleeting phrases. And the cold—she was wrapped in ice, shivering as if she would never be warm again.
This wasn’t like the other times she had merged with her anamacha. There’d been the feel of cold, yes, and their voices, but she had always retained her vision. She had always been able to see her own world in front of her. Now she was fully in their world, and t
here was no solid ground underneath her, only more light and more confusion. The dance of bodies, the flickering of light and color, the noise, the movement—all of it made her stomach churn, and she fought not to be sick, choking back the bile that rose, burning, in her throat.
“Be calm, Voada,” she heard Greum say, though she couldn’t see the man, only feel the pressure of his hands. “This is normal.”
“Where are we?” she asked.
“You know where you are: Magh da Chèo, the world the anamacha inhabit,” he answered. “This is the world from which the draoi take their power. I brought you here so you could see it as it really is.”
“It’s frightening, this place.”
She thought she heard Greum laugh through the chaotic noise. “I’d think you a fool if you weren’t frightened. If I let go of you right now, you’d be lost—especially with this anamacha. But if you wish to be draoi, you need to learn how to come here, how to find the souls within the anamacha that are safe for you to use, how to make them do your bidding. Menach Ceiteag has been very careful with you so far. Too careful, in my opinion—she’s too cautious a teacher. If you want what I can teach you, you’ll also have to accept the danger. Will you do that?”
“Yes, Ceanndraoi,” she told him. “Yes.”
“Then we’ll start. Cast out your anamacha.”
“How? I don’t know how.”
“You do. Simply close your mind to them. Don’t allow them to touch your thoughts. Order them to leave you. Tell them that you are in control, not them.”
Voada shut her eyes to the glowing world, to the crowd of ghosts around her, to the smells and the tastes and the odors. She pushed the anamacha’s voices away, wanting to clap her hands to her ears to block them out but not daring to break contact with Greum.