Spirit of the Mist

by Janeen O'Kerry

  Brendan nodded. After a moment he slowly walked over to where Muriel sat on the damp and mossy ground, and knelt down in front of her. “I must live the rest of my life without kingship,” he said. “If you remain with me, you will live the rest of your life without magic. Are you sure that that is your wish?”

  She reached for his hands. “There are things other than power,” she said. “My decision was made before we came here.”

  “But was it really your decision? Or are you…are you simply giving in, going the way of your sisters?”

  She shook her head. “If anything can take the place of kingship and magic, it is love…and none can say that we do not have that.”

  He pulled her close, and they embraced each other. The wind picked up, howling around them.

  “In the morning, then,” King Fallon said. “In the morning all of you will return and begin your lives again.”

  In the morning the departure was delayed. Queen Grania was dead.

  When Muriel sat up in her makeshift bed, the first thing she saw was King Fallon sitting up against the rock face that stretched above them. Beside him, her head resting on his shoulder, was Grania.

  Muriel got up and walked over to them. It seemed strange that they would be sitting so; usually they were the first ones awake, with Grania sorting through the food supplies and Fallon moving blindly along the mountain feeling for any grasses or plants that could be harvested for food or dried for tinder. But this time they were both very still.

  As Muriel reached them, Fallon turned his head in her direction. “Good morning, Lady Muriel,” he whispered, and though his words were polite, as they always were, she could hear a tremor in them. “I am sorry to tell you that Queen Grania has died in the night.” Gently he stroked his wife’s long silvery hair and rested his cheek against her head.

  Muriel crouched down in front of them. She could see that Fallon was right. The woman’s face was pale and still, her eyes closed, her hands lying limp on the mossy ground. “I am so sorry, King Fallon. She was so brave here in this terrible place, with so few of the comforts to which she must always have been accustomed. She thought only to help and comfort me, and all of us.” Muriel shook her head. “I knew her for such a short time, and yet I mourn her passing as though she had been with me far longer. I can only imagine how empty your own heart must be right now.”

  Fallon lifted his hands, and Muriel reached out to take it. “Thank you for your kindness,” he said. “If you will tell the others—tell Brendan—so that we might prepare her…”

  “Of course I will.” Briefly she covered his hand with her own, and then she stood up. Just as she turned to go, she saw Fallon kiss his wife one last time and bury his face in her neck. His shoulders trembled as he wept, but that was all; Muriel realized that with his ruined eyes he could not shed a tear for his beloved queen.

  As best they could, the little group prepared Grania for her final journey. It was decided not to bury her in the shallow soil of the island, with its many scavengers. Once she had been laid out on her cloak, with her long silver hair combed out smooth and gathered over one shoulder, they pinned the heavy wool fabric tightly around Grania’s body, and then Brendan and Darragh lifted her up onto their shoulders. The two started down the path to the sea, with Killian, Duff, Gill, and Cole following close after them.

  Muriel remained above with Fallon. Both stood quietly not far from the low wall at the cliff’s edge. “You will tell me when they have completed their task, won’t you, Lady Muriel?” the king asked, standing close beside her and holding her arm.

  “I will tell you,” she answered. The winds picked up and whipped their cloaks around them. “And…I am so sorry we could not give her a proper interment.”

  Gently he touched her arm. “Do not be sorry. She has always loved the sea. Now it will be her home forever.”

  As she and Fallon stood waiting for the others to return, Muriel glanced over her shoulder and tried to think of other things. Above the peak of the island she could see the edges of clouds gathering. Another rainstorm was approaching. Well, if it came before they departed, it would provide them with a little more drinking water—and they should certainly fill the waterskins to their limit if they could. The men would have plenty of hard work ahead of them, paddling the curragh back to the mainland. They would need water, and if they should have trouble finding a safe place to land, the group would need all that it could carry.

  They would be smart to take food, too, though it was just as well that there was not much to take; the single remaining curragh would already be close to overloaded with eight people inside. They would have to be more careful than ever on this journey back, and they would have to hope that departing the island would be easier than arriving at it. At least this time they would be going away from the rocks, not toward them; once they could get the boat away from the treacherous waves leaping and breaking against the steep sides of the island, they could ride the currents all the way back to the mainland. A howling gust of wind grabbed at her, forcing Muriel to take a step forward to catch her balance. Fallon turned his face toward the cliff behind him. “A good storm is coming.”

  Muriel turned. The clouds were darker and thicker now, slowly rolling in place and gathering just behind the island. “It is. I hope it does not linger long and delay our leaving. I would not like to be out on those waves after sunset.”

  “Nor would I,” agreed Fallon quietly, turning back to stare sightlessly at the sea. Then he raised his head, and Muriel felt him tense. “Brendan and his men have finished,” he whispered.

  She looked out to the ocean, where the waves grew higher and higher, and she saw something—the small gleam of the golden pin that fastened the wrapped cloak around the body of a queen, a body now sweeping past them in the grip of the tumultuous waters. She nodded slightly, though of course Fallon could not see her. “They have finished,” she admitted, and he bowed his head.

  As he did so, the wind struck again, harder than ever. It went whipping all around the ledge and sent the entire group’s cloaks and leather sleeping pallets flying and whirling around the campsite. “Oh—wait here!” Muriel cried, and she hurried to gather up the blowing things before they went flying off into the sea.

  In a few moments she had everything secured in stacks beneath heavy rocks, but the wind continued to grow ever more violent. Just as she returned to Fallon, a torrent of rain lashed down on them both.

  She caught the old king’s arm and tried to lead him away from the edge, but he stood as immovable as a boulder. “Please tell me. Is she gone? Is it finished? Has the sea taken her?”

  Muriel pushed her wind-whipped hair out of her face and wiped the rain out of her eyes with her sleeve. Looking out over the cliff through the gray curtain of rain to the sea far below, she saw nothing but the heavy, white-capped waves rising to enormous heights before crashing back to the sea.

  “Yes, it is over,” she said. “Please, now. Come with me. The men will be back soon. Come with me to wait for them. We’ll find a little shelter against the rock face.”

  For many moments King Fallon remained unmoving, but at last he gave in and slowly turned away from the waves. He allowed Muriel to lead him through the pouring rain and back to the rock face. There he sat down in silence, ignoring the weather that tore at his long iron-gray hair and ragged woolen cloak, and his steady, sightless gaze never returned to the roaring sea below.

  After what seemed like a very long time, Muriel heard a clamor coming slowly up the long and treacherous path from the landing. Pulling her cloak tightly around her, bending low against the howling wind and cold rain, she struggled to her feet and went to meet Brendan and the five others. The men appeared at the top of the path, all of them drenched to the bone and cold and pale and exhausted, none more than Brendan.

  “It is done,” Muriel’s husband said, pulling her close. “We gave Queen Grania to the sea, and the sea took her.”

  “I saw,” Muriel told him, then lo
oked toward King Fallon. “We both saw.”

  Brendan glanced up at Fallon, then nodded. “I know you did. Come; let’s try to get out of this rain as best we can.”

  The storm increased its fury.

  “It’s the worst storm I’ve ever seen out here!” Muriel shouted as they hurried back to the scant shelter available.

  “It is,” Brendan agreed.

  He sat down against the rockface and pulled her close beside him. “We could see the western horizon from the landing. It is a wall of black clouds. There will be no leaving today.”

  Muriel could only lean her head against his shoulder and close her eyes against the rain. “I am glad,” she whispered.

  “Glad?” he asked. “I would think that you would be disappointed and dismayed at the thought of being forced to stay here for yet another day. How can you be glad?”

  “Because…because now there will be one more day when we can stay alive and stay together.”

  His arms tightened around her. Yet in her mind there was another reason why she felt relief. This was one more day in which she would not have to face the sea, in which she would not have to learn whether it would respond to her ever again. Whether she had lost her powers forever.

  After a time Muriel opened her eyes…but the first thing she saw was her water mirror sitting high on a rock, filled to the brim and beginning to overflow with rain, and she closed them once more.

  All day the storm raged. Brendan and Muriel and their six companions stayed huddled against the rock face, eating the last of their dried fish and watching the storm as it raged against the sea. It swallowed up the mainland, and soon even the Island of the Birds vanished into the heavy cloud cover.

  Finally, not long before the sun was due to set, the wind began to lessen. The rain slowed until it became a mere sprinkling over the rock. The sky lightened to a softer gray, and they could once again see the Island of the Birds, though the mainland was still obscured.

  Somewhere out there, the body of a queen had been taken by the sea…and Muriel was powerfully reminded of her own ancestor, of that nameless woman who had also given herself to the waves. But while her ancestress’s sacrifice had been angry, wasteful, Muriel was awed that Grania had chosen to live her last days helping two kings.

  Both kings had lost their kingdoms through no fault of their own. One had been Grania’s own husband, and Grania knew that he would never have left her behind at Dun Bochna to come out here. By being willing to go with him, she had allowed Fallon to have a purpose in life again: that of helping another displaced king to find his way back to life.

  A sacrifice it had been…but Muriel would do all she could to make certain it was not a wasted one.

  The company stirred and did what they could to begin to dry their clothes and shake the water from their belongings. But they quickly found that the clearing sky was accompanied by air as cold as winter.

  As Muriel moved about the campsite, with the light fading into dusk, she noticed that a mist was rising from the wet ground at her feet. Slowly and steadily it rose from the crevices among the rocks, from every place where there was earth enough to grow a bit of grass or moss.

  It began to flow down the rocks and weave its way about the ledge. Soon the island was entirely covered in the cold white fog, which continued to rise and weave and move slowly all about them even as night fell.

  Chapter Twenty

  On the ledge high above the sea, voices floated through the mist-heavy twilight. They were the voices of a small and lonely company who had just lost one of their own.

  “King Fallon,” said Brendan. “It occurs to me that even though we are trapped in this place, and so far from our homes, we should do what we can to hold a wake for Queen Grania. I am sorry to say that I did not know her well, and my wife knew her for only a short time. Perhaps you can tell us something more about her, something that we did not have the chance to know, for I am sure that a lady such as your queen deserves to remain in the memory of all who met her.”

  “Of that you may be sure,” said Fallon. He sat up a little straighter and turned toward Brendan. “I would be happy to speak of her, for she will never be far from my memory…though I hardly know where I should begin.”

  “How did you meet her?” asked Muriel. “You could begin there, for that is where your life together started.”

  Fallon smiled. “I was the youngest son of my father, who was himself a king; and as the youngest of five sons I never thought that I would be the one chosen to rule. Though I became a master of the sword, and knew the laws as well as any druid, I was content to practice them as arts. My older brothers were far better at the cattle raids and rituals of battle than I, and so I grew to manhood certain that I would never have to worry about carrying the burden of kingship.

  “The Lady Grania was the daughter of a warrior from Dun Cath, a kingdom deep in the inland forest. I met her when we went to a Lughnasa celebration held there. She was a small but very lively lady, her hair as dark as the night sky, her eyes as bright as the moon on a clear night.

  “She knew that my father was a king, but that there was little chance that I would be one. Still, she made it clear to me that this was of no concern to her. She seemed to prefer being married to a man who did not have to carry so much responsibility. For that I was grateful, since the other young women I met seemed to take a more pronounced interest in my older brothers as soon as they realized that I was unlikely to be a king myself.”

  Muriel looked down at the ground, picking up a small pebble and rolling it between her fingers.

  “We proved to be good companions, Grania and I, and soon we were married and living in the smallest of my father’s houses at Dun Camas. For a few years all was well and happy. Two daughters arrived to complete our family. As you must therefore imagine, when the time came to choose a tanist, it was a shock when the free men of Dun Camas chose me.”

  Brendan shook his head.

  “Why would they do that, if your brothers were the ones leading the battles and the cattle raids?”

  “Oh, I went on more than a few of those raids, though I was content to let my brothers lead and have the glory. For me swordplay was an art, not a sport. I was as happy to make a sword at a forge, or practice my skills on a target, as I was to swing a weapon at an enemy’s head.

  “But there was another reason to explain why they looked to me. The wives of my brothers were just as wild as the men they married, and sometimes just as violent! They were all hot-tempered women who were far more concerned with their own stations in life than they were with the ruling of a kingdom.

  “Much to my surprise, the other men of the tribe saw this, too. They came to the conclusion that while I might be a slightly worse king than any of my brothers, my Grania would be a far better queen than any of the women my brothers had married. When they chose me to be tanist, I found I had no desire to refuse…and neither would I refuse my wife the honor that could be hers. That is how, in due time, I became the king of Dun Camas.”

  Brendan smiled. “So it was your lady, as well as your strength of character, that helped you to become the choice of your people.”

  Fallon smiled too, nodding his head. “It was indeed. My lady made me a king, and I was never one to forget that.”

  “She must have been a great help to you,” said Darragh.

  Fallon nodded. “There is much that a woman can do when she sits beside a king. She can become a voice for all of the women who live under her husband’s rule, whose words are often drowned beneath the noise of their men. She can do the same for those who live outside the fortress walls and do the farming and the herding. They have their own need for protection and justice from their king, but their opinions are often dismissed since they are not highborn.

  “All of these people were of interest to Grania. My wife became their champion just as surely as if she had carried a sword and gone into battle for them herself…and because of the work she did, and the care she had for even
the lowest of those who dwelt in her lands, the kingdom of Dun Camas became more prosperous than it ever had before.

  “The largest herds of sheep and cattle it had ever known roamed hillsides lush with grass. The fields were thick with oats and barley and wheat, the trees heavy with apples and droning with beehives.

  “The feasts were many and flowed with honey wine. The men wore the best iron weapons, and gold gleamed at their shoulders and wrists. The women were dazzling in their brightly dyed gowns and beautifully worked ornaments of gold and shining bronze!” Fallon’s voice had reached a fever pitch.

  “It sounds wonderful,” Muriel said. “I never knew that she had done so much. I see now why Dun Camas must have been a jewel among the kingdoms.”

  “A jewel it was…a jewel to attract the eye of a raven with the name of Odhran.” Fallon fell silent then, and Muriel felt a chill that had nothing to do with the cold.

  All of them knew what had happened when Odhran and his men crept in to attack Dun Camas and burned its wooden palisades: its people were killed or driven off, its women enslaved by Odhran’s men…and its king, Fallon, was blinded by the point of the heavy gold brooch that Odhran so proudly wore on his cloak.

  “My wounds tormented me, but not half as much as the knowledge that I had not been able to protect my kingdom. As Grania so often reminded me in those days, I did not lose it in a fair fight. No warriors met each other on the fields in lawful combat. Instead, great hordes of Odhran’s men attacked in the night without warning, torching the fortress and swarming in through the broken gates.

  “There were simply too many of them. They used the lowest of tactics at every turn. Yet the fact remained that in the end, I could not protect Dun Camas. When its people needed me the most, I failed them.”

  “You did not fail them, King Fallon,” Brendan said. “No man—no king—no people—could have known that even Odhran would do such a cowardly thing as to attack and burn a sleeping fortress in the night. Fair and lawful combat is one thing. But he would have had no chance against you in an open battle, and he well knew it.