THE SIXTH LABYRINTH
REBECCA LOCHLANN
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Book Four
Note to Readers
Epigraph
Prologue
Book One: The Reunion
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Book Two: The Discovery
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Book Three: The Pilgrimage
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Epilogue: One
Epilogue: Two
Epilogue: Three
Glossary for The Sixth Labyrinth
Gaelic (and Greek) Translations
Author’s Notes
To the Reader
About the Author
Acknowledgements
Aridela's necklace
Published by Erinyes Press
Copyright © Rebecca Lochlann 2016
Internal design © 2016 Rebecca Lochlann
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted, or shared in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, and recording or otherwise without prior written permission from the publisher or author.
ISBN-10: 09838277-8-8 Electronic Book
ISBN-13: 978-0-9838277-8-8
Cover image— Eve Ventrue eve-ventrue.com
Back Cover, Paperback: Les Trois Grâces 2.jpg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Les_Trois_Gr%C3%A2ces_2.jpg
Labrys Axe graphic © “Labrys-symbol” Licensed under Public domain via Wikimedia Commons http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Labrys-symbol.svg#mediaviewer/File:Labrys-symbol.svg
Crescent moon, necklace, & Erinyes Press logo: Lance Ganey freelanceganey.com/
Author website, maps, bibliographies, etc: rebeccalochlann.com
Also available in paperback:
ISBN-13: 978-0-9838277-9-5
ISBN-10: 0-9838277-9-6
TO ALL THE SURVIVORS
BOOK FOUR
THE CHILD OF THE ERINYES SERIES
MOTHER
NOTE TO READERS: Almost all the Gaelic in this book is translated immediately or within a few paragraphs or pages. The dialect is usually clear via context. But I have included a glossary at the end for those who prefer it.
Most readers will be familiar with these dialect words, as they are widely used in fiction. In fact, most have already been defined in every dictionary and Wikipedia: you only need to tap on or highlight the word to bring up the definition. If there is no ready definition and you are curious, simply click or tap on the hyperlink, or the glossary link in the table of contents. Because the hyperlinks seem a little distracting to me, I haven’t hyperlinked the words that are translated in the text.
PRONUNCIATION OF NAMES YOU’LL SEE IN THIS BOOK:
SEAGHAN – SHAWN
DIORBHAIL – DER-VAHL
EAMHAIR – EE MER
RUAIRIDH – ROOREE
HE SINGS THE morn upon the westward hills
Strange and remote and wild;
He sings it in the land
Where once I was a child.
He brings to me dear voices of the past,
The old land and the years;
My father calls for me,
My weeping spirit hears.
~~~~ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
PROLOGUE
GLENELG, SCOTLAND
NOVEMBER 1853
“IT LOOKS TO be a hard labor,” Beatrice said.
Isabel squinted at the woman from the corner of her eye. Beatrice Stewart never wasted words. If she opened her mouth to say It looks to be a hard labor, well, it was no doubt going to be the worst labor ever seen in Inverness-shire.
The forest pressed in, heavy and watchful, the shadowed trees looming like baleful black giants.
Beatrice seized Isabel’s arm. “Fetch water.”
Grateful for something to do, for a distraction from brooding thoughts and growing panic, Isabel carried a wooden bucket to the nearby burn, using a fallen tree limb to break the ice. She wasn’t so far away that she couldn’t hear Hannah Lawton’s awful moaning as the poor lass struggled to give birth. The babe was a full two months early. Nothing could save it. They’d be lucky to save the mother, with no midwife.
She fought off tears as she knelt to fill the bucket. Hannah had endured much this day. So had the rest of Glenelg. The entire village, Isabel’s friends and kin, all those she’d ever known, had been evicted, forced to watch without recourse as every building, even the old kirk, was burnt to the ground. The men hired to carry out the landlord’s wishes had inflicted many cruelties. Terror, devastation, and now this unrelenting cold— brought by the worst storm she could remember blanketing the entire coast in snow— surely these things would curse the coming infant and its mother.
The bucket was cracked, but didn’t seem to leak. Isabel tripped through frozen loam, snow, and hidden tree roots, handing it to Beatrice then standing there, not knowing what else to do. She glanced through bare branches and sweeping evergreen limbs into an ominous patchwork of clouds. Lord, help this woman, she prayed. Help us all.
If God ignored her, they would die, either of slow starvation or painful freezing. How many days could this pitiful band survive? Her instincts declared, Not many.
Hannah screamed, “Seaghan! Seaghan!” The circling trees magnified her cry.<
br />
Isabel looked at each of her companions, those who had gathered here after the destruction of their homes. Yesterday, over two hundred people lived in and around Glenelg. Now she counted seventeen. Six were children.
She turned away, not wanting these wounded, weary souls to see the defeat she couldn’t hide, or her conviction that they would all die here together.
* * * *
Wake up, daughter.
Isabel rose on one elbow, rubbing at her eyes. Mist eddied, eerie and opaque. She half expected a unicorn or dwarf to appear.
A miracle comes. Why do you sleep?
Shivers ran over her, though she was oddly warm. “Miracle?” She peered in every direction, though she was almost certain the source of the voice was inside her own head.
The mist split like a tattered sail, framing a woman who observed her in a curious yet arrogant way. A lady with long, curling black hair and pale skin, rather like an Irish lass. But she wasn’t dressed like any Irishwoman Isabel had ever seen. A narrow silver band ran across her forehead; in the center was an ornament shaped like a boat with high-pointed prow and stern, or a crescent moon propped on its spine. Her white gown, sleeveless and bound with silver ribbons, rippled about her ankles. Isabel, who loved fabric and needlework, couldn’t help admiring such an uncommon article of clothing, or a twinge of envy at how it fit.
The holy child comes.
Envy vanished beneath apprehension. “Who are you?”
Handmaid of Areia Athene, she who brings life and death to men. The crown flashed as the lady inclined her head. She brings life now, sacred life. Wake. See the child who suffers for your sake.
“Suffers? For me?”
For you and all miserable mankind. Though you cursed and abandoned her, my Mistress loves you still. She returns her daughter, who will live among you as she prepares for her future destiny. Here, in the sixth life, she shall be known as Morrigan, the very name my Lady was called in these islands once, though few now living remember it, any more than they remember her, for she has long been discarded in favor of newer gods.
Isabel wanted to listen to this woman for the rest of her life. Pure, warm as spring breezes, her melodious voice cast away fear as well as hopelessness. But the phantasm was undulating as though she stood behind a waterfall.
“Wait!” Isabel cried.
You were once a queen, and gave her life. Grace and forgetfulness surrounds you for that. Go and look upon her. She is the finest miracle you will ever see.
Isabel sat up with a startled gasp. Someone had thrown a frayed cloth over her. It sagged around her waist as she stared wildly. Where was she? Why was it so cold? There was no mist. No lady. She’d simply had a dream.
Light from the nearby fire sent shadows dancing across the face of her brother’s ill-fated wife. The woman’s moans recalled tales of the bean-sìth, ghostly female spectres who appeared, shrieking, when someone was about to die.
Beatrice knelt between Hannah’s legs. Isabel’s mother was there too, her hand cupped over Hannah’s knee.
It all returned in a torrent. The storm. The stench of flaming thatch. Screaming children. Folk ejected violently from their homes. One of the landlord’s hired outlaws had shoved Hannah, causing her to fall. She’d landed hard on her belly.
Isabel’s brother, Douglas, refused to let them board the ship for Nova Scotia. He’d said he would not be cast off like rotted fish, nor so easily forgotten. Instead he’d dragged them to this forest, and who could say in the end which choice would turn out worse?
His wife’s labor had gone on and on now, for hours. Isabel had smoothed Hannah’s hair and murmured nonsense meant to convey encouragement. At some point, there came a time of silence, of stillness. Hannah fell into sleep or unconsciousness and eventually, Isabel drifted off as well.
Now the labor was intensifying again. Something was wrong. The two women helping Hannah wore worry on their faces like black storm clouds on the summit of Ben Nevis.
“Why did you do this to me?” Hannah muttered. “I hate you.”
Isabel said, “Wheesht, dear, you’ll be fine,” and stroked her cheek, but Douglas had heard.
“A shiùrsach!” The father of the coming child leaned over his wife, his hands bunched into fists as though he meant to strike her. “You and Seaghan thought you could make a fool of me. Now see where you are. You’ve made your bed—”
“Stop!” It was wee Nicky, Douglas’s son by his first wife. He was only three, but he broke away from the man who held him and ran forward bravely. “Don’t hurt her!” He began to sob.
Isabel had always been afraid of Douglas. She was afraid now, but she swore if that fist rose, she would put herself between them. If Nicky could stand up to him, then so, by God, could she. Bad enough to call your wife a whore to her face while she was giving birth to your child.
But Douglas turned away. He picked up his son and carried him off into the dark.
Hannah sounded like a beast caught in a steel trap, the kind that broke bones and left its captive to die in agony. Her hair hung lank. Strands clung to her thin, pale face, and her eyes were huge, black with terror. Was this what giving birth did to a woman? By the good Lord in Heaven, Isabel would never make such a mistake. No man could speak sweetly enough to make it worthwhile.
Douglas returned without Nicky and reached out, catching Beatrice’s arm. Isabel started to rise, intending to throw herself over Hannah. But, “Save her,” was all he said, his voice hoarse. “Don’t let her die.”
Isabel stared. Never in her life had she heard such misery in Douglas Lawton’s voice. She couldn’t trust her own ears. Perhaps he did care, after all.
“I’ll do my best.” Beatrice brushed his cheek with her fingertips, turning back to Hannah without expression when Douglas jerked away from her touch.
Gloaming crept into frigid night. “Saint Brigit spare the lass,” one of the villagers cried, making the sign of the cross.
Beatrice slapped Hannah. “Push, or this wean’ll kill you!”
Hannah sucked in a deep breath and bore down, screaming.
Desperation glimmered in the women’s eyes. They moved swiftly now, sweat dappling their foreheads, though above them, ice encased the tree limbs. Blood slicked their arms to the elbows.
Hannah’s flush faded to greenish-white.
At last the babe was born. The cord was cut and Isabel’s mother smacked it on the rump, prompting a shaky yowl. Beatrice fought to stem Hannah’s bleeding while Isabel’s mother swaddled the newborn in a scrap of singed blanket.
“Ibby,” her mother said, “hold this child.”
Hannah’s eyelids fluttered. She opened her mouth and tried to speak, but no sound came.
Black clots of blood splattered the snow. There was a hot earthy smell. Steam rose from between the new mother’s legs. Isabel’s empty belly lurched when Beatrice wiped sweat from her forehead, leaving behind a glistening streak of scarlet.
Back in the spring, before all these troubles, Isabel had watched Hannah wade in a mountain burn, her skirts kilted above her knees, hair trailing in the water. Laughing, she’d flicked the wet ends at some enraptured lad. With her rich red hair, wicked blue eyes, and voluptuous body, she’d left great men fair stammygastered.
It remained a mystery why this bonny girl had accepted Seaghan MacAnaugh’s proposal only to break the engagement and marry Douglas Lawton instead, without waiting even the barest interval to save Seaghan’s wounded pride.
Gossip had enflamed the village. Snatches trailed through Isabel’s brain as she held the baby and regarded her sister-in-law.
She’s a slut.
Seaghan is well rid of her, and Black Douglas Lawton has finally got what he deserves. Hope he takes her far from Glenelg.
Nothing remained now of Glenelg but smoldering ruins. Burned, like their grasping landlord wanted, cleared of crofts and bothersome humans, ready for an influx of more profitable sheep. Almost everyone Isabel had ever known, including Seaghan MacAna
ugh, had sailed away to a country on the other side of the ocean. She’d never see any of those folk again. Her village, her world, had been pared down to fewer than twenty people.
Douglas kissed Hannah’s forehead. “Beannachd leat, a ghràidh,” he said, and drew the blanket over her face.
Isabel cradled the newborn. Wee thing, light as down. Her niece. Fluids, blood, and pasty goo covered the baby’s skin. Her elfish crimson face screwed into a plaintive whine.
“My sister would no’ want us sniveling over her,” Beatrice snapped. “Give me the child, Isabel.”
Unnerved by the woman’s scowl, Isabel handed the babe over.
Beatrice unwrapped the blanket. “She appears healthy, though born before her proper time. Come, Douglas, see your daughter.”
Douglas, still kneeling beside his wife, glanced up. After a moment, he took the baby. He looked confused, like he’d already forgotten the cause of Hannah’s death.
“Would you name her Morrigan, after our mother?” Beatrice asked.
The wee one’s cry was weak and pitiful, bringing tears to Isabel’s eyes. Douglas returned her to Beatrice, shrugging. “It doesn’t matter.”
Morrigan.
Isabel crossed herself.
BOOK ONE
THE REUNION
CHAPTER ONE
STRANRAER, SCOTLAND
1872
MORRIGAN CROUCHED BEHIND a boulder, willing herself to vanish into it. She heard a scrape, as of a shoe against stone, and tensed. Silence descended, so deep and thick it beat against her eardrums.
With a sharp flutter and startled cry, a grouse rose from the sedges to her left. She squinted, trying to make out details, but all was disguised in predawn shadows.
There was no time for hesitation. She must be bold. Drawing in a breath, she leaped, loosing a warlike shout, and slapped the flat of her blade against the tall dark figure standing with his back to her. He toppled, breaking apart in a most unwarrior-like fashion. She stared. Her Viking attacker was nothing but a crude stook of weeds, roped together like a massive corn dolly and propped upright.
The Sixth Labyrinth (The Child of the Erinyes Book 4) Page 1
