Through eyes that would not close, the old man watched as the amber and green whirl clotted and sundered, drawing at last apart. An eternity the waves lapped, muted, at the shore, trailing gleaming foam along the colorless sand. Then the girl reappeared, rising from the Sea, dripping glory from her naked body. Clad only in the glittering jewels of salt spray, she waded ashore, a luminous green stain spreading in her wake.
Her brow! He must glimpse her brow. Did it bear the Kiss? Had the Meri accepted her? He strained incorporeal senses toward the girl and found himself gazing into her face. The face of a stranger.
The Sea ceased its whispering as the girl stepped ashore, blinking eyes the color of the waves she quit, shaking back a mane of flax.
He knew her, yes, he was certain of it. But he could recall no name, no circumstance. Dread gripped him in cold claws and shook him.
Fear her, it whispered. Fear that hideous beauty. You thought Meredydd-a-Lagan a Wicke; meet this, the Cwen of Wicke.
The old man whimpered in his sleep. A cool hand came to caress his brow and his wife’s voice petted his ears.
“Ealad ... Ealad, do you dream?”
I die, he wanted to answer, but had no voice. Instead, he nodded.
“Poor soul,” she murmured, stroking the sweat from his face. “I wish I could lift your burden.”
The Osraed Ealad-hach took his wife’s hand and pressed it between his own. If all women were like this woman, he would dream only pleasantly of things that augured well.
oOo
“Bevol is here.” Osraed Calach glanced over from his workbench in the sun-strewn chamber, pen poised above his papers. “He’s taking his first year class back as of this morning.”
“And so?” Ealad-hach did not return the glance. He pulled his Rune-journal from the shelf over his bench and pointedly stuck his nose into it.
“I hoped perhaps he was ready to recommence his Council duties. It’s been weeks since ...”
He left it unsaid: Since Meredydd-a-Lagan walked into the sea and drowned.
Ealad-hach turned the chill that coursed down his back into a gesture of disdain. The Rune-journal snapped shut. “Would you appear among your fellows in the face of such disgrace?”
“I do not think he takes it as disgrace, Ealad, but as loss,” said Calach reprovingly.
“Pah! He doesn’t even seem to take it as that! All that talk of transformation. The girl drowned and it’s unhinged his mind.”
Calach put his pen aside. “I don’t believe Bevol’s mind is unhinged, Ealad.”
“Then what? Do you believe his claim that Meredydd-a-Lagan was transmuted into an Eibhilin being? Perhaps to become a member of some mythic honor guard, escorting the Meri about the Sea?”
“It is possible.”
“Bevol saw exactly what he wanted to see. The fact of the matter is that that smug girl-child went into the water and did not come out. Presumptuous creature! If she was transformed, it was a sea snake she became.”
“There is no such animal, Ealad-hach. I am surprised at you—a scientist—uttering such complete nonsense.” The Osraed Bevol stood just inside the doorway, arms folded across his velvet-clad chest, sunlight glittering warmly in the silver-copper haze of hair that floated, cloud-like about his head and shoulders.
Ealad-hach rounded on him, ready to snap, wishing he would make some noise when entering a room. Their eyes met in what once would have sparked a clash of wills, but Ealad-hach had no will but to dissemble. Bevol’s eyes were too knowing, as if he could see into his crony’s darkest corners and snatch out what hid there.
Don’t look at me, thought Ealad-hach. Don’t tug so at my thoughts; I will spill them. I will spew out that damned dream.
Bevol, perversely, persisted. “I really ought to take offense that you so baldly accuse me of falsehood. I ought to call for the Council to settle it once and for all time.”
“I do not accuse you of falsehood, Bevol,” objected Ealad-hach. “Merely of the wishful interpretation of events.”
“I am not interpreting anything. Since my return I have done nothing but tell you what I saw up to the time that Meredydd entered the Sea. That she was transformed is the unambiguous truth. That the waters were splendid with the Eibhilin light of the Meri is also undeniably true. Now, if you would know more than that, call upon the Meri to send you an aislinn vision ... if She has not done so already.”
Ealad-hach felt the blood drain from his head and fancied he could hear it trickling through his ears.
“Has the Meri sent a vision to you, Ealad-hach?”
He could not lie. Why should he lie? He had no reason. “I have dreamed,” he admitted. “I have dreamed of a great danger to Caraid-land.”
Calach stirred uneasily. “And have said nothing?”
Ealad-hach aimed an arch glance down his well-proportioned nose. “I have not yet interpreted the aislinn images. I had thought to wait for the return of Prentice Wyth. His knowledge of the Dream Tell coupled with the knowledge he will receive from the Meri-”
“If She accepts him this time,” interjected Bevol.
“Yes, if She accepts him, of course.”
“Why didn’t you bring your dreams to us?” asked Calach, sounding stung.
“I doubted Bevol could be objective, given the tenor of the vision, and besides, his grief-”
“I’m not grieving, Ealad. And don’t pretend you hadn’t noticed that. Meredydd is not dead. And how objective do you expect Wyth Arundel will be when he is still in love with her?”
Ealad-hach pulled out his chair with a long, ear-shredding scrape, and set himself in it. Barely soon enough, his legs wavered so, his soul shuddered so. “Love had nothing to do with it, Bevol. Your Prentice wove a bonding on him. She played his body. Don’t imagine she laid hands on his soul.”
“Ah, but she did,” Bevol answered him. “She laid hands all over his soul while trying to push him away. The boy was needy, Ealad. He was starving for love, for approval. If anyone tried to weave a bonding, it wasn’t Meredydd. Your star pupil wanted her strength to lean on. You may thank her she didn’t let him, but got him standing on his own feet, looking to his own approval. He was heartsick when he left here on Pilgrimage, but he was his own man.”
Bevol waited a moment, then, receiving no reply from Ealad-hach, made a dismissive gesture. “Beside the point, all that. What are you waiting for, Ealad? Tell us your dream as is your duty. There are other Osraed besides myself well-versed in the Aislinn Tell. Share your vision with them, if I won’t do. What are you hiding?”
Osraed Ealad-hach thought the returning blood would burst from the top of his head in a narwhal spout. “I hide nothing. Nothing! And I shall not justify myself to you, Bevol-a-Gled.”
He had to pass Bevol to leave the room and did it with as much haste as he could muster. When he had gone, the two remaining kept silence, until his wake had settled. Then Osraed Calach took up his pen once more.
“I have also dreamed,” he said.
“And what have you dreamed, old friend?”
Calach looked up to catch Bevol’s eyes. “I dreamed a great, deep chasm opened up through the heart of Caraid-land, splitting it from Sea to Mountain. The Sea filled it.”
Bevol nodded, his gaze going unfocused, losing its waggish glint. “I’ve seen it too,” he said, “and have not wanted to know its meaning.”
“Has it to do with Meredydd’s transmutation, do you think?”
Bevol’s brows rose. “You say transmutation. You don’t believe she was drowned?”
Calach became distracted by the light glinting from his pen. “Even death is transformation, is it not?”
Laughter rippled from Bevol’s lips. “A pretty diplomacy, Calach. I never know what side of the wall you fall to.”
“The top of the wall offers a superior view of both sides,” observed the elder Osraed. “But then you know that. I sense it is not all you know.”
Bevol sobered. Sobriety did not sit well on him and so
made Calach uneasy. “Sensible, sensitive man,” Bevol murmured. “Stay atop your wall as long as you may.”
oOo
Gwynet-a-Blaecdel sat in the high-ceilinged classroom and wondered whatever had made her new guardian think her capable of grasping these lessons. The portly Osraed at the head of the room went on about runelore and the historical use of crystals in weaving inyx while Gwynet watched dust motes wheel, golden, against a shadowed recess above his head. She lowered her eyes once, only to have them collide with her teacher’s. Thereafter, they stayed aloft.
If the Osraed thought of surprising the obviously distracted child with a question, he did not, and she was grateful. She sighed as she left the classroom with her little satchel of books and slates and papers. She couldn’t yet read the books and expected never to be able to absorb the knowledge in them.
Tomorrow, the Osraed had said, they would be tested on the history of crystals in the Art. All she could remember of it was the heart-stopping tale of a boy who fell, feet first, into a sea cave full of natural treasure.
Shoulders stooped, eyes floor-crawling, Gwynet ran head on into Osraed Bevol. “Maister!” she cried and dropped a clumsy curtsey.
Bevol responded with a chuff of exasperation, which sailed over the girl’s fair head. “None of that, Gwynet. I’m your guardian, not your Cyne. Save your curtseys for Colfre, if you should ever meet him.”
The very thought of that eventuality flung her into two more hasty genuflections. “Oh, I’m sure I should ne’er meet the Cyne.”
“Eh, well, with the infrequency of his visits to Halig-liath, your chances are more slender than they once might have been.... How have your classes been today?”
Gwynet’s eyes skittered sideways to poke at the tiny crevices in the stone walls. “Oh, well ...” She shrugged one bony shoulder.
“Yes?” he prodded.
She raised her face then, her brow a map of consternation. “It’s all so thick, Maister. Or, that is, I am. I cannot seem t’stick my mind to’t. All them Cynes and Cwens and Eirics and Osraeds by the bushel. And as to the Crafts-” She rolled blue eyes in exaggerated distress. “The Runecraft class is set to cull crystals tomorrow. I’d not know a good Weaving crystal from a lump of coal.”
The Osraed’s eyes seemed strangely watery and he squinted them up crookedly and bit at his lip. “I’m sure that’s not true, Gwynet. We’ll work together on crystal selection and I’ll see that you get your history as well.” He patted her shoulder, then turned her in the direction of her next class. “Go on, now, child. Osraed Calach is likely anxious about you already. He tells me you’re first in the classroom every day.”
“Oh, aye, Maister. I do like Osraed Calach, he’s a sweet soul.”
Bevol chuckled. “He is that, so you’re well matched. Off, now.”
She went running. Against the rules, of course. There was nothing about her that was not against some rule or tradition or widely-held belief. Bevol grimaced privately and stepped into Osraed Tynedale’s empty history classroom.
“Well, Dale, how are we doing today?”
Tynedale’s bird-bright eyes fluttered to Bevol’s face. He should have been named Robin, Bevol thought. It suited. Especially in moments when, as now, the round, cherubic face matched Robin’s red breast for color. The Prentices called him “Dumpling” and sniggered that he was a poor specimen with only two raisins and a prune to the bun.
“I assume,” he said, his voice all bristle, “that you refer to that wafer-brained would-be Prentice of yours.”
“Wafer-brained? Gwynet? I admit, the child is timid-”
“Timid? She cowers, Bevol—cowers. And when she’s not cowering, she’s daydreaming. Whatever happened to that child to make her so impossibly blank?”
“A good deal more than has happened to any other child at Halig-liath. Meredydd ... extracted her from an abusive household. It’s been weeks since her last beating; she still limps a bit.”
“Shuffles, actually,” corrected Tynedale, his face losing its Robinesque shading. His brow knit ferociously beneath his thinning curls. “I understand your feelings of sympathy for her, Bevol. She ... can’t help reminding you of Meredydd.” The twin currants disappeared for a moment in a wrinkling of doughy flesh. They glistened a bit more when they appeared again. Tynedale cleared his throat. “Yes, well, the point is this—she hasn’t Meredydd’s talent. She’s a vague child, unfocused.”
“Ah, and Meredydd, if I recall, was self-absorbed, glib and stubborn.”
Tynedale reddened again. “She was all those things. But she was also immensely gifted.”
“I wish Ealad-hach had been as charitable in his assessment of her. She might not have suffered so much.”
“Ealad-hach recognized her talent,” said Tynedale, gathering up his texts. “His Tradist indoctrination simply refused to allow him to accept it. I find nothing wrong with educating cailin of outstanding ability. But as long as Ealad and his brother Tradists, view it as tantamount to heresy, we must not encourage it.” He paused in his gathering and snorted delicately. “Whatever must he think the God is about—to give a girl child so much ability and expect her not to use it? Whatever would the purpose be?”
Bevol pursed his lips. “Oh, to teach her humility, no doubt.”
“Meredydd-a-Lagan did not need to learn humility. She needed to learn self-acceptance. I pray she did not perish afore time.”
“She didn’t perish at all, so you needn’t worry on that account.”
Tynedale eyed his fellow Osraed uneasily and grappled his books. “Must go,” he murmured. “Have a seminar ’cross court.”
He waddled energetically from the room, leaving Bevol to chuckle in his wake.
oOo
Gwynet lay sprawled upon the braid carpet before the fire she had built for her Master’s homecoming. Before her, between supporting elbows, and triangulated with her nose, was a crystal.
It was a blue crystal. She liked those best because they reminded her of water and evening skies ... and her own eyes. With the firelight playing so, each facet formed a tiny world in which it was always just sunset. She liked this crystal especially well because Taminy had given it to her, saying it was a very pure crystal—a good crystal for Runeweaving.
Gwynet grimaced, squinting her eyes against the blaze of a multitude of roseate sunsets. But what made it good? Its facets seemed no smoother or glossier than any other crystal she’d pored over in the last week or so. It was no bigger, no sharper of corner, no clearer than any of those crystals. It was not as grand-looking as the one Aelder Prentice Aelbort had used in her Weavecraft class that afternoon. It was arguably truer of color.
She stared at the symmetrical little cluster of worlds until her eyes blurred them into a wheeling montage of azure and gold. Fire in the sky. Bright, clear fire; growing hot and sweet and pure; pouring out of the sky in a river-
“Oh!” Gwynet scrambled to her knees as the flames from the hearth licked out and over the gleaming fender like a hot tongue and poised, tip drooling, as if to taste the azure stone. In a gasp, it had flicked back again, shedding sparks across the carpet while Gwynet scrambled forth again to pat at them.
She had assured herself that all were cold and sat back with a shudder and a sigh when she heard a soft chuckle behind her.
She jumped and spun. “Oh, Taminy! I’d such a start. Did you see?” Her hand trembled toward the homey fire, docile again within its grate.
“Aye.” The older girl faded from the shadows, her long, flaxen hair catching fire sprites and weaving them through its length.
“What was it, please?” the child begged. “Say, mistress, were’t demons?”
Taminy’s laughter lay pleasantly against Gwynet’s ears despite the fright she’d had, for the older girl was usually so muted and wistful.
“Demons? Of course not, Gwynet. It was you.”
“Me? How? I’ve ne’er called fire up like tha’. I swear it.”
Taminy came to stand on the hear
th rug and reached down to pick up the blue crystal. “You’ve never used a rune crystal before, have you?”
“Used it? Oh, mistress Taminy, I wasn’t using it. I don’t know how.”
The other girl sat beside her on the braid rug, the crystal still in her hand. “You mean you’re not supposed to know how. And the Osraed won’t deign to teach you for another year or more. You’ll cull them, sort them, type them and codify their uses, but you’ll not weave one tiny inyx through them, oh, no. And that” —she nodded toward the innocent flames—”is probably why. Half the houses in Nairne and the Cirke stable, besides, would be burnt to the ground the eve of the day you lot were turned loose with these.”
Gwynet blushed. “But what’d I do?”
Taminy held the crystal up before her eyes and frowned into its faceted depths. “What did you do?”
“I was just picturing.”
“Picturing?”
“Aye. Like I used to do in leaf dew. I pictured the crystal was all these little worlds with bright, hot waters flowing out the skies and then-” She shook a hand at the fire and peeked up at Taminy’s pensive face. “Are you sure it weren’t demons? Dew never done that.”
“There are no demons, Gwynet.”
“My old guardian, Ruhf said-”
“Your old guardian Ruhf was making excuses, Gwynet. There are no demons, only wicked people ... and weak ones.”
“Am I wicked, Taminy?”
“No. You’re not. But even innocence can be dangerous. You must be very careful with this crystal. Careful not to ‘picture’ in it without Osraed Bevol about to guide you. You wouldn’t want to burn Gled Manor down.”
“No, mistress!”
Taminy fell silent then, her eyes locked on the stone in her hand. Puzzled, she seemed to Gwynet, as if she grasped for something that eluded her; as if she had lost something and thought the crystal must contain it. She wilted just a little, like a flower set too long on a sunny sill. Then she blinked, shook her head and handed the rune crystal back to Gwynet.
“What you just did, Gwynet, without meaning to, was start a Weaving. You reached through the crystal and wove your will to the flames and pulled them to you.”
Taminy Page 2
