Taminy

by Bohnhoff, Maya Kaathryn

  “Behold, Caraid-land. Behold your Cyne—Colfre, son of Ciarda of the House of Malcuim.”

  He gave the Chalice into the Cyne’s hands and watched expressionlessly as Colfre raised it to his lips and sipped from it a draught of water taken from the place were the Halig-tyne and the Sea commingled.

  Lealbhallain’s senses halted. His lungs recalled on their own how to breathe, but he could no longer feel them. The Universe lay between his eyes and the Chalice and the beatific expression on Cyne Colfre’s face.

  Colfre opened his mouth and cried, “Ecstasy, O Meri! Your Voice is ecstasy! How beautiful to the ears is Your Song. I am moved! I am moved to tell of troubled and uncertain times. There are changes upon us, people of Caraid-land. Great and puzzling changes. The order of things is challenged!”

  In the swell of murmurs that surrounded this pronouncement, Lealbhallain shook his head. Of course there were changes. They were in a Cusp. There were always changes in a Cusp. Why was the Cyne putting on the pretense of prophesying?

  Rise.

  Leal heard the word as clearly as if it had been shouted in his ear. No, he more than heard it—he felt it vibrate his frame.

  Rise.

  He rose.

  To the altar.

  He left his seat and slid out into the central aisle. Answering a prompting only he could hear, he moved toward the Cyne, amazed at his own audacity. He felt men leap to approach him, but none touched him or impeded his progress in any way. In a heartbeat he was face to face with the Cyne.

  As Colfre, his eyes rolled blissfully back into his head, opened his mouth to speak again, Lealbhallain took the Chalice from his hands and held it aloft. In some fiery confluence of sun and crystal, a shaft of light caught the stone set in the heart of the Meri’s Star and leapt from there to the Chalice. The bowl filled with glory, exciting in the congregation cries of astonishment.

  Over the flurry of reaction, Lealbhallain heard himself say, “The Meri speaks through the mouths of Her Chosen. The Meri is known through the Counsel of the Divine. ‘No man among you knows the changes I have wrought.’ These are the words of the Meri.”

  He lowered the Chalice then, and, looking his Cyne squarely in the eye, took a sip of its contents. Salt and sweet. The warm wash of flavor embraced his tongue—the meeting place of the Halig-tyne and the Sea. He rolled the liquid in his mouth before swallowing it. Then, he handed the Chalice to the Cirkemaster.

  “Return it to its place, Osraed,” he said, then turned and left the Sanctuary.

  Fhada met him at the doors. The older Osraed said nothing at first, preferring to watch him from the corner of one eye as they strode the Cirke’s broad plaza toward the Cyne’s Way. When his eyes touched the spires of Mertuile rising above the Way’s nether end, Fhada’s silence broke.

  “What have you done, Osraed? And what, in the Meri’s fair Name, prompted you to do it?”

  “She prompted me.” Leal’s limbs shook with a sudden trembling realization of what he had just done. Adrenaline washed through his core, freezing him.

  “She? The Meri, you mean?” Fhada’s eyes seized his. “She spoke to you? You heard Her? There—in the Cirke?”

  “She bid me rise, then She-She simply moved me.”

  “And the words?”

  And the words. Leal grasped the links of his prayer chain, his eyes on Mertuile’s massive landward flank. “Were not mine.”

  “Cyne Colfre won’t know that. He will lay blame on you. Dear God, how will he interpret this?”

  “To his advantage.”

  Fhada stopped and stared at him. “Those were not your words, either, I think.”

  “No, I suppose not. These are. What difference does it make how the Cyne interprets my actions? If my words are from the Meri, She has already taken his interpretation into account. And his reaction.” Leal took a deep breath. “Yes. The Meri’s will cannot be thwarted. Regardless of what may happen to me, Her will is served.”

  Fhada shook his head. “You shame me, Leal.”

  Leal was aghast. “What? No, Osraed Fhada. Don’t say that.”

  Fhada laid a hand on his shoulder. “Let me speak. You shame me by being what I should be—what I should have been. Perhaps, even could have been. Cirke-dag after Cirke-dag I have sat in that Sanctuary watching the Cyne mold the worship to his own will. First the aisle and the thrones—they were set below the altar at first, you know, creeping closer with time until finally they appeared upon the altar itself. And the standards preceded them, growing taller by degrees until, as you saw, they fall just short of the Meri’s standard. And to watch him drink from the Chalice-!” He shook his head. “He was to drink from that cup once in his life. Once, only, as he stood before the Stone to receive the Circlet of his office. And I, Fhada, sat and watched those things and did nothing.”

  “The Meri did not expect-”

  “She did expect, Lealbhallain. Once, I could feel Her. Then. Now, there is only a guilty niggle. But even then—damn me!—even then, I resisted. And do you know why?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Because men I respected told me to. Oh, I am not excusing myself, no. I merely want you to understand how I let myself be led astray—how I rationalized my inaction.” He made a disgusted face. “The Osraed Ladhar said it. The Abbod, himself. ‘Question these promptings, boy. They test you.’ If you cannot trust the Abbod, I reasoned, who can you trust?”

  Leal licked his lips, stunned to sweat by the implications of Fhada’s words. “Osraed Ladhar is still Abbod.”

  “Indeed. He’s aged now, certainly, but powerful.”

  Powerful. Fhada did not mean that, Leal knew, as once he had naively defined power.

  “What did he tell you?”

  Fhada began walking again, slowly now, into the shadow of Mertuile. “When I went to him with my first great tremulous dilemma, he told me I was being tested. He instructed me to question the Voice I heard, to resist it, to seek to understand its dark origins. He said there were portents of great calamity in the future of Caraid-land. He said my testing was surely a part of that.”

  “Did he know-?”

  Fhada shrugged. “How can I know what he knew?”

  “What did you feel?”

  “That he had the means to be certain of the Voice I heard and Its message, but did not use it. I told myself that was because he did not need to use it. He had seen portents; that was enough. I wanted to believe he was certain of what he told me. I couldn’t contemplate anything else then.”

  “And now?”

  “Now, I accept that we were both wrong—Osraed Ladhar for dissuading me, and I for letting him.”

  Leal’s body wanted to fold in on itself. A vacuum existed where his heart had been. “Perhaps ... perhaps you were not wrong. Perhaps I am being tested too.”

  “Perhaps you are, but you are passing your test, where I failed mine.”

  Leal laid a desperate hand on the other man’s arm. “No! You’re too young a man to give yourself up. The Meri still speaks to you, I know She does.”

  Fhada disengaged himself, gently. “Don’t trust me, Leal. Don’t see in me what is no longer there. What was, perhaps, never there to begin with.”

  “It’s there, Fhada,” Leal said, as they took the turn away from Mertuile toward the Care House. “And I’m not the only one who sees it.”

  CHAPTER 11

  Do you imagine that the secrets of your souls are hidden? Know with certainty that what you have concealed in your hearts is as clear as day to the Spirit. That it remains hidden is pure mercy.

  — Utterances of Osraed Wyth

  Verse 13

  The sky did not fall. Ealad-hach did not pursue her with chains and fetishes, though she knew from the talk passed by Brys to Scandy and Phelan and, thence, to all of Nairne, that he had constructed any number of Wardweaves. She knew from Bevol that Ealad-hach had also closeted himself immediately after the Cirke incident with some of his Tradist comrades.

  “He will not,” B
evol told her, “let it lie. He’s just regrouping.”

  “But I held the stone,” Taminy observed. “I stepped right over that horrid runebag.”

  “And you are not so naive as to believe that means aught to Ealad-hach. His judgment has been impugned, anwyl. He said a Wicke could not hold Lin’s crystal or Weave through it or exit a Cirke when confronted by a moleskin-covered, marinated snake’s head.” His mouth twitched into a grin. “It appears he was wrong. Wicke can do those things.”

  “I’m not,” said Taminy, “a Wicke.”

  “I think it would be harder for Ealad-hach to believe that—to believe himself wrong about that—than it would be for him to believe he merely underestimated a Wicke’s powers.” He paused and cocked an eye at her. “You put on, to all descriptions, an amazing display. He can’t doubt that he underestimated you.”

  Taminy tilted back her head and peered up into the high-beamed ceiling of their parlor. Ah, yes, as even I did! A smile intruded when her lips would be serious.

  “I meant for nothing to happen, really. A simple schoolroom Weaving, I said to myself. A spark of light in a bit of stone. Gwynet might have done as much. But instead, a shower, a fountain—nay, a-a downpour!” She was laughing now, remembering their faces—startled, perplexed, awful, astonished—gleaming in the Eibhilin light of Taminy-a-Cuinn.

  “They say you were a rare wonder with crystals, when you used them.”

  A rare wonder. Had she been? The laughter stilled and she lowered her eyes. “I couldn’t control it, Bevol. I took that stone in my hands and completely lost control. It was like a-an Eibhilin sneeze. Forgive me,” she added when Bevol began to chuckle. “I don’t mean to make light of it.”

  He laughed outright at that, and she heard, somewhere out of sight, Skeet’s boyish bray. Raw emotion flared in her heart—anger, self-pity, hilarity, sorrow, all rode the crest of an ill-defined wave that swelled, tumbled and broke in tearful laughter. And when it broke, every lightglobe in the house flared full on, dazzling the occupants. She heard Skeet yawp squeakishly and Gwynet’s footsteps, rabbit-rapid on the stairs, her high voice piping, “What is it? What is it?”

  She wanted to laugh, but it wasn’t funny; she wanted to weep, but the situation provoked her to laughter. In the end, she let Bevol take her in his arms while she laughed and wept in turns.

  oOo

  “Let me see,” said Osraed Faer-wald, “if I understand you.” He was seated in a low sack chair in Ealad-hach’s chambers in the company of the Osraed Parthelan, Eadmund, Ladman and Ealad-hach himself. Just now he gazed at the ceiling of the room as if collecting his thoughts from it, his fingers steepled on the grand curve of his stomach like a little pink Cirke on a massive hill. “You tested the girl-”

  “As I said,” interjected Ealad-hach testily. He did not like Faer-wald when he was in a mood to be interrogatory—setting himself up as grand inquisitor. It fairly curled Ealad-hach’s eyelashes to be so carefully grilled.

  “As you said last Cirke-dag. You gave her the Gwyr crystal, supposing her to be a Wicke and expecting that it would go dull or burn her or some such, I assume.”

  Ealad-hach felt angry heat blaze up his neck to scorch his ears. “You know very well what I expected. We’ve been through this. I told you what I expected.”

  “So you did, but the plan failed, correct?”

  “My original plan failed—to catch her teaching dark runes at that glen. If it hadn’t been for that idiot Lorimer girl, I might have done that. I had a mirror. I could have caught her in it without her knowledge.”

  “Pardon,” said Ladman, “but according to your young spies, catching her unawares at that pool has yet to be done.”

  “Not so!” Ealad-hach raised his hand, a dull fire lighting behind his eyes. “Aelder Prentice Brys and his cronies caught her unawares the Cirke-dag previous and brought my attention to her doings.”

  “They beheld her weaving dark runes?”

  “They beheld her doing things they did not understand.”

  “Well,” said Ladman, in that word summing up what he thought of Ealad-hach’s Aelder Prentices.

  Parthelan raised white brows. “She can’t sense men, is that your thought?”

  “Or can sense only those who carry darkness in their souls.”

  “Irrelevant,” said Faer-wald, “since the plan never came to fruition. You did not catch her weaving dark runes. You improvised a test and she ... well, failed to meet your expectations.” He tilted his head and gave Ealad-hach a long look. “When you reported this, I took it to mean that she failed to prove to be Wicke.”

  Ealad-hach shook his head emphatically. “No! No! You miss the point!” He sat forward in his chair. “She did not prove pure. She proved powerful. My misjudgment was in applying so simple a test to her.”

  “Simple?” asked Osraed Eadmund. “What more telling a test could you have given? Outside of the Osmaer, the Gwyr crystal has no equal in purity.”

  “Gartain’s Giddian,” murmured Parthelan.

  “Well, yes. With the exception of Gartain’s crystal, Giddian. Are you suggesting we’ve encountered a Wicke whose power approaches the Meri’s?”

  “Nonsense!” exclaimed Parthelan, and Ladman clutched his prayer chain.

  Ealad-hach was shaking his head. “No. I’d never suggest that. What I ...What I see happening is what Eadmund suggested to us some time ago. A test. A test of such importance that the Meri has allowed—allowed, mind you—Her laws to be bent and Her truths to be circumvented.”

  “By this cailin, Taminy-a-Gled,” said Faer-wald.

  “By this Wicke-” Ealad-hach hesitated. He could not say what his dreams had led him to suspect, perhaps because he could not bring himself to believe what those dreams implied. As he turned the name in his mind—Taminy-a-Cuinn—he rejected the absurdity of it. Wicke she must be—hundred year old Wicke, she could not be. Bevol simply wanted him to believe that to heighten his fear. He pursed his lips. “She is simply more powerful than I expected.”

  “But the crystal,” objected Eadmund. “The runebag ...”

  Ealad-hach dismissed that with a wave of his hand. “Ah, that runebag was Wickery in and of itself. I used it merely because I thought she might believe in its power. She didn’t. She’s no fool.”

  There was a moment of thoughtful silence. Faer-wald broke it. “And no Wicke, either, it would seem.”

  “I told you-” Ealad-hach began, cold fury raising his voice.

  “She failed your test.”

  “Damn you, Faer-wald! Why will you not see? We are in a Cusp. A dangerous Cusp. We’ve all sensed that much. New Osraed bring us insupportable doctrinal changes and impossible accounts of that girl Meredydd’s so-called transformation, the Cyne tugs at the reins of our governing power, and this girl appears to-to juggle the Art before our faces as if it was a carnival toy.”

  “So she has a Gift. Enroll her in Halig-liath and discipline it.”

  “She has no intention of attending Halig-liath. Her education, according to Bevol, is complete.”

  “We oughtn’t sanction that,” interjected Parthelan. “No one should make careless with the Art outside Halig-liath.”

  “Only within, eh?” asked Faer-wald, winking.

  “You joke,” accused Ealad-hach, “about what is not a joking matter. She does her little miracles every day now. People afflicted with odd ailments go to Taminy for a confection and when next Osraed Torridon sees them, they are cured. Have you seen Marnie-o-Loom’s hands? She was severely arthritic. Torridon could do nothing for her but ease the pain. I say was arthritic, Osraed, because Taminy gave her a salve and a bit of wood. Do you care to guess at the results?”

  Faer-wald sat forward, sending the pink Cirke crashing to his lap. “Look,” he said, “what do you want from us? Why are you bringing this up again? What is your intention?”

  “I want you to join me in recommending that Taminy be called before the Osraed Body. I will devise a more thorough test and publicly try
her. I want to trap her, Osraed. And destroy her.”

  Four pairs of eyes met in the center of the chamber, leaving Ealad-hach entirely out of their deliberations.

  Eadmund cleared his throat. “We are in a Cusp.”

  Parthelan shook his head. Faer-wald and Ladman echoed the movement.

  “We cannot recommend that, Osraed,” Faer-wald told Ealad-hach. “There is too little evidence to support you.”

  “Too little evidence? What of my dreams? My aislinn?”

  Again, glances were traded at the center of the room. “You said you couldn’t see the face of the woman who came out of the Sea.”

  “I have seen it. Late the night before last. It was her face. The face of Taminy-a-Gled.” He glared at the silent ring of faces. “Do you doubt my vision?”

  “Perhaps ‘doubt’ is too strong a word.” Faer-wald now attempted to soothe him. “If you would take us to your aislinn chamber, show us this woman-”

  “I cannot.” Ealad-hach curled back into his seat, wrapping his arms about himself. “My ability to draw on aislinn vision has been severely impaired by my health. I haven’t slept well since I made the discovery—the stress ... I have been unable to bring the aislinn back.”

  “Well, what can we do, then?” Faer-wald glanced about at his cronies and shrugged his bovine shoulders. “If you could show us, perhaps we would be convinced to back your recommendation, but without that evidence ...” He shrugged again. “You have tested her and failed to prove her to be anything but a young woman with a strong Gift, which Bevol has no doubt nurtured. I agree with Parthelan about the questionable wisdom of allowing the Art to be taught outside the Academy. But even at that, she is under the tutelage of one of the greatest masters Halig-liath has produced—come, Ealad, you must agree with that, regardless of what you think of his theology.”

  Ealad-hach was silent.

  Osraed Parthelan rose and shook out his long tunic. “I agree. Understand, Ealad, I am with you in your desire to keep cailin out of Halig-liath. I cannot believe this change will be beneficial to the Brotherhood. But calling this child a Wicke, blaming her for our troubles-”