If these little people could do it, then so could she. Taking a deep breath, Melcorka unfastened Defender and placed her on the side of the pool, took off her travelling cloak and slid onto the dark water. She slowly put her weight on the float. It sunk slightly under the surface and then held.
'It's easy,' she said and slid out her other foot. The water gave slightly and then seemed to solidify so she stood, wavering slightly. For a moment she forgot she was Melcorka the Swordswoman and was her age again, a young woman of twenty trying something new.
'Let's see if I can cross to the other side,' she said, smiling.
She slid forward as she had seen the small man do, wobbled slightly, then grinned as her confidence grew and tried a full step.
'Wait!' she shouted as her left foot sunk; she replaced her right foot too quickly, toppled over and fell face first into the dark peaty water.
For one second she floundered, swallowing water and completely disorientated until she realised that the floats, so useful when she was upright, had now bobbed to the surface of the water so she was upside down in the pool. And drowning, she realised as she swallowed a mouthful of peat-flavoured water.
This was not the way she expected to die. She was a warrior; she should die in battle, facing fearsome odds as she and Defender defeated some savage enemy. She should not die upside down in a peat bog in the middle of a moor after acting like a little child. She knew that dying people were said to have their lives flash before them. Instead she felt intense frustration at what she had failed to achieve. She had not found Bradan's wise druid, or taken him to see what was beyond the western ocean that he sometimes spoke about, or even told him how she thought about him.
Bradan? She had hardly even spoken to him these last few hours; why should thoughts of him dominate her final few seconds?
The truth was so obvious that it was painful as it entered her mind with all the force of one of Tuath's axe blows. Y
She felt the hands on her legs, pulling her backward and upward; she felt rough heather on her stomach and then her head was free and she was coughing and retching and spewing water onto the ground as Bradan and Igraine were pumping her dry.
'Are you alive?' That was Bradan's voice, laden with concern. 'Dear God in heaven Melcorka say something!'
'I won't be doing that again,' Melcorka tried to say, and succeeded only in vomiting a vast quantity of peaty water back into the pool.
She lay for a second, felt Bradan pulling her leine back down and realised her entire lower half had been exposed to the view of all and sundry, decided that it did not really matter and rolled over onto her back.
Igraine and Bradan were crouching beside her, Igraine with disapproval on her face and Bradan with concern and something else, something she now recognised and wondered why she had failed to do so before.
'Don't move,' Melcorka said to him, rolled over to the pool and washed her mouth clean. 'Now Bradan.' reaching for him, she pulled him to her and gave him a kiss that drained his breath and raised a cheer from the bystanders.
'That should keep you quiet,' Melcorka said with satisfaction.
'Do it again!' Alva shouted.
'You mean like this?' Bradan asked and repeated the procedure, much to Alva's satisfaction.
'And now,' Bradan said, smugly, 'we better be getting on our way. Hector is looking impatient and the Shining One may be watching too, for all we know.'
'Let him wait,' Melcorka lifted her cloak and Defender. She looked at Bradan, held his gaze for a long second, hoping he could read her mind, and walked on, northward, across the moor.
Chapter Nineteen
'There; do you see it?' Tuath used his axe as a pointer as he indicated what lay ahead. 'That is Callanish, the winged temple that Bradan has been searching for.'
Melcorka stopped at the summit of a small rise and waited for Bradan to join her. It felt slightly unfair that she should see Callanish before he did.
'Let me see.' Bradan hurried beside her. She could feel him shaking with suppressed excitement as he looked northward toward the temple that meant so much to him.
'Dear God it's huge,' he said in a voice little more than a whisper. 'It is much larger than anything else I have ever seen.'
Melcorka had thought the temple would be a single building, like a church or a broch or a dun, but instead it was a massive open complex composed of standing stones raised in a pattern that highlighted a stone circle set around a single grey monolith. She had been slightly disappointed yet was more than glad that Bradan appeared in awe.
'How many stones are there?' Bradan asked and immediately answered his own question. 'There must be scores in the main temple alone,' he looked around, 'and there are others all around; more circles, more standing stones. No wonder this place is the father of all the temples; no wonder Abaris came from here. It is a winged temple indeed.'
The temple of Callanish stood on a ridge, with the focus composed of a Celtic cross formed by standing stones, with the wheel, or circle having thirteen stones around a fourteen foot tall granite giant. Five rows of standing stones connected to this circle, with one paired row that led north by north-east acting as an avenue.
Bradan stared at the temple for a long time before he spoke again. 'There are so many stories and legends about this place,' he said quietly. 'Some people say that these stones were once people, but a magician changed them into living rock and placed them in a ring for some religious purpose. Others say that the chief druid – perhaps Abaris himself – stood on that stone, the tall monolith within the circle and performed religious ceremonies as he imparted his wisdom. There are tales that claim the avenue was a huge serpent that was turned to stone – and we all know that the druids are often called the serpents.'
'Oh yes,' Melcorka said. She had never heard that tale before but knew this was not the time to mention her ignorance.
'There are even stories that these stones were once giants that refused to convert to Christianity and so were petrified. They were known as fir bhreige – false men.' Bradan lowered his voice until only Melcorka could hear it. 'You see that avenue there, where a double row of stones leads up to the circle?'
'I see it,' Melcorka said.
'That is said to be where the Shining One walks, with a cuckoo announcing his arrival.' Bradan's voice was so flat that Melcorka knew he was disguising his emotions. He licked dry lips.
'We will find your Abaris,' she said. 'And rid you of your fear of the Shining One.'
He nodded, staring toward Callanish. 'The answer lies there, somewhere. I do not know if we will like it.'
The rest of Hector's warriors had gathered around them, and all were staring at the huge array of standing stones and stone circles that dominated the landscape, with the sea and offshore islands creating a dramatic backdrop. Some pointed in awe, others repeated the legends; a few shrugged with a complete lack of interest.
'Shall we go on?' Melcorka asked.
Bradan nodded. He had been shaken by Callanish, although with the dull sky and coming dark the temple could be taken for an ancient site with no more to it than a derelict and forgotten relic of the past. To those with no knowledge, Callanish was merely a collection of stones standing on end in a strange pattern.
'This is an evil place,' Hector spoke more soberly than usual. 'It is a place of death.'
Bradan nodded 'I had expected to find knowledge and understanding,' he said quietly. 'Instead…' He tapped his staff on the ground. 'I am sorry to bring you here, Melcorka.'
'There is no need for sorrow,' Melcorka said.
Tuath hefted his axe. 'If there is death, then I shall be the bearer.' He held up his hand, forefinger and thumb in a circle. 'If Bel allows.'
Melcorka watched Igraine pull Alva toward her and did not understand her twist of pain.
Chapter Twenty
The stones of Callanish stood stark and unspeaking on their ridge, with the sea and its islands to the west and the great black abyss of the night sky above.
The wind whisked silently around the stones and whispered through the rough grass, competing with the constant hush of the sea-surf to break the silence.
'Is this how you imagined it?' Melcorka asked.
Bradan shook his head. 'This is different; much different.' He looked around slowly. 'There is more here than I ever imagined; so many standing stones and that circle all together. I can nearly feel Abaris here, walking the avenue, feeling the power of the stones.'
'There is no power in the stones,' Melcorka said. 'They are stones, nothing more.'
Bradan nodded. 'Perhaps so, yet they have heard the wisdom of the druids; they must have absorbed the words and the spirit.'
'I did not know that rock could do that,' Melcorka said.
Bradan touched the closest stone. 'If they could only talk,' he said, and grinned, 'they might even tell us about Abaris.'
'I wish they would,' Melcorka said, 'or even about the Shining One.' She put her hand on the hilt of her sword. For some reason even saying the name brought a shiver to her, as if she and the Shining One were bound together in some way.
'Pray to God that creature does not turn up,' Bradan's grin faded. 'Whatever it is, it terrified the Osprey and controlled that other thing that called itself Eileen.'
Melcorka felt that shiver again. 'Something is happening,' she said. 'Look at the sky.'
Bradan glanced upward. The clouds that had obscured the sky all day were moving away, revealing a million stars.
'There is a new moon tonight,' Bradan said.
'Is that important?' Melcorka asked.
'That may be,' Bradan said quietly. 'Look over there.'
The woman was as familiar as coarse weather and a lot less welcome as she sat on the monolith within the stone circle, swinging her legs from side to side as she watched them. Her eyes were like deep pits in a face as beautiful as it was repulsive.
'I had hoped not to see you again,' Bradan held his staff ready.
'Yet here I am,' Eileen said. 'You killed my favourite Cateran.'
'I did that killing,' Melcorka stood beside Bradan. 'I did not expect to see you at this sacred place.'
Eileen's laugh seemed to fill the temple and rise to mock the stars. 'Sacred to whom, Melcorka the Swordswoman? Do you know?'
'I do not know,' Melcorka said. 'I do know that there is only one God.'
Eileen laughed again. Slipping off her perch she floated down to the rough grass below and came toward them. Her face altered with every step; one second she was the beautiful woman they had first seen on the Cateran's ship, then the young child they had known on Inch Iolaire. Before their eyes she altered into a middle aged woman with lines around her mouth, lines that deepened and spread until she was an old hag replete with wrinkles and thinning white hair. When she stopped a dozen paces from them she was a beautiful woman who could have been in her thirties, with a mane of shining brown hair and eyes so innocent a dove would have envied them.
'Are you so sure about that, Melcorka of Alba?'
'I am sure,' Melcorka was determined not to succumb to the tricks of this evil creature, whoever or whatever she was.
'Then look around and tell me what you see?' When Eileen swept her arm around her, a host of people immediately filled the spaces between the standing stones of Callanish. Where an instant before the temple had been empty, now men, women and children occupied every gap and covered the ground in a colourful throng. Dressed in long robes and with sandals on their feet and long hair down to their shoulders, holding staffs or baskets of fruit, they stood in chattering groups, happy in each other's company. Melcorka looked upward; the night sky had cleared, with bright sun taking the place of a weft of stars, the scent of cut grass perfuming the air and bird-song sweet to her ears.
'You say there is only one God yet I can summon so many people, cancel the night and bring sunlight to a place you call sacred.' Eileen lifted her hands again, pointing to Melcorka. 'Can your sword protect you against me?'
'My staff can,' Bradan's voice floated within Melcorka's mind, yet she could no longer see him in this crowded place. 'These people are not real. They come from your mind to intrude in ours.'
'They are real,' Eileen said. 'They are real and the Caterans I summoned were real. They did not come from my mind or from your mind, Bradan the Wanderer, Bradan the Uncertain, Bradan the Unwanted, Bradan the Eternal Seeker after ghosts; they come from the past. These are the people who were once here and whose spirits remain here forever.'
'They are not real,' Bradan repeated. 'You are an illusionist; nothing more. Unless you return these images to where they belong, I will consign you to history as well.' He tapped his staff on the ground, three times in slow succession.
'That would be a mistake, Bradan,' Eileen said, 'after you have sought answers for so long, and can find them here.'
'Which answers can I find?' Bradan asked.
'You seek Abaris the Magi, Abaris the Druid, Abaris the Seeker after Truth.'
'I do,' Bradan said.
'And you fear the Shining One – and with reason.' Eileen said. 'You should fear him.'
'I fear what I do not know,' Bradan said.
Melcorka knew that she was temporarily forgotten as Bradan and Eileen engaged in their private conversation. She listened, only partly understanding.
'You fear what you do not know, yet you seek knowledge?' Eileen's laugh was harsher than anything Melcorka had ever heard. 'There is so much contradiction within you that you speak in riddles for which you shall never find the answers.'
'That is the way of it,' Bradan sounded calm. 'Now restore us to reality, old woman.' He tapped his staff again.
'There are many realities,' Eileen said.
'We live in only one,' Bradan refused to be drawn into a philosophical debate.
'As you wish, Bradan the Coward.' Eileen clapped her hands and the daylight vanished, taking with it the chattering people, the birdsong and the sweet scented grass.
Only Eileen remained, standing in front of the monolithic stone in that place of many stones, with the stars glittering above and the sound of the surf soft in the west.
'We have had enough of your tricks,' Bradan said.
'There will be no tricks tomorrow,' Eileen's voice was low. 'There will be death and sorrow and the beginning of a new quest.'
'Every day has its quota of death and sorrow,' Bradan said, 'and quests lead to discoveries and discoveries to new questions.'
'Tomorrow, at the rising of the sun, the Shining One will come; your nemesis, Melcorka, and your constant nightmare.' Eileen was the beautiful mature woman again, with her eyes black pits of loathing.
'I have no nemesis and my nightmares are my own concern.' Melcorka faced her boldly, as the beautiful woman faded into a haze and then vanished.
There was a flutter of feathers and the cawing of a crow. The bird stood on the central monolith, preening itself. It looked at Melcorka through the same black pits of eyes that Eileen used, and then spoke in her voice. 'One god or many gods; I am always the triple woman.' Where there had been one crow, now there were three and they rose together, cawing as they followed the circle of stones.
'Dear God in heaven,' Bradan breathed. 'It is her.'
'Who?' Melcorka asked. 'Who is it?'
The temple was empty. Only Bradan stood there, holding his staff, with Melcorka at his side and a hollow loneliness within her. She heard the call of a lone crow and then only the sounds of the night.
'That woman is evil,' Melcorka said. 'You know her, I think.'
'She is all evil,' Bradan said. 'She is from the old days; the very old days.'
'Who is she?' Melcorka repeated as the sound of the surf came to them. A single feather drifted down; black and coarse, it landed at her feet.
'Don't touch that,' Bradan said as Melcorka stooped to lift it. 'It is imbued with her evil.' He tapped his staff on the ground, holding the carved cross in his hand as though his life, or his soul, depended on it. 'She is Badb. She is the Morrigan.'<
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'I do not know the name.'
'She is personification of the war-goddess of the ancients. She can take three shapes and evolve into three personalities; she is the Great Queen, Macha, Nemainn or Badb; she lusts for war and slaughter, and for men … her sexual appetite is as powerful as her love of blood.'
'You take care then, Bradan…' Melcorka tried to smile, but Bradan was not finished yet.
'You may know of Morgan le Fay?' Braden said.
'The woman who caused the downfall of King Arthur?' Melcorka touched the hilt of her sword that Arthur had once possessed.
'That is also her, or one aspect of her.' Bradan looked around at the blanketing night. 'We should get some rest, Melcorka. There is death forecast for tomorrow and I do not wish to see it.'
Melcorka nodded. Defender, then known as Excalibur, had not helped King Arthur against the wiles of Morgan le Fay. Now she faced the same enemy, and with the same weapon. 'May God have mercy on us all,' she breathed.
'He may, if he so chooses,' Bradan's hand was white knuckled on the rowan-wood cross.
Dawn brought a smirr of rain and an easterly wind across the great moorland of Lewis. Seabirds called, harsh and piercing above the echoing surf.
'I heard you had a visitor last night,' Tuath's great voice boomed out.
'Eileen was back,' Melcorka said. 'In her own shape: the Morrigan. How did you know?'
'Alva told us.' Tuath said.
'Alva would know,' Melcorka looked to the circle of stones. 'The creature told us that the Shining One would come this morning.'
'Then let us prepare to meet him,' Tuath hefted his axe as his teeth showed in a grin. 'I have never met anyone, shining or dull, who could stand after I have felled him.'
Melcorka laughed. 'You are an honest man, Tuath and I am glad of your company.'
Bradan tapped his staff on the ground and said nothing. Melcorka knew that he was worried.
The clatter of weapons and thunder of marching feet sounded normal after the supernatural complexities of the previous night. Melcorka forced a smile as Hector arrived at the head of his men.
The Shining One (The Swordswoman Book 2) Page 20
