Crystal Rose

by Bohnhoff, Maya Kaathryn

  Only her mother stood in the doorway now, but if she twitched a muscle, the aislinn shroud might fall away. So she stayed, cloaked in tentative invisibility, while Daimhin Feich pondered her escape.

  “Idiot! No one’s escaped through this window. Look at the dust on the sill. Hasn’t been disturbed for months. She’s here.”

  He whirled again, nearly touching Iseabal, nearly causing her to reveal herself. In his hand, the red crystal blazed with hideous brilliance.

  “You! Mistress-a-Nairnecirke. Where is your daughter?”

  Ardis jumped. “I don’t know, sir! I-I’d gone to my room. She was upstairs. I thought she’d gone to her own room. We’d been fighting, you see—”

  Feich advanced on her. “You’re lying. You’re hiding her from me. Bring her out, woman! Bring her out now!”

  “No, sir! I’d not lie to you! I-I want Isha to help you. She must have gone out by the Sanctuary while we were upstairs.”

  Daimhin Feich grasped the Cirke-mistress by the arm and shook her. “You lie! I feel her here. She’s somewhere in this house. Bring her out or, so help me God, I’ll make you the sorriest woman in this village.”

  He let go of her momentarily and pulled a small dagger from his belt. In the light of that wicked crystal, its blade gleamed a foul red as if bloodied already. Ardis-a-Nairnecirke shrieked and twisted away, catching her skirts in the ruins of the study door. He had her against the door jamb in an instant, the dagger at her throat.

  Iseabal dropped her aislinn cloak. A flash of radiance washed from her, drawing all eyes.

  “Please let my mother go, Regent Feich,” she begged. “Punish me if you like, but don’t harm her. She’s guilty of nothing you’d condemn her for.”

  A slow smile spread across the Regent’s narrow, handsome face. “Iseabal-a-Nairnecirke, is it? How good of you to join us. I have no intention of punishing you, dear cailin, but rather of putting you to good use.”

  Chapter 14

  The soul who refuses to let the doubts and caprices of others deflect them from the Way of God, the soul who is calm in the face of the unrest caused by the wielders of worldly authority—whether they call themselves divines or Cynes or men of truth, that soul will be respected by God as one of His own. Blessed is such a soul.

  —Book of Pilgrimages

  Osraed Lin-a-Ruminea

  It was an odd imprisonment Iseabal suffered. She had been terrified when Daimhin Feich’s men snatched her from her home. Her mother’s cries still rang in her ears, even here in the quiet, woodland darkness of this small tent. Bound and tethered to a tent pole, she was alone but for the two guards who kept vigil outside. Feich had made no attempt to question or harm her.

  Her terror calmed eventually and she began to think, began to reach out tentatively to her mother, to her father, to Taminy.

  Her mother was still frantic, her father distraught and angry, and Taminy . . . Taminy extended over her a silken web of calm. She, in turn, tried to extend that same calm to her parents and received, in a flash of aislinn certainty, a strange benediction; Saxan and Ardis-a-Nairnecirke were side by side again, united in their concern for their only child.

  After a while, she slept, secure in the knowledge that she was not truly alone.

  oOo

  The girl’s father visited the camp on the heels of her capture to beg her release. Since her mother was yet a prisoner in her own home, Ruadh could only suppose news of her plight had reached him through some other means . . . perhaps, supernatural ones. The thought made his skin crawl and his back creep. Almost, he could feel spirits brushing by him, hear their whispered conversations.

  He’d suspected Daimhin had taken the girl hostage to enlist the cooperation of her father, and was astonished when Daimhin met and dismissed the man without questioning him. Instead of coercing, he threatened; the girl was a disciple of the Nairnian Wicke—she would be returned to Creiddylad for interrogation and, perhaps, trial and punishment.

  The Osraed begged to be taken in his daughter’s stead, even admitting his own connection with the Wicke, but Daimhin Feich only accused him of a father’s love and loyalty and rejected his plea. Osraed Saxan went away empty-handed, while Ruadh wondered what his cousin could be thinking.

  “Do you really intend to try this girl as a Wicke?” he asked when Saxan had left them.

  Daimhin shrugged. “If it suits me.”

  The Osraed Ladhar who, with his toady cleirach, had been witness to the brief encounter between father and captor, was shaking so hard his jowls quivered like a pudding.

  “It had better suit you, sir. By the Spirit, you should try the father as well! He admitted his Taminist loyalties.”

  “That’s of no importance, Abbod. In the long run, his loyalties will matter not at all.”

  “No importance?” Ladhar was livid. “How can you—?”

  Daimhin raised his hand to forestall the impending outburst. “What is our most dire problem just now, Abbod?”

  “Our most—? Our religious institutions are in tatters, our people are being assailed by spiritual storm—”

  “Abbod, Abbod, look closer to earth, if you would, please! The government of Caraid-land has ceased to function—or nearly so. The Hall is a roil and the Throne is empty.” Daimhin smiled and leaned forward in his low camp chair. “Would you put me on the Throne, dear Abbod? Declare me Cyneric in Airleas Malcuim’s absence?”

  “Airleas is absent, as you say, not dead. Nor has he officially abdicated. Were I to declare you Cyneric, the Houses would see to it Caraid-land was torn into tiny, autonomous bits.”

  “Exactly. Therefore, we have no recourse but to return Airleas to the Throne, or to witness his public abdication . . . or to be assured of his death. We have lately learned we cannot get to Airleas until spring. What is our recourse?”

  Ladhar glared at him uncomprehendingly.

  “Abbod, we must bring Airleas to us.”

  “Freeing heretics will aid that?”

  “No. But holding one hostage might. This one especially. Iseabal-a-Nairnecirke is one of Taminy’s special acolytes. Do you think she will let her be lost to us?”

  “You mean to draw the Wicke out?” asked Ruadh.

  “I intend her to understand that if she would have her lovely young convert suffer no harm, she must forfeit her hold on Airleas.”

  “How,” asked Ladhar, “do you intend to make her understand that?”

  “I will tell her young acolyte. I suspect she will see to it that her Mistress is informed. Simple, isn’t it? Now, gentlemen, cousin . . .” He nodded at Ruadh. “I’ve had a most strenuous evening, which is not yet over. If you would be so good . . .” He glanced at the entry of his opulent tent.

  Neither Ruadh or his companions were slow. They returned, each, to their smaller shelters.

  They didn’t tarry in Nairne, but struck their tents the next morning to return to Creiddylad. The Osraed Saxan and his companions tried again to reclaim the captive girl, but Daimhin Feich turned them away.

  Ruadh couldn’t help but feel a certain sympathy for the Cirkemaster. The girl did not seem evil. At the very worst, he could only imagine her to be misled. Though she’d shown extraordinary powers (he still hadn’t recovered from seeing her appear out of the crystal-lit gloom of her father’s study), she hadn’t tried to use them against the man who was surely her worst enemy. At least, she hadn’t used them yet. Perhaps she was only biding her time.

  Ruadh glanced at her now, as she rode beside him, bound to her saddle, her back straight with dignity. She certainly didn’t seem a creature of deceit. Ironic, he thought, that some of those on the side of right seemed much more unsavory than their supposedly wicked enemies.

  He glanced past the girl to her opposing escort, the Abbod Ladhar, happening to meet the older man’s eyes. A chill rattled his spine. Ladhar was a hateful man in the truest sense of the word. Ruadh glanced away, signaled one of his kinsmen to take his place beside their prisoner and urged his horse forward t
o pull level with Sorn Saba.

  The younger man looked over at him. “She’s a rare beauty, that one.”

  Ruadh raised his brows and Sorn twitched a glance back over his shoulder.

  “The little sorceress. Such striking color! Those blue, blue eyes and that black hair. Rivals my sister, she does.”

  “Bored with the Lady Dearg, are you?”

  Sorn’s eyes widened. “Cautious of her. Have you seen her, this morning? A mass of bruises.” He leaned closer, lowering his voice. “Do you think maybe her husband discovered her infidelities?”

  “If he had, you’d be the one wearing black and blue.”

  Sorn’s face hardened, making Ruadh believe, for a moment, his boasts of battle experience. “I assure you, friend Ruadh, I am most discreet. Who else but her husband would have had cause to beat her so?”

  Ruadh shook his head, suspecting it was not marital infidelity that had won Coinich Mor her bruises.

  oOo

  The Abbod Ladhar was as perplexed as he was furious. Twice, Feich had the apostate Saxan in his camp and twice he dismissed him as if he had not admitted to his heresies. And the girl! He had her, yet made no move interrogate her about her Mistress’s plans. Ladhar had even demanded that she be turned over to the Osraed for trial, but Feich merely laughed at him and told him he over-reached.

  The long return trip to Creiddylad was made no shorter by the knowledge that the forces at the Regent’s command had been drastically reduced and that they were no closer to capturing Taminy and tearing Airleas from her grasp. Meanwhile, Feich and his Dearg Wicke still Wove and Ladhar still slept poorly.

  In the wake of Feich’s decree against Taminists, crowds once again milled outside the gates of Mertuile, one contingent protesting the bans, another protesting the protest. Fights broke out often, necessitating the intervention of armed guards.

  While it comforted Ladhar that Feich was at last doing something about the Taminists and their sympathizers, he could not believe that the Regent’s decrees were any more than a ploy aimed at eliciting some response from the Wicke herself—a response Ladhar alternately feared and pretended not to care about.

  A week passed—a week of riots, put-downs and arrests. Mertuile’s gaol began to fill with Taminists and their allies, people Daimhin Feich showed little interest in. He gave the Abbod and his cleirachs access to the prisoners, but they were, for the most part, ordinary citizens. Misled to be sure, mesmerized most likely, but among them, Ladhar recognized no one from among the Wicke’s close circle of apostles.

  The girl, Iseabal, was kept by herself in a chill, spartan chamber in the lower levels of the castle proper. Neither the Abbod nor any other Osraed was allowed to interview her. Only Daimhin Feich was admitted to her cell.

  At the end of his first week back in Creiddylad, the Regent changed his tack with regard to the Nairnian cailin and moved her to luxurious quarters near his own. Further, he allowed her to dine with his household, which now included Eadrig and Blair Dearg and Coinich Mor, in addition to his young cousin, and the Deasach Banarigh’s little brother.

  On the occasions when that household also embraced Ladhar, he watched the girl with hawkish intensity. If that unnerved her, so much the better. The Deasach boy also kept close watch on her. Perhaps he expected she would suddenly rise up and perform some bit of magic at table. She did not.

  One evening, after a fine supper, the Regent invited his guests, the young Wicke included, to his private salon. The men of Dearg, preferring more active after-supper entertainment, excused themselves and joined their kinsmen in Creiddylad.

  Coinich Mor stayed, but tucked herself silently into a corner near the hearth, from which vantage point she watched everyone else in the room.

  They sat, drinking hot cider and listening to the harsh winds of early winter assault Mertuile, while Feich tried to engage his pretty hostage in conversation.

  “Your Mistress liked this room,” he told her, after observing how continually awed she seemed by her surroundings. “We came here with Cyne Colfre more than once during her time here. Did she ever speak to you of that time?”

  The girl blinked at him as if bemused by his sudden amiability. “She spoke of it,” she said at last. “She called it a time of confusion.”

  Feich offered a wry smile. “For me, as well. I was . . . very fond of your Mistress.”

  “You tried to kill her.” The girl’s eyes were pools of ice that made even Ladhar shiver.

  “She seemed a threat to my Cyne and my country. Later events proved me right.”

  “No sir. They did not. Taminy had nothing to do with Colfre’s death.” She laid subtle stress on her Mistress’s name, as if to imply that someone other than Colfre had had something to do with it.

  Feich’s eyes glittered. “She abducted the Cyneric—”

  “She did not. Toireasa and Airleas came to us of their free will. She means no harm to Airleas, as you well know. She means only to strengthen him to see to it that when he does take the Throne, no one will mold him to their own desires.” Her voice, soft and measured, quivered a bit as she said the words, but her eyes were unwaveringly direct.

  Feich shook his head and glanced at Ladhar. “I appreciate,” he told the girl, “that you wish to believe no ill of your Mistress, but she has proven herself to be Evil incarnate.”

  “She has proven only to be your adversary, Regent Feich. I suppose that must make her seem evil to you.”

  Everyone in the room was astonished by the girl’s audacity. Ladhar saw on other faces the same look he knew must be on his own. Only Daimhin Feich took the remark blandly, his face set in a benign smile.

  “Unfortunately, I must regard you as evil as well, poor child. You are undeniably under her influence. If you were to disavow your Mistress, however . . .”

  “I can’t do that, sir.”

  Feich shrugged. “Then you will most likely die . . . eventually. Hanged, perhaps, or burnt, or drowned.”

  Her lovely face paled to the color of cream, but the girl only said, “I’m prepared to do that.”

  Feich shook his head. “I admire your courage, child. But what a deplorable waste. How can you love one who would so cruelly ignore your plight?”

  “Taminy doesn’t ignore me.”

  “Ah, well, if you wish to plead that she’s unaware—”

  “She’s not unaware, Regent. She knows where I am and under what conditions. She’s always with me. Always.”

  Feich perked up at this, his eyes lighting with interest.

  “You are in communication with her?”

  “Yes.”

  “Yet, she does nothing to free you.”

  “Perhaps my freedom is not required.”

  An odd thing to say, Ladhar thought, and a part of his mind began trying to work out what it meant.

  Late that night at Ochanshrine, he came to the beginning of an understanding, for Daimhin Feich arrived there, the Nairnian cailin in tow, and demanded to be admitted to the Shrine.

  What choice had he? He let them in, following them down into the Osmaer Crystal’s sacred bowl.

  The girl was clearly terrified. Wrapped in a long cloak that did not cover the soft skirts of her sleeping gown, hair in wild disarray about her shoulders, she glanced about with frantic eyes—eyes that were willing to beg even Ladhar for aid.

  Meanwhile Feich, obviously excited, prattled like a schoolboy. “I asked if she had a crystal, and of course she did—a tiny thing, barely worthy of the name, belonged to some mouldering Osraed. But she could fire it, Ladhar! Damn, but she could fire it! So I gave her Bloodheart and the damned thing all but ignited in her hands. Those sweet, magical hands!”

  He kissed them both, knotted as they were into fists, and dragged the poor girl down another three or four steps.

  “And I thought, if she can do that with puny, flawed rocks, then—” He broke off, staring at Ochan’s Crystal.

  Yes, it too had ignited, even as Feich’s imperfect Bloodheart. Ladhar t
hought his legs would refuse to support him. He sank to the nearest bench, overcome, mesmerized as on that horrible night . . .

  Feich, exultant, dragged the girl the rest of the way down the aisle, forcing her into close contact with the Stone.

  The Stone burned.

  “Now, Wicke! Show me how you Weave with this crystal. Show me your Mistress! Let me see her! Does she sleep? Does she Weave? Does she feel your distress? Show her to me!”

  The girl strained to pull her hands free, struggled to put some distance between herself and the Osmaer Crystal, but Feich had the advantage of physical strength and spiritual frailty. He cared little if he terrified her or caused her pain. He twisted her to face the Crystal, shrieking his commands in her ears, shaking her until the cloak slid from her shoulders.

  The commotion drew an audience; Osraed and cleirachs appeared in the upper doorway. Ladhar felt their eyes on him. They hung back, seeing him there. Surely if the Abbod Ladhar was witness to this spectacle they need not interfere.

  “Show me Taminy-Osmaer!” cried Feich for perhaps the twentieth time, and the girl, sobbing, put up her hands as if in prayer.

  Did she Weave? Ladhar would never be certain, but all at once he found himself engulfed in aislinn mist and he was seeing—dear God the Spirit!—he was seeing Bevol’s Wicke, herself, right there in the Shrine. She appeared, suspended over the Osmaer Crystal, or superimposed upon it, her hair bound as if for sleep, dressed in a robe of blinding white. Light poured from her in waves and her lips moved soundlessly.

  Ladhar found his own lips were in motion, as well, releasing a flood of desperate prayer.

  Feich moved to approach the aislinn image, reached his hand out as if to touch it, but it folded in on itself, disappearing into an envelope of darkness.

  The Regent howled. “Bring her back!” He turned to the quaking girl, who responded by collapsing into a trembling heap at his feet. Feich kicked at her. “Bring her back! I want to speak to her!”