“Would there be a place for them in your village?” asked Briah. “Your harvest looks to be abundant this year; perhaps two more pairs of hands—”
The headman shook his head sadly. “If it were up to me—or my wife, who would adopt every orphan in the world if she could—I’d say yes. But those two are... different. It’s not just their silence. It’s where they’ve been, and what’s been done to them. People here will say they’re full of evil spirits. First strange accident or bit of bad luck, and, well, you know what will happen.”
Briah nodded. She knew all too well. “Thank you for your hospitality. We’ll leave in the morning.”
“You’re taking them with you? Where?”
“Wherever I can find a home for them. If there’s a place in this world for me, there’s a place for anyone.”
The headman threw her a quizzical glance, but said only, “Haven’t you taken on enough already? The story of how you slew Lir will keep the bards busy for years to come. And Ketta tells me you have a son waiting for you among the faerie folk in the west.”
Briah smiled back. “Then finding a home for two orphans should be easy.” They both laughed. Briah regarded the village leader for a moment. He was tall and muscular, with gray only beginning to touch his long brown hair and short beard. His face was wrinkled from many years of laughter and tears and the cares of leadership. Most women, she thought, would find him handsome. But not Briah. From now on, only scaly green skin, deep red eyes and a voice like a god would set her heart fluttering. And only the tiny, perfect face of her son would melt it. Freed at last from Lir’s shadow, she finally had a family of her own to return to.
“Take good care of Ketta,” she told the leader as she left the next day.
“We will,” he promised.
Ketta herself stood with her mother and sisters, a healthy glow in her cheeks and flesh returning to her bones. Briah saw the worship in the girl’s eyes as she hugged her farewell, and found she enjoyed the feeling.
She set off with Drem and the nameless girl following at her heels. It was a quiet journey.
****
Summer was just reaching the shores of Eirann when the three of them stepped off the ship on the dock at Finool. There was one last task to complete. Then Briah would be free to return to the Roane. And Kamin. And Taran.
The shrine of Brigid was just as she remembered it; a tiny piece of serenity and protection in the midst of a harsh and violent world. Briah felt a moment’s rage at these priestesses of healing, who had been here, safe behind their walls when she was dragged into Donal’s House of Pleasure just half a league away.
But that was foolish: the violent men who suffered holy women to live in peace would not long remain so patient if those holy women interfered with the men’s trade. If they had not helped Briah when she was a slave, they helped her once she freed herself—and she had needed it more then.
Perhaps they would help now, and spare these children Briah’s fate.
“Of course they may stay,” said the old priestess, as she and Briah sipped mint tea in the big garden. “The girl may remain with us all her life if she chooses. The boy we’ll care for until he comes of age. If we can reach his mind; teach him to take care of himself, then he can make his own way in the world. If not, there are other places like this, for men. We can send him to one of those.”
“How do you reach someone who’s seen what he has seen; who’s lost—wherever he is?”
“With love and patience. You would make a wonderful healer, Briah, if you would just stay.”
“I hope someday to be a healer, but I cannot stay.”
“How long since you’ve seen your son?”
Briah smiled. She had not told the priestess about Kamin. “Nearly three turns of the moon.”
“Then of course you must go to him.”
“If he still wants to see me. I hurt him. Then I left him.”
“Then the sooner you return, the narrower the gulf that you must overcome.”
Briah smiled her thanks, and then took her leave of the priestess. She walked through the town, back to the shore, and headed west. As soon as she was out of sight, and past the stretches of polluted water where the local people threw their garbage, Briah shed her clothes and jumped into the sea. She still wore her sharkskin boots, but being of the sea, they gave her no trouble. The coral knife she carried in one hand.
Briah felt the magic of the sea enfold her as she passed through the water as easily as any seal. The breath she took before diving seemed to last her all the way to the great hall of the seal king.
All of the roane were assembled there in human form, clearly waiting for her. Kamin sat between the king and queen, so much bigger than when she last saw him, just one season ago. For a moment, everyone seemed frozen in stone. No one spoke or moved (or perhaps Briah simply didn’t see it, for her eyes were locked on Kamin.) If he rejected her now, she realized, all she did would have been for nothing.
Kamin’s eyes grew big when he saw her. “Mama!” he cried, squirming to get down. Roane parted to make way for them, and Briah and Kamin met somewhere in the middle of the gathering.
“Kamin, oh, Kamin! I thought you would never forgive me for what I did.” Briah hugged her baby close to her. Kamin showed no sign that he understood his mother’s words, but laughed and cried simultaneously, clutching her tighter than any barnacle.
For her part, Briah showed no interest in letting him go either.
“It seems you were right after all.” Briah turned and found Taran beside her.
Briah shifted Kamin to one hip, and threw her free arm around the merrow. “I never would have succeeded without your help,” she said.
“Word has traveled throughout all the kingdoms of faerie,” said the king, “of a monster who was once a roane, slain by a woman who was once his slave.”
Briah brushed away a tear and tried to compose herself for the king. “Bards have a way of making anything sound important,” she said.
“I think there is little even a Silver-Tongue such as our Merrow could do to make the truth any greater, here. You took on the task of a hero; the burden of a king. All on your slim shoulders—and you saved us all. My only question is why?”
“Why?” Briah repeated dumbly.
“Why did you do it? And why alone? Only Merrow knew of your plans, and you swore him to secrecy.”
“I thought if you knew, you would have stopped me. And then the burden would have fallen to Kamin—after hundreds more of you died, waiting for him to reach manhood.”
“But even Kamin would have had more help than a knife and a pair of boots! We’d have trained him; sent him forth with all the magic we possessed.”
“And he would have returned a killer who had murdered his own father! What place would he have had among you then?”
“He would have had our gratitude, as you have now,” said the queen.
Briah faltered. “I... did not expect your gratitude. You are a gentle people who abhor violence—”
“So you thought we would press others to do our fighting for us—then refuse them a place in our world after they saved us?”
“It... has been known to happen. The taint of blood does not wash off easily. My greatest fear was that in killing Lir, Kamin would take Lir’s soul into his own. I could not let that happen.”
The king glanced from Briah to Taran, and Briah realized the roane were only now learning her motives. Taran had truly kept her words in confidence.
The king shook his head in wonder. “From this day forth,” he said, “you shall be known as diulannach-mor, as a hero from our oldest epics is called. For in protecting your son, you have spared us many years of death and terror—years which we would have accepted as inevitable. How can we ever repay you?”
“Allow me to take my son, and return to our home.”
“Of course,” said the king, bowing his head. “It was to rescue him that you came to our realm in the first place. You may leave any ti
me, with no fear that his seal kin have any further designs on your son.”
Briah saw her mistake and blushed. “I do not wish to cheat Kamin of his family; you have given him more than I ever could. Perhaps that is why I wanted so much to take him away. But now that he’s safe from being made into a weapon, and if you still welcome him as kin—”
“You are both our kin,” said the queen. “You will always have the power to travel beneath the water, anytime you chose. That, at least, we have the power to grant. Perhaps you will come to visit sometimes.”
“Yes, of course!” said Briah, surprised at the emotion she felt.
“Perhaps every year at Samhain and Beltane,” said Taran.
“When the walls between the worlds are thin,” Briah intoned the old saying. “Yes, we will. When Kamin grows up, he will choose for himself where to live. Until then, I want him with me. He’ll only be mine for a short time, regardless.”
“He’ll be yours his whole life, Briah,” said the queen.
“And now,” said the king, “is there nothing more we can give our diulannach-mor? We have silver and gold to make you comfortable Above for the rest of your days. We can bestow faerie gifts to make you powerful.”
The answer came unbidden to Briah’s lips, as if it had been there always. “Make me a healer,” she said. “Give me the power to heal others in body and spirit, as the ocean and the shore and all of you have healed me.”
The king and queen exchanged a glance. “We can do some of that,” said the king. “But the power to heal cannot be given by magic, like the ability to pass between worlds.”
“The power of a healer,” said the queen, “comes from a gift within, and years of study. You already have the inner gift. Our greatest healers will teach you all they can. The rest will be up to you.”
“Now,” said the king. “Let us feast.” The royal couple led Briah and Kamin to their feasting hall, and placed Briah, with Kamin on her lap, between them. Taran had already prepared a song—not about Briah’s slaying of Lir—but one about the bond between a mother and a child. He used the tune of one of the lullabies Briah always sang to Kamin.
****
It was nearly dawn when Briah waded onto the shore, with Kamin asleep in her arms. Taran swam as far as the shallows beside her. Briah stared in wonder at the objects littering the beach: dishes, tools and ornaments, beautifully made from shell and stone were laid neatly out.
The merrow smiled. “The king and queen can give faerie gifts,” he explained. “But everyone wanted to show their appreciation. They’ll never let you go hungry, you know. And this beach will always be yours.”
“Funny,” said Briah. “When I first came here, that’s all I ever dreamed of. Now that I have it, I find myself wanting more. I want this beach to become a sanctuary; a place anyone with need may visit, but no one but me may stay.”
“Then I think you shall have it. But are you sure you want to be alone like that?”
Briah’s eyes shone in the moonlight, as she gazed at Taran’s green skin. “Are you sure you want to?”
The Taran smiled. “Perhaps I should be your first patient.”
Briah looked again at the beautiful gifts, then at the even more beautiful cove where she had made a home for herself and her son. “It’s still a little hard to accept. I’m being rewarded for thwarting the will of a king, and killing my son’s father, who was a king as in his own right. And even if it turned out well for everyone but Lir, I still did it for selfish reasons: to avenge myself, and to keep Kamin from being touched by his father’s evil.”
“Whatever your reasons, you did a great thing,” said Taran. “But I don’t think you needed to worry about Kamin. Even if it had been he who slew Lir, as the roane planned, he could never have been taken over by Lir’s evil.”
“What makes you so sure?”
“Because he has you for a mother.”
Briah tried to speak and found she could not. So she kissed Taran, and carried her son home.
EPILOGUE
Briah felt the familiar tingle that told her that a stranger had arrived on her beach. With a wink at Taran, who lounged in the shallows, she stood, wiping sand from her hands and rubbing her stiff back. White hair reached her waist now, and she ached in places that not so long ago she didn’t know she had. Or maybe it was very long ago. Time slid by so easily in this place. She moved slowly toward the tunnel that connected the beach with the outside world, but with the same easy grace she’d always had.
The waters had receded from the tunnel, yet still the young woman hesitated. She’d better hurry, thought Briah. Time is short—in more ways than one, if I read her face correctly.
“May I help you, daughter?” Briah asked.
Gasping, the woman shot forward through the tunnel, but hesitated when she came within an arm’s length of Briah, then seemed to lose all powers of speech.
“Come out of the sun.” Briah led her petitioner into the cool recesses of the little cave, and poured water from a ceramic jug into a seashell cup for her.
“Are you the seal queen?” the woman cried suddenly.
Briah laughed. “That is how most humans in this land interpret the title of diulannach-mor. The roane are my kin, and my son is their king, so perhaps seal queen is not so far off.”
“And is it true that you are wed to a hideous fish-man, but that your daughter by him is a beautiful mermaid, who rescues sailors from storm and shipwreck?”
“Both of my children are fair to look upon, as any mother would tell you,” said Briah. “But then, so, I think, is my husband. If it’s music you seek, or a guide through the waves, I will take you to meet him. But if it’s healing you need, perhaps you’d best tell me.”
The stranger shook her head and began to cry. “There is a terrible sickness in my village. Three children and two old men are already dead. Nearly everyone else is ill. It is said you will help any who are in need, if they but come to you. That you never leave your temple, but that you have great powers of healing.”
“I suppose my powers are great if they meet your needs and poor if they do not. Describe this sickness to me.”
Squeezing her eyes shut, the young woman held out her hands. Pale red spots had already begun to appear. Briah examined them, then felt the woman’s forehead, brushing her hair aside to discover spots on her neck as well.
“You must return to your village quickly, before the delirium strikes, and you are unable to return with the medicine.”
Fevered eyes flew open. “You have medicine that can help us?”
Turning her back, Briah took a clay jar from a natural shelf in the cave. “This contains the oil of a certain fish, mixed with a rare plant from beyond this island. A few drops in a cup of willow bark tea will give those with the strength the power to fight this illness. The rest you cannot help. Take it, but listen carefully: let no one leave your village until ten days after the last marks have disappeared from the bodies of those who are sick. And let no one enter your village during that time.”
The visitor stared, and then fumbled with the basket she carried. “I brought dried meat. And dyed cloth—it’s what our village does best. We don’t have much else but—”
“This is enough,” said Briah. “You must go quickly, before the tunnel fills again.”
“Bless, you Seal Queen,” said the younger woman.
Briah watched her leave, and then returned to the beach where Taran waited for her on his favorite rock. It had taken time to find just the right spot for them to make their home: water deep enough for the merrow’s needs, calm enough for Briah to dwell within it for long stretches in comfort.
A smile lit Briah’s wrinkled face as she wondered how that young woman, so desperate for help, would have reacted had she actually seen her seal queen’s flesh and blood lover. His green, scaly face and red eyes would probably have terrified her. Had Briah ever seen him as ugly? She couldn’t remember. All she knew was that he looked exactly as he had the day they met.
And sang just as sweetly.
“Come rest a while!” called Taran. “The water’s fine—and you work too hard.”
“You mean, for a woman my age?” They both knew that she was aging faster than he. It was one of the problems of cross-species romance they hadn’t thought about when it began. Still, thanks to the roane, Briah could look forward to many more years of peace and contentment on this beach. Longer than most humans, but that, she hoped would remain a secret; part of her mystery.
“No,” he said. “I mean I miss having you in my arms, and I can’t stay with you up there on the land for long.”
“I’ll be with you as soon as I finish getting these cockles.”
They both grinned. After all these years, they were still her favorite food.
END
Sandra Saidak is a high school English teacher by day, author by night. Her hobbies include reading, dancing, attending science fiction conventions, researching prehistory, and maintaining an active fantasy life (but she warns that this last one could lead to dangerous habits such as writing). Sandra lives in San Jose with her husband Tom, daughters Heather and Melissa, and two cats.
Writers she counts as her greatest influences include Jean Auel, Spider Robinson, Zena Henderson, Marion Zimmer Bradley and Ursula Le Guin.
Sandra’s prehistoric fiction series, Kalie’s Journey began with the novel, Daughter of the Goddess Lands, an epic set in the late Neolithic Age, and published in November 2011 by Uffington Horse Press. Book 2 of the series, Shadow of the Horsemen, was released in July of 2012. A story set in the Kalie universe can be found in Sandra’s short story collection, In the Balance.
Sandra loves to hear from her readers, so feel free to post a comment on her Author’s Page, or her website at http://sandrasaidak.com/
Table of Contents
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
The Seal Queen Page 21
