She was wrong: she was soon snoring, thoroughly exhausted from her overuse of magic. But she dreamed the most amazing dreams, of flying and dancing with the animals. She also dreamed of Bahdlahn—perfect, wonderfully wicked dreams!
She awoke with a start, surprised that it was light, and that, from the sounds around her, it had come some time ago! She wasn’t sure why she had awakened so suddenly, until she heard a scream, a horrifying shriek that chilled her to the bone.
She rolled out of bed and was moving before she even had time to think about what could be wrong, scrambling to and through the tent flap.
Many were out and about, calling and rushing to and fro, but most were converging on the center of that camp, near the main bonfire pit, and Aoleyn’s eyes widened when she noted the source of the screams.
The witch, Caia, staggered. She wore only her shift, which had been torn. Looking down at Caia’s bare legs she noticed a white-furred serpent, hanging by one fang from her inner thigh, its length dragging on the ground behind her. The snake wriggled, coiling about, trying to pull free, for its fang was hooked and caught deep into the woman’s flesh.
A warrior ran over and stomped upon the serpent, and Caia’s forward motion tore it free of her leg at last, sending her stumbling and tumbling to the ground.
The serpent turned on the man, coiling to strike, but it was Aoleyn, amazingly and completely on instinct, who struck first, stomping her foot and calling upon the blue stone in her anklet.
A patch of ice appeared beneath the man and the snake, and when the snake struck, it slid and missed, and when the man tried to dodge, he slipped and fell backward, crashing into the scorched remains of the previous night’s fire. Now other warriors converged, stabbing their spears to kill the serpent, while some women, including Connebragh of the Coven, ran to the fallen Caia, who was sobbing and shaking her head, spitting curses in denial.
Aoleyn immediately shrank back, not wanting to reveal that her jewelry, most of which remained hidden, was more than ornamental. What had she done? She wasn’t even certain! Several of her gemstones had called to her at once, her mind a jumble of how to react.
The blue stone on her anklet could create ice.
Now she knew.
But she didn’t want anyone else to!
She certainly didn’t maintain the enchantment, and the warriors all moved about curiously, shrugging and shaking their heads. One called out for the witch responsible to come forth and be hailed as a hero, but when no one took credit, another claimed that the white-furred snake must have done it!
“A foul beast with freezing breath!” another agreed.
Aoleyn stayed far back and out of the debate. She kept her gaze locked on Caia, and it was not a pleasant sight. The woman went into violent convulsions and began spewing up white foamy spittle.
Connebragh prayed over her with a wedstone crystal, but seemed to be doing little good. Aoleyn thought she should go and help, for surely Caia’s life was more important than her secret. But Mairen appeared and ran to Connebragh’s side, and Aoleyn shrank back farther, melting back into her tent to dress for the day.
Only then did she remember the sight of Innevah running from a tent—from Caia’s tent, she realized—when she had flown past in the body of the owl.
* * *
Mairen exited Caia’s tent, exhausted from her long hours of working the wedstone to alleviate the poor woman’s terrible suffering. Three of the twelve Coven sisters were in there now, to be replaced by three others in shifts that went all day and all night.
The sisters poured out their hearts and magic for poor Caia, whose eyes were rolled back, who shivered constantly while drooling white spittle without pause.
Mairen rubbed her face and made her way to her own tent.
They had to try.
She noticed Tay Aillig coming at her before she reached the tent flap, so she picked up her pace, not wanting to deal with the man, with anyone. But, unsurprisingly, Tay Aillig just pushed into the tent behind her.
“I am tired, Usgar-laoch,” she told him, holding her arm up to keep him at bay.
He just pushed past her.
“Aoleyn will replace Caia as the thirteenth,” he said as she started to tell him to leave.
Mairen’s protest stuck in her throat with surprise that this man would say such a thing! Tay Aillig was Usgar-laoch, yes, and among the most powerful men in the tribe, but the Coven was not his concern!
“The thirteenth?” she gasped. “Caia still breathes!”
“You cannot save her. It was a white-furred viper. There is no magic to defeat that poison.”
“She still breathes!”
“We’ve seen this before,” Tay Aillig replied somberly, shaking his head.
“This is not your concern.”
“It is. Aoleyn will be the thirteenth.”
“That is not your choice!” Mairen told him, and she started past him, grabbing him by the arm to escort him out of her tent.
But the powerful man tugged back, spinning Mairen on her feet to face him. “Aoleyn,” he said.
Mairen tried to pull free, but the man wouldn’t let her go, and nothing short of a lightning bolt would break this one’s iron grip. And now he was hurting her. She wriggled again, futilely.
“It is not wise for a man to hurt the Usgar-righinn,” Mairen warned, regaining her composure and pointedly straightening.
She was surprised when Tay Aillig let her go. “Aoleyn,” he said, but it was more a plea now.
“Caia—”
“Is soon dead!” he said sharply, jolting her with his intensity and reminding her that she couldn’t get away from him unless he allowed her to!
And the look on his face!
There it was, Mairen realized, and of course, she had suspected as much from the first whispers of Tay Aillig’s surprising choice in a wife. He wasn’t in love with Aoleyn, but with the power the promising young witch could bring to him. Mairen had heard of Brayth’s exploits in the battle, before the fossa had taken him. Even in that fight with the fossa, the man, or rather, Aoleyn working through him, had floated and thrown bolts of powerful lightning at the demon beast. Truly, Aoleyn had shown herself well in that battle, by all accounts of those in the field, and now Tay Aillig had come to believe that she would serve his ambitions well.
His ambitions. Despite the threatening circumstances, a smile began to creep onto Mairen’s face.
“You would be Usgar-triath,” she said. “That is your plan.”
She knew she had hit on the truth as Tay Aillig backed away a step.
“Elder Raibert is not well. This you know,” Mairen reasoned.
Tay Aillig didn’t respond.
Mairen moved up very close to him. “I am the Crystal Maven,” she reminded him. “Usgar-righinn. There is none more powerful than Mairen in the song of Usgar.”
She backed away when Tay Aillig laughed at her.
“So you wish me to claim you as my wife instead of Aoleyn,” Tay Aillig said, denying nothing.
“What you desire is power,” Mairen replied, and she looked up at him coyly.
“You are fifteen winters my senior.”
“And she is fifteen your junior.”
“And still young and beautiful,” Tay Aillig said viciously. “You should have begged me a decade ago, old hag.”
Mairen’s expression went stone cold. “They will stop you,” she promised. “You are Usgar-laoch, but haven’t the tartan to claim as Usgar-triath.”
“Elder Raibert grows frail.”
“Ahn’Namay will be named Usgar-forfach when Raibert is no more. There will be an Usgar-laoch and there will be an Usgar-forfach,” Mairen said with confidence.
Tay Aillig backed up a step and began to laugh. “Unless I service Mairen as her husband,” he said slyly.
“Usgar-triath, Usgar-righinn,” she said. She was surprised that she had been so forward here. Her position was secure, after all, as the most powerful woman in the tribe, the u
nquestioned leader of the Coven. She had been married twice, both long ago, but had been alone for decades now. She didn’t need the companionship of a man, certainly, and though she thought Tay Aillig quite handsome and found his strength and exploits extremely attractive, this wasn’t about any of that.
No, she wanted to win, wanted the most desired man in all of Usgar to desire her.
She wanted to beat Aoleyn.
That last thought had caught the Crystal Maven off-balance; she had to work hard to keep the surprise off her face. Aoleyn was small and dark. For all the potential of the young woman—no, the girl, Mairen decided—she was not even of the Coven, and could only join that sisterhood with her blessing.
Lots of Usgar women had potential, but only one could be Usgar-righinn.
It made no sense to Mairen that she should care about this, about Tay Aillig and the girl he apparently found desirable, at all.
But she did.
“Aoleyn is the thirteenth, old woman,” Tay Aillig said then, with angry finality. “If you do not do this, you will betray all that you hold dear of Usgar tradition, and you will betray me. That is not a wise choice, I assure you.”
The coldness in his voice sent a shiver through Mairen’s spine, but she held firm against the overt threat.
Tay Aillig snorted at her, turned, and left the tent.
As soon as he was gone, Mairen slumped and had to lean on a table to keep her feet. She was truly exhausted by her work with Caia, and now emotionally drained from this unexpected and troubling encounter. How dare the Usgar-laoch demand of her his choice for the sacred Coven!
How dare he even speak of the thirteenth while poor Caia drew breath!
31
HEADLONG
The rope was still there. It was part of the tree now, with the branch actually growing around it, almost, it seemed to Talmadge, as if the tree had come to accept the rope.
He thought that fitting. Certainly his feelings about this place had changed, more dramatically than he had understood until he had stepped off his canoe and confronted the place once more.
The ghost of Badger was long gone, exorcised from his thoughts, the weight vanished.
Now he stood before the tree and he thought of Khotai, the love of his life, the woman who had shown him that his life was a journey, as narrow or wide as he desired it to be.
He missed her terribly in that moment, but still a smile of acceptance creased his face.
The image of her severed leg flashed in his thoughts, but it was a fleeting thing, chased away by the many other sweet moments that had defined their years together. He wanted her back—desperately so—but he also appreciated that he had known her at all.
Talmadge sighed and dropped his pack to the ground. He would camp here this night and set off to the south in the late morning—never again would he be on Loch Beag when the morning fog hadn’t fully cleared!
He would never again remain on the lake for long, nor would he go more than a few feet from the shore.
Car Seileach was a half-day’s paddle, but it would likely take Talmadge three days to get there.
He looked at the tree; he thought of Khotai. He was in no hurry.
* * *
He knew that Mairen’s reasoning was sound; the witch’s insistence that he would not so easily ascend to a position of complete leadership haunted Tay Aillig through the days. On more than one occasion, he even fancied ways he might kill Ahn’Namay; the only thing stopping him from making the attempt was his knowledge that there were others besides that one man who could lay claim to the title of Usgar-forfach.
That title was the sticking point, not the man. The tribe was typically led by three people—Usgar-forfach, Usgar-righinn, and Usgar-laoch—not two. Usgar-triath was a rare title, saved for only the most exceptional men—men who were still young enough and strong enough to lead in times of battle, but also wise enough to serve as judge in all the mundane matters of the tribe. Even though Raibert had made the title of Usgar-forfach somewhat of a joke, for the man did not even accompany the tribe to the summer encampment and was, by all accounts, quite unstable, when he passed, there would be many voices calling for a replacement.
Tay Aillig needed to do something dramatic to change that.
His hand went reflexively to his waist, to the hidden sunstone and amethyst jewel. He considered his encounter with the fossa, when he had sent the beast flying. He was fairly certain that he had stung it badly, without even trying.
But he could not know. Could he really hope to kill the thing?
Tay Aillig took a deep breath and nodded, still not sure of that, but he was certain that in the previous encounter, the fossa had been wholly blind to him.
Perhaps he and the three he had chosen wouldn’t win against the fossa, but still, Tay Aillig was convinced that he could hide from the fossa and get away.
Thus, it was worth the chance. For if he won, if he returned with the head of the dire fossa demon, none would dare speak against him in his ascent to Usgar-triath.
Not even Mairen.
* * *
The folk of Car Seileach greeted Talmadge with warm hugs and fine meals as if he hadn’t missed a season. The last time they had seen him as a broken thing reeling from the loss of Khotai.
This night, under the late-summer stars, Talmadge finally told the tale of the attack on the lake. Gasps and mumbled prayers came back at him when he spoke of the monster—even though all on Loch Beag knew of the creature, very few had ever actually seen it.
“Khotai is the first eaten by Sgath since before you first arrived, Talmadge,” Whisperer Bragha, the leader of Car Seileach, explained to him. “And you, Talmadge, are the only man I have ever known to escape an attack. The gods blessed your way.”
“The gods blessed your way,” all the others said with reverence.
Talmadge stared at the leader, the whisperer, of the village. Bragha was not a physically imposing woman, though she was tall. Her hair and eyes shone lightly, giving her a wispy appearance, almost as if she might float away on a breeze. But any who had dealt with her knew that this only made Bragha more impressive and formidable. She could put anyone, particularly a man, off-balance with a sidelong glance, and she often did so to her advantage. Her remark truly touched Talmadge. To have the leader suggest that he had been blessed by the gods was about the highest form of acceptance any outsider could ever hope for here around Loch Beag.
“Perhaps if I knew your gods better, I wouldn’t be so afraid to be on the water,” Talmadge replied with a self-deprecating chuckle. “It took me many days to cross Loch Beag.”
“Blessed,” Whisperer Bragha corrected. “Not bless. They pushed you to shore. A meal escaped is often a meal delayed and less often a meal avoided.”
The chuckles around the fire clued Talmadge in to the woman’s meaning. They said that he had been lucky, not necessarily that the luck would hold. They also reminded him that he was dealing with a whisperer who weighed every word very carefully.
“We are eager to take your wares,” Bragha went on. “Your absence was hurtful. But we are short with pearls and you are thick with gold and silver.”
Talmadge nodded, for it was true enough; he had stockpiled quite the haul of trinkets, rings, fine chains, and jewels over the last couple of years, mostly because without Loch Beag, he had few connections who wanted such items in exchange for his fish and furs. Apparently, he had done better in accumulating barter than this tribe had done in gathering payment!
“As always, Whisperer Bragha, Car Seileach is first to choose,” he said respectfully.
“How far will Talmadge go this year? The winds speak of early winter and you have spoken of short paddles on the water.”
“I hope to visit as far as Fasach Crann,” he replied, and only when the name left his mouth did he realize just how badly he wanted to see that place again. “But I would keep my canoe here, if you agree, and walk.”
That brought some surprised whispers around the fire
.
“You will not find many days there, if you even get there,” Whisperer Bragha warned. “Your walk is longer by many days.”
Talmadge nodded his understanding. The southern expanse of Loch Beag was broken with swift rivers flowing down from the mountains, and long inlets and marshes, and in many areas along his way, he would have to swing far inland to circumvent the obstacles. Still, those same inlets, like the one he had passed with Khotai just beyond Carrachan Shoal, were the reason he had found his canoe so far from shore and so vulnerable to Sgath. He had no desire to try his luck with that again, no matter how inconvenient or inefficient a hike might be.
“And your path will bring you to Frith Fireach,” Bragha warned, referring to the foothills of the great mountain.
Talmadge nodded, not surprised, but still determined to walk to Fasach Crann and the villages in between that coveted place and this one.
“And the Reaper Moon will wear red this year, so whisper the creatures,” said Bragha.
Talmadge nodded, thinking he would do well to remember to have himself in a village for the three days of the fullest moon. He recalled his night with Khotai the last time he had seen such a moon, when they had witnessed some great commotion on the mountain.
Yes, there were demons on Fireach Speuer, Usgar deamhain, at least, if not some greater, more sinister force. Still, Talmadge would walk, to Fasach Crann and back. Whatever might lurk up there could not be worse than the creature the tribes called Sgath.
And so he walked out of Car Seileach a couple of days later, confident of his choice.
* * *
“You’re lucky you haven’t lost it!” Aoleyn said to Bahdlahn as she examined his hand and the blackened finger he had crushed under a stone the previous day. She immediately sighed and assumed a more sympathetic pose, realizing that part of her anger was coming from guilt, for not having come to visit the previous night.
She went to work immediately with the wedstone magic, imparting healing warmth to the ever-uncomplaining young man. She couldn’t believe that she had found him working, and using that very broken hand. His tolerance for pain shocked her.
Child of a Mad God--A Tale of the Coven Page 39
