The Fathomless Caves

by Kate Forsyth

  It was a striking picture, the boy with golden eyes and curls, his bright wings just showing beneath his cloak, the girl with straight black hair and silvery-blue eyes, both with the white lock of the MacCuinns at their brow. Together they climbed out of the boat and walked up the steps to kneel at Nila’s and Fand’s feet. The King of the Fairgean crowned them both with delicate little coronets of pearls and diamonds. In the centre of Bronwen’s coronet was a small black pearl, showing she was acknowledged as Fairgean royalty.

  Nila then turned and faced the crowd, holding Bronwen’s hand with his right hand and Donncan’s with his left. He bowed low to the crowd, then with great ceremony placed the children’s hands together, stepping back so they faced the crowd hand in hand. There was much cheering and melodic ululating, then servants began to walk through the crowd, pouring out sea-squill wine and offering little delicacies of raw fish, roe and seaweed.

  ‘Well, I can begin to breathe easier now,’ Maya said sardonically to Isabeau. ‘Surely the MacCuinn will no’ burn his future daughter-in-law’s mother to death?’

  There was no doubt Maya the Ensorcellor remained a quandary for the Rìgh. He had been convinced not to demand punishment of Fand, despite her having conjured the spell that had drowned the land. Isabeau had been able to convince him she had been an unwilling tool of the Priestesses of Jor, whom she herself enacted justice upon with her fiery dragon breath.

  Maya’s case was not so simple. It was not just that she had been Lachlan’s arch-enemy for many years now. She was dangerous. So strong and subtle was her charm that the soldiers set to guard her were constantly caught trying to set her free, their loyalties bewildered, their senses befuddled with her beauty. Wherever she went was a little turmoil of trouble and confusion.

  Yet she had proved to be one of the linchpins of their victory at Bonnyblair, and Lachlan had to admit peace may not have been won without her. And he knew that peace was still precarious. Maya was King Nila’s sister and Bronwen’s mother. He would gain little but revenge from ordering her death.

  Isabeau was able to provide a solution to one of the problems. Brun the cluricaun was set to be Maya’s guard. Cluricauns were impervious to magic and indifferent to human beauty. Brun had suffered greatly from Maya’s Decrees Against The Faeries. He would not be swayed by her charm, physical or magical.

  Thereafter Maya’s tall, slim figure was never to be seen without the little hairy cluricaun, a delicate chain joining them always. A comical sight, yet somehow pitiful. Maya made no attempt to escape, saying huskily, ‘But I am willing to accept the MacCuinn’s justice. I do no’ wish to escape.’ No-one knew whether to believe her, not even Isabeau.

  A month after the coronation Lachlan and the Greycloaks were ready to return to Lucescere. They had erected monuments to the dead and recovered their strength in the clear mountain air. They had helped the MacSeinn begin building a new town on the shores of Loch Bonnyblair, with a new castle and a new witches’ tower, to be called the Tower of Song. There all types of music would be taught and celebrated, not just those that killed Fairgean. All were now eager to return home and pick up the threads of their lives, broken and tangled by the long and bloody war.

  ‘I never thought I would say this, but I must admit I dread the long sea journey home,’ Lachlan said one night. ‘Much as I love my ship, I have had enough o’ her for quite a long time, I feel.’

  Everyone agreed fervently. They had been living on the ship for most of the past month while the foundations of Castle Bonnyblair were being built, and cramped and uncomfortable quarters they had been too.

  ‘How are we to get her back to the sea, anyway?’ Iseult asked. ‘Nay, it would be best if we went back over the Bridge To Beyond The Known and crossed the Spine o’ the World.’

  ‘Either way, it’ll take us months,’ Lachlan said with dissatisfaction. ‘I just want to get home! I need to see how the rest o’ the country has fared in my absence, and how much damage was caused by the quake-wave.’

  Isabeau was struck by an idea. She said nothing but the next morning she rose early, long before the dawn. With Buba flying before her like a snowflake blown on the night wind, she made her way deep into the forest. She had no need of a light, for she could see nearly as clearly at night as she could by day. It was still a rough scramble, though, through thicket and bush and bramble. She had no prior knowledge of where to go, but her body knew when it came close to a line of power. It thrummed beneath her feet and led her unhesitatingly to a ring of stones raised upon a high, green hill, deep in the secret fastness of the forest.

  Her breath was coming fast, for she had hurried, knowing dawn was near. She waited until the light of the rising sun had struck through the trees and upon the standing stones, then she laid her hand upon one of the symbols engraved deep into the rock. An electric shock ran up her arm and all her nerve ends tingled, but she did not flinch or open her eyes. In her mind’s eye she imagined the shadows of clouds racing over fields of wild wheat. The tingling intensified, until her hand felt like it was being stung by a swarm of wasps. She waited until she could bear the pain no longer, then opened her eyes.

  A tall, slender figure stood before her, dressed all in shimmering white. Her skin and flowing mane of hair were white, and her eyes were as translucent as water. In the centre of her forehead, just between her brows, was an intricate knot of wrinkles, though the rest of the Celestine’s face was smooth and serene. She lifted her multi-jointed fingers to her brow and bowed, murmuring in her own humming language.

  Isabeau returned the ritual greeting, then allowed the Celestine to touch her fingers to her own brow. The bud of wrinkles on the Celestine’s forehead slowly unknotted to reveal a third eye, dark as a starless night, that glimmered with liquid reflections.

  Greetings, Isabeau Shapechanger. Glad I am to see the Key upon your breast, as sad as I am to know that Meghan of the Beasts is no more. She was always our true friend.

  Tears stung Isabeau’s eyes. I miss her horribly. I do no’ ken how I shall manage without her.

  But you will, the Celestine replied serenely. You must.

  Isabeau nodded, swallowing her grief. She did not need to say any more for the Celestine could see clearly into her mind. She stood passively beneath the touch of her fingers and let the Celestine Cloudshadow know all there was to know.

  Great grief, great joy. Always they come together, the Celestine said, her mind-voice full of sorrow. So you wish to travel the Old Ways once more, my friend. And not alone this time, but with many hundreds of strangers, their boots trampling our sacred ways.

  Isabeau nodded.

  You know we guard the secret of our roads jealously, the Celestine said. They would have to walk blindfolded, trusting in me to lead them true.

  Again Isabeau nodded her head.

  They will hear the shrieks of banshees and ghosts, and feel the cold clutch of their fingers. They will sense the spite of malevolent spirits, who will whisper doubts into their minds. They will not know if the very next step will lead them astray, to other times and other worlds. Yet none must remove their blindfold. Can you promise me this?

  Isabeau hesitated, then mutely shook her head. I will warn them. I will make sure they all understand.

  Even that proud winged king of yours?

  Isabeau twisted her mouth ruefully. Aye, even Lachlan. Though he will no’ like it.

  All to the good, Cloudshadow replied without the faintest inflection of humour. Very well. Though never before has a Stargazer of the Celestines allowed such a thing. We made our mark upon your king’s Pact of Peace, however, and it is true he has tried hard to help the Celestines heal the land. He has sung the summerbourne with us many times now and the magic of his voice has made the water run pure and strong. We shall help him go home now in thanks.

  She bowed once more to Isabeau and stepped back through the door of stone, disappearing into empty air.

  The date chosen for the Greycloaks’ return to Lucescere was Beltane, the
first day of May, exactly a year since the Fairgean had taken Rhyssmadill by surprise. In Lucescere, Maya’s fate would finally be decided.

  Every man, woman and child was securely blindfolded, their hands linked in a long daisy-chain of curiosity and apprehension. One by one they were led through the doorway of stone. Unable to see, the electric shock that ran through them was all the greater.

  Many jolted to a halt, crying aloud in pain and surprise. They were dragged forward by the hand of the person ahead, in turn dragging on those behind them. It was like trying to run blindfolded through a rough, cold sea full of stinging jellyfish, that swirled about their knees and buffeted them from side to side. Many would have torn off their blindfolds or refused to go on, if they had not been clinging on so tightly to the invisible hand of the person ahead of them.

  They seemed to stagger on for hours. The path undulated beneath their feet, and their ears were filled with wailing and whispering, the taunts of a thousand ghosts. Some found it all too hard to bear, and cried out in horror or remorse, begging to be allowed to escape the Celestines’ secret way. The daisy-chain of hands held firm, however, and one by one they stepped through another doorway of stone into the garden at the heart of the Tower of Two Moons’ maze. The journey which had taken them so many months to complete the year before had taken just a few hours.

  In Lucescere the bells rang out in joyous celebration. A great feast was held in honour of the victorious Rìgh, who had done more than any rìgh before him to ensure a lasting peace in Eileanan. For the first time in Eileanan’s long and turbulent history, all countries and all peoples were united and sworn to harmony. All their enemies were vanquished, all obstacles overcome.

  All enemies except for Maya the Ensorcellor. Her trial was a long and public one. Lachlan was determined that all should see justice be done. Many witnesses were called, and the arguments about her fate were bitter. ‘Burn her!’ many of the witches called. ‘Let her feel the agony she inflicted on our kindred.’

  ‘Let us hang her,’ advised the judges of the royal court, appointed from both the aristocracy and the merchant classes. ‘We must show strength against those who plot treason.’

  ‘Let her live,’ said the Keybearer Isabeau NicFaghan. ‘She has atoned many o’ her crimes in the killing o’ the Fairgean king and the saving o’ Donncan and Bronwen MacCuinn.’

  ‘But surely she has no’ atoned them all? She should die!’

  ‘Let her live,’ said Isabeau. ‘If she dies, we lose all that she kens, o’ sea-magic and the power to transform, o’ the art o’ far-seeing and the culture o’ the Fairgean, and much more besides. So much knowledge has been lost already. Let her labour in the libraries, preserving what little knowledge we still have and recording all that she kens.’

  ‘But what o’ retribution?’ the witches asked. ‘How is that a righteous punishment?’

  ‘But she shall be a servant to the witches that she sought to destroy,’ Isabeau said. ‘She shall serve the Coven and work to promote it. The Ensorcellor is a proud woman. She has been the most powerful person in the land, able to decide the life or death o’ all about her. What do ye think is a more just punishment? A quick death, or a long humiliation?’

  The judges and jurors were silent for a long time. But then Lachlan stood, his face very grim. ‘She is too dangerous to be allowed to live,’ he said. ‘We have all heard o’ how she laid her charm upon many hundreds o’ people, my own brother Jaspar among them. She is a powerful and subtle sorceress who has no compunction in compelling people against their will. If she was able to ensorcel the MacCuinn himself into raising his hand against the Coven, what could she do to someone o’ lesser will and power?

  ‘How are we to ken that ye too have no’ fallen under her charm, Keybearer? Ye have spent much time wi’ her in the past. I ken ye wish to see no more killing, and fear that the execution o’ the Ensorcellor will lead to strife and trouble in the future. Certainly King Nila has asked us most forcibly for clemency and grace in this case. Yet, apart from my own anger and grief at what she has done in the past, I fear what she may do in the future. We have only just won peace. How can we risk it by allowing the Ensorcellor to live?’

  The crowd all murmured in agreement. Isabeau nodded. ‘Your words are just, Your Highness. What if we were to bind her?’

  There was a little stir of surprise. ‘Bind her?’ Lachlan asked slowly. ‘Do ye mean keep her chained as we have done these past months, with a cluricaun to guard her?’

  Isabeau shook her head. ‘Nay, I mean bind her powers. Render her impotent.’

  They all heard a little gasp of dismay. Maya was leaning forward in the box, all her colour drained away. ‘No!’ she cried. ‘Kill me rather.’

  The courtroom buzzed. Lachlan waited till the noise had died away, then said slowly, ‘But is such a binding possible?’

  ‘If it is a weaving o’ the nyx, I believe so,’ Isabeau answered. ‘Did they no’ weave the cloak o’ illusions that kept ye safe in the guise o’ a hunchback for so many years? Did they no’ weave magical gloves that hid Tòmas the Healer’s shining hands? I believe they could find a way to bind her powers.’

  Lachlan nodded. ‘Then I think that might be the answer,’ he said slowly. ‘If I could only be sure …’

  ‘Your son’s betrothed would be grateful indeed for the sparing o’ her mother’s life. It could have only a happy consequence for their future marriage,’ Isabeau pointed out. ‘And Bronwen would be able to grow up wi’ her mother near her always. Ye ken yourself how much ye have always missed your own mother, who died when ye were so young.’

  Lachlan nodded, a shadow falling upon his face.

  ‘King Nila would be beholden to ye, and the Coven would no’ lose all that the Ensorcellor kens. Believe me when I say the Coven shall be grateful for that. It is time for us to lay to rest the sorrows o’ the past and look to building our future.’

  As she spoke, Isabeau turned to face the council of white-robed witches, a look of intense determination and conviction on her face. Many had found her appointment as Keybearer difficult to accept, for Isabeau was only twenty-four and many among them were older and, they thought, wiser. To her surprise, she saw her words had moved the witches. They were nodding to each other, and one or two were even clapping their hands in approval.

  ‘What say ye, your honours?’ Lachlan asked the judges. They had been leaning together and muttering, but now the head judge straightened up, saying with great authority, ‘If the Ensorcellor can be bound so that she is no longer a danger, and if she submits to labouring at the Coven’s behest, well then, I believe we have found a just and merciful solution. So be it!’

  So, chained to Brun the cluricaun, Maya the Ensorcellor was led from her prison cell down into the dark and secret caves beneath the ancient city of Lucescere, where no daylight had ever penetrated. There lived Ceit Anna, the oldest and most powerful of the nyx. For forty-two days and forty-two nights the nyx laboured, weaving a ribbon from her long mane of wild black hair. Close and intricate she wove her hair, while a circle of witches led by Toireasa the Seamstress chanted spells of binding over the ribbon.

  There, in the darkness of the nyx’s cave, the ribbon was wound about Maya’s throat, the ends woven together so there was no seam that could be unpicked, no knot that could be untied, no button or buckle that could be unfastened. Knife or scissors could not cut it, flame could not burn it or water dissolve it. When Maya was led at last from the underground caves and back to the Tower of Two Moons, blinking and shrinking from the light, it was found she had no voice. And so Maya the Ensorcellor, Maya the Once-Was-Blessed, in the end was known only as Maya the Mute.

  ‘I canna help but wonder if I did the right thing,’ Isabeau said. ‘It seems a cruel fate, to be bound speechless and powerless. Happen I should have let them execute her.’

  ‘What can any o’ us do but wonder if what we do is right?’ Dide answered. ‘Your reasons for pleading for her life were all sound, and ye ken
Bronwen is glad, even though her mother can only speak to her with quill and parchment.’

  ‘Still, is Maya glad?’

  ‘She’s alive at least.’

  Isabeau smiled. ‘Aye, there’s something in that.’

  ‘And so are we, thank Eà.’ Dide bent his dark head and kissed her lingeringly on the mouth. ‘Alive and at peace, two things I thought we would never be.’

  They were in the great library at the Tower of Two Moons, a room which ran the entire length and height of the main building. Six storeys high, it was lined with bookshelves from the floor to the domed ceiling, which was painted with scenes from the history of Eileanan. Narrow spiral staircases made of iron lace connected the ground floor to the six galleries, with tall lancet windows looking out upon the central garth where the fountain threw up sparkling arcs of water into the sunlit air.

  When Maya’s Red Guards had stormed the Tower of Two Moons, they had kindled the Burning with the thousands of books and scrolls that had once lined the great library. Though the room itself had been totally destroyed, it had been rebuilt easily enough with the labour of hundreds of artisans and craftsmen. The knowledge it had once contained was lost forever, though. Most of the bookshelves were empty and apprentices were hard at work all along the length of the room, trying to decipher the charred remnants of those books found in the ruins. Other apprentices were busy copying from texts lent by the Towers of Roses and Thorns and the Tower of Mists, the only witches’ towers that had not been burnt to the ground. Among them were Jay and Finn, sitting side by side, whispering and laughing. Finn was meant to be helping Jay in his struggle to learn to read, but by the sound of their low voices, not much work was being achieved.

  Maya the Mute also sat at one of the tables, a quill in her hand, a pile of parchment before her. Like the others quietly working around her, she was dressed in a severe black gown with her hair bound back from her brow. The nyx ribbon was a dark slash about her throat. There was something tragic about her austerity, for Isabeau was used to seeing her resplendent in red velvet and gold embroidery. With her scarred face, greying hair and plain clothing, it was hard to believe she had once been called the most beautiful woman in the land, and even harder to believe she had been the most powerful.