Brighid's Quest

by P. C. Cast

  “Where are your parents now?” Brighid forced herself to ask.

  Before she answered, Ciara looked at Cuchulainn. The warrior returned her gaze steadily, with eyes that had once more gone flat and expressionless. She turned slowly back to Brighid. When she spoke her voice was shadowed with grief.

  “More than two decades ago my parents committed suicide. They chose to die in each other’s arms before they succumbed to the evil that was choking the humanity from them. As they wished, I scattered their ashes into the south.” Ciara’s eyes pierced Brighid almost as fully as did her next words. “I am my people’s Shaman. Trained by my mother, who followed the ways of her mother, the Beloved of Terpsichore. I would not lie to you, Huntress. I sense you have knowledge of the Shaman Way. Can you not discern the truth in my words?”

  Brighid felt more than saw Cuchulainn straighten in his seat. She hadn’t told anyone—not Cu, not even his sister. How did Ciara know?

  “Shamans can lie,” Brighid said. “I know that from my own experiences.”

  “Yes, they can.” Ciara’s open, honest face was tinged with sadness. “But I do not.”

  “They all committed suicide,” Brighid said.

  “Not all. Most did. The others…” Ciara looked away. She laced the fingers of her hands together. Her knuckles whitened under the pressure with which she held herself together. “The madness claimed the others and shortly afterward they died, too.”

  “It pains you to speak of it,” Brighid said.

  “Yes, very much.” Ciara forced her hands apart and pressed her palms into the smooth wood of the table. “You have to understand what happened to us when Elphame fulfilled The Prophecy and took the madness from our blood. All these long years we fought against the evil within us, even though it caused us pain and each battle cost us a piece of our humanity. And then suddenly that great, sucking evil was gone.” Ciara’s breath caught and her eyes glistened as she relived the moment. “What is left within each of us now is what we fought so hard to keep. Our goodness. Our humanity. We want to move forward—to become the people our human mothers believed us to be so long ago. When I remember the horrors of the past and those of us who were defeated before salvation came, it feels like I am deconstructing the fortress of goodness within my mind. Grief and sadness drift into darkened corners. Disillusion moves in until breathing in remembrance does nothing but barricade the doors and seal in pain.” She didn’t turn to look at Cuchulainn, but Brighid felt that Ciara was speaking more to him than to her. “Dwelling on tragedy makes grief become like a dripping icicle that begins as a small, harmless sliver of coldness. But slowly, as the winter of mourning progresses, layer after dripping layer hardens into an unbreakable dagger of pain.” Ciara straightened her back and turned her hands, so that they rested palm up in a gesture of openness and supplication. “Test me, Huntress. I know you have the ability to discern any falseness in my words. I welcome your scrutiny.”

  Brighid ignored Cuchulainn, who had stopped eating and was staring at her with a mixed expression of surprise and revulsion. She drew in a long breath and focused her keen powers of observation—powers that were, just as Ciara had sensed, enhanced by the rich Shaman heritage that was her birthright—upon the winged woman. As when she searched out prey for her Clan, the Huntress scented more than the air. She breathed in the spiritual essence of that which she sought. And what she sought there in the longhouse was the dark spoor left by evil and lies.

  Ciara sat still and serene, waiting patiently for the Huntress to search her spirit and see what lived there.

  “You’re not hiding anything from us,” Brighid finally said.

  Ciara’s smile was radiant again. “No, Huntress. I am not hiding anything from you. But if it would rest your mind, I invite you to travel with me on a true spirit journey to the Upperworld, and I will pledge before Epona Herself that my words are truth.”

  Brighid felt a cold fist close around her heart. Using her innate powers to feed her Clan or to know the truth about Ciara and therefore keep the MacCallans safe, was one thing. To her it was no different than piercing the heart of a noble stag with an arrow. It was not pleasant, but it was something she must do in order to fulfill the path she had chosen for her life. But she would not travel on a spirit journey. She knew only too well who she would meet.

  “No,” she said a little too quickly. “That won’t be necessary, Ciara.”

  “You have the power within you, but you do not take the Sacred Journey?”

  “No. I am a Huntress, not a Shaman.”

  Ciara opened her mouth, and then changed her mind and simply nodded slowly. “We each must find our own path.”

  Cuchulainn stood so abruptly that he almost knocked aside the bench. “It is time I retire for the night.”

  Ciara made no attempt to hide her disappointment. “But the storytelling will begin shortly. The children will be asking for you.”

  “Not tonight,” he said curtly.

  “I, too, must ask your indulgence that you allow me to retire early. My journey here has been a long and tiring one,” Brighid said, rising gracefully and walking around the table to stand beside Cuchulainn.

  Ciara’s disappointment turned quickly to a gentle look of understanding. “Of course. Rest well tonight, Brighid.”

  Before they turned to leave, Cuchulainn said in his terse voice, “Tomorrow I want to explore the pass. I think it might be clear enough that we can begin our journey soon.”

  “That’s an excellent idea. I’ll make plans to join you,” Ciara said.

  Cuchulainn grunted. Without waiting for the Huntress, he strode briskly out the door, leaving Brighid to smile and wave apologetic goodbyes to the disappointed children.

  Torches were lit all over the settlement and it didn’t take long for Brighid’s sharp eyes to pick out his hunched back as he walked briskly between lodges. She caught up with him easily.

  “You have Shaman powers,” he said without looking at her.

  “Yes. Though I choose not to, I do have the ability to travel the Sacred Journey and to commune with the spirit realm. It’s in my blood—” she paused and glanced at his stony profile “—from my mother. She is Mairearad Dhianna.”

  Her words brought him up short. “You are the daughter of the High Shaman of the Dhianna Herd?”

  “I am.”

  “Which daughter?”

  Brighid set her face in carefully neutral lines. “The eldest.”

  He shook his head in disbelief. “But your herd’s tradition is that you follow your mother as High Shaman.”

  “I have broken with tradition.”

  “Yet you carry that power within you,” he said.

  “Yes! You sound like I just announced that I carry within me a rare plague. Your father is a High Shaman, too. Don’t you know a little of what it’s like to have the power and to choose not to walk the exact path it wishes to lead you down?”

  Cuchulainn’s jaw clenched and unclenched. “You already know the answer to that, Brighid. I want no traffic with the spirit realm.”

  The Huntress threw up her hands in frustration. “There are other ways to deal with the powers that touch our lives than to totally reject them.”

  “Not for me.” He ground out the words between his teeth.

  “Your sister is the eldest daughter of Epona’s Chosen. Tradition holds that she should follow her mother as The Beloved of Epona, yet all who know her understand that it is her destiny to be The MacCallan. She has not turned from the powers inherent in her blood. She used her affinity for earth magic to bring MacCallan Castle alive. Like her, I have chosen not to follow tradition, but I do not completely reject the gifts of my heritage.”

  He was silent, staring at her like she was a pariah. Brighid sighed, keeping her growing anger in check by reminding herself it wasn’t her he battled against—it was himself.

  “My affinity is for the spirits of animals.”

  His eyes narrowed. “That’s why your abilities as a H
untress are so vast.”

  Brighid snorted. “I like to think that I use my affinity to enhance rather than to create my abilities.”

  “I don’t see any difference in the two.”

  “Be very careful, Cuchulainn. Remember that you speak to your Clan’s Huntress. I will not tolerate your slander.” Brighid’s voice was tightly controlled, but her eyes were bright with anger.

  Cuchulainn hesitated for only an instant before he nodded slowly. “You are quite right to remind me, Huntress. Please accept my apology.”

  “Accepted,” she said shortly.

  “Would you rather lodge elsewhere?” he asked.

  She snorted again, letting some of the tension relax out of her shoulders. “Is sending me into a lodge filled with children how you plan to torture me for my transgression into the spirit realm?”

  “No,” he said quickly. “I just thought that you might not—”

  “Let’s just get some sleep.”

  “Agreed,” he said.

  They walked on in silence. Brighid could sense the turmoil within the grim warrior who stalked beside her. He was a notched arrow waiting to explode. When he spoke suddenly, his voice sounded like it came from a tomb.

  “You would have used your powers to save her, wouldn’t you?”

  She looked quickly over at him, but he did not meet her eyes.

  “Of course I would have, but my gift isn’t one of preordination. I already told you I simply have an affinity for…” But her voice faded as she realized what he was really saying. He had been forewarned of Brenna’s death by a premonition of danger. A warning he had rejected just as he had always rejected anything from the spirit realm. She stopped and placed a hand on his shoulder, turning him so that he had to look at her. “No matter how much you punish yourself or me or your sister, Brenna will remain dead.”

  “I’m not punishing you or Elphame.”

  She raised one eyebrow.

  “I—I can’t seem to get away from it!”

  “It?” she asked.

  “The pain of her loss.”

  She felt the tightness of his shoulder muscles under her hand. What could she say to him? She wasn’t good at dealing with raw emotions. It was one reason she had chosen to become a Huntress. She’d wanted to leave the emotional turmoil of her old life behind. Animals were simple. They didn’t agonize or manipulate or lie. Cuchulainn needed to talk to a Shaman, not a Huntress. But the warrior wouldn’t turn to a Shaman. By process of elimination she was all he had.

  “I don’t know what to tell you, Cu,” she said honestly. “But it seems to me that you can’t run away from that kind of pain. You have to face it. And then you decide if you’re going to heal and go on, or if you’re going to live life as one of the walking wounded. I do know which Brenna would choose for you.”

  He looked at her with old, tired eyes and tunneled a finger down the center of his forehead. “I know, too. I keep thinking that if I make her angry enough at me she will at least come to my dreams to berate me.” His dry, humorless laugh sounded more like a sob. “She doesn’t come. She won’t. I’ve rejected the spirit realm and that’s where she is.”

  Helplessly Brighid watched his agony. “You need to rest, Cu.”

  He nodded and, like a man sleepwalking, he moved forward again along the path to their lodge. He reminded Brighid of a wounded animal. He needed a miracle to heal him, or someone needed to put him out of his misery.

  7

  THE HEARTH FIRE had burned down to glowing coals, but Brighid’s sharp eyes needed very little light. She thought he was finally asleep. From her side of the lodge, she had watched the warrior struggle into sleep. It was as if his body fought against relaxation as another way to punish himself. No wonder he looked so haggard. What he needed was a cup of one of Brenna’s notorious tea concoctions to make him rest. The Huntress let out a long, slow breath. No, what Cuchulainn needed was Brenna.

  She was tired, too. What she had told Ciara about needing to retire early had been true. She rearranged her folded equine limbs and curled more comfortably on her side, breathing in the light, pleasing fragrance of the dwarf heather that covered the floor of the lodge. Her eyelids felt heavy, but she resisted the urge to sleep. Not yet. She had something she needed to see to first. And now that Cuchulainn was asleep she could begin.

  Staring into the glowing rust-colored coals she relaxed her body while she deepened and slowed her breathing. She would not take herself into the trance state that led to a Sacred Journey, but she did need the focused concentration of meditation, which was only the first step to the spirit world.

  Brighid wouldn’t travel further, though. She wouldn’t allow that. She never allowed that.

  Against the backdrop of the glowing coals, the Huntress pictured herself as she had been earlier that day when she had stood at the edge of the canyon precipice and first glimpsed the hybrid settlement below. She saw the neatly arranged camp and the well-constructed buildings. Then she looked again, but this time she saw with the senses beyond her eyes. The scene rippled, like breath blowing over water, and the colors changed. The dull gray and rust of the Wastelands shifted and was suddenly washed in a bright halo of green—a color that radiated life and health and the promise of spring. Brighid allowed herself to fall deeper into the trance and she expanded her senses. The halo of green intensified and her spirit sight became clearer. The light was actually coming from dozens of shining orbs that flickered brilliantly against the dreary colors of the Wastelands.

  Before she could focus her concentration more, she Felt something else, but she sensed it wasn’t coming from the settlement. In her vision there came a sudden tingling awareness from behind her. She imagined turning, and the mountains wavered and became red, as if they were bathed in blood. Startled, Brighid’s concentration broke and she was once more staring into the remains of the hearth fire.

  What did it all mean? She wished she had her mother’s knowledge. Think! she ordered herself. The hybrid camp had been painted in ethereal green. There were no negative connotations with that color. In the spirit realm it represented what it did in the physical world—growth and prosperity and life beginning anew. Had she seen any dark tinges within the verdant halo? No…Brighid sifted through the memory of her meditation. Ciara had been telling the truth. She was hiding no evil—at least no evil that Brighid could discover.

  Then her thoughts turned to the brief glimpse she’d had of the mountains. Their aura had definitely been scarlet. And the Feeling radiating from them had been different, more complex, tinged in darkness. Her brow furrowed and she restlessly shifted her bent legs. The mountain range had been named Trier, which was the word in the Old Language for the color red, for the red rocks and the small red-leafed plant that carpeted the lower slopes during the warmer months. Was that what her vision had reflected? That the mountains were aptly named and even in spirit they were red. Or did it go deeper than that? In the spirit realm the color red carried complex, conflicting symbolism. It stood for passion, but it also represented hatred. It foretold birth as well as death.

  She simply wasn’t certain—she glanced at the restlessly sleeping form of Cuchulainn—she wasn’t certain of anything here, except that she would remain alert and guard against anything that threatened her Clan. Brighid closed her eyes, but sleep didn’t come easily. She kept hearing the phantom sound of wings and seeing the horizon drenched in the scarlet color of blood.

  The morning was still young. The day had dawned bright and breezy, with an almost imperceptible shifting of the ever-present wind from the relentless frigid north to a slightly gentler northwesterly current that brought with it the distinct and enticing scent of the sea. Cu and Brighid had joined Ciara in the morning blessing ceremony, and after breaking their fast the three of them retraced the path Brighid and Cu had taken the day before, all the way to the mouth of the hidden mountain pass.

  But something wasn’t right. Ciara Felt it deep within her spirit. The closer they got to the mo
untains the more intensely she Felt the wrongness. It was more than just her lifelong dislike of the rocky barrier that divided them from Partholon and all that was good and green and growing. Today she Felt the warning crawl across her skin and lodge inside of her like the bite of a venomous spider. She wanted to believe it was just her imagination, just the fact that the Trier Mountains symbolized so many negatives. But she wasn’t an ordinary maiden. Ciara was her people’s Shaman; she didn’t need to be on a Sacred Journey to recognize a message from the spirit realm.

  She needed to get away from the mountains and the unease they seemed to be evoking. Then she could retreat to her lodge and open herself to the Sacred Journey. There Ciara could call upon her spirit guides to help her sort through the warning that had shaken her all the way to her soul. She realized she had been ready to bolt from the shadow of the mountains when Cu’s voice broke through her inner tumult and anchored her back in the physical world.

  “It’s melted quite a bit. If the weather holds, and all the signs say that it will, the trail should be passable in the next couple days,” Cuchulainn said thoughtfully, nodding his head while he squinted into the still snow-speckled path that led between two sheer edges of red rock and directly into the mountains.

  “You really think so?” Ciara forced her voice not to betray the fear that his words had sent spiraling through her.

  “I can’t see why not. It will, of course, be a difficult journey. But you said yourself that winter has broken.” He nodded his head at the narrow path. “At least there won’t be any more snow to block the way.”

  The Huntress watched Ciara and Cuchulainn as they peered into the dark slash in the ancient walls of rock. She folded her arms across her breast and shook her head at them. “You two must be totally mad.”

  The warrior frowned, but the winged woman simply shifted her gaze to the Huntress.