Brighid's Quest

by P. C. Cast

  “That could be the problem,” Cu said.

  “Yeah, but it’s only one of them,” Brighid said.

  13

  THE DRIZZLE KEPT up the entire day until even the children were subdued and comparatively quiet as they made camp that night. When Ciara completed the evening prayer with, “…Fill me with our Goddess’s blessed power, Touch me with her blazing might,” Brighid didn’t think she’d ever been so relieved to hear any words in her life.

  The homey warmth of the Shaman-enhanced campfire worked like a magical charm. Soon pots were boiling with stew supplemented with several stringy snow geese Brighid had shot not long before they stopped for the night. The Huntress rested beside the fire and the musty scents of the fuel and the stew mingled to lull her into a relaxed, contented state. By the Goddess, she was tired. Her dream the night before had definitely not provided her with much rest. The Huntress was used to going several days without sleep—sometimes hunts were exhausting, and a centaur’s stamina was always greater than a human’s. But one night flitting about the Otherworld had worn on her as if she had been hunting nonstop for a week.

  “Here, eat this. You look as bad as you claim I do.” Cu handed her a bowl of steaming stew and flopped down beside her.

  She blinked her eyes sleepily at him. “Is it safe?”

  “Like I’d poison you? I’d have to drag your carcass back to Partholon.”

  Brighid sniffed the stew apprehensively. “You’re probably not strong enough to drag me,” she muttered.

  “Don’t underestimate me,” he said.

  Brighid met his eyes. There was something behind the flatness. It wasn’t that he looked like the Cu she’d spoken with the night before—the happy, carefree young warrior whose charisma drew others to him—but she was sure she saw a spark of something, and that spark suddenly eased her exhaustion. He was talking to her. Actually he was bantering with her. It had to be a step in the right direction.

  “I like the goose, Brighid!” Like an annoying habit, Liam took his place beside her with an impish grin. “Kyna said she thought goose tasted like grease, but I don’t.”

  “Well, grease is good for you,” Brighid answered inanely as she struggled for something adult and wise to say to the boy.

  “I knew it!” he said joyously, digging into his bowl of stew.

  “Good for you? Grease?” Cuchulainn said under his breath.

  “Do you want to trade places with me and sit next to him?” Brighid whispered back.

  “Harrumph,” Cu said, becoming very busy with his own meal.

  “That’s what I thought,” she murmured, and then concentrated on her own stew while she let the warmth of the tightly circled tents and the gentle sounds of tired children wash over her. When Cu passed her the wineskin, she nodded her thanks and drank deeply from it, feeling the strong, red liquid spread its heat throughout her body.

  She was just about to tell Cu to take first watch so she could retreat to their tent before she embarrassed herself by falling asleep sitting up, when Nevin and Curran stood. Anticipatory whispers swelled and then stilled as the twin storytellers waited patiently for the children to settle themselves.

  “Our journey to the land of our foremothers continues,” Curran said, looking from one upturned face to another.

  “Today we feel their ancestral pleasure in the joyful tears they send from the sky,” Nevin said.

  Brighid snorted softly to herself. If the miserable drizzle was tears of joy then she wished the damned foremothers would contain their happiness. She felt eyes on her, and looked across the fire at Ciara, who caught her gaze with an amused smile that said the Shaman was reading her expression again. The Huntress looked hastily away.

  “Bathed in ancestral approval, our tale tonight evokes a time long past,” Curran said.

  “It begins in a place of legends, celebrated for the beauty, wisdom and integrity of the women educated there,” Nevin continued.

  Brighid’s curiosity was pricked and she roused herself from her sleepiness. They had to be talking about the Temple of the Muse—there was no single place in Partholon more celebrated for its rich history of higher learning or for the gifted women who studied there.

  “Tell us, children,” Curran said, “what are the names of the magical nine Incarnate Goddesses who dwell at the Temple of the Muse?”

  “Erato!” Liam’s voice called eagerly from beside her. “She is the Muse of Love!”

  Brighid ignored the besotted look he gave her, as well as the soft laughter that followed from the adult hybrids. Thankfully Kyna was quick to call out the next goddess’s name.

  “Calliope! The Muse of Epic Poetry.”

  And then the other seven names and titles followed, shouted by young, eager voices.

  “The Muse of History is Cleio.”

  “Euterpe, Muse of Lyric Poetry.”

  “Melpomene, the Muse of Tragedy.”

  “Polyhymnia, Muse of Song, Oration and Mathematics!”

  “My grandmother!” A small winged girl said as she jumped up and down, wings fluttering wildly. “Thalia, Muse of Comedy!”

  “Urania is my great-aunt, and she’s Muse of Astronomy and Astrology!” said the young man Brighid recognized as Gareth.

  “And don’t forget Ciara’s grandmother, Terpsichore, Muse of the Dance,” Kyna called.

  “We would not forget Terpsichore, child,” Curran said.

  “She is the subject of our tale tonight,” Nevin continued.

  His pronouncement was followed by a smattering of claps and delighted sounds from the children. Brighid looked at Ciara. The winged woman was smiling happily along with the rest of the New Fomorians. How much time had passed since Terpsichore’s death? Or, for that matter, how long had it been since Ciara’s mother, the Incarnate Goddess’s daughter, had committed suicide? With a start, Brighid realized she had absolutely no idea how old Ciara was. She knew one of the attributes the hybrids had inherited from their demon fathers was an unusually long lifespan. Elphame’s hybrid mate, Lochlan, appeared no older than a man in his prime, yet he had lived almost one hundred and twenty-five years. The Shaman looked as if she had lived barely twenty years, but she must be older. She carried herself with the same confidence that Brighid’s own Shaman mother exuded.

  Curran’s words reined in Brighid’s wandering mind with the threads of the story.

  “Each of the nine Goddesses was lovely in her own way, but Terpsichore was a rare beauty even amidst those divine. I remember her well from my childhood. Her beauty was not based simply upon the perfection of her face or figure.”

  As if they were one being, Nevin picked up the strand of the story neatly. “Terpsichore’s beauty lay in the magical grace with which she moved. Even as the fragility of her battered body kept her from dancing prayers to her Goddess, she never lost that singular way of moving that clearly marked her as Goddess-blessed.”

  Battered body? Brighid wondered, already intrigued. It had long been believed by Partholon that after the battle at the Temple of the Muse was lost, the Incarnate Goddesses and their acolytes had been slaughtered by the Fomorian horde. The Huntress thought about the amazing beauty of the paintings and carvings left behind at the New Fomorian settlement. Her eyes slid around the circle of winged people, noting the delicately carved bone jewelry so many of the children wore and the fine tooling of their roughly cured hides. The historians were definitely going to have some rewriting to do. The thought made her lips curve up. That was just one more in a long list of surprises for Partholon.

  “Ah, but we get ahead of ourselves,” Curran said. “Terpsichore was the first of our foremothers to die, but not before she left a legacy of life in the bringing of death.”

  “Makes no sense at all…”

  Cuchulainn’s grumble echoed Brighid’s thoughts, but she frowned at him and shushed the warrior, not wanting to miss any of the story.

  “It was a summer’s day like any other at the Temple of the Muse. The trees spread their gr
een coolness throughout the smooth ivory halls of learning. As the women went from temple to temple, studying dance and poetry and the stars, the sweet scent of golden honeysuckle perfumed the walkways. Jewel-colored songbirds darted amidst ceiling frescoes that seemed to be alive.”

  “Emerald ivy and bright ropes of flowers cascaded curtain-like from the roofs of the temples.” Nevin smiled at the children who were listening as attentively as the Huntress. “Even in the rooms dedicated to the learning of medicine and nursing of the sick, there was comfort and joy. The Temple of the Muse is a place of great beauty.”

  “It is also a place of peace,” Curran continued. “Unlike Partholon’s patroness, Epona, the Muses are not goddesses of war, and thus their temples were ill-equipped to be used as fortresses for anything more violent than the war against ignorance. Terpsichore had been entertaining the young acolytes who had fallen ill with a debilitating pox. Those of us who knew her, understand that the Incarnate Goddess used her talents to bring others joy and to honor her Goddess, even if in doing so she put herself at risk. So it is not surprising that she, too, became ill.”

  Nevin’s expression darkened as his voice neatly stepped into his brother’s pause. “And those of us who knew her understand that on the day of the great battle, when she had an opportunity to escape the invading demons, instead of fleeing and saving herself, she chose to stay with those who were more ill than she.”

  “Like my great-aunt, Urania!” Gareth called.

  “And my grandmother!” another child said.

  “And mine!”

  Little voices echoed throughout the night. The storytellers waited, patiently nodding and acknowledging each child until Brighid wanted to yell at them all to be quiet so she could hear the rest of the story. But soon they settled into listening silence once more, and Curran spoke again.

  “The demons overran the Temple of the Muse. The brave centaurs and Partholonian warriors could not hold back the invading army. Many women were captured, Incarnate Goddesses and their students—women who were the most talented and beautiful of Partholon. The demons ravaged them and used them to sate their own twisted desires.”

  Brighid’s chin jerked and her eyes darted hastily around the circle, disturbed by the blunt honesty of the tale, but no one else appeared shocked or upset, and Nevin hardly paused for the beat of a breath before he continued.

  “Terpsichore’s incomparable beauty caught the eye of the leader of the enemy, Nuada, and that night he commanded that she dance. He thought she danced for him, but for whom did she really perform?”

  “Her Goddess!” came the enthusiastic answer from the crowd.

  “It’s true, and while she spun the lovely dance that was meant to celebrate a Partholonian mating ceremony, she made her way through the demon camp, touching as many of them as she could, and leaving disease in her wake instead of her Goddess’s ceremonial blessing.”

  “We know this,” Nevin said, his voice lifting once again, “because even though she was infected with the horrible pox and impregnated by a demon—she survived.”

  “She survived long enough to teach her daughter the ways of her Goddess, and, in turn, that daughter survived long enough to pass on that precious learning to her daughters.”

  Curran paused and he and Nevin turned to face Ciara.

  Curran bowed to his Shaman, the granddaughter of the Goddess Incarnate Terpsichore. “The women of Terpsichore are all lovely flames. It is a sad truth that some of them have burned too brightly too fast.”

  Then it was his twin’s turn to bow his respect to Ciara and speak. “Would you honor us tonight, Ciara, with a dance of your ancestress?”

  The children let out a collective sigh of pleasure; and as their Shaman stood Brighid heard the scuffling of little feet and the rearranging of winged bodies. What are they up to? she wondered.

  Ciara tilted her head in acknowledgment to the twin storytellers. Then she shrugged off her thick pelt, stepped lightly out of her leggings and kicked off her thick-soled moccasin-like boots. She approached the campfire in only an undyed cotton tunic that reached almost to midthigh. Brighid’s eyes widened. Ciara’s feet did not end in talons! Instead she had perfect, smooth limbs and delicately arched human feet.

  “Tonight I thank the Goddess Terpsichore for my grandmother’s strength, and Epona for our victory over darkness. I dedicate this dance as a celebration, remembering those we have loved, and those who have died and by dying gifted us with a legacy of life.”

  Brighid could have sworn the Shaman spoke the last directly to Cuchulainn.

  From somewhere within the circle came the beat of a drum, which was soon echoed by another and another. Then the clear, high trill of a pipe joined the haunting drumbeat. Obviously all the scampering and rearranging had been the children rushing for instruments.

  Like the spreading of a dark, living veil, Ciara’s wings unfurled and she began to dance. Before that night, if Brighid had been asked to describe the Shaman, she would have used words like petite and delicate, but as Ciara twirled and leaped, and traced intricate patterns in the air with her graceful hands and arms, the Huntress realized just how wrong she had been. Ciara was long, lean, feminine muscled, honed to an astonishing perfection of grace and suppleness. She was not small or soft, though she appeared nymphlike with her luminous skin and dark hair and wings. But a delicate woman would not be able to order her body to perform the feats of sheer athleticism that Ciara completed so easily.

  Amazed and entranced, Brighid couldn’t take her eyes from the winged woman’s performance. Her dance was graceful and sensual. Brighid recognized many of the movements Ciara performed as steps that every Partholonian child knew—even centaurs adapted many of the country’s celebratory dance steps to their equine bodies. But the Huntress had never seen anything like the performance Ciara was giving. She did not simply move to the music—the winged woman became the music. She seemed to shine. At first, Brighid thought it was just the sheen of sweat glistening against her skin in the flickering firelight, but soon she realized it was Ciara herself—the longer the winged woman danced, the more she glowed from within. At the climax of the music, when she twirled at a dizzying speed, her dark hair crackled and sparked with an unearthly, lustrous light.

  “I’ve never seen anything like that,” Brighid whispered to Cu without taking her eyes from Ciara. When he didn’t respond with even his typical grunt, she glanced sideways at him. He was staring at the dancing woman, his face a study in dark intensity. Brighid tried to identify the expression. Was it lust? Obsession? It was certainly more animation than she’d seen on his face since…

  Riotous claps and cheers broke into her thoughts and her gaze returned to Ciara, who was curtsying and smiling grandly to her appreciative audience. Briefly she caught Brighid’s eye and waved at her before returning to her place amidst the clapping children.

  “A legacy of life…” Nevin said.

  “…from death,” Curran completed. “Tomorrow we continue to follow that legacy back to Partholon, and to the future our foremothers dreamed for us.”

  Curran and Nevin bowed neatly, and the adult hybrids began rounding up the children. This time when Liam hurled himself into her arms, the Huntress was a little more prepared.

  “Good night, Huntress!” he said after hugging her tightly.

  “Sleep well,” she called absently after his departing wings. Her mind wasn’t on the child. She turned back to Cuchulainn. The warrior was sitting very still, staring into the campfire. His face was again an expressionless mask, but his eyes hadn’t quite made the transition back to blankness. They were narrowed in contemplation, as if he was worrying through a weighty problem.

  She should ask him what he was thinking, but by the Goddess, she didn’t want to! She didn’t want to intrude…she didn’t want to pry…and then, with a small, stunned jolt she realized that she also didn’t want to know that Cuchulainn desired Ciara.

  14

  “THE THREE OF us should talk abo
ut how best to handle tomorrow,” Cuchulainn said.

  “The three of us?” Brighid raised an eyebrow at him, which he didn’t notice because his gaze remained fixed on the winged Shaman.

  “You—me—Ciara,” he said.

  “I think we should include all of the adults,” Brighid heard herself say.

  Cuchulainn finally turned to look at her, a slight frown tugged down one corner of his mouth. “It’s not practical to meet with all the adults. They’re busy putting the children to bed. And I have already discussed what it will be like entering Partholon with all of them—many times over during the past two moons.”

  “But now we’re entering through Guardian Pass and Guardian Castle itself. That changes things.”

  Cuchulainn’s frown deepened. “Not enough to warrant disrupting the night.”

  Brighid snorted. “Disrupting? Aren’t you exaggerating?”

  “Do you want to put them to bed, or deal with seventy children who haven’t had enough sleep tomorrow?”

  “It wouldn’t take very long to talk to the adults as a group,” Brighid insisted. “They need to be prepared for the fact that one of their own is being held prisoner there.”

  Cuchulainn’s face darkened. “They know that.”

  “Yes, but I think we should talk to them about it. Again.”

  “Why are you being so difficult?” Cu said.

  “Why are you being so stubborn?” Brighid shot back.

  “Is there a problem?” Ciara smiled sweetly at them.

  “No!” Brighid and Cuchulainn barked together.

  “Good. I think we should talk about tomorrow,” Ciara said.

  “I agree,” Cu said, slanting a look at the Huntress.

  Brighid ignored him and spoke directly to Ciara. “It’ll be important that the children and the adults stay together. None should rush ahead or straggle behind.”

  “That’s exactly what I’ve been saying for the past two moons,” Cuchulainn broke in. “And also remind them to contain their—” the warrior paused, and it almost looked like he was fighting a smile “—enthusiasm.” Then his expression sobered and the lines in his face deepened. “The people of Partholon know that you exist, and not just because Fallon has been imprisoned at Guardian Castle. As Epona’s Chosen my mother will have made sure the news of your discovery and impending arrival have been blazed across the country. Partholon has been prepared for you—in theory. But hearing about winged children and seeing the group of them…” He lifted one shoulder.