Swan Witch

by Betina Lindsey

Eithne sang on and on, in verse as old as earth’s very heart. The Fomorians were routed, and as they retreated, their feet became like heavy stones that left them writhing in place as harmless as slugs.

  But still before her remained one who was not so harmless…Sheelin. His face was no longer impassive and his black eyes penetrated her like dragon’s breath in the night. His unspoken threat rolled in the sea air, as thick and searing as molten fire over flesh.

  His hand went beneath his black cloak and slowly he retrieved a large, crystal orb. Eithne’s heart plunged. What sorcery would he work now she could not know.

  Above her the raptors began transforming into white swans against the blackened skies. They circled around her head as if casting a magical ring. She sang louder, intensely, the cords stood out on her neck with urgency.

  Sheelin lifted his hand aloft, and in a thundering voice he cried out an oath of spell speaking and threw the crystal orb to the ground. It shattered in a burst of glistening shards.

  The air trembled and vibrated as the destructive elements were unleashed. Thunder and lightning continued to detonate all about, engulfing them with flashing light and earsplitting sound. Icy blasts of wind whipped in from the turbulent sea and driving rain pelted Eithne’s face.

  And then the earth began to move and split apart. The great stones shuddered and toppled.

  Eithne knew he’d broken the seal between the two worlds. Her voice began to weaken. Her throat ached. How easy it would be to stop, to let herself sink into the rising darkness and be consumed. But the survival of Myr was more precious than her own life and she had no choice but to sing on.

  She sang, a brilliant keening, conjuring a mending for the rending between the worlds. Once again the earth shook mightily, a final tremor…Sheelin was finished. The last of his illusions, the three-headed Chimera, vanished in the face of Eithne’s singing. She collapsed and fell from the capstone.

  Bron caught the limp and white-faced Eithne in his arms. “Eithne!” he cried, looking down at her, his own heart breaking. “This day you pay the price of magic, my love.”

  Her eyelids lifted and almost inaudibly she whispered, “Aye…and happily. My father…take me to my father.”

  Bron’s gaze focused on Sheelin, still held outside the stone henge by the power of Eithne’s song. Cradling her in his arms, Bron crossed over to Sheelin, who stood stunned amid the fallen stones and the ruins of his army.

  Even to Bron his granite face was frightening in its emptiness of soul. But Eithne, her eyes brilliant with the light of passing, reached out to him. Sheelin hesitated before he took her hand in his own.

  “I love you, Father,” she voiced softly.

  Not even Sheelin could misread the wealth of love in her manner. A nimbus of light shone all around her and she radiated more beauty than the morning star or the winter moon. In those seconds, Bron witnessed a miraculous dawning. Sheelin’s cold features softened, his eyes shifted from dark to light and a single tear rolled down his cheek. Eithne’s love had somehow revived that last spark of spirit in him.

  Her gaze shifted to Bron and her mouth moved but he could barely hear. He bent his head and turned his ear to her lips. Her farewell words and breath became a binding caress.

  Slowly she spoke forming each word with exceeding effort. “Deep peace on the running wave to you. Deep peace on the flowing air to you. Deep peace in the shining stars to you. Deep peace on the gentle night to you. Moon and stars pour their healing light on you. Deep peace to you, Bron mac Llyr.” Her words faded…with her breath.

  Holding her, he fell to his knees and clutched her against him. He pressed his lips against her hair. “Beway, my beloved,” the words whispered through him. “Your love sets you free…”

  Chapter 16

  A dark fog crept over Tir nan Og. It was such a fog as had never been seen before in the Isles of the Blest. It was filled with the weeping of gentle voices and the phantom visages of sorrowing faces.

  In deep mourning, Bron had carried Eithne’s body to the croft. There he laid her down on the bed and retreated to the hearth as Ketha and Niamh prepared her body. He watched them begin to remove her clothes and bathe her naked body with springwater. Reluctantly, he turned his gaze to Sheelin, who stood at the foot of the bed. He was a broken man. His shoulders were stooped and his head hung like a dazed and abandoned child. Bron agonized…what a price to pay for power, yet he could not hate Sheelin.

  Bron watched Ketha’s delicate hands…so like Eithne’s own…as she pressed the water-soaked cloth to Eithne’s lifeless brow…her cheeks…her lips, lips he longed to kiss back to life. Her ministerings moved, over oval breasts and lower to the hollow of her belly and across each long slim leg.

  The two women prepared her lovingly. They lifted her limp arms and slipped a fine homespun dress over her white shoulders. When Niamh cocooned her in the sky blue cloak of the sea clan, moisture welled in Bron’s eyes to remember the joy she had expressed at being accepted in his clan.

  With a seashell comb, Ketha attempted to tame the wild strands of Eithne’s hair. Bron stepped forward. Carefully, he raked his fingers through the wild mass, smoothing it over the pillow like a flaming halo. She sleeps the dreamless sleep, he thought.

  In all the tangled skein of his life the one bright thread was his love for Eithne and hers for him. He felt a gaping emptiness. Hurting more than if he’d been ripped to bits by a hundred Fomorian war hounds, he bent low and kissed her lips. He walked to the corner and picked up his harp and then strode out of the croft.

  Through the thickening veil of fog, he heard his father shout the orders to light the balefires to show the spirits of the battle dead the way home. Now and again as the fog shifted he glimpsed the stabbing flames against the shroud of the bleak landscape. He sighed and breathed in the acrid scent of smoke from the balefires. As he walked, foremost in his mind was but one task. He alone would build Eithne’s funeral pyre. He would ignite the pyre with the kindling of his own harp.

  All night long, pausing not for drink or sleep, he single-handedly toiled. Some of his clansmen approached and offered their assistance, but he refused as was his by right. Driven by grief, he climbed and stumbled up the cliffs, carrying the sea washed stones and driftwood from the fog shrouded beaches to the center of the henge. He filled the spaces between the stones with soft, velvety moss and carefully wove and crisscrossed the salt soaked wood around the stone altar.

  The fog did not lift with the first light of dawn. Chilled, and with a suffocating ache in his heart, Bron examined his handiwork. Then, lastly, he placed his harp at the foot of the pyre. Here his beloved would begin the journey on the road of the dead. He stared at the stump of his sword hand. He cursed his lot that he was unable to play his harp and the ancient coronach of his clan for her passing. Yet, in spirit the harp would accompany her on the journey.

  Aye, he thought, all of him wished to embark on the journey with her as well. That was the pain. Even now, he could not raise his gaze and not hope that she would walk out of the mists, smiling and alive. He grew still, listening to the sea and from the sound he knew the tide was turning. Feeling beaten and in all-encompassing despair, he cast himself onto the ground and let loose his grief.

  The croft was still with death. Ketha kept wake over Eithne’s body. She watched the flames of the fire as she waited for Niamh to return with the sea clansmen. Sheelin sat in the corner against the cold stone wall of the croft. He seemed asleep. The part of her that ever had loved him longed to give him comfort, but she sensed he was comfortless.

  Quietly, Ketha rose, padded over, and touched him gently on the shoulder with her hand. His eyes flickered open and for a moment he stared up at her.

  “What do you want? Am I not tormented enough?” he muttered.

  “I want nothing from you, Sheelin,” said Ketha, kneeling before him. “I share in your sorrow.”

  “How can you? You were not responsible for her death. Because of me Eithne is dead. Go away from me. I
cannot bear your accusing eyes upon me.”

  “I do not accuse you. You accuse yourself.”

  “Leave me be.” He turned his face away from her.

  “I’ll not leave you be. How will love ever enter your heart? It is like a lump of cold clay. If you keep your self apart from others, I see no hope for you. Look at me, Sheelin,” she pleaded. “Look at me and know I love you.”

  Still refusing to meet her gaze, Sheelin groaned wretchedly. “I do not deserve your or anyone’s love.”

  “Maybe not,” Ketha agreed. “But you do deserve to love…loving is the greater gift. Can you love me?”

  Sheelin buried his head in his hands and began to weep. Ketha reached for him. Like a drowning man, his arms caught hold of her. In his desperation, he held her close and she felt the trembling of his grief stricken body. Aye, she thought, he would suffer until the end of his days for his deeds.

  Suddenly, he started to gasp for breath and rasped, “My chest feels as if a great weight is pressing against it.” He fell back and his hands clutched his breast. “Aaahh…” he cried out. “I cannot stand the pain.”

  Ketha was beside him, laying her own hands over his. “Your heart is breaking open, Sheelin. Do not resist. Open your heart to love…or you will die.”

  He let loose an anguished, soul-shaking cry that reverberated off the stone walls and beyond.

  “Let go,” cried Ketha. “Surrender…to love…”

  She cradled him in her arms, seeing the tears streaming down his cheeks like the bursting of spring torrents down a mountainside. His body shook with the force of deep wrenching sobs. As she gazed into his eyes, she saw in their depths that last spark of his spirit reviving. She knew that raindrops could wear a hollow in the hardest stone, and that the waves of the sea could smooth the most jagged rocks. The stone of Sheelin’s heart had cracked asunder and like a seed breaks forth from the dark earth to bloom, she witnessed the miracle of his reawakening love. Within his embrace she felt the warmth of his awakened heart radiate against her breast.

  He wept for a long time. Then he wiped his cheeks and soulfully gazed at Ketha. Softly, he began to speak. “It feels as if I’ve been sleeping in a long nightmare. I’ve been walking down an endless black tunnel and now for the first time in a long while I see light. Where I have been, I do not wish to go again.” His voice fell silent as he fell into the reverie of his thoughts.

  Then he kissed Ketha’s forehead, and then her lips. “I love you, Ketha,” he breathed with heartfelt sincerity.

  It was Ketha, who now began to weep, not from sorrow, but joy. The old Sheelin had returned.

  It might have been hours, or only minutes, when Bron again lifted his head. The shroud of fog still hung over Tir nan Og. Nearby, he heard the most pitiful of blubbering. Sniffing the air, he caught the scent of troll. He came to his feet and walked around the stone pyre. There he discovered the miserable form of Gibbers. Anger seized him. Gibbers’s presence seemed to defile the hallowedness of the surrounding circle.

  Bron reached out and grabbed him by the neck, picked him up, and dangled him before his face. “I told you, I never wanted to see you again!”

  “Och! Sure, ye don’t mane it, ye cudn’t be so cruel,” he gargled, his eyes pleading. “Isss it true ssshe is dead?”

  “Aye!” Bron glared at him, controlling the urge to take out his own frustrations on Gibbers.

  Gibbers’s mouth cracked wide. He broke into new heights of mournful yowling.

  Then suddenly, Bron’s own mouth fell open with awe. He held Gibbers’s neck with his sword hand…fingers and all.

  It was no illusion. He had feeling and strength. He let go of Gibbers’s neck. Whimpering, Gibbers thudded to the ground and scrambled away to hide behind a toppled stone.

  Bron paid no heed. His own attention was upon the miracle of his hand. Slowly, he flexed his fingers open and shut. There was feeling and strength in his hand. No scar marked his wrist to show his hand had ever been severed. How? And after all this time? It was not magic, but miracle…love’s miracle. He could not doubt that it was Eithne’s final gift to him.

  The sound of a single drum heralded the approaching of the procession of his clansmen. He lifted his gaze from his hand and saw the glow of torchlight through the fog. On a pallet of woven marrum grass his clansmen carried Eithne upon their shoulders.

  The miracle of his restored hand paled against the starkness of her lifeless body. In this moment his hand was of small consequence. He felt guilty, wondering if Eithne’s death had somehow been the ransom for not only the safety of Myr but his restored hand as well. He let his arm fall to his side and walked to meet them.

  In forefront came his father with Niamh at his elbow. Behind walked Sheelin and Ketha. Bron’s eyes narrowed as he scanned the face of Sheelin. He was different. Dark lines of grief were now graven in his once compassionless brow. Yet, his features seemed softened with a goodness that Bron had not perceived before.

  Bron stepped into the strong embrace of his father’s arms. Openly, before their clansmen they wept in shared grief. Bron remembered as a boy when his mother died. Then, he was too young to fully understand the loss a man feels for the woman he loves. In this moment, he felt every agonizing rend of the heart.

  When the sea king released him there was puzzlement in his eyes. “What has happened? Your hand?”

  “I do not understand it myself. But”—Bron looked over at Sheelin—“’tis no illusion.”

  Ketha, her beautiful face knowing, said, “The world is ever full of wonders.”

  Sheelin nodded with agreement. To Bron he said, “I am not the man I was. This day brings more than one miracle.”

  Seeing his face, Bron believed it was so. He extended his hand to Sheelin and made peace with him. Yet, like two separate tides, joy at Sheelin’s change of heart and grief over Eithne’s loss moved within him.

  Carefully, the clansmen laid Eithne down upon the pyre. Bron stood there, very still and unspeaking, gazing on her face. Below from the sea came the endless shush and shurr of the waves against the cliffs. At his back the wind off the ocean was very cold.

  Ketha stepped forward and laid her feather cloak over Eithne, and drew away. Bron first heard a sweet keening and then from the mists came winging down the swan sisters of Myr. They shook off their swan plumage and took form as women within the circle of the sea clansmen.

  The sea king drew up and initiated tribute to the Lady Eithne reflecting, “The champion’s light shining from you, your singer’s voice enjoined upon the field of battle. At your song our foes fled.”

  The strong voices of the clansmen lifted in unison. “She shines for all of us, she burns within all of us.”

  “Sister among us,” sang the women, “we thank you, bless you, and release you, and ask that your fire remain with us. The circle is open, but not unbroken.”

  The fog was lifting. The sea king gave the order to Drunn to pour oil over the wood before the pyre was torched.

  “Wait, Father,” said Bron, retrieving his harp. “I wish to play the coronach.”

  Acquiescing, his father signaled Drunn with a halting hand.

  A brief moment of apprehension touched Bron. What if he could no longer play? He flexed his fingers and carefully plucked one string. The one single note, deep and potent, sounded over the island and rang off the granite faces of the stones as if it called a command.

  “Look,” shouted a clansman, pointing down to the cove below. The sleek forms of a pair of dolphins burst out of the sea, surfaced, and arched through the air with serene beauty. To the sea clansmen it was a remarkable omen, a symbol of the eternal round.

  More encouraged, Bron brushed his fingers over the harp strings in a series of minor harmonies. And then into the air flowed the sweet shimmer of music, and light and color seemed to swirl around him. His music expressed the many shades of his emotion from the whirl of exaltation to the wildest lament. It seemed to some that in the bogs the reeds and rushes swayed and
over the sea the winged ones soared freer. The lilt of love was in his playing and all the interlace of life that was the sweet singing of his heart.

  While he played, he watched his beloved Eithne. A sudden, her pale nostrils widened, the eyelids flickered, and the curled fingers trembled. Her delicate body shuddered as if from a struggle deep within. Color returned to her cheeks. Then a great gasp of breath escaped her throat and her eyes opened. Her gaze flew like a homing dove to Bron.

  For a moment the flow of force between them was almost visible for any who could see. He dropped his harp. Falling to his knees beside her, he seized her hand and pressed a kiss upon her palm.

  A great “Arrah!” arose from the sea clansmen and the swan sisters proclaimed their joy in jubilant cries. And then the sun rose around them and lanced the mists with spearing golden rays. The earth greened, birds began singing, and the sea shone crystalline against a shining shore. Wildflowers carpeted the heath and their wonderful fresh fragrance filled the air.

  Eithne sat up.

  The sunlight danced around her so brightly that it struck her eyes like flame. She gazed lovingly into Bron’s face and caressed his cheek as if she were not sure whether she dreamed.

  His heart pounding, Bron clasped Eithne to his chest.

  Wonderment filled her face. She gazed around, seeing her mother and then Sheelin. “Where are we?” she murmured.

  “We are in Myr.” Ketha smiled, waving her hand. “The love between you has reversed the laws of the two worlds. Your hearts have broken through the barriers of time, space, and death. In the simple act of your love, all has been transformed.”

  Though this all seemed wondrously shocking to Eithne, Bron’s presence filled her with reassuring warmth. With a sideways glance she made a lover’s inventory of him and discovered he’d not transformed so greatly that he had lost that touch of desire in his emerald eyes. She also hoped he’d not passed beyond taking her in his arms in wild abandonment.

  Her blood quickened its sluggish course when he bent to touch his lips to her own.