by Cory Huff
“Spirit sisters, if you are there, I need help. I am naked and afraid. My arm is going to kill me if someone doesn’t come help me. Please help me.”
Mindee collapsed to the ground inside the abandoned house that she used as her sleeping quarters. It was at the edge of a dead-end street in that wooded part of Atania where very few people visited.
“You left a blood trail here” murmured Seinn, another one of her selves. She spoke harshly, with a deep tone.
“No, I tied off the wound,” responded Mindee, flat and unemotional as usual.
“Even so, there’s blood running down you leg and your limp was distinctive enough for someone to track you.” Seinn was a worrier.
I could heal the wound with the Ogham, thought Caile.
“NO! Go Away!” Shouted Mindee. Or Seinn. Maybe both.
“If you use the Ogham again it will hurt,” said Seinn. Mindee nodded in agreement.
Her head erupted in a cacophony of arguing voices. Seinn and Mindee argued that the Ogham would bring pain, the punishment of the gaeas, and the attention of the Cumhneantach. Caile wanted the wound healed and, she argued, the Cumhneantach wanted her to use the Ogham in her task. They had been pushing Mindee to stop holding back. Mindee hadn’t been able to figure out how to tell them that Mindee wasn’t the one who had trained as Amhranaithe, as a singer.
“The Amhranaithe would never train someone like me,” said Mindee. “They would never welcome an assassin into their inner circle.”
“Is that why you refuse to use the Ogham? You don’t know how?” This voice was quiet and deliberate with a touch of sibilance.
Mindee paused because she didn’t recognize the voice. It took her longer than it should have to realize the voice wasn’t hers. She slowly rolled over and looked up at the black-robed figure standing above her. She swallowed. “I’m injured. Please help me.”
The black-robed figure bent down and pulled at her bandage with a pale hand, causing Mindee to wince in pain.
He knows thought Caile.
He doesn’t know, or he would kill us thought Mindee back.
Nobody else chimed in.
The figure spoke again. “Does this mean the woman is still alive?”
Mindee stared, horrified, then realized that the figure meant Sophronia. Mindee nodded.
“You’ll take care of it?”
Mindee nodded again. “She surprised me. She knows how to fight.”
“You’ve been following her for weeks.” Mindee groaned as the figure pulled again at the wound, none too gently checking it to see the damage.
“It won’t happen again. I’ll bring help next time,” Mindee got out. “Please, help me.”
“Did we make a mistake? Are you really completely untrained in the Ogham?”
I have to do this thought Caile.
“No, I know how, I just don’t like the gaeas’ effect on me.”
Silence from the depths of the black cloak.
Do it Mindee thought to Caile.
Caile made the gestures, and called up the appropriate tree imagery. Her leg started to heal.
“Stop wasting time. You are one of the few allowed to use the Ogham here. Embrace the joy of it.” The robes swirled as the figure disappeared out the door. “Don’t fail us again.”
Caile rejoiced in the imagery of the trees of her home. The thrill of her connection to everything coursed through her body as she laid there, alone with her selves. And as usually happened, the joy of the trees was replaced with memories of that horrific night in the woods. But rather than shut out those memories, she endured them. Those had been brought about by her own choice. They hurt worse than what had happened to her at the hands of those who were supposed to protect her as a small child.
CHAPTER FIVE
The Spirits
Talamh walked around the bush. His cane tapped rhythmically in the grass. Talamh was tall and muscular like a laborer or warrior, but he walked with a hunch and a limp, bowed with age. His eyes were a deep brown, darker than his tanned skin. His clothes, once fine, bore the seams of many patches and repairs.
Despite his age, his aura of deeply buried sorrow, and diminished physical capacity, Talamh carried himself confidently. Young men know the old men who never seem to weaken with age. They joke about old man strength, and Talamh carried that strength. None of the young men in Atania would ever cross Talamh. His dignity just made it impossible.
Talamh stood at the edge of the bushes, near the pond, listening to Nia sob and wash her arm. “Hello Uisce,” he said. His voice was the sound of deep stillness. Solid.
The elegant elderly woman who had appeared next to him at the edge of the water smiled a sad smile. She was dressed in the tatters of a sea foam colored dress. She was beautiful. Tall and willowy. As a young woman, she had probably been stunning.
“Talamh.”
Her own voice was deep for a woman’s. Resonant. Clear.
“Where’s Gaoth?” he asked.
“I don’t know if she’s going to make it,” she replied.
“This is important,” he said.
“Do you want to wait?” she asked.
A moment of silence.
“No.”
But neither of them moved. They could hear Nia crying in pain and frustration.
“I’m going.” She stepped forward toward the pond.
They both heard footsteps rapidly approaching from the other side of the greenery. A slight, shuffling older woman with a grey bun was hustling up to the two of them. As she approached, Uisce smiled. In their long friendship, Gaoth had always been late. She had always had whisps of hair floating away from her bun. Her distracted mien made her seem flighty, and she never quite knew what was happening in the conversation.
“She’s here right? Of course. I can hear her. Oh, she’s crying! She’s hurt! Should we go over there now? Oh, wait, maybe just one of us? It’s been so long since we’ve done this. Oh, goodness. I’m not sure what to do.”
Talamh spoke, “I think you should go.”
“Oh, are you sure? Well, yes, of course you are. You’re always sure.” Gaoth took a deep breath, nodded at both of them. “This will work. Of course it will work. She spoke our names. She invoked the pact. With blood.”
Gaoth kept nattering as she moved toward, and then through, the thick hedges. Talamh and Uisce watched as she entered the sacred grove next to the water where Nia was dying.
The Winter Queen smiled. It was cold and empty and terrible and didn’t reach her eyes. Those black eyes, devoid of color, betrayed no emotion. She was staring at the quivering messenger, a cat staring at a mouse. The Winter Queen’s visage was a terror to behold. If any human had seen her, they would have described her as beautiful, but they would not have been attracted to her. Like her smile, everything about her was cold. Her gown was a light blue, like ice. She was tall. Imposingly tall. Impossibly tall. Somehow she managed to be taller than anyone that came before her.
Her court reflected her title as well. The various beings standing in the throne room would have been at home in a winter blizzard. Enormous, white-coated Winter wolves. Purple-skinned Fomorian giants with twisted limbs and facial features covered in thick furs. Winged water sprites that together looked like a swirling collection of black and blue bruises. Shadowy figures from the Nether. The white hares in buttoned-up dinner jackets. And the white-bearded, blue-skinned frost giants, distant cousins to the Fomorians, but straight-backed and heavily armed with enormous shirts of chain, two-handed claymore swords and halberds large enough to cleave a horse in half. The core of her army. Nikos, the prince of the frost giants, often called the Frost Prince, nodded at her as she glanced around the room to take in the reaction to the trembling messenger’s words. These and many other beings made up the Unseelie Court.
She had just received the news that she was waiting for. She knew that the Cùmhnantach was not up to the task. She knew that she had only to wait.
A mortal had bested one of the Amhranaithe. She had been sent r
unning, grievously injured. The Cùmhnantach was not up to the task. Internally, she felt like wiggling. But she was a queen, so she would not. The messenger squeaked, as mice are want to do, as that predatory glance pinned it in place again. The mouse’s ears flattened against its head.
“Tell the Cùmhnantach that we will send word of instruction. Inform the Summer Queen that I demand an audience with her and the Fey Court. The Gaeas is breached, and we must discuss it. Immediately.”
Sophronia sat at the freshly covered grave of her brother Luke. She was out of tears. Days ago he had been alive. Drunk, but alive, stumbling into their home. Days ago, he died, kicked in the head by a pointy-eared assassin who had tried to kill her for some reason.
The service had been short. The priest from the Church of the Great Creator, a young man in the white tabard of the church, had assured everyone that they would meet again in the afterlife, that the Creator would make their pains into joy. Everyone had sung hymns as Luke was lowered into the ground. Sophronia had refused to sing. Singing hurt so much. Breathing hurt. Her shoulder throbbed in time with the beating of her broken heart. Michael had been led home, blinded, in agony. Sophronia was in shock, struggling to form coherent thoughts.
After the priest of the Church of the Great Creator had said the benediction on the grave, Sophronia had asked to be alone with her brother. When her friends had suggested that they stay with her, Sophronia had raged at them to leave her alone. She thought that perhaps she should be embarrassed by her anger, but she was too numb to care. She had laid there at her brother’s graveside, sobbing, until the tears ran out. She had pounded the earth, but the pain in her shoulder had pounded back and put a stop to that.
So now she was here, cycling through grief, rage, and numbness and unable to do anything about it. She didn’t know where the assassin had disappeared to. She could see clearly the look of shock on her face when the scarf had been ripped off of her head. Sophronia hadn’t told anyone about the ears. She knew what she saw, but she feared no one would believe her.
The Sidhe were nothing but stories. Except they weren’t. Obviously.
And she should have known. The books she found were proof enough that old stories were not fake. That the stories of wizards and Happenings were based in some kind of reality.
It was getting dark. The sun was setting, casting eerie shadows in the graveyard. She began chanting softly to distract herself from her grief. She held up her hand and a small, wavering light appeared. It was pale, and round, and it floated just above the palm of her hand. It flickered like a burning torch, and provided about as much light. She focused her attention on it, imagining the flickering light burning up her grief.
Her chant changed and she moved her hand. The ball of light moved with her hand, flowing up and over the right side of her palm to rest in the air above her sideways turned clenched fist. She continued turning her hand, opening her palm down, and the light rested above the back of her hand. She tilted the back of her hand down and then up, like a contact juggler, and the ball of light rolled up the back of her fingers and down the front.
Sophronia was an experienced entertainer. In addition to singing, she had been juggling for years. The light began to move more rapidly around her hands, jumping from fingertip to fingertip, rolling up her arm, across her shoulders and down her other arm. It ended up back in her palm. It turned blue, then red, then white.
She closed her hand and snuffed it out.
She was going to find that assassin.
“Hello?”
Sophronia nearly jumped out of her skin. She started and looked around, immediately regretting the movement as pain radiated out from her shoulder. In the fading reddish light from the West, she saw a silhouette walking toward her. Something was wrong.
“Hello? Can you help me?” It was the voice of a young woman. She was walking toward Sophronia, from the woods.
Sophronia was suspicious. She didn’t have a weapon with her, so she grabbed the handle of the shovel used to dig her brother’s grave, and used it to help herself rise. “Who are you?” she demanded.
The young woman stumbled and fell. She screamed out in pain. “I’m hurt! Please help me.”
Sophronia took a step toward her and hesitated. What if this was some kind of trick by the assassin? Come to think of it, it suddenly seemed like the height of foolishness to be alone in the cemetery this soon after the attack. Curse her emotional, impulsive nature. But then again, the assassin hadn’t tried a ruse like this before, and it would have been relatively easy to sneak up on her and stab her. Sophronia hadn’t exactly been vigilant, and probably wouldn’t have seen a mythical giant walk by if it had been trying to hide itself. She took a breath and walked forward.
It was indeed a young woman. She was covered in dirt and blood. In the fading light she could see lurid red scratches all up and down her body. She was curled up in a ball, holding her arm. “What happened to you?”
“Wolves. Wolves attacked me and … someone saved me.”
Sophronia looked up in alarm and held her breath, listening. She didn’t see or hear anything, but that didn’t mean the wolves weren’t following this girl. “Wolves attacked you?”
“Yes, last night. I got away, but I think my arm is broken.”
Sophronia asked, “Can you get up?”
The girl made a low, growling sound in the back of her throat. “Yes.” She then sat up, and slowly, shakily, stood.
“I’m Sophronia. I can help you get to a healer. But you’ll have to walk. I’m not sure I can do much for you,” she gestured to her bandaged shoulder.
“Thank you. I’m Nia. I’ve lost a lot of blood. I’m not sure how I made it this far. Is there anyone nearby?” Nia knew Aidan lived close by, but was unsure where. Was he at the church? The church people might be able to help her - but then again, they might have questions, and those questions might lead to talking about the visions from last night. It was fuzzy, but she had memories of strange, kindly old folk helping her, standing guard over her, and telling her stories. They were stories of how people used to live. They were stories similar to what her mother had told her, before the church had become popular, about the Old Ones that she had invoked in her terror last night. The stories had helped her get through the night, and the beings had promised that they would help her get out. The church had effectively replaced the old faith and may not take kindly to it resurfacing.
She had fallen asleep, eventually. They had told her that they were going to bring help, and that she should sleep. When she had awoken, she had felt a little better. It looked like her wounds were not quite as bad as she thought before. The flesh wasn’t quite as damaged, though the arm was indeed broken. Painfully so. But the oozing blood had mostly stopped. She needed a healer before rot set in.
“Follow me. I’m not sure where one is on this side of town, but if you can make it to the West, I can take you to the lady that helped me yesterday.” Nia wasn’t sure she could do it. She growled at herself again. She would not give up. “I’ll follow you.”
Sophronia turned and began walking toward the main road. The Church’s temple, still under construction, rose across from the graveyard. Its spire, surrounded in scaffolding, disappeared behind the granite walls that surrounded the large temple grounds. The white stone of the spire had a faint red tinge to it from the fading sunlight. Sophronia stopped and said, “What about the Church?”
Nia had a viscerally negative reaction. “No. Not the church.” She didn’t want to be preached at. She just wanted her arm set. She walked past Sophronia, cutting diagonally through the graveyard, heading Southwest to meet the main road just North of the temple grounds.
Sophronia rolled her eyes. “You look pretty banged up for someone who doesn’t want the help of a place with a bunch of healers.”
“I’m not going to the Church.”
Sophronia hustled up to meet her. “Ok, but if you pass out near here, I’m going to find someone to carry you over there.”
>
Nia hurried faster, ignoring the dizziness. Just when she reached the edge of the graveyard, her vision narrowed again and she fell down.
“Damn,” whispered Sophronia. It was nearly dark.
At that moment, she saw a group of church soldiers, all dressed in chain shirts and white tabards, walking away from the Temple grounds, heading toward the nearest houses. They were quietly laughing and joking with each other.
Nia began muttering, “Not real…it’s not real…mother…”
“Hey, a little help here?” shouted Sophronia.
The group collectively turned toward her. “What’s going on?” said a deep-voiced woman as the group got closer. Sophronia gestured toward the passed-out Nia.
“Oh, Creator, what happened to her? Thomas, can you pick her up? Let’s get her into the Temple grounds and see if the priests can do anything for her.” The tall, deep voiced, red headed woman seemed in charge of the situation and Sophronia breathed a sigh of relief.
“I just ran into her here, in the graveyard. Her name is Nia,” said Sophronia. “She said she was attacked by wolves. Thank you for helping her.”
Nia muttered again, her head slowly rolling from side to side, “Mother…I saw her Mother…Gaoth.”
The red head nodded. “My name is Amber. Thomas and I are recruits in the Knights of the Creator. We will take her back and see if she can get help. Thank you and bless you for taking care of her. Can we send someone to escort you home?”
Sophronia looked at the fresh-faced, earnest people wearing weapons and uniforms. Yes, she thought, having an armed escort home would be good.
Aidan hustled home to make sure his brother was fed. Auley was so excited about the yellow, hard cheese to go with the fresh baked bread and the cured meats that Aidan felt a little guilty about not saving more for him.
Auley, a ball of youthful energy wrapped up in brown hair, freckles, and a gap-toothed grin that caused him to lisp, had managed to scrounge up some speckled brown chicken eggs during the day. He said that he’d cleaned a neighbor’s chicken coop and had been given the eggs in repayment. A full dozen.