by Kate Forsyth
Isabeau had never known the secret ways through the mountain as well as Meghan, and she frequently had to stop to get her bearings. Remembering what the old sorceress had taught her, she laid her hands upon the stone walls, listening, trying to feel through her palms what lay beyond. Whenever she sensed a great darkness and density in one direction, she would choose that way at the next branching of the path.
At last the steep descending gallery widened out and she sensed a vast space. Feeling rather giddy from her exertions, Isabeau raised the witch’s light so cold radiance spread before her. She was standing at the edge of a huge cavern, its roof lost in shadows above her. An underground loch spread before her, its waters inky black. Every now and again a ripple spread, as if something stirred beneath its surface. All around her were tremendous columns and arches of limestone, intricate as any sculpture. At one end was a crystalline waterfall of stone, plunging hundreds of feet into the water. All around delicate white icicles hung like dragon’s teeth, and the ground was frosted over with limestone flowers. The only sound was a slow dripping.
Maya floating beside her, Isabeau clambered over the slippery damp rocks. It was cold, and she huddled her plaid closer about her. Maya was ashen-faced, her breathing rattling in her throat. Isabeau said a quick prayer to Eà and lowered the unconscious woman into the water. At the last moment, her control slipped and Maya fell with a splash. She sank out of sight and Isabeau’s perturbation grew. She was just about to dive into the water in search of her when the water roiled, green bubbles bursting into life. She stared at them anxiously, suddenly afraid the underground loch contained some monster or serpent that would devour the unconscious woman. There was a flash of silver just under the surface, then a long tail with a great frilled fan broke through, splashing water into Isabeau’s face. She stepped back with a cry of alarm.
From the depths a red velvet dress came floating.
Isabeau wrung her hands. ‘What have I done?’ she cried. ‘Maya! Maya!’
Then the waters parted and Maya shot out into the air. Her face was serenely smiling, her dark hair plastered to her skull. She rolled, water streaming from her silver-scaled body, and plunged again, her tail smacking the loch so spray drenched Isabeau from head to foot.
For a moment Isabeau could not believe what she had seen. She watched, flabbergasted, as Maya sported in the inky black waters, her body gleaming like pewter. She had seen Maya change shape before, when the former banrìgh had dived into the heart of the Pool of Two Moons to escape Lachlan’s vengeance. Then her wrists and ankles had been braceleted with flowing fins, like the frills the young lairds at court wore on the ends of their sleeves. She had seen the same fins on Bronwen when she gave the little banprionnsa her bath. She had never seen anyone with a tail like a fish before, however.
Maya swam to the shore and floated there, looking up at Isabeau, her scaled arms moving through the water slowly. ‘Thank ye,’ she whispered. ‘I would have died if ye had no’ brought me here.’ She looked up wonderingly at the arches of stone icicles, which looked like the closing jaws of some great monster. ‘Where are we?’ she said hoarsely. ‘How can this be, a sea beneath the ground?’
‘It is an underground loch,’ Isabeau said. ‘It is bitter like the sea—I thought it would help.’
Maya rolled, her tail twisting up through the water and away again. The silvery scales were spotted black along one side.
‘Aye, it is like the sea, only dead,’ she said when her face emerged again from the water. ‘The sea zings with life while this is stagnant, without life. It is salty though, salty enough for me to transform to my seashape. It has been a very long time since I was last able to fully transform and so for that too I thank ye.’
Isabeau nodded. ‘What do ye do here?’ she asked brusquely. ‘How did ye come to be lying in the meadow and how did ye hurt yourself so?’
Maya lifted one webbed hand to her forehead. ‘My head aches terribly,’ she said huskily. ‘And I feel very faint. It is a long time since I last ate.’
Isabeau saw with concern that blood was pulsing again from the wound at the Fairge’s temple and that she was indeed very white. ‘Come,’ she said roughly. ‘I will take ye somewhere where ye can rest and eat, and then ye shall tell me how ye came here and why.’
Maya looked at her steadily. ‘But I came for my daughter,’ she said softly. ‘How could ye think anything else? It has taken me all this time to track ye down. Where is she? Where is my Bronwen?’
Isabeau flushed and bit her lip. Determined not to feel ashamed, she shook back her red curls angrily and said, ‘There is no-one here but me. Come, can ye walk? We have quite a way to go.’ And although the Fairge asked her again and again where her daughter was as they made their slow, tortuous way out of the caves, Isabeau would not reply.
At last they stumbled out of the darkness into the cool dusk. Stars were beginning to prick the sky above them and the moons were rising, looking frail and insubstantial in the twilight sky.
Above them ancient trees towered. Their thick trunks looked like pillars of jet, their sun-touched leaves like the gilded ceiling of some grand hall. Through their outspreading branches Isabeau could see the dark, bent shape of Dragonclaw rearing against the sunset sky. Despite her misgivings she could not help giving a little sigh of contentment. She had lived in this little valley for sixteen years and she had missed it sorely. It was grand to be home.
Their progress through the woods was slow. Maya, still faint and rather dizzy, had to stop often to rest. Her filthy velvet skirts were sodden with water and she had lost the tattered remnants of her slippers, her bare feet bruised and scratched. Isabeau knew the Fairge would not be able to climb into the trees. When they reached the shore of the little loch that stretched towards the eastern rim of the valley bowl, she bade her brusquely to stand still while she blindfolded her. Although the Fairge protested, Isabeau was adamant. It was betrayal enough taking Meghan’s archenemy into her secret tree-house, without revealing the hidden entrances as well. Blindfolding Maya was the only way Isabeau could salve her troubled conscience, though still she hoped Meghan would never find out.
Isabeau led Maya to the base of the tallest tree in the forest, which grew on a rocky outcrop above the loch. Its roots were protected by thorns, and Isabeau scratched her hands badly holding back the branches for Maya to go through. The narrow passageway wound through the rock and the blindfolded woman had to grope her way through with hands outstretched, though Isabeau had lit a witch’s light so she could see her way. They reached a little aperture and Isabeau felt for the concealed catch, lifted it and swung open the hidden door. They stepped out into the kitchen.
It was a small, dark room cut into the rock with the great tree growing up one side, its roots writhing out and providing many natural shelves and cupboards filled with bottles, jars and books. A fireplace was built into the rock, a crack, much stained with soot, providing a natural chimney. Before the fireplace were two high-backed chairs, with carved arms and headrests, and a rickety wooden table. The secret door was hidden behind a rack of shelves, which Isabeau swung shut behind her and secured close again. She led Maya to one of the chairs and then laid a fire and lit it with a snap of her fingers. Only then did she allow the Fairge to remove her blindfold and look about her, which she did with great curiosity.
‘Och, what a funny wee place!’ she cried. ‘It looks as if we’re inside a hollow tree. Where are we?’
‘This is where I live,’ Isabeau said, crossing her fingers behind her back even though it was only a partial lie.
‘Then ye’re a sloppy lass indeed,’ Maya said with amusement in her voice. Isabeau glared at her in indignation and the Fairge wiped the arm of the chair with one finger. It was thick with dust. Isabeau flushed and could think of nothing to say.
Maya grinned at her and kept on looking around. ‘So this is where the Arch-Sorceress hid for all those years. I must admit we would never have thought o’ looking inside a tree.’
Isabeau said nothing, just busied herself around the kitchen. She shook out some quilts and sheets and hung them before the fire to dry, then searched through the jars and tins for food and medicines. She found enough herbs and grains to make a thin porridge and some tea, telling herself with a frown that she would have to go out foraging in the morning. It seemed she would never be free of this most mundane of tasks.
She washed and anointed the nasty gash on Maya’s head and checked her pulse, which was erratic still, and her temperature, which was high. ‘I think ye will have to swim in the underground loch a few more times before ye are fully recovered,’ she said, ladling out the porridge and sinking down into her chair with a sigh. Indeed it had been a long day.
‘That will be no hardship,’ Maya said. ‘I have had much trouble these last few years finding water salty enough to survive. Finding somewhere deep enough to immerse myself in and near as briny as the sea, that is a luxury indeed.’
Isabeau nodded to show her understanding, though a strange sense of unreality was creeping over her. How could she be possibly sitting at ease in Meghan’s tree-house with Maya the Ensorcellor, talking openly about how difficult it was for a Fairge to survive above water? She scrutinised Maya’s face surreptitiously, noting the mother-of-pearl sheen of the skin, the narrow mouth and mobile nostrils, the flat ears and constantly fluttering gills. The firelight glowed on the left side of her face, revealing the spiderweb of fine, pale scars that marred the silken scales.
‘How in Eà’s name were ye ever able to conceal your real ancestry for so long?’ she burst out.
‘I had the Mirror o’ Lela,’ Maya replied. ‘It was a very auld, very powerful artifact o’ my father’s family and I had been trained in its use since I was a mere bairn. I spun the illusion twice a day, at dawn and sunset, and never let it falter. Over the years it grew to be more than a mask, it was indeed like a second skin that had grown over my own face.
‘I was careful to wear high collars and long sleeves that hid my gills and fins too. Ye never knew when someone would have the gift o’ clear-seeing powerful enough to see through the glamourie, thick and strong as it was. It amused me that it became the fashion to wear collars closed up at the throat and sleeves that covered the hands.’
She smiled a little in reminiscence, then said with a shrug, ‘Besides, people see what they expect to see, and once the witches were gone, I did not need to be so careful. That was one reason why I had to strike swiftly, do ye understand? I could not risk exposure. Anyone with witch senses was a danger to me.’
She held out her hands, looking at the deep webs that ran from knuckle to knuckle, and gave a rueful smile. ‘I was startled indeed to see my face once the mirror was broken. I had near forgotten what I really looked like, or that I was no longer a young woman in the first flush o’ my beauty.’
She sighed. ‘Indeed, young Lachlan did no’ know what he did when he broke the mirror. Much o’ my powers came from it and I was near helpless without it.’
Isabeau could not help feeling sorry for her. The Fairge looked so thin and pale, and there was true sadness thrilling through her deep, expressive voice. Maya looked up at her pleadingly. ‘All I want is to find my daughter and somewhere we’ll both be safe. Ye do no’ understand what it is to be a hunted creature, hated and feared by all, with our lives forfeit if we are discovered.’
Isabeau’s heart hardened. ‘Yes, I do,’ she said harshly and spread out her own hands for Maya to see. ‘I lost these fingers in the torture chambers o’ your Grand-Questioner and would’ve lost my life too, if your Grand-Seeker had had her blaygird way! I was hunted all through the highlands and nearly died several times from fever and exhaustion.’
‘Then ye do understand,’ Maya said unexpectedly, leaning forward and fixing her silvery-blue eyes on Isabeau’s face. ‘Happen I deserve to be hated and hunted, though indeed I had no choice in what I did, but no’ my wee Bronwen! She is naught but a babe and innocent. Ye ken they will kill her if they know she is born o’ the sea people.’
Isabeau looked away, troubled. Was that not why she had taken Bronwen in the first place, because she feared for her safety? She sidestepped the issue, saying rather harshly, ‘What do ye mean ye had no choice? There is always a choice.’
‘Aye, but can ye always see that? What if the only choice is to submit your will to others or die? What if ye had been trained since birth to obey without question and that the slightest hesitation resulted in the cruellest o’ punishments? What choice do ye have then?’
Isabeau remembered the queen-dragon’s words. Fate is woven together of will and the force of circumstances. It is one thread spun of many strands.
‘Is that how it was for ye?’ she asked hesitantly.
Maya nodded. ‘Aye. I was naught but a half-breed daughter, less important to my father than a good dinner o’ fish. I had to struggle and fight to stay alive even as a babe, and once the Priestesses o’ Jor knew I had Talent, they took me into the sisterhood. The priestesses are no’ like your weak, soft witches, they are hard and cruel and relentless. I was a tool to be honed and sharpened and they made o’ my life a grindstone. It never occurred to me that it could be any different. I did as I was told and thought I was happy to submit my will and my life to the god o’ the seas.’
There were tears in her eyes and in her husky voice. Isabeau was overwhelmed with pity, thinking of her own happy, carefree childhood.
‘But why?’ she asked. ‘Why did they make ye a tool? What for? All this death and persecution, all these years o’ witch-burnings and uile-bheistean hunts. Why?’
‘Ye took our lands and our seas,’ Maya replied simply. ‘Your people came from somewhere far away and just took what was ours. When we protested we were killed. Ye befouled the rivers and the sea with your towns and cities and your filthy animals; ye hunted the whales and sea stirks and left us hungry; ye took sport in killing our people, ye even made a fashion o’ wearing our skins!’ Her lip curled in distaste. ‘We were driven from our winter homes on the coast o’ Carraig and your witches built their Tower above the king’s own sea cavern, which was blasphemous! The sea caverns are royal, and sacred, yet ye humans used them to moor your ships as if they were some kind o’ stable! My people were driven away, only surviving by building rafts to cling to in the icy, stormy seas. The only islands left to us were those so bare and wild that even birds could not roost there. “Why?” ye ask. Ye wonder why we hate ye and plot for your downfall, aye, even for your annihilation. That is why!’
Isabeau was silent. She knew what Maya said was true. She was ashamed and embarrassed, not knowing what to say. Words of both regret and indignant justification jostled in her mind. That was a long time ago, she wanted to say, and it’s no’ our fault what our ancestors did. But she knew even the smallest action could have a great consequence, like the turning over of a pair of dice.
At last she said, ‘But did Aedan Whitelock no’ try and reach a settlement with the Fairgean king? At the end o’ the Second Fairgean Wars?’
‘Pah!’ Maya made a sound of disgust. ‘Humans steal our lands and then think they are merciful and kind by offering us the right to pay for the use o’ our own beaches and rivers! My grandfather swore he would never bow his head before a human king and my father was made to swear the same before he inherited the black pearl sceptre and crown.’
She sat back and took a deep breath, then said in a softer v
oice, ‘Ye see I was taught to think all humans were evil and arrogant and that they deserved to suffer for what they did to the Fairgean. I was glad that I had been chosen to perform this great deed for my people and that I, an unworthy half-breed daughter, had a chance to justify their mercy in allowing me to live. It was only later, when I came to realise that no’ all humans were evil, that I began to doubt what I had been taught and to wonder …’
Isabeau waited but Maya had fallen into a reverie, her face sad and weary. ‘Wonder what?’ she prompted at last.
Maya sighed and turned back to her. ‘Wonder how different my life could have been if only I’d been allowed to love my Jaspar freely and live without the dread o’ failing my father and the priestesses. I tried, ye know. When Bronwen was born I left Sani in the shape o’ a hawk and I did no’ contact my father as I should have. I tried to pretend I was free, but it was too late. Far too late.’
She leant forward, putting out one hand to touch Isabeau’s knee. ‘Can ye no’ see that all I want is to find my daughter and live in peace somewhere? Some place where my father canna reach me and where Bronwen will be safe?’
Isabeau was torn. She had to fight hard to resist the wistful pleading in the other woman’s voice, reminding herself of the hundreds of witches and faeries that had died horribly because of Maya’s machinations. The sight of her own maimed hand firmed her resolve and she said neutrally, ‘Ye can see your daughter is no’ with me.’
Maya sat back, exasperation flashing briefly across her face. ‘But I ken ye took my baby!’ she cried. ‘Where is she? What have ye done with her?’
‘How do ye ken?’ Isabeau asked. ‘And how did ye ken to find me here?’