It was only surprising that Kazhak thought she, Epona, could in some way alter this balance of power. And maybe she could, thanks to the horse.
Tsaygas extended his hand to show her a large, smoothly polished stone. Then he closed his fingers over the stone and began to chant an incantation. A few pebbles trickled through his closed fingers, turning into a cascade that built a little pile of rocks at his feet. Yet when he opened his hand the original stone was still there, uncrushed and intact.
The shaman’s eyes glittered in triumph. “Magic of shamans magic of taltos magic of shamans,” he chanted, nodding his head rhythmically, grinning at her between his painted fangs.
A trick, Epona thought. The earth mother would not allow such a thing to actually happen, for it serves no purpose. He means to fool me with tricks.
The druii would have looked upon such pretense with contempt, as Epona did now. She would not have to resort to such obvious deception; the horse had shown her a better way.
The questions went on, stabbing at her like knives, and she no longer tried to answer them seriously. She shaped her answers in the Kelti way by talking around them, wandering down attractive paths and side trails. When Tsaygas demanded to know how she could heal a dying horse—what spells she used, what signs she drew on the earth to protect the animal from the invasion of demons—she replied with a rambling story about a cartpony of the Kelti that had been lost in the Blue Mountains.
The shamans did not have the patience to wait for the ultimate end of that story. They could not get straight answers, or what they perceived to be straight answers, from the woman, and that confirmed their suspicions. She knew nothing, she had no skills and certainly no power. She was not worth either fear or respect, and she was no barrier to their plan to discredit Kazhak completely with Kolaxais.
They would tell the old han that this favorite among his few living sons had tried to defraud him by presenting a mere woman as a trophy of war, and Kolaxais would order Kazhak to leave the protection of the family and strike out on his own.
In such a situation, his horses, of course, would remain with the herd of Kolaxais. And the control of the tribe would remain with the shamans.
Anticipation made the shamans careless. Unlike the Kelti, they did not pay close attention to small details. They did not notice the way Epona’s eyes turned again and again to the tent flap, which she had left slightly folded back upon entering, so she might judge the light of the sky beyond. They did not notice her sniffing the air.
When they decided the interview was concluded, they dismissed Epona. “Go back to tent of Kazhak,” Tsaygas ordered her, “and do not make claims. You are woman; you live or die at word from Kazhak, and Kazhak lives or dies at word from Kolaxais. You are less than nothing, Kelti woman.”
The shaman spat on her chest and shoved her toward the tent entrance.
When she stepped outside she felt her heart sink. The sky, though pale and lifeless, its blue drained away, did not contain any hint of a coming storm. The air was calm and even held a trace of warmth from the watery sun lying to the south. Had the stallion been mistaken?
She could not let herself believe that, or she would lose the only weapon she carried.
She turned to face the shamans, who were still watching her from the entrance to the tent. “The magic of the Kelti is not like the magic of the shamans,” she said, lifting her voice so it would draw the attention of others in the camp. If this worked—and it must work, it had to work—she would need witnesses other than the shamans. Magic was sometimes a private thing, but these nomads would not believe any magic unless it was publicly done and they could see it with their own ignorant eyes.
The witnesses would see her fail, too; if she failed.
Be with me now, she said to the spirit within.
She raised her arms and made the first signs. The shamans, suddenly suspicious, watched her closely but made no effort to stop her. Whatever she did could not amount to much.
She closed her eyes and tried to hear the wind of an approaching storm. She made herself see a curtain of rain moving across the land; she willed herself to smell the moisture in the air.
She heard the rustle of people gathering around her, watching this strange thing, but nothing else happened.
I was a fool to try this, she said to herself.
Be still! ordered the spirit within. You known how; do it. YOU ARE DRUI.
Uiska. I thought of Uiska lastday. Voice of the Waters. She whose inner. being was mist and fog and snow; drops of rain; pearls of dew. Uiska, who could locate hidden springs. And summon clouds.
As a child, Epona had often seen Uiska standing alone at the edge of the lake, absorbed in meditation. The woman would tilt back her head and gaze at the sky, lips murmuring. She might have been singing. Her hands shaped patterns in the air. She whistled a tune that was not a tune, very high, like the piping of a bird, but piercing enough to carry long distances. It was the loudest sound Uiska ever made. And after that the clouds would come sweeping across the lake and rain would refresh the earth, or snow would blanket the village, insulating against the cold.
To locate a spring, Uiska had walked back and forth with her two hands held out in front of her body. Sometimes she carried a willow wand but it was not really necessary. Her spirit within knew where the water was; its sister spirit. She heard its voice murmuring to her night and day; she dreamed of cascades of pure, rippling, lifegiving water. In the Blue Mountains Uiska’s gift was not as urgently needed as that of Kernunnos, or Tena, but all knew that without water existence in thisworld was impossible, and therefore honored the drui woman as being a person of great importance.
Uiska, Epona said to herself. Uiska.
She shaped her lips to form a whistle, imitating the whistle Voice of the Waters had used. She had never had the temerity to try such a thing before; she was shocked at how unlike her it sounded.
She heard the watching Scythians begin to mutter to each other.
Kazhak himself had told her that once winter set in, there were no more thunderstorms on the Sea of Grass.
But she could not allow herself to doubt. The horse had predicted it for her, and now the spirit within urged her on.
Suddenly she felt it again, the power she had felt when she was with the Thracian mare. Then it had been fleeting, a few moments of strength and exultation that swiftly faded. Now it was stronger, gripping her with the unshakable certainty of the stones, the trees. She knew. There were no limits to those who believed. Whatever she chose to do now, in this time and place, she could achieve.
She held her head high and smiled with old wisdom in a young face.
Once more she pictured the storm, the coming storm. And now she really did smell the rain, really felt the tension building that preceded the thunder and the starfire. With the power pouring through her she had a sense of being a vessel only, and she opened to the magic, the strength, welcoming it, letting it work through her.
Once more she pursed her lips and a piercing whistle shot through the camp like a Scythian arrow.
Concentrate on the wind. Take it into your skin and your blood and your bones. Know what the wind feels like: movement; cold. Coming, coming. Draw it into you. Become the wind. The wind. The wind.
In a soft voice, arms still upraised, eyes closed, she began chanting the names of the spirits of the air and the water, chanting in a soft voice not meant for Scythian ears, for these were sacred names.
She pulled herself into herself, dwindling away into a hard, tight core, calling the wind, drawing it, drawing it …
The mighty storm came blasting across the Sea of Grass, howling like a creature in agony.
Chapter 24
It might have come anyway; the horse had believed it would. Even Epona could not be certain, afterward. She had felt the power fill her, the quiet, clenched sensation of pulling her energies into a vortex that demanded all her attention, as a mother might concentrate on the life within her womb to the exclusi
on of everything else, awaiting the moment of birth. The wind had come then, but it might have been coming anyway.
Yet the sky had been cloudless, and the air had been still.
The Scythians were shocked by the sudden fury of the unseasonable thunderstorm. The great booming rolled repeatedly across the sky as a massive curtain of black cloud raced toward the encampment. Starfire crackled and crashed. The wall of wind slammed into the tents, threatening to tear them from their moorings, though Scythian tents were attached to a sturdy wooden framework intended to withstand almost any savagery of weather. Cloaks and rugs and saddlecloths developed wings and flew away, their owners running after them. Man and his animals had beaten the surrounding earth to bare clay and dust, and now the dust rose in clouds, stinging their eyes.
Panic crackled over the backs of the herds like starfire.
The domestic animals, goats and sheep and hobbled saddle horses, were spooked into aimless movement, and little boys ran after them, trying to keep them from breaking out of the camp.
On the grasslands beyond, the immense horse herd began to move as well, seething like the contents of a boiling pot, on the verge of a stampede as the whiplash of starfire frightened and drove them.
Epona slowly lowered her arms. She was surprised to find that they ached, and her fingers refused to flex.
The rain fell with her falling arms, pouring down in incredible volume, soaking the spirit and quelling rebellion. Drenched, half-drowned, the livestock calmed; the horse herd did not stampede. The Scythians sought cover and waited for the storm to abate.
Epona stood alone in the open, head up, unafraid of the starfire. Had she not nourished the fire and honored its spirit?
The storm passed over and was gone, as quickly as it had come.
The Scythians emerged hesitantly from their tents and wagons and saw the Kelti woman still standing there calmly, undismayed by the elemental display. Tsaygas and his fellow shaman, Mitkezh, who had sought safety within their tent, peered out at Epona through the tent flap but came no farther. They looked at her as weasels watch from their holes, dark eyes cold and hostile, observing a new predator in their territory.
I am very tired, Epona said to herself. I have to sleep. Saying nothing to anyone, she made her way back to her tent without paying any attention to the faces that stared at her or the whispers that followed her. Numbly, she stripped off her wet clothes, wrapped herself in her bearskin cloak, and collapsed on her sleeping rugs.
She fell instantly and deeply asleep, and did not waken until Kazhak tugged at her shoulder and called her name.
She sat up, groggy and disoriented. At first she did not know where she was or who the man was, and she tried to push him away, wanting only to sink back into the restful nothingness, but he would not let her.
“Epona. Epona! Sit up. Up! Yes, better, is it so? You must tell Kazhak what happened. The storm … everyone is talking, and the shamans are … Epona, what did you do?”
She sat with slumped shoulders, shivering. In spite of her heavy cloak she was cold, and still very tired. “I did what I could to impress them,” she answered him.
“You told Kazhak you had no power over the weather.”
“I did not think I did. I still don’t know … I tried, that’s all.”
“It is being said that Epona brought the thunderstorm, and there should be no thunderstorm on the Sea of Grass in this season.”
“What do the shamans say?”
Kazhak chewed on his lip. “The shamans have said nothing. They are in their tent, beating the drums, chanting. Shamans are upset.”
“Isn’t that what you wanted?”
Instead of answering her with words, awkward words, Kazhak threw his arms around Epona and came very close to cracking most of her bones with a mighty hug.
As if the thunderstorm had permanently altered the climate of the steppe, the atmosphere in the encampment seemed changed from that day on. The Scythians could no longer pretend Epona did not exist. The men still would not meet eyes with her, of course, but she was aware that they watched her with varying degrees of respect and awe, as one who had matched power with the shamans and forced those men to hide in their tent, unable to turn aside the storm she brought down upon them.
The women were shyly proud of her, now. She was of their own sex, a despised female; yet she had somehow transcended her gender and earned respect. Respect!
It was frightening to think that such an honor could come to one of their own kind, but it was tantalizing, too. The other women, even the senior wives in their beaded boots, began to vie for her attention, to invite her to share their cooking fires and their days, to take part in their gossip and enter into the myriad details of the life they had constructed for themselves apart from the men.
Even the shamans must, temporarily, pay her grudging respect, the respect of the professional for a colleague. Until they could truly determine the extent of her powers and the threat she might pose to their own position they walked softly in her vicinity, unwilling to bring something to life for which they were unprepared.
But they hated her now. She knew it. She could feel it in the rising hair on the nape of her neck and the tingling in her thumbs whenever one of the Scythian priests was anywhere near her.
Kazhak was mightily pleased. “Shamans will do nothing more to Kolaxais,” he told Epona, “while they fear Epona. Kazhak was afraid they would let the old prince die, then keep him sitting up and speak through his mouth, but now they will not do that.”
“Is that the sort of magic your shamans practice?” Epona asked with contempt. “That is an unclean act, an insult to the body that housed a spirit.”
“Shamans do many things,” Kazhak told her. “Many things Kazhak does not think you would like. It is so, they heal sickness. Sometimes. But Kazhak thinks they sometimes cause it, too, when they can benefit from it.”
“That’s disgusting.”
“Is it not so among your priests?”
“Of course not. They would be punished by the spirits, in thisworld or the next, if they tried to use their gifts to increase their personal power.”
“Then they are not like our shamans,” Kazhak concluded. “Epona is right; your magic is not our magic. There are no druii like you on Sea of Grass.”
He meant it as a compliment, but she could not honestly allow his statement to stand.
“There might be, somewhere,” she said. “The druii teach that there are people with the spirit gifts in every land and among all races. Sometimes they do not even know what they are themselves, but in the dreamworld they meet one another and exchange information. In the dreamworld they can see the pattern clearly from both ends, from the long ago time of the first great druii kingdoms to the far away time when the earth mother will call on the druii to save her from destruction.”
Kazhak was astonished. “This is true thing?”
“It is what I was taught.”
“And you believe?”
“Of course. I can feel the truth of it. I more than believe.”
“Shamans would not believe,” Kazhak said with certainty.
“No. But Tsaygas and Mitkezh are not druii, I am sure of that.”
“What of their magic? Is it real? Is any magic real, or is all tricks? Who can know? Kazhak does not feel it, as you say you do. Kazhak does not know what to believe.”
Epona felt sorry for the man. She suspected it had been a long time since he had had much faith in the shamans, and now even that was gone, replaced by a partial belief in her and something she might not even be able to do. But she was more fortunate: She knew her limitations; yet she also knew that the magic was real, and possible.
Only not, perhaps, for her. It was herself she did not fully believe in. She lay in her tent and wondered, Did I really summon the storm? Did I really save a dying horse?
Doubt assailed her as her brief moments of magnificence shrank into the past, two isolated spots of light.
Perhaps the shama
ns were causing the doubt; perhaps they were casting spells to weaken her. She knew this was a possibility and struggled to hold on to her memories: the power singing within her, the sense of being used by something larger and more important than herself. She longed for it again, that soaring sensation of invincibility, of taking nature into her two hands and bending it to her will.
Was that feeling of power—so heady, so tempting—akin to the power the shamans sought? Why should it be right for her and wrong for them? Why had she once resisted it?
She did not like these thoughts; she suspected they would have never come to her in the Blue Mountains.
Winter attacked the Sea of Grass with a vengeance. It was not an alpine winter, with the sky gradually fading into the soft gray of a dove’s breast and the silent, sweet falling of snow blanketing the earth mother, keeping her snug for the gestation of new life. Winter on the grasslands was controlled, like every other season, by the tireless spirit of the wind that swept across the prairie, scattering seed and animal and man.
Wind howled and tore. It drove particles of stinging ice into the eyes and through the clothing. It pelted the unprotected with a granular snow like tiny hailstones; it came in the blink of an eye and could catch and kill you within a short walk from your wagon. The wind could whip a smothering whiteness across the land, composed of snow so heavy it was suffocating, making breathing all but impossible, and what breath remained was sucked out of the lungs by the pervasive cold. Terrible cold. Cold that sank through the flesh and gnawed the marrow within the bones.
Kazhak told Epona of the worst blizzard within his memory, a storm during which deer had turned their rumps to the wind until such masses of ice built up on their hindquarters that the living flesh pulled away in long strips. The dazed, suffering animals wandered aimlessly across the prairie when the storm was over, and the Scythians hunted them down without effort.
The Horse Goddess (Celtic World of Morgan Llywelyn) Page 34