“Who are you? Whose taibhse?” she asked it. “Why are you here if you don’t want me to show you the sun-path?”
“I can’t,” Voada protested. “Orla, Hakan … I can’t …” As she said the names, Orla appeared in the too-bright shared vision of the ghost, weeping inconsolably on a bed in a candlelit room that Voada didn’t recognize, and there was someone moving in the shadows beyond the bed. On Orla’s breast, Voada saw the gleam of a silver oak leaf: the pendant she’d given her. Then the vision of Orla wavered and vanished, and she saw Hakan: asleep in a pile of straw, his skin dappled with dark bruises, his hair hacked short in a slave’s fashion, and an iron collar set around his neck. “You see,” Voada cried, her voice cracking and echoing in the chamber. “I can’t leave. I can’t. I have to … have to …”
Voada felt the truth of that, but she shook her head stubbornly, which only increased the throbbing. “No,” she said again. “I can’t. I’ll go into the forest. I’ll hide there and rest until I’m stronger, then I’ll—” She stopped. There was no plan beyond that.
“Why? Why must I go north?”
The not-taibhse seemed to sigh in her head, sending a winter breeze through her that raised gooseflesh on her arms.
Voada drew herself up, her throat ragged from Wraith-wail. “I can save Orla and Hakan if I go with you?” she asked.
“How can I know that what you’re telling me is the truth?”
She heard a trill of shared laughter in her head.
The ghost stepped away from her. As the world snapped back to normalcy, no longer imbued with the apparition’s vision, the pain and the weariness also came back to her. Voada nearly fell, leaning heavily on the stick. Her head pulsed in time with the beating of her heart; she could barely see with one eye puffed and closed, and when she tried to move her left arm, she cried out at the sensation of searing, interior tearing, and rending that followed. The ghost watched her from a step away, its multiple faces in turn impassive, sympathetic, accusing.
If you stay, you will die … She could sense the truth of that. She was broken inside; it was only sheer will that had allowed her to come this far from the wreckage of her house and her life, and that will was fading, buried under the onslaught of her injuries. Go north, and you may live …
“I’ll go with you,” she said to the ghost. “But I will need your help.”
The not-taibhse nodded and came forward again, sliding into her, occupying her body and her mind once more. She let herself sink into it this time, gratefully accepting its presence and the soothing touch of it. The pain receded.
“They’ll see us.”
With a groan, Voada turned. She began to shuffle toward the door of the temple, the staff tapping on the tiles. Outside, the brilliance of the moonlight threatened to overwhelm her. The landscape laid out below seemed to be alight, the trees glowing, the roofs and windows of the houses of Pencraig incandescent, the River Yarrow far below a shining ribbon set in land gleaming like cold, green fire. The air above the remnant of Meir’s pyre was alive, shimmering in glowing curtains.
She walked on through this strange world overlaying her own, down the lane to where the estates of the Mundoa stood. A servant was awake and standing at the gate to Voice Kadir’s estate, a freshly emptied chamber pot in her hand; Voada halted, her breath catching. The woman squinted in the moonlight as if she had caught a glimpse of something where Voada was standing, but she looked away quickly, closing the gate again behind her as she went back into the Voice’s courtyard.
They continued down the street, and Voada halted again at the yawning, broken gates of her house. She glanced inside at the wreckage and destruction, at the body of Una still lying there, at poor Fermac’s corpse. “Una,” she said to the taibhse. “I should burn her body, and Fermac’s too.”
“You know this?”
With a final glance at the home that had sheltered her since her marriage to Meir, Voada obeyed: down the hill and into the cluster of buildings huddled near the river, then past them to the docks, where the taibhse instructed her to step into one of the small curraches tied up there. It swayed as she entered, rocking under her feet and the Yarrow’s current.
Lying in the round bottom of the small boat, Voada let the gentle rocking and the stars drifting overhead lull her to sleep. If she dreamed, she had no memory of it.
9
Over the River
THE GENTLE BUMP OF the currach grounding on a bank was a physical blow to her abused, violated body. Voada nearly screamed with the shock and pain of the movement that awakened her from sleep. It was daylight, the sun filtered by high gray clouds, and she could also see the green canopy of trees along the riverbank: drooping willows brushing the currach’s gunwale while farther back from the river loomed the more emphatic and stern emerald of hardwoods, laced with thick black branches. She could smell mud and water and hear the river’s current thrashing against the skin of the currach and the scrape of the hull against the rocky bottom. A chill wind caressed the arm she raised to pull herself up into a sitting position.
“Where … ?” Voada began, speaking to the ghost, but she realized that the not-taibhse was no longer with her and there would be no answer. She had no idea where she was, but the river behind her looked nothing like the winding and lethargic Yarrow—it was much wider and flowing too fast. Was this the River Meadham, then? If so, which bank was she on, the north or the south? Was she in Albann Bràghad or not?
She looked for the sun to orient herself; for the first time since the beating, she was able to open her right eye, if only a slit. The sun was low in the sky in the direction the river was flowing, so it was either morning or evening, but the Meadham flowed primarily east to west. If this was River Meadham, then the sun was setting, and she was on the right-hand bank as she faced the sun, which meant she was on the northern bank. She had no idea how long she’d been sleeping or how the currach could possibly have traversed the confluence of the Yarrow and the Meadham and crossed the river besides. Perhaps the ghost had somehow done that?
Where was the specter? She couldn’t see it in the sunlight, couldn’t feel its cold presence. Had it
left her?
Too many questions, and the answers didn’t matter right now.
The bank here was grassy and high, roughly the same height as the currach’s sides. Voada reached over with her good arm, grasping at the foliage and pulling the boat tight against the shelter of the bank, the bottom of the currach grating against the riverbed. Holding onto the grass, grimacing and trying not to cry out at the pain in her ribs and in her other arm, she half pulled, half levered herself until she was laying on the bank, her legs still in the currach. She panted from the exertion for several breaths before reaching back into the boat for her makeshift staff. As she lifted it out, the currach—sitting higher in the water after the loss of her weight—caught the flow of the river as if it realized it was no longer needed, drifting out into the faster water and gliding toward the setting sun.
It was her last link with Pencraig. With Orla and Hakan. With Meir and her former life. All lost now.
As she was herself. Lost.
She saw a crow regarding her from a branch of the closest tree, as if trying to decide whether she was something on which it could dine. “If I were going to die, I’d have died at home,” she told the bird. “I don’t intend to do that here.”
Using the staff for support, she pulled herself up slowly: first into a sitting position, then—painfully—to standing. The crow watched her with black and impassive eyes. “There,” she told it when she was finally steady on her feet. “You see? I’m not for you. Not yet.” She took a step away from the river and toward the crow.
With a caw and a rustle of large wings, it dropped from the branch and flew away northward. Far more slowly, Voada followed it.
She stumbled along until the sun was throwing long shadows from the trees and the light had turned golden, moving upstream along the boggy, willow-lined path of a small creek that was flowing toward the Meadham, stopping now and then to quench her thirst and to rest. Hunger was beginning to gnaw at her, and at first she thought it was that feeling that caused her to imagine she smelled a cook fire, the delicious scent of meat grilling mingling with the odor of burning peat. But as she walked slowly on, step by slow, deliberate step, the smell became stronger, and she thought she could see a smear of dark smoke rising from a copse of trees on a small hill ahead.
It took nearly the rest of the light to walk the distance and climb the rise. There in a small glade overlooking a lake was a collection of round-roofed, thatched huts: a Cateni village, little more than an encampment. Her presence was noticed before she could enter the glade; two men stepped out from behind trees, both with arrows already nocked on drawn bowstrings. In the fading light, she could see the muscles in their arms standing out from the tension. “Who are you, woman?” one of the men grunted in the Cateni tongue, a slight young man with light gray eyes and a shock of ruddy hair who appeared to be little more than Orla’s age. His words were nearly indecipherable; his accent far stronger than any Voada had heard before.
“My name is Voada Paorach,” she told him in her own halting Cateni. “I mean no one any harm.”
“She’s a southerner,” the young man said to the other. “Listen to that awful accent …”
“She’s also been beaten,” the other answered—a taller, heavier, older man with graying, receding hair at his temples. Voada wondered if he was the younger one’s father. “Look at the blood on her face and clothes, the bruises. We both saw how she can barely walk.” Then, to Voada: “Why are you here? Are you spying for the Mundoa?”
Voada shook her head. “The Mundoa did this to me,” she told them. “I came from Pencraig.”
“Pencraig? Down the Yarrow? You’re a long way from home, lass,” the man commented, but his arm relaxed on the bowstring, and the arrowhead dipped, though he kept the arrow on the string. The two looked at each other again, and then the older man inclined his head toward the huts. “We’ll have Ceiteag talk to her and decide what to do. You—Voada—walk on.”
Voada did as she was ordered, the two men walking a few steps behind her. As she passed the first of the huts, she saw faces staring at her with open curiosity and a few with suspicion. There was a cook fire in the center of the circle of huts, a deer roasting on a spit over it and a steaming stock kettle smelling of fish and vegetables also suspended over the fire. A rock-lined well was at the far end of the circle, nearest the lake. There appeared to be perhaps several hands of Cateni adults living in the village, most of them out of their homes or leaning against their doorways watching her pass. Children ran toward her, only to stop short as their parents called out to them.
One of the buildings in the village was larger than the others and set back from the main circle, surrounded by old oaks. Voada saw tall windows cut into the wood-and-daub walls, the arrangement familiar to her; echoing the temple on Pencraig Bluff. As Voada approached the cook fire, a woman came out the door of the temple. Her hair was pure white and long, cascading over her shoulders and down the back of the brown bog dress she wore. There were bracelets of horn around her thin arms, and her face was well worn with wrinkles. A bronze torc hung around her neck, the metal polished near the knobs as if she often touched it there.
“Menach Ceiteag,” the older man escorting Voada called out to the woman, “we found this one coming from the river.”
“And it’s mighty dangerous she looks, Seor,” Ceiteag answered as she came toward Voada, her walk steady and firm. “It’s good that you have your arrows ready in case she tries to run away.” The open sarcasm in her voice was biting, and Voada heard chuckles from the onlookers.
“We thought she could be a Mundoan spy,” the younger one said sullenly behind Voada’s back. “We all saw the Mundoan soldiers in their ships on the Meadham a hand of days ago, ready to go to war.”
“We did. And undoubtedly she’s one of their mightiest champions, who fell off the commander’s own ship.” Ceiteag stopped in front of Voada, looking her up and down, then—strangely—glancing sharply off to Voada’s right, her eyes narrowing as if she were appraising something in the empty air. Then her gaze returned to Voada, who noticed that the not-taibhse was with her once more. “Elia’s spit, Seor, the woman can barely stand, and she looks famished. Put your bows away and help her into the temple. Now! Before she falls down.”
With that, Ceiteag turned on her heel, obviously expecting compliance, and walked back toward the temple. Voada felt Seor’s hand on her good arm, and she followed the old woman into the cool darkness.
The sun had already touched the horizon, and it took several breaths for Voada’s eyes to adjust to the lack of light inside, but when it did, she saw that the building was a temple of Elia. The four solstice windows showed the dusky landscape outside, and the sun-path was marked with polished granite stones on the wooden floor. A small wooden altar was placed at the intersection of the paths with a crude carved image of Elia set atop it.
And there were two not-taibhse inside as well, visible in the dark. One stood alongside Ceiteag, regarding her as closely as the old woman. And the other was the ghost from Pencraig, standing near the wall to Voada’s right.
“Put her on my bed,” Ceiteag said to Seor, pointing to a rush-filled mattress near the door. “Gently. We don’t know how badly she’s hurt. Good. Now take my bowl and bring me back some of the stew for her. Go on, now.”
With that, Seor bowed his head to Ceiteag and left the temple. “What’s your name?” Ceiteag asked.
“Voada Paorach. You’re the menach here?”
“I am. Menach for the temple, and also draoi.” She touched the bronze torc as she gave her titles. “I am Ceiteag of the Dark Water.” She paused, rubbing at her chin; loose skin wiggled underneath her jaw. She gestured toward the two ghosts in the room. “You see them, don’t you?”
“The taibhsean? Yes. I’ve sometimes helped them find the sun-path.” That made her think of Meir, and she had to bite back a sob.
Ceiteag cocked her head, as if she had noticed the grief that colored Voada’s voice. “You are
from the south if you think that,” she said, but her tone was gentle. “You see them, but you obviously don’t understand what you see. These two aren’t taibhsean—not lost ghosts of the once-living. The two in this room are anamacha. An anamacha is a collection of the souls of a line of draoi who have come before—what we once were, and what we’ll become ourselves. Did the draoi who taught you not tell you this?”
Voada shook her head. “My seanmhair should have been draoi, or so I was told, but she died when I was very young, and my mother never taught me anything she knew of the draoi.” She nodded toward the ghost who had helped her. “I thought that this one that you call an anamacha was another taibhse.”
“You see taibhsean, and you see anamacha—and you’ve brought one along with you as well.” Ceiteag gave a long sigh as Seor reentered the temple, holding the bowl of fish stew. “Well, you and I have a lot to discuss, then. But the first thing we have to do is get you healed. The bruises will go away on their own, but those cuts on your face need to be cleaned and sewn. I can tell that you’ve broken ribs; you won’t take a deep breath. Your left arm—can you move it at all?”
“Only a little.”
“Then it will need to be set.” Another sigh. Ceiteag scowled toward Seor. “Get the fire stoked and burning in my hearth, and bring water from the well to boil. Then go find Anabia and Isbeil and tell them I need their help. Go on, now. Hurry, man.”
As Seor left the temple again, Ceiteag looked down at Voada with her hands on her hips. “We’ll take care of you. And while we do, you can tell me how you came to be here.”
PART TWO
ALBANN BRÀGHAD
10
Onglse
ALTAN SAVAS WISHED HE could simply return to his bed and Lucian, but Lucian had slipped out earlier to begin preparations for this morning. Two days ago, a message had been delivered to Altan from Great-Voice Vadim III in Trusa, the mouth of the Emperor Pashtuk, the words direct and not open to interpretation. The Great-Voice expected Altan to “root out the Cateni sihirki on Onglse before the change of season” and, following the accomplishment of that task, to “take the emperor’s army and stamp out any remaining tribal resistance north of the River Meadham, preparatory to establishing Mundoan settlements there.”
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