The Age of Scorpio

by Gavin G. Smith

  ‘We think that Bress has found an aspect of the sleeping goddess, the Mother to us all, and he seeks to pervert or corrupt her somehow,’ Fachtna told her.

  ‘And he will do this by offering those he has taken as sacrifice?’ Britha asked.

  Fachtna nodded. Teardrop was not looking happy.

  ‘Will you swear by blood that you are here to stop this?’ she asked.

  Fachtna did not answer. Instead he produced his finely wrought, silver-bladed dirk and drew a line in red across his palm with the blade.

  ‘Wait,’ Teardrop said, but he knew it was pointless.

  Britha took her iron-bladed knife.

  ‘Use mine,’ Fachtna said. But it was too late. She had made a ragged gash in her hand. The leather tube that lay on top of Fachtna’s pile of armour seemed to move and make sounds as she did this.

  ‘Look, don’t…’ Teardrop started but Fachtna and Britha clasped hands.

  ‘This oath will bind,’ Britha warned him.

  ‘By my blood, I bind myself. I, Fachtna ap Duin, swear that I am here to stop Bress from corrupting the Muileartach and to kill Bress and his servant.’

  Britha felt a flutter in her stomach when he said he meant to kill Bress.

  ‘Then I will travel with you to get my people back,’ Britha said. In the back of her head she heard a voice asking when she would learn to leave the Otherworld well enough alone. Britha looked into Fachtna’s eyes looking for falseness. All she found was desire. She let go of his bloody hand and walked down towards the small dark waves of the Black River lapping on the pebbles.

  ‘What is it with you?’ Teardrop asked Fachtna.

  ‘I meant what I said. What they are doing is an abomination.’

  ‘I know you thought that was what you were doing, but you always have to try and impress, don’t you?’

  ‘I’m an impressive person,’ Fachtna said, smiling. Teardrop felt like slapping him for never taking anything seriously.

  ‘In this world, yes…’

  ‘And in the Ubh Blaosc,’ Fachtna said more quietly. Teardrop sighed. He hated having to deal with prickly warrior pride.

  ‘I’m not doubting your prowess, but she cannot do the things we do.’

  ‘She has the blood of the Muileartach and the blood of the Red Chalice. That is powerful blood magic and with your help she should be able to harness it. She will keep up.’

  Britha was walking back towards them again. Teardrop did not like the look on her face. She was staring at him again. ‘Besides, she’s too much woman for you,’ he said quietly.

  Fachtna grinned. ‘Such a creature would be a like a dragon. They may exist, but nobody’s ever seen one.’

  ‘I am beginning to understand why Uathach beat you so often.’

  ‘She wanted me.’

  ‘There was something else from my dream,’ Britha said. Fachtna noticed that as she came to a rest by the fire, she pushed her foot under the haft of her spear. ‘I saw them push a seed, like the crystals that grow in the caves, into the heads of my people. These things just seemed to sink through their skin.’ Britha waited for either of them to speak. They just watched her. Teardrop could see what was coming. ‘It looked like what I saw under the skin of your head when I bashed you.’

  ‘It is similar magics. From the Otherworld,’ Teardrop said.

  Britha could not decide if she wanted to believe him or not.

  ‘It’s a fungus that they grow in his head,’ Fachtna said. Teardrop looked furious. Britha had to stifle a smile. If one of her warriors had given away a secret like that to a stranger she would have cursed them until their manhood dropped off. Not that she ever allowed the warriors to learn her secrets. She could tell that Teardrop would be having words with Fachtna in private.

  ‘A fungus inside the head. That makes no sense,’ she told them. ‘What would this seed do?’

  ‘Enslave them,’ Fachtna said.

  ‘No, Ettin makes them drink from a cup of demon’s blood for that,’ Britha told him.

  ‘It’s to hear their mindsong,’ Teardrop said quietly.

  Britha turned to stare at him. ‘When they are afraid, when they are suffering, when they die in torment,’ she said. Teardrop looked at her across the fire. She could see new respect in his eyes. She did not care, though she was beginning to think that she wanted his magics. Either learned or taken, they would make her tribe stronger, if she ever found them.

  ‘Now you know my secrets, will you tell us one of your own?’ Teardrop asked.

  ‘Unlikely, but you may ask,’ Britha told him.

  ‘You have the blood of the Muileartach in you. How?’

  Fachtna turned to look at her expectantly.

  ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ Britha said. ‘The gods are cold and cruel and do not mean us well. My people forsook them when my farthest ancestors were young.’

  ‘Have you drunk blood?’

  ‘No,’ she said uneasily. She remembered the fevered dream as she lay dying on the beach. The pool in Cliodna’s cave. Teardrop was staring at her. It was the truth-finding look; she had used it herself before. He knew.

  ‘Eaten flesh of the Otherworld?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Some kind of fluid must have been exchanged,’ Fachtna said with a leer.

  He was too confident of his own abilities to think that Britha would attack him. The punch was a solid blow that spread his nose across his face and squirted blood over his mouth and down his chin. The blow had been quick and delivered with a surprising amount of force. Fachtna staggered back, and Britha turned and stalked off, pulling her hood up and wrapping her robe tighter around herself.

  Teardrop made enough noise walking across the pebbles to give Britha warning of his approach. She turned to look briefly at the strange creature. He was carrying an earthenware jug. Britha went back to staring at the stars, wondering if she should be insulted that men thought alcohol was the solution to her problems.

  ‘I found this,’ Teardrop said. ‘What sort of raiders leave the good uisge beatha?’ he took a pull of the clear liquid. ‘It’s good,’ he managed.

  Britha took the jug off him and took a long swig.

  ‘I don’t like the sky now,’ Britha finally said.

  ‘Your vision?’

  Britha nodded. ‘It seems angry and hateful now.’

  ‘I think it’s like your gods, cold and uncaring.’

  ‘No, our gods hated us. We would give them everything just so they would leave us alone.’ Teardrop turned to look at her. ‘Or so the stories handed from mother to mother go.’ She handed the jug back and he had some more. ‘Do you have gods?’ she asked. He smiled.

  ‘You know enough of us for one day, I think.’ Both of them looked up into the night sky. ‘We need to know,’ he finally said.

  He certainly knew all the masks, Britha thought, just the right word magic to get what he needed. When to be listened to, when to be feared, the caring mask, the one he was wearing now. Was he using this mindsong on her as well, she wondered, because she wanted to tell him. She wanted to tell someone, and he was, after all, from the Otherworld as well. He wouldn’t, couldn’t judge.

  ‘Fachtna is an arrogant fool,’ she said instead.

  Teardrop laughed. ‘Yes, but you must have met warriors before.’

  ‘Her name was Cliodna,’ Britha said. ‘She was a selkie.’

  ‘I have heard the name.’

  ‘One of the seal people, skin changers.’ Though now that she thought about it, she had never seen Cliodna in her seal form.

  Teardrop looked a little confused. ‘And you drank her blood?’

  ‘No, I told you. Though she may have used her blood to heal me, or I may have dreamed it.’

  ‘Then… you were lovers?’

  Britha turned to look at him defiantly. People feared those who behaved differently to them. Britha had never been able to differentiate between the desire for men and the desire for women. She could not understand why people would cut of
f half the oppurtunities for beauty and pleasure. Teardrop looked momentarily surprised but there was no judgement there. Then he looked amused.

  ‘What?’ she demanded.

  ‘Fachtna will be dissapointed,’ he said.

  ‘She turned different, angry, hateful.’ Britha hated that a tear rolled down her cheek in front of this stranger.

  ‘She lived in the water a lot?’

  Britha nodded.

  ‘It sounds like she was an elder child of the Muileartach.’

  ‘And the gods are hateful,’ Britha said bitterly.

  ‘Bress is harvesting sorrow. Did she push you away?’

  Britha nodded again, cursing more tears.

  ‘She was probably trying to protect you. She knew she was changing and there was nothing that she could do about it.’

  Britha said nothing. She tried to look at the hateful sky and not the dark waters. Teardrop had learned long ago that the best thing at times like these was to let the tears run their course. He looked out over the waters to the south. He knew that that way lay Bress.

  Finally Britha wiped away her tears, took the jug from Teardrop and had another long pull.

  ‘It was a great gift she gave you,’ Teardrop said. Britha nodded.

  The following day was grey and overcast as well. The rain was light but constant, the kind that soaks through and then chills down to the bone, except today Britha wasn’t feeling it. She felt stronger, faster, more aware than she had at any time she could remember. She felt amazing except for the dull ache of loss in her chest.

  ‘Does the sun ever shine in this land?’ Fachtna demanded cheerfully as he dragged a log boat he had found in the treeline down the pebbles towards the Black River. Even so early, he was already annoying Britha. The uisge beatha pain in her head was not helping her tolerance either.

  ‘Do you know what you’re doing?’ Britha asked.

  ‘I think I know how to work a boat,’ Fachtna said.

  ‘If this is anything like the Tatha, then the currents and tides will be treacherous. We need an experienced boatman who knows the waters. Besides, their god lives in there and he will be angry now his people are dead.’

  Fachtna stared out at the water, seeming to concentrate, then he knelt by the side of the river and placed his hand in the water and concentrated some more.

  ‘Come. We will break spears and give them to the river,’ Teardrop said.

  Britha looked over at him. She couldn’t shake the feeling that he was just trying to humour her.

  ‘I know this river now,’ Fachtna said, standing up. ‘We will be fine.’

  15. Now

  Maude had held her as she sobbed while Uday, his expression difficult to read, had made her hot chocolate liberally laced with cheap whisky. They were near strangers to her, and her sister had hurt them – Uday certainly had no reason to trust her – but they looked after her. Made sure she was okay.

  Later Maude was curled up on the sofa snoring gently, her head in Uday’s lap. He was stroking her hair as she slept. Being held had become too much for Beth and had just made her cry more, so she had moved to the ancient but still comfortable armchair, bringing her knees up to her chest as she sipped another Irish hot chocolate. Her face was still streaked, her chest still hurting from crying. Some tough ex-con, she thought. Then more bitterly, If it had been the other way around, the only crying Talia would have done would have been to call attention to herself.

  Uday reached under the sofa, making Maude stir in her sleep, and pulled out the bayonet. The blade was clean. Uday held it in front of her.

  ‘I don’t like this being here,’ he finally said.

  ‘It was my great-grandfather’s,’ Beth said. She wasn’t sure why.

  ‘I don’t want violence brought here. Do you understand?’ He was still holding the bayonet, staring at the blade.

  Beth looked down. ‘I’m through with it. She’s dead. There was some weird stuff… There’s nothing I can do.’

  ‘Arbogast,’ Uday said quietly, not wanting to wake Maude. Then he handed the bayonet back to Beth. ‘I almost wish you’d killed him. Piece of shit.’ There was a barely restrained fury in Uday’s whisper.

  ‘You knew him?’

  Uday shook his head. ‘I was just around to try and help Maude pick up the pieces afterwards. Oh, it wasn’t rape – too genteel and manipulative for that. May as well have been for what it did to her self-esteem. All the bullshit justifications from your sister dearest. Look, I’m sorry for your loss, but I’m glad your sister is out of our lives, her and all those other Black Mirror arseholes.’ Uday lapsed into a brooding silence. Maude had shifted on the sofa but was still asleep.

  ‘It was bad enough after she turned a trick – days sitting in here just sobbing, a couple of attention-grabbing pieces of suicidal talk, but it was when someone at uni found the film she’d made with Talia. Because of course their Internet porn habits are just a reflection on the dirty girls in the films,’ Uday spat bitterly. This was anger that had been stored up and nurtured, Beth thought. ‘Of course, Talia revelled in the notoriety. Made it out to be some kind of a statement of how clever, interesting and nonconformist she was.’ A tear leaked out of Uday’s eye. ‘A different story for Maude. All the looks in lectures, in the corridors. The guys deciding she was easy, so they could say what they wanted to her and she would jump into bed with them, somehow forgetting that the porn industry exists because of people like them. All the girls sitting in judgement. A slut to some, a threat to others, or just a poor example helping to objectify the sex. Everyone just so pleased that they weren’t the target, and we’re supposed to be the clever ones. University’s supposed to be a place to experiment. It’s the twenty-first century and apparently a gal’s reputation is still what matters. What a load of shit.’

  Maude was moaning in her sleep. Uday tried to calm himself, stroking her hair as she settled down.

  ‘Nobody?’

  ‘Oh there were some, the understanding ones, as if they knew. Sometimes I think they were the worst. Every sympathetic look a reminder. I know we’re all supposed to talk about our feelings, but sometimes you just want to forget about your mistakes and move on. And let’s be honest, she’s fragile, arguably too easily led, but she is an adult and has to take responsibility for her actions as well.’

  Beth tried to imagine what it had been like for them. They had clearly developed something of a siege mentality. In her mind’s eye she could see Maude in tears while Uday verbally went for some bitchy girl or sleazy guy who’d upset her.

  ‘They don’t give you a chance, you know? You fall down, make a mistake – suddenly you’re public property and everyone wants their pound of flesh.’ Tears were rolling down his cheeks now. Beth said nothing. There was nothing to say for now; he just needed to get this out.

  ‘That was Talia for you,’ Beth finally said after a long silence. Uday looked over at her. ‘She was like a virus. Everything she touched got infected.’ Beth reached for what she was trying to say, trying to give words to a half-formed thought. ‘I think the more people she hurt, the more she thought it meant that she mattered…’ She wasn’t sure she had managed to get across what she was thinking, but Uday was nodding. More silence. The pair of them lost in their own thoughts.

  ‘I’m going to have to tell my father that his only daughter is dead,’ Beth said. It was self-pity. She knew it was self-pity. It was also true. Uday just looked at her. The silence drew out awkwardly. Beth looked down at the threadbare carpet.

  ‘I know it probably won’t seem like it sometimes,’ he finally said, ‘but your parents don’t hate you. They probably just do the best they can with what they know.’

  ‘Parent,’ Beth said. ‘My mum died when we were both young. What about your parents?’

  ‘What about them?’

  ‘What do they think?’

  ‘About what?’ Uday asked innocently. Beth got embarrassed and was not sure what to say. ‘What, because I’m Asian and a fag?’ Ud
ay started laughing. ‘I’m just playing. Mother is in major denial, keeps on trying to introduce me to nice girls. Father’s also in denial. I think he’d rather I meet some less nice girls; I suspect he prays that I’m sleeping with Maude.’ Uday looked down at Maude, still asleep and looking peaceful. ‘Brother and sister are supportive. The problem’s cousins and some aunts and uncles.’ Uday looked away, but Beth saw the darkness creep over his face. She recognised the sign of old pain.

  Maude stretched and opened her eyes, looked up at Uday.

  ‘I fell asleep,’ she said drowsily.

  ‘On the sofa again,’ Uday agreed.

  ‘I need bed.’

  Uday nodded.

  ‘Tomorrow we go to the pub and we can pretend we’re normal, as unpleasant as that sounds,’ Uday said. Maude smiled and nodded. She stood up and stretched dramatically before giving Beth a kiss on the top of her head.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said sympathetically.

  No, I’m sorry, Beth thought, for what my family helped do to you, but she just nodded.

  Beth wondered if it was as simple as pretending that you were just like everyone else for long enough that you eventually became so. She sat on the sea wall just outside the amusements, looking out at the water towards the Isle of Wight. To her left along the front was some kind of tower, beyond that was Old Town and then Gosport. It was ridiculous how exotic Portsmouth felt to her, but then she’d never really been anywhere except Bradford and prison. Well, Leeds as well, she supposed.

  It was a cloudless day, bright blue sky but fresh and windy. She had her leather zipped up tight, her hat pulled down over her ears. She took another sip from the mug of hot sweet tea.

  This would be okay, this would be enough, she thought. Time for a change. She wanted to get away from Bradford and live by the sea. Stay away from the clubs, the bouncing and all the violence. Live in a place where not everyone knew you and your business.

  The work was menial and repetitive but that didn’t matter. When she was finished she could see a clean floor, or an oiled ride, or a happy punter, well more or less, and could measure what she’d done.