Age of Myth

by Michael J. Sullivan

  —THE BOOK OF BRIN

  Maeve was buried along with Jason the digger and Neft the builder, both of whom had been struck by lightning. Lyn the bead-maker was laid with them as well; she had been crushed by half of the Killians’ flaming home. The Galantians took care of Stryker, Medak, and Gryndal’s remains, the sight of which forever shattered the notion that the Fhrey couldn’t be killed. They bled and died like any mortal. The display of power when Arion and Gryndal fought, however, demonstrated that some Fhrey did indeed possess godlike power.

  Suitable to a day when so many had died and it appeared the world had slipped further toward an abyss, almost everyone on Dahl Rhen acted with quiet reserve. In addition to those killed in the battle, the villagers mourned the passing of their chieftain and the others, like Hegner, who had vanished overnight.

  Surprised to learn that Tressa had no idea where her husband had gone, Persephone told her of Konniger’s death. The woman faced the news with teary eyes but a straight back. Persephone told her that Konniger and the others had formed a rescue party after hearing about Maeve’s and Suri’s mission regarding Grin the Brown. Sadly, the bear had killed him and the others. She didn’t feel it was necessary to explain all the details about how Konniger and The Brown had faced each other. As disagreeable as Tressa was, Persephone wanted to preserve the new widow’s memory of her husband. No one should experience what she had with Reglan.

  Suri surprised Persephone by showing no hurry to leave. After all that had happened, she had expected the mystic to depart immediately after the battle. Instead, she found the girl sitting beside Minna against the south wall.

  “I don’t suppose this—what just happened—will be the end of it? The end of the warning you originally brought me?”

  Suri shook her head. “Still not big enough. This is the start, just the turning of leaves. Winter is still on its way.”

  Persephone frowned and nodded. “I suppose you’ll be leaving us to return to the wood?”

  Suri looked up as if roused from sleep.

  “You know, this could be your home,” Persephone said.

  Suri looked skeptically at the massive hole in the ground that was still bubbling goo, then toward the shattered gap in the western wall. Her eyes scanned across dozens of scorch marks on the grass and through the roofs of homes.

  “Okay.” Persephone shrugged. “So Rhen has seen better days.”

  “When?”

  Persephone smiled. “So maybe I should come live with you.” She sat down beside the mystic and rested her back against the wall. “That was quite clever. What you did to Arion’s bandages.”

  “The markings in the little Dherg caves block the spirits. I’ve never been able to start a fire in there and can’t read bones. Nothing of the spirit world works when surrounded by those marks.”

  “You’re very smart. You know that?”

  Suri shrugged. Her gaze was focused beyond the opening in the wall. “Maeve—who was she?”

  “Maeve? She was the Keeper of Ways for Rhen. The one who remembered all the old stories from our past. Luckily, she taught others, passing on what she knew. Brin, for example. She loves stories and has a great memory.”

  “What was she like? Who was she married to?”

  “Maeve never married.”

  “She had a daughter.”

  Persephone nodded. “She wasn’t married to the father.”

  “You know who he was?”

  Persephone drew up her knees and straightened her filthy skirt over them. Her clothes were ruined, stained with blood. The blood was probably one of the reasons why Tressa hadn’t questioned the explanation surrounding Konniger’s death. That, and perhaps the widow already knew the truth. “I don’t think it matters anymore. That’s all over. All in the past.”

  “Not all of it,” Suri said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I think her daughter survived.”

  “Maeve’s daughter? No, that was a story Konniger made up. Maeve’s daughter died in the forest where she was abandoned fourteen years…” Persephone stopped and stared at Suri in sudden revelation. “Fourteen…might be more…”

  “Might be less,” Suri finished for her. “Is the father still alive?” she asked without turning. Her stare was still focused on the hole in the wall.

  “No. He died a month ago. Konniger killed him and blamed it on The Brown.”

  Suri finally looked at her then. The tattoos around her eyes were bound up in thought.

  “Twenty years ago I married Reglan,” Persephone said. “Over the years, I bore my husband three sons. One died shortly after being born. Duncan barely made it to the age of three. Mahn grew to be a fine young man, but The Brown took him from me. I never had a daughter, but I always wished for one. My husband was blessed with a daughter, but he never had the chance to meet her. Nobody knew except Reglan, Konniger, and Maeve.”

  Tears filled Suri’s eyes and drops spilled down Persephone’s own cheeks.

  Minna’s head came up, and she looked at both of them as if they were insane.

  —

  Raithe sat outside Roan’s roundhouse, one of the few near the center of the dahl that had suffered no damage at all. He was holding the broken hilt of his father’s sword. Compared with Shegon’s blade, it looked like it had been forged by a child.

  “There you are.” Malcolm walked toward him. The ex-slave had set down his bulky shield but continued to use the spear like a staff, walking in a most un-warrior-like fashion. He took a seat beside Raithe, his legs stretched out and sandaled feet crossed. Together the two stared at the breadth of the dahl and its people, who, having narrowly avoided a butchering or some magical cataclysm, were already back to their labors: fixing the hole in the wall and tending to gardens, sheep, and pots.

  Just another day.

  “What are you going to do with that?” Malcolm asked, pointing at the broken sword.

  “I don’t know. Seems stupid to carry it.” Raithe drove the fractured blade that had started everything into the dirt beside him. He let go, and the sword handle quivered slightly. “Probably should have left it with my father. No one would have stolen it. Who’d want it?”

  Malcolm nodded in solidarity, and Raithe realized that was what he liked most about the man. Malcolm was inclined to understand or at least to agree. Another holdover from years in slavery, perhaps, but Raithe found it a virtue nevertheless.

  Across the dahl, Minna lay down beside Suri and Persephone as they talked near the wall.

  Everyone should have such a loyal friend.

  “What will you do now?” Malcolm asked.

  “I don’t know about that, either.”

  “Good to see you’re on top of things.”

  “Everything’s changed, you know?” He looked at the planted sword. “I’d grown up in my father’s shadow. Fighting to survive, fighting to prove my worth to him. That was the stick I measured myself by. Miserable as he was, my father was all I had left.”

  Again Malcolm nodded. “We’re both adrift without a rudder.”

  Raithe returned the nod and for the first time realized that both he and Malcolm had been freed that day on the bank of the Bern River. And just like Malcolm, he didn’t have a clue what to do with that independence. Raithe was completely on his own for the first time in his life. He had dreamed of such freedom as if it were a faraway place, a made-up land that didn’t really exist. But landing in Dahl Rhen by accident, he was lost. He had a hundred potential directions, a multitude of choices, and the enormity of the options left him paralyzed. Freedom, he discovered, had built a greater prison than his family or clan had.

  In his imaginings, he fantasized about such grand things as a warm home made of wood, a granary with enough wheat to last a whole winter, a loyal woman he could talk to, a well that served up water that didn’t taste of metal, and not one, but two thick blankets. Crazy thoughts, but dreams always were. No one held him back anymore, and if he made a plan, who knew what was possible.
And yet he couldn’t deny recent events and how his life had been changed. Maybe there was a plan, just not his.

  “If you leave, I’ll go with you,” Malcolm said. “And if you stay, I’ll stay.”

  Raithe sat up and leaned in. “Why?”

  “The way I see it, each of us is all the other one has at the moment. You don’t have a clan or family, and neither do I. We’re sort of our own clan, the two of us. And you’ve done well by me. I’m still alive after all, and I have this wonderful spear now.” He thumped the butt against the dirt. “Do you think they’ll let me keep it?”

  “After that throw? They have to. Quite impressive, by the way. You nearly killed him.”

  Malcolm replied with an awkward smile. “Actually, I wasn’t trying to hit him.”

  “Seriously?” Raithe said, even more impressed. “You meant to just miss him like that?”

  “Yeah, except I was aiming five feet to his right.”

  “The spear hit inches to his left.”

  Malcolm smiled and nodded again. “Still impressed?”

  “More than ever.” Raithe grinned. “You know, once a man uses a weapon in battle, and if he survives, then the weapon bonds to him and becomes his.”

  Malcolm looked up at the spear towering over them and smiled. “Then maybe I should name it. People do that, right?”

  “Some do.”

  “Okay, I’ll call it Narsirabad.”

  “Excellent name, very fierce sounding. Is it a Fhrey word?”

  Malcolm nodded.

  “What does it mean?”

  Malcolm smiled. “Pointy.”

  Raithe laughed, and Malcolm joined him. It felt good to laugh. It felt good to breathe the morning air and feel the heat of the sun on his face. And it felt good to sit beside Malcolm as if they didn’t have a care in the world. Maybe they didn’t. There wasn’t any point in worrying about tomorrow. No one knew what it held—maybe nothing at all.

  “What do you think I should do, Malcolm, my clansman? You probably understood everything they said, right? I only caught phrases here and there, but it sounded like this might not be over.”

  “No,” Malcolm said. “Just beginning, I should think.” Cocking his head at Raithe and firming his mouth, he appeared to be giving the question his full thought and attention. He glanced at the sky, drew up his knees, and rubbed his chin. “When faced with certain death, running is sensible, but I think a man can make an unhealthy habit of it. Running can take on an importance of its own and become an excuse to avoid living a normal life.”

  “What’s a normal life?”

  “I was a slave; how should I know? I just don’t think a person should give up trying to find out.”

  Raithe looked over at Persephone again. She was crying, wiping her cheeks with the palms of her hands. Their eyes met, and she sent him an embarrassed smile.

  “We’re going to stay, Malcolm.”

  Malcolm followed his stare. “I had a feeling we might. You like her, don’t you?”

  “She’s different.”

  “Everyone is different.”

  “Then let’s say I like the ways in which she’s different. A wise man once told me no man can escape death, but it’s how we run that defines us. And if I have to run, I think I’d like to go where she’s going.”

  —

  It began in the late afternoon.

  The dead had been buried, and the worst parts of the mess cleaned up. Doing so had put the ground back under people’s feet, and by early evening, as the sun dipped toward the tops of the Crescent Forest, it was clear to everyone that the world hadn’t ended. As the news of Konniger’s death circulated, it also became clear they were leaderless and in peril. Thoughts became whispers, which soon turned into questions.

  Sarah, Brin, Delwin, and Moya approached Persephone as she stood looking at the murky crater in the middle of the dahl, wondering what could be done about it. They would need to fill it in if they were to reuse the land, but where would they haul the dirt from, and was filling it the best choice? Perhaps they could use the pit for additional storage.

  “This is going to be a problem,” Persephone told them as they came up to her.

  Sarah, who led the group, didn’t say a thing. She simply walked over and hugged her. Behind them, Roan watched from a distance.

  “Seph, what are we going to do now?” Sarah whispered in her ear. “We don’t have a chieftain or a Shield and no Keeper of Ways.”

  Delwin nodded. “We thought maybe you might have some idea. I mean, this hasn’t happened before, has it? Reglan was chieftain for forty years, and his father ruled for nearly as long before him. We’ve always…I mean…we’ve usually just gone father to son, but Reglan’s died and Konniger never had any—”

  “Delwin!” Sarah snapped. “In the Grand Mother’s name! Show a little compassion, would you?”

  “I’m sorry, I—”

  “It’s fine,” Persephone said, offering a forgiving smile.

  “It’s just that,” Delwin said, lowering his voice as if the next part were a secret, “Brin tells us that in cases where there is no clear successor, like a son or a Shield, the Keeper of Ways is expected to administrate and oversee combat challenges for the First Chair. But Maeve is dead.”

  “We’re afraid of what might happen,” Sarah said. “Some of the younger men are already sizing each other up.”

  “She’s right.” Delwin nodded, agreeing with his wife. “Without a Keeper, fellas like Tope’s sons and Wedon’s sons are picking sides. We could have an intraclan war on our hands if something isn’t done.”

  “We’ve had enough bloodshed,” Sarah said with a pleading in her voice and eyes. “We don’t need any more.”

  “And I sure don’t want to see Tressa in charge,” Moya said.

  “Where is Tressa?” Persephone asked.

  “Over at Bergin’s,” Moya said. “She’s pretty drunk.”

  Persephone nodded.

  “So do you know what we’re supposed to do?” Delwin asked.

  Persephone nodded. “Of course I do.”

  Her words and matter-of-fact tone took all of them by surprise, causing their smiles and looks of relief to be delayed.

  “Come on, let me show you,” Persephone said. Taking Sarah’s hand and Math’s spear, she led them to the steps of the lodge. Persephone let go of Sarah and climbed to the porch, then turned to face the dahl.

  “You’ve all been hearing a lot of rumors about what happened last night, and you all saw what happened today.” She spoke in a loud, clear voice.

  It didn’t take long for people to notice. The lodge steps had always been the altar of the chieftain, the pulpit where he addressed the dahl. Hearing her speak formally while holding that black spear, those who weren’t already on their way rushed over.

  “Konniger is dead,” she said. “So is Maeve. They were both killed last night by the great brown bear that has been terrorizing this dahl. They, and many others, died. We mourn their passing, but let us be cheerful that the bear is at last dead.”

  With the growing quiet, her voice carried farther and people from outside the walls and inside their homes came crowding around, gathering before the steps.

  “Some have asked, Who will lead us? The answer is simple. I will.”

  Moya began clapping, a great smile spreading across her face. No one else joined her.

  “How can a woman be chieftain?” Cobb asked.

  “How? Cobb, I’ve practically been chieftain for nearly twenty years. There wasn’t a major decision Reglan made that we didn’t discuss together before he ordered it. And who was it that brought the God Killer to us and welcomed the Fhrey when they arrived? Who took measures to save Arion’s life—the Fhrey who just saved all of ours? And who was it that called everyone into battle this morning?” She raised the black spear over her head to remind them.

  “What about the Ways?” Gelston asked.

  “Brin, do the Ways of Succession, as taught to you by Maeve, prohibi
t a woman from sitting in the First Chair?”

  Brin stepped forward. She looked back at her parents just briefly and then said, “No, ma’am.”

  Persephone smiled at the sudden honorific.

  “But we’ll need a warrior to lead us,” Engleton said. “Not a woman.”

  “If there is anyone who doesn’t want me as their leader, they have the right to challenge. That’s also in the Ways, isn’t it, Brin?”

  She nodded and, with a poke from her mother, lifted her head and said, “Yes, yes it is.”

  “Of course, according to the Ways, I have a right to name a champion. Isn’t that so, Brin?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Raithe?” Persephone looked to where he stood beside Malcolm near Roan’s house. “Would you please act as my champion?”

  “Absolutely,” he replied. “But in all honesty, you don’t need me.” Raithe turned so that everyone could hear him. “Persephone left out one important detail about what happened last night. That bear, the one that has terrorized this dahl and killed so many of your men, including the last two chieftains…” He nodded toward Persephone. “She killed it.”

  Eyes shifted between the two, clouded in disbelief and confusion.

  “It’s true,” Raithe insisted. “She killed that big brown monster all by herself with no one’s help. No one at all. And she didn’t even need a spear or a sword.”

  “How, then?” Moya asked, astounded.

  Raithe waited a second, then said, “She beat it to death with the edge of a shield.”

  Dahl Rhen filled with murmurs.

  “With a shield?” Engleton asked.

  “She killed The Brown with a shield?” Gelston asked.

  The questions bounced among those gathered. Responses were words of doubt, statements of disbelief. With each comment Persephone saw faces looking over at her as if she were different.

  Cobb, who spent a good deal of his time shouting from the top of the gate, was heard over everyone else. “Is that true?”

  The crowd quieted.

  “It’s true,” Malcolm said.

  One by one all the Fhrey confirmed the truth of Raithe’s words. No one thought to question their honesty or eyesight.