Taminy

by Bohnhoff, Maya Kaathryn

  “The Meri,” Wyth was saying with some diffidence, “the Meri has given me this about the calling of our young men and women.”

  He paused and, in that pause, a visible change overcame him. His entire frame, his expression, his eyes, shed all hint of timorousness. Light from the windows played through the strands of his dark hair and made his angular face appear to glow. His prayer crystal, on its long, complex chain, followed suit, causing all who saw it to draw admiring and awful breaths.

  Ealad-hach’s jaw tightened against his will and he wondered if he oughtn’t listen, if instead he should recite a duan to keep the words from affecting him. In the end, he listened.

  “True faith, O People of the Corah,” said Wyth in a voice that rang with music, “is for each soul to pursue its calling in the world as dictated by the gifts bestowed by its Creator. Hold fast to the Spirit of the Universe, treasure His gifts among you and use them in accordance with His desire, not with your own. Seek His grace, which is My grace, for in Our hands lies the destiny of the world.”

  There was a silence, like the silence of the morning’s birds, in which no adult spoke and no child shuffled its feet. Then Wyth sat and the congregation murmured in complex harmonies until Osraed Saxan recaptured their attention. He spoke then, of the things the Scriptural passages alluded to and announced, to the surprise of many, that his own child, Iseabal, had a Gift for the Art and that he had decided to offer her the opportunity to attend Halig-liath.

  It was during this disturbing revelation that Osraed Ealad-hach first noticed the peculiar odor in the room. At length, he began to think that it, and not Wyth’s “revelation” was the cause of the continued undercurrent of unease. It came to him especially strongly when they rose to sing the lays. He glanced at Brys, intending to ask if he smelled anything odd, but the expression on the boy’s face made the question unnecessary.

  Ealad-hach tried to cull the scents as he sang. He made out bay laurel, he thought, and perhaps garlic, but beneath that was a fetid, almost putrid odor that grew stronger and more unbearable with each moment.

  The relief in the room when Saxan intoned the homeward blessing was palpable; worshippers streamed toward the door the moment they were free to do so. Ealad-hach, hampered by his location and age, was one of the last to reach the door and was puzzled to find that here, near a knot of young people, the horrid stench was concentrated. Phelan was there and Terris-mac-Webber and Scandy-a-Caol and two girls he barely knew—the Spenser’s daughter and a taller girl with stridently red hair which, coupled with that odor, annoyed him almost beyond patience.

  As he approached along the back wall of the Cirke, he saw the youngster’s eyes move in unison to the central aisle where Iseabal and Taminy walked, engaged in conversation. He paused, thinking perhaps he could glean something from their interaction.

  He was rewarded but surprised. The youngsters by the door purposefully blocked the girls’ exit and encircled them in sly smiles and confrontative glares.

  “So, Taminy,” said the boy, Scandy, “tell us, are ye off to your Wickie glen today?”

  “Please, say you aren’t,” insisted mac-Webber.

  But the Spenser’s girl said, “Tell us you are.” She pouted her lower lip and added, “You promised us, didn’t she, Aine?”

  The red-haired cailin nodded, frowning. “Aye. I suppose she did.”

  “Oh, might we come?” Scandy asked. “Can we see you cast a love inyx? We know you must’ve tossed one a’ poor Terris, here.”

  He clapped the other boy on the back, making him shrug away.

  “Wheeze!” said Phelan, screwing up his face. “Whatever’s that smell?”

  “You just noticed it?” asked Scandy. “Maybe it’s the foul odor o’ Wicke.” He looked straight at Taminy.

  Iseabal-a-Nairnecirke went white, then red. “Taminy’s no Wicke. She’s just Gifted. Tell them, Taminy. Tell them you’re not Wicke.”

  “No, I’m not Wicke.”

  “It’s sinful to lie in a Cirke,” said Scandy.

  Again Phelan whined, “What’s that smell?”

  The Spenser’s girl left the redhead’s side to glide between Taminy and Iseabal. “Well, it’s not Taminy or Iseabal, so there’s that idea put to rest.” She gave Scandy a supercilious glance then turned her eyes back to the girl, Aine. Her nose wrinkled and she thrust out her arm, pointing at the other girl.

  “Aine-mac-Lorimer, whatever is that on your skirt?”

  All eyes were drawn to the redhead then, as she stared down, herself, at the horrid-looking stain spreading from the large, square pocket in the apron of her skirt. She reached a hand in, face covered with dread. Her expression altered swiftly to a wide-eyed grimace and she jerked the hand out again with a wild croak. A dark egg-sized object flew from her hand to land with a grotesquely wet plop at Taminy’s feet.

  The Spenser’s girl screamed and leapt back. “What is it? Oh, Aine, what is it?”

  The other girl just shook her head mutely, her eyes on the sodden lump at their feet. Scandy picked it up.

  “It’s furry!” he said. “Gah! An’ it stinks rotten!”

  “Why, it’s a runebag, isn’t it?” asked the Spenser’s girl. “Aine, what are you doing with it?”

  Ealad-hach stepped forward as swiftly as his aging bones and muscles allowed and snatched the wretched wad from Scandy’s hand. It was, indeed, the source of the rancid smell. He held it up to the light from the nearby window.

  “It’s an animal skin,” murmured Brys, at his shoulder.

  It was a mole skin, to be exact and, seeing it, Ealad-hach suspected he knew what it contained. He peeled back enough of the putrefying skin to see what lay beneath. “Bay leaves,” he murmured, “soaked in garlic, it would seem. And would there be a snake’s head wrapped inside?” he asked Aine.

  The girl merely gawped at him, her mouth open.

  “A snake’s head?” asked Brys, and the other boys made sick faces.

  “A snake’s head wrapped in garlic-soaked bay leaves and a fresh mole skin. If I am not mistaken, this runebag is intended to keep any Wicke present in this Cirke from leaving it.” Ealad-hach turned his gaze to Taminy, who stood with Iseabal clinging to her arm. “Are there Wicke in this Cirke, cailin?”

  She met his eyes, then, and a chasm seemed to open up beneath his feet, leaving him teetering on the edge of vertigo.

  “There may be Wicke here, Osraed,” she said, “but I am not among them.”

  “No?” Ealad-hach looked around at the group of youth. His eyes found Aine again. “Do you think this girl is Wicke, cailin?”

  In answer, the girl screwed up her face and bolted out through the half-open sanctuary door.

  Ealad-hach turned back to Taminy, holding up the horrid fetish. “Someone is accusing you of practicing the Wicke Craft, Taminy-a-Gled. Do you deny the accusation?”

  “I have studied the Art, Osraed, both under my father and Osraed Bevol. It is the Art I practice, in my small way, not Wicke Craft.”

  “You do claim a Gift, then?”

  Taminy nodded. “A small Gift, Osraed. I understand herbs and healing. Is there something harmful in that?”

  “You cast no love inyx on young Terris, as this lad suggested?”

  Terris-mac-Webber blushed profusely. “That was a tease, is all, Master. He meant nothing by it, but to twit me.”

  “Are you certain?”

  “I cast no such inyx, Osraed,” Taminy said. “That would be an abuse of the Art.”

  “Will you suffer yourself to be tested, cailin? Before witnesses?”

  The girl didn’t blink. “If it’s your wish, Osraed.”

  “Do you want the Osraed Bevol here?”

  “He’s no doubt returned home. There’s no need to call him back.”

  “You don’t want your champion present? I find that odd.”

  “If my actions have brought this accusation upon me, it’s my responsibility to face it, not Osraed Bevol’s.”

  How calm she w
as. How composed. Any normal teenaged girl would be in tears now ... if she was innocent. He glanced at the Cirkemaster’s daughter. Already her eyes were filling with fearful tears and her hands, clasped over her companion’s arm, shook.

  “Will you witness this?” he asked the group of young people. They nodded—eagerly, he thought. Good. Let them see this creature reveal herself. He raised his eyes, looking down the aisle over the head of the Spenser’s girl. “And you, Osraed Saxan, will you witness the test of this cailin?”

  Iseabal turned to her father, her eyes spilling tears. “Please, father, make him stop this. He wants to hurt Taminy.”

  “If Taminy is innocent,” Ealad-hach observed, “then she need have no fear of hurt.”

  The Cirkemaster clenched his fists and thrust them into the pockets of his robe. “I can’t see what you hope to prove, Osraed Ealad-hach. Osraed Wyth has given us news that makes the Art a noble pursuit for our cailin.”

  “This is true—the Art is noble. But there are dark inyx that are not part of the Art; there are dark Runes that are not to be woven.”

  “And how shall you prove that Taminy has woven such dark Runes?”

  Ealad-hach allowed himself a grim smile. He dropped the runebag to the floor before the Sanctuary door and gestured toward the front of the Sanctuary. “Come to the altar and we shall see.”

  Once at the altar, he had Brys place Taminy, seated, upon the great, carved stone, while the witnesses fanned out below her. Then he reached into his belt pouch and brought forth the crystal there. He held it so that light struck it, shattering in its perfect facets.

  “This is the crystal given to the Osraed Lin-a-Ruminea upon his Farewelling. Have you heard of this Osraed, cailin?”

  She surprised him. “Yes,” she said. “It was the Osraed Lin who advised Cyne Thearl in the time the histories call the Emerald Cusp.”

  Ealad-hach did not let his surprise show. “Lin-a-Ruminea was a man of surpassing wisdom and absolute purity. This is the crystal he wove with. It’s name is Gwyr—pure—and it is said to be one of the purest stones in existence. A pure stone, as you may know, will not suffer itself to be used for the impure weavings of the wicked. Which is why,” he added, “the sinful have never been able to raise the power enjoyed by the innocent.”

  He thrust the crystal nearly into Taminy’s face. “Take this crystal, cailin. Let us see what it tells us about you.”

  She reached up her hands without hesitation and took the stone, holding it before her eyes. For a moment, nothing happened, causing feet to shuffle and eyes to trade secret glances, then the core of the crystal caught fire. Light erupted from it in a blinding cascade—streamers of flame like the fire shows of Farewelling reached up and out, harmlessly passing the stunned watchers, arcing to the limit imposed by the stone walls. The walls, themselves, began to glow then, as if the light, liquid, poured over them, coating the cold stone. The Eibhilin beams moved as if alive, weaving themselves into an intricate awning that wheeled over the awed and stupefied. The awning contracted slowly into a blazing web that held Taminy and the crystal within.

  Osraed Ealad-hach clutched at his racing heart, barely able to take in what he was seeing, able only to cry mutely that it could not be. That this woman could not manipulate the Eibhilin energies through a pure stone. What did it mean? His mind flailed for an answer and found none.

  He panicked. He must have time to think. He must wrench the crystal from her hands. Yes, it would at least make him seem to be in control of this trial. He willed his hands to move, but they would not. It was an ordeal of will just to press his lungs and throat into service.

  He shrieked. “Stop!”

  The web of light dissolved into a billion tiny points of incandescence, a glittering powder that settled to the Sanctuary floor, pulsed, and melted like snow before sun. Ealad-hach’s heart and bowels trembled. He did not want to lift his eyes again, to see her mocking him, but he must. Control was necessary. He looked up quickly to catch her expression. So far from mocking, was it, he could almost imagine he saw wide-eyed, open-mouthed amazement there.

  The girl shook herself, then, blinked as if waking, and proffered him the crystal. He took it gingerly, speechless. It scalded his fingers and he nearly dropped it before juggling it into a fold of his robe.

  While he fumbled, Taminy slipped from the altar stone, bid the watchers daeges-eage and left the Sanctuary, stepping lightly over the discarded runebag. Ealad-hach turned to watch her, by now unsurprised that it did not cause her to hesitate.

  There was a hush in his soul. A cold, dark silence. The stone was pure. He knew it was. He knew the impure could not handle it, could not use it. His startled mind reached into the quivering shadows and thrust forward the thought that the girl might be innocent. Perhaps he was looking for his Cwen Wicke in the wrong place, or perhaps there was no Cwen Wicke and his aislinn was, as Wyth had suggested, a portent of good rather than evil. What then? What if Taminy-a-Gled possessed nothing but a strong natural Gift?

  From a place where time had stopped, Ealad-hach confronted the idea of Taminy’s innocence. He closed his eyes and beheld her again, bathed in radiance, dripping it, shedding it like ... like the woman in his aislinn, the woman who rose from the Sea, laughing. He fought the mad desire to swoon under the sudden weight of his certitude—Taminy and that woman were one and the same; the Cwen Wicke of his nightmares had put on flesh.

  oOo

  The Osraed Lealbhallain let himself be awestruck, again, at the grand beauty of the Cyne’s Cirke. The long nave, with its vaulted ceiling, looked to him like the rib cage of some giant, ossified Eibhilin beast who had lain down here and slept the ages away that men and women might have a place to worship. Light from windows set high on the flanks of the peaked roof poured down the walls in a myriad hues and tumbled across the floor. He could almost hear the bubbling froth of light.

  The appointments, too, were magnificent—the huge, carved and polished doors with their copper, silver and brass trims and fittings; the raised dais of dark wood, polished by the feet and knees of Osraed, royalty and other penitent worshippers; the altar stone, a-glitter with crystalline fragments from Ochan’s Cave; behind it, a standard bearing a great star of gold and crystal—symbol of the Meri’s presence.

  Of all things here, that altar stone was the constant. It had not been renewed or refurbished since its placement there by Cyne Kieran, called the Dark, in response to a prophecy that made him fearful of wedding at Halig-liath or Ochanshrine. It was Cyne Saeward who enlarged the Cirke from those original, relatively humble beginnings, and who retiled the floors, replaced the paneling and added the largest of the windows. Since then, no major changes had been made.

  Colfre’s alterations, Fhada had told him, lay concealed behind a great tapestry that hung just beyond the altar. Leal couldn’t imagine what changes the Cyne believed justified the tariffs he was levying against local merchants. Surely nothing, Lealbhallain thought, could increase the grandeur of the place or enhance its sense of history.

  He heard the wind-bells, then, from their aerie above the altar, and realized the Sanctuary had all but filled with worshippers. Beside him, Osraed Fhada, who had been lost in his own meditations, stirred and glanced around.

  “Ah,” he said, “the Cyne.”

  Leal turned to glance up the broad central aisle. It was, indeed, the Cyne and, with him, an entire entourage. Before him a pair of boys carried the standards of the House Malcuim and Colfre’s personal crest—a dove bearing in its beak a wild sea-rose. Thereafter came the Cyne’s Durweard, Daimhin Feich, followed by the Cyne himself and the Cwen Toireasa, both borne on thrones of gilt wood. Behind them, on a smaller throne, was the young Riagan, Airleas.

  Leal ogled. He had worshipped at Ochanshrine these weeks past in the small seaside chapel called Wyncirke. Only this Cirke-dag had an invitation from Mertuile brought him and Fhada to Cyne’s Cirke. He had never imagined this pageantry; down the broad central aisle the Royal Family was borne,
followed by a troupe of court Eiric, Ministers and Osraed. The less impressive members of the congregation merely watched.

  Osraed Fhada leaned close to Lealbhallain. “The first alteration our Cyne made here was to have the great aisle made greater that he and his Cwen might travel it enthroned.”

  Leal watched, as he was intended to, while the courtiers found themselves seats in the front row—cordoned off for them, Fhada said. The thrones continued on, to be set upon the altar itself, flanking the great stone. The standards, too, were placed there, one to each side of the golden staff which held the Meri’s effigy.

  Leal glanced sideways at Fhada. The older Osraed’s face was flushed and his jaw set. He shook his head. “Sacrilege,” he murmured. “Placing himself on the same altar as the Meri’s Star.”

  Leal faced front again as the Cyne’s Cirkemaster took his place at the altar stone and began the devotions. The worship was traditional; there were readings from the Corah and the Book of the Meri interspersed with congregational lays and stunning chants from the Cirke chorus, accompanied by fine musicians on fiddle, pipe and drum. It was, in all, a glorious worship, and Leal lost himself in the weave of sunlight, incense and song until the final prayers had been offered. Then, when traditionally the Cirkemaster would offer a blessing or commend some thought for the personal meditation of the worshippers, he instead placed an ornate wooden box upon the altar stone.

  Leal recognized the motif upon its carved panels and a chill coursed up his spine. The Cyne rose then, to place himself, kneeling, before the altar stone. Whereupon, the Cirkemaster opened the box and removed from it a chalice. Water lapped gently at the sides of the cut crystal bowl while skillfully channeled sunlight leapt from the facets and raced like wildfire along the curves of the graceful stem.

  The Star Chalice. A relic beneath which a war had once been fought. A ceremonial goblet created for the ascension of Cynes and Osraed. A vessel which Osraed Lealbhallain’s lips had touched but once, upon his arrival at Ochanshrine. That sacred vessel was now lifted up before the crowd while the Osraed of Cyne’s Cirke intoned the words usually reserved for coronations.