And there he knelt upon the shore—the subject of all that greed. The son on whose behest the murders were plotted. The son who had in him no desire to be Eiric of his own estate, who cared not a bit for land or pasturage or the sheep that grazed it. She knew the bitter irony of that was not lost on Moireach Arundel. She had lost her husband to her greed and his weakness, and lost her son to the Meri.
Ah, and there lurked in his righteous breast the merest spark of suspicion that Lagan had not come to him bloodless. A spark that could easily be fanned to the blaze of complete certainty.
She flowed like liquid through liquid, closer and closer to the shore, spreading her radiance along it in great, golden waves.
o0o
Wyth thought he must swoon from the beauty of it. He had been right in thinking the sunset would be no match for the Meri’s glory. The Sea was like liquid gold, but the gold was translucent so that every pebble, rock and drift of weed showed dreamily beneath it.
Oh, and he could feel the warmth of it! Why it must be like a baby’s bath, mild and fragrant.
He stood now, his toes all but touching the water, shivering with a cold that was so akin to heat as to be identical. Several yards out, the Sea began to froth and boil. Wyth’s breath nearly stopped in his lungs.
She glided up out of the foam in a radiance so bright, he was hard put not to shield his eyes. But he did not shield them; he stared full at the Eibhilin glory, trying to comprehend it.
It had roughly a maiden’s form, he thought, though the outlines were blurred by the blaze of light that poured forth from it—from Her. And Her eyes—they were the color of dark garnets and stood out startlingly in the brilliant face. He could make out no other features of that, only the eyes. And yet, She seemed familiar. Of course, he supposed that She should seem so to one who had yearned for Her since childhood.
She had paused now, the water swirling around Her torso. Wyth realized he was staring at her fiery body and threw himself to the ground, knees in the wet sand, forehead in the gently lapping waves.
She laughed. The sound seemed to come from nowhere and from everywhere. It sounded like music—a duan of laughter.
“Rise, Wyth Arundel,” She said. “Rise and come to Me.”
His head jerked up so fast, he could barely focus his eyes.
“Come to you? In-in the water?”
“The Water of Life, Wyth,” She said, and laughter still rippled through Her voice. “Come into the Water of Life and see if you do not get wet.”
She knows! he thought. She knows of that horrid arrogant dream!
“Of course I know. But I also know it was not arrogance that caused you to dream it. You simply did not understand the Goal. The Aim.”
“To get wet,” he said impulsively, and blushed.
“To get wet,” She repeated, and extended radiant, gold-white arms toward him. “Come.”
He stepped from the beach into the water and found it warm against his skin. Heedless of his clothing, he moved to the beckoning Meri, reaching out his arms. He thought he heard a bird squawk somewhere behind him on the shore, but all senses were aimed forward now—all senses were for Her. He had never read of anyone being called into the water by the Meri. She always came to the shore—always.
It seemed to take forever to reach Her, but at last he was there, standing nearly chest deep in the milky-smooth swell with her protective arms about him, warm as sunlight on his shoulders.
“Come with me, Wyth Arundel. Come get wet.” She drew him with her into deeper water while he could only stare at Her, could only lose himself in Her. He followed fearlessly, gladly.
And when the water closed over his head, there was no panic in him, only complete faith.
She was smiling. He knew that without knowing how he knew. And smiling, she drew him to her and kissed him, not on the forehead, but on the lips. Then, while he marveled at that and the flood of feeling it invoked, she pressed her burning mouth to the place between his eyes and changed him forever into something more than Wyth Arundel.
He rose from the water of the Western Sea an Osraed, the Kiss of the Meri on his forehead, Her compassion swelling his heart, as much of Her knowledge as he could hold teeming in his head, a new and secret Duan surging in his soul. He stood, dripping, reflecting Her radiance and bursting with wonder.
She laughed again at the rapt expression on his face. “You are very wet, my son. Go dry yourself.” Her bright arms released him.
He started, reluctantly, to move away toward shore, then paused. “Your son?”
“Am I not the Mother of Osraed? From this night you are no longer the son of the woman who bore you. This night, you have become My son for I have given life to your soul. Yours is My love, My wisdom, My knowledge. Use it well to deliver My message which is the Duan of the First Being.”
He regarded her solemnly (and how un-solemn he looked with his hair in dripping ringlets all over his shoulders and across his eyes) and said, “I will use it well. I promise You, O Meri.”
She laughed again, delight pulsing outward on bands of Light. “How sober you are, Wyth Arundel. Promise Me, also, that you will learn to laugh. You must have joy if you are to bless others with it.”
“Oh, but I have joy!” he protested, splashing in his zeal.
“Yes. Yes, you do. Now go and spread it about.”
He grinned. Grinned and turned and galumphed back to shore, splashing water all about him.
It was a beautiful sight, that grin. She had never seen him wear it and, gazing back at his childhood, she knew it had been a rare bit of apparel even then. She watched him mount the beach and hurry to where his silly Weard had fallen in a stupor to the sand. He was all concern for the boy and soon had brought him around and installed him in a sitting position. Then he turned back to face the Sea, his expression quizzical.
She sighed. “Ask.”
He came back to the water’s edge. “Well, there is one bit of knowledge I would like to have but...which You didn’t give. What happened to Meredydd-a-Lagan? Please, I must know.”
“Must you?”
“Yes. Surely, You know what happened to her.”
“Aye. I know.”
When She spoke no further, he prompted Her. “They say...she was transformed.”
“Aye.”
“Some say into a water silkie, others, into a sea snake.”
The Meri’s laughter pealed out over the water. “So We’ve heard.”
“Well, is she—?”
“Ask Osraed Bevol. He will tell you. Say I wish him to tell you.”
“But I’ve asked before and he won’t say. How will he know I’m telling the truth?”
She laughed and raised a blazing hand to her forehead.
He raised an echoing hand to his own and grinned again. “The Kiss.”
“Aye.”
He nodded again and began to turn away, but paused yet again, and glanced back at her. “I loved her,” he said. “I loved Meredydd. I still love her.”
Ah, was that an Eibhilin tear, that little drop of flame that seeped from a bright garnet eye? She let it fall. “I know,” she said. “Meredydd knows.”
He nodded, smiled. “Thank you,” he said and turned back to his groggy comrade who had not ceased to stare at what his eyes, not liberated by spiritual sight, could not hope to comprehend.
She watched them make their way back up toward the half-laid camp.
Forgive me, Wyth, for there is one other bit of knowledge I have not given you, and never will.
She slid back into the Sea then, liquid in liquid, and withdrew Her glory from the shallows. It was a big world, this, and She had other shores to visit.
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Glossary
aislinn: (áy-slin) 1. related to the spiritual realms; 2. a dream or vision with spiritual import
anwyl: (án-weel) beloved
cailin: (káy-lin) maiden; girl; unmarried woman
Caraid-land: (ka-ráid-land) the country i
n which Meredydd lives
Creiddylad: (kray-deé-lee-ah) the capital city of Caraidland
Cyne: kine: King; Ruler
duan: (dwan) A prayer or spell song used to focus the spell weaver’s power
eibhilin: (éh-ve-lin) literally “of light”; spirit, angelic, divine
Eiric: (éye-rik) a lord or a man of landed gentry
Gwenwyvar: (gwén-wy-var) a spirit being associated with the Meri. Some legend portrays her as a facet of the Meri.
Meri: (méh-ri) literally “Star of the Sea”; the Being who stands between the asilinn realms and the physical realm. God’s Emissary to the shores of men.
Moireach: (mwa-reek) a married noble-woman
Osraed: (óz-raid) divine teacher; a teacher of the Divine Art
Wicke: (week) a witch or sorceress
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Copyright & Credits
The Meri
Book One of the Mer Cycle
Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff
Book View Café Edition December 18, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-61138-233-4
Copyright © 1992 Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff
First published: Baen Books
Cover illustration & design by Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff
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About the Author
New York Times Bestselling author of Star Wars: Shadow Games
Maya became addicted to science fiction when her dad let her stay up late to watch The Day the Earth Stood Still. Mom was horrified. Dad was unrepentant. Maya slept with a night-light in her room until she was 15.
She started her writing career sketching science fiction comic books in the last row of her third grade classroom. She was never apprehended. Since then her short fiction has been published in Analog, Amazing Stories, Century, Realms of Fantasy, Interzone, Paradox and Jim Baen’s Universe.
Her debut novel, The Meri (Baen), was a Locus Magazine 1992 Best First Novel nominee (now available as a trade paperback from Sense of Wonder Press). Since, she has published ten more speculative fiction novels, including collaborations with Marc Scott Zicree and Michael Reaves.
Maya lives in San Jose where she writes, performs, and records original and parody (filk) music with her husband and awesome musician and music producer, Chef Jeff Vader, All-Powerful God of Biscuits. The couple has produced five music albums: RetroRocket Science, Aliens Ate My Homework and Grated Hits (parody), and the original music CDs Manhattan Sleeps and Mobius Street. To top it off, they’ve also produced three musical children: Alex, Kristine, and Amanda.
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Website: www.mysticfig.com
Other Books by Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff:
Star Wars: Shadow Games
Del Rey/Lucas Books 2011
with Michael Reaves
A Princess of Passyunk
Book View Café 2010
Taco Del & the Fabled Tree of Destiny
Book View Café 2010
Mr. Twilight
Del Rey 2006
with Michael Reaves
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About Book View Café
Book View Café is a professional authors’ cooperative offering DRM-free ebooks in multiple formats to readers around the world. With authors in a variety of genres including mystery, romance, fantasy, and science fiction, Book View Café has something for everyone.
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Book View Café authors include Nebula and Hugo Award winners, Philip K. Dick and Rita award winners, and New York Times bestsellers and notable book authors.
Coming Soon from Book View Café
The Mer Cycle
The Meri
Taminy
The Crystal Rose
Sample Chapter: Taminy
Prologue
The Meri is not reachable by the weak, or by the careless, or by the ascetic, but only by the wise who strive to lead their soul into the dwelling of the Spirit.
Rivers flow to the Sea and there find their end and their peace. When they find this peace and this end, their name and form disappear and they become as the Sea.
Even so, the wise who are led to the Meri are freed of name and form and enter into the radiance of the Supreme Spirit who is greater than all greatness.
— The Book of the Meri
Chapter Two, Verses 5-7
On the darkened shore, the girl froze—a wild thing in the act of bolting. But she did not bolt. She wavered for a moment, then dropped back to the sand, her face set. She did not see the Watcher in the waves.
Stubborn. Loyal, too, or she would not have made it here—would not be sitting there. Stay, Sister Meredydd, you have met your Goal.
On the shore, the girl Meredydd turned her face downward into darkness. Tiny rinds of flesh sifted down to lie on the cloth of her tunic. She lifted a trembling hand to her cheek, stroking it with her fingertips. The flesh crumbled and fell. She stared at her fingers, eyes wide. The fleshy remnants clung to them and they, too, glowed.
She did not take her eyes from her hands as she rose from the sand. Once on her feet, she rubbed at her cheeks, at her arms—her movements desperate, fevered. Robbed of its covering flesh, the substance of her arms gleamed gold-white in the darkness of the night, brighter than the gold-white heart of the fire where her young companion, Skeet, lay in sodden sleep. The girl removed her tunic, her boots and leggings, her shirt. Then, after a moment’s hesitation, she stripped off her undergarments and stood, naked, upon the beach. She would not be cold, the watching Being knew, for heat radiated from her pied body, leaking, along with the light, from patches where flesh had come away with cloth.
Ah, I remember. How well I remember.
With hands that no longer trembled, the girl continued her task, shedding what was left of her outer self, shaking her hair to free the flame hidden within the drab chestnut strands, until finally she was bare of flesh, blazing and lustrous like a tiny sun—like a star.
The Watcher recalled Her own moment, a hundred years past—Her moment of terror and wonder. She’d shed the husk to find, within, a Jewel—a becoming vessel for the Star of the Sea, a fitting home for the Meri.
Joy, She sent the girl. And peace.
When the last scrap of slough had dropped, when the once-girl had surveyed her new body with eyes garnet-bright with wonder, she raised those eyes to the Sea and found the Meri’s green-white flame beneath the waves. It filled the water with glory and washed, like translucent milk, upon the shore. The girl stepped down to the waterline, letting the Sea lap at her gleaming toes. She waited calmly now, her eyes sparkled, expectant.
The Meri rose, then, from water that seethed and roiled, shedding emerald fire on froth and foam, sending it in questing trails to the shore to kiss the toes of the gleaming Pilgrim. “Beautiful Sister.” Her voice came from nowhere and everywhere, and filled the cloudless sky and covered the milky waters. “I have waited long.”
The girl of gold opened her mouth, found her voice, and though a thousand questions burned in her breast (the Meri knew), said only, “I have traveled far.”
“I have traveled with you, Sister.” The Meri lay a welcoming carpet of brilliance before her golden twin. “Come home, Sister. Come home. This is that for which you have been created. Not to be Osraed, but to be the Mother of Osraed. Not to carry the torch of Wisdom, but to light it.”
The girl bled a great sense of unworthiness through the touching streams of gold and green. She was disobedient, inattentive, stubborn—
“You are kindness; you are compassion; you are obedience tempered with love; you are justice tempered with mercy; you are strength of purpose;
you are faith and reason. You will be the Mother not of the bodies of Osraed, but of their spirits—the Channel of the Knowledge of the First Being. For this you have proved worthy.” The Meri extended radiant “arms.” She laughed again, filling sea and sky and shore with Her voice. “Come into the water, Sister, and do you get wet.”
The girl laughed too, then, and raised her own arms of Light and stepped from the shore into the milky Sea. The Meri met her in the surf and embraced her, drawing her down beneath the waves. She felt the girl’s wonder that she could breathe here just as she had above in the air—was amused by her realization that she no longer needed to breathe. For a moment they floated, wrapped in luminescence—the girl’s gold, the Her own green. Great emerald eyes locked with eyes like garnets.
Now, Sister, said the Meri without sound. Now, hold the knowledge of all that has been.
The banners of their individual radiance mingled—green and gold—and the girl from the shore ceased to be Meredydd-a-Lagan and began to be Something Else. When at last the brilliance separated—the gold and the green—the two which had been One floated apart, still touching. Emerald eyes caressed eyes like garnets.
The Lover and the Beloved have been made one in Thee.
The Meri smiled a smile that could be felt and heard, if not seen. And I had wondered what that verse meant.
Now you know.
Now We know.
The green radiance withdrew, separating completely from the gold.
Farewell, Sister Meredydd.
Farewell, Taminy.
Toward shore, she went, the green luminescence fading from her as she neared the beach, dying as she stepped out onto the sand—merely a glimmer now, only moonlight on wet skin and pale hair. There was a boy there, sitting beside a fire. Waiting, with his eyes on the milky gold water. Beside him sat a little girl with moonlit hair, and beside her was a man—a copper-bearded Osraed—holding out a robe.
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