Mari felt her heart pound with sudden fear. Forfeit her life? This hadn’t been in all those stories that Nan and Sarah had read out to her!
Gethin must have seen that in her face, for his scowl turned to a nasty smile. “Oh now, having second thoughts, are we?” he sneered. “I give you leave to be gone then.”
“I’m going nowhere!” she snapped back, letting anger drive down her fear—though it didn’t stop the pounding of her heart. What have I to go back to? Da will never be able to come out from Underhill as long as Idwal and the babies are missing. Oh, she could probably see him now and again, as Robin slipped him out or her in for a visit, but how would she keep herself? The silver hoard under the hearthstone wouldn’t last forever. I can fish, I suppose, for the Bargain was kept and the Prothero luck will still hold, but what’s all that when I’m all alone? And even supposing I might find another man one day, and have children, they would never know their grand-da. She didn’t think she could bear being alone for the rest of her life. She could probably find a fisher-boy who would gladly share in the luck, and there were more marriages made for the sake of a little property than for love, but the thought of lying with someone besides Idwal made her ill. I would always be longing for Idwal and my lost babies.…
That alone decided her. “I set the challenge and I take it!” she snapped defiantly. “Bring your Tests!”
There were murmurs of wonder now among the Selch, and Gethin’s scowl deepened. “Very well!” he barked, and gestured to his clansfolk. “Blindfold and bring her to the Trial Ground!”
She did not resist when two of the men came and took her arms, and a woman bound her eyes with a scrap of cloth. For their part, they were very gentle with her, guiding her carefully over rocks, and then on an uneven path. When they were on the rocks, she smelled only the sea and the kelp and the wet stone, but once they moved to the path she began to scent green growing things, the sort of hardy plants that lived on the islands. And then they stopped, and someone unknotted her blindfold, and she looked about her to see what manner of place she stood in.
She was a little surprised to find herself on short salt-grass, in a little hollow, nearly circular, ringed with weather-beaten trees all bent in the same direction from the winter storms. Sitting on the edge of the hollow, just under the trees, were the Selch. Her clan, too… and it was odd to think of it, as she turned to look into the faces of people who could have been roaming the mountains of Wales hundreds and hundreds of years ago. Many of them had their sealskins belted about them like cloaks, with the empty-eyed heads over one shoulder or draped over their hair. In the uncertain light, it made for the strange effect of having two heads on a single body, both of them staring at her.
She could see the magic all about her, thick as the mist that had surrounded the island; she could taste it in the air, rich and heady, as if all the flowers in the world had been made into a sweet, and this was the aroma pouring out of the pan. She could feel it tingling all of her nerves. So this is how Idwal lives, she thought, and wondered how he could bear to be in her world at all, where the power was so thin and weak.
How could my loving him ever compete with such richness? she thought in a sudden burst of terror. Why would he want to come back to me?
But then, Gethin pushed his way through the seated Selch, with Idwal behind him, eyes cast down, and it was too late for second thoughts.
The Selch-chief looked her up and down, expression closed and cold. “The first test,” he said aloud, voice flat and without inflection, “will be the Test of Courage. Here is Idwal, Druid to Selch Seren y Gogledd. You will take him in your arms, and you will not let him go, Water Master. No matter what form he takes, you will hold him, or you will pursue him until you catch him. If he escapes you, then you lose. Only when he cannot change again for weariness will the test be over.”
Like the ballad of Tam Lin, was all she had time to think, as Gethin gave Idwal a great shove, sending him into her embrace. She only had time enough to see his eyes, full of love and anguish, and then the magic shivered all around her, and in her arms was not a man at all, but a monstrous serpent.
It was as big around as Idwal, and hideously strong; it thrashed and battered her with its tail, and threatened her with its fangs. She really, truly hated serpents, and had ever since she’d seen one devour a little mouse as a child, and fear coursed through her veins like ice water. But she held on, and held on, ignoring the sickly musk of its breath, closing her eyes to the jaws snapping an inch from her face.
Then the magic shivered again, and it wasn’t a snake, it was a flaming log in her arms.
She could feel her skin blistering and she almost screamed and dropped it. But she remembered through the pain that in the ballad, it had not been a real burning log, it had been an illusion. So she held on, through the pain, when suddenly she heard a voice like the hiss of fire in her ear.
Listen to the magic. Trust the magic. I’ve told it to lead you, and it is not Gethin’s servant. Let it guide you.
Was that Idwal? The pain was incredible, and desperate for any remedy, she just let loose of her reason and did as she was told. Take me, the magic said. I will protect you. So she seized some of the magic for herself and spun it around herself in a cooling, soothing blanket of the very essence of Water, and her blisters faded and healed even as the log burned brighter.
She barely had time to feel relief when the log writhed in her arms and she was holding some sort of—thing. She wasn’t quite certain what it was, but it was covered with black hair, it snarled and stank and raked at her arms with wicked claws. Quickly she formed the magic shields around her into armor that rested just on her skin, and the claws skidded on it without getting any purchase. The beast spat and wriggled and did its best to loosen her grip, but she wasn’t going to give up now.
The beast gave a last heave, and suddenly there was a great, slippery piece of ice in her arms. The cold of it struck her like a hammer, and her arms went numb. In a panic, she tried to tighten them, but the ice began to slide loose, so rather than lose it, she dropped to the ground abruptly, still holding as tightly as she could until the cold made her shiver so hard her teeth rattled and she groaned with the pain of it.
And then—
She was holding nothing.
Oh no! she looked wildly about just in time to see a little mouse slipping away into the grass.
She didn’t even think; she reacted instinctively, as the magic gave her the remedy, no matter how mad it sounded. Change! said that magic. Change your skin! And she suddenly knew what this was, another ballad of the “Two Magicians.” She heeded the magic again, pulling the magic into herself and changing herself—
If he can do it, I can do it. I’ve been a seal!
She changed, shrinking, falling to the ground as she changed. A heartbeat later, she was the very image of the cottage’s wicked cat, and she pounced on the mouse before it could escape, trapping it among her claws.
The mouse squeaked in alarm, and twisted under her paws and—
A fly buzzed out between two of the talons.
In a flash, she became a raven, and as she had seen Neville do in the warm months, she snapped her huge bill at the fly and caught it inside, unharmed. She must have seen Neville play that game with a single fly for hours, catching without so much as touching a leg, opening his beak, letting it go, catching it again…
But Idwal did not remain a fly for long. She felt her beak being forced open, and though she tried to keep it shut, she couldn’t—and the hare that the fly had become, kicked her violently away, sending her tumbling backward onto the grass, and ran off.
But she became one of Squire’s hunting hounds and raced after him. Behind she could hear the Selch following. She caught him as he was leaping over a stretch of water, stream or small river, she couldn’t tell which; she caught him, and lost him as the eel slipped between her teeth and she splashed ingloriously down into the water—
To become a fierce pike, that
scented the eel in the water immediately, and was on it, snapping at its tail though it tried desperately to escape, and in panic, flung itself out of the water—
Where it transformed to a duck, wings beating frantically to get some height away from the snapping jaws of the pike that had leapt after it—
And she became a hawk, in hot pursuit of the duck, talons reaching—
And just as the hawk seized the duck’s tail, it became a fox, turning and snapping at the hawk’s head, the two of them dropping to the ground together in a tangle of teeth and talons and feathers—
And Mari became a great feather comforter, and enveloped the fox until it stopped changing and struggling. She felt it become bird, then squirrel, then cat, and knew he had run out of options and could not escape. He could not even become fire and burn her up, for she would smother fire.
Then she felt the magic surge once more… and it was Idwal she held in her own two arms, he limp and exhausted and too weary to move.
The Selch descended on them in a mob, and despite what she wanted, they took Idwal away and set her on her feet again. They were gentle and kind about it though, and one even whispered “Well done, cousin,” before the crowd parted and she faced Gethin again.
“Bring the stools,” he ordered, glaring at her.
One of the Selch brought a pair of stools and set them down. Gethin took one, and gestured abruptly for her to take the other. She did so, and glad for it, for her legs were trembling with weariness, and if she was not as exhausted by the first trial as Idwal had been, she was not too far off from it.
“The next Trial,” Gethin growled, “will be the Trial of Wisdom. We will just see how you measure. I have a horse in my yard, and I never ride him except by the tail.” He glared at her in triumph.
A riddle! “You have a pipe, and you smoke it,” she answered instantly, now unspeakably grateful for all the riddling games she and her da had played in the long winters, and all the riddles that Nan and Sarah had turned up in all those books of fairy tales.
His eyes widened a moment, then his brows knitted. “And what of the horse I never ride until his back breaks?”
That was one any child knew. “That is your roof, and you ride the rooftree to re-thatch it.”
“And the thing I have that grows more hungry the more I feed it?” He was clearly getting angry; evidently this was one trial he had expected to win.
That was not only a riddle, it was the answer to one of the trials of Thor. “That is your fire, the more wood you feed it, the bigger it gets and the more it needs to keep the flames high.”
He lost his temper, and leaned forward on his stool. “I have a thing that the whole sea cannot fill!” he shouted.
“You have a sieve!” she shouted back, sitting straight up, and matching him glare for glare.
“I have a house without window or door, but someone lives there!” he snarled.
“You have a fertile egg!” she retorted. That was one the old woman that had taught her to read used to tell. How could he possibly think these were clever? But… maybe he really did think she was stupid. Or—not stupid, but maybe he thought people weren’t interested in riddles anymore, so she wouldn’t know them?
“I cut it at both ends and it becomes longer!” He was really angry now, eyes flashing, and he looked as if he was going to lunge up off his stool at any moment and strangle her with his own two hands. He was actually frightening her. I know the Selch will pull him off, but he could hurt me badly before they do.…
“You are digging a ditch,” she said, deciding to act indifferent, and see where that got her. Either it would make him so angry he would give up, or it would calm him down. In either case, it would better than this, because she hated the way he was shouting and edging closer to her, and truth to tell—the way he was making the hair on the back of her neck stand up, it was getting hard to think clearly.
Her indifference either calmed him, or made him think he had to be equally indifferent to impress her or the onlookers; he sat back on his stool. “Thirty-two horses on a red hill; now they stamp, now they champ, now they stand still.”
“Your teeth, and you are a lucky man to still have all of them,” she said coolly, and surreptitiously took a deep, deep breath of relief that now he was more or less in control of himself.
He ground those teeth audibly, then hunched down on his stool, made his hands into fists, and the battle really began.
He threw literally everything at her. “Cut off my head, I live, cut off my tail, I die.” “You’re a tree.” “I am a lamp that shines over the whole world.” “You are the moon.” “I am dead and I carry the living.” “You are either a boat or a cart, both are made of dead wood and carry the living.” And it went on for so long that both of them got hungry and thirsty; he called for water and food, and offered her none, but Rhodri brought her water and some samphire and raw oysters fresh from the ocean that he cut open for her with a flint knife as he sat on his heels beside her stool. She could manage those, she had eaten oysters raw many times in the past although her da had teased her, saying such were for men for reasons he didn’t specify. She was grateful for something as familiar as oysters; she could never have done what Gethin was doing, tearing into a raw fish as if he was eating a nice piece of laver-bread. She could have done with a bit of that laver-bread right now.
When he had finished his fish, and she was still chewing on a mouthful of seaweed, he began again. Only now… he had changed his tactic altogether. He must have realized that she knew the all riddles that he knew—and as the Trial was to measure her wisdom, he could ask her anything he cared to.
“So,” he said. “You are a chieftain. Two women come before you, both stubborn, both claiming the same child. What do you do?”
She knew in that instant that to use the Judgment of Solomon would be a deep mistake here. Firstly, the Tylwyth Teg famously valued children, and often stole them, and to even threaten to cut one in half would horrify them. And secondly, she was supposed to be showing her own wisdom here and she rather thought even Gethin and his clan knew the story.
“This is a child and not a baby?” she asked first. “Old enough to speak?”
“Yes, yes,” he said impatiently. “What do you do?”
“I let the child choose, taking him away from both women so that he can choose freely,” she said, after a moment.
Gethin blinked. He clearly had not thought she would say this. “But why?”
“Because the child will choose the woman that loves him most, and treats him better,” she replied, as the Selch murmured among themselves at this.
“But what if he does not choose his real mother?” Gethin demanded.
“Why should that matter?” she replied. “It is better for a child to be with a mother that loves him and nurtures him than one that is his blood-kin but is indifferent to him. Now, a baby is a different matter. A baby cannot choose for itself. I would have set some other test, had it been a baby.”
The Selch were murmuring, and it sounded as if it was with approval. Well, they might well be following the tradition of the Tylwyth Teg of the land, and stealing the children of careless, neglectful, or downright cruel parents.
Thankfully, Gethin did not ask her what she would do if it was a baby, because she honestly hadn’t an answer except to steal the one King Solomon in the Bible used.
Gethin continued to ply her with hard questions; she answered them honestly, even when the answer wasn’t in her favor—
“Suppose,” he said, leaning back on his stool and looking at her through narrowed eyes. “Suppose you win these Trials. Suppose you take Idwal and the children back to the land. And suppose one day your children come to you and say they wish to come to the sea forever? What would you do?”
“I am a mother, I would weep!” she snapped at him. “But I do not own them; they are not my dogs nor my chattel. If that would be what they want, I would hope my tears would move them, but I would let them go!”
“Then why do you fight to keep them now?” he demanded, pointing an accusing finger at her.
“Because they are babies and cannot choose for themselves, or is that so hard a thing for you to accept?” she snapped back. “If you told me ‘if you keep them, they will die,’ then yes, I would give them up, but I am their mother and I love them more than my own life, and I do not think the women you got to nurse them could love them half so much!”
Well, the last words of that answer did not get so good a response from the Selch, but she wouldn’t unsay them. They were the truth, and she remembered what Idwal had told her; a magician must speak the truth or remain silent, but he could not lie.
Especially not here.
Finally when the questions had ceased to be tests of her wisdom and had become mere badgering, three of the Selch stepped forward, and the middle one made an abrupt gesture.
“Enough, chieftain,” he said. “You have tested her and she has proved knowledge, wisdom, and her willingness to speak true. You gain nothing more by continuing this. It is time to move on.”
She was so grateful for the intervention she nearly jumped up and kissed them. It was impossible to tell what time it was here, for the stars above her had not changed in the least, but it felt like hours and hours had passed.
“One more question,” Gethin insisted. He turned to her. “Your world becomes closed to us. There is more cold iron about with every day, even the ships, as you pointed out, are made of cold iron. What would you do on the day when your world brings such pain to your man that he is never free of hurt and harm from morning to night?”
“I—would tell him to go,” she said, after a long pause. “How could I claim to love him and demand he suffer for my sake?” She licked her lips. “But if it were possible to go with him, then go I would, and leave everything I know behind to be with him.”
If Gethin and hoped to make her look worse in the eyes of the clan with her answer, he had achieved the very opposite. But he had to abide by the will of the rest; with a growl, he stood up, as did she, though her knees were stiff with sitting. One of the Selch took the stools away.
Home From The Sea: The Elemental Masters, Book Seven Page 32