* * *
The Barbican mountain range was far behind the couple when they came to a fork in the trail, one going northwest toward a distant river, the other southwest toward the Matinee. They were more than two weeks out from Appleby-in-Wilderland and had made fine time, although it was well into summer now and the Matinee remained a journey of more than a week—likely more, since the land was getting rougher, the going slower.
Khotai turned her horse down that southwestern trail, but Talmadge surprisingly dismounted and began pulling his packs from his mount.
“Too early to camp,” she remarked.
“My road is north, to the river,” Talmadge explained. “I’ve no reason to return to Matinee this season.”
“You’ll ride the river to your secret mountain lake?”
Talmadge smiled at her.
Khotai dismounted. “What will we do with the horses, then? Just set them free?”
Talmadge stopped grinning. “We are only a day’s ride from the next stable. Sell mine and do what you will with the silver.”
“You would leave me alone in the midst of the wilderness?”
Her feigned distress brought back Talmadge’s chuckle. “Where you usually are, and with your usual company?”
“Take me to the lake,” Khotai said earnestly, moving right before the man and staring at him hard with her dark eyes. “Have I not earned your trust?”
Talmadge leaned back from her and chewed his lip. The question was ridiculous, of course, for he had come to trust this wonderful woman implicitly.
But the request alone sent his thoughts cascading back to that awful day on the southwestern banks of Loch Beag. Even all these years later, the image of dead Badger settled heavily in his memories. It was the only time Talmadge had ever killed a man, and he hadn’t much enjoyed the experience. So deep was his revulsion, and his shame, that he didn’t even want to risk anyone ever learning the truth.
He shook his head.
Khotai started to argue, but she bit it back and simply stared hard at the man.
Talmadge started to turn away, but she grabbed him roughly. “I thought…” she said when their eyes met again. “I…”
She let him go and pushed him back a step, then stared at him a moment longer before shaking her head right back at him and spinning away.
She gathered up the horses and was away before Talmadge had even finished loading the small sled he meant to drag to the river. She rode away hard and kept up a great pace, and rode long after sunset, arriving at a small cluster of cabins, which included one of the stables scattered about the wilderness and Wilderlands trails, in time to get a fine dinner.
In the morning, she surprised herself by selling both horses and most of her goods right there in the hamlet, and when she departed, right after breakfast, she didn’t continue to the southwest and Matinee, but straight north.
Khotai knew this land fairly well, and she could track a man as well as any.
She needed resolution with Talmadge. It was that simple. She loved the man, but needed more from him than a few months of most years at his side.
And if he proved not worthy of that love, she’d at least know his secret mountain lake and the tribes who traded pearls. Redshanks could certainly be counted upon to facilitate the trading route he had described, and if Talmadge didn’t care enough to take the man up on his offer, she would.
13
INTENDED
In the month since the red glow of Iseabal, Aoleyn had noted a distinct shift in the attitude of Seonagh, one that had her continually off-balance in her duties and even a little fearful.
Aoleyn couldn’t really put her finger on it, and eventually, she just shrugged and tried to let it go, glad that Seonagh wasn’t heaping added duties upon her. And so this particular midsummer afternoon, she expected to be released from her lessons to wander the encampment when twilight descended, to find some scraps among the tables set out around the central bonfire, where the meal was being cooked by a group of women who were not in the Coven.
She finished her last chore, repairing a basket Seonagh had accidentally burned on one corner, and presented the item, then bowed and moved to leave the tent.
But Seonagh called her back.
“Not this day, child,” she said. “Wash your face, and sit here.” Aoleyn hardly heard the words, but the woman’s tone struck her profoundly. The edge was softer than Aoleyn was used to hearing from Seonagh, or anyone else, for that matter. Had Seonagh garnered some more information about her indiscretion? Had she discovered that the refuge to which Aoleyn had referred wasn’t the one harboring the slaves, but the sacred grove far up the mountain?
Aoleyn reminded herself not to infer too much here.
The young woman sucked in her breath. Where had she erred? She had crossed the winter plateau, barely aware of her surroundings, in her flight from the scene with Bahdlahn’s mother. But the Usgar-forfach, the Elder, was up there, of course—he was always there! Had he seen her?
She tried to replay her journey through the winter camp. She hadn’t seen any sign of the old man, or anyone else. She had even looked to his cottage, one of the few permanent structures up on the plateau. She glanced at Seonagh. The woman hadn’t left at all this day. How would she have gotten any news?
The young woman frowned. The crystals, of course. The witches could see over great distances, could even free their spirits to wander the forest and mountainsides, so it was whispered. But Aoleyn shook her head and dismissed her suspicion, reminding herself that Seonagh hadn’t even known she was out of the camp until she had volunteered the information. She glanced at the witch again, and tried to calm herself, and when that didn’t work, she reminded herself that Seonagh was one of them, one of the Usgar, and they were all ugly and mean and cruel.
They kept slaves.
Aoleyn was still snarling when Seonagh lightly touched her shoulder, and as her head snapped around, the older woman motioned to a cushion of woven dried reeds, stuffed with fluffy white wool that the war party had brought back from their latest raids on the lake tribes. Aoleyn hesitated, looking about the room and then studying Seonagh’s face, looking for some clue as to what was happening. She found no such hints, and a tickle of fear had her considering fleeing the tent and the encampment once more. She could outrun the older woman to escape into the rising dusk, and it might be worth the inevitable beating she’d take upon her return just to see the look on Seonagh’s face after yet another act of defiance.
But Aoleyn dismissed that course almost immediately; she found that she was more curious than afraid. Seonagh was hinting at something different this night, and Aoleyn wanted to know what it might be. Perhaps she’d regret it—that seemed the most likely thing to her—but she shrugged and moved to take her seat.
Seonagh grabbed her by the shoulder, gently, and turned her about until Aoleyn’s back was to the woman. Aoleyn did not resist as Seonagh began smoothing her thick black hair. The older woman’s strong hands, which could be so rough and mean when they slapped Aoleyn, were firm and gentle now and, strangely, soothing. Aoleyn felt Seonagh’s fingers moving through her hair, massaging her scalp, twisting and wrapping strands as if she were weaving a basket or a sleeping mat. The woman’s hands moved deftly, swiftly, as if they had done this a thousand times and a thousand more. Aoleyn thought herself a fine basket-weaver, though she disliked the work quite thoroughly, but she realized now, feeling Seonagh working her hair into a perfect braid, how amateur her own movements truly were.
When Seonagh was finished—which was not very long at all—the woman stepped back and glanced to the side to regard Aoleyn’s reflection in a polished silver mirror. She was smiling widely when she bade Aoleyn to do the same.
Aoleyn was feeling quite off-balance by then. She rose tentatively and moved to glance at her reflection, something she did not often do. She brought a hand up to her hair, to feel Seonagh’s masterful work, but she was quite cautious, fearful of disturbing the braid. The h
air from the right side of her head was pulled up and back, braided with the hair from the center, leaving her right temple and ear exposed; on her left, her hair hung wild and free, untied, protecting that side of her head.
Seonagh handed the girl a small doeskin bag. “When we reach the fire, empty the bag into it,” she instructed.
Aoleyn squeezed the bag with her hand, finding it squishy and shifting, as if filled with a thousand tiny beads. Curious, she pulled back the top flap and peeked into the container, to find it full of seeds. “These are from the pinecones,” she said aloud as she sorted it out.
“You thought that day’s task mere busywork?” Seonagh chided. “Yes, those seeds, and more like them, are the fruits of your labor.”
“But what are they for?”
“They are to be cast into the fire when we arrive.”
Aoleyn stared at her, then at the seeds, then back at Seonagh.
By that point, Seonagh had her hand out toward the young woman, open palmed, holding a simple small flint knife that appeared quite old and quite well worn. “And you will also need this.”
Aoleyn took it, hesitatingly. “Am I to throw this in the fire, too, then?” she asked earnestly, completely at a loss.
Seonagh’s stern glare in response warned Aoleyn that Seonagh thought she was being mocked. The younger woman quickly painted a confused look on her own face, doubling down on that honest expression to show Seonagh that such was not the case. For Seonagh had put her off-balance again.
“Not into the fire. When he demands the blade, you’re to hand it to him,” Seonagh said matter-of-factly, and she turned toward the tent’s exit.
“He?” Aoleyn asked, but of course Seonagh did not respond and simply strode purposefully from the tent. After a brief moment of doubt, Aoleyn tied the pouch of seeds onto her belt, tucked the knife in beside it, and skipped fast to follow, growing more curious with each step out of the tent.
She knew they were not going to the bonfire for a meal—they moved right through the camp and crossed the perimeter, the sentries offering not so much as a nod. Aoleyn’s hungry stomach grumbled at the injustice, but she kept her thoughts to herself.
“Night will soon fall,” Aoleyn said with some concern, for the moon was expected to be full this night, and she had heard the whispers that Iseabal might soon return in her red glory. Even without that daunting possibility, nights on Fireach Speuer were fraught with danger.
Seonagh didn’t answer, other than to lift a crystal that shone like the stars, lighting the way out of the encampment and up the mountain trail.
The pair continued to climb, ascending the mountainside, the same path Aoleyn had walked the night of the Blood Moon. Was that the secret here, Aoleyn wondered, her thoughts spinning? Were they going to the sacred grove of Usgar? How did they know?
“We cannot get back…” Aoleyn said.
“Be quiet, girl,” Seonagh replied. “There will be no Blood Moon this night.”
“The seer spoke that it might be so.”
“The seer spoke as the Usgar-righinn instructed,” Seonagh interrupted. The older woman stopped and turned back, facing Aoleyn directly.
“It might be a Blood Moon,” Aoleyn said sheepishly.
“Do you think we do not know these things?” Seonagh asked. “Do you think I would have brought you out here if the demon fossa was hunting?”
“We are halfway to the winter plateau.”
“More than halfway,” Seonagh corrected, and she turned and started up the mountainside at a brisk pace.
Before they arrived at the winter plateau, a fire came into view, high up on the ledge above and beyond the grove, higher than the uamhas caves, even.
Aoleyn paused and swallowed hard. The fire was up near where she had seen the demon fossa that terrible night. Was that a part of this journey? She felt then that she was surely to be punished.
It took Seonagh turning back many heartbeats later to even inform the girl that she was falling far behind.
“Come along,” the woman ordered.
The hairs on Aoleyn’s neck stood up as she recalled those red eyes of the hunting demon, the stare that had gone right through her, that had mocked her, that had promised her a horrible death. She wanted to say something to Seonagh, but the woman had turned away once more and was pushing far ahead.
For all of her courage, Aoleyn did not want to be out alone in the darkness.
When Seonagh reached the edge of the winter plateau and did not slow, it occurred to Aoleyn that perhaps they were heading to the sacred chasm, Craos’a’diad, the Mouth of God, a thought that excited her greatly. She had been there only once before, but she had been much younger and hardly remembered the place—and certainly she could not have then appreciated the importance of it.
She hustled to catch up to Seonagh, who was moving more slowly then, her eyes cast downward.
“Proper respect, girl,” she whispered.
Aoleyn glanced up at her curiously, then glanced past her and understood, for from the open flap of the lone tent on the plateau, she noted a form, a man, staring out at her.
The Usgar-forfach.
Aoleyn cast her gaze to the ground and moved closer to Seonagh’s side.
As with many of the Usgar, particularly the younger members of the tribe, the Usgar-forfach was more myth than reality. She hadn’t seen him that night a month ago when she had passed very near to this place not once, but twice, but she hadn’t looked very hard.
If her sacrilege was known, it was because the Usgar-forfach had seen her.
Aoleyn found it difficult to breathe.
Aoleyn grimaced and stopped.
Seonagh said nothing but quickly reached back and grabbed Aoleyn by the shoulder, and when Aoleyn shrugged away, Seonagh grabbed her by the braided hair and tugged her along.
“Do not tarry in sight of the Usgar-forfach when the tribe is in the encampment far below,” Seonagh warned her quietly as they passed through and out the far side of the plateau.
To Aoleyn’s surprise then, Seonagh did not veer toward the sacred grove, nor toward the uamhas caves and the path that led up to the Mouth of God. Instead, she led Aoleyn along a wilder route of broken stones and scrub bushes, making a direct line to the fire that burned high above. They were not climbing any path, though, and indeed were descending into a bowl, and the course took them to the base of a sheer cliff directly below the fire.
They weren’t far from the winter camp, nor from the sacred grove, but in a place where Aoleyn had never been. Of course, the Usgar didn’t wander much from the camp during the winter months, after all, for the snow always lay deep. And surely they didn’t come to the cliffs, where the huge black-winged rocs perched.
That thought at first terrified Aoleyn, but then brought a bit of a smile to her face, despite her trepidation. She remembered the old crone who had raised her, the woman telling her often that the rocs would have little trouble in grabbing up a small girl with their mighty talons!
It was just a story to frighten her, Aoleyn had come to believe. Again, despite her reservations, despite her fears that her crime had been discovered and that she had been brought out here to be punished, she couldn’t help but marvel at how different the world was beginning to seem to her, how more completely and wonderfully her heart and mind, now as a young woman, was beginning to weave together what had not so long ago seemed as discordant pieces and wild stories of a very big mountain.
Seonagh stood right before the cliff face, one hand in a fist, head bowed, eyes closed as if in deep concentration.
Aoleyn glanced around, but saw no path, nor cut stair. She wanted to ask if they had reached their destination, or how they might scale the cliff in the darkness. Before she could, though, Seonagh glanced at her and nodded to the stone before her, the woman’s gaze directing Aoleyn to a cleverly cut hole in the stone.
A handhold, and inspecting it closely in the starlight of Seonagh’s crystal, Aoleyn realized that there were many more, a l
adder of handholds moving right up the rock face.
She put her hand on the lowest, but looked back to Seonagh, for this seemed a truly treacherous climb! Aoleyn could go up the tallest tree without reservation, and didn’t shy from scrambling all about boulder tumbles. But this … this was an ascent straight up the side of a sheer rise, a cliff as tall as ten tall warriors standing one atop the other!
But Seonagh just nodded to her, imploring her to climb.
Aoleyn swallowed hard, brought her torso right against the stone, and started to pull herself up that she could reach the next hold with her other hand.
And suddenly she felt weightless, felt as though she could leap into the sky and never come down! She raised herself easily—so easily!—with her one hand, caught the next handhold and propelled herself higher, not even bothering to set her foot in the first handhold as she scaled higher. She felt as if she was floating up the rock face, and she gained speed with every pull. Again and again, hand over hand, she effortlessly ascended.
She glanced back down below at Seonagh, to see the woman, head bowed in concentration, one hand clenched tightly against her breast, pulling herself up the cliff methodically and carefully with her other hand.
Aoleyn understood that the magic was in that clenched fist, was coursing through Seonagh and being extended from Seonagh to her. The implications, the power, jolted the young woman. Aoleyn had felt the magic internally with the crystals she had touched, and again when she had gazed upon the crystal manifestation of Usgar. She knew, of course, that the blessed weapons could bring forth magical effects, like making the warriors lighter on their feet, offering a bit of flame to make a weapon strike more lethal, even to impart some minor healing to the fighters.
But this! This was something far more profound, something Aoleyn had never even dared to fantasize about.
This was all the whispers of the Coven’s power revealed to be anything but exaggerations.
Child of a Mad God--A Tale of the Coven Page 17