Spirit of the Mist

by O'Kerry Janeen

  “All of us underestimated his treachery. This was not your failing. It was Odhran’s failing, and that of every last man who chose to follow him.”

  Fallon smiled. “I thank you, Brendan. Though you may be able to forgive me, I cannot forgive myself—not unless I can do something to right the wrong of having lost my kingdom, no matter what the cause.

  “When I knew that I had lost my place as king, never to regain it, my only thought was to walk to the edge of the cliffs and continue to walk until I fell into the sea. If I did not, it was for one reason only: because Grania begged me not to.

  “I stayed alive for her sake, and I became as I was when you knew me at Dun Bochna …a displaced king living in the shadows, a man who should have been dead but remained among the living for love of his wife and no other reason.”

  “Are you so certain there is no other reason?” Muriel asked gently. “I can certainly understand your wish to stay with Grania…yet I know how the loss of your kingdom weighed upon you.”

  The old king turned to face her. “You are nothing if not perceptive, Lady Muriel. It is true that I would have walked off the cliffs if not for Grania—but in addition to her, there was the hope, however faint, that I might find some way to help my kingdom before my death. And that hope sustained me, too.”

  There was another silence. Then Darragh spoke. “King Fallon… I can only say that I would rather have one such as you as my king, even with a blemish, than most other men, physically perfect as they may be.”

  Fallon nodded. “I thank you, Darragh,” he said. “You are a good and loyal man. But there is a reason why a king must be whole and strong, and why those who are crippled or disfigured cannot serve their people in this way.” The old ruler faced Brendan, apparently knowing where he was though he could see nothing. “The king is the symbol of his people, of his land. If he is complete, if he has the strength a man should have both of body and of mind, then his people and his lands will be likewise vital.

  “But if he is lacking somehow—if he is broken, if he is maimed, if he is weakened or incomplete in any way, whether physical or mental—his kingdom will soon become the same. This is what we have all been taught, and this is the truth. Odhran knew exactly what he was doing when he took away my sight.”

  “I wish that it were in my power to restore it,” murmured Brendan. “It is a tragedy that you are exiled, while a man like Odhran—”

  “I can never become whole again,” Fallon interrupted. “My kingdom is lost…lost to me forever. You, too, are a wounded king, Brendan, but yours is a different kind of imperfection.”

  Brendan looked up at him.

  “Yours is a wound of the spirit,” Fallon said. “You are not crippled or maimed. You are not blind or broken.”

  “But I am false,” Brendan whispered. “I had no right to be a prince or a king. I will never have that right. My blood family is not a noble one.”

  Fallon seemed to look right at him. “Did you believe yourself to be false when you served and defended the people of Dun Bochna? Did your lady ever doubt your worth, your right, to serve as king?”

  Muriel thought her heart would stop. “I am ashamed to say that I did doubt his right to kingship. My water mirror showed me his true family. And I was afraid.”

  “Yet you married him in spite of this, and served at his side at Dun Bochna—and here on this island.”

  She smiled a little. “I did.”

  “Do you still doubt that he is a king, Lady Muriel?”

  “I do not.” She looked at Brendan, sitting close beside her, and reached for his hand. “Not any longer.”

  Fallon turned back to Brendan. “We brought you here to hide you, to save your life, that is true—but Grania and I had another reason. We saw in you not a false king, but a wounded one.

  “Not wounded as I am, beyond hope of ever being whole again, but one who might come to a place such as this to heal as well as hide…and then, one day, return to reclaim his kingdom.”

  Brendan stared at him. “I do not know how such a thing could be possible. Once a kingdom is lost, it is lost forever.”

  Fallon smiled a little, shook his head. “Only if the king is unwilling or unable to fight. I was—and still am—willing to fight for my kingdom, but I am no longer able. You, Brendan, are still a warrior like no other. If any man could hope to defeat Odhran and free Dun Camas from his foul grip, it is you.

  “Grania and I both understood this. We chose to come here with you not just to hide you, but to heal you. Dun Bochna is not the only land in need of a true and powerful king.”

  Brendan seemed to struggle to draw breath. “Two kingdoms? You believe I could save two kingdoms?” he said at last.

  Fallon nodded. “Two kingdoms. I believe you are one who can do this. Grania believed it, too. Perhaps you see now, Brendan, why a king must always be a warrior—a whole, strong warrior who will fight to the end for what is rightly his.”

  Muriel thought her husband would speak…but he kept his silence, as all of them did, staring into the rising white mist.

  “I can only imagine how terrible this journey has been for you, King Fallon,” said Muriel. “I hope you know what a great help you have been to us all—you and Queen Grania both. She helped me to bear this place when my own resolve began to fail.”

  Fallon turned in her direction. “She knew a queen when she met one. She knew what you are, what you will always be.”

  Muriel could not help glancing at Brendan, but he looked only at Fallon. “Muriel is a queen,” he said firmly. “She deserves to be a queen, but finds herself married to a man who never was a king and never will be—no matter how much he desires it. The law is the law. Unless Muriel can start her life anew, she cannot take what is her right. She cannot be a queen.”

  Fallon raised his head and turned back to Brendan. “All this time you knew her, Grania was no longer the wife of the ruler of Dun Camas,” he said, his voice as strong and firm as any warrior’s. “Did any of you believe that she was not a queen?”

  The others glanced around. “We did not,” Brendan said. “If any woman was a queen, it was Grania.”

  “Then how can you say your own wife is not a queen?”

  “She married a man who she thought was a tanist—a man awaiting kingship. But you all know how it turned out. I am nothing now. I am not even a free man—”

  “The druids said you were to live as a free man.” Gill’s contradiction echoed through the mist. “They gave you that much.”

  Slowly Fallon stood, and it seemed to Muriel that he glared straight at her husband. “Have you not been listening? Are you nothing more than what other men choose to give you?”

  “I have no choice in the matter,” he said quietly. “You know the laws as well as I.”

  “Those laws did not prevent you from coming here. And there is nothing in them to prevent you, a free man, from going where you wish with your wife and starting life anew.”

  Brendan bowed his head. “Did my wife not tell you of the curse that rests on the women of her family? That those who marry any man but a king are doomed to lose their power of magic and walk through life as a gray and fragile shell?”

  “She spoke of it to Grania, and Grania whispered it to me. And I also know, Lady Muriel, that you have made no effort to use any of your powers since we set foot on this island.”

  Muriel looked away. “The power I had was over the sea,” she said. “There has been no reason for me to try it while we are up here.”

  “Your water mirror holds nothing but rain,” the old man snapped.

  “The moon has been hidden behind the clouds.”

  “Tonight it will be full.”

  “The mist—”

  “Blinds you?” Fallon stepped closer.

  “Do you believe that because I am blind, I can no longer see? Listen to me, Lady Muriel: when Odhran took my sight, I thought I had become weak and helpless—a man who no longer had any reason to live, for he had lost all of his p
ower. But Grania soon taught me that far worse than losing the power of sight was the fear I had of doing without it.” He motioned emphatically. “I had not become powerless because I was blind. It was because I had become afraid. If anything can take away power, it is fear.”

  Muriel stared at him, her breath coming quickly as she searched for words. “King Fallon… I thank you for your wisdom. But…but I believe our situations are far different. Your blindness was the result of an enemy’s violent act, while mine is…is from—”

  “Lady Muriel,” the old sovereign said. “These women of your family whose lives became so empty—did any of them try to use their powers, once married? Or did they simply fear that they could not?”

  She started to speak, and then she paused. “I do not know,” she said at last. “I know only that my sisters became like two who hardly knew they were alive, much less that they could wield any power of magic.” She shook her head. “I do not believe they ever tried it again.”

  “Then do you not understand why their magic left them? Muriel, my wife and I spoke of this at length. It was not because of the men they married. I believe it was because they feared it had left them! The presence of that fear was, in itself, enough to drive their magic away!

  “The women of your family were not cursed with powerlessness. It is clear to me that they were cursed with fear. Nothing leads to powerlessness like fear. They too were blind, as blind as Odhran left me, as blind as you believe you are when the mist shuts out the moon.”

  Carefully, but confidently, Fallon walked over the mossy, rocky ledge until he stood directly in front of Muriel. “Sometimes you must be willing to walk headlong into the mist and test yourself, to trust your inner sight while outwardly blind. You may be surprised to find that your spirit will rise up even stronger each time you do so. There are other battles than those that come on horseback to steal your cattle. A spirit of the sword is one sort of power—a spirit of the mist is quite another.”

  All of them sat in silence for a time. The fog continued to move and weave around them, as if the cold breath of the sea had risen up from far below to envelop them and hold them prisoner. It only grew thicker and colder as they waited.

  “It is a mist that holds us captive now, King Fallon,” Brendan said at last. “I have never seen any so heavy, so thick, so white.”

  “Each of us will walk out of the mist when it is time to do so,” said Fallon. “When it is time, you will know.” He took one more step toward Muriel and reached out to touch her sleeve.

  “I thank you all for remembering Queen Grania this night. I will go now and rest for a time, and remember her in my own way.” He bent down and placed gentle hands on either side of Muriel’s face, then kissed her forehead. “Do not fear the mist, Lady Muriel.”

  Next he moved to Brendan and touched his shoulder.

  “Let no man tell you what you are.” Muriel’s husband returned the gesture, placing his own hand briefly atop the old king’s arm. Then Fallon turned and walked away toward the center of the little campsite, soon disappearing into the thick white fog.

  The weariness of the day hung heavy on Muriel. She leaned her head on Brendan’s shoulder and closed her eyes, trying to think of nothing else but the strength of his arms around her and the warmth of his skin against her cheek…and trying to shut out the sight of the unnerving, all-encompassing mist.

  Yet sleep stayed with her for only a short while. She awoke with a start to find that it was still night. Brendan was deep in slumber, his breathing slow and regular, and though she wanted nothing more than his company right now, she knew the exhaustion that must weigh upon him. He would need all of his strength, as would the rest of the men, if they were to row the curragh away from the treacherous waves of this island and get it safely back to the mainland.

  She eased upright, taking care not to disturb him. He shifted a bit but remained asleep, his golden brown hair shining in the moonlight.

  Moonlight.

  Muriel turned and saw the entire wide ledge of the campsite, the sea glistening beyond it, and the black shadow of the mainland all lit by the moon—the enormous white moon shining high in the dark night sky.

  The mist was gone. There was only the clearest sky she had ever seen, and the moon so bright that nearly all the sky around it was a solid wall of black.

  In its light she could clearly see the outlines of six men lying in sleep at the base of the rock wall. Six men. One was missing—

  Fallon.

  As the light had faded, the old king had kissed her on the forehead, spoken to Brendan, and then stepped off into the mist. He knew the layout of their camp very well and had never strayed beyond the ankle-high wall of loose stones that Cole and Duff had piled just inside the precipitous drop. He had always been safe before.

  She had assumed that he had gone for a little water after talking for so long, and then would make his way back to his pallet to lie down and sleep. Indeed, she had dropped off to sleep herself almost as soon as she had watched him go. But now there was no sign of him.

  I will go now and rest for a time, and remember her in my own way.

  Slowly Muriel walked to the low stone wall, then stepped over it so that she stood on the very edge of the island. Remaining very still, looking down only with her eyes, she watched the waves lashing and breaking in moonlit whitecaps as the tide rolled out far below…and realized that there was a small, dark figure washing back and forth against the rocks.

  Then, as she watched, the outgoing tide lifted the figure up off the rocks and bore it away on a high white-capped wave, with a faint gleam of gold in the moonlight before it was gone.

  “Farewell to you, King Fallon,” Muriel whispered. “Your work is finished here. Join your queen in the otherworld, and take our love for her with you.”

  Muriel stood for a long while at the edge of that terrifying drop. Then she took one step backward, and then another, until her cold, wet boots touched the low stone wall, and then she turned and hurried back to the safety of the campsite.

  Her water mirror sat on the boulders where it had been since the time of their arrival. Its shining surface, brimming with rainwater, gleamed in the light of the high white moon.

  She closed her eyes and turned her face away from the sight of the basin. So many times she had touched her fingers to the cool surface of the water within, so many times she had seen strange and beautiful and impossible things as easily as she saw the sun rise over the land and set again over the sea. Never had that power failed her, and she had come to take it for granted.

  But no more.

  It seemed to her that she had expended the very last of her magic in her efforts to get this group safely here. Those terrible waves had calmed in response to her touch and her words, at least enough to allow both curraghs to get to the landing with everyone alive.

  But the moment she had lifted her hands from the sea, she had felt empty and drained. It was as though her powers had sluiced away with the water that ran from her fingertips.

  It was true that in the past, the magic had its limits. Using it had often left her feeling drained, but always that feeling had been only temporary, the way a runner might tire briefly but come back stronger for the effort.

  This was different. What she felt now was the cold and empty feeling of power lost, never to return.

  Yet she could not help opening her eyes and looking toward the rocks again. Her water mirror still sat shining in the moonlight, as beautiful as it had ever been. As the wind from the sea passed over it, she seemed to hear it singing to her as it sometimes did, drawing her closer, causing her to walk slowly, slowly, one step at a time, until she stood right in front of the bronze basin, feeling as if she were standing at the edge of the world, gazing down at the shining surface of the water within. Behind it lay the magnificent view of the darkly glowing mainland and the glistening, moonlit sea.

  The faint singing continued. She could almost feel it as she raised her hands, spread her fingers,
and slowly lowered them to touch the cool water.

  The singing stopped.

  Muriel feared that her heart would stop, too. She peered down at the dark surface but saw only the white disk of the reflected moon…and nothing more.

  She took a deep breath, raised her fingers, and placed them in the water again. As before, she saw only the moon, the image shimmering and wavering as her hands began to tremble.

  Snatching her hands from the mirror Muriel turned away from its backdrop, unable to face, behind it, the magnificent view of the world where she had once lived…a world from which she was now exiled. Neither could she look at the water mirror and the magic it represented, for that too, was a world from which she was surely shut out.

  There seemed to be nothing left but this small and terrible island, for if Muriel no longer had the power to calm the waves or call the creatures of the sea to help her, it might well be their home forever.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  She heard footsteps approaching. Muriel looked up to see her husband standing there, his face somber in the moonlight but his eyes full of concern for her.

  “Muriel,” he said, throwing his rough, dark cloak back over his shoulder. “What is it? What has happened?”

  She looked up and started to answer, but could not, and so she stepped aside to let him see the water mirror sitting on the rock.

  “Oh…” He walked over and placed his hands on the rock on either side of the bronze basin, then leaned over a bit to look down at its dark surface. “It is a thing of beauty,” he murmured, turning back to her. “And I have not forgotten what King Fallon said. Do you fear to try the mirror? You must not. You will—”

  She shook her head. “Brendan…first I must tell you something.” She placed a shaking hand on his arm. “I must tell you that King Fallon has spared us all witnessing his death.”