by George Hatt
“Mother—the High Druidess—tells me stories about those times,” Barryn said. “Are they true? Was magic real then?”
Banton laughed, despite himself. He knew the answer, for his teacher admonished him with it often.
“Look around you. This is magic. Life itself is magic,” Paardrac said. “We cannot summon devils or shoot lightning bolts from our outstretched hands like the heroes in the legends. But even if the tales are not true in a literal sense, they have much to tell us as allegories and parables. We can no longer summon fire to fend off ravening chimeras—not that it matters, since the chimeras were hunted to extinction by our honored ancestors. But we can, if we look closely, see the meaningful coincidences hidden all around us, and discern a safe path through a still-dangerous world.”
“But the legends? The histories that we memorize? Are those not true? Did Thayer the Bold not chop down the Demon of Haerg with a rune sword that flamed blue? Are the stories of the great sorcerers just lies?” Barryn asked. “If the songs I memorize aren’t true, then what about the hymns to the gods? Or are they just the biggest parables of all?”
“Now, now! I did not say the legends were merely fable. After all, how do you think these great standing stones got where they are?” Paardrac gestured grandly around him. “Sleds and ropes?”
The answer left Barryn unsatisfied.
Paardrac unrolled a small rectangular rug in the middle of the stone platform and motioned for Barryn to sit. Banton produced a small leather bag of herbs, a tiny iron cauldron and a small, cylindrical iron stove already packed with tinder and kindling. He lit a fire in the stove and began preparing the hallucinogenic brew that would usher Barryn to the Neverfar Realms. Paardrac stalked around the platform, gently tapping the butt of his staff on the ancient stone with every other step.
Barryn tried to relax into an aware, meditative state. He shifted and flexed his crossed legs, drew a deep breath through his nose, out through his mouth...but why won’t Paardrac look straight at me? Who’s more nervous? Why is the druid uneasy? He isn’t the one who could fail this quest.
Paardrac sat down in front of Barryn. “What do you see around you?” he asked, breaking the flurry of questions in the student’s mind.
Barryn thought for a moment. “The standing stones. Water.”
“Keep looking. What else? Do not think. Just speak.”
“The carvings in the stones. They look just like the ones in the temple—snakes, trees. Dragons. I see the mountain tops across the lake, and the woods. The waterfalls pouring out of the skinny end of the lake and feeding the rivers. A fish jumped. The sun is going down and the water is glittering and winking orange. Banton just burned his hand on the stove, and he’s trying not to show it hurt.”
“What do you want to see in your visions?”
“My destiny.”
“What do you fear to see?”
“Failure.”
“There is no failure. Not here, not in life. There is only the will of the gods. Ponder this while the sacramental tea brews.”
Banton stirred the tea, then removed the tiny cauldron from the stove. The three sat in silence as Barryn meditated.
When the cauldron had cooled, Paardrac poured it off into a small wooden bowl which he handed to Barryn. “Say a blessing over this, and drink it all. And remember that no matter where your spirit goes, your body is here at the most sacred place to the Caeldrynn, and we are with you.”
Barryn blessed the tea with a benediction he had composed himself in preparation for this, the culmination of his rites of passage, and drank the pungent brew. Paardrac took the bowl from him and set it down. Barryn felt Paardrac watching him intently as he closed his eyes and slowed his breathing. He knew that Banton noted the unease in his master’s countenance, but dared not speak. What are they looking for? Only the voices of the waters and the wind could be trusted not to unbalance Barryn’s spirit as the hallucinogenic tea took effect. They’re trying to be quiet, to still their own minds for my sake. The wind and the water...
The wind and the water were speaking to Barryn now, speaking in a way that mere sound could not. He felt the rhythmic splashing of water going into the air and returning with a constant roar to the surface, the soothing rush of cool breeze over him, his clothes, through his hair—it stretched back on the wind, back…back…back…over the rim of the circular platform, back to the cliffs from which the hundred springs gushed into his hair and crept along it, opposite the wind, against the wind, crawling over the bridge of his flowing locks over the water and into his scalp with a jolt! Cold water, cold sweat and waterfalls into his head...down his spine, down through his body and the stone circle and into the earth, and up this column of water crept the roots of the earth into his body...he laughed. Where is the fire? He was becoming three of the four elements, coming apart and carried away in pieces. Where is fire?
Barryn was staring into the very face of radiance.
“Fire? You ask where is fire? I am your fire!” The feminine and starkly powerful voice thundered from a light-shrouded woman clad in ancient plate armor.
Barryn recognized the goddess from his dreams. She held the mangled kor-toth aloft; her golden hair billowed and glowed with a reddish, otherworldly brilliance. All Barryn could see was the goddess, a living sunset against the azure sky and waters.
“I am the fire in your will from this day forward,” the goddess said. “And you, Barryn of Clan Riverstar…you are mine!”
“Who are you?” Barryn dared to ask.
“Your people will ask to whom you now belong. Tell them,
I am the killer of dragons
And the breaker of strong gates.
Demons fear me,
Yet you fear me as you do the demons.
And great should your fear truly be!
“That is who I am, now that I am beyond death. In life, I was the paladin Ashara.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Paardrac
The enormity of Paardrac’s failure—not his, he tried to convince himself, for there was no blame when the devas interfered—descended upon him when he returned to the temple and stood in the great arched doorway. He was damp from the rain that that had dogged him and his charges during the last full day of Barryn’s spirit quest. Paardrac hesitated at the door; the top half of the High Druidess’ shapely form was visible above the stone altar and clad in a sheer wrap. Her head was bowed, and lovely red tresses cascaded around a scrying cauldron on the altar. She looked up at him.
“Come in our holy house,” she said. “Tell me how my son fared during his rites.”
Paardrac walked forward into the candlelit temple. He felt the standing stones glaring down at him. They knew of his failure, he felt, and so would the High Druidess very soon.
“I am sorry…” Paardrac began.
“Is he hurt?” she asked, coming toward him.
“No.”
“Then he failed.”
“No. It is I who failed,” Paardrac said. “The Deva Ashara appeared to him in a dream the night before his rites. She gave him visions, but she did not name herself at the time. The dreams woke him up, and he grabbed his bow and shot an arrow blindly into the dark.” Paardrac showed the high druidess the kor-toth’s fang. “The arrow found its mark.”
The High Druidess lightly touched the fang, then looked up at Paardrac. “Then?”
Paardrac had recounted the next day’s journey to the sacred springs and the preparations for Barryn’s rites, sparing no detail of the conversations, the weather, the signs he saw. He described Barryn’s expressions during the rites and told the High Druidess what Barryn had described in his journey to the Otherworld.
She turned away from Paardrac and walked back to the altar. The authority of her station melted away as tears silently ran down her cheeks. In a moment, she composed herself and was again the spiritual leader of Clan Riverstar. “My son belongs to Ashara now. Help me prepare for the Banishing.”
Paardrac spent the rainy
night in his timber-framed house cleaning his weapons and gear. He assigned Banton and one of the other druids to tend to Barryn and ensure he remained sequestered at home until the sacrifice. The boy was effectively dead to the Clan already; unlike other spirits and gods, the deva meddled gleefully in the affairs of mortals, often with disastrous results. A person or animal claimed by the deva was just too dangerous to allow to range freely among the Caeldrynn, and so was strangled and ritually burned. The custom was savage and cruel, and none took pleasure in the violence of the act—least of all the druids who presided over the mercifully rare ceremonies. But it was the only way to ensure that the power of the devas never again took hold in the land.
The druid’s hearth fire burned low, and the patter of rain on the thatched roof slowed, then ceased altogether. His weapons and gear lay before him on his simple table: his sword, sharpened and well-oiled; a dagger; and a bronze sickle for cutting the herbs and branches needed for the coming rituals. When he was Barryn’s age, Paardrac would not have waited for the rain to stop before going out to collect the herbs. Rain and muck are just as much a part of nature as cool breezes and sunshine, and just as sacred. But there was no sense in punishing his body with cold rain when his conscience wracked his spirit so effectively.
Paardrac wiped the bronze sickle absently, knowing the folly of braving the nasty weather. Animals, especially mammals like Paardrac, frolic in beautiful weather when times are good for them and the meadows are safe. When it rains, they take shelter. When predators approach, they run. If the deer and the kor-toth were wise enough to follow these patterns, then druids should be as well. The deer in the wood do not consider cutting themselves for errors costing the life of one of their own... he hastily put the sickle down and went to the tiny altar on the far end of his house. Paardrac lit the great beeswax candles that flanked the rune-carved stone centerpiece and began to pray.
Dawn broke clear and bright the next day, and Paardrac was waiting for it in a clearing in the woods north of the road. When the first rays peeked over the horizon, the druid held his staff horizontally in both hands and tracked the sun’s movement with it until it became too bright to look at. “Hail to thee, fierce sun shining bright,” he said. He then flipped the staff to vertical in his right hand and thrust the butt of it in the ground. “Bless us with your light, which quickens the trees here below!”
He lifted the staff in the air. “Which wakens the birds of the air!”
He touched the head of the staff to the ground. “And warms the waters that give us life!”
Paardrac righted his staff and leaned on it, listening to the gentle sounds of the morning. He visualized the sun’s rays soaking into his skin, his muscle, his bone, warming his mind and chasing the anxiety and guilt away. The feelings persisted, so he left them be. He concentrated on letting the sunshine, penetrating his closed eyelids and casting a gentle red glow, warm his intellect. A druid—indeed, any sentient being—is nothing without his mind. But the rocks do not have minds. Not like we have or understand. And they are alive. Alive, but not sentient. They do not perceive themselves separately from the rest of the universe. And therefore, they are wise beyond my understanding.
He spent the day collecting herbs and talking to the trees and stones to seek their guidance. He said a blessing over each herb and sacred plant that he collected, wrapped it in a square of waxed cloth and placed it carefully in his leather bag. Some of the blessings were old and passed down from generations of druids. Others he composed on the spot. A few of the blessings were just short conversations Paardrac had with the spirit of the plant he harvested. The more formal the blessing, Paardrac noticed late in the afternoon, the less sacred the herb. The truly potent herbs and the most high holy plants were the ones he stopped to talk to, some as if they were old friends. Others he spoke to almost as if he were praying. Paardrac found a boulder to sit on and pondered this. He tightened and relaxed his grip on his staff as he thought. No matter how he spoke to the trees or the rocks or the herbs, none answered his questions.
The druid heard a rustle in the wood several yards away. First the head, then shoulders, and finally the gracefully powerful body of a mountain lion appeared from the underbrush and fixed Paardrac with its gaze. Before the druid could react, the lion sniffed the air and turned away. It disappeared into the woods as suddenly as it had materialized. Paardrac stayed on his rock for an hour to give the animal time to wander away. He thought about the beauty of the lion and the impermanence of life, then rose and started back to the village.
Paardrac arrayed herbs, salves and pigments on the stone altar in the temple. A tub of hot water had been drawn by the druids and acolytes and awaited the High Druidess. When all was arranged, he dismissed the other druids and rang a hand bell. Moments later, the High Druidess appeared through a doorway in the back of the temple, clad in a loose white robe and ancient, heavy gold jewelry. After each step she took toward the bath, Paardrac removed the pieces one by one: her diadem of authority, her necklace of worldly wealth, her bracelets of strength, her sandals of readiness and her robe of wisdom. Clad now only in her resplendent hair, she stepped into the aromatic water of the bath.
Paardrac ladled the water over the High Druidess’ body. Between the gentle splashes, he could hear the drums and bagpipes in the village green outside the temple playing solemn, warlike tunes that would, it was hoped, frighten the deva away from their homes. Druids were guiding the people of the clan in setting up the stake on which the High Druidess’ son would be strangled and burned.
“Paardrac, what is the druid’s sacred duty to his people?” the woman asked.
He put the ladle down and soaked a sponge with the fragrant water. “To keep nwyventh and share it with the Clan.” He began dribbling water on her from the sponge and scrubbed her gently.
“What if I told you that I am a man,” she said, turning to look at him. “Or a newt. A stone. A frost giant. Is any of what I just said nwyventh?”
“Literally? Or in your current manifestation?” he asked. “The form you take is, of course, all woman. Not a man, not a newt or a stick. Nor rock nor fish.”
“But I just told you I was a newt, and I am High Druidess. Does that not make it nwyventh?”
“No.”
“What if had I lived and died a thousand years ago, and the legends said I was a newt? Would the passage of time make such an absurd statement nwyventh?”
“No.”
“What harm do the devas inflict that we do not do ourselves?”
Paardrac closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. “A clumsy man with a torch is more dangerous to a ripe field of grain than any sorcerer. But that was not always the case.”
“You dodge my question. I am not asking you about sorcerers. I am asking about the devas. What is your nwyventh? Are you willing to strangle and burn my son because we fear them?”
Paardrac hesitated, then continued to wash the High Druidess in silence.
“I am two women. Is that an absurd statement, Druid Paardrac?”
“No,” he said. “You are indeed two women: the grieving mother of Barryn and the stern, wise woman of Clan Riverstar. But when you leave this tub, you will be one woman.”
“That is correct. Only one woman will step out of this bath, and she is the High Druidess of the Clan. And she will command you, druid, to remember your duty to your people and to your High Druidess.”
Paardrac dried her graceful, voluptuous body and took up a brush and stone bowl of blue pigment. He spent an hour painting intricate spirals and knots over the High Druidess’ body.
“Remember your duty,” she told Paardrac when he finished.
“To follow through with the sacrifice.”
“To obey nwyventh,” the High Druidess said, stepping toward the altar. “Now cast a circle of protection around me as I pray, then go prepare the sacrifice.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Barryn
Barryn paced inside his house and listened with dread to the inc
essant drumming and piping in the village green. The door house was barred from the outside and guarded by two warriors and a druid. His mind told him his own kinsmen were building a pyre and garroting pole on which he would be executed, but his spirit refused to believe it. He stopped his pacing and hung cooking pots and utensils in their places from iron hooks in the rafters. He had several minor chores to finish before his mother came home.
Mother will never come home to this place, Barryn thought, absently twirling a wooden spoon in his fingers. He let it drop and clatter on the stone floor. The house and all it contained was tainted now with the spirit of the deva that had claimed him. That is why he was to be strangled and burned, and the house with its possessions burned soon after. The devas were simply too dangerous—not vile, not wicked, but horribly dangerous—to allow to run amok in the village. And one of them had chosen him.
Barryn had not advanced in his training enough to know anything about the devas other than to avoid them. He did not know if Deva Ashara would claim him when he died this day, or if he would be a wandering soul prowling the woods and heath. Will I still be allowed to approach the Great Cauldron and be reborn? Or am I too defiled to even go near it? Will the dead warriors turn on me and chase me into the Abyss? Barryn frowned deeply and clenched his fists. I shall soon know, and I’ll be more of a druid than any who are still alive. Then the boy, finally, began to cry.
The door opened, and Paardrac stepped in. “Shut it, and give me a moment,” the druid said to Craenstardt, the warrior who opened the door. The burly man hesitated, afraid to leave the druid alone with the deva-possessed boy.
“Are you a stronger druid than I? Or do you doubt my powers? Leave us!”
When the door closed, Paardrac turned to Barryn. “You must do exactly as I say,” he said in a low voice.
Barryn stood straight and tried to call back his tears. They raced down his cheeks and splashed in little drips on his coarse woolen tunic. “I did not call up the deva,” he said. “She came to me. Why?”