by P. C. Cast
Then I heard the whispering. At first I thought it was the wind through the empty branches. But when I looked up I saw that the branches weren’t moving. There was very little breeze, certainly not enough to stir the bare branches noisily.
I passed an especially large tree that I had to literally step around because its thick base almost blocked the path of the trail. My arm brushed against its weathered trunk.
“Welcome, Beloved.” The teasing breeze solidified into words within my mind and I jolted to a stop.
“Shannon?” Several yards down the path Clint stopped, too.
“I heard something.” I said inanely.
He looked sharply around, listening intently before he replied. “There’s no one here.”
“No,” I said slowly, and pointed to my head. “I heard something in here.”
“What did you hear?” His tone was excited as he hurried back down the path to me.
“Something welcomed me.” My voice caught. “And called me Beloved.” The name my Goddess calls me, I thought, but didn’t say out loud.
He looked around us and his eyes came to rest on the huge tree I had just passed. “Maybe it was this ancient one.” He stepped to the tree and pulled the glove off his right hand. Resting his open palm against the rough bark, he closed his eyes, his face tight with concentration. Then the lines on his brow smoothed and his lips lifted in a soft smile. He opened his eyes and nodded encouragingly for me to join him.
Remembering the electric zap I’d received last time I’d tried to “listen” to a tree, I froze.
When I didn’t move, he reached out and took my hand in his and pressed it firmly against the tree.
I tensed, unconsciously waiting for something horrible to happen. But this time was different. First I felt a pleasant warmth beneath my hand, like it was resting on the skin of a living animal. Then the warmth flowed into my body through my palm, and with it came a wonderful rush of emotion, as if I had just unexpectedly met an old friend.
“Welcome, Beloved of Epona!” This time there was no mistaking them for the wind; the words rang clearly in my mind.
“Oh!” I breathed in awe, raising my other hand to press it, too, firmly against the ancient bark. “You know who I am!”
“Yesss…” The internal voice trailed off in a way that reminded me very much of delighted feminine laughter.
“Oh, Clint!” I stepped closer to the tree, laying my cheek against its rough side. “She knows me.” I blinked tears back, unabashedly happy at being hailed as Epona’s Beloved again.
“The forest speaks to you.” He sounded pleased.
I nodded happily, not wanting to let loose of the tree.
“If they know who I am, surely that means they’ll help me get back to Partholon!” I breathed deeply and sent a silent request to the ancient spirit of the tree.
“Then we should get moving.” The pleasure was gone from his voice, replaced with grim finality.
I blinked in surprise, feeling an echo of his sorrow within the tree.
Caressing the bark in parting, my mind whispered to the tree that he was not my husband…not my husband…not my husband. I stepped slowly away from the oak.
“You’re right.” I steeled myself against my emerging feelings for the man who stood so close to me. “I need to be going.”
Clint nodded jerkily and turned, abruptly retracing his steps. I fell in again behind him, listening in amazement to the whispers that brushed through my mind.
“Hail, Epona!”
“Well met, Beloved!”
“Blessings upon you!”
“We welcome you, Epona’s Beloved!”
I felt submerged in joy at this acceptance and acknowledgment, and took every opportunity I could to brush my fingers caressingly against the trunks and limbs of the trees closest to the path. Each time I touched a tree, especially one of the older, thicker giants, a surge of warmth passed through my fingers and into my body. Very soon I realized that with the surge came energy.
“Hey!” I yelled to Clint’s back. “I’m getting some kind of power rush from these trees!”
“I know,” he said without turning to look at me or slowing his pace.
I paused long enough to let my hand linger down the spine of another gnarled trunk. Zap! The warmth poured into my body. “Oh, man! It’s like I’m friggin Wonder Woman or something.” I put my hands to my cold cheeks and felt the lingering heat that had not come from my body. I swear, if I’d untied my hair it would have crackled and stood on end (I mean even more than it usually does).
Suddenly Clint stopped and turned to face me. “Not like a superhero, like a goddess.”
“Yes,” I said breathlessly as my heart lurched at his words. “Yes,” I repeated, “divine. And not divine because of a mistake, divine by choice.”
Clint lifted his hand, almost touching my cheek. A raw look of longing crossed his familiar features. It made me ache, but I didn’t move toward him. I couldn’t. His hand dropped limply back to his side and he broke our gaze. Looking to the right of the path, he pointed.
“It’s this way. Follow me.”
I nodded enthusiastically, eager to be off the path and even more immersed within the forest. I forced myself to ignore his somber expression and the slump of his broad shoulders.
We hadn’t gone more than one hundred paces when we broke free of the trees and underbrush and stood at the edge of a small clearing. I gasped and looked around me in amazement.
“Holy shit! It’s exactly like it was in Partholon.”
The same clear, tranquil stream gurgled through the glade, its bright waters running into the forest away from us. But my eyes weren’t focused on the stream; they were drawn to the two enormous pin oaks that straddled it. As they had in Partholon, their massive branches were filled with verdant leaves, belying the frigid November weather. Their limbs were so entwined that it was impossible to tell where one tree ended and the other began. It was as if time had fused them together. Their thick trunks were covered with luminous moss that glowed and beckoned.
Without a word, Clint and I started walking toward the trees together. I noticed how still the air had become, and the odd absence of birdsong. The closer we got to the trees, the more I could feel them. It was like they radiated a beacon, and I was the magnet it drew. Halting within touching distance, I pulled my attention from the trees and looked at Clint.
“What now?” My voice sounded strained.
“What I did before,” he said quietly, as if we were in church, “was to concentrate on pulling the power from the forest into a single ball within me.”
I blinked in surprise and he gave me a fleeting smile.
“Yes, I experience the power of this forest, too. Not as much as you do. It doesn’t flow freely into me, but I am able to tap into it. Usually I use it to strengthen myself physically.”
“You mean like Storm from the X-Men uses the power of wind to fly or something?” I was only half joking. And yes, I know I’m a dork.
“Not exactly.” His smile grew. “More like super Tylenol for my stiff back.”
No wonder he seemed so agile after he entered the forest. I nodded in understanding and he continued.
“After I pulled what power I could within me, I concentrated on Rhiannon and all the reasons why she should not be in this world. Then I focused on your aura, trying to call you to me. As you already told me, I didn’t actually call you, but your horse, to the clearing.”
“I could hear the trees calling me once I got here,” I said.
“Yes, so I concentrated on slinging Rhiannon there and you here, and when you touched the trees I grabbed you and pulled.” He made a yanking motion with his hands. “I have no idea why Rhiannon wasn’t affected, but here you are.”
“Okay, well…” I rubbed my hands together and stepped determinedly to the trees. “At least this time we don’t have to worry about concentrating on Rhiannon. She can stay the hell here. Let’s just get me home.”
Through gritted teeth I said to Clint, “I don’t think finding enough power will be a problem. I feel like I could leap friggin tall buildings in a single bound.”
“Concentrate on Partholon.”
Clint’s voice had deepened so that he sounded so much like ClanFintan I looked quickly up at him, almost expecting to see my husband in his place. No, my mind reminded me as I studied his very human features. It’s just his mirror; it’s not him.
“Go ahead, Shannon my girl.” His voice had dropped so low that I had to strain to hear him above the powerful buzzing of the trees. “Go back to him. Go home.”
“Thank you,” I whispered through unexpected tears before I turned my attention to the trees.
Bowing my head, I pressed my hands more firmly against their mossy sides and stared down into the clear waters of the little stream. It was through them that I had first glimpsed this world again, so it made sense that they held part of the key to Partholon.
I concentrated. Epi came to my mind first, and I let my memory call up the softness of her muzzle as she nuzzled me after whickering a welcome. How her liquid brown eyes seemed to reflect all the best aspects of my soul. And I remembered Alanna, not as a mirror of my friend from this world, but as I had come to love her for herself. Her own unique sweetness and sense of humor, and the way she loved to manage me.
Then I let images of ClanFintan flood my mind. I thought about how he had struggled not to fall in love with me, believing at first that I was Rhiannon, but how he was unable to maintain his unfeeling distance. How he had protected me and loved me. The way he brushed my curls back from my face before he cupped my chin, and the warmth of his body as he bent his lips to mine.
Pushing gently, I tested the tree trunks, hoping to feel them becoming soft under my hands. They were firm and unmoving. I sighed in exasperation and dropped my palms from the trees.
“It’s not working.” I turned to Clint. “Maybe you have to help. I mean, you got me here, maybe you have to be involved in getting me back.” I motioned to the other side of the trees. “Why don’t you stand across from me, just like I’m standing on this side. Try thinking about that slingshot thing, like you did right before the trees got soft and you grabbed me through them.”
He nodded and stepped around the oak, positioning himself so that he, too, was straddling the stream.
“Are you ready?” I asked.
He nodded again and together we raised our hands until our palms pushed against opposite sides of the trees. We were facing each other, and I looked up to meet the intensity of his gaze. The power of the trees surged between us and I realized that I could feel within them the beating of Clint’s heart and the pulsing of his blood. It was as if I was connected to his life force. I blinked rapidly and unexpectedly I could see the aura that silhouetted him. It was jewel blue tinged with faceted shades of amber and gold around the edges. And it was hypnotic.
His voice broke into my mind. It was raw with emotion. “If you want me to think about sending you away from here, you have to stop looking at me like that.”
“I’m sorry!” I snapped my eyes shut, forcing his image from my mind.
ClanFintan! I summoned my memories. I remembered his gentleness with me, how he let me accustom myself to the reality of loving a being that was so foreign to everything I’d ever experienced. How I had fallen in love with his integrity and honesty before I knew his heart and soul. I remembered the Change, and its poignant beauty, which caused him to endure such pain before we could make love.
Beneath my palms I felt the skin of the moss quiver. Keeping my head bowed, I opened my eyes and focused on the stream of water beneath me. As I watched, the water shifted and refracted, like a well-oiled window being lifted. I peered through the opening to glimpse the world beyond.
I could see the mirrored clearing. It looked exactly like this one, only it was empty. Without hesitation, I called the power that surged within me and cast it through the water and into Partholon, like a long-distance homing device held on a cord of energy. Again, I felt shivers run through the trees, and I concentrated on the aura I had seen surrounding Clint just moments earlier. I focused on calling its mirror image to me.
I didn’t have a sense of time passing, all I knew was that I had to keep all of my being focused on that call. Soon I had to blink quickly to clear the drops of sweat that ran from my forehead and pooled around my eyes. Part of me could feel that my breathing had increased and that my clothes were becoming soaked through, and hung in damp folds against my body.
My arms had begun to shake when I heard a sound that quickly grew in intensity. Almost hypnotized, I gazed through the stream and with a crash of breaking undergrowth ClanFintan stormed into the clearing, his sapphire-blue aura plainly visible—the gold around its edges pulsing wildly.
“Shannon!” The power in his voice echoed eerily through the stream.
“Here!” I cried in response.
His centaur body lunged with inhuman speed to the trees. He slid to a halt in the exact place held by Clint in this world.
“How do I help you?” The frustration in his voice was a reflection of my own.
“Concentrate! Put your hands against the trees and think of me.”
Immediately he raised his hands so that they lay against the trees. I saw his eyes close and heard the echo of his response. “My love, I think of nothing else.”
I pushed, and felt my hands slide into moss that now felt like warm jelly. Again I heaved forward and the liquid mass enclosed my arms up to the elbows. I slipped forward even farther and suddenly felt my palms touch another’s hands. Those hands were larger and warmer than a human man’s.
Through the stream I could see ClanFintan’s eyes shoot open and I tried frantically to make my hands obey my order to grab onto his.
Then from somewhere behind him I saw a flutter of activity as a curtain of darkness entered the clearing. At that instant I felt a change within the trees. The power I had been tapping into faltered and sputtered, as if something was draining it away from me.
I turned my head slightly, dividing my attention between ClanFintan and the thing that was now well within the Partholonian clearing. The darkness rippled and oozed from the forest, seeping over the ground like an oil spill. As it got close, I was shrouded by all too familiar feeling. A shudder ran through my body and I identified the source of that familiarity, and as understanding hit me I couldn’t believe I hadn’t recognized it before now. Evil. The kind of evil that had traveled with the Fomorian army.
The shadow came closer. It had no real form, and was hard to see clearly—like it was a shadow within a shadow.
Through our touching palms, I felt ClanFintan’s body shudder.
“Something is…” His words echoed through the divide and he raised his head to glance over his shoulder.
And then the dark shape liquefied completely, spilling slickly into the crystal stream. In horror I saw the waters at my feet turn a loathsome, oily black as darkness spewed from one world to another.
“Shannon! What is happening?” ClanFintan’s voice seemed farther away.
“I don’t kn—” My words broke off as the thing swirled past my feet and leeched up on the bank. It drew itself up and solidified into a winged shape that sent my breath rushing from my body in a panicked burst that was one word.
“Nuada!”
“Yessss, female,” the creature gurgled from the darkness that was its mouth. “I have answered your call. Now we shall begin our game anew.”
“No!” I screamed at him. My concentration shattered. I could no longer feel ClanFintan.
As the trees spit my hands out of their liquid interior, I heard my name torn from my husband’s throat in a single savage call. Like a giant had b
lown its breath over the surface of the stream, the water shifted and the mirror image of Partholon disappeared. I stumbled several steps away from the trees.
The creature moved toward me with a liquid, slithering sound.
“I am pleased you called to me.” His voice gurgled with a dark parody of laughter. Then he raised half-formed arms, trying to curl his molten hands into claws.
I stared at the thing in front of me, my mind unable to grasp what I was seeing.
“But you’re dead,” I said stupidly.
“No longer, female,” hissed his wet reply. “We are connected. Do not pretend that you did not use dark power to awaken me and summon me here.” He moved closer and I watched in horror as his claws began to solidify. “I have missed you, female, almost as much as I have missed feeling life within me.”
“Stay back.” Clint’s calm voice split the air between us and he stepped protectively in front of me.
Nuada stopped, glaring at the man. “This weak reflection of your mutant mate thinks you belong to him.” Pieces of darkness spewed from his lips as he hurled the words at Clint. I could see the creature’s aura pulsing around him, with a blackness that was the complete absence of goodness. He pulled himself up to his full height, spreading his pulsing wings. “I shall enjoy killing him.”
“No!” I screamed.
Nuada descended upon Clint. A shadow within a shadow, he seemed to melt to the human. I stood frozen in shock; all I could do was watch the creature absorb Clint. But as his claws drove down for a disemboweling blow, Clint’s own aura shimmered and the outer gold tinge crackled, shooting sparks where it came in contact with Nuada’s darkness.
The creature shrieked and stepped back.
“Human!” Nuada’s voice held the sound of death. “I feel your magic, but you have not the strength to stand against me.” The creature held his dripping arms to the sky, and it seemed that shadows from the forest disengaged themselves and flew into his hands. His death-colored aura pulsed madly. The creature moved forward again.