by KB Anne
Nimblefoot snorted as if reading her thoughts.
“Of course you would make a tasty morsel too, but as you’ve always carried me where I need to go, I will ensure your safe passage through the mountains as well. Rather than dwelling on the virtue of our possible nutrition to the wilds, let’s get on with our travels, shall we?”
He snorted again.
“Are you talking to your animal?” the girl asked. “And does he understand you?”
The woman smiled. The girl may be enhanced with ancient magic, but her questions suggested a bright heart and an eager mind. However, today would not begin their journey to Otherworldly discussions. Today, they would remain firmly in the world they were rooted in.
“It’s good that you’re awake again. I take it you’re feeling better?”
“Yes,” the girl said, stifling a yawn.
It wouldn’t be long before the child found respite again, but if the woman could gather a few tasty morsels of her own about the child, she’d have much to ponder for the remainder of their travels.
“How is it that you came to the water’s edge? Were you swimming?”
The woman often visited Lake of the Dragon Mouth to collect her seashells, seaweed, lake rock, and herbs. She believed them to be enchanted because of the mystical mist that hung heavy over most of the lake, giving observers the strongest premonitions that magical beings lived under the water and flew through the air, if not for their obscured vision from the mist. Aside from the profound magical elements of the lake, the waters would freeze even the warmest of hearts, the child being no exception. As the girl was covered with scratches, dirt, and mud, the woman didn’t truly believe that her young companion had been swimming.
The girl clutched the blanket as if to ward off a chill. Or the truth. “I . . . I don’t know.”
The old woman flung another blanket over the girl. “No matter,” she said, tapping her shoulder. “You may call me Mathair Mhór.”
The girl drew the extra blanket to her chest. “Mathair Mhór? That is your name?”
The old woman blushed, remembering another child she had saved from a magical curse. A child who became a mighty warrior. Cu Chulainn, the great warrior of legends. “In a way. Someone once coined the name for me many years ago. It means ‘great mother,’ or mother of your mother.”
The girl sat quietly as Nimblefoot pulled the cart across a wide brook. The sturdy pony knew the trail well. He also knew that in a few hours, his duty to his passengers would come to an end, and as a reward for serving them well, he’d enjoy a special mash of apples, carrots, and molasses over his oats and barley. He picked up the pace over the bumpy bottom, surefooted even on the most slippery of rocks. If one were watching, they might think the sturdy pony’s hooves were magically enhanced, and they’d be correct in their assumption, but the sorcery didn’t extend past the hooves. The speed was a product of Nimblefoot alone.
Water splashed their arms and sprinkled their faces as the pony trotted across the brook. Both the girl and the old woman looked at one another and laughed. Their eyes sparkled with excitement at the unexpected splashing they received.
“I would also like to call you Mathair Mhór,” the girl said as they reached the opposite bank.
“I’d like that very much,” the woman said, knowing that Nimblefoot had played a role in softening the girl’s seemingly impenetrable surface.
“I am Caer,” she said in a small voice. “But that’s all I remember.”
“And so it is enough.” The woman smiled, and they began their final ascent to her hut.
* * *
Mathair Mhór put tremendous effort into keeping the white tufts of hair that framed the girl’s face as black as the rest of her hair. She tried herbs and ointments. She even boiled liquid from nutshells and soaked Caer’s hair in it, but charcoal was the only thing that kept it black. Caer never understood why Mathair Mhór worked so hard to hide her white hair or why she forbade her from swimming in the pond near their hut even to bathe, but Caer grew to love and trust the old woman and did her best to honor her wishes. She didn’t remember anything about her life before the old woman had found her except for an immense feeling of loneliness that the old woman managed to fill.
Occasionally, Mathair Mhór left her on market days. She’d leave long before Caer woke up and make her way down to the village to trade her herbal concoctions for materials they weren’t able to find in the woods around the hut. Items that other traders brought from far-off, exotic places.
Whenever she discovered the old woman wasn’t in her bed, she’d wander the wilds around the hut, scouring the land in search of a broken fern bough, a snapped twig, or a soft impression of a footprint in the peat bogs south of their hut, but it was always as if Mathair Mhór disappeared with the morning fog and magically reappeared in evening.
Caer didn’t know why Mathair Mhór wouldn’t take her along. She seemed to like Caer well enough. She even called her mo chuisle, which meant “my pulse.” Caer assumed that meant Mathair Mhór considered her precious to her, but every time she discovered the empty bed, she felt hollow and alone. She feared the old woman would leave her for good, though she never did. She’d always return with something sweet or a trinket Caer could play with in hopes that she’d be distracted from asking her once more why she had left without her.
As Caer neared her ninth year, and after begging for several moons, Mathair Mhór finally allowed her to go. It was a decision that would seal their fate.
The sights and smells of the crowded market with its unique foods overwhelmed the girl, but still, she couldn’t get enough of them. This was why she had wanted to come. Soon, children of other traders pulled her into a game of hide-and-seek. They’d hide behind trees and rocks, and she’d find them and chase them.
Moisture beaded on their foreheads as they ran around the market. To escape the blazing sun, several children shed their clothes and dove into the refreshing pool of water formed by Danu herself as if she had carved the earth with her mighty hands, winding her way to the sea.
Caer stood at the water’s edge. Mathair Mhór had insisted that unpurified water would eat away at the magic swelling inside of her. The only time Caer was allowed to bathe was inside the hut during the dark moon. Mathair Mhór would light the fire under the cauldron, then she’d help Caer clean the layers of grime from her body, saving her hair for last. Immediately after drying off, Mathair Mhór would reapply the charcoal to the white patches along with the strict warning never to bathe at any time other than the dark moon and never in front of anyone else.
But Mathair Mhór was too busy trading items to pay attention to what the children of the marketplace were doing. They laughed and splashed one another, continuing their game in the cool, sparkling water.
Caer dipped a toe into the pool. Mathair Mhór’s warnings came rushing back to her.
“Come on! Come on!” the other children sang in unison.
“Are you afraid?” taunted a redheaded girl.
“I don’t think she knows how to swim,” teased the now-clean boy who had begun the game in the marketplace.
But Caer did know how to swim. She couldn’t remember swimming before, but the water around her toe, and soon her foot, felt like a natural extension of her body. And she’d prove it to them.
She dove into the water and came up in the midst of them.
Once her head broke the surface, they shrieked, pointing at her as they backed away.
“Bean sídhe,” screamed the redhead.
“Monster!” wailed another child.
“She’s marked!” the boy shouted as the rest of them edged their way up the banks. Still pointing. Still screaming.
Hot tears fell down her cheeks where rivulets of fresh water once streamed. The white tufts of hair marked her as different, but she didn’t know why.
That night Mathair Mhór gave her a ruby-encrusted sword along with a leather scabbard that could be slung across her back. Caer managed to choke out
a thank-you for the generous gift, but Mathair Mhór would not accept her appreciation, claiming she was only returning what was rightfully hers.
Neither one spoke of either incident again. And they never returned to the village, even on market days.
2
The Lovers
Caer sat at the once rough-hewn table. She had spent many days rubbing the jagged edges with a piece of slíogart Mathair Mhór had gathered during one of her travels before Caer had come to live with her. It was Caer’s eleventh year, and Mathair Mhór planned to pull her future card. The future scared Caer more than her past. Her past she didn’t remember. It was as if she didn’t exist before Mathair Mhór had found her at the water’s edge. But her future caused her great concern.
Mathair Mhór studied her over the flame of a candle as she caressed the deck with the tips of her fingertips. “Ready?”
Caer pulled her lips in, giving a quick nod. It was the only reaction she would allow herself. Anymore, and she might change her mind.
She had witnessed the old woman pull hundreds of cards, but never had she taken so much time to build the energy in the room. As if Caer wasn’t generating enough nervous energy for both of them.
Mathair Mhór’s fingers danced through the cards with a mind of their own, dipping and spinning in and out of them as she searched for Caer’s future. All the while the old woman didn’t break her stare with Caer. This should have filled Caer with calm because the old woman was so confident in pulling Caer’s future, but it rattled her nerves into a tangled heap of chaotic emotions.
Mathair Mhór’s eyes widened when she found the card. She withdrew it from the deck and flipped it picture side up on the table. “The Lovers.”
The knot in Caer’s throat dropped into her stomach. “What does it mean?”
Mathair Mhór’s eyes glazed over as she fell into a trance. Caer should also have been used to this part of the reading, but it only solidified her fear.
“Your true love has returned to life on another plane. There he serves as a protector. The duality of his life will come to a crossroads. When he stands at the pinnacle of understanding himself, his power, and his true purpose, he will go on a quest.”
She liked the idea of an adventure. It had been a long time since they’d taken a trip of their own. “What sort of quest?”
“He will go in search of you, though he won’t know that purpose. He will fight for you.”
Caer removed the sword from the leather scabbard behind her back and leapt up. The ruby-encrusted handle grounded her to this plane. “I don’t need anyone to fight for me. I can fight for myself.”
Mathair Mhór, unfazed by her outburst, replied, “It’s not about what you can or can’t do. It’s more of what he is fighting for. He will find a reason to scour the realms to save you.”
Caer ground her teeth as she glanced down at the card. She didn’t like what she saw. “Why don’t they have any clothes on?”
Mathair Mhór blinked, coming out of the trance. “They’re lovers. They love each other in all their true forms. Their best attributes and their weakest aspects. They are the Original Lovers.”
There was that knot again, but it erupted back in Caer’s throat. She swallowed hard. “Lovers?”
Mathair Mhór nodded.
“When will this lover come for me?”
The old woman folded the cards back into themselves. “That is not for me to tell you.”
Caer didn’t like that answer either. “Should I expect him next week? Next month? Next year?”
The old woman smiled up at her, her eyes boring into Caer’s third one—the point of energy on her forehead between her two seeing eyes. “When it is time.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It is for now.”
Caer swung her sword in a wide arc, halting it at the tip of the candle. She didn’t have much knowledge of using a blade but call it dramatic effect. “When?”
“When the moon aligns into the correct phase.”
The candlelight reflected off the blade. “Which moon and when?”
“The answer is in the shadows, mo chuisle.”
The blade hovered next to the flame. “When?”
“That is for you to discover.”
Caer slashed the blade across the candle. The flame whooshed out as the sharp edge removed the wick. She returned the blade to its scabbard, angry and ashamed at her actions, and stormed outside.
It was the last time she and Mathair Mhór spoke on the subject of her future lover. It was the last time she and Mathair Mhór spoke at all.
* * *
Memories of Mathair Mhór and Nimblefoot were all she had now. That and a silver blade with a ruby-encrusted handle. Balor, the monster Mathair Mhór had warned her about, had burned down their hut in his mad search for Caer. Mathair Mhór and Nimblefoot were caught in the crosshairs of his rage and perished in the flames, innocent victims in his pursuit of her.
Caer honed the blade again along the stone’s smooth surface. Someday she’d find Balor. She’d find him, and she’d stab him in the eye with her blade, thereby ending his life and his dogged determination to possess her at the same time. She owed Mathair Mhór and Nimblefoot that much.
It was soon after the fire that Caer found the portal. Mathair Mhór had spoken of a Shadow Realm, the Land of Shadows, where souls wishing to escape from the other realms’ treacheries and chaos could hide. Gallean, a great wizard, resided there. The Land of Shadows dampened magic. It was why Caer sought it out. She had heard rumors that Balor retained a powerful sorcerer who could track Caer by a few strands of hair retrieved from the hut before it burnt to the ground. She’d been on the run ever since.
After Caer arrived in the Shadow Realm, she found that she could blend in with her surroundings and enter any place she desired undetected. It was the reason she was able to slip in and out of brothels and shops in the villages without getting caught. Bulging purses from a night’s winnings were easy pickings if a person couldn’t be seen. It was the reason she could pass through Gallean’s three boundary spells without alerting him to her presence—others did not fare so well and often paid with their lives. And it was also the reason Gallean didn’t know that she watched him as he trained in the arts of battle.
In the Shadow Realm Caer grew from a scared child to a fierce warrior without ever even meeting her mentor, and one day she’d kill the monster who had taken Mathair Mhór and Nimblefoot from her.
3
The Hanged Man
The clash of metal was unmistakable. Creeping closer seemed risky, but how else was she supposed to find out if this time the old wizard would be bested. It was doubtful, but still, she had to see. She’d watched enough of his battles to know that the bear could not be beaten by most men, but from the whelp of surprise that came from the keep, she suspected there was a woman present. Caer had never seen a woman battle the bear before. She had heard a rumor that if one could calm the beast, she would learn the secrets of everlasting life.
That was not a prize in her opinion. That was a curse. Caer lived with enough curses already. She had no interest in adding to her collection. Inevitably it would lead to her discovery, and she had come to enjoy this realm, or at least survive in it. She possessed no interest in searching for another one.
She pressed her hands against the cold rocks of the keep and peeked down the long corridor. The tunnel provided a decent view of the courtyard, albeit a narrow one. Sometimes she scaled the walls and climbed in through a window on the second floor, but oftentimes the battle would end before she got there. It was better to watch without a full view than to miss it.
A long sword sliced through the air toward the bear. It was like nothing she’d ever seen before. She leaned closer. A narrow beam of sunlight reflected off the blade. It paused midair. For a split second, she saw the warrior—a man—and he saw her, or at least the shadow of her. The gentle spirit in his green eyes surprised her. He was under attack by the bear and fighti
ng back, yet he demonstrated emotion most men, or at least the ones she’d encountered, weren’t capable of feeling. He was like no warrior that had come before him. In truth, he was no warrior at all. He wore no armor. He bore no arms but for his sword. Because of that difference, she feared him the most. She should run away and hide from this potential new threat, but she couldn’t find the strength to do so. She was a puddle of emotion—that also scared her.
The bear leapt at him. The hesitation from before vanished as the blade swept toward the wizard’s heart. A gasp escaped her. She regretted it instantly and fell back against the wall to avoid being caught. Her heart galloped as fast as Nimblefoot’s. She’d watched many battles and studied both the warriors’ and the bear’s movements. Never had she seen such practiced skill. She shouldn’t risk it, but she scaled the wall and climbed through the window.
She had to know who this warrior/not warrior was.
* * *
The view of the courtyard from the second floor was much better than the tunnel but left her exposed, especially if the bear happened to look up and detect her shadow shimmying across the balcony. Warriors were typically too preoccupied with not dying to pay attention to their surroundings, but the bear—the bear was never very engaged in the battle. He toyed with the intruders like a fat cat might play with a scrawny house mouse right before swallowing it whole. Field mice might put up more of a fight, but the end result was often the same.
The man placed himself in front of a girl. “Girl” made her sound young. She was probably Caer’s age, though age was not easy to access in this realm. The old wizard was proof of that.
The girl tried maneuvering out from behind him, but he appeared to be familiar with her tendencies. Without taking his eyes off the bear, he mirrored her movements to shield her. Her face pinched together, and she hissed in frustration. His green eyes sparkled with amusement, even as sweat beaded from his brow. Caer had not seen eyes as green as his. They reminded her of the green grass and vibrant plants of the Otherworld. Though she hadn’t visited it through meditation since Mathair Mhór’s passing, she’d never forget the vividness of that color.