by P. C. Cast
“What are you talking about?” Cu asked.
“What am I talking about? Better ask yourselves that question.”
“Explain yourself, Huntress,” Cu growled.
Brighid curled her lip at him. “By the Goddess, it’s simple! You cannot take seventy children through that pass. Not in a couple days, nor in a couple turns of the moon.”
Cuchulainn opened his mouth to bluster, but Ciara’s calm voice interrupted his rant. “What do you mean, Brighid?”
“I mean it’s clearly too dangerous. Maybe it was different when Cu came through it two moons ago, but today it would be a difficult journey for a party of adults. For children it is impossible.”
“Our children are special,” Ciara said softly. “They are not normal children.”
“Regardless, they are still children. No matter how strong, their legs are only so long. I’ve watched them. Some of them are barely gliding, which means adults, or the older children, would have to carry the littlest ones. That would double the danger and difficulty.” Brighid spoke matter-of-factly, in the logical emotionless voice of a Huntress discussing the tracking of game.
“You’re certain? Even if we took them through in small groups?” Cu asked.
“Small groups would be better, but still dangerous. Travel would be slow, so they would be forced to spend the night in the pass. And that would be a night without fire.” Brighid glanced at the Shaman who had so easily wielded the power of flame. “Fire would weaken the snow that is already thawing on the walls of the pass.”
“Avalanche,” Cu said. The warrior shook his head in self-disgust. He hadn’t thought of that, and he should have. “But small groups could work?”
Brighid lifted one shoulder. “I suppose.”
The Shaman’s dark eyes caught hers. “If they were your children, would you chance taking them through the pass, even in small groups?”
“No.”
“If you would not lead your own children through, I will not lead ours,” Ciara said.
Cuchulainn raised his brows at the quickness of the winged woman’s decision, but they were her people and it was her choice to make. “Then we’ll have to wait until late summer to lead the children through, when there is no more snow on the walls of the pass,” he said slowly. He could already feel the weight of the children’s disappointment when they found out that they would not be traveling to the land of their dreams for several more turns of the moon.
“Not necessarily,” Brighid said.
“But you just said—” Cu said gruffly.
“I said this pass was too dangerous for the children. But this is not the only pass into Partholon.”
Cuchulainn jerked in surprise. “Guardian Pass!”
“Exactly.” The Huntress looked pleased with herself.
“I hadn’t even considered it, but you’re right. It does make the most sense. It’s wider, well-marked and well-maintained. Probably even passable today.”
“It’s guarded by warriors from Guardian Castle.” Ciara’s soft voice shook only slightly. “Their sole charge is to keep Fomorians from entering Partholon.”
“You aren’t our enemies. My sister’s sacrifice promises that,” Cu said gruffly.
“But that is where she was taken to be imprisoned.”
Cuchulainn’s body jerked as if someone had struck him. The she Ciara spoke of was Fallon, the mad hybrid who had murdered Brenna. After Fallon had been captured, Elphame had sentenced her to death as retribution for the taking of Brenna’s life, but the hybrid had been pregnant, and not even Cuchulainn had been willing to sacrifice an unborn child to pay the debt its mother owed. So Fallon had been taken to Guardian Castle to be imprisoned until the birth of her child. It was there that she would eventually be executed.
“Yes,” Cuchulainn clipped the word. “Fallon is jailed there.”
“So won’t the people assume we are as she is?” Ciara asked, eyes luminous with feeling. “Won’t they already hate us?”
“You aren’t responsible for Fallon’s actions,” Brighid said. “She chose madness and violence. None of the rest of you did.”
“The warriors are honorable men and women. They will treat you justly,” Cuchulainn said.
Brighid slanted a look at him, considering the irony of the situation. Here was Cu, reassuring Ciara about something that he had struggled with himself. He had been ready to treat the New Fomorians unjustly—he had already admitted that to her. But their goodness had been obvious, even to a grieving warrior. If Cuchulainn could look past their wings and their fathers’ blood, wouldn’t the Guardian Warriors be able to do the same, too? Brighid desperately hoped so.
“If they were my children, taking them through Guardian Pass is the only way I would lead them into Partholon,” the Huntress said.
Ciara looked from the Huntress to the warrior. “If you believe it is for the best, then it is through Guardian Pass that we will enter Partholon.”
Cuchulainn grunted and looked eastward.
“What do you think? Is it about a two-day trip?” Brighid asked, following his gaze.
“With children? I’d say you better double that.”
“I thought you knew the children better than that, Cuchulainn.”
Before Cu could answer the winged woman, Brighid snorted. “You’ll have ample opportunity to show us how special your young ones are. How soon can all of you be ready to travel?”
“Whenever you say. We have been ready since the snow began melting. And we have been awaiting this journey for more than one hundred years.”
“We leave at first light,” Cu said.
“First light it is then,” Ciara said firmly. “We should hurry back so I can tell the others.”
With those words, Ciara spread her dark wings and moved quickly over the rocky ground in the distinctive gliding run her people had inherited from their fathers. She heard the pounding of hooves as the centaur and Cuchulainn’s gelding galloped behind her. She had Felt the tightness within her loosen when they decided not to take the hidden path and instead chose the way through Guardian Pass, but the suffocating sense of wrongness did not dissipate until they were well out of the shadow of the mountains and back on the rough flat terrain of the Wastelands.
The Shaman’s mind whirred as her legs pumped rhythmically. Why had she been sent the warning? The obvious answer was that the spirit realm agreed with the Huntress—the hidden path was too dangerous for the children to navigate. But the answer seemed too simplistic for such an intense reaction. The Huntress had easily recognized the danger, and Ciara already believed the centaur’s judgment was honest and accurate. She would have listened to her, as did Cuchulainn, without any prompting from the spirit realm. It seemed a waste of time for the spirits to compound the warning needlessly. One thing she understood very well from her experience with the world of the spirits was that they never wasted their powers and their warnings should never be discounted as needless.
She must find time to take the Sacred Journey and discover what the other realm was trying to tell her. It was always wise to heed the warnings of the spirits.
8
“I DIDN’T THINK they could do it,” Brighid said under her breath as she and Cuchulainn approached the heart of the settlement where every member of the New Fomorians had gathered. From the smallest winged child to the beautiful Ciara, they were all waiting expectantly for the centaur and the warrior who would lead them into the land they only knew from paintings and stories and the dreams of women who were long dead.
“It is first light, and we are ready,” Ciara said. “We were just waiting for the two of you.”
Brighid noted the very obvious glint of pride in the winged woman’s eyes, but she found it hard to blame her. The children were lined up like little warriors, each with a pack strapped to his or her back. The adults were more heavily burdened, and the Huntress counted five of them who carried leather slings across the front of their bodies in which rested the smallest of the children.
The majority of the provisions for the trip were neatly piled onto litters which, Brighid snorted with surprise, were strapped to shaggy-haired goats. They were definitely ready to travel.
Cuchulainn found his voice first. “Well done.” He nodded at the grinning children but didn’t return their smiles. “Our way lies first to the east before we turn south and enter Partholon.” He swung astride his gelding and, clucking, trotted off toward the rising sun.
Brighid moved to his side and jumped only a little when the group behind them started out with a deafening cheer. Then one small voice began an ancient song sung for generations by the children of Partholon as greeting to Epona’s sun.
Greetings to you, sun of Epona
as you travel the skies on high,
with your strong steps on the
wing of the heights
you are the happy mother of the stars.
Soon another child joined the song and then another and another, until the morning echoed with the happy sound of children’s voices raised in praise to their Goddess.
You sink down in the perilous ocean
without harm and without hurt.
You rise up on the quiet wave
like a young chieftain in flower…
“It’s going to be a damned long journey,” Brighid said with a sigh.
“That it is,” Cuchulainn said. “But it could be worse.”
“How?”
“They could be riding you.”
Brighid couldn’t tell for sure over the blaring noise of seventy singing children, but she thought the warrior might have been chuckling softly.
As midday moved toward afternoon and then evening, Brighid decided that without a doubt the Wastelands was the gloomiest place she’d ever had the misfortune to visit. It had only taken them a few hours to reach the mountains. Once within the shadow of the stark red giants, Cuchulainn had turned their group east, and for the remainder of the morning they’d been paralleling the mountain range.
Brighid’s gaze slid over the land. Ugly, she thought as she took in the jutting shale and the low, spindly plants that masqueraded as foliage. Besides being damned ugly, the place set her nerves on edge. It appeared flat and easy to navigate, but in truth the land held sudden gorges like wounds slashed into the ground. Shale littered the cold, hard landscape. It would be too easy for a hoof to misstep. One mistake, even at this sedate pace, and it would be a simple thing to snap her leg.
The mountains were no better than the land they bordered. Red and intimidating they looked like silent sentinels, which, oddly enough, wasn’t a positive connotation. But maybe mountains were supposed to be intimidating and awe-inspiring. Brighid had little experience with such terrain. The only landmark she could use for comparison was the Blue Tors, the soft, rolling hills that separated the northwestern edge of the Centaur Plains from the rest of Partholon. The Tors didn’t qualify as actual mountains, even though they appeared impressive when compared to the flatness and open freedom of the Centaur Plains. They definitely weren’t anything like the looming red barrier of the Trier range. The Blue Tors were round and so covered with thick, flourishing trees that from a distance they appeared to be a hazy sapphire color. Where the Tors were welcoming and filled with greenery and wildlife, the Trier Mountains were the exact opposite. Brighid eyed the hulking Triers uneasily, once again glad Cu and Ciara had heeded her advice and not tried to take the children through the dangerous hidden pass.
From behind her the shared laughter of two young girls drifted on the endlessly restless wind. The Huntress didn’t need to look back to know what she’d see. Little wings unfurled to almost skim the ground, the girls would have their heads together, giggling with delight over…over…Brighid snorted. Over the Goddess only knew what! How those children could find such joy and blatant happiness when all that surrounded them—all that they’d ever known—was the dismal Wastelands and a struggle for life that would have been daunting for an adult centaur was beyond Brighid. And they were mere children! It amazed her as much as it confused her.
“You’re looking almost as pensive as the warrior,” Ciara said.
Brighid glanced over at the winged woman who had matched her gliding pace with the Huntress’s steady gait.
“That can’t be a compliment.” Brighid jerked her head sardonically at the pole-straight back of Cuchulainn. “I can’t imagine a gloomier traveling partner.”
The warrior had consistently kept ahead of the group so that, even though he led almost one hundred gregarious travelers, he had spent most of the day alone. He spoke as little as possible, and rarely interacted with them. By midday Brighid had given up trying to engage him in conversation and she had decided—reluctantly—that she preferred to travel on the outskirts of the children’s jubilation rather than in the dark cloud that shrouded Cuchulainn.
Ciara’s smile was as warm as her voice. “It was meant as neither compliment nor insult. It was simply an observation, Huntress.”
Brighid acknowledged the winged woman’s words with a slight nod. “Actually I wasn’t thinking about Cu. I was thinking about the children. They’re doing well. Much better than I anticipated,” she admitted.
Ciara’s smile widened. “I told you they were special.”
More happy laughter drifted to them on the wind. Brighid snorted. “They’re aberrations!” Ciara’s bright look instantly faded and Brighid realized her unintentional slur. “Now it’s me who must explain. What I meant was not an insult,” she said quickly. “I admit I have not spent much time around children—a Huntress’s life rarely includes a mate and offspring. But what little I know of them did not lead me to expect such…” She trailed off, searching for the right word before concluding, “Optimism.”
Ciara’s face relaxed back into its familiar, open expression. “It would be difficult for them not to be filled with optimism. Their every dream is coming true—our every dream is coming true.”
As usual, the Huntress spoke her mind. “You cannot believe that returning to Partholon will be an easy thing.”
“Easy is relative, don’t you think?”
Brighid raised a questioning eyebrow.
“Consider, Huntress, how it would feel if your people had been living for over one hundred years in a barren, dangerous land with demons in your very souls—demons that were slowly, methodically destroying you, as well as those you loved. And then, unbelievably, you survived it. What wouldn’t seem easy after such a life?”
“Ciara, Partholon is a beautiful, prosperous land, but you must remember that there are many types of dangers and many ways to destroy a soul.”
Ciara met and held her gaze. “With Epona’s aid we will survive this transition.”
Brighid studied Cuchulainn’s rigid back. Sometimes survival could be crueler than a quick, painless end.
Ciara followed the Huntress’s gaze, and as if reading her mind she said, “The warrior’s soul is shattered.”
Brighid’s eyes jerked back to the winged woman, but she said nothing.
“May I ask you something, Huntress?”
“You may ask. I cannot promise to answer,” Brighid said curtly.
Ciara’s lips tilted up. “It is not my intention to pry—or to offend. But as a Shaman it is difficult for me to watch another’s suffering without attempting to…” She hesitated, moving her shoulders restlessly.
“He won’t accept your help,” Brighid said bluntly.
“I realize that. But there are ways a Shaman can be of aid whether or not the subject is particularly willing.” At Brighid’s narrowed gazed Ciara laughed. “I can assure you that I harbor no ulterior motives, and I would not intrude upon the warrior’s privacy.” Then her expression sobered. “But he is in such pain I cannot stand by without at least attempting to give him some relief.”
Brighid felt the truth of Ciara’s words settle deep within her. “Ask your question, Shaman.”
“What was Cuchulainn like before the death of his lover?”
Th
e Huntress raised her brows, taken aback by the question. She had expected Ciara to ask about Brenna or about her death, or even about how Cuchulainn had reacted to the murder, but Brighid hadn’t expected the winged woman to ask about before.
Reacting to Brighid’s obvious surprise, Ciara lowered her voice to be certain none of her words carried on the wind. “Sometimes, when fate has been too harsh and the trauma of life’s personal tragedies, illnesses, or crises are more than can be borne, a person’s soul literally fragments—disintegrates—and pieces of it are lost in the Realm of Spirits, leaving the individual feeling broken…lost…not all there. At first it is a defense mechanism to help us survive that which would otherwise destroy us. But the person is still…” She struggled to put her understanding into words.
“Still damaged?” Brighid supplied.
“Exactly.” Ciara smiled appreciatively. “You have the instincts of a Shaman, Brighid.”
The centaur’s expression flattened and her violet eyes narrowed. “You are mistaken.”
Ciara did not falter or flinch under the Huntress’s glare. “You will find that I am rarely mistaken. Perhaps it is because of my affinity with fire, which I have always thought of as a purifier not a destroyer, but my instincts do not fail me. Even before I met you, I dreamed of the coming of a silver hawk, one of the most powerful of the spirit guides.”
“I do not have a spirit guide. I am not a Shaman.” Brighid’s voice was steel.
“We shall see, Huntress,” Ciara said softly before shifting the subject back to the warrior. “As you said, a shattered soul causes the person damage. And if the pieces of the soul do not rejoin…Imagine an invisible, gaping wound that refuses to close and then begins to fester and putrefy. That is what happens.”
“And you can fix that?” Brighid asked sharply, forcing herself to push aside the mixed feelings of irritation and panic Ciara’s comments had evoked.
“Not always. Sometimes the soul does not wish to heal.”
“What happens then?”
“Often suicide. Sometimes the person continues to cling to life, but is only a shell of what once was,” Ciara said sadly.