Brighid’s Quest

CHAPTER SIX

“You couldn’t have told me about this, either?” Brighid muttered to Cu as she stepped inside the longhouse.

“There really wasn’t time,” he said under his breath. “And I don’t think the simple telling of it would have been adequate.”

It was a beautiful building. More rectangular than circular the two longest walls supported huge hearths in which fires crackled merrily around enormous, bubbling pots that, from the wonderful smells drifting throughout the room, must be filled with well-spiced stew. Long rows of trestle tables were formed by smoothed wooden planks resting snugly atop stone pillars that had been carved to look like blooming flowers. But what drew Brighid’s eye were the walls of the great building. From the outside they looked like the walls of Cu’s small lodge, but on the inside they had been meticulously smoothed and covered with painted scenes so lovely they rivaled any of the treasured pieces of art gracing the marble walls and hallowed halls of Epona’s Temple.

The centermost scene was breathtaking. A silver mare, silhouetted in the golden light of a rising sun, arched her proud neck and presided regally over the room. The mare’s eyes were wise-her gaze benevolent. All around her vignettes of Partholon had been brought to life with a master’s hand. There was the Temple of Epona, glistening with pearlized walls and stately carved columns. The Temple of the Muse’s elegant grounds were filled with silk-clad women, frozen in time, clustered around each of the nine Incarnate Goddesses, listening in rapt attention to their daily lessons. There was even a scene wherein two centaurs raced through wither-deep grass that Brighid easily recognized as the Centaur Plains. Framing each one of the scenes were intricate knots that hid birds and flowers and animals indigenous to a land much more hospitable than the Wastelands.

“It’s truly amazing,” Brighid said.

“I’m pleased you like it,” Ciara said. With an elegant unfolding of her hand she motioned to a section of one of the tables that had been arranged away from the others. The benchlike sitting area on one side of it had been removed to accommodate Brighid’s equine body. The other side remained fashioned for more diminutive human hindquarters. “I hope this will be comfortable for you. I thought Cuchulainn and I could join you, here apart from the others, so that you would not be deluged with the constant questioning of the young.” Ciara led them to their seats as Liam and Kyna hurried over with trays of steaming food. “Well, with two possible exceptions,” Ciara whispered to the Huntress.

Brighid eyed the eagerly waiting children with suspicion. Their inquisitive looks made her more uncomfortable than a pack of starving coyotes. The moment she sat beside the table, Liam rushed forward and ladled for her a generous portion of thick stew filled with chunks of potato, meat and barley, and a side dish of warm greens that smelled a lot like spinach.

“The wildgreens are special for you, Brighid.” Liam’s nervous excitement brimmed over and spilled around them. “They’re a real treat so early in the spring. I, um, I mean we hope you like them.”

“I’m sure I will. Everything smells wonderful.” Brighid smiled tentatively at the boy. He practically wriggled out of his skin with pleasure.

“Can Fand eat at our table, Cu?” Kyna asked the warrior as he helped himself to the wildgreens she offered.

“Of course, but be sure she stays under the table. Not on it,” Cu said.

“Leave the trays and go eat now,” Ciara prompted when the two children looked as though they would be content to stand all night and watch every move Brighid made as she attempted to eat under their intense scrutiny. They obeyed, but reluctantly, still throwing curious looks over their shoulders at the beautiful centaur.

“The children are enamored with you, Huntress,” Ciara said with a smile.

Cuchulainn glanced up at Brighid from under his brows. “It’s a relief to have them obsessed with someone else,” he said around bites of stew.

Ciara laughed. “Oh, do not think they have forgotten you, Warrior.”

Cu scowled and turned his attention back to his bowl.

Brighid ate silently, letting her eyes dwell on the incredible scenes that filled the walls.

“I sense that you are surprised by our artwork,” Ciara said.

Brighid’s gaze shifted to her. “Yes,” she said frankly. “I am.”

Ciara’s warm smile didn’t waver. “You wouldn’t be if you knew the story of our birth.”

“I know some of it-that your people come from a group of women stolen from Partholon by the Fomorians during the war more than one hundred years ago. When the Fomorians realized they were losing the war, they escaped into the Trier Mountains with as many human women as they could capture. They planned to hide there and grow strong again, replenishing themselves with a new generation of demons born of human women. Eventually they would return to attack Partholon again.”

“Yes, that much is true. What else do you know?”

Brighid lifted one shoulder. “Only what Lochlan told us. That the Fomorians escaped the Partholonian warriors, but they couldn’t escape the plague brought to them by Epona’s outrage at the violation of her women. The demons grew sick and weakened. Then a group of pregnant women, led by Lochlan’s mother, attacked their captors, killed them, and searched through the mountains, helping the other groups of women rise against their captors, too.”

Ciara nodded and took up the thread of the story. “Their plan was to return to Partholon. They knew their pregnancies meant death sentences for them. No human woman had ever survived the birth of a child fathered by a demon. It was their desire to return to their homes where they would die surrounded by their loved ones.”

Ciara’s beautiful face glowed with the telling of the tale and Brighid listened, entranced by the Shaman’s singsong voice.

“But then the impossible happened. As they began the journey back to Partholon, Morrigan MacCallan went into labor and survived the birth. She brought forth a boy child who had wings as well as the spark of humanity. She looked upon her son with the fierce love of a mother, and named him Lochlan. And then another woman survived the birth of her infant. And another. And another.” Ciara paused, holding Brighid’s eyes with her own. “What were the women to do? Some would say they should have killed or abandoned their children and returned to the lives that waited for them in their beloved Partholon. The infants were, after all, the spawn of demons. But their mothers did not see them as such. They saw their humanity instead. So Epona led the young mothers here, to our canyon, where they built new lives from the dreams of their old world. And here we have stayed for more than one hundred years, waiting to fulfill those mothers’ dreams by returning to the world they loved with a depth of spirit second only to their love for their children.”

“And Epona gave Lochlan’s mother the Prophecy, which he fulfilled after dreaming of Elphame and following that dream to Partholon,” Brighid said quickly without looking at Cuchulainn. She didn’t want to speak of the events that had led Fallon to follow Lochlan to MacCallan Castle. She had despaired of Lochlan fulfilling the Prophecy because she knew he had fallen in love with Elphame. So Fallon killed Brenna to lure Elphame away from the safety of her clan. “That I know, but it doesn’t explain all of this.” The centaur pointed at the lovely paintings.

“Oh, but it does. You see, the largest group of pregnant women were captured during the great battle at the Temple of the Muse.”

Brighid’s eyes widened in understanding. “So many of you are descended from either Incarnate Goddesses of the Muse, or their acolytes.”

“That’s right. You already know that I am granddaughter of the Incarnate Goddess Terpsichore, Muse of the Dance. This room is filled with descendants of all nine of the Goddesses. Our mothers and grandmothers knew the magic of the Muses, and they passed that knowledge along to us. It was their greatest wish that the wonder of Partholon not die in the Wastelands. Does the beauty surrounding you now make sense?”

“It does indeed,” Brighid said softly. Throughout Partholon the Temple of the Muse was known for its various schools of learning and the exceptional women who lived and trained there. Epona’s own Chosen was always educated by the Incarnate Goddesses of the Muse. The Huntress considered Ciara’s words. There were many more layers to this situation than she had anticipated. And layers meant things were rarely as they at first seemed. “Your mother was daughter to Terpsichore’s Incarnate Goddess of the Dance, and your father?”

Sadness crossed the winged woman’s expressive face. “He was the son of an acolyte devoted to Calliope who was captured by the Fomorians, raped and impregnated when she was thirteen years old. Really just a child herself…” Ciara’s voice trailed off.

“Where are your parents now?” Brighid forced herself to ask.

Before she answered, Ciara looked at Cuchulainn. The warrior returned her gaze steadily, with eyes that had once more gone flat and expressionless. She turned slowly back to Brighid. When she spoke her voice was shadowed with grief.

“More than two decades ago my parents committed suicide. They chose to die in each other’s arms before they succumbed to the evil that was choking the humanity from them. As they wished, I scattered their ashes into the south.” Ciara’s eyes pierced Brighid almost as fully as did her next words. “I am my people’s Shaman. Trained by my mother, who followed the ways of her mother, the Beloved of Terpsichore. I would not lie to you, Huntress. I sense you have knowledge of the Shaman Way. Can you not discern the truth in my words?”

Brighid felt more than saw Cuchulainn straighten in his seat. She hadn’t told anyone-not Cu, not even his sister. How did Ciara know?

“Shamans can lie,” Brighid said. “I know that from my own experiences.”

“Yes, they can.” Ciara’s open, honest face was tinged with sadness. “But I do not.”

“They all committed suicide,” Brighid said.

“Not all. Most did. The others…” Ciara looked away. She laced the fingers of her hands together. Her knuckles whitened under the pressure with which she held herself together. “The madness claimed the others and shortly afterward they died, too.”

“It pains you to speak of it,” Brighid said.

“Yes, very much.” Ciara forced her hands apart and pressed her palms into the smooth wood of the table. “You have to understand what happened to us when Elphame fulfilled the Prophecy and took the madness from our blood. All these long years we fought against the evil within us, even though it caused us pain and each battle cost us a piece of our humanity. And then suddenly that great, sucking evil was gone.” Ciara’s breath caught and her eyes glistened as she relived the moment. “What is left within each of us now is what we fought so hard to keep. Our goodness. Our humanity. We want to move forward-to become the people our human mothers believed us to be so long ago. When I remember the horrors of the past and those of us who were defeated before salvation came, it feels like I am deconstructing the fortress of goodness within my mind. Grief and sadness drift into darkened corners. Disillusion moves in until breathing in remembrance does nothing but barricade the doors and seal in pain.” She didn’t turn to look at Cuchulainn, but Brighid felt that Ciara was speaking more to him than to her. “Dwelling on tragedy makes grief become like a dripping icicle that begins as a small, harmless sliver of coldness. But slowly, as the winter of mourning progresses, layer after dripping layer hardens into an unbreakable dagger of pain.” Ciara straightened her back and turned her hands, so that they rested palm up in a gesture of openness and supplication. “Test me, Huntress. I know you have the ability to discern any falseness in my words. I welcome your scrutiny.”

Brighid ignored Cuchulainn, who had stopped eating and was staring at her with a mixed expression of surprise and revulsion. She drew in a long breath and focused her keen powers of observation-powers that were, just as Ciara had sensed, enhanced by the rich Shaman heritage that was her birthright-upon the winged woman. As when she searched out prey for her Clan, the Huntress scented more than the air. She breathed in the spiritual essence of that which she sought. And what she sought there in the longhouse was the dark spoor left by evil and lies.

Ciara sat still and serene, waiting patiently for the Huntress to search her spirit and see what lived there.

“You’re not hiding anything from us,” Brighid finally said.

Ciara’s smile was radiant again. “No, Huntress. I am not hiding anything from you. But if it would rest your mind, I invite you to travel with me on a true spirit journey to the Upperworld, and I will pledge before Epona Herself that my words are truth.”

Brighid felt a cold fist close around her heart. Using her innate powers to feed her Clan or to know the truth about Ciara and therefore keep the MacCallans safe, was one thing. To her it was no different than piercing the heart of a noble stag with an arrow. It was not pleasant, but it was something she must do in order to fulfill the path she had chosen for her life. But she would not travel on a spirit journey. She knew only too well who she would meet.

“No,” she said a little too quickly. “That won’t be necessary, Ciara.”

“You have the power within you, but you do not take the Sacred Journey?”

“No. I am a Huntress, not a Shaman.”

Ciara opened her mouth, and then changed her mind and simply nodded slowly. “We each must find our own path.”

Cuchulainn stood so abruptly that he almost knocked aside the bench. “It is time I retire for the night.”

Ciara made no attempt to hide her disappointment. “But the storytelling will begin shortly. The children will be asking for you.”

“Not tonight,” he said curtly.

“I, too, must ask your indulgence that you allow me to retire early. My journey here has been a long and tiring one,” Brighid said, rising gracefully and walking around the table to stand beside Cuchulainn.

Ciara’s disappointment turned quickly to a gentle look of understanding. “Of course. Rest well tonight, Brighid.”

Before they turned to leave, Cuchulainn said in his terse voice, “Tomorrow I want to explore the pass. I think it might be clear enough that we can begin our journey soon.”

“That’s an excellent idea. I’ll make plans to join you,” Ciara said.

Cuchulainn grunted. Without waiting for the Huntress, he strode briskly out the door, leaving Brighid to smile and wave apologetic goodbyes to the disappointed children.

Torches were lit all over the settlement and it didn’t take long for Brighid’s sharp eyes to pick out his hunched back as he walked briskly between lodges. She caught up with him easily.

“You have Shaman powers,” he said without looking at her.

“Yes. Though I choose not to, I do have the ability to travel the Sacred Journey and to commune with the spirit realm. It’s in my blood-” she paused and glanced at his stony profile “-from my mother. She is Mairearad Dhianna.”

Her words brought him up short. “You are the daughter of the High Shaman of the Dhianna herd?”

“I am.”

“Which daughter?”

Brighid set her face in carefully neutral lines. “The eldest.”

He shook his head in disbelief. “But your herd’s tradition is that you follow your mother as High Shaman.”

“I have broken with tradition.”

“Yet you carry that power within you,” he said.

“Yes! You sound like I just announced that I carry within me a rare plague. Your father is a High Shaman, too. Don’t you know a little of what it’s like to have the power and to choose not to walk the exact path it wishes to lead you down?”

Cuchulainn’s jaw clenched and unclenched. “You already know the answer to that, Brighid. I want no traffic with the spirit realm.”

The Huntress threw up her hands in frustration. “There are other ways to deal with the powers that touch our lives than to totally reject them.”

“Not for me.” He ground out the words between his teeth.

“Your sister is the eldest daughter of Epona’s Chosen. Tradition holds that she should follow her mother as The Beloved of Epona, yet all who know her understand that it is her destiny to be The MacCallan. She has not turned from the powers inherent in her blood. She used her affinity for earth magic to bring MacCallan Castle alive. Like her, I have chosen not to follow tradition, but I do not completely reject the gifts of my heritage.”

He was silent, staring at her like she was a pariah. Brighid sighed, keeping her growing anger in check by reminding herself it wasn’t her he battled against-it was himself.

“My affinity is for the spirits of animals.”

His eyes narrowed. “That’s why your abilities as a Huntress are so vast.”

Brighid snorted. “I like to think that I use my affinity to enhance rather than to create my abilities.”

“I don’t see any difference in the two.”

“Be very careful, Cuchulainn. Remember that you speak to your Clan’s Huntress. I will not tolerate your slander.” Brighid’s voice was tightly controlled, but her eyes were bright with anger.

Cuchulainn hesitated for only an instant before he nodded slowly. “You are quite right to remind me, Huntress. Please accept my apology.”

“Accepted,” she said shortly.

“Would you rather lodge elsewhere?” he asked.

She snorted again, letting some of the tension relax out of her shoulders. “Is sending me into a lodge filled with children how you plan to torture me for my transgression into the spirit realm?”

“No,” he said quickly. “I just thought that you might not-”

“Let’s just get some sleep.”

“Agreed,” he said.

They walked on in silence. Brighid could sense the turmoil within the grim warrior who stalked beside her. He was a notched arrow waiting to explode. When he spoke suddenly, his voice sounded like it came from a tomb.

“You would have used your powers to save her, wouldn’t you?”

She looked quickly over at him, but he did not meet her eyes.

“Of course I would have, but my gift isn’t one of preordination. I already told you I simply have an affinity for…” But her voice faded as she realized what he was really saying. He had been forewarned of Brenna’s death by a premonition of danger. A warning he had rejected just as he had always rejected anything from the spirit realm. She stopped and placed a hand on his shoulder, turning him so that he had to look at her. “No matter how much you punish yourself or me or your sister, Brenna will remain dead.”

“I’m not punishing you or Elphame.”

She raised one eyebrow.

“I-I can’t seem to get away from it!”

“It?” she asked.

“The pain of her loss.”

She felt the tightness of his shoulder muscles under her hand. What could she say to him? She wasn’t good at dealing with raw emotions. It was one reason she had chosen to become a Huntress. She’d wanted to leave the emotional turmoil of her old life behind. Animals were simple. They didn’t agonize or manipulate or lie. Cuchulainn needed to talk to a Shaman, not a Huntress. But the warrior wouldn’t turn to a Shaman. By process of elimination she was all he had.

“I don’t know what to tell you, Cu,” she said honestly. “But it seems to me that you can’t run away from that kind of pain. You have to face it. And then you decide if you’re going to heal and go on, or if you’re going to live life as one of the walking wounded. I do know which Brenna would choose for you.”

He looked at her with old, tired eyes and tunneled a finger down the center of his forehead. “I know, too. I keep thinking that if I make her angry enough at me she will at least come to my dreams to berate me.” His dry, humorless laugh sounded more like a sob. “She doesn’t come. She won’t. I’ve rejected the spirit realm and that’s where she is.”

Helplessly Brighid watched his agony. “You need to rest, Cu.”

He nodded and, like a man sleepwalking, he moved forward again along the path to their lodge. He reminded Brighid of a wounded animal. He needed a miracle to heal him, or someone needed to put him out of his misery.