Taminy

Book Two of the Mer Cycle

Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff

www.bookviewcafe.com

Book View Café Edition
March 26, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-61138-248-8
Copyright © 1993 Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff

Yet there is light—laid out upon the surface of the water like a
stole of palest green. No, not on the water, beneath it—within it.

The old man writhes upon his couch, Struggling to turn his head
away from the vision, desperate to close his eyes to the dream. There is no
turning away. That radiance—he has seen it before with his material eyes, a
young man, then, at the end of a long journey. Yet on this shore stands a girl,
waiting for a favor from the Divine, a favor to which she has no right. For
Mereddyd-a-Lagan seeks a favor only bestowed upon young men—the Kiss of the
Meri, the bestowal of the station of Osraed.

The brilliance of the water grows, and holds out ethereal arms
to the one who waits. The old man cries in his sleep at his scene of diabolical
heresy: The Inhabitant of the gleaming water beckons; the girl answers the
call. What follows, the old man cannot comprehend, for instead of destroying
the young woman as he expects, the Meri calls her into a lover’s embrace and
draws her beneath the Sea. He waits for some sign that the girl has drowned,
but instead, sees her rise from the waves, dripping glory.

Only when she has reached
the shore, clad only in the gleaming jewels of salt spray, does he realize his
mistake; this is not the same girl. Where Meredydd-a-Lagan had chestnut hair
and eyes, this girl has eyes the color of the sea and hair of flax. She laughs,
her eyes seeming to find him, though he is invisible, and shakes the last beads
of liquid light from her long hair.

He knows her. Ealad-hach is certain he knows her, but he recalls
no name, no circumstance, only fear that, because of her, some hideous fate
looms over the Land Between Two Rivers.

To
my mother, who was a singer and dreamer of great dreams.

Special thanks:

To my families, whether they be Bohnhoffs,
McCreas, or Tyras.

To Chris Dickenson, and “Wolfman” Patrick
Connors. To Dr. Jim Robinson and Cynthia McQuillen, my dear soul-sister.

Thanks for being always there giving support,
saying prayers, weaving spells ...

To Jim Baen for publishing the original
version of this book and for being a gem of an editor. I miss you.

And to Bahá’u’lláh, for helping me understand
the words, “I loved thy creation, hence I created thee.”

from Osraed
Tynedale’s Brief History of the Cusps

The Meri first appeared on the western shore of
Caraid-land during the fifth year of the reign of Malcuim, called the Uniter
for his consolidation of the noble Houses under one lordship. His truce with
the two most powerful of the Houses, Feich and Claeg, was uneasy at best, and
often as not the two were, separately or together, seeking to undermine his
authority.

On
the eve of what might have been a disastrous day for Malcuim, an eve which saw
the Claeg and Feich plotting an assault on the Castle Mertuile, a great storm
assaulted the country’s Western shore. This storm not only shattered the plans
of the conspirators, but it began an adventure for a boy named Ochan-a-Coille
which would revolutionize the history of Caraid-land. Ochan, from a Forester’s
family in the wood north of Mertuile (near the present-day town of Storm), was
a young man of great virtue, but he had a penchant for daydreaming. Though he
loved the woods of his childhood, by the age of fifteen, he was uneasy and
eager, chafing to expand his knowledge of the healing arts, praying to use his
native abilities for more than grafting branches.

His
father, thinking him unfit to follow the family trade, and having several sons
much better suited to Forestry, sent his youngest boy to the Cyne’s castle to
seek a more studious calling. So Ochan, traveling to that end, happened along
the cliffs north of Mertuile just as the storm struck in all its fury. He was
despairing of shelter, ready to give himself up as lost, when he saw the lights
of the Castle glittering in the distance. He began to run and, in careless
haste, he fell down a shaft in the cliff.

The
shaft fed into a deep cave, breached by the sea and filled with enough water to
break the boy’s fall. When he rose from the salt pool and cleared his eyes,
Ochan found himself surrounded in glory. For a moment, he thought he must have
died and gone to some afterlife, but when the chill of the cave penetrated his
disorientation, he could only stand gawping at the place. In a chamber where
there should have been no light, there was light in abundance. It seemed to
come from everywhere and from nowhere, amplified and refracted and colored by
the thousands upon thousands of crystals—large and small—that studded the walls
and ceiling of the huge chamber.

It
was as he rose from the freezing pool that Ochan saw what lay at his own
fingertips, gleaming in water no less pure and clear than the crystals. It was
the largest, most perfect crystal in sight—lucent invisibility, tinted with
just enough color that his eyes could perceive it. He took it in his hands and
held it up to the omnipresent light. And the light grew brighter.

Before
him, the water bubbled and frothed, brilliance breaking from its surface and
roiling in its clear depths. And while he stared, clutching the great crystal,
a Being rose from the pool, wrapped in radiance so intense as to be nearly
blinding. White-gold was the Light and, in its embrace, moved a form like a
maiden’s—the core of a flame dancing above its wick.

Ochan
trembled, but did not run, for the Being breathed gentleness and peace. He
waited, awe-struck, for its approach and nearly melted away when a sweet voice
embraced him.

“Ochan,”
it said. “You have reached your goal. I am the Meri—the Star of the Sea. I am the
Gate between God and Man, the Bridge between Heaven and Earth. Open the Gate,
Ochan-a-Coille. Step across the Bridge.”

She
came to him in the shallows, golden-eyed and gleaming, and held out a hand of
light. He took it, hugging the crystal to his breast, and shivered with joy as
the brilliant Being bent and kissed his forehead. He was flooded at once with
light, with knowledge, with love, with peace. And he knew, when he left the
cave in the morning’s light, that the crystal he held was both a tool and a
symbol of the Meri’s power.

Ochan
went straight to the Castle Mertuile and gained an audience with the Cyne,
claiming to have a marvelous story to tell him. Cyne Malcuim, rough, unlettered
and battle-calloused, was wise enough to listen to the words of the radiant
young man. He gazed upon the crystal, which Ochan called Osmaer—meaning,
Divinely Glorious—and watched Ochan focus, through it, unheard of powers.

The
Cyne made Ochan his Durweard and covenanted to listen to his words of guidance.

“What
are you to be called?” the Cyne asked him, and Ochan said, “I am to be called
Osraed—which is to say, Divine Counselor. I am to heal the sick and educate the
hungry and be companion to the Cyne.”

Cyne
Malcuim was cheered by those words, taking them as a sign that he was favored
by the Meri over the Chiefs of the other Houses. Upon the sea shore, over the
mouth of the crystal cavern, he raised a Shrine to mark the spot where the Meri
had first appeared.

Osraed
Ochan advised the Cyne well and helped him consolidate the realm of
Caraid-land, bringing the rival houses together, freeing Caraidin slaves, and
holding the first Assembly of Peoples. Based upon the success of that first
Assembly, Malcuim instituted an annual gathering, whereat the Chiefs of every
great House and the Eiric from every settlement came and consulted together
before the Cyne, to discuss their needs and offer the goods and services of
their people. A settlement arose around the Cyne’s Castle and, because of the
great crystal of Ochan, he called the place Creiddylad, which means Jewel of
the Sea.

Ochan
taught the most promising young men of Creiddylad and the surrounding villages
what the Meri had imparted to him in Her Kiss. They transcribed Her teachings
as they fell from Ochan’s lips and recorded the Tell of his accidental
Pilgrimage.

The
fifth year of Ochan’s residency at the Castle Mertuile, the Meri gave him a
vision which caused him to send the eldest of his students to the sea shore, to
seek Her out. Of the five that went, two returned as Osraed, each bearing a
golden star-like mark upon his forehead.

After
ten years, Ochan had collected a dozen fellow Osraed, and the Meri bid him set
up a school away from the Cyne’s center of power. Taking a handful of Osraed
and Prentices with him, Ochan followed the Meri’s call up the Halig-tyne to a
great bow in the river, in the wooded fringes of the Gyldan-baenn, whose peaks
formed the eastern frontier of Caraid-land. In the shadow of a gleaming cliff
was a tiny settlement, too small, even, to have a name. Atop the cliff was the
ruin of an old fortress.

Here,
on the war ruin, Ochan raised Halig-liath—the Holy Fortress—with help from
every able-bodied and artful man, woman and child at the Cyne’s command. As the
work on the holy place progressed, a village grew at the bottom of the cliffs,
lining both sides of the curving river. The village was called Nairne because
it was built in a grove of river alder.

For
many years thereafter, Ochan resided at Halig-liath and taught. He instituted
the Osraed Council, ordained the Triumvirate and determine the succession of
the head of that Council—the Apex. Each year Cyne Malcuim would journey to
Halig-liath at the summer Solstice to fete the departing Pilgrims as they left
on their trek to the Meri’s Shore. When the new Osraed would return from the
Sea, the Uniter would call them to Creiddylad to hear their Tell. Thus began
the traditions of the Farewelling and the Grand Tell—traditions that remained
inviolate until the six hundred fifth year of the House Malcuim.

The Meri is not reachable by the weak, nor
by the careless, nor by the ascetic, but only by the wise who strive to lead
their soul into the dwelling of the Spirit.

Rivers flow to the Sea and there find their
end and their peace. When they find this peace and this end, their name and
form disappear and they become as the Sea.

Even so, the wise who are led to the Meri
are freed of name and form and enter into the radiance of the Supreme Spirit
who is greater than all greatness.

— The Book of the Meri
Chapter Two, Verses 5-7

On
the darkened shore, the girl froze—a wild thing in the act of bolting. But she
did not bolt. She wavered for a moment, then dropped back to the sand, her face
set. She did not see the Watcher in the waves.

Stubborn.
Loyal, too, or she would not have made it here—would not be sitting there.

Stay, Sister Meredydd, you have met your
Goal.

On
the shore, the girl Meredydd turned her face downward into darkness. Tiny rinds
of flesh sifted down to lie on the cloth of her tunic. She lifted a trembling
hand to her cheek, stroking it with her fingertips. The flesh crumbled and
fell. She stared at her fingers, eyes wide. The fleshy remnants clung to them
and they, too, glowed.

She
did not take her eyes from her hands as she rose from the sand. Once on her
feet, she rubbed at her cheeks, at her arms—her movements desperate, fevered.
Robbed of its covering flesh, the substance of her arms gleamed gold-white in
the darkness of the night, brighter than the gold-white heart of the fire where
her young companion, Skeet, lay in sodden sleep. The girl removed her tunic,
her boots and leggings, her shirt. Then, after a moment’s hesitation, she
stripped off her undergarments and stood, naked, upon the beach.