Taminy (29 page)

Ealad-hach’s
jaw tightened against his will and he wondered if he oughtn’t listen, if
instead he should recite a duan to keep the words from affecting him. In the
end, he listened.

“True
faith, O People of the Corah,” said Wyth in a voice that rang with music, “is
for each soul to pursue its calling in the world as dictated by the gifts
bestowed by its Creator. Hold fast to the Spirit of the Universe, treasure His
gifts among you and use them in accordance with His desire, not with your own.
Seek His grace, which is My grace, for in Our hands lies the destiny of the
world.”

There
was a silence, like the silence of the morning’s birds, in which no adult spoke
and no child shuffled its feet. Then Wyth sat and the congregation murmured in
complex harmonies until Osraed Saxan recaptured their attention. He spoke then,
of the things the Scriptural passages alluded to and announced, to the surprise
of many, that his own child, Iseabal, had a Gift for the Art and that he had
decided to offer her the opportunity to attend Halig-liath.

It
was during this disturbing revelation that Osraed Ealad-hach first noticed the
peculiar odor in the room. At length, he began to think that it, and not Wyth’s
“revelation” was the cause of the continued undercurrent of unease. It came to
him especially strongly when they rose to sing the lays. He glanced at Brys,
intending to ask if he smelled anything odd, but the expression on the boy’s
face made the question unnecessary.

Ealad-hach
tried to cull the scents as he sang. He made out bay laurel, he thought, and
perhaps garlic, but beneath that was a fetid, almost putrid odor that grew
stronger and more unbearable with each moment.

The
relief in the room when Saxan intoned the homeward blessing was palpable;
worshippers streamed toward the door the moment they were free to do so.
Ealad-hach, hampered by his location and age, was one of the last to reach the
door and was puzzled to find that here, near a knot of young people, the horrid
stench was concentrated. Phelan was there and Terris-mac-Webber and
Scandy-a-Caol and two girls he barely knew—the Spenser’s daughter and a taller
girl with stridently red hair which, coupled with that odor, annoyed him almost
beyond patience.

As
he approached along the back wall of the Cirke, he saw the youngster’s eyes
move in unison to the central aisle where Iseabal and Taminy walked, engaged in
conversation. He paused, thinking perhaps he could glean something from their
interaction.

He
was rewarded but surprised. The youngsters by the door purposefully blocked the
girls’ exit and encircled them in sly smiles and confrontative glares.

“So,
Taminy,” said the boy, Scandy, “tell us, are ye off to your Wickie glen today?”

“Please,
say you aren’t,” insisted mac-Webber.

But
the Spenser’s girl said, “Tell us you are.” She pouted her lower lip and added,
“You promised us, didn’t she, Aine?”

The
red-haired cailin nodded, frowning. “Aye. I suppose she did.”

“Oh,
might we come?” Scandy asked. “Can we see you cast a love inyx? We know you
must’ve tossed one a’ poor Terris, here.”

He
clapped the other boy on the back, making him shrug away.

“Wheeze!”
said Phelan, screwing up his face. “Whatever’s that smell?”

“You
just noticed it?” asked Scandy. “Maybe it’s the foul odor o’ Wicke.” He looked
straight at Taminy.

Iseabal-a-Nairnecirke
went white, then red. “Taminy’s no Wicke. She’s just Gifted. Tell them, Taminy.
Tell them you’re not Wicke.”

“No,
I’m not Wicke.”

“It’s
sinful to lie in a Cirke,” said Scandy.

Again
Phelan whined, “What’s that smell?”

The
Spenser’s girl left the redhead’s side to glide between Taminy and Iseabal. “Well,
it’s not Taminy or Iseabal, so there’s that idea put to rest.” She gave Scandy
a supercilious glance then turned her eyes back to the girl, Aine. Her nose
wrinkled and she thrust out her arm, pointing at the other girl.

“Aine-mac-Lorimer,
whatever is that on your skirt?”

All
eyes were drawn to the redhead then, as she stared down, herself, at the
horrid-looking stain spreading from the large, square pocket in the apron of
her skirt. She reached a hand in, face covered with dread. Her expression
altered swiftly to a wide-eyed grimace and she jerked the hand out again with a
wild croak. A dark egg-sized object flew from her hand to land with a
grotesquely wet plop at Taminy’s feet.

The
Spenser’s girl screamed and leapt back. “What is it? Oh, Aine, what is it?”

The
other girl just shook her head mutely, her eyes on the sodden lump at their
feet. Scandy picked it up.

“It’s
furry!” he said. “Gah! An’ it stinks rotten!”

“Why,
it’s a runebag, isn’t it?” asked the Spenser’s girl. “Aine, what are you doing
with it?”

Ealad-hach
stepped forward as swiftly as his aging bones and muscles allowed and snatched
the wretched wad from Scandy’s hand. It was, indeed, the source of the rancid
smell. He held it up to the light from the nearby window.

“It’s
an animal skin,” murmured Brys, at his shoulder.

It
was a mole skin, to be exact and, seeing it, Ealad-hach suspected he knew what
it contained. He peeled back enough of the putrefying skin to see what lay
beneath. “Bay leaves,” he murmured, “soaked in garlic, it would seem. And would
there be a snake’s head wrapped inside?” he asked Aine.

The
girl merely gawped at him, her mouth open.

“A
snake’s head?” asked Brys, and the other boys made sick faces.

“A
snake’s head wrapped in garlic-soaked bay leaves and a fresh mole skin. If I am
not mistaken, this runebag is intended to keep any Wicke present in this Cirke
from leaving it.” Ealad-hach turned his gaze to Taminy, who stood with Iseabal
clinging to her arm. “Are there Wicke in this Cirke, cailin?”

She
met his eyes, then, and a chasm seemed to open up beneath his feet, leaving him
teetering on the edge of vertigo.

“There
may be Wicke here, Osraed,” she said, “but I am not among them.”

“No?”
Ealad-hach looked around at the group of youth. His eyes found Aine again. “Do
you think this girl is Wicke, cailin?”

In
answer, the girl screwed up her face and bolted out through the half-open
sanctuary door.

Ealad-hach
turned back to Taminy, holding up the horrid fetish. “Someone is accusing you
of practicing the Wicke Craft, Taminy-a-Gled. Do you deny the accusation?”

“I
have studied the Art, Osraed, both under my father and Osraed Bevol. It is the
Art I practice, in my small way, not Wicke Craft.”

“You
do claim a Gift, then?”

Taminy
nodded. “A small Gift, Osraed. I understand herbs and healing. Is there
something harmful in that?”

“You
cast no love inyx on young Terris, as this lad suggested?”

Terris-mac-Webber
blushed profusely. “That was a tease, is all, Master. He meant nothing by it,
but to twit me.”

“Are
you certain?”

“I
cast no such inyx, Osraed,” Taminy said. “That would be an abuse of the Art.”

“Will
you suffer yourself to be tested, cailin? Before witnesses?”

The
girl didn’t blink. “If it’s your wish, Osraed.”

“Do
you want the Osraed Bevol here?”

“He’s
no doubt returned home. There’s no need to call him back.”

“You
don’t want your champion present? I find that odd.”

“If
my actions have brought this accusation upon me, it’s my responsibility to face
it, not Osraed Bevol’s.”

How
calm she was. How composed. Any normal teenaged girl would be in tears now ... if
she was innocent. He glanced at the Cirkemaster’s daughter. Already her eyes
were filling with fearful tears and her hands, clasped over her companion’s
arm, shook.

“Will
you witness this?” he asked the group of young people. They nodded—eagerly, he
thought. Good. Let them see this creature reveal herself. He raised his eyes,
looking down the aisle over the head of the Spenser’s girl. “And you, Osraed
Saxan, will you witness the test of this cailin?”

Iseabal
turned to her father, her eyes spilling tears. “Please, father, make him stop
this. He wants to hurt Taminy.”

“If
Taminy is innocent,” Ealad-hach observed, “then she need have no fear of hurt.”

The
Cirkemaster clenched his fists and thrust them into the pockets of his robe. “I
can’t see what you hope to prove, Osraed Ealad-hach. Osraed Wyth has given us
news that makes the Art a noble pursuit for our cailin.”

“This
is true—the Art is noble. But there are dark inyx that are not part of the Art;
there are dark Runes that are not to be woven.”

“And
how shall you prove that Taminy has woven such dark Runes?”

Ealad-hach
allowed himself a grim smile. He dropped the runebag to the floor before the
Sanctuary door and gestured toward the front of the Sanctuary. “Come to the
altar and we shall see.”

Once
at the altar, he had Brys place Taminy, seated, upon the great, carved stone,
while the witnesses fanned out below her. Then he reached into his belt pouch
and brought forth the crystal there. He held it so that light struck it,
shattering in its perfect facets.

“This
is the crystal given to the Osraed Lin-a-Ruminea upon his Farewelling. Have you
heard of this Osraed, cailin?”

She
surprised him. “Yes,” she said. “It was the Osraed Lin who advised Cyne Thearl
in the time the histories call the Emerald Cusp.”

Ealad-hach
did not let his surprise show. “Lin-a-Ruminea was a man of surpassing wisdom
and absolute purity. This is the crystal he wove with. It’s name is
Gwyr—pure—and it is said to be one of the purest stones in existence. A pure
stone, as you may know, will not suffer itself to be used for the impure
weavings of the wicked. Which is why,” he added, “the sinful have never been
able to raise the power enjoyed by the innocent.”

He
thrust the crystal nearly into Taminy’s face. “Take this crystal, cailin. Let
us see what it tells us about you.”

She
reached up her hands without hesitation and took the stone, holding it before
her eyes. For a moment, nothing happened, causing feet to shuffle and eyes to
trade secret glances, then the core of the crystal caught fire. Light erupted
from it in a blinding cascade—streamers of flame like the fire shows of
Farewelling reached up and out, harmlessly passing the stunned watchers, arcing
to the limit imposed by the stone walls. The walls, themselves, began to glow
then, as if the light, liquid, poured over them, coating the cold stone. The
Eibhilin beams moved as if alive, weaving themselves into an intricate awning
that wheeled over the awed and stupefied. The awning contracted slowly into a
blazing web that held Taminy and the crystal within.

Osraed
Ealad-hach clutched at his racing heart, barely able to take in what he was
seeing, able only to cry mutely that it could not be. That this woman could not
manipulate the Eibhilin energies through a pure stone. What did it mean? His
mind flailed for an answer and found none.

He
panicked. He must have time to think. He must wrench the crystal from her
hands. Yes, it would at least make him seem to be in control of this trial. He
willed his hands to move, but they would not. It was an ordeal of will just to
press his lungs and throat into service.

He
shrieked. “Stop!”

The
web of light dissolved into a billion tiny points of incandescence, a
glittering powder that settled to the Sanctuary floor, pulsed, and melted like
snow before sun. Ealad-hach’s heart and bowels trembled. He did not want to
lift his eyes again, to see her mocking him, but he must. Control was
necessary. He looked up quickly to catch her expression. So far from mocking,
was it, he could almost imagine he saw wide-eyed, open-mouthed amazement there.

The
girl shook herself, then, blinked as if waking, and proffered him the crystal.
He took it gingerly, speechless. It scalded his fingers and he nearly dropped
it before juggling it into a fold of his robe.

While
he fumbled, Taminy slipped from the altar stone, bid the watchers daeges-eage
and left the Sanctuary, stepping lightly over the discarded runebag. Ealad-hach
turned to watch her, by now unsurprised that it did not cause her to hesitate.

There
was a hush in his soul. A cold, dark silence. The stone was pure. He knew it
was. He knew the impure could not handle it, could not use it. His startled
mind reached into the quivering shadows and thrust forward the thought that the
girl might be innocent. Perhaps he was looking for his Cwen Wicke in the wrong
place, or perhaps there was no Cwen Wicke and his aislinn was, as Wyth had
suggested, a portent of good rather than evil. What then? What if Taminy-a-Gled
possessed nothing but a strong natural Gift?

From
a place where time had stopped, Ealad-hach confronted the idea of Taminy’s
innocence. He closed his eyes and beheld her again, bathed in radiance,
dripping it, shedding it like ... like the woman in his aislinn, the woman who
rose from the Sea, laughing. He fought the mad desire to swoon under the sudden
weight of his certitude—Taminy and that woman were one and the same; the Cwen
Wicke of his nightmares had put on flesh.

oOo

The
Osraed Lealbhallain let himself be awestruck, again, at the grand beauty of the
Cyne’s Cirke. The long nave, with its vaulted ceiling, looked to him like the
rib cage of some giant, ossified Eibhilin beast who had lain down here and
slept the ages away that men and women might have a place to worship. Light
from windows set high on the flanks of the peaked roof poured down the walls in
a myriad hues and tumbled across the floor. He could almost hear the bubbling
froth of light.

The
appointments, too, were magnificent—the huge, carved and polished doors with
their copper, silver and brass trims and fittings; the raised dais of dark
wood, polished by the feet and knees of Osraed, royalty and other penitent
worshippers; the altar stone, a-glitter with crystalline fragments from Ochan’s
Cave; behind it, a standard bearing a great star of gold and crystal—symbol of
the Meri’s presence.