Singing Stones: Uillceal of House Gwynlambth

The Wren King: Begining

Beginning

                Darkness against the darkness. A figure blacker then the night sky was standing on the hilltop at Amak’s side.  How long had it been there, watching while he lay with growing weakness by the dying fire?  It wasn’t Granthor come to finish his treachery; it was too tall.  It was a man, he thought, or maybe one of the standing stones of Naraka was taking the night airs; some said they walked the night. 

                Two pale slender hands came out of the night.  They floated in mid-air above the dim light of the fire.  Was this the shade the seeress said he’d meet here; was this Death come to tap his shoulder after these many thousands of years.  Amak’s legs were useless and his hands were going numb.  Perhaps the poison was now affecting his mind.

                “Your fire grows low, old man.  You’ll be needing its warmth to make it through the night,” said a light, clear voice from the darkness.

                “A damnable Ailf,” Amak whispered to himself.  A thousand shocks of pain ran up his right arm as he forced his unwilling fingers around the heft of Hellstorm.  The war-hammer responded readily to his grasp.  It was ready for one last throw; ready to kill this Aillil spawn.

                The black cloaked figure stooped over the fire feeding it some small kindling.  As it bent to blow on the embers glowing unenthusiastically in the cold night air, Amak could see a double strung recurve bow and fast draw quiver slung over its back.  An Ailf hunter stalking Khazadii in Naraka! Amak would’ve spat if the poison had left him with any.  He readied Hellstorm keenly aware that the poison was quickly taking his strength. 

                The pale hands pushed back the hood of that unnaturally black cloak.  Long auburn hair spilled out, framing gray-green eyes that caught the light of the reviving fire.  Damnable luck, thought Amak, noting the color of the hair and eyes, it’s a half-Ailf.  Mere killing wasn’t good enough for them; they liked to play first.  Hellstorm was impatient in his hand.  Amak raised his alternately numb and painful arm.

                The figure pulled the hair back and twisted it into a knot to hang at the nape of its neck.  Amak could now see the face in full profile.  It was fine boned and pale and slender like the hands. The chestnut hair, now pulled back, revealed petite, round ears.

                “You are not an Ailf; nor half-Ailf,” said Amak.  He let his right arm drop to the dusty ground by his side.  Hellstorm murmured in dissatisfaction.

                “No, I am not.  And now I can see you are not an old man.  Or at least not a man.”

                “I am Amak Stonefist.  A warrior of Torel, marauder of the Under-Dark, once War-leader of the All-Thing, Searcher of the Heart-stone of Nysia.”

                “A dwarf?” asked the voice; bright, incredulous.  “I’ve never meet a dwarf before.”

                “Ugh.  Man-folk call us that.  Perhaps I ought to bash your brains for you after all, girl-of-Man.  We call ourselves Khazadii.”  Amak judged the girl to be about eighteen years as Man reckoned time.  He sensed the old blood about her.  She was as refined as any Ailf, but more real, less ethereal. 

                “I am called Gwyn; a Kelti of the Ys-lands,” said the black cloaked girl in a subtle lilt that sounded too much like spring in such a cold place.  She lifted Hellstorm from the ground and brushed the dust from its rune carved head.  The ancient weapon murmured in her petite grasp.

                Amak remembered hearing that the Keltii practiced peculiar powers and religions.  Perhaps he wasn’t safe after all.  Then again, with the poison in his body, did it matter?

                “What is a man-girl doing here?”  he asked nodding his gray-bearded chin to take in the expanse of desolate ruins that had once been the city of Naraka.  It had been home to Ailf and Khazadii living together once, long ago.  How many years ago was that?  Three hundred?  Three thousand?  It was before the Temple was built, Before the Heart-stone was found, before the Betrayal.

                “Mostly not being somewhere else,” the girl replied.

                “Ah . . .” Amak muttered.  He understood.  “Well thanks for building the fire.  Now I can die warm if I can feel anything at all.  Did you come to rob the dying of what little is left?   I’ve some gold and food.  You’re welcome to it, but leave the wine; bad vintage.  Just leave me my war-hammer.  I shall hold it and dream of revenge in Ostergard.”

                “No,” said the girl.

                “No?!”

                “I might need to sell it.  I’m short on funds.”

                “Sell it?  This is Hellstorm!  Made by Frohmer at Svengard for my father during the Awakening Wars.  Granthor would have taken it had I not nearly knocked his head from his miserable shoulders before my strength left me.”

                “So it’s worth a couple of gold?”

                “Gold?!  It’s worth a kingdom!”

                “Well you may keep it while you live.”  The girl placed the weapon upon Amak’s chest then picked up the wineskin from next to the fire.  She shook it slowly and sniffed its contents.  Amak could feel the numbness come to his arms.

                “I’d advise against the wine,” the Khazadii said.

                “How much do you want to live?” asked the girl.

                “How . . ?  I . .  I’m five thousand years old!  I’ve been fighting, killing, and living for centuries before your great-great-grandmother was born.”

                “I need to know.  I can make an antidote to this poison, but it’ll take all your strength and I’ve little medicine left.  If you’d rather die I’d rather not waste it.  So how much do you want to live, now?”

                “Rather die . . ?  Who’d rather die?”

                “The lonely.  The betrayed.  The broken hearted.  You.  Me.”  The young girl closed her eyes and again sloshed the wineskin slowly; lifted it; sniffed.  Amak was afeared she’d taste it and join him by the fire never to rise again with Dyannu in the morning.

                “Aye . . I’m all of those.”  Have been for so long I’d forgotten what else there was, thought Amak.  And what of this girl of man?  Her face was sorrowful beyond what Amak thought possible for one so young.

                “Would you live then?  Only to face more of the pain?” she asked, her eyes glistening with coming tears.

                “For revenge alone I’d fight to my last breath.  For a friend I’d claw myself from the grave.”  Amak stretched his arm out in slow agonizing motion to the girl’s watery eyes.  The gray-green color reminded him of the sea.  He tried to remember the last time he had seen the sea; then tried harder to forget.  His numb fingers touched the corners, letting the dam silently burst.  “But is it my pain we’re talking about?” he half-whispered to himself.

                “What of heartbreak?”  The tear streaked face turned back to the fire.  “What would you do for that?”

                “Live.  Live and remember.  Live and honor.  What else is there?  That was what I was trying to do.  I wished to bring peace between Khazadii and Ailf by finding and returning the Heart-stone of Nysia to its rightful place in the Great Temple in the frozen north.  I failed.  Now I need revenge against Granthor, my own kin, who would bring war instead.  Can you help?  I have heard of the Keltii and their healers, their silé.  Are you one of those?”

                “Aye.  I am silé and I too know the need for revenge.”  The man-girl started taking items from pockets within her cloak.  Amak watched the slender hands and quick fingers placed bits of roots, leaves, and powdered minerals in a small metal cup and crush them with a round stone.

                “Here  Wake-up.  Drink this.”  The black cloaked figure was shaking Amak awake.  He’d been sleeping.  It chilled him to think how easily consciousness could slip by.

                Amak tried to raise his hands to take the cup the young girl offered, but they lay motionless, useless, by his sides.  The black cloaked girl held the cup to his lips and gently tilted his gray-haired head back.  The rust colored potion stained his lips and beard; a pungent smell like burnt grass filled his nostrils.  Three gulps of the potion made it down his throat past his thickening tongue.  Instantly Amak’s body contracted into spasms.

                “That is good.  You may live.”  She laid him down with his head on her lap and pulled heavy woolen blankets around to cover them both.  Amak tried to shake them off his suddenly sweating body, but only managed to rock back and forth.

                “Oh, no,” said the girl tucking the blankets tight to keep out the rising wind.  “You need to stay warm all night.  Here I’ve made you something that will help you sleep.”

                “No!  No, I don’t wish to sleep.  It’s too close to dying,” said the Khazadii.  “We will fight together this night, Gwyn of Ys.  Tell me a story.  Tell me how you have come to be here.  Tell me about yourself and your people.”

                “Then know you that Gwyn is not my true name.  I am Uillceal of House Gwynlambth born of Máthair Kepheria of her espoused husband Mezjio, a sorcerer of Lusitania.  My mother was silé and hers before her back three centuries to when Brigit and Her brothers Lugh, Llyr, and Arawn came back as immortals from the frozen Northlands beyond the sea.  They were the First Keltii, mortals turned Aillil by Great Caldon.  They were sent to defeated the Fomor and to lead the last of the Fir Bolg of King Gödel from exile to the fertile lands of Ys.

                “I am a silé of the Silver Flame; a sister of the Silver Circle; a sorceress of the Forms; a blade of the Keltii.  An orphan.  An outlaw.  An outcast.  An abomination.”

                “Alone,” croaked Amak through a closing throat.

                “It has been three years since I have spoken my true name.  But I can tell you now, here in this place, for by morning you will either be dead or mine forever.”

                Amak wondered then which he should hope for.

The Wren King; Chapter 1: On the Conht

I wanted to run.  I wanted to run fast.  I wanted to run through the wooded hills I could see beyond the riverbanks with my hair flying behind me like a comet’s tail.  I wanted to feel each breath filling my body; deep and clean.  It was a longing from my childhood days playing with my brother Sileres.  We’d run through the korn fields and orchards tended by the Ys to the woods and the Rahn river beyond.   

We would pluck flowers from the tulip trees on the bank and slip them into the slow current.  Sileres would pretend they were ships of the sidhe sailing out to do battle with the Fomor in their glass towers far to the east.  It always struck me how imaginative he was for a boy.  I could see his narrow face with the big grin that looked like it would fall off the sides and his green eyes aside his long, slender nose.  He was saying something.  I strained to hear it, but the vision faded and I came back to the present.

            “I think I could walk faster than these oxen.” said Maisha looking despondently over the side of the barge at the still waters of the Conht.  Her petulant lips and wispy blonde hair undermined what I knew to be one of my more intelligent friends.  Along the left bank of the river teams of oxen were pulling our barges upstream into the foothills of the King’s Mountains.  From there a system of canals and locks would take us up the east face of the mountains to King’s Loch and then down the other side to Tuirn, the dominate city of western Hibernia and one of the leading cities of the world.  My mother, Kepheria, and Maisha’s, Dianna, had business to conduct with the comptroller’s office and afterwards there would be shopping.  The shops in Tuirn were the most stylish in all of Nysia.

Maisha and I and our mothers had started up the Dannue River three days earlier.  We had passed the Rahn, the Fain, the Loden, and many smaller tributaries which wove across the Ys lands like threads of a tapestry.  Heading upstream the threads had been split off one by one until even the Dannue was divided between the Conht flowing south from the foothills and the smaller Leguin coming from the west.  Having seen the end we were traveling up river to see the beginning.  It was like traveling through time.  I looked back down-river and my mind became lost.  I felt my past and future converging; overlapping.

My past was soon to be my future.  Sileres would be home by the time we got back from our business and shopping in Tuirn.  Sileres, my brother and childhood friend, was coming back home a man just when I was becoming ready for womanhood.  Neither of us were children anymore.  He hadn’t been since that night two years gone by when the high druid had called out his name from the night darkened road in front of our house.  Called to him to come be bladed as a Kelti.  I had watched Sileres leave the house stepping in line with the other boys.  They had marched off into the woods behind that aged, yet ageless, grey-cloaked figure into a fateful night illuminated only by Caldon’s thin orange crescent.  It was not until days later when Kepheria ran into the library shouting “He made it!  He made it!”, waving a small letter in her hand that I realized the danger they had sent my brother into.

 

“You see, Amak“, said the girl leaning over so he could see her upside-down face of green-grey eyes framed by dark chestnut hair, “a boy stepping into Arawn’s circle is either bladed as a Kelti or left as a sacrifice for Cernunnos and the Hag-of-the-Woods.  Each boy must vie with the others to leave the circle with one of the blades.  The one left without a blade is forfeit to the Aillil.  He is left by the Druid Stone while the others leave and the Forsaken come for him.  It is something I have seen that no man ever has.”  She leaned back and continued her story.

 

That my mother and father had let my brother, a slender fourteen year old, go into such peril to perhaps be killed or worse didn’t seem plausible.  I didn’t talk to them for weeks.  Not until Sileres sent me a letter and told me he was well and fostering with cousins in Uaghnt did I relent.  He also promised to return before I was initiated at the Queen’s church.

“You made him write to me, didn’t you?” I asked my mother.

“Oh, yes.  We had to.”  My mother seemed to be following my trail of thought.  She was a tracker feeling the spoor of my mind.  I wondered if it was because she was silé or because she was my mother. 

“You were quite sullen.  You didn’t talk to anyone except that little mouse of yours.  What was its name?” 

“Brigit.”

“Barely ate more than her.  Your eyes were black-ringed and your cheeks sunken.  You stayed up to unspeakable hours of the night when even your father and his daemons were in bed.  Wonder you got your first-blood at all that year you were so skinny.”

It had been a year now since my monthly blood had became regular.  Now it was my turn to transform from child to woman.  On the way to Tuirn we’d stop at the grotto of the seeress of the loch.  She’d read the futures of me and Maisha.  It was a rite of the women of our Houses since the earliest times.  From the time before the Keltii came and defeated the Fomor; back when we were the last of the Fir Bolg hiding in the mountains.  Still I didn’t think much of the seeress’ abilities or the relevance of her visions.  Reportedly it was just the usual prattle of romance and business advice.  It was hardly necessary for a training silé of House Gwynlambth.  I’d told my mother she could, and had, done as well or better with a needle floating on a cork in a basin of water.  Besides, my future had already been planned.  I was pledged to become an acolyte of the Church of the Most Noble and Benevolent Queen of the Ys Lands; the Queen’s church or more simply just ‘the church’.

“Why can’t I just be silé?” I had asked my mother some months earlier.

“Your true vocation is silé, but the church is power.  To protect House Gwynlambth we must be part of the hierarchy.  In politics one must balance friends versus enemies.  The High Priestess and the church can be either.  We will keep your training has a silé for another year before you join the church.  The priestesses will be unhappy with the delay, but I think it is best.  As an acolyte you can use our family name to raise to high status, maybe even High Priestess.  Your training as a silé will be very helpful.”  My mother could be very practical when romance wasn’t involved.

I found myself winding my hair around my fingers.  It was dark, shiny and heavy.  I couldn’t think of parting with it for anyone.  Not even the Queen of the church.  It was my one vanity.  I dressed it with jewels given me by my father and only the finest soaps and oils were to be used on it.  My Ys-girl would spend an hour every morning and night brushing and caring for it.  It hadn’t been cut since I was a young child and it now hung well past the middle of my back.  I would miss its beauty dearly when I had to shave it off for my passage-rite and then, unlike Maisha and the other girls, I'd have to keep it off as an acolyte.  I'd have other responsibilities at the church I reasoned and sacrificing my hair to the Queen would free me from thinking of it every day.  The thought was little comfort.  I sighed.

Until then Beltane was coming.  The men would bring their cattle to be blessed by the druids at the fires and there would be feasting, drinking, music, and dancing.  I wanted to outdo every other girl with a dress so beautiful every man would want to dance with me.  I wanted to be so seductive the High King himself would come out from behind his yellow veils.  I would spin and twirl and step all night until my very dress was tired and threatened to slip off to the floor; and maybe I’d let it.  Then I’d practice some of those other silé arts I’d been so well tutored in.  Tutored, but unpracticed.  That would have to change.

“There are many dress shops in Tuirn.” said my mother.  Was she reading my mind again?  “But there is only one worth going to.  Ploum’s.  He has the newest materials and styles and a great eye.  We will go there after our business with the comptroller’s office.”

“I hate these slow-ass oxen, Uillceal.” said Maisha.  “Can’t a silé get them to go any faster?”

I looked over to the Ys-men switching the hindquarters of the oxen.  They beat out a steady rhythm like time itself.  “I think they are going fast enough, Maisha,” I answered, but I still wanted to run.

 

            Eventually we reached the head waters of the Conht river and started through the series of water-locks that took us up the side of the King’s Mountains to the Great Loch.  Gödel’s or King‘s Loch, as it is also known, is a long narrow lake snaking down the spine of the mountains.  Many thousands of years ago it had been an inlet open to the northern ocean.  Over millennia it had been slowly pinched closed by the colliding land masses of Tuirn and Ys.  Three hundred eels beneath the lochs surface the fresh waters give way to of the briny remains of that ancient sea that descends even deeper to the roots of the world.  It is said that King Gödel’s sarcophagus floats between the two layers: fresh and salt; at a point where Dyannu’s light fades and reaches no further.

            When we reached the loch our cargo was transferred from the barges to two sloops that would sail us across to the other side.  There another set of locks would take us down to the Dain and then to Tuirn.  We had a cargo of processed wool, dyes, honey, leathers, nuts, and dried herbs.  Our mother’s, Kepheria and Dianna, were going personally with this shipment to talk with the comptroller about a more favorable trade status.  If the negotiations were successful then both our Houses could see a significant increase in profits.  It was actually Maisha who had worked out the details of the cooperative venture between our two Houses.  Under that wispy blonde hair was a brain with a genius for finance and trade. 

            I didn’t understand all the details, but the basic idea was that Maisha and Dianna had superior mills and artisans to process wool while we had always shipped ours to Tuirn raw.  By having House Coughne clean, spin, and dye selected lots of our wool before shipping we could get a better price in Tuirn.  For our part, House Gwynlambth was paying for the shipping costs.  We did a lot of trade with Tuirn already, so adding House Coughne’s cargo with our shipment was actually cheaper per unit cost.

            While we waited for the men to transfer our cargo and luggage the four of us took lunch at a bistro by the dock.  Over a rough rock wall we could see all of the Ys lands spread out below us.  It was like looking at a living map.  We could see across the farms, pastures, and woodlands to the misty, white capped Fomor Sea in the east.             

            “Look, mother! I can see House Coughne.” said Maisha pointing east to a patchwork of farmland with tidy white outbuildings arranged around a stone edifice.  Strange how the first thing you look for on a map is home.  No matter how long or far away you may be from it you always feel an umbilical connection to home.  A call to return.

            To the southeast the spires of the Queen’s church reached above the alder-trees where the Loden flowed past Darmougne Fords where King Gödel and his army had fallen against King Bres of the Fomor many years ago.  To the northeast we could see the tops of the oak trees of the barrow-lands where the king’s of the Ys lands are buried. On the other side, hidden from our view by those towering, ancient sentinels of royalty, were the lands of House Gwynlambth sandwiched between the salt marshes of Bight Bay to the north and the Beren Hills to the south.  Farther to the north, at the feet of the mountains, were the maple swamps and stony hills of the High Druid‘s Sanctuary and Arawn’s circle were the men are bladed.  Beyond that, a mere hint of mist to our eyes, were the jungle covered mountains at the tip of Nysia stabbing out into the vast, empty Nord Sea like the green gnarly fingers of some titanic ogre.  Even further, half a world away, somewhere between myth and dream, lay the frozen northlands where Brigit and Her brothers had been turned from mortals into Aillil; the First Keltii.

            There are few cities in Ys.  There’s Kingston where the Ard-King has his seat, Wendle on the Loden near Queens Church, and some trading towns like Bight Point, but mostly the lands are divided into the holdings of the máthairs like Kepheria and Dianna consisting of large stone manors surrounded by neat little white houses for the Ys men and women.  In times past those estates had been heavily fortified to guard against attack from rivals.  From my vantage point halfway up a mountain I could see the remains of walls and towers now fallen into disuse.  The House Máthairs seldom feuded anymore.

            I sat on the low wall and dangled my legs over dwarf pines hunched over from the winds hundreds of eels below.  The cool breeze was refreshing on my bare legs after so many days on the barge.

            “Oh, can silé now fly as well?” asked Maisha standing beside me.  She nervously looked down the thousand arm drop.

            “Yes we can.” I leaned over a little and dropped a small stone to gauge the time and distance.  “But I’d probably hit the trees before I completed the form.” 

            For all her wizardry with money Maisha didn’t understand the art of making.  Most people don’t.  You can’t just roll out of bed and start casting forms.  It takes preparation, often days, and sometimes weeks.  For higher rituals it can even take months to lead up to a ceremony or a calling.  To be a silé, sorcerer, or a druid it is necessary to stay attuned to the energies and powers of Aillil and daemons of an area with proper diet, exercise, and meditations.  Each of the disciplines have their taboos to observe and rites to follow.  For druids and silé a familiarity with the energies of the plants and animals and even air and water of an area is needed to succeed with more than the most rudimentary forms.  A silé must also know the people and their Aillil to be completely successful.  We cared for the health of the people.  We were their midwives, healers and oracles. 

            Flying is a difficult form of making for a silé, but well worth it if needed.  The druids can fly easily enough by becoming an insect or a bird, but that has limitations; a wasp or sparrow could be blown away or even eaten.  Sorcerers like my father can summon beings or energies from Caldon or the Broken Sky to carry them afar, but these can be unpredictable; often turning on the unwary.  A silé flies by actually changing her body, not into a bird or insect, but into an ethereal state of cohesive energy.  This takes at least two days of preparation, but the silé is fully in control of her flight with no need for wings, and storms or boys with rocks are not a problem.  In fact, for the duration of the flight the silé is all but invisible.

            That was how the ancient Aillil once flew through the skies of Nysia long ago when the world was new.  Brigit, the first silé, was endued with this ability when She cleaved unto Caldon and become one of the Keltii.  House Gwynlambth had been the first, and now would be one of the last, to follow the ways of Brigit of the Silver Flame.  Soon my mother would be one of the last silé of the Keltii.  When I joined the Queen’s church there wouldn’t be enough silé for the Conclave of Bight Bay.  Our Flame of Brigit would be extinguished while the power of the Queen waxed the brighter.  I looked to the southeast at those spires that marked my future home then turned my gaze to the north.  I couldn’t see House Gwynlambth from here.  It was hidden by the oaks of the barrow-lands: the domain of the Wren King, the keeper of the dead.

            “So . .?” asked Maisha, prompting my thoughts back to the present.

            “So,” I told her. “I don’t plan to fall.”

            “No one plans to fall, Uillceal.  It just sort of happens.”

            We went back to where our mothers were taking their tea in the thin warmth of Dyannu.  Winter was still holding sway in the mountains while spring was stirring in the lands below.

            “Has he chosen a House yet?” asked Dianna to my mother.

            “No.  He’s coming to visit while he decides.  Says he wishes to study with Mezjio for a season.  They’re very close for a father and son.”

            I thought that odd.  Sileres had never shown more than a cursory interest in sorcery.  Superior swordsmanship, which he showed all indications of already possessing, combined with sorcery would make Sileres very formidable.

            “I remember Sileres.  He was a very handsome boy, if a little slender,” said Dianna. “I’m sure he’ll be a most capable swordsman for some woman’s house, and bed.”  I noticed her eyes shining in the afternoon light.

            “He maybe a swordsman now, but I still think of Sileres as my little boy.  I’m very proud of him. He’s already won three cows and a young bull while fostering at my cousin’s house.  He was taught by Dyr-Lugh, my best swordsman.”

            “Was.  Sileres was your son and my brother,” I said. “But he can align with any House now that he is bladed.  ‘A Keltii sword has no home but his House and no family but his lodge.’” I quoted.  “He could even accept a bed at a House in opposition to us.”  Seeing those old walls and towers reminded me that no matter how many years have passed every House is at war with every other.

            My mother turned her head to where Maisha and I were walking over to their table.  “Such coldness from one who worried about him so.”

            “I love my brother, but being Keltii, and a silé besides, means facing realities.  Even those that are unpleasant.”

            “Such seriousness.  And you not even sixteen.”

            “You were, and are, my teacher.”  I sat down and poured tea for Maisha and myself.  “Honey?” I asked.

            “Yes, please,”  she answered.

            “Uillceal, it’s necessary to understand the realities of Keltii life to enjoy it, not to reduce it until all pleasure and surprise are wrung from it.”

            “I don’t like surprises,”  I answered.  I passed Maisha her tea.  There were traces of sugar-powdered pastry around her lips.  I wondered how she stayed so thin.

            “I do.  I love surprises,” answered Kepheria.

            I sipped my unsweetened tea and thought if maybe I should kill my mother.  Other daughters have had to remove their mothers for the good of their House.  It was rare, but it happened.  My mother was very practical in matters of politics and power.  It was in matters of the heart and bed that she seemed to court romantic frivolity.  I weighed if her romantic sensibilities could be a danger.  Could I allow such a weakness to endanger House Gwynlambth, I wondered?  But I loved my mother dearly and none of her friends would forgive me if I killed Lady-silé Kepheria.

            Dyr-Lugh came and informed us that the cargo was secured and the ships made ready.  As she had said, Dyr-Lugh was House Gwynlambth’s best sword.  He was also arguably the handsomest.  He was a man and a hand tall with blonde hair cut very short; almost stubble.  His muscles were lean rather than bulky for his fighting style depended on quickness and fluidity of movement.  Strength was to be saved for the final thrust.  He accompanied Kepheria everywhere, both for her protection and her pleasure.

 

            “Oh, don’t look so shocked my dwarf friend.  We Keltii women like our beds warm.”

            Amak couldn’t feel his hands or arms anymore and his legs were a long forgotten memory, but his face was burning as this young girl of Man went on with her story.  Amak was feeling uncomfortable hearing such intimate details from someone barely more than a thousandth of his age.

 

            I made sure to pass close to Dyr-Lugh when I left the bistre.  I had loosened the bodice of my dress to let the cool air cross over my nipples and amplified my pheromone secretions.  I looked up into the handsome sword’s blue eyes and gave a coy little smile. 

            Nothing.  Note a twinge of male response.  Either he was stone or mother had him on a very short leash.  Or, worst of all, I wasn’t much of a seductress.

            “Well, that was subtle,” snickered Maisha.  “Next time why don’t you just get down on all fours like a bitch in heat.”

            “I’m not sure that would of worked either,” I said.  He hadn’t even looked at my erect nipples.

            “Would you like a shawl, Uillceal?” asked my mother. “ You seemed chilled.”

The Wren King; Chapter 2: The Seeress

Chapter 2: The Seeress

 

               We boarded the sloops and headed north. Niantic was a day’s sail along the loch’s east coast. I stayed above deck and watched Dyannu set into the west while the others went below. I loved the feel of the wind in my hair though it kept getting in my face. It was almost like running.

               Close on Dyannu’s heels was the thin pale orange crescent of Her brother, Caldon. At that time of the year Nysia was furthest away in Her orbit around Caldon. He was no bigger than the tip of my outstretched thumb. When Nysia and Caldon are at their closest the pale orange orb is as big as my hand and the green and pale blue bands of clouds of the mid-latitudes and the ever present whirling purple storm cloud near the northern pole is clearly visible. Now they could not be made out at all.

               The next day was to be the cusp of Yule and Imbolc and Caldon would be dark. A week later the ewes would start to drop their lambs. We would be home just in time.

               When Caldon is dark the men say they can see King Gödel’s Aillil-form, the serpent Erophisis gliding across the waves of the loch. Erophisis was born of the lake nymph Iaonea, the daughter of Nereus who was the son of Ouroboros, the Aillil of the World Ocean, and Dyannu, Queen of Heaven. Iaonea had fallen in love with King Gödel when he had crossed the loch on his way to the Ys-lands. When the druids had lowered his sarcophagus into the loch after Darmougne Fords She had lain with the dead king to take the last of his seed and gave birth to Erophisis.

               Keltii men worship King Gödel almost more than they do Lugh who was the first High King of the Keltii of the Ys-lands and an Aillil. It’s quite strange to my point of view. After all it was Gödel’s death at Darmougne Fords that had forced the Fir Bolg, as we were called in my great-great-grandmother’s time, to live in hardship in the mountains for many years while it was Lugh and the First Keltii who had defeated the Fomor so we could live in the fertile Ys-lands.

               To the silé, King Gödel is an archetypical figure representing the boundary between worlds and times. He is between Fir Bolg and Keltii; Tuirn and Ys; past and future; life and death; myth and what passes for reality. He stands at the threshold of the dreams of Man before the beginning of history. It is said he is half-man and half-Aillil and so his life was fated to be equal parts joy and sorrow. I feel very close to him at times.

               I tried to ask the ship hands about King Gödel’s sarcophagus and Erophisis that night, but they studiously ignored me. When I asked about shipboard operations they were only slightly less reticent. I was hurt at first, then I noticed they weren’t speaking much to each other either. I left them to their quiet and went back to my star gazing.

               I stood by the bow watching the constellations come and go until my legs were tired and then went below to my berth as the first tips of the of the Broken Sky were clearing the eastern mountains in their turn. I didn’t wish to see it that night; that hideous multicolored scar between the stars. In the Ys lands it is said it is a remnant of a long ago quarrel between Dyannu and Her brother Caldon over who could shine the brightest upon Nysia. I wasn’t in the mood to be reminded of familial conflict.

               In the early morning I was back above decks leaning on the rail of the starboard bow. Maisha and our mothers were in the galley having breakfast. I had just grabbed a mug of coffee and a slab of bread with soft goat cheese and jam before heading up early. I didn’t like being below decks with the walls moving back and forth. I preferred the wind and a steady horizon. The hands were busier, but friendlier during the day then they had been the previous night, but my barrage of questions soon exhausted the patience of even the first mate. I retreated back to my post by the bow.

               As the sloops sailed around each headland jutting out into the loch my stomach would grow more and more nervous. I would hold my breath and then let it out in relief when each newly revealed shoreline was empty. Then, about midday, we came around a high rocky prominence full of dingy grey screeching birds and there behind it was the sight I had been dreading: Niantic harbor and just to its north, the seeress’s grotto.

               Why was I so nervous? I, who had dismissed the seeress and her ‘powers’ as mere claptrap. My hands were tingling and armpits sweating like a prisoner in anticipation of a death sentence. I started taking deep controlled breaths to calm myself like when I practiced my archery. I set my eye on the target and recognized the fear of the unknown it was causing. Knowing the fear I tried to look beyond it. The fear didn’t go away, but now that I had faced it, it was becoming manageable.

               “I hate surprises,” I muttered.

               “What?” asked a small voice behind me.

               “Ah!” I screamed.

               “What’s got you all jumpy today?” asked a startled Maisha.

               “Skinny little blondes surprising me from behind,” I lied.

               “A surprised silé? I must tell your mother that you’ve been negligent in your lessons.”

               “Tell her what you like,” I said.

               She gave me that quizzical look of hers like when she’s calculating crop prices versus outlays.

               “Are you nervous about this seeress, Maisha?” I asked.

               “No. I mean we’re supposed to be a little awed by the ritual, but there’s no danger. Not like when Sileres and the boys get bladed.”

               “There are many types of danger, Maisha.”

               “The seeress is spooky, that’s all. It’s your own proclivities that are allowing you to scare yourself.”

               “Scared? Who said I was scared?” Again she gave me that look. “All right, I got myself pretty spooked for a minute. Don’t tell Kepheria. I don’t want her mothering all over me.”

               “Imagine the audacity of a mother caring for her daughter,” Maisha mocked. “You better go downstairs and freshen up. I’m no silé and I can smell you and our mothers are coming this way.”

               “It’s ‘below decks’ not downstairs,” I corrected as I went to leave. I must confess I’m rather pedantic at times.

               “Either way. Are you to be an acolyte of the church or a sea hand?” Maisha asked.

               Later the sloops anchored in the harbor and we went ashore in a red sailed dory. The people of the northern loch like bright colors for everything except their houses which are all white stucco with flecks of mica to catch the hues of Dyannu in Her many moods. They call the loch Dyannu’s Mirror.

               While Kepheria confirmed our accommodations at the inn Dianna instructed us in the steps we needed to follow for the rite. We were to wear our hair loose without any pins for the rest of the day and our dresses were not to have any of the buttons, zippers, or fasteners done and neither were our shoes to be tied. She said this was to allow our energies to flow freely and interact with those of the seeress and the forces of the surrounding area. I half wondered if it was just a joke she was playing on us. We were quite a sight with our flopping shoes, our dresses almost falling off and our hair blowing in the constant wind while we walked about town window shopping.

               The shops featured decorative items made from local deposits of copper and silver. Niantic was famous for its artisans skilled in metalwork. A recurring motif was the seven legged circle of the seeress. It was a symbol of the many paths to the one enlightenment Dianna said. Some had a single or pair of eyes in the middle made from a blue striated stone. Maisha bought an Eye-of-the-Seeress set in a silver seven-pointed star for an ear pendent and a gaudy tiara with ships and jumping fish done in silver, gold and malachite. It looked, good on her.

               I bought a matching set of triumph hilts for sword and long-blade for Sileres. They were tooled copper with an overlay meshwork of silver with spaces to put stones for each kingship or dual won. I imagined the women of his life filling them with gems for him. In a more practical mind I commissioned myself some gloves of the softest kid I had ever felt. Two sets, black and white, for dress and tea and another tighter fitting pair in dark green for my archery.

               After shopping we had a lunch of fish and salad with no bread. I understood the lack of fasteners for our dresses, shoes, and hair but why there was a prohibition on bread I don’t know. My nervousness was coming back and I didn’t care to ask nor would I have had the patience to listen to the answer. For from where I was sitting in the dark wood paneled tavern I could see the seeress’ grotto out across the grey waters of the harbor.

               It wasn’t really a grotto or cave, but a heather covered circular mound surrounded by standing stones with a rampart and ditch. I could see smoke rising from a hole in the top. Why did it scare me so much? The ceremony was just a ritual bath followed by a reading with some smoke and incense and mumbo-jumbo to make it spooky. Maisha was probably right, it was just me.

               After lunch we went to the inn to take a nap. Maisha dozed off right away. She snores a little.  I lay very still but my mind couldn’t seem to stop thinking. Finally I did sleep a bit. I remember I had a dream, but I don’t remember it clearly. Something about water being the beginning. But that’s obvious I thought, after all everyone knows that from the waters of the abyss all being and time began.

               Kepheria and Dianna came for us and we boarded a coach to go to the initiation. Dyr-Lugh and Caen and Dianna’s blades, Lyon and Altair, came in two chariots; one in front and one behind. In the mountains they use he-goats for chariots instead of rams like we do in the Ys-lands. I noted that Dyr-Lugh in the lead chariot was holding his spear at the ready as if the Fomor would come back from their crystal towers across the eastern sea and attack at any moment. He liked to show off for mother.

               The mound was at the northern end of the harbor just past a cobblestone quay. It was much further away than I had thought from seeing it earlier at lunch. When I looked back to the town, the white stucco houses of Niantic were a yellow-orange in the late afternoon light as Dyannu shone above the western mountains. The coach left the quay and started through the foothills of the mountains. Here were some dwarf-pines bent almost sideways by the constant wind coming off the loch. We turned left off the road onto a flat expanse of grassland. The seeress’ mound was at the far side overlooking the lapping waters of the loch.

               Just before it, where the road ended, there was a large wooden structure. The bath-house. The ash panels were carved with a series of intertwining knots, circles, and stars. The men waited by the chariots and coach while we went inside. When we entered we could see that the far side was open to the west with slim square wooden pillars and lattice work framing the view of the loch and the mountains beyond. Inside there were two pools of water, a shower, and at the far left side a fire-pit.

               Four acolytes helped us strip off our dresses, shifts, and short pants. When we were naked they wordlessly ushered us to the showers on the northern side of the bath house and lathered us up head to toe –“

 

               “I think you’re blushing dwarf. It’s hard to tell what with the poison and all, but anyway don’t your women take baths? There are dwarf-women aren’t there?” The girl asked Amak.

               “Yes,” Amak croaked. His tongue felt thick and unwieldy in his mouth and his throat was dry. Damnable way for a Khazadii to die, he thought.

 

               They rinsed us off with cool water and then we proceeded to the first pool. It was full of steaming hot water with oils of lanolin and lavender. I found it to be too hot and the smell too strong. Dianna agreed with me and left for the second pool. I waited by the side soaking my feet while Kepheria and Maisha luxuriated in the hot, scented water like cats in a window box. Eventually I coaxed them out and we proceeded to the second pool.

               It was full of cold saltwater taken from the ancient sea at the bottom of the loch. It raises up through a series of caves extending over 30 chain below the ground. Dianna was just coming out with a look of calm on her face. Her hair was wet. She gave me a little smile as she passed. My mother and Maisha went down the first couple of steps, took a quick dip and then raced to join Dianna at the fire pit to dry off.

               I walked down into the pool to where the steps ended at the lip of a bottomless cave. The cold bracing waters took my breath. An exciting electrical feeling came over my body. I smelled salt as the water lapped at my chin. I could feel every nerve ending of my skin coming alive. It was a little painful; like a form of torture. My nipples ached.

               I took a deep breath and slowly sank beneath the surface into the depths below. I let out my breath in a string of bubbles and descended down and down. I was in a narrow crevice, hanging above an unending abyss that stretched to the roots of the mountains. I pulled my arms back and kicked with my feet, descending further and further.

               About eight eels down the natural cave wall turned into smooth brown stone covered in a series of circles or, rather, spheres, splitting, joining and splitting again in increasing numbers and complexity. I was surprised at the clarity. I could see hundreds of arm lengths in every direction.  I went back up to the surface took another big breath and dove back down again. This time as I got closer to the wall I realized it wasn’t one wall, but two. One was behind the other with the symbols on the back wall merging with the ones in front. To the casual visitor it would seem to be one solid wall. I swam around the edge of the front wall wanting to see, needing to know, what was there being hidden so carefully in plain sight.

               For a moment everything went black as the light of the pool behind me was blocked by the wall. Then as my eyes became accustomed to the dark I could see faint rays of light coming from cracks overhead leading to the surface of the loch shining down on some shape as yet undistinguishable on the rock wall before me. My heart rate slowed to less than one beat a faro and then even slower. My need for breath receded from my mind. I floated, a mote in the eye of infinity, waiting for I knew not what. The light above grew stronger; the figure before me was revealed.

               On a shelf of rock, hanging above the black waters that descended far below me into the heart of the world, was a colossal statue of Ouroboros, the encircling Serpent of the World Ocean and Sky who coils on Himself, biting His own tail; infinity indeed. He shone dully of a tarnished bronze or copper alloy. The patina of blue, brown and green suggested great age. Barnacles and mussels were growing at the base. Sea urchins crawled along its sinuous form. He had a large purple gem for its singular eye and horns like a he-goat. With His sharp fanged teeth He bite upon a circle of silver set at the tip of His large phallus. It intrigued me and scared me at the same time.

               I hung there unmoving, naked and receptive, bodily and psychically, in the briny abyss; all of eternity lying in the depths below me, all of profundity before me. I felt on the verge of a revelation, but my lungs could wait no longer. I was suddenly aware of the burning in my chest, a moment of panic came and was quickly subdued as I kicked my way back pass the wall and to the surface of the pool. I gasped for breath and understanding. What had I just seen? What had I just experienced?

               I walked over to the sauna still stunned. I sat elbows on knees with my wet hair hanging down around my face and thought about the image and what it could mean. Why was there such an obviously phallic, almost homoerotic, image here at a sanctuary for women? And that was just the first question of many swimming through my head and likely the least significant.

               “Your hair’s going to get all tangled, Uillceal,” said my mother fussing behind me. “Why did you get it wet? I didn’t bring a brush.”

               “There’s a cave in the pool.” The words came out slow. Strangely I started shivering in the hot steamy air.

               “Really? I’ve never seen it.”

               “You have to go under to see it.” For a second I thought of my mother as stupid.

               “What did it look like?” She asked.

               I looked up from the wooden floor and across from me was Dianna drying her hair with a towel. Her hair was wet like mine. Kepheria’s and Maisha’s were not. I remembered that Dianna had left the first pool while I had waited for my mother and Maisha. Dianna smiled at me, a strange smile, a sad smile, and I knew then that she had known the statue of Ouroboros was there all along and had gone ahead to see it. She had known it was there her whole life, probably since she first came to see the seeress herself as a girl and had never told my mother or even her own daughter. Why was it a secret?

               “Eh . . . Nothing. Just a cave,” I was suddenly reluctant to discuss it any further. I wanted to go back and jump in and see it again, but it was time for us to leave the baths. From the north end of the bath house a path lead over the ditch and through the rampart to the ring of standing stones that circled the mound.

               We walked around them to the left. Maisha and I had to walk naked, but Kepheria and Dianna wore light robes. Some of the stones were smaller than me, others were several eels or half a chain tall. Some seemed to be misshapen people or monsters and some had skulls placed in cavities. Even Maisha was feeling a little nervous or maybe it was just the chill air on her bare skin. The air was cool and getting cooler. We could hear the calls of the night birds warming up for the evening.

               We came around to the entrance of the mound on the south side and stooped under the low lintel into a curved hall that led to a circular room. Incense from bronze braziers filled the air with dense smoke that obscured the edges of the room. The spicy pungent smell reminded me of pine-trees by the shore. In the middle of the room was an open fire, over it hung a bronze cauldron chased with knots and stars. The four of us stood submissively by the door.

               “There will be no light from Caldon tonight. This is the night for women,” said a creepy voice from the far side of the room. The black robed seeress walked out of the shadows to the fire. She took up a large bronze ladle and started stirring the contents of the cauldron.

               “The mothers are to go now.” she said without looking up.

               Our mothers left without a word. The smoke-choked room suddenly seemed larger, foreboding.

               “Now the girls are to become women.” Yellowy eyes shone out from beneath her hood. She gestured to the fire. “Come. Sit.” Her over acting was actually putting me at ease. The over-reaching effects of the black robes, cauldron, creepy voice and incense somehow made her seem more comical then frightening.

               We sat next to the fire. The warmth felt good on my naked skin. I squatted and pulled my knees up to cover my breasts then realized other more intimate areas where being exposed. Maisha was undergoing similar contortions as we tried to figure out the best way to sit naked on the floor. I settled for sitting on my heels with my knees together and pulled my hair over my shoulders to cover my breasts. Maisha adopted the same position. Throughout this process, which I suddenly realized she must have witnessed a thousand times before, the seeress stirred her cauldron without looking our way.

               When we were done the seeress swung the cauldron off the fire and took off her robe. Underneath she was as naked as us, but when she sat down there was no modesty. She squatted with her knees spread open in the birthing position. Her gigh was completely exposed to our view. We stared. We were shocked. We’d both seen naked women and girls before, but not like this with the lips of the vulva spread open.

               Maisha got up and screamed and started to look for a way out of the smoke filled room. I grabbed her leg. The seeress remained seated, unmoving by the fire.

               “Maisha!” I shouted. “We’re not children calling for our mothers. Sit down.”

               “She’s showing us her . . . her. . . “

               “Her gigh.” I said. “Her vagina.”

               Maisha still looked panicked. I got up and took her by the shoulders.

               “Maisha,” I turned her head to force her to look into my eyes. “Maisha, we have gighs too. We’re women. That’s why we’re here. To learn about being women.”

               “Is it alright then? Is what she’s doing right?”

               “I think so, Maisha. Sit down.” I said gently.

               Maisha held my hand tightly and we sat down by the fire again. The seeress took up from where she had stopped as if Maisha’s outburst hadn’t happened.

               “Gaze upon the doorway of life. The gateway of the universes. The beginning of life and the end of time.” How could we do otherwise, I thought, when her pubes were shaved clean to completely expose her labia? Her fingers pulled the lips open even more to expose her glistening vagina. “Here is the door between the universes. Within is the universe of darkness and quiet where life is given. Without is the universe of light and sound where it is taken away. This is the doorway where time begins and where time ends.”

               I was beginning to get over the shock of the seeress’ display and Maisha was beginning to breathe again; now I could concentrate on what the seeress was saying instead of what she was showing. I listened to her words suddenly realizing these were the same lessons my mother and, I’m sure, Maisha’s had been telling us over the last couple of years. In silé teaching the vagina is the entrance of the baby into this universe. Until birth the baby is considered to be in a different universe; a dark, quiet universe of one, or sometimes two, where it is the supreme Aillil. Our birth chant calls for the Aillil to come forth from its universe to ours. At the end of the birth canal when it comes into this universe time begins for the baby. For men and women making love the entrance of the vagina is the end of time. At the height of their passion all time becomes a single now of experience. It just sounded more mystical when the seeress said it.

               I pulled my hair back off my breasts and then spread my knees apart in imitation of the seeress, but I kept my feet under me to keep my bum off the dirt floor. Maisha gasped at me, but then after a moment realized that this was part of the mysteries to be revealed and she too spread her knees. Then we had three sets of vulva exposed to the fire’s warmth. Mine covered in thick black curls, Maisha’s with wispy blonde locks that barely hid anything, and the seeress’ shaved bare.

               “It is the strength of life. It both yields and takes. Gives and receives,” I said.

               “It shelters the young and comforts the mighty,” said Maisha.

               The seeress nodded, satisfied with our answers. I was more comfortable now. I realized I had been well tutored to face this encounter without ever having been explicitly told. Much of this teaching was already familiar to me due to my silé training, but that had been all lecture and books; dry philosophy compared to this vibrant interaction. We explored ourselves and talked of the mysteries and practicalities of sex, birth, and being a woman. It was like I was being introduced to myself. In that smoky incense filled hut there was no shame or self-consciousness. All pretense and childhood illusions were stripped away. No more silly giggling or infantile games for us. We were becoming women.

 

               “I’ll spare you anymore details. Don’t dwarven women have vaginas? For a race that lives for thousands of years you seem very squeamish about sex. Dwarves do have sex don’t they?”

               Amak didn’t bother answering. His throat was too dry; his tongue swollen. Anyway, how could this girl of Man understand the Khazadii way of love and life? Maybe if I die and she ends up with a lap of sapphires she’ll have an idea, thought Amak. His mother had told him he was made of sapphires.

               “Might be I’m just tin and quartz“, he muttered to himself.

 

               After we had finished the teaching it was time for the seeress to read our fortunes. I thought this would be anticlimactic after the exploration and learning of ourselves we had just experienced. The seeress got up from the floor and left the room to get her fetishes.

               While we waited two men came out from the smoke filled far edge of the room. They were young, handsome, and naked. I could tell they were illusions. The seeress had taken our most secret dreams of our perfect lovers and coalesced them out of the smoke to guide us through our first sexual union.

               Maisha was initially shy, but then welcomed the caresses of the tall blonde man that sat by her. He had very short blonde hair and powerful lean muscles. He looked very much like Dyr-Lugh. My would-be partner was slim with long black hair. His face was like looking in a mirror. Apparently I didn’t have any dream lovers for it to model after. He sat down next to me and stroked my hair and kissed my neck. His cock began to stiffen. He was handsome and well endowed, but he was also made of smoke. I could see right through him, literally, and I didn’t wish my first intercourse to be with an illusion. I understood it was a safe way for young girls to experience sex for the first time, but I declined.

               “Go back to your pitch-jar smoke-lover. I’ll wait for a real man.” He actually looked disappointed as he floated away.

               Maisha was getting into some heavy action with her smoky lover. Her hands were all over his cock and balls like a new play-toy while he sucked on her nipples. The more attention she gave him the more solid he seemed to become. I could have told her he was just an illusion, but I wasn’t sure if she’d be madder at the seeress for conjuring it or me for spoiling it. When it seemed that they were about to consummate the act though Maisha suddenly stopped.

               “No,” she said. “No, no. I can’t. I’m not really ready for this. I’m sorry ---”

               Before she could finish her apology the smoke lover dissipated into the air. She looked around blankly.

               “They were just smoke, Maisha. Illusions made to help with our initiation.”

               “He was just like I always dreamed of.”

               “The illusion takes its form from your thoughts and dreams. Should I tell Dyr-Lugh? He’d be happy to give you the real thing.”

               “He seemed real enough. And hard enough.” Maisha chuckled. “I wanted to do it, but it suddenly seemed overwhelming. What did yours look like?”

               “It must have been confused. It looked like a male version of me.”

               “And you didn’t go for that?”

               “I detected that it was an illusion. I’ll wait for a real one.”

               The seeress returned and crossed the room to where the cauldron hung by the fire.

               “Some accept the man and others do not. There is no right or wrong. Some are ready; some are not. Let us proceed with the readings.”

               The seeress took two clay pots and filled them with a white pasty substance from the cauldron and handed one to each of us. She took a brush of goat hair, dipped it into Maisha’s pot and dabbed a small amount on her forehead. Then she handed Maisha the brush and stood before her. Maisha painted the seeress’ body from toes to hips to breasts to head and then back down the other side doing the back and arms. The naked seeress, now all covered in white brush strokes, started running around the room flapping her arms and making bird sounds. I almost laughed.

               Then the seeress sat down and took out her fetishes from her leather bag for the scrying. It was made of a pale, almost pink, leather with sewed up tears and scars like the hide of some ancient warrior and for all I knew it could have been. She carefully took each stone, feather, odd shaped stick, desiccated squirrel head, butterfly-wing, or old button and placed them in a row in front of her. The seeress had Maisha sit directly across from her then she scooped up all the items and tossed them in a way that they fell into a loose circle.

               “Choose,” said the seeress. Maisha pointed to the butterfly wing.

               “Why?” asked the seeress. Maisha looked at me. I shrugged.

               “It’s pretty,” she said.

               “Why?” repeated the seeress.

               “Because it’s colorful . . . and light. It floated down,” answered my blonde friend. “Everything else just kind of dropped.”

               “Yes,” said the seeress and proceeded with the reading going from one object or group of objects to another telling their import to Maisha’s future. I don’t remember all that she said. It seemed pretty normal. “Men will be attracted to your beauty, but will stay for your generous heart,” I remember the seeress saying.

               “Well that’s true of any pretty girl,” I said.

               “Not all beauty comes with a good heart,” the seeress replied pointedly. I suddenly felt naked.

               When the seeress was done with Maisha it was my turn. Some of my apprehension returned as she dabbed my forehead with the paste. I don’t know exactly what drugs were in that paste, but it felt as if my mind was going too fast for my body. Everything became slow while my mind raced ahead. I thought of taking the brush and painting the seeress like Maisha had. I thought of each and every brush stroke I’d make, but when I looked down at my hand holding the brush it hadn’t moved. Then I realized it was moving, just incredibly slowly. Ever so painfully slowly my body moved to obey my mind. I knew it would do everything I had already envisioned and there was no way to stop it or speed it up. I was trapped in my own slow motion body. I could go insane if this lasts much longer, I thought.

               Now I was next to the seeress and the brush was touching her foot. Now I was brushing her shins and knees. It seemed my hands were working faster now. As I moved past her hips and belly they were working normally and as I came to her breasts and neck my hands were now working faster and faster. The brush was now moving faster than my mind could keep up with, but each and every stroke was exactly as I had previously envisioned it. When I came back down to the back of the legs the brush was a blur and then I dropped it and fell to the floor.

               When I awoke the seeress was looking down on me.

               “You seem very sensitive to the preparation, Gwynlambth daughter,” she said. "Are you the one prone to visions?"

               I thought 'prone to' was a strange word to use for my ability to see the Aillil and the Fey. It made it sound like if I had an infliction or disease. I looked around for Maisha. She wasn’t there. I nodded yes to the seeress’ question.

               “I sent her out. Your hair was wet.”

               I stared at her and touched my hair. It was dry, now, and tangled as my mother had warned.

               “I was in the pool.”

               “Maisha had been in the pool. Her hair was not wet.”

               “I went under the water.”

               She smiled. “Then you have seen the king. Few venture below the surface. Why did you?”

               “I wanted to feel the waters over all of me. It felt good.”

               “And . . ? “

               “I wanted to see beyond the wall.”

               “You do like going beneath the surface don’t you Gwynlambth daughter?”

               “Yes. I suppose I do.”

               “And what do you think of our king?”

               I thought about the statue I had seen. The fiery purple eye, strong flanks, horns like a goat of the mountains, and that swollen phallus seeking to complete the circle. “Powerful, primitive. Why is He here?” I asked. “And what is that silver circle on the tip of His cock for? Is Ouroboros homosexual?”

               “No more so then any other man I suppose. Ouroboros with His phallus stirs the waters of the feminine residing within us as in the watery abyss below and the skies above. The three hags of the deep abyss wrap their skeins of yarn around His phallus to churn the waters. The waves rise up to the surface and crash upon the shores of this world and are given form. For what are the waves if they be lacking a shore?”

               “And above?” I asked.

               “He is a lover. Dyannu comes to Him; they immingle and light and warmth come to Nysia. And in the dark chaos of space He is a warrior. He holds Nysia in His embrace and protects Her.”

               “That’s not the whole truth,” I said not really thinking how I knew that or what the whole truth could possibly be. I thought of Dianna. She knew of the King. Perhaps she could tell me more. My head was reeling from the incense and the vapors coming from the seeress’ paste covered body. I felt I had had enough and wanted to leave. But the seeress insisted that we finish the reading. She must have thought it important to continue because she was looking rather tired herself.

               She laid out the fetishes and tossed them into a circle as before. I pointed to where a barbed feather of a Hurst-wren and the fang of a forest-naja lay next to each other. I thought it strange she didn’t ask why.

               “You will have many men, but little love,” she said as she started the reading. “You’ll call many children, but give birth to none. The Aillil will call upon you in Their need, but ignore you in yours.” She stopped. “None of this makes any sense.” She scooped up and tossed the fetishes again. They landed as before and she told me to choose, but I wasn’t there. The drugs and incense had taken my mind elsewhere.

               I was standing on a sunny plain. A group of people were walking toward me from far away. As they came closer I could see five figures. One very tall, another next to the first almost as tall, two others of man size, and one child. They were all in shadow and I couldn’t see their faces even though Dyannu shone overhead. Now I could hear the seeress again.

               “From the west comes a darkness. It lusts for vengeance. With sword and spells it lays low the Queen of the Land. Its life is death; but from the dead it brings life.” She sounded as if the drugs were affecting her as well. Was it all nonsense, I wondered.

               Now the group of people was before me. All wore hoods except the tallest one. He was like no man I had ever seen before. His arms and armor were strange to me. He had a large winged helm in gold and blue with nose and cheek guards made of boars’ teeth. On his breast was a black cross held up by two eagles. He held a sword almost as tall as himself. Could he be marching on the Ys-lands, I wondered. But the seeress had said he was coming for ‘vengeance’. The Kelti hadn’t gone to war with the west in centuries. How could there be a need for vengeance?

               The child was holding a golden ball in its hands. It wasn’t round but made of seven seven-sided facets and strange triangles to hold them together. And it wasn’t gold, but a clear orange crystal. It appeared to be the source of the power the seeress mentioned. I couldn’t see the child’s face to tell if it was boy or girl.

               “Wait,” said the girl. “I just thought of something. What if it was a dwarf? Maybe it was you?”

               Amak felt his bowels loosen. The man-girl had just described the Heartstone of Nysia and him holding it. It had been stolen from the High Temple of the North when the Khazadii had betrayed the Ailf many thousands of years gone by. Amak had been searching for it in Naraka, hoping its return would bring peace and heal wounds as old as the very rocks of the world. Who was this girl that he would be caught up in her vision? Amak was suddenly more scared then he had ever been before in his five thousand years of life.

               The other two figures were unclear, like looking through a smudged glass. One was holding up a sword with the hilt covering its face. The other spoke a single word: “Love”. Somehow that was very distressing. I felt chills down my spine, like someone had jumped my grave.

               I decided I’d have to tell my father about this vision. Mezjio was a sorcerer and I felt I needed him to help interpret this imagery. It had more the feel of sorcery rather than an oracle of the silé or one of my visions and if there was a military threat to the Ys-lands then he’d be able to tell the High King. For while Mezjio was from Lusitania and not Keltii he was much respected in the men’s lodges and by the druids. He and his father had designed and built the canal and locks that had taken us up the mountains and Mezjio was known as a cunning tactician and formidable swordsman. He had also married the most beautiful and powerful woman in the Ys-lands, my mother.

               “I’m sorry, Gwynlambth-daughter”, said the seeress as the vision ended. “The readings say nothing good. You will bear no children; have no lands; and no man to call husband. But throughout there is a thread of power both yours and the Aillil. Sometimes together, sometimes opposed. It is a hard reading.”

               “Then let me enlighten you,” I offered. I didn’t like her I remembered. “I am to be an acolyte of the Queen’s church and Her future High Priestess. I will have no lands of my own and no House. My children shall be all the men and women of the Ys-lands. And I’ve no need of husbands as long as my bed is not empty. You said I’d have men and power. Well I’ll take that and you’re right I’ve not a generous heart. As for the Aillil, fortune shines with Dyannu and sometimes its night.”

               I got slowly up off the floor and walked unsteadily to the door, but there was more than one. I couldn’t remember which was the way we had come in. I looked back to the seeress sitting cross-legged on the floor.

               “You’ll be needing to make your own way now,” she said.

               I turned, chose a door, and left.

The Wren King; Chapter 3: Máthair Beibhann

            I found out later that it doesn’t matter which door you take to leave the seeress’ mound; they all reach outside eventually.  Other girls have told me that each path out has a different series of objects or symbols that are supposed to represent events in their future.  I don’t remember seeing anything on my way out.  When other girls have asked me about it I just say I saw a long serpentine body of a dragon in a forest of oak trees.  That usually made them uneasy; I’m not sure why.  I’ve said it so often I almost believe I did see it.

            Dyr-Lugh was posted by the door with my clothes as I came out of the mound.  Maisha and our mothers had gone back to the inn and had left him and the carriage for me.  He took my arm to hold me steady while I dressed.  I was weak and shaky from the after effects of the drugs. 

            “It’s the heat and the smoke,” I lied to Dyr-Lugh.  “I’d walk a little before taking the carriage back.” 

            I took his arm and we started down the path.  As we came to the road we turned off to the left up into the hills.  The carriage-man standing by his ewes gave us a nod and a wink.  I think Dyr-Lugh would’ve killed him if I hadn’t needed his arm.  I headed up into the hills.  I didn’t have a sure direction or destination, just a feeling of anxious anticipation as if someone or something was waiting for me that promised clearness of mind.  We followed a narrow pass winding between two mountain peaks and came out on the eastern side of the range overlooking Ys.

            We were walking in the dark shadows of the mountains while above us the stars were just beginning to poke out of the amethyst sky.  Beyond the western mountains across the loch behind us, Dyannu was setting upon Tuirn by the Gede Sea.  As we walked Dyr-Lugh helped me over outcrops of white and black crystalline rocks that ran in lines down the mountainsides to the foothills below like the protruding ribs of some massive half buried creature.  It seemed to me that the mountains were the backbone of a living beast of rock and soil stretching from the frozen south, just now emerging from one of its periodic ice ages, to the steamy jungles covering the tips of Nysia.

            My thoughts shifted so suddenly then that I almost fell.  Dyr-Lugh caught me and was about to suggest we head back to the carriage when he saw the look in my eyes.  I was looking inward and out and through all at once.  I knelt down on the coarse grass.  My mind was filled with a strong yet precariously held vision of the bones of the world built through the eons, one rock, stone, and grain of sand atop the other, over and over, and with them the bones of my ancestors and all the other tribes that had lived in these lands.  The remains of Fir Bolg men, women and children laid in these mountains layer after layer.  Buried here year after bitter year, as they lived and died in sorrowful yearning for the fruitful Ys lands spread down below them where King Bres of the Fomor ruled with the Queen of the Ys.  The Queen that was supposed to be theirs.  Then the Keltii came: Lugh, Llyr, Arawn and Brigit to led us from these bare mountains to the woods and grasslands below.  We had left our dead and the bitter chapters of our race they represented behind.

            “Where is House Gwynlambth from here, Dyr-Lugh?” I asked.

            “The original House?  I thought you knew.  It’s just around that shoulder.”  He pointed to where a narrow path went around a bulge in the side of the mountain. 

            "Take me there." I ordered.

            The slope was very steep to our left and to our right was a thousand arm drop.  I held to the rocky ledge with my left hand while Dyr-Lugh steadied me from behind.  The feel of his hands around my waist made me think about the more erotic things I’d learned in the seeress’ mound.  Thoughts of the King in the pool filled my mind.

            “Many a goblin-kin was sent there by Gwynlambth arrows,” he said.  I felt more then saw his nod to the right.  “The women of captain Gdwyn’s line were sure with a bow.”  When we came around the shoulder I saw what he meant.

            Across from where the path ended in a field of heather were three arrow slits in a rough stone wall.  An archer behind them would have had a direct shot on anything coming around the mountain side.  I put the range at twenty eels.  Enough for three shots at a running target like a goblin, orc, or man.

            “The captain taught your great-great-grandmother very well.  It was the Fir Bolg women who protected the camps and families while the men were at battle.  A defended Fir Bolg camp was not easily taken and knowing his family was safe let a man fight better.”      

            Dyr-Lugh sounded as if he had been there, fighting with King Gödel’s captains against the Tuirn or Fomor.  I could feel it too.  This was where Beibhann, Brigit, and Blodeuyn had started House Gwynlambth after King Gödel died at Darmougne Fords.  A life gone so long ago was materializing before me.  I felt I was touching a dream from a storybook land.

            Then, as I looked across that field to the house of my ancestors, I could see goats and sheep grazing in the field in front of me.  Behind the arrow slits there was light and noise of people.  I ran from Dyr-Lugh to the house and passed through the gated front door into the hall.  For a second I thought I could see my great-great-grandma Beibhann at the fire with aunts and cousins, girls, women, little boys, and old men, all busy about the house, but then they disappeared.  They had all died long ago. 

            Suddenly I was dizzy again.  I fell to the floor strewn with the debris of the long ago fallen corbel roof.  Dyr-Lugh came in and helped me up.

            “Your mother warned me this might happen.  You’ll be alright; I’m with you.  Let’s get you back outside.”   He carried me out to the fresh air of the pasture.  The goats and sheep were gone as well.  They had vanished back into the ether from which they had come. 

            “I’ve been with Kepheria when she’s done her makings.  You’ll be alright; ’tis in the blood,” he reassured me.

            “Blood . . .” I thought.  I got down from Dyr-Lugh’s arms and reached down to touch the ground.  Then I laid down and spread my arms out to embrace it.  The land was full of it.  Full of blood.  With their bones was their blood.  Blood spilt in treachery and honest battle, in disease, sickness, birth and death; the blood of men, women, and children.  So many of them had been children.  Children dead before they were even named.  Children dying in the arms of mothers who’d not even time enough to cry for them for there had been other children and elders to care for and fires to tend, land to till, and food to cook when there was any.   How many children had died in these hills that first year? Hundreds?  How many after, year upon year?  Thousands?  What a dreadful place, I thought.  It was a charnel house of the forsaken.

            I sat up.  I could feel the babies in my arms.  I cried and rocked them back and forth.  Hadn't the seeress said I'd never have children; no, she said that I'd never give birth to my own, but here I was crying for children whose bones had long turned to dust.  I could feel them at my breast.  My lips kissed their downy heads; I could smell them.  I was their mother, they were my children.  Could one give birth in reverse?  Could my future have given birth to their past?  Could who I was to be had made them who they had been?  There had been so many lost.  This one was Haige’s girl, stillborn; this Sorcha’s boy died of consumption at six days old.  And more and more and more.  I grew anxious at the numbers pressing on me.  Did they hold me responsible for the past that had had to be?  Did they hate us for leaving them behind in these mountains?

            “Damn them!” I screamed.  My eyes were wet with tears for hundreds and thousands. “Damn Gödel and the Queen, damn the Tuirn, damn them for forsaking us.  Damn them all!”

            “But where would we be without them?  Without Darmougne Fords and the years after?” said a voice I heard.

            Yes, I thought, from all that suffering had came our strength.  The Houses of the Máthairs, the beginning of the silé and the coming of the Keltii had all started at Darmougne Fords.  We were a people divided by a crossing.  I listened again to the ground.  This blood was not crying for revenge.  It lay quiet, perhaps a little sorrowful, only wanting my ear. 

            “You’re right, Dyr-Lugh.  This is where we started.  One can no more damn the past then forbid the future,” I said.

            “Pardon, Gwynlambth daughter, but I didn’t speak.”

            “I thought I heard you.” I looked around.  There was nothing around us except lichen covered rocks scattered across the heather and the stars peering out of the now black sky.  “At least I heard someone.  It was quite clear.”   My head was also clear now.  The drugs and smoke had dispersed into the chilly night air.  I started shivering and couldn’t stop.

            Dyr-Lugh wrapped me in his cloak and carried me into the house of my ancestors.  There were some old logs by the hearth.  Dyr-Lugh tried to light them with his flint and steel.  I was shivering badly.  My teeth were chattering. 

            “You need tinder,” I stammered.  “Something to catch the sparks.” 

            He went to his backpack and came back with some bandages and a small flask of whiskey.

            “Now splinter off some of the wood and place it in a pile with a hollow under it.  Then come help me up.”  He took his dagger and did as I instructed and then took me by my shaky arm to the hearth.  If I hadn’t been shivering so much I might of tried a Form of Making to start the fire, but somehow I felt that that would have been wrong.  Here at this ancestral hearth it had to be done as it was done that first time, that first night, centuries ago by those forsaken survivors huddling in these wet, cold mountains.  I could feel generations of women kneeling with me at the hearth at that exact spot; plying tinder and peat and occasional logs washed upon the loch shore, to turn darkness to light, cold into warmth: lighting the fire to cook the food to feed their children.

            “By Brigit’s -”, I started to say. “No.  By Dyannu’s fire bring us light.  By Dyannu’s fire bring us warmth.  By Dyannu’s fire bless us.”   For when we had been Fir Bolg in the mountains it wasn’t Brigit we had prayed to, but Dyannu the Life-Giver.  It wasn’t a making; just a prayer.  “Now strike your flint.” 

            Dyr-Lugh’s sparks flew into the whiskey soaked bandage.  I blew on them gently and we were rewarded by a leap of flame.  Dyr-Lugh placed it carefully under the splintered wood.  As the tinder caught I felt as if I had completed a Calling of Caldon or a rite of the Arabetal.  Soon Dyr-Lugh had the larger logs burning.  He sat down behind me with his cloak around our shoulders and handed me the flask of whiskey.  I don’t usually drink spirits, but I took a big sip.  I could feel the warmth returning to my body.

            “I hope your mother won’t over fret that we be gone the night.”

            “She will, but that can’t be helped.”  I took another sip of the whiskey and snuggled deeper into his arms, my head against his shoulder.  His smell recalled some of the sexual energies of my visit to the seeress.  I wondered what Dyr-Lugh was like in bed.  He seemed so attentive I bet he’d set a steady pace for a girl.  But there were no beds and I was too tired.  I’ll have to ask mother, I thought, as I drifted off to sleep.

            When I awoke later Dyr-Lugh was asleep sitting straight up.  I gently laid him down and straightened out his legs.  The fire was low now.  Small blue fairy flames danced upon the glowing log.  Warmth flowed off it slow and steady like an old river; no longer the torrent of heat it had been in its youth.  I looked up at the stars past the beams that had once held up the roof centuries before.  Anemone and Odette were at meridian.  I judged it was four hours to dawn.

            “You’ve awakened.  Good,” said a voice in the shadows to my right.

            “Dyr-Lugh! Awake!” I screamed as I backed to my left and drew my stilettos from their wrist sheaths.  I held them low to my sides to hide them in the shadows and crouched, ready to spring.

            “He cannot hear us, Gwynlambth daughter.  My great-great-grand daughter.” 

            From the shadows a woman appeared in a baggy, hooded green wool sweater.  She seemed about ten years older than my mother, Kepheria, and her features were similar:  oval-shaped face, long nose, subtle cheek-bones, large breasts.  The most amazing thing about her however, almost more amazing then her actual presence, was that she was wearing trousers and at her belt hung a long sword.

            “He cannot hear any of us,” she said.  Now the house came to life again as I had first envisioned it with women and children busy at the fire and doing their tasks about the house.  Two women, also dressed in trousers with swords, picked Dyr-Lugh up and gently placed him on a bed of goatskins.  “Come, there is much I need to tell you of the past which has been forgotten.”

            I have always been sensitive to the energies of the fey and Aillil, but this vision was more intense than any I had had since childhood.  Some say that my visions are energy fields created by the Aillil and therefore are physically real and measurable though the form they take may be an illusion.  Others say that the vision takes place entirely in my mind and has no objective reality.  I feel the vision of my great-great-grandmother was a form of her energy that lived in that ancestral home of House Gwynlambth, but if Dyr-Lugh had been awake he would not of seen anything.      My great-great-grandmother Beibhann sat down on a stuffed goatskin throw by the hearth near the slow burning log with her long sword between her legs.  “This is the story of King Gödel the Beloved of the Fir Bolg and his betrayal at Darmougne Fords.” she said.  “Come, sit.”  She patted her hand on another throw on her right.

            I was going to object.  After all every Kelti child knows the story of how King Gödel marched over the mountains and across the loch to claim the Ys-Lands for the Queen and how he was killed at the Battle of Darmougne Fords by King Bres of the Fomor.  How could this be part of a past that had been forgotten?  But this was the first time I heard that he had been betrayed.  I sat down.

 

            “But anyway, I think this story will interest you, Amak.  There’s lots of fighting.  Isn’t that what you dwarves like?” said the girl.

            Like?  What did liking or not liking have to do with war and fighting?  It was something to be done when it needed to be done, thought Amak, and hopefully you did it better than the one you were facing.  And as for ‘dwarves’, If he lived ‘til morning Amak wasn’t sure if he’d be grateful enough not to slice this man-girl’s throat.

            But stories about battle and valor, those indeed Amak liked and a new story after so many, many years was to be cherished like a rare gem even if the battle was lost.  Maybe especially if it was lost, reflected Amak.

 

            “Before we were Fir Bolg,” my great-great-grandmother began, “we were Toigloni, Unelli, Helvetii, Belogi, and a hundred other names of tribes, clans, and families living in the lands between the mountain guarded loch in the east and the Gede sea to the west.  It wasn’t called Tuirn back then.  We had no name for the whole land, just names for rivers, forests, shrines, and Aillil.  The Aillil most treasured by us were Dyannu the Life-Giver whose radiance fills the sky, The Dagda who reaches to Her from the korn-fields, and Nereus, Her son begotten on Her by Ouroboros of the World Ocean.  It was near the cave by the Dian river where Dyannu had birthed Her son that a tribal king named Rinnal Dagarmag let a city be built by a group of families exiled from the Poilhnise.”

            As she spoke, the words formed into pictures floating in the room in front of me.  I could see the hard rocky land where the river Dian came down to the Gede sea where Nereus had been birthed.  A group of men wearing tan and red cloaks stood there speaking to a tall man in green and gold.  They pointed to the shore and a village grew into a town and then into a city. 

            “Their name and the name of the city was Tuirn and it flourished by trading silver and copper mined by slaves in the hills with the Old Kingdoms and the other lands across the Gede sea.  But the Tuirn were greedy and didn’t wish to pay tithe to the druids of Nereus and Dyannu nor a levy to the king.  So they hired two clans to impose their will in Tuirn, the Eblaihoi and the Vicetengiou, and forced the king into exile.”

            Now, as I watched, flames engulfed the city and there was fighting in the streets between the king’s men and the Tuirn mercenaries.  Finally the king and his men were forced to flee the city to the hills in the west.

            “King Rinnel escaped to the Belogi, the clan of his maternal grandmother where an assassin was sent to kill him, but when the killer shot his bow Dyannu shone in his eyes and he hit the king’s shield boy instead.  Thinking he had killed his target the assassin reported his success to the Tuirn council which promptly ordered his execution in turn.

            “In succeeding years Tuirn grew rich and took control of the Miaoube and the Faiciandii to the north and exacted a long-awaited revenge on the Poilhnise to the south.  Around their city and harbor they erected fortified walls to protect it from attack by sea and recruited the clans and tribes to guard against any threat from land.”

            Now broad ships bearing the saffron sails of the Pharzi of the Old Kingdoms, bristling with heavily armored men and engines of war, sailed into my vision.  Catapults and ballista on the seawalls fired flaming arrows and pots of pitch down upon them.  The giant ships fired rockets at the walls and disembarked their troops.  Heavily armed men made their way up the ladders to do melee with the Tuirn defenders.  The heavy spears and swords of the Pharzi’s Azegaii warriors made short work of the defenders lighter arms and armour.

            Then smaller, graceful ships came into view behind the grounded giants.  Three hundred ships of the Poilhnise tacked to port and opened fire and arrows fell like rain upon the spearmen climbing the walls and flaming balls of tar set the Pharzi flotilla ablaze.  Then they turned and rained showers of shot upon the Azegaii.  The survivors swam to shore only to be met by the swords of the clansmen who took their heads to Tuirn for payment. 

            “Caom Eclonnabht, the son of Rinnel, however, ordered the Belogi to rescue and treat as guests any captains of the Azegaii they happened upon.  The armies of the Old Kingdoms fought in close formation with spear and shield with heavy amour and Caom Eclonnabht had his guests teach this way of fighting to his men.  Then the Belogi started conquering the other clans and tribes one-by-one.  Soon the other tribes started fighting in the same fashion until there were three main tribes: the Belogi, the Caledonii, and the Helvetii.  They struggled for dominance, but each was equally strong and well lead.  The druids commanded that they should unite as one people and one tribe with one king, but none of the three kings would acquiesce to be ruled by one of the others.  The druids decreed a festival to be held with contests and games to select a new king from among the three kings’ many sons.”

            I could see tents, big and small, lavish and humble, crowded around the base of Sephaile Hill floating in the middle of the room in front of the fire.  The round dome of grass, close-cropped by The Dagda’s sacred bulls, was scratched with designs of spirals, animals, and runes showing the white chalky soil underneath.  The biggest pictograph in the middle of the hill over-looking the town of Eirmeare-by-the-Sea was a giant outline of The Dagda with His mighty club and Bag-of-Plenty.  In the middle of the outline where a ledge formed a lap was an untooled stone pillar a full chain tall. The bottom portion was worn smooth and black by the hands of supplicants rubbing it for untold centuries.  Next to it was an altar stone blackened with the blood of sacrificed men, women, and bulls.

            Big brawny men bare-breasted in plaid kilts of every color filled my vision.  There were races on foot and with ram-drawn chariots and tests of strength with the clachneart-stone and the caber.  Stones were cast by our heads and poles the size of trees landed at our feet.  Two contenders took turns casting and catching a spear until one of them was just a fraction of a second too slow.  I stood to go to him.  My great-great-grandmother laughed and shook her head.           

            “You’re about three hundred years too late to help Aiern, granddaughter.”  I sat back down.

            “Baldamear, Caom Eclonnabht’s oldest son, didn’t win all the races and contests of strength, but only he knew the secrets to the tests of the druids and so was chosen to be king,” she said.  “Then Baldamear united the tribes by marrying the three youngest daughters of the three leading chiefs and upon them beared three sons: Gödel, Nuadhu, and Uairidnach.  The united tribes became known as the Fir Bolg, the men-of-spears, and when Baldamear died Gödel, born of Baldamear’s half-sister, became our king and his half-brothers Nuadhu and Uairidnach were as sword and shield at his side.”

            Now upon Sephaile Hill three young men stood by the pillar and altar.  They were handsome men and strong.  One, I believe he was King Gödel, wore a simple black-iron circlet with a single diamond set in the center upon his head.  His combed black hair reached to his shoulders like the wings of a raven and his dark blue eyes shone with determination and strength of mind.  Next to him were two other young men.  The first was tall with blonde hair cut very short like Dyr-Lugh’s with eyes of the palest blue.  The second was a powerful figure with fiery red hair plaited into rows and rows of braids that hung midway down his broad back.  His eyes were green like the depths of the World Ocean.

            “The fair one is Uairidnach.  He’s the captain of the king’s chariots and brave and impetuous as a wild ram.”  said Beibhann.   “The other is Nuadhu; as strong as Gödel, as brave as Uairidnach, and as wise as a druid.  He was ever steadfast in the face of danger.  He had his mother’s eyes and his father’s red hair, at least when he was young.” 

            In front of me King Gödel had one hand on the lingam of The Dagda and one hand under his kilt and the younger brothers clasped his thighs in turn as they swore their allegiance to each other, the tribe, and the Aillil.  A red sacrificial bull was brought to the altar and made to kneel with its noble head upon the ancient bloodstained stone.  Two acolytes held the horns as the druid took his thin curved blade and slit the beast’s throat in one smooth motion.  I could smell the sweet-salty tang of the blood as it poured over the sides of the altar and lapped upon the brothers' sandaled feet.  Then the acolytes lifted the bull onto the altar and the king opened the body.  He reached into the still living bull and took out the steaming liver and place it into the druid’s hands.  All around The Dagda’s altar men with spears and shields waited to hear his reading. 

            “King Gödel and his brothers had led their armies out from the hills to take the rich cities of our prideful cousins, the Tuirn,” said Beibhann.  “This was to be no mere raid for slaves or plunder.  The Tuirn had accumulated great stores of treasure and had built a beautiful city while we lived in houses of wattle and mud and went hungry if the korn failed.  King Gödel was going to war to rule over the Tuirn, take their wealth for his people and avenge his great-grandfather Rinnel Dagarmag.  Now the high druid, Deriache, was to consult the Aillil and the omens to see if it was propitious to attack now or to wait.”

            I could feel the hushed anticipation of the men. 

            “There is much life here,” said the druid poring over the blood dripping liver.  “The year has been plentiful.  The harvest was good.  The bull stores now for the coming winter.”

            “Good.” said Gödel.  “Then the harvest shall be good for us as well.”

            “Is it not to late in the season, my king?  Surely Tuirn has laid in their korn for the winter.  They can easily wait out a siege.” asked one of the men.

            “That is why this omen, this fat bull, is so favorable for us,” said the king.  “The Tuirn are fat and happy.  Let us attack now while they are content.  A man in a comfortable chair doesn’t like to get up.”

            “Even a fat man can find his sword when robbers come for his fortune.” objected another.

            “We are not robbers,” and now Gödel’s blue eyes turned to steel.  “Tuirn and its lands belong to me and to my father’s before me.  It is the Tuirn who are thieves.  A fat man is a slow man.  We will have our sword at his throat before he can bolt the door."   

            “The omens have been read.  The king has spoken.” said the druid.

            The scene changed.  A star-filled sky served as backdrop to a sleepy city in front of me.  A half dozen men approached its walls stealthily.

            “The first city to fall was Miaoube in the north,” Beibhann continued.  “Uairidnach and five of his captains slipped over the walls on a dark night like this one when Caldon doesn’t shine.  They quickly killed the men at the gatehouse and let in Uairidnach’s army.  The city garrison was swiftly taken and their captains put to the sword.  The rest of the men were disarmed and confined to quarters.  The city elders however barred the doors of their assembly and refused to surrender.  Uairidnach wasted no time entreating with them.  He left a captain in charge with a half a thousand men and quickly marched south to capture Faiciandan before its people could have news of his coming.  Then with his main force of chariots he marched south to meet Gödel at Tuirn.

            “Far to the south Nuadhu was setting siege to the coastal city of Poilhnise.  First he positioned a force of two thousand spear and two hundred chariots on the Täin to hold the crossing against the Tuirn garrison at Leinset which overlooked the wild hill tribes of the south.  Then he marched his men west across the flat muddy plain of Lempete to the walls of Poilhnise and set camp.  When the people saw the campfires of Nuadhu’s men encircling their city they weren’t concerned for it was their custom to take refugee with their families and treasure upon their ships and sail away from attackers that came from the land.  They quickly and quietly loaded their fast agile ships and made ready to sail, but upon the morn the proud seamen of Poilhnise saw Nuadhu at the bow of one of the Pharzi’s mighty warships sailing into their harbor and they knew they had been bested.  The Azegaii debt to Caom Eclonnabht for his mercy was paid in full.

            "With their escape upon the sea blocked the Poilhnise quickly surrendered.  Nuadhu demanded as hostage the idols of Nereus, Aillil of the Gede sea, from each seamen’s boat and Aemperao, His consort, the Aillil of the marsh, from each wife’s bed.  For the Poilhnise would not sail without them each secured in their proper places to guarantee their safe journey and return.  These were kept in the city’s temple by Nuadhu’s druid with orders to burn it and the idols if the people rebelled while he was gone.

            “With Poilhnise secured Nuadhu sent orders ahead to his captain on the Täin to march on Leinset.  When Nuadhu came to the bridge two days later with six thousand spears and half as many chariots he was met by a young Tuirn runner who said he had been sent to report the victory of Nuadhu’s men over Leinset.  This news worried Nuadhu for Leinset was the southern most of the Tuirn cities.  It faced the tribes of the hill countries and should have been well garrisoned.  The boy however insisted the Tuirn had surrendered as their morale was low and the fighting men there wished to be ruled by King Gödel and his brothers who were known to them to be great warriors.

            “Nuadhu gave little credence to this story and decided he needed to proceed with both haste and caution to either rescue his army or reinforce their victory.  Leaving a rearguard of five hundred men armed with spears and bow and the women and baggage at the bridge he marched south through lightly wooded hills to Leinset.”

            Now the hall of House Gwynlambth became crowded with men in armour with long shields and fighting spears and swords.  There were ram-drawn chariots so real I could smell them.  Suddenly a horn sounded somewhere to my left and arrows flew out of the fire to ambush Nuadhu and his men.  I felt like a shield-maiden watching a great battle from Dyannu’s chariot. 

            Nuadhu was furious.  He grabbed up the treacherous Tuirn runner by his neck and used him as a shield against the arrows; the boy sprouted feathers like a bird.  Then the Tuirn chariots raced from the hills behind Beibhann and me and released a volley of javelins.  Many found their deadly mark amongst Nuadhu’s men.  The Tuirn turned and circled back for another volley, but now Nuadhu’s men had their shields up and were taking cover behind the overturned chariots and fewer were brought down this time.  The Tuirn chariots pulled back to the hills to order their lines and the archers began to open fire on Nuadhu’s Fir Bolg.

            “Then a breathless shield-boy came with a message for Nuadhu from captain Gdwyn, my husband and your great-great-grandfather.  The bridge at the Täin was under attack by a large force of infantry, he said.  When he heard this, brave Nuadhu, steadfast brother of the king, smiled.

            “‘Rejoice Fir Bolg warriors,’ he yelled. ‘This shield-boy brings us good news.  Our brothers and sisters at the Täin have engaged the Tuirn infantry.  Those chariots upon the hills are an empty shell that shall break upon our spears.  Then we’ll stomp on those annoying wasps that hide behind them.’

            “So Nuadhu and his men beat their spears upon their shields and sent their battle cries echoing through the hills while arrows rained down upon them ‘til the Tuirn were unsure who had ambushed who.  Finally the Tuirn sent their chariots down the hillside thinking to slaughter the pinned Fir Bolg.”

            “Nuadhu and his men raised their shields to receive a final volley of arrows, but hidden under those shields with spears at the ready were Nuadhu’s most seasoned men.  They were veterans of many campaigns and were each head of their house and had had sons born onto them.  They held their mighty spears with both hands with the butts firmly planted in the ground.  Their shield-boys covered them from the rain of arrows and Nuadhu’s own bodyguard protected those in turn.

            “‘Steady.  Hold Steady,’ cried Nuadhu to his men.  Then, at his signal, as the chariots charged down upon them Nuadhu’s druids and shield boys raced out from the flanks left and right with horns and cymbals and makings of every sort to scare the charging rams and herd them to the awaiting spears.

            “The rams became frightened and attacked and bite one another.  The Tuirn charge down the hillside became a confused mass of men, vehicles, and rams washing upon the awaiting spears of the Fir Bolg like waves breaking on a rocky shore.  There was a great collision of flesh, metal, wood; screams of men and rams, Tuirn and Fir Bolg, injured and dying, filled the air.  Cresting through the carnage, Nuadhu, his captains and men advanced and slaughtered the few still living Tuirn with their swords and visited mercy upon fallen Fir Bolg with their daggers; blood sprayed and flowed turning the air and ground red.

            “Again the arrows rained down on Nuadhu and his men, but now there was no cover for the bowmen.  Nuadhu ordered his captains to charge the archers in the hills.  The aspect of the advancing Fir Bolg dripping red with Tuirn blood in the waning light of setting Dyannu was fearsome.  The archers, unsteadied by the slaughter of the chariots, turned and ran, but Nuadhu’s men set upon them and few escaped.

            “Then Nuadhu ordered his men south to Leinset and they set the city afire and forced the garrison to surrender.  All the fighting men were put in chains and marched north.  The women and children were scattered across the land.  Nuadhu ordered that each woman be given two spears and a bow and quiver for each son so to make their way and provided for their family as best they could.  Many found solace amongst the hill tribes, but just as many found death there as well.

            “Between his brother’s to the north and south, King Gödel lead the campaign against Tuirn itself; the largest and most beautiful city in Nysia.  It had over one-hundred thousand citizens and half again as many slaves living within its high walls and that many again living outside its gates.  The harbor was protected by walls and towers with ballista.  The wide squares were paved in marble and the fountains . . .”

 

            “Well she went on and on about how big and beautiful and mighty Tuirn was with its fountains and walls and monuments and she would have gone on and on forever if I had let her.  And I could have let her, for I could see all the beauties of Tuirn unfold before me as she talked. Ys has no cities like it. 

            “You know those stories, Amak, where some young man visits the fey in their sidhe and stays for a feast and listens to their tales and then when he leaves after what he thinks is only one night he meets an old man who turns out to be his grandson and everyone he had ever known is dead.  That’s what can happen if you listen too long to a fey.”          

            Amak could empathize.  Had he really asked for this long story?  But when he thought of sleep he was terrified.  Does this mean I’m talking with an aelf, he wondered.  For surely fey must be another name for those lesser Ailf.  This is Neraka after all, he thought, anything can happen here and she did have the look of the old blood, this man-girl, Uillceal. 

            “But I pulled my dagger out of its sheath,” she said. “just a little and touched its blade.  It’s pure iron and a certain remedy for the magic of the fey.”

            Amak strained his eyes to look down upon his chest where lay his war-hammer, Hell-storm.  He concentrated every bit of his remaining will and strength and moved his finger tip the barest measure across its iron head.  The girl and her great-great-grandmother continued their story.

 

            “Well, the king’s army of twenty-thousand seemed as likely to take the city as an ant to rape an elephant,” my great-great-grandmother Beibhann continued.  “King Gödel had not the men to surround Tuirn nor was he likely to be able to capture a gate as Uairidnach had at Miaoube and the korn had already been brought in for the season so the city was well provisioned to withstand a long siege while King Gödel’s army had only the food they had brought with them and the stubble in the fields for the rams.  When this was brought to his attention the king said, ‘Good.  It is as Deriache said.  Now is the time for the bulls to take in the harvest.’  This confused his captains even more.  How he was planning to take Tuirn no one could divine.

            “But King Gödel had the one thing in his arsenal that the Tuirn could not defy or risk their very identity.  He had the law and to the Tuirn the law is as Dyannu shining in the sky and Nereus’ waves upon the shore.  They worship Partholon, an Aillil who had killed His own mother for disobeying the law.  And according to the law, as detailed to Gödel’s men-of-the-table by Deriache, his high druid, Gödel was the rightful ruler of Tuirn by descent from Rinnal Dagarmag.  The druid showed them the royal charter that had been given to the Tuirn for their city in return for concessions and told them the history of how the Tuirn had chased the king from the city and had tried to kill him.  Then they compared the royal seals on the charter with the coat of arms worn by Gödel and his father, Baldamear, and grandfather Caom Eclonnabht before him.  Gödel’s captains were well convinced, but they weren’t sure it would change the minds of the Tuirn and some worried they had come on a fool’s errand.

            “The next day Deriache was allowed into the Tuirn council under truce to present his evidence.  When he showed the electors the city charter and the record of Gödel’s lineage, their priests, for the Tuirn have no druids, called them forgeries and constructs.  Deriache placed the documents on the table in full daylight.” 

            “‘May Dyannu shine Her light of truth on any lie written here,” he said and the light of Dyannu which had been shining brightly through the windows of the council hall became dimmed.  The electors were terrified and called for the great hall-lamps to be lit in the middle of the day.

            “Then Deriache showed the council where there was an inscription on the stone floor with the king’s coat-of-arms where the regent’s chair was to be placed when council was in session.  The elm tree and boar symbols were the same as those used by Baldamear and King Gödel and could be traced back to Caom Eclannabht and Rinnal Dagarmag.  They were also used in the city’s seal placed on all trade goods and official papers.  Then Deriache ordered a long sealed doorway hidden behind an old uncared for tapestry to be opened.  It had been the eastern entrance reserved for the king’s use and had been bricked up over one hundred years earlier. 

            “Along the walls was engraved the original charter of Rinnal Dagarmag.  It was heavily damaged and covered in graffiti by the Eblaihoi and Vicetengiou.  One section had been hacked out completely and replaced by an announcement of the King’s ‘rightfully ordered death by the electors of Tuirn so that no king shall reign over them, but each man shall be beholden only to the law.’

            “‘Now you must open your gates to your lawful king and pay him tribute and levies for one hundred years past due.’ declared Deriache.  It was just too much for the Tuirn to take, as the High Druid had intended it to be.  The Tuirn could not abide being ruled by a king, especially, as it seemed, it was one they had long ago wronged and owed money.  It was one thing to have to accept King Gödel as their liege if they must, but to have to pay back taxes for one hundred years; that was money.

            “They refused and went to attack Deriache in the narrow dead-end corridor, but he held up his staff and a stroke of lightning struck the wall behind him bursting open the long bricked up outer entrance and knocked over the electors.  The druid walked out into the street and was allowed to safely leave by the city guard.  He met the king at the encampment by the river and together they turned and approached the city.  The Tuirn, no longer under truce, fired upon them, but no arrow or bolt or stone could strike them.”

            Now before me was a vision of black haired Gödel in a blue cloak with a gold clasp shaped like a boar and wearing the blue-green tartan kilt of the Belogi of Caom Eclonnabht.  A shield boy on his left held his sword.  At his right was Deriache, the High Druid, in white robes with gold bands on the sleeves to show his rank.  A crown of broom was upon his brow.  They were standing in front of Tuirn; easily within bow shot.

            “Electors of Tuirn.”  Gödel called to the walls.  “As you have rejected me as your lawful king so shall the law on the land reject you.  As King of Tuirn I command that Dyannu shall not shine and the waters of the Dian shall not flow ‘til you surrender.”

            As Gödel spoke the huge lime-green orb of Caldon, King of the Sky and Lord of All Aillil filled the sky and covered the last sliver of Dyannu’s light and the lands of Tuirn were in darkness and the stars shone in the day-sky.  Then King Gödel took Deriache’s staff and stuck its head upon the ground and a thousand bolts of thunder shook the hills in the distant east.  I thought the walls of House Gwynlambth would collapse. 

            The waters of the Dian churned and spilt over their banks and then turned and flowed away from Tuirn back to the hills.  Fish flopped on the floor next to where Dyr-Lugh was sleeping.  The priests of Tuirn were terrified.  They had no record of the likes of these events happening before.      

            “For two days Tuirn was in shadow and the fountains flowed with the salty waters of the Gede,” Beibhann said.  “The people pleaded for the priests and electors to do something, but they were powerless.  Faced with King Gödel’s rule over the land, water, and the very heavens and with the other cities of Tuirn taken and their garrisons captured, and all the seaports blockaded, the city electors relented.  That night they called for Deriache to come to council and agreed to abide by the charter and to accept Gödel as their king if they could continue to rule the city.  As Gödel had predicted they were far more interested in keeping their comforts then fighting a war.

            “The city gates were opened and all the Tuirn guards and defenders were made to surrender their arms and return to barracks.  The treasurer’s office was handed over to Deriache and the electors were called to session and locked in their chambers.  Then the king’s heart turned to steel and he ordered Nuadhu and Uairidnach to take their men through the city and to kill all the Eblaihoi and Vicetengiou who’s fathers had wronged Rinnel Dagarmag many years before. 

            “Throughout the night the Fir Bolg went house to house searching for their ancient enemies.  They were merciless and slaughtered whole families, putting even women and children to the sword and burning down whole sections of the city lest the Tuirn think of turning treacherous again.  The next morning Dyannu shone out from behind Caldon like a shy girl from behind Her big brother and when King Gödel again touched the ground with Deriache’s staff the Dian returned to its bed and the fountains again flowed with clean water.

            “So the tribes of the Fir Bolg and the Tuirn lived in prosperity.  The lands were fertile, the treasuries overflowed, the army was mighty, and the king had concubines and ladies for his bed, but in the fifth year of his reign King Gödel was troubled for he had no Queen.  The king sent his high druid, Deriache, throughout the lands to find him a Queen to share the bounties of the land. 

            “The druid went west to the Old Kingdoms where the Aillil had first made Man, but the Pharaohs would not give him any of their princesses. He went to the desolate hill-lands far from loch or sea where the last of the Ailf, descendents of the Aillil, were said to live, but only maddened spirits greeted him.  He went east to the Ys lands over the mountains where the Fomor ruled.  They feasted the High Druid for many days and questioned him about Tuirn and King Gödel and about what he knew of queens of the land in Nysia, but Deriache soon discovered the Fomor were killing and feeding him his own druids, one each night, and he narrowly escaped with his own life.  He then went across the western and eastern oceans and found many strange people, but no queen did he find amongst them for King Gödel.

            “Then he went by caravan to the far south across the Gev Desert, home of the Minotaurs, wherein is hidden the ruins of ancient Neraka, and finally to the shores of the Baeltine Sea where live the sorcerers of Lusitania who know all the secrets of the stars.  They had no queen of their own to offer, but they told Deriache to look to the north in the jungles on the farthermost tips of Brython that the Ys had once called home.

            “In those steamy lands was an ancient city that had become overgrown by vines and trees in a time beyond remembrance.  Within those ruins was a temple dedicated to an Aillil Queen who’s beauty was as luxuriant as the jungle and who's aspect was as dangerous as the cats that prowled its starless nights.  The Lusitanian said that long ago the Ys had lived in those jungle-lands ruled by a great King and Queen from the stars.  The sorcerers didn’t know why the Ys had left their jungle home.  It is said the Queen had been exiled from Nysia to the Broken Sky, but the King dwelt there still, waiting for the Ys to return to Him.  They made Deriache a map to the ruins of the Queen’s temple and instructed the High Druid how to propitiate Her with sacrifices and effect the forms of making for Her Calling so She could return to Nysia and be a wife for Gödel. 

            “Deriache hastened back across the Gev desert to bring this news to King Gödel.  Upon hearing it, the king sent his brother Nuadhu along with Deriache to bring the Queen to Sephaile Hill nigh Eirmeare-by-the-sea that he and She may wed.  It was a perilous journey and many mishaps and dangerous beasts they did encounter, but brave Nuadhu, brother and spearman of the king, lead his men to the very heart of the jungle to the ruins of the  Queen’s Temple.”

The Wren King; Chapter 4: Family

                 “You love him don’t you,”  I interrupted.  “Every time you mention him your face lights up.”

                “Who?” my great-great-grandmother asked coyly. 

                “Nuadhu.  Don’t deny it.  I’m silé.  I can tell these things,” I said.

                “Well he was quite handsome and strong and polite and very funny.  Not vulgar like Uairidnach or vain like Gödel.  Both handsome men in their own right, but not to my liking.”

                “And what of Gdwyn’s liking?  Your husband? Wouldn’t Gdwyn had been enraged had he known?  Fir Bolg of your time believed in lifelong monogamy.  I’m so glad we Keltii got over that.  I couldn’t stand the idea of only one man for a lifetime.  We Keltii don’t have jealousy.”  I was feeling pretty smug.

                “Let me introduce you to some one you think you know,”  she said.

                We got up from the fire and went over to where an old man and a young boy were sparing.  The old man was holding a large korn doll with a wooden sword and wicker shield.  The boy was similarly armed.  The boy was trying to get past the doll to get at a plate of beans behind the old man, but each time the boy attacked he got pushed back.  After landing on his backside yet again the boy got up slowly and stared at the plate of food.  He was very hungry.  Then he stared at the korn doll.  His face was as full of frustration as his stomach was empty.

                “Come on, boy.  Come on.  Get your sup,” jeered the old man.  The scars on his arms and head showed him to be a veteran of many battles.  Too old to go on patrol with the younger men he now stayed home to train the boys.

                The boy stared at the old warrior and then the doll and finally back to the veteran.  Taking up his shield and sword the boy charged forward, shoving the doll aside with his shield and swinging his sword not at the korn man but at his antagonist behind it.  The sword hit the old man on his bald head above the ear.  Bright red blood flowed through warrior’s gnarly fingers as he held his head and howled in pain.  The boy showed no remorse.  He raced forward, grabbed the plate of food and ran to the farthest corner to feast on his prize.

                “Arawn!  I’m going to beat your arse.”  the old man shouted.  Then he chuckled.  “Next time I’ll wear my helmet.”

                I was amazed.  This little boy of about six years was Arawn; one of the First Kelti.  Beibhann noted my gaping mouth. 

                “Close your mouth, Uillceal.  We are not a codfish,” she said, lifting my chin with her finger.   “They were mortal once, like us, remember.  Arawn’s learnt an important lesson tonight.  Not the one grampappy was teaching, but one even more imperative.”

                “Strike at the hand that holds the sword,” I said. “Attack the power not the puppet.”

                “It is good the lessons of the silé are still taught.  Here’s someone else you thought you knew.  Brigit, come here and take care of grampappy’s head.”  A little redheaded girl, all curls and big blue eyes, no older then the boy, came over with a basket of old clothes ripped for bandages and some herbs and ointment.

                A chill, an electric charge, ran down my spine.  I'd seen this little girl before.  She had been my very first vision.  She had come visiting me in the house gardens where I played as a little girl.  I had told blade Rowan about my being able to see Her when no one else could.  He had told me to tell no one about my visions, but I had been a child and Kepheria likes to talk and soon everyone knew Aillil visited me without the need of the Forms.

                She turned to me now; a vision within a vision; a face turning sideways within a face.  In a voice not a child's, She said, “Well met, Uillceal.”  Then the vision was gone and I watched as this Aillil-to-be gently tended to the old man’s wound.

                “Nuadhu is Brigit’s father and I am her mother.  That is why Gwynlambth is the first House of the silé.  Nuadhu’s wife, Cephia, is Arawn’s mother, but King Gödel is his father.  He lay with Cephia to secure his bloodline in case he died before finding a queen to marry.  They both think Nuadhu doesn’t know, but he is not a man that much gets by.”

                “So Arawn is the king’s rightful heir not Lugh.  Does he know?”

                “Not ‘til the Coming of the Keltii is it revealed to Him.”

                “What of Brigit?  Did Gdwyn know you laid with Nuadhu and had a child by him?”

                “It was his idea.  Both he and Nuadhu had been put under a geas by an oracle that neither of them would have anymore children by their wives.  So to fool the oracle they went at night to the sweathouse and stripped naked.  When the bath-boy poured water over the brazier they put on each others clothes while the steam filled the air.  Then they left and went back to each others house and lay with the others wife.  Then in the morning they’d go swimming and exchange clothes again.  They did this for a month until Cephia and I were both with child.  I gave birth to Brigit and Cephia bore Gdwyn a son, Nahill. After that the geas was lifted.  Later, Brigit had a daughter by Nahill, Beaunolai.  She was the first generation born in these mountains.  The first máthair of House Gwynlambth.”

                So, I thought, House Gwynlambth is descended from Gdwyn and Nuadhu, and Nuadhu was the last high-king of Baldamear’s line.  Sileres could claim the high-kingship by right of succession.  Except there was no male succession among the Keltii.  Hadn't been since Darmougne Fords.

                “Who else knows this?” I asked.

                “Nuadhu wrote it all down.  He had a great big book of red leather embossed with gold dragons given to him by Deriache the druid.  He’d spend hours writing in it.  He kept track of all the Houses and their births, deaths, battles and histories as best he could while tracking through these mountains with his men.  They would go House to House patrolling the hills, herding the cattle, and helping with the plowing and harvesting.  The other men would tease him of having more ink on his hands than blood and being better with a pen then a sword.  Though they were careful not to test that theory too far.”

                I wondered what the implications of this knowledge could mean for House Gwynlambth and Sileres and the Keltii.  Would anyone believe me, I wondered.  Where was Nuadhu’s book?  If I could find that . . . or was all this just a dream anyway.  While I was musing, grandma Beibhann had gone back to her story of Deriache’s and Nuadhu’s Calling of the Queen of the Ys.

                “They trekked through the jungle for over a month before finding the ruins of the Queen’s Temple," she went on. 

                “One side of the pyramid had been crushed as if by a gigantic beast and the massive stones were charred by a fire from the distant past.  The men climbed up the steep temple steps that rose up like a ladder from the jungle floor to the top.  From there they could see the vast green jungle spread out below and the hot, hazy sky above.  Deriache ordered them to clear the overgrowth from the platform.”

                The men uprooted brush and trees and threw them over the side and shoveled and scraped hundreds of years of dirt off the inlaid marble floor and pulled wrist thick vines off ancient standing stones that looked very out of place amongst the marble, limestone, and fine mosaics.

                When it was clean Deriache prepared a Form of Calling.  First putting down a large square of white sand then a seven-pointed star with a circle around it with seven lines from the middle of the star to the circle's edge in copper filings.  Then the druid placed a large red crystal in the center and sprinkled it with seawater.  To the left of the circle and star he traced a series of symbols and glyphs with iron filings interspersed with smaller white crystals.  Again sprinkling them with seawater.

                “What are you doing, Deriache?” asked Nuadhu.

                “I am opening a doorway for the Queen to come to Nysia.”

                “Where to?  Where is She coming from?  Don't Aillil come from Caldon?  I don’t see Him in the sky tonight.”

                “The Lusitanii sorcerers were not clear on that point.  But you are correct, Caldon is dark tonight.”

                The warrior and the druid looked overhead, only the Broken Sky was prominent in the late afternoon sky.

                “Does She come from the Broken Sky?” asked Nuadhu. “I don’t like this.  Can’t my brother find a woman on Nysia to be his queen?”

                “Your brother is half-Aillil by his mother.  He needs a divine Queen to rule Nysia with him.  The Queen of the Ys will be a powerful ally.”

                “I still don’t like it.  And I don’t believe that made-up myth of his mother.  She was as mortal as mine.”

                “The king has spoken; the omens read.”

                “What did they say, druid?  What did they say, these omens?”  Nuadhu’s shifting stance betrayed his misgivings.

                “That the king She stood by would rule Her lands until a Son came from Caldon to rule Nysia as an Aillil-King.”

                “I do not trust prophecies, Deriache.  Nothing good can come from that calamity in space," he nodded his head at the Broken Sky, "and we have no promise which king She’ll stand-by or who this Son will be.”

                “The king has spoken; the omens read.” Deriache shrugged and began to chant slowly and then faster and faster, louder and louder:

 

IA NANA HEG CUD S’GURRA.  IA NANA HEG CUD S’GURRA

               

                He motioned for the men standing by the top of the stairs to join him.  Nervous and unsure they stuttered and stammered through the alien syllables ‘til Nuadhu had them cease.  Deriache continued alone as Dyannu retreated from the northern jungles to other, saner, horizons of Nysia, leaving the stars free to shine in the sky.  Nuadhu wished he could go with Her.

                In the darkened heavens Buillire's red-orange teardrop could be seen crossing the middle of the Broken Sky; his long tail reaching far to the south.  Now the druid was in a frenzy.  He was chanting faster and louder then Nuadhu knew was humanly possible and then he suddenly collapsed.  Nuadhu called two men to lift him up.

                Within the Form of Calling sparks of green fire chased each other around the outlines of the star and circle while the symbols to the left began to glow blue.  Small lines spread out from the star and circle to meet more coming from the left.  They began to intertwine and connect forming more lines and symbols. 

                The red crystal in the middle began to hum and glow a brilliant white.  The Fir Bolg warriors backed-up to the edge of the platform.  Their hands were restless on the pommels of their swords as the glow became a solid sphere of intense white light on top of the temple.  It expanded ‘til it completely filled the house.  I wondered how Dyr-Lugh could sleep through it all.

                Slowly a shadow could be seen in the middle of the light.  As it grew and came closer Nuadhu could see it was a group of small figures.  As they emerged from the light he saw they were monkeys about a third his height with wild manes of hair around their almost human faces.  They were carrying brooms with which they started sweeping the temple platform and stairs.  With small brushes and cloths they cleaned the dirt and debris from the men’s armor and boots.  When they were finished they lined up to either side of the glowing light.  Nuadhu and his men waited to see what would come from out of Deriache’s doorway next. 

                Another group of shadows marched out in two columns. Now the men were amazed to see over two dozen bronze-skinned, bare-breasted women armed with small bows and stone-knives coming out from the glowing sphere of light.  The women drew their bows and the men, overcome by the exotic beauty of the dusky, dark-eyed priestesses, found themselves quickly surrounded.  The arrow tips, black and sticky with poison, were aimed at the men’s throats.

                Nuadhu was about to protest, but another larger shadow was emerging from the gate.  It seemed to be a tall oak tree; its gnarled branches twisting in some silent wind.  As it moved forward Nuadhu could feel the temple shudder under its weight.  Nuadhu roused Deriache from his faint and he and all his men stood in the heavy night air under the nightmarish Broken Sky waiting for some otherworldly doom to befall them.

                One of the men screamed.  Nuadhu turned to see Gerub’s face forever frozen in horror as two poison laden arrows pierced his throat.  Next to him, Nebhern, his brother, drew his sword.  Nuadhu drew his as well and stabbed Nebhern in the side.  Then he pulled the sword from the dying man and dropped it on the platform.  No one else moved.

                Nuadhu looked back to the shadow emerging from the light.  It no longer resembled some monstrous tree, but was in the shape of a woman.  When the light dimmed and the gate closed Nuadhu saw standing in front of him the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.  She was standing atop a flight of white marble stairs completely naked except for a silver mask resembling the monkeys’ faces with their tangled manes of hair.  Her shapely form, clothed only in grace and power, moved like a jungle cat as She descended to where Nuadhu waited, his dead men completely forgotten from his mind.

                “Come to Me,”  She said holding Her arms out to the druid and warrior.  “I am the high priestess of Sh’Gurrath the Queen of the Ys.  She speaks through this body.  The Queen speaks:  You are not of My people.  Who are you?  Why do you call Me here?  The Queen has spoken.”

                “I am Nuadhu, son of Baldamear, brother of Gödel who is King of the Fir Bolg.”

                “The Queen speaks:  I have heard of none of these people or places.  Why do you come here?  The Queen has spoken.”

                “To propose marriage between the Queen and my brother.  We have brought Her presents and gifts from our land which will be Hers.  The land is fertile and the cities are rich.  I would say the men and women are beautiful, but after beholding You there is no other worthy of the word.”

                Deriache looked at Nuadhu suspiciously.  The warrior was better known for his spear then his tongue.  What caused this sudden waxing of eloquence?  The druid turned and signaled the men to bring up the chests heaped with the treasures that Gödel had sent.  There were many finely wrought pieces of jewelry including a diadem of diamonds and rubies set in woven threads of gold and platinum.  Other chests were full of fine spun wool, aromatic woods and herbs, and wild honey.  All the treasures of the land of the tribes of the Gede.

                “If these please you may we have audience with the Queen,” asked the druid.

                “I speak for Her.”

                “May we not see Her.”

                “None see the Queen, but I.  She speaks through Me, sees through Me, hears through Me, understands through Me, mates through Me, kills through Me.”  As she spoke she looked back up the steps she had descended.  There on top was a box of peculiar make and dimension shaped like a tree with leafless twisting branches.  If anyone resided within it was beyond Deriache’s wisdom how they would fit or what form they would take.

                "Will you come with us to Sephaile Hill by Eirmeare to marry our king?" asked Deriache.

                “The Queen speaks:  I will meet your king and brother.  If he pleases Me I will be his Queen.  Take these trinkets of yours away.  I will name My own bride-price when I come to you.  The Queen has spoken.  Go now and await our arrival,”  said the High Priestess.

                The audience was at an end.  The high priestess turned and ascended back up the stairs to that strange box with Nuadhu’s eyes intent on every sway of Her unclothed hips.  When She had disappeared he bent to get his two fallen men, but the priestesses pushed forward.  The strings of their small bows were taut; their poison arrows inches from his face.  Nuadhu was forced to leave Gerub and Nebhern on the temple platform.

                “Nuadhu and Deriache went back to Tuirn to tell Gödel all that had happened,” continued Beibhann.  "Two weeks later the Queen’s priestesses arrived at Eirmeare in a strange ship with no sails or oars bearing the strange box that Nuadhu and Deriache had seen at the temple.  The box had no windows and no detectable door.  It was formed in the shape of a leafless tree made of a singularly peculiar dull brown wood with no knots and a very fine grain.  It was like the wood of no tree known to silé or druid.  The branches on the top were twisted and intertwined in a disturbing way.  They reminded me more of snakes then tree limbs; like the tangled hair on the monkey-mask worn by the High Priestess. 

                "The Queen's acolytes carried it from the harbor along the paved road to Sephaile hill.  There it was placed on the ancient stone altar beside The Dagda’s lingam. Around it Deriache ordered his druids to erect a wall of  yellow silk screens two men high and ordered that all, but the priestesses and druids, were forbidden to enter on pain of death." 

                “That night Deriache lead the King behind the silk screens to the Queen’s presence.  His brothers and men-of-the-table along with their wives and ladies feasted in the royal pavilion."

                In front of us in the ancient house of Gwynlambth men and women in fine silken brocades woven with gold and silver and studded with gems danced and ate delicacies from silver trays and fine wines from golden goblets.  It was a far cry from the rough men of spear and shield that had stood at The Dagda just six years before.  They tried to celebrate Gödel’s nuptials, but the strange music and singing coming down from the hill made them uneasy.

                One of the king's men called for a toast.  Galedt bid everyone to raised their cup to the king, but just then the Queen’s acolytes started an unnatural wavering howl.  The somber warrior of many campaigns turned white and his goblet fell from his nerveless fingers onto the pavilion floor.  He made no move to retrieve it nor recognize its absence.  All around him men and women stood silent with raised cups while a serving boy came with another so he could continue.  Galedt took the cup, quickly drank all its contents and left the tent.

                Up upon Sephaile Hill the music and noise grew louder and higher in pitch; reaching its height as Caldon’s vast orange globe set and the black sky was left for the stars and the Broken Sky hanging low in the north.  Then the night air was suddenly and absolutely silent.  Even the night birds and beast were hushed.  The King’s company was held motionless; waiting.

                “Then two screams, a man’s and a woman’s, rent the air," continued Beibhann.  "The men-of-the-table raced from the king’s tent and charged up Sephaile hill.”         

                With weapons drawn and raised, relieved to be in action, the men cut through the silk screens and pushed passed Deriache and the acolytes of the Queen.  On the ancient blood-stained altar was the strange box.  Standing next to it was King Gödel and the masked High Priestess embracing.  They were both naked.  The woman had one leg wrapped around the king and was slowly raising herself up and down his rigid penis.  There was no sign of the distress which had caused the screams.  The king’s men looked around uncertain what to do.

                The high druid and the Queen’s acolytes surrounded the men and hurried them back out through the silk screens while the king and the high priestess, “Where’s the Queen?” I heard the king’s men muttering, finished their marital coitus.

                “Nuadhu told me later,” said Beibhann, “that he had looked back and saw or thought he saw a thin tracery of pale-grey tendrils like a web reaching from that strange box to the priestess and King Gödel.  ‘What were those things?  Had he actually seen them?’, he had wondered.  He thought he would ask his brother in the morning.  But he never did.”

 

                “This was not the story I had always heard before.” said the man-girl to Amak.  “In the stories I had always been told before there had been a silver-lined carriage with a chair of silver on which sat the Queen.  It was said that She was only just shorter then King Gödel, which would have been tall for a woman, with long black glossy hair hanging heavy to her waist and large round breasts and shapely hips.  We were told that the King was enamored of Her beauty and power and they made love that night on the grass of Sephaile Hill.  Then as they lay satiated by love the Queen had asked that for Her bride-price the king should march upon the Ys-lands so that Her people, long separated from Her and under the oppression of the Fomor, should be Hers again.  That was the story I had always been told.  My great-great-grandmother’s story that I was hearing that night was very different in some details.

 

                “The next morning, before sunrise, King Gödel called all his men-of-the-table to council.  He told them that the bride-price of the Queen was the conquest of the Ys lands to the east over the mountains and across the loch where the Fomor ruled.  The call to arms went out across the lands of the Fir Bolg and the men-of-the-spear came to the King at Sephaile Hill.  Tents sprung up like mushrooms after a heavy rain and the fires were as numerous as stars in in the sky. 

                “The king ordered new spears made for his men by Deriache with the conjuring of the Aillil.  The heads were short and wide and as sharp as broken glass to slice open an opponents belly.  They were made for slashing as much as stabbing.  It had taken a thousand oaks to make the charcoal for the fire, a forest of ash to make the shafts, and two-hundred herds of cattle to make the shields, armor, and grips of the spears for the men.  Then thin, tempered nickel-iron was layered like scales over the leather of their shields, helmets and breastplates so the men glimmered like tarpons of the sea in Dyannu’s light and their battle cries were like the roar of Nereus’ waves upon the shore.

                “Then, in the spring, King Gödel, Beloved of His People, stood atop The Dagda’s sacred hill and reviewed his men below.  Each chief was there with his 200, each captain with his 600, each commander with his 2400, each man-of-the-table with his 12,000 and Gödel’s brothers, Nuadhu and Uairidnach, who were as sword and shield at his side, each with their 72,000.  So their combined might was 144,000 spears strong and King Gödel’s own force of chariots with spear and bow at 36,000 to a total of 180,000 warriors.

                “The Tuirn, our cousins, however, wouldn’t march east with the king.  The Tuirn love their city on the Gede Sea and wouldn’t leave.  They said their city was the most beautiful upon which Dyannu shone and they had no wish to conquer any other.  The king could have forced them for they owed him allegiance, but his brothers and the Fir Bolg chiefs didn’t wish the Tuirn to come with them to Ys.  The chiefs wished to separate the king from the cities of Tuirn and keep the Ys lands to themselves.   They had come to mistrusted the Tuirn and their city-life. 

                “So King Gödel, beloved of the Fir Bolg, decided to march east from Tuirn over the mountains and the loch to do battle with the Fomor for the Ys lands.  The men dreamed of fertile lands and fattened cattle.  The women of gold and slaves.  The king of power and a mighty army to stretch his hand across all of Nysia and beyond.

                “Never had such a mighty army crossed either loch or sea.  Even the Fomor who had come from their crystal towers across the eastern sea in giant ships hewn of stone had had only a third so many men as King Gödel.  So many men and rams for the chariots along with women and children and baggage and livestock was there that four days would be needed to bring it all across.  The whole Fir Bolg nation was on the march.”

                The king’s druids had built three bridges across the loch made of boats overlaid with planking and sod tied side to side stretching from the near bank to an island at the very edge of our sight in the middle of the loch.  There the people would camp before they could continue across.  Due to the depths of the loch it was impossible to anchor the boats, but they were held together by strong cables laced back and forth from bow to stern which were then twisted taut by engines at either end. 

                At first the weather was very calm and there were no waves upon the surface of the loch, but suddenly the winds changed and blew up from the south.  Dark clouds came up the loch like floating siege towers promising thunder and destruction and the bridges began to sway with the growing waves.  King Gödel stumbled and fell into the loch, just managing to catch hold of a piece of sod hanging over the side of the boat to keep himself from the bottomless waters.

                “Nuadhu and Uairidnach rushed to grab their half-brother by the arms and were about to pull him out when an apparition rose from the waters and grabbed the king by the leg.  It was an ugly fish-hag covered in scales with hair of kelp and loch wrack.  Her eyes were dull red and flat like a dead fish.  With the claws of her bony hands she pulled at king Gödel’s legs, threatening to take him to a watery doom.

                “Oh, hag of the loch, let my king and brother go and you may name your boon,” said Uairidnach.  He was very distressed at his brother’s plight.

                “Great Nereus, is outraged that you are walking across His Father’s waters,” She said.  “He finds it audacious for Man to walk on water and not cross by wind and sail or oar as is ordained.  Nor did you make obsequience as would a sailor venturing upon the waters.”

                “We number too many for boats,” said the king  “Tell me what must I do to save my people from Nereus' wrath?  How may I quell His fury?  We are unfamiliar with the rites of Aillil of the loch”

                “I will have a kiss from your lips king of the Fir Bolg or you shall go no further and the people-of-the-spear will perish.  Kiss me, king, and I will stay His hand.  Embrace me and I will whisper soft words to Him so He will return to his slumber."

                "Don't do it, my king, my brother,” warned Nuadhu.  “You are married to the Queen of the Ys who is as the sun to beauty; this loch-hag is as a funeral torch to ugliness"

                “Aye, my lord, if any man must taste those worm bitten lips then send one of your captains in your stead,” said Uairidnach.

                "‘I see you neglect to volunteer yourselves, but I'll not be put off by either the unseemliness of the ugly or be overly coaxed by the comeliness of the maid.  A true king sees through illusions of the surface to the depths below.  I'll not shirk the duties of kingship because they turn distasteful for surely another will be quick to take my place when they turn more pleasant.’"

                "So king Gödel swam out to the loch-hag and without hesitation embraced her scaly body and kissed her fishy lips and together they slipped beneath the waters.

                “The Fir Bolg people stood still in disbelief, clinging to the heaving bridge wondering if their king, Gödel the Beloved, would be delivered back to them or if they would all share his fate beneath the waves.  Finally a fountain of water shot up from the surface revealing a beautiful woman clad in shimmering armour; Iaonea of the Loch.  Her rich brown hair flowed free about Her radiant face, framing Her green eyes.  At Her side standing upon the waves was King Gödel.

                “Iaonea held his iron circlet now set with three diamonds in her hands and placed it on his head.  “With this crown conquer.  With this crown rule.  With this crown prosper.”

                “Now the winds became gentle and the waves still and King Gödel and his people were allowed to proceed across the loch to the Ys lands.”

                “After four days had passed and the king’s army was full come across the loch they made camp at Niantic and set guard over the bridge.  The king ordered that no fire was to be lit, no horn to be sounded, and all young children and babes were sent to the rear for he wanted to give no warning to the Fomor of his presence.  All the nation waited silently through the night.     

                “The next morning Dyannu rose from the eastern sea and shone across the fertile lands of Ys onto the faces of the Fir Bolg.  The king and his men-of-the-table gave great thanks to Dyannu and Her sister Iaonea for bringing them to this land and they promised Them a splendid temple if they should be victorious against the black Fomor.

                “We marched for two days into the foothills above the fens of Briednalha.  There the king let the women light their cooking-fires and the men sound their horns.  The scouts reported no sightings of Fomor, but brought back two Ys men to see the king.

                “King Gödel welcomed them to his table and had barley-wine poured for them.  He told the Ys that he had come from across the loch to drive the Fomor back to Balor’s glass towers across the eastern sea.  They thanked him and asked how many men had he brought to fight the Fomor for they are as tall as trees and as fierce and strong as two bulls apiece, they said.  King Gödel told them he had one-hundred and eighty thousand men of the spear. He lead them outside his tent and called the men to assembly: each chief with his two hundred and each captain with his six hundred ’til all the Fir Bolg were in their battle squares and the hills were covered in a sea of shining steel under Dyannu’s light.

                The Ys men were crestfallen. “This is all you brought to fight the irresistible Fomor?” they asked. “Please go back and do not attempt this enterprise for surely you will all die and we shall be the worse for it.”

                “We are proven warriors and I hear the Fomor are only a third as much as my army.  Why can we not take them?  If they have conjurers then so do we.  We have druids, faithe, and poets.  And we have brought your Queen from the northern jungles to lead us here and ensure our victory.’

                “Oh sorrowful king we believe by this you have only ensured the destruction of us all.”

                “Send these cowardly dogs from me,” said the king.  “When we battle the Fomor and hoist them on our spears and drive them back across the waves, then the Ys will know that the Fir Bolg shall rule here.”

                “The next morning a band of Fomor came marching from the east across the sodden fens of Briednalha to do battle with King Gödel and his Fir Bolg.  The men were aghast at their size and ugliness, us women at their smell, but King Gödel and his captains had heard tale of these monsters and were not afraid.  Deriache had met them on his quest to find a Queen for his king.  They had killed one of his men each night he was there and served them to him unawares for supper until he had escaped. 

                “The Fomor had been sent to the Ys-lands by Balor their king who ruled from his crystal towers far out in the eastern sea.  He had sent King Bres and the Fomor to rule over the Ys and to send them as monthly sacrifices for his blood caked altar to Great Cthulhu.  The Ys had lived under their terrible rule for over a hundred years.

                “The Fomor hopped across the grassy fens, for each Fomor had but one leg as big as a bull to walk on and in the middle of their barrel sized chests they had but one massive arm carrying two or three spears as large as chariot lances.  But their ugliest feature by far was their hideous faces.  Above their fanged mouths with teeth so sharp and snaggy they pierced the skin of their own lips and cheeks, they had a singular yellow eye as large as a dinner plate.  They had no noses. 

                Unluckily we did and if we hadn’t seen them coming we would still of smelt them.  A putrid mix of odors akin to unwashed goat, bad ale, and digestive discomfort proceeded their charge like a gaseous battle cry.  And if we hadn’t smelled them we would’ve felt them, for though they were still afar they shook the ground beneath us and their weight sent the waters of the fens lapping about the feet of the hills like waves upon the shore.”

                From the hearth I watched the battle next to Beibhann and Gdwyn who was assigned to the king’s body guard that day.  King Gödel gave the signal for the archers to fire from the flanks.  Uairidnach advanced his chariots in the center with Nuadhu and his men-of-the-spear behind them.  The arrows rained down upon the Fomor with little effect as their skins were like the hides of rhinoceroses and were covered with bony horns and plates.  Then the chariots sallied and let loose with their volley of javelins, but with little more effect then the archers. 

                When the last of the chariots turned and the leading crews were ordering their lines for their lance charge the Fomor threw their spears; not with their singular arms but from between the toes of their feet.  They grabbed the spear with their foot then rolled across the wet field and let it fly all in one motion.  Splintered wood, ripped flesh and the red blood of men and rams filled the air.  Three ranks of chariots were destroyed in one cast of their spears.  The surviving chariot-men struggled to regain control of their panicking animals.

                The king ordered the archers to continue firing and signaled Nuadhu’s infantry forward.  They shouted their defiance at the Fomor and charged forward, hurrying to close the distance before those monsters could cast another volley of their massive spears.  Now the archers were beginning to find their mark.  They shot high over their brother Fir Bolg, aiming for the huge, ugly singular eyes of the Fomor.  When an arrow did find its mark the hapless giants would go mad and strike out in all directions.  They became such a danger that their fellow Fomor would have to kill them.  Meanwhile the giants were hopping up and down on the hapless infantry and cutting down swathes of them with sweeps of their spears like scythes through ripe korn.

                Gdwyn, Beibhann’s husband turned to Gödel.  “My lieutenant is inexperienced.  Let me go to my men.”  

                “Every man on this hill is watching his men fight and die,” said the king.  “Your place is here today.  Tomorrow it will be on the field.  Stay your place, captain Gdwyn.”

                Then the Fomor curled up like pill bugs with their spears pointing out either side and started rolling through the ranks of the infantry.  Nuadhu’s men held their ground as best they could, but the Fomor rolled over them, breaking their spears and crushing their bodies.

                King Gödel’s horns sounded the infantry to retreat.  Behind them Uairidnach’s chariot-men had set their lances and were charging in a staggered formation as the Fomor rolled towards them, but their lance tips slipped off the Fomor bony hide and few found purchase.  Those that did were often as fatal to the Fir Bolg charioteer as the Fomor it hit so great was the shock.  Then the Fomor raised up on their trunk like legs and let out a horrible battle cry.  The Fir Bolg rams stopped and cowered; the smell of their urine was nauseating.  Destruction hung over Uairidnach’s head.  Then the Fomor looked to the sky, screamed, and turned back to the east.  Splashing and rolling across the sodden fens; heading back from whence they came.  King Gödel’s men did not give chase.

                “Men were dead by the thousands upon the battlefield,” said Beibhann.  “Of those still living many would not see the day through and many others would not see the light of the next. “

                “Why did they leave?  We only managed to kill a handful of them”, wondered Nuadhu. 

                “Why did they not stay and fight?” asked Uairidnach.

                “I don’t know.” said Deriache.        

                “Find out why and study your arts.” said the king to his high druid.  “I will need all your help to achieve victory.”  Then to his brothers, “Next time we must find a way to bring our full force to bear upon them all at once.”

                “Come with me, Beibhann,” said the high druid. “I’ve need of your assistance.”

                “Deriache and I walked through the field of dying men laying and moaning in the muddy reeds ‘til he found one of Nuadhu’s spearmen impaled to the ground by a splinter of a Fomor spear like an insect collected by a boy; his arms and legs still twitching.

                “What is this man’s name?” he asked me.

                “Fionn,” I answered, “of clan Uaill; same as me.”

                “I need to sacrifice him to The Dagda.”

                “So I asked Fionn to give himself up as blood sacrifice to The Dagda that Deriache could perform his augury and he did agree.  I believe his spirit abides there still in those reedy fens.

                “Deriache pulled the spear piece from Fionn’s bowels.  Then, like a hawk looking down from a great height upon a hare, his dispassionate eyes studied the warrior's dying spasms and how the blood ran from the mouth and wound, and the gaze of his eyes when he breathed his last.  Then with his crooked knife he opened the wound and studied the lungs and liver as he would a sacrificed calf.  When he was through Deriache looked up at Dyannu shining high in the blue sky and then at the retreating backs of the Fomor and then at me.  He touched the side of his nose with his bloody finger and smiled.  “I know why they run.” was all he said.

                “I wrapped Fionn in his cloak as best I could and carried him back to his clan-mother that she might bury him proper.  Later that night while we were at-table, King Gödel asked his druid what he had divined.”

                House Gwynlambth was now a campaign pavilion of finest blue with silver oil-lamps and gold threaded linens.  Servants dressed in fine brocades carried trays of meat and bread and served wine from silver bowls.

                “The Fomor are scared of Dyannu, long may She shine,” sad Deriache.

                The men-of-the-table went quiet and then, one by one, erupted into laughter so loud as to make the sides of the pavilion shake.

                “Pardon, Master Druid of all the Mighty Fir Bolg,” said Uairidnach. “Did you say the Fomor are scared of the light of day?”

                “No my king’s brother.  I said they are scared of Dyannu, Queen of the sky.  They can not face Her in battle.  When She passed into the west they had to turn their backs upon Her and retreat.  They can not set eye, pun intended, upon Her.”

                “Am I to retreat in the morning and attack in the afternoon?  Fight one-half of the day and retreat the other?” asked the king.  “This is no strategy.”

                “Give me three thousand of your shield-boys.  In the morning when Dyannu rises and the Fomor return you will have your victory.”

                “She will rise in the east, you fool.  We will be in the west,” said Uairidnach.

                “Still.  You may do as I say and have victory or not.”

                “What do you think, my Queen?” Gödel asked the high priestess.

                “I do not know these people.  Let the druid do as he wishes.”

                “I could tell She was lying.  I was amazed no one else could.  It was obvious to me that She knew the Fomor and why they couldn't face Dyannu.  I told Gdwyn, but he didn't wish to challenge the king's new bride.

                “In the morning the Fomor again hopped across the fens from the east.  Now they numbered ten times what they had the day before.  The men were fearful, but the king had placed the chariots on the south side of the fens and the spearmen on the north so each could fight independent of the other.  The bowmen were at the apex at the hills in the west to close the trap.  Behind the Fomor Dyannu shined weakly through a morning dress of mists.”

                One of the Fomor came forward.  His singular arm held up to offer parley.

                “I am Edbar chief of these Fomor for my liege King Bres.  Tell me who are you so that I may tell him what man’s carcass graces his table and who's army feeds his men tonight.”

                King Gödel didn’t not answer him, but spoke to his High Druid instead. 

                “Your trap has failed Deriache!” said the king.  “Dyannu doesn’t shine for us today.  I may lose twenty thousand men by noon.”

                “Worry not, my king.” said the druid. “Dyannu will shine for you.  She’s always been faithful to you.  She shan’t let you down.”

                “If so then I shall build Her a temple three times as big as I promised.”

                “From my vantage point next to the king’s herald I could see the face of the high priestess of the Queen of Ys.  When Deriache made mention of Dyannu her face had turned green with jealousy and when King Gödel talked of building a great temple for the Queen of the Sky, who had ever looked after the Fir Bolg and continually sent Her good fortune down upon our beloved king, her face had turned dark with an inner rage.  It was an awful sight to behold; like watching a brother being stabbed in the back and naught to be done of it.  I wished my Gdwyn had been there to see it, but he was with his men.  The High Priestess saw me and called for her mask.”

                Edbar called out again to the king.  “It’s a pity you don’t tell me your name.  The king’s chef is very good.  Perhaps he’d name a new dish after you.”

                King Gödel signaled to his horns to sound for battle.  The chariots and spearmen advanced under a cloud of arrows.  Still Dyannu tarried coyly behind the mists.  The king paced as his men valiantly tested their might against the Fomor giants to little avail.

                “Perhaps, my king, my husband, I may be of some assistance.” said the masked High Priestess.

                “My men are being slaughtered by the dozens every second we await for those mists to clear.  If you have any conjuration that may hinder the first or hasten the second: speak.” said the king.

                “The priestess went behind the yellow silk screens around the Queen’s sedan.  Strange voices and scents arose from behind the screens.  The king’s men protested that it was sorcery unnatural for Fir Bolg to delve, but King Gödel told them to hold their tongues and to keep ready.

                Out in the fens the ground started to tremble.  Ripples in the marshy grass became waves as the ground shook beneath the bewildered Fir Bolg and Fomor warriors.  Gödel had his horns sound retreat.  The spearmen and chariots moved back from the fens to the surrounding woods.  The Fomor hesitated; unsure. 

                Then the soft sodden soil of the fens cracked open like an egg shell.  The shaking ground and water became mud.  The panicking Fomor bounded to and fro on their single legs and sank up to their knees becoming trapped in the mire.  King Gödel’s bowmen cautiously advanced from the flanks and took aim at the hapless giants while the infantry and chariots reordered their lines.

                Edbar called to his Fomor to calm them and told them to raise their arm over their faces to protect their eye.  Then as the Queen’s making passed the Fomor slowly pulled themselves from the muddy ground and rolled themselves into balls like the day before and began to roll forward toward the hill where King Gödel stood.  His body guard bid him retreat, but he would not. The king’s spearmen at the base of the hill prepared their great lances to receive the Fomor charge.

                There was a great crash of wood and men and more then a few Fomor meet their end for that day, but many more Fir Bolg had been killed, and injured; crushed under the giants’ enormous weight.  Now the Fomor were just a chain’s length from King Gödel.  Again his body guard implored him to retreat; again he refused.  

                “Ready your swords,” he cried and as he drew his weapon. Dyannu, done with Her morning toilet, now shone out from behind the mists.  Her dawn light ran down the king’s blade, tip to hilt, and shone back into Edbar’s ugly eye.  The giant howled in shock. 

                Then Deriache ordered the boys he’d placed in the hills to raise their shields to met Dyannu’s light and reflect it back into the faces of the Fomor.  The giants stopped and quaked in unaccustomed fear.  They were unsure of what to do.  Every way they turned Dyannu was in front of them.  They could not attack and had no retreat.  Caught in Dyannu’s light they were slaughtered ’til only Edbar stood; a towering tree amongst a felled forest. 

                Only now did King Gödel acquiesce to address the Fomor captain. 

                “Tell King Bres to meet me at Darmougne Fords in two days so he may surrender these lands to me and the Queen of the Ys.  Be sure to tell him before you grace his table at dinner tonight.”  Then he instructed his men to let  the Fomor go. 

                Two days later King Gödel encamped at Darmougne Fords on the left bank of the Loden. 

The Wren King; Chapter 5: Darmougne Ford

Chapter 5: Darmougne Ford

             “Now is a tale of sorrow,” said Beibhann.  She got up from the hearth where we had been sitting and started walking among friends and family of a time long past to me, yet just yesterday to her.  Her face that looked so much like my mother’s was awash with the love she had for them mixed with her pain of knowing their fate. 

            “From our victory we were soon befallen to defeat; betrayed on every side.  How different our history, the history of the whole world, if not for this single chapter of calamity.  The whole of the story of our people is divided by that river; two halves bound by that Aillil bedamned ford!”

            “Across the river, to the south,” she pointed, “was the camp of King Bres and his Fomor warriors.”

            There, on the far side of the house, King Bres rode back and forth along a river bank upon a black bull with golden horns and golden armor.  He was not like the Fomor of Balor’s army who have but one arm, eye, and leg.  He was a beautiful man, strong and well shaped, over two eels high with long red hair bright as fire and eyes, two of them, black and flashing like lightning amongst storm clouds.  King Gödel with his brothers and Deriache, and his men-of-the-table stood on the opposite bank.

            “For two days the armies camped across from each other.  On the third morning the Fomor king came down to the Loden.”  Now Beibhann took the place of her younger self beside another woman with long, straight black hair and serious eyes.  That must be Cephia, I figured; Nuadhu’s wife.

            “I hear you have brought the Queen of the Ys with you.  I demand that She be brought forth so I may have audience with Her,” said King Bres.  He was dressed in black leather with a breast plate of gold and gold guards for his shins and arms.  His shield boy held a gold helmet and a great sword in an open-work gold scabbard.  “The Ys of these lands are no longer Her people.  They abandoned the northern jungles many years ago.  I rule over them now.  Bring Her forth.”

            “The Queen of Ys is my wife, Bres, and not to be commanded by you,” said Gödel.  “If you wish to contest the might of the Fir Bolg then come, we are here and with the help of Dyannu and the Queen we will destroy you.”

            “Your ugly face is in the lands of my liege, King Balor, you worm among worms.  I command here in his name and I shall crush you when I cross this ford, but ‘til then I seek audience with She who would call Herself the Queen of the Ys.”

            Now the Queen’s High Priestess come out of Her pavilion when She heard King Bres’ voice.  She came down to the bank across from the ford wearing the Queen’s mask to see him. 

            “Why do you wish to make war upon your people?” asked Bres when he saw Her.  “The Fomor have ruled here for centuries in peace with the Ys while you tarried far away in the Broken Sky. Why do you now come here with this cringing  milksop who camps on my ford like a beggar sitting at a doorstep.”

            “The Queen speaks: Why I chose to leave and why I have now chosen to return is My concern.  Do the birds of the field inquire of the Aillil to explain the secrets of Caldon or the stars beyond?  And if they did, how should those Mighty Ones answer?  The Queen has spoken,” said the high priestess.

            “Surely not with war and if so not at the side of this mealy worm of Man.  You are a Queen majestic and strong.  Let us come to terms for the good of our people.  We needn’t bother with these mortals.”

            “The Queen speaks:  You say you live in peace with the Ys, but you send my people to Balor to be sacrificed on his altar to Cthulhu.  The Queen has spoken.”

            “Don’t be coy, my Queen.  Does your new king know how much blood, how much horror, you need for your altars?  I hear the last one left You when He saw Your true face.”

            “Lies!” screamed the masked priestess.  “Lies!  All of it is lies.  The Queen speaks!  She speaks!” 

            I didn’t need for Her to take the mask off to see the rage in her eyes or to know the truth.  In a fury the king called his men to order and would have marched across the ford to attack King Bres and his Fomor army immediately, but was stayed by Deriache.

            “He means to coax you into battle, my king.  ‘tis not the time.”  The grey bearded druid held back the king with two hands upon his breastplate.

            “I’ve the men to defeat him in battle.  Why do you consul waiting?”

            “We’ve men enough if we chose the ground and time carefully, else it’ll be our ruin.  Make fain to talk with him.”

            The king put on his best face; convivial and magnanimous.  “King Bres, surely we can come to terms. Let us talk together.  Man to man; king to king.”

            “I don’t much like your looks from here, Gödel,” said Bres from across the river.  “I doubt very much they’ll improve with the closing of distance.”

            Gödel was furious.  Then the Queen’s high priestess put Her hand upon his arm. “I’ll talk with him, my king.  For the good of both our peoples, Fir Bolg and Ys, let me go to him.”

            “I knew then that She was false,” said Beibhann turning to me.  “I tried to warn Gdwyn and Nuadhu of Her treachery, but they wouldn’t bring my thoughts to the king.  I went to Cephia to see if she could warn Gödel.  She was rebuffed by the Queen’s acolytes at the king’s pavilion, but she did learn one important fact: the Queen’s high priestess was pregnant with Gödel’s child and they were sure it was a son.  ‘Why would She betray the king who’s son She carries?’ they had asked Cephia.  The news caused me to doubt myself.  It seemed things were going just as the Deriache and the omens had predicted.

            “So the Queen went to talk with King Bres, taking as escort seven acolytes and Uairidnach with three men.  They did not return that night nor the next day, but sent notice that talks were continuing.  For three nights the Queen stayed across the river and the king’s fury grew ’til Deriache could barely contain him.  Then my husband, captain Gdwyn, went to Nuadhu with a plan to cross the ford farther to the west with a force of chariots and bowmen at night to wait in surprise on the opposite bank to attack the Fomor in case of battle. 

            “The king seized upon the plan and insisted on leading it personally.  He left Nuadhu in charge of the camp with orders to rally the men at midnight to divert the attention of the Fomor.  Then the king with Gdwyn and Deriache lead two thousand chariots and again that many spearmen west through some light woods to where the Loden was shallow and wide with a stony bed.  At midnight Nuadhu and the men-of-the-table quietly awoke the Fir Bolg and had them put on full armor.” 

            The Fir Bolg assembled and stood in the middle of my ancestral home, row upon row, quite and still.  The light from the campfires reflecting off the steel scales of their shields, helmets, and armor and from the tips of their spears made them seem like a sea of flame under the star strewn sky.

            On the other side of the Loden the Fomor were sleeping with only a light guard.  Suddenly a horn sounded in the Fomor camp and the sleeping giants rose from the ground like trees falling up instead of down.  The light reflected a sickly yellow off their over-sized eyes floating high above the ground like the little toys of paper and candles the druid make for the children.  They howled at the sight of the Fir Bolg arrayed for battle.  Even from across the wide Loden on the other side of the house their breath stank of bad meat and stale beer.

            Dressed in his brother’s armor, Nuadhu lifted his spear and shield over his head and all the men gave out a war shout to shake the stars in the heavens and the stones of the house.  The Fomor were silenced in disbelief.  Then the men started to beat their swords and spears on their shields. 

            “After so many days of inaction it was glorious to hear,” said Beibhann.  “It made my blood run hot and put shivers down my back.  My thighs suddenly longed for my husband, but he would be staying across the Loden with his men.  The women started doing their clan-ululations.  Of old the women of each clan had had a slightly different inflection to their calls so they could signal each other across the hills.  Now we added our voices with those of our men roaring at the Fomor across the river.  There would be a lot of babies made that night I was sure.

            “Finally King Gödel returned to camp as the Broken Sky arose in the north and  Dawn was crowned in the eastern sky.  With a final battle cry the fires were extinguished and we made our way to bed under the dimming stars.  As I predicted the sounds of men and women making love soon emanated from almost every tent.  I felt very lonely for my captain.

            “On the following day, King Bres with the Queen’s High Priestess beside him came to the banks of the Loden and called to King Gödel.  He was insulting and contemptuous to our king.  Under no conditions would he choose to surrender, he said.  I think he meant to incite the king to battle, but Gödel bid him send back the Queen if Her embassy had not prevailed and they would then have recourse to the sword in due time.

            “So the High Priestess came back across the river to stand by King Gödel, Her husband.  That night they ate in private, not with the men-and-women-of-the-table.  The next day King Bres came back to the river bank.  Thinking he meant but to heap more derision on the Fir Bolg and their king, Deriache himself ordered the archers forward and would have had them fire, but the tall Fomor king, dressed now in linen robes of violet and silver, put his hand up to speak peacefully.

            “My priests say I have spoken hastily and should come to an agreement.  We acquiesce to the Fir Bolg might of arms, but if we leave we will still have need of Ys to supply Balor’s temple to Great Cthulhu as does the Queen for her own altars.  Send Her back to us so we may agree to a number.”

            “Deriache saw nothing wrong with this idea,” said Beibhann.  “That the Ys would be sacrificed on the altars of the Queen and Cthulhu was quite acceptable to him, but not to King Gödel.  When he heard of this offer he was furious.  Nuadhu told me of the conversation the king had with him and Deriache.”

            “I told the Ys I had come to send the Fomor back to their towers far in the eastern sea and free them from enslavement, not portion them up like sheep for the slaughter,” said Gödel.

            “Your own Queen needs blood for Her altar.  I’m beginning to think this is why the Ys left Her so long ago and why She desperately wants them back.  Their blood, beyond that of any other people, gives Her power.  Power for you to use.  That quake in the fens was just a small taste of what She can do,” said the high druid.

            “It was you that enabled me to turn the course of the Dian at Tuirn.  That was no small feat.”

            “That took me days of preparation to accomplish and an underground cavern to swallow the river.  If the Tuirn had held out but one more day they’d have seen through our ruse.  She only needed minutes.”

            “And how big of a taste does She want of the Ys or the Fir Bolg?  Some of my men mistrust Her already.”

            “Surely you knew some of this.  Did She not tell you when you took her abed?”

            “It is strange those times when we are together.  I seem to float from ecstasy to ecstasy.  I’m completely drained when we finish.  We travel behind the veil of the world to other worlds and other times.  I see things and beings I can’t remember clearly in the morning, and don’t wish to.  And She always wears that mask when we make love and I’ve never seen inside that box or set eyes on the Queen Herself.  Only once, this morning, did I see something like a hand reach out to touch the priestess and hand her a small silver box.”

            “What was in it?” asked Deriache suddenly curious.

            “A seed, I think. It was a yellowish grey and round and pitted and sat in a pool of silver rust.  She said she was taking it to Bres as a token of peace.”

            “Well let Her go talk with him about the Ys.  It’ll distract him and any agreement we make now we can unmake later,” advised the druid.

            “How will we protect the king from Fomor treachery while he parleys with Bres?” asked Uairidnach.

            “They are an evil people, but they can be bond by oaths and words of power.  Such I will work when the kings  are met,” said Deriache.

            “So King Gödel let the high priestess go back to Bres.  That evening She returned saying they had agreed that four Ys should be sent each month to Balor at his glass towers in the eastern sea in exchange for the lands along with one-fifth of each year’s grain and milk.  Also the Fomor were to be treated as allies and their ships were to be supplied and replenished when they visited Fir Bolg ports.  So it was agreed that the Kings would meet the next morning at a pavilion on the south bank of the Loden to sign the compact.

            “Only a small armed escort was to be allowed for each king and all those entering the pavilion were to be unarmed and unarmored except the kings who were to wear breastplates for protection against chance mishap.  I watched as Gödel, Nuadhu, and my captain and husband, Gdwyn, having left his men with his lieutenant, Calvin, crossed the river along with the high priestess and the Queen.   

            “Now was all that had been so carefully planned and wrought brought to naught.  Nuadhu would never admit it, but I know it was by treacherous design that the Queen’s blade was ready for Bres’ hand.  No one had protested Her possession of the curved, saw-toothed blade She used for Her altar sacrifices.  Why would Deriache care if the Queen  brought a knife, She was no threat to Gödel in his mind.  Neither did the Fomor object, but when King Bres saw it on Her hip he grabbed it and stabbed King Gödel in the neck even as they grasps arms in peace as Deriache began to utter his words of power.”

            In front of Beibhann and I the blue colored pavilion erupted in violence as blood poured from the wound in King Gödel’s throat.  Nuadhu tried to go to the aid of his king and brother, but was pushed outside the tent by Gdwyn and his men who then turned back to cover his escape.  Deriache exploded into a flaming sphere, felling several of the giants around him as he shot up into the sky.  The High Priestess and the Queen’s ark were quickly surrounded by the Fomor and taken from the tent.  Nuadhu fought his way back to the Loden seeking to gather his men to rescue Gödel, but when he made it back he saw that his brother Uairidnach was surrounded by Fomor who had been disguised as trees and placed all around the camp.

            “Nuadhu and his small band of surviving men attacked the giants from behind while his brother rallied the spearmen and chariots to push forward,” said Beibhann.  “From our ramparts around the camp the archers, both men and women, shot at the eyes of the Fomor, but to little effect.  These ones had already been blinded so as not to see Dyannu in the sky.  Instead each had a Ys man chained across its chest to shout it instructions.  I ordered the women to shoot at the Ys slaves and the other archers followed suit.  Soon the Fomor lines were in disarray and the few survivors were routed back across the Loden.  From the west, Calvin attacked the Fomor on their left flank with the men who had been hidden there two nights earlier, but the effect of their surprise was diminished in the chaos.

            “Now Uairidnach and Nuadhu were met and ordered their lines to make ready their assault across Darmougne Ford, that Caldon bedamned fucking ford, where Bres’ army waited across the river holding King Gödel.”  Beibhann’s voice was hard yet trembling around the edges, close to tears.  “Whether he was dead or alive the king’s brothers and captains didn’t know, but they wouldn’t leave him.  Oh, why couldn’t they just have left him.  Everything would’ve been so different.  Men are so stupid sometimes.  You’d think they know more about war and battle; they studied it so much.”

            “You wouldn’t find Keltii women running off after banners and glory,” I said.  “We’re more sensible.  That’s why we’re in charge of decisions of war in Ys. 

            “The men claim it was honorable to die for the king,” said Beibhann.  “Well, honor doesn’t fill the dinner bowl.”

 

            Beibhann, Cephia, and I watched from the hearth as the Fir Bolg infantry, lined up in silver-scaled battle squares, long-spears forward, crossed the Loden under a barrage of stones and darts to contest the Fomor for the opposite bank.  The archers aimed for the giants’ ugly, yellow eyes, but Bres had learned of this trick and he had had the Fomor in the front lines fashioned with helmets with narrow eye-slits.  On the flanks Uairidnach’s chariots were hampered by large stakes that had been hidden beneath the stony riverbed and were now pulled up by chains.”

            Nuadhu looked back to us three women standing on the hearth.  “Niantic,” was all he said.

            “Cephia and I hurriedly organized the women and children and marched them north and west back to Niantic, taking only food and the barest necessities,” said Beibhann.  “It was a horrible feeling fleeing a battlefield and leaving our husbands, sons, and fathers behind.  We had been victorious for so long we were unaccustomed to retreat; to defeat; to death.  When we reached the loch’s shore we had to endure yet one more calamity.

            “There we found that the bridges across the loch had been burnt.  Along the shore the bodies of the men we had left behind lay in a line on the beach; arms and armor at their sides.  A lone women with brown, unbound hair stood over them; Her green eyes were red with weeping.  We asked her what had happened.

            “They came from the north in long ships with the warm wind in their square rigged sails,” she said.  “They wore bright red tunics and bronze helmets with feathers and brought gifts.  They praised your king, his brothers, and their captains.  They feasted with your men, your husbands, your sons and then in the middle of the night cut them down without warning.  I could not stop their deed, but I promise you not a one of them will ever reach home.  I hold them in my black fastness beneath the waves.  I shall hold them there ’til they have forgotten Dyannu’s light.  I shall hold them ‘til Death Himself has forgotten them; ‘til they have no name.  So swear I, Iaonea of the Loch.”

            “The Tuirn had performed their final betrayal, but not by their own hand.  As ever they had hired others to enact their crime in their stead.  This time it was the Atrebati who had taken western silver.  Now we were trapped in the mountains between the loch and the Fomor.

            “It was three days later when Nuadhu and Deriache met us at Niantic.  Bres had let them leave Darmougne ford with King Gödel’s body stripped of his iron crown, but had forbidden them from taking any other man from the battlefield who could not walk on his own.  Of one-hundred and eighty-thousand warriors that had crossed the loch fewer then sixty-thousand remained.  Only a handful of women had surviving husbands.  Our king was dead, as were most of his captains, Uairidnach was missing, and we were close to being utterly destroyed.

            “We had a choice of disbanding the nation and going back to our separate clans and living in the hills and fighting for survival against each other and the other tribes living there or we would have to dramatically change our society.  The men didn’t wish to abandon King Gödel and the women had had made many friends across clan and tribal lines since the Belogi, the Caledonii, and the Helvetii had become united as the Fir Bolg.  So it was decided that the available land was to be portioned amongst the women according to her husband’s rank and their type of marriage.

            “The druids said this was to be a temporary arraignment until a proper male heir could take possession of each father’s lot.  Until then the men and boys, from first hair on their chin to last hair on their head, were to be organized into patrols constantly on the move from house to house across the mountains to provide protection and help with the fields.  The sword of each man was to be for the protection of all; the work of each man was to be for the benefit of all.  The men would have no property except the few heads of cattle they herded and their arms and armor.  The cow’s milk was to be given to each house in turn and the bulls were to be used to clear and plow the fields.  No women was to have a husband to call her own. 

            “We were now all widows of the Fir Bolg.  However we soon realized that instead of losing one husband we had gained several.  For if every man’s sword was for the protection of all then every man’s biodag was for the use of all as well and we made very good use of them.  Some of the men took to sleeping in the brambles rather then endure our attentions.  Well all this lascivious activity made the druids blush, and worse, ruined their plans for reinstituting a male hierarchy, for with no proper marriage contracts it wasn’t possible to keep an accurate paternal lineage.  Lines of descent soon became reckoned from the maternal side for both boys and girls.  And since boys were sent to the patrols while girls tended to the farming, milling, spinning and other duties of the house the land came to be passed from mother to daughter.

            “But before all this came to be we had to say good bye to our king, our beloved Gödel.  The druids fashioned a sarcophagus out of a type of rock that floats on water.  They had divined that King Gödel should be buried beneath the waves to be suspended within the waters of the loch so that Caldon would one day send a son to defeat Bres and the Fomor.  We made sacrifice of three bulls and three goats and three hawks and commended our king to Iaonea’s care.  He floats there still to this day in the depths between the two seas of the loch, fresh and salt, where Dyannu’s light fades and reaches no further.

            “We had been the Fir Bolg, the men-of-spears, now we were called the Firbolg which among the tribes of the eastern mountains meant the men-of-women-of-bags.  Meaning these trousers we took to wearing.”  She got up and modeled them for me.  “They’re baggy with little style, made from weaved strips of leather over felt, but they are warm and better then long dresses in the mountains.  The men wouldn’t wear them.  They said trousers were for slaves.  No matter how cold it got, or nasty the flies, or how many times they sat on a thistle patch you couldn’t get them out of their kilts.  Anyway you didn’t have to get them out of their kilts, you could just kind of reach up and get what you wanted, like milking a goat. 

            “Those were some fun times!  Oh, there was this one time, when Dwarrin--”

            “Fun times?!  You were freezing in the winter, eaten by flies in the summer, and starving year round,” I said.

            “Who told you that?”

            “My mother!”

            “Well!  I don’t remember her being there.  Anyway, if you’re going to get all upset about it, I’m sorry if I had some fun now and then.  Next life I promise I’ll take my suffering much more seriously,” she answered.  "We were a strong family; a proud family.  The first family of the Keltii."

            “What of the coming of the Keltii?  When did that happen?” I asked.

            “Another story for another time.  Dyannu will rise soon and I must go.  Now rest."  She put some more of the stuffed goat skins down by the fire and bid me lay down and then covered me with Dyr-Lugh's cloak.  The walls around us moldered and crumbled.  Moss began to grow and cover the dirt floor.  Field mice, voles, foxes, and hill-wren came and made House Gwynlambth their own.  Then the ground shook and the corbel roof fell to the floor around me.  My vision of the ancient home of my ancestors faded 'til only Beibhann was left standing by the glowing log on the hearth.  "You must go your own way now, Gwyn." She said as she slowly disappeared into the western wind.

            "But . . ?" I raised up on my elbow.  "My name is Uillceal."

The Wren King; Chapter 6: Tuirn and Máthair Dianna

Chapter 6:  Tuirn and Máthair Dianna

             Dyr-Lugh and I were already walking across the east face of the mountains heading back to the carriage at the seeress' grotto when Dyannu peeked out from under Her blue-green bedcovers of the distant Fomorian sea.  Below to our left the Ys lands were in shadow with Dyannu's fingers just brushing the bare stony knobs of the Beren Hills and the topmost branches of the oaks of the Barrow lands; new spring green and oldest grey floated on a black canvas. On a black lake; the Ys lands submerged beneath, still a slumber.

            When we had awoken in the morning I was laying on the hearth with Dyr-Lugh’s cloak over me.  Next to me had been a sword and a small leather bound book in a locked glass case.  A silver key was on a chain around my neck.  I recognized the sword as Beibhann’s and figured the book was hers as well.  I told Dyr-Lugh I had found them under a lose stone in the hearth.  They had probably been buried with Beibhann and now she had left them for me.

            We crossed back through the narrow pass to the western slope above the loch and were in darkness again.  Above us the last of the stars were fading from the blue sky.  The last to leave was Gorgon hanging in the south.  It isn't really a star at all, but a cluster of small white suns in a vast cloud of gas.  I've seen them up-close on my father's observation table.  He said they are new stars, just born, merely several million years old.

            After a time we came to the grotto and boarded the carriage.  It was only much later that I wondered what had become of the carriage man.  He wouldn't have left his ewes and wagon unattended.  I think Dyr-Lugh killed him, but when did he have the chance without me seeing or noticing his absence I don’t know.

            Dyr-Lugh held the reins lightly while studying Beibhann’s sword, trusting the ewes to know their way back to Niantic.  I took the silver key from around my neck and unlocked the glass case and took out the book.  The pages were yellow and brittle at the corners, but in good shape for being almost three hundred years old.  It was mostly a diary of what my great-great-grandmother Beibhann had told me the night before. 

            There in thin spidery Old Gedic was the story about her conceiving Brigit with Nuadhu when he and Gdwyn had exchanged wives, King Gödel’s crossing the loch and kissing Iaonea, and the story of the days before and after Darmougne Fords. The last pages of the book were written as Beibhann lay ill and dieing.  They told of how Nuadhu had been called to the Queen’s court after some Cerenii had captured Brigit in the hills and taken her to King Bres.

 

            ‘I’ve been a laying here many days now with the fever coming in spells and have aught to do but think and write.  Its been vexing me how Brigit was able to be captured in these hills she knows so well.  She can be quiet as a mouse and slippery as a weasel when she wants; how could she have been caught?  How did she allow it to happen, I’d been wondering.  And then I realized it was because she had allowed it to happen.  She had planned on getting caught and turned over to King Bres so she could see the son of her father’s brother.  King Gödel’s son; Lugh.  He’s 15 now.  Brigit must think its time.’

 

            Time for what I wondered.  The last entry in the book was written in another hand.  It was unmistakably masculine with the words running into each other like someone who’s mind outpaces his hand.

 

            ‘I returned today to find that Beibhann, wife of my captain and dearest friend, Gdwyn, slain at Darmougne Fords many years ago this day, has now followed him unto Great Caldon, Father of the Aillil.  I’d of liked to lay her by the alder trees where her husband’s bones lay scattered, but these rocky hills will be where she will rest forever more.  I lay her next to my own wife and her best friend, Cephia, beneath this hearth.  They were ever true friends and faithful wives.  We were lucky men, Gdwyn and I.

            ‘Many of those of us who had crossed the loch with Gödel and survived Darmougne Fords have since died.  These mountains of the east are colder, the soil poorer, the slopes steeper then the hills of our old home in the west.  They have taken a heavy toll on us, but many of the younger children show good strength if they pass their first years.      

            ‘How long must we tarry in these lands and wait?  All my friends are long gone, even Deriache, that son of a sow, long may he be blessed, is dead.  When will Caldon send the son the druid spoke of?  Arawn, Lugh and my own daughter, Brigit, have taken the fight to the Fomor in the lowlands.  They have rallied some of the other tribes and freemen and are causing King Bres some trouble.  Are any of them the ‘Son-from-Caldon’?   Would that I could live to see the day of Bres’ destruction.’

 

            What had happened after this was written I wondered.  According to the stories I knew, Brigit and Lugh, along with Arawn and Llyr, were forced to leave Ys after a failed battle.  They later returned changed from mortal Man to Aillil: the First Keltii, but when and how did that happen?  And where does Llyr come from?  There’s no mention of him in any of the stories Beibhann told me or in her book.  I decided I could no longer trust the stories as they had been handed down to me; too much it seemed had been left out or changed.

            I needed to find Nuadhu’s book, its history would be unvarnished by the centuries, but where could it be?  Did some máthair have it in her family library unaware of its significance or did the High Druid or the Ard-king have it hidden?  Or the Queen?  That thought gave me unexpected shivers.  Beibhann hadn’t trusted the Queen.  If She had ever had Nuadhu’s book in Her possession I was sure She would have destroyed it.  I realized then that it would be dangerous to ask anyone about the book, even my own mother who was silé, but also a gossiper.  It was she who had let slip about my visions.

            I would start in the library when I got back to House Gwynlambth to look for clues as to Nuadhu’s last days.  Perhaps the book had been buried with him in the barrow-lands or hidden shortly before.  I also needed to ask my father about the seeress’ vision.  I had almost forgotten about her.  She seemed insignificant compared to Beibhann and Nuadhu, but the vision was important. 

            “This is a good sword,” said Dyr-Lugh.

            And the King.  I needed to know more about Him as well.  Dianna knew of the King.  She had purposely left the first pool in the bathhouse before the rest of us so she could go look at Him alone.  I hoped she could tell me more then the seeress had.

            “If you’re going to have a sword like this then you should learn how to use it.”    

            The words Dyr-Lugh said were so alien that it took me a while to realize what he meant.  Keltii girls are trained in archery, but at my age most had long put away their bows.  I still practiced a few times a week.  I liked the concentration and focus and a good thwack when I hit the target square-on.  Some girls had also been taught how to use a dagger by their brothers or their house-swords so as to ward off unwanted attentions.  I kept a pair of stilettos given me by blade Cean on two wrist-sheaths, but none of the girls that I knew of within my circle of friends or beyond were proficient with a sword.

            “Could I hold it?” I asked

            “Its your sword.” he answered holding it out for me hilt first.

            “No,” I said not taking it. “I mean could I hold it up to use it?  It looks rather heavy.”

            “You mean do you have the strength to wield it.  I think so.  Its not overly heavy and it’s well balanced.  I think it was remade for a women.”

            “Why?”

            “The original tip has been taken off and the edges have been honed down to make it shorter and lighten the blade.  The hilt and guard have also been remade to be lighter and to fit a smaller hand.”

            “But why?”  I must have been thick after so many things had happened in one night.  Visions give one little time to sleep.

            “So a women could fight with it.  The men weren’t always around in those days.  A patrol could be days away.  The women, old men, and even children would have to fight hand-to-hand against goblin-kin or raiders from other tribes ‘til help could arrive.”

            “You seem to know much about those times, Dyr-Lugh?”

            “I fostered with a druid who lived in the central loch lands.  He studied the old histories of the pre-Keltii times.  He needed a strong back to help with digging and carrying equipment and later good eyes to help with identifying and sorting his finds.  I found it interesting.  Maybe when I’m old and done with fighting I’ll study it some more.”

            “I thought the only Kelti-blades who were done with fighting were the dead ones.”

            “Yes,” he said. “I suppose that’s true.”

            When we got back to Niantic my mother was pacing outside the inn.  She gave me a big hug and asked if I was okay.  I told her I’d spent the night at our ancestral home, but left out the details of seeing great-great-grandmother Beibhann.  I thought I'd tell her when we were alone.

            After breakfast the sloops were made ready to sail.  One difference between sailing on the loch instead of the sea is you don’t have tides to be concerned with and the harbors along the loch are very deep.  After we set sail the captain told my mother that it would take two days to reach the other-side because they couldn’t cross directly over the middle of the loch.  He said the winds were blowing the wrong way and there were cross currents that could swamp the ships.  From what I had learned talking with the ship’s crew the previous day and with my training as a silé I could sense his fear and fabrications.  I’m sure my mother could as well, but she didn’t push the point. 

            Something was making the captain and men avoid the middle of the loch and they didn’t want to talk about it.  I went to find Dyr-Lugh.  I figured he’d know what the men were scared of that they wouldn’t tells us women.  I found him below decks talking with Dianna about something. 

            I waited ‘til he noticed me and excused himself.  Dianna had a strange smile on her lips.  I wondered if she and Dyr-Lugh had been arranging a tryst and what my mother would think about that.  I reasoned that Kepheria was not a jealous woman and put it out of my thoughts.  It’s common for allied máthairs to share swords.  I asked Dyr-Lugh to follow me above decks.  I had brought my sword so I could ask him for some instruction.  After he had shown me some simple moves I asked him about the crew.

            “They seem scared of something in the loch and even more scared to talk about it.”

            “There was gossip in the taverns about sightings of Erophisis in this part of the loch.  It is said He guards the sarcophagus of King Gödel.  Some say it is good luck to see Him others say it is bad to disturb Him.  All agree that sailing with women passengers when He surfaces is ill fortune.”

            “I should have mother order the captain to sail straight across so we can see Him.”

            “That’s if Erophisis and King Gödel are even there.  I’d not risk insulting the crew over stories told over ales at an inn.  The loch has more tales then fish to fit them to.”

            “If women aren’t allowed to see Erophisis then how do we know He exists at all?”

            “Don’t you believe the men who have told of Him?”

            “Men are as full of stories as they are of ale, as you just said.  It takes a woman to think clearly in these matters.  It takes a feminine mind to judge the facts and observations objectively.  Men are so romantic they sometimes see things as they wish them to be or see things that aren’t there at all.  ‘til I see Erophisis myself or hear of Him from a reliable source like a silé or druid I’m forced to assume He doesn’t exist.”

            “You’re right.  I must of just imagined it.  I’ll endeavor to be more rational in the future.”

            “You’ve seen Him?  When?”

            “Does it matter?  I’m not reliable.”

            “Argh! Men!  I didn’t mean you, Dyr-Lugh.  You studied with a druid.”

            “I dug holes and carried equipment.”

            “You read his books for him and catalogued his finds.  You’re no idiot.”

            “I’ll be sure to tell my brothers at the lodge that you hold me in such high esteem.”

            I didn’t talk to Dyr-Lugh for hours after that which isn’t easy on a small ship.

            I stayed above decks for most of the voyage across the loch.  Kepheria stopped short on allowing me to bring my hammock top-deck, but at night I’d slip out of the cabin to see the midnight stars shining against the black sky.  There are so many more to see when Caldon is in abatement.  His thin waxing crescent wouldn’t be seen ’til early morning the day after next.  Meanwhile the winter stars were making way for the constellations of spring.

            On the southern horizon the stellar lovers, Gdyn and Heil, forever entwined in an astronomical embrace, were partly covered by the twin peaks of Iaonea’s isle.  Just slipping below the western peaks across the loch were the three bright and four dim points of the Star-of-Making.  Math, the Man-Bear, was just rising in the east.  I stayed and watched the stars and planets come and go 'til Anemone and Odette were well beyond meridian and the first tendrils of the Broken Sky could be seen in the north.  It's actually kind of pretty sometimes 'til you realize the hell that resides below its surface.   I went down to my bunk and spent most of the rest of the day sleeping, only waking to have a late tea and dinner.

            There were no sightings of Erophisis that day or the next morning as we crossed the loch.  At the other side the sloops changed crews and we proceeded through the locks down the side of the mountains to the wide slow Dian river.  The Dian is deeper then the Dannue so the sloops could carry us all the way to Tuirn.  They furled their sails for the trip down river letting the current carry them.  The steersmen had to be careful of the ships tacking upstream who had the right of way.  Dianna pointed out a tall rounded hill in the distance as the river meandered through the flat muddy plains, now yellow-green with sprouting spring korn.

            “That is Sephaile Hill," she said.  "It was dedicated to The Dagda in older times.  You used to be able to see the lingam stone standing erect against the sky from here.  The Tuirn slaughtered all the sacred bulls that used to graze there when they burnt Deriache's bridges over the loch.  Later a massive quake knocked over the lingam and sent the city of Eirmeare into the sea."

            "It is said that Nereus claimed the city rather then let the Tuirn have it," said my mother.  "Later Lugh came to avenge the Tuirn betrayal of King Gödel, but The Dagda was never reinstated on Sephaile Hill."

            “Was The Dagda the king of the Fir Bolg?”  Maisha asked. 

            “He is called the Good King," my mother answered.  "He is the life of the land after the cold winter.  He is symbolized by a young korn stalk reaching up to Dyannu.  She is His mother when She warms Him in the spring and His consort when He is grown and the korn is ripened in the autumn as is the way with Aillil."

            “It is part of the cycle of the year.”  said Dianna, but the word she used wasn’t ‘annual’.  Instead she had used ‘annulus’ meaning ‘ring’ denoting the celestial belt which Dyannu travels through in the Great Year of the Cosmic Cycle alluding to creation.  “It is like a wheel forever turning.  Each part of the wheel is different and now this part faces our way and then another.”  

            “I didn’t know you were a student of philosophy, Dianna,” said Kepheria.

            “One of my swords found a book of verse by Gabriel in the library and read it to me in my chambers one night.  I don’t think he understood it fully.  I believe he thought it was love poetry, but it had the effect he was hoping for.”

            “Which was?” I asked.

            “Getting me naked in bed of course.  That’s what they’re always after.”

            “Never knew a sword to need metaphysics to get you to drop your skirts,” said Kepheria.

            “Yes, but its nice when they try a little.”

            We continued down the Dian until we came to the new walls of Tuirn and the river port just inside.  Here Kepheria gave instructions to the crew for the cargo to be offloaded and sent messengers to inform our shipping agents we were in port and ready to start loading for the return trip.  She wanted the sloops to spend as little time tied up at the quay as possible.  Tuirn docking fees are very steep and they charge by the hour.  My mother wanted the new shipment loaded within six hours and promised our agent, a man named Hamout, a bonus if he could get it done in four.  After that the sloop for the return voyage would sit at anchorage until we were ready to leave.

            I stood on the quay leaning on a lamp post.  My legs were all wobbly after being on the sloop for over two days.  Standing on the busy wharf I suddenly realized this was where King Gödel had stood when he had struck the ground with Deriache's staff and made the Dian flow uphill.  From that spot I could see remnants of the old wall from which the Tuirn bowmen had shot at the king and his druid as it snaked through the jumbled together buildings of the city.  Parts of it had been torn down to make room for construction or to be used as material for new buildings.  To my left a row of dilapidated boardinghouses leaned against an isolated section for support.  The one place the Tuirn don’t seem to obey any law is urban planning. 

            When our legs were steadied Dianna, Maisha, and I grabbed a quick tea while my mother finished talking with the port officials and dock master.  Dyr-Lugh was by her side while Cean, our other house-sword, stood more aloof circling the perimeter.  When she was finished we took two dog-carts to our hotel escorted by our swordsmen running alongside.  Kelti women are allowed one swordsman apiece when visiting Tuirn.  Since we had four women, including me and Maisha, we were allowed to have four swords:  my mother’s, Dyr-Lugh and Cean, and Dianna’s, Lyon and Altair.  Keltii men are not allowed in Tuirn without their máthair patrons.  Nor are they allowed to walk the city alone.

            The Tuirn say that’s because Kelti blades cause too much trouble fighting and whoring and getting drunk.  That is of course true.  It's what Keltii men do and they do it better then any other men in all of Nysia by which I mean the whole world.  I haven’t encountered any warriors their match in all my travels. 

            Tuirn law also states that it is illegal for a tavern owner to sell a Keltii-blade wine or to let them gamble on their premises.  Blades rarely get wine back in Ys.  One glass can make them very drunk, more so then a whole hogs-ear of ale, and very unpredictable.  They’ll go from ‘How’d you do?’ to ‘Fuck you!’ in a heartbeat.  As for gambling, well, they hate to lose and arguments can quickly lead to brawls or worse.  Back home that’s expected, but the Tuirn find it very disorderly.

            We took a nap at the hotel and then headed to the Comptroller's Office.  Mister Hamout was there to greet us.  He said he had made arrangements for Kepheria and Dianne to see a Mr. Ainpoile, Assistant to the Comptroller of the Secretary of State.

            "Assistant?" asked my mother?  "Where is D'nos?  I've always done my business directly with the secretary."

            "They said he is indisposed," said Hamout uneasily. 

            Kepheria was irritated.  Maisha was nervous and impatient.  Dianne was smiling.  I was studying their different reactions to the situation when I spotted a tall, slim, dark haired man with pale green eyes walking across the golden-veined marbled floor towards us.

            Dyr-Lugh stopped him about twenty feet away.

            "That's the assistant secretary, Dyr-Lugh," said Hamout. "Let him pass."

            Dyr-Lugh looked Ainpoile up and down at close quarters; almost like he was trying to smell him.

            Ainpoile for his part stood still and seemed to be quite unperturbed under the blade's careful gaze.

            "Dyr-Lugh--" started Hamout, but he was silenced by a glare from Cean.  My mother's larger, dark-haired sword scowled at the Tuirn agent.  "Kepheria, I--"

            "Máthair Gwynlambth," said Cean.  I think it was the first words he had spoken in the seven days of the trip so far.           

            "Yes, sorry," said Hamout.  "Máthair Gwynlambth perhaps you should ask Dyr-Lugh to let the secretary--"

            "Assistant," corrected Cean.

            "Assistant secretary through.  We don't want to insult him."

            "You're my agent Hamout.  These are the swords of my house.  They are seeing to their duties.  Are you doing yours?  If the assistant secretary feels he is being insulted he has right to recourse."

            I walked up to the secretary who was standing under Dyr-Lugh's scrutiny.  I had seen eyes like that before.  The set of his cheekbones and jaw were familiar.

            "Your from Poilhnise," I said.  He blinked.  "That's why Dyr-Lugh doesn't scare you.  You're not a Tuirn so you're brave, but you also don't know any better.  You think Dyr-Lugh is under my mother's control.  That he’s waiting for her order or that she can call him off.  Many people misunderstand the relationship between máthairs and their swords.  Living in a land of slaves and masters you think that is the way we live as well. 

            “But that's not true,” I continued.  “Dyr-Lugh protects Máthair Gwynlambth, my mother, Kepheria, because he loves her and is pledged to our house by his honor, as is Cean.  If they judge you a threat they will kill you.  They will kill you before Kepheria can order it.  They will kill you before they even think of it.  That is the training of a sword of the Keltii; they are pure instinct.” 

            "Don't your swordsmen follow your orders?"  He looked back at Dyr-Lugh with more interest; still he didn't seem scared.

            "They are not employees or slaves.  They are more like husbands.  Dyr-Lugh is not letting you next to my mother or even Dianne or Maisha until he is ready."

            "This one, Dyr-Lugh is his name?  He doesn't seem to mind you getting close to a possible threat."

            "Perhaps he's hoping for you to make a move," I said.  Dyr-Lugh smiled.  It was unpleasant.

            Ainpoile did look scared then.  He hadn’t thought such sophistication possible in a people he had long been told were dull barbarians.  "You don't mind being bait?" he asked.

            "I've got teeth of my own,” I said, thinking of my stilettos in their wrist sheaths and a Hand-Shock sigil in the pocket on the back of my right hand glove.

            "I came here to talk about trade," Ainpoile said straightening his face and regaining his poise.

            "Where is D'nos?" asked Kepheria.

            "He's in conference with the sheiks of the Gev coast," said the assistant secretary.  "Negotiations are tense.  He tenders his best wishes and sent me here so you needn't wait for him.  I have been authorized to hear your petition on his behalf and act as is in the best interests of Tuirn and our continuing relationship with Houses Gwynlambth and Coughne and the Keltii of the Ys-lands."

            My mother pursed her lips as if in thought.  Actually she had already made up her mind, but the appearance of indecision can sometimes prove useful.

            "If you wish I'll tell the secretary that you want to see him personally and he'll contact you when his business is concluded," offered the now adequately disquieted functionary.

            "No, that shouldn't be necessary," said Kepheria.  "Are you quite finished Dyr-Lugh?"

            "This one is more then he appears," said the blade to Kepheria.  "He isn’t carrying a sword, but he has used one.” 

            "As the young lady mentioned, I am Poilhnise.  We are trained to fight from our ships at a young age.  We prefer our sabers to your long-swords."

            "I think I like him, for a Tuirn." said Dyr-Lugh.

            "Poilhnise," said the assistant secretary.

            "Same thing," said Dyr-Lugh.  "But," he said turning to Kepheria, "he'd kill you if he got the order to."

            "As is to be expected from a loyal servant.  Come Ainpoile , lets talk business."

            "This way, ladies,"  said the Assistant Secretary of State leading the way up the marbled stairway to his office.  The teak banister along the stairs had been impressed by the signet rings of countless ship captains.  I found the double porpoises holding the triple chevrons of Tyrone, the arms of captain Deirdre of the Magdalene which had been lost off Bight Point fifty years ago.  It had been a famous wreck as all hands had been lost except the captain.  She had been found naked, covered in seaweed, and her flesh scared from what appeared to have been a savage attack by a squid of tremendous size.  Which was puzzling as squid don’t frequent Bight Point. 

            She also had apparently gone insane, having bouts of screaming fits where she raved incoherently about some giant tree attacking her ship.  The silé did the best they could for her, but finally the Queen’s priestesses sent her to live out the rest of her days cared for by a priesthood of deaf-and-dumb monks in the bare southern hills.    

            When we got to Ainpoile’s office three clerks were already busy pouring over the chancery books holding the records of all financial transactions between Tuirn and Houses Gwynlambth and Coughne for the last fifty years.  It was rather tedious, but Kepheria and Maisha seemed within their element.  After awhile Dianne had had enough.

             “Come Uillceal, lets leave these ciphers to their business.  I didn’t suffer that tedious river-barge to sit in a stuffy room with inky fingered men all day.”

            “I should stay with my mother.  I’ll be a máthair of House Gwynlambth some day and will have to overlook its accounts.”

            “Actually your share of the House lands will be held in trust by the Queen’s church.  You’ll be much too busy to run the house while you’re an acolyte and priestess,” my mother reminded me.  “I’m thinking of bringing one of your cousins from House Erön to help me.  They’re a minor house and Lady Naomi has too many daughters.  Maybe I'll bring in Louis, she’s very attractive; maybe she’ll get Sileres to stay.”

            “Excellent idea,” I said because it was, not because I liked it.  The thought of another woman in my house made me quite livid.  I practiced the cant of calming and tried to button down my emotions.

            “You don’t look good, Uillceal,” said Maisha.  That girl could have been silé with some training.

            “I need some air,” I said.  “Lets go, Dianna.”  I  gathered up my cape and hurried down the stairs to the portico in front of the Chancery.  Lyon, one of Dianne's swords, came running close behind.  The men were very security conscious in Tuirn.  No blade trusts the Tuirn.  They had betrayed us twice.  I waited by the Chancery doors for Dianne, catching my breath.  I’d had a lot of abrupt exits lately I reflected.

            Lyon, a little breathless from the brisk pace, moved several feet to my right, leaning nonchalantly against one of the marble columns.  It was a very practiced casualness typical of Keltii blades.  It was part arrogant contempt of all things not Keltii and part easy confidence in being able to handle any situation that might present itself or die trying; success and failure being two sides of the same coin.  A Kelti swordsman continuously scans his environment and lets his instincts detect and react to possibilities of danger before he thinks consciously.  From his deceptively lax posture Lyon might call out to a passing woman, play with the children in the street, or cut down a man with either his sword or crossbow just because something told him he didn't look right.

            When Dianne came we retired to a café across the plaza from the comptroller’s office.  Lyon and Altair, Dianne's other sword, followed us.  At the other corner was the old council hall where Deriache had confronted the electors of Tuirn three centuries earlier.  The ornately carved red granite building with the scalloped wood eaves stood in stark contrast to the more austere buildings around it.  It was no longer used for council sessions, but held a kennel for draught dogs and a leatherworks factory.  The Councilmen of Tuirn, as the electors now called themselves, held their meetings in a newer building in the southern part of the city where the old city walls had been dismantled.  Lyon left Altair with us and went to explore the historic structure.

            Dianna ordered us tarts filled with chicken and broccoli in a sour cheese sauce with some claret.  I ate in silence; inwardly fuming about my mother’s decision to bring another woman into House Gwynlambth, my House, to see to its accounts and worse, to seduce my brother.  Why did that bother me so?  Surely Sileres was a man now and ready to find a house and lady to pledge to.  If Louis could keep him at House Gwynlambth I should be happy, but I wasn't.  I had, in my estimation, spent a lot of time grooming my brother to be, not just a blade, that had been Dyr-Lugh's and the other swords’ job, but educated and refined.  Not easy qualities to teach a man, especially a Keltii.  I had wanted Sileres to be more then just a good sword.  I had plans for him.  I hadn't known exactly what those plans were before, but now I thought I did.

            “Why so glum, Uillceal?  You don’t like your mother’s idea?”  Dianna pushed her plate to the side and procured a cigar from the maitre d’.

            “I shouldn’t worry too much.  Louis would be a help for my mother when I'm a priestess and Sileres will tire of her in a week.  She may be pretty, but it’ll take more then that to hold my brother’s interest.”  I decided to order a small sherry.

            “Why do you care where his interests lay?  I would have thought you’d have other interests of your own to keep you occupied.  You’ll be an acolyte soon and also a woman.  Or perhaps you already are.”  Dianna lit and puffed on her cigar, sending a river of grey smoke across the Tuirn sky.

            “If you mean the seeress’ shadow lovers, neither Maisha nor I partook of them.”

            “No, not them.  I mean a man of flesh and blood.  The two of you alone in the chilly hills.  You vulnerable; him strong and virile.  How was he?”  Her eyes didn’t quite sparkle the way they should when asking for gossip.  They were actually a bit hard, but that might have been from the smoke.

            “You mean Dyr-Lugh?”

            “Yes.  Did you have an enjoyable evening together?”

            “No.  I mean it didn’t happen that way.”

            “Oh, too bad.  I guess I’ll have to find out what he’s like first hand, if I can ever pry him away from your mother for a few minutes.”

            I felt like a hare hiding from a hound and Dianna was sniffing all around looking for what hole I was in.  What was she up to?  Where was this conversation going?  The two of us sitting alone without my mother or Maisha I felt was not an accident.  That it had something to do with the statue of Ouroboros in the seeress’ pool I was certain.      Diana’s face was a study in calmness; too studied.  Such control was admirable especially since she wasn’t silé.  Still, she was hiding something, but what.  I wondered what gambit she’d play next.

            “Why don’t you try one of the H'rancis cheroutes?” she offered.  “They’re very good if a little sweet.  These Old Kingdom tabbās I like are too dry for your first time.” 

            Her ploy was to try befriending me by including me in her indulgences.  I doubt she had ever offered Maisha a cigar.  Her imagery of dry combined with ‘first time’ was a definite allusion to my virginity.  We were to talk as teacher to student, Dianna and I.  The question was:  what was she going to teach me and what was to be the price for her tutelage?  I kept my tongue and waited.  The waiter came with my sherry.

            “You have questions you want answers to,” she said.  "Questions about the King in the pool.”

            “Yes.”  I sipped my sherry while Dianna blew smoke.  It was pale yellow with a tinge of green and just a little sweet; the wine not the smoke.

            “Am I to guess the questions as well as provide the answers?” she asked.

            “As you know both it would save time,” I answered.  I decided I’d rather be a fox then a hare.  The fox has teeth; teeth and guile.

            “You’ve a cold little heart.”  Her blue eyes were hard and bright.  A small smile played on her lips.  The same she had had on the sloop.

            “That secret has already been let out.  I’ve been told I’ve not a generous heart.”

            “By the seeress?  Sounds like her.  I take it you found her answers unfulfilling.  She didn’t tell you much because she doesn’t know much.  We keep it that way.  Can’t have her blabbing to every woman that comes for a card reading.”  She stopped and puffed on her tabbā; I sipped my sherry.

            “The Ouroboros in the pool is one of the symbols of the King of Nysia who searches for His missing Queen.  Sometimes He is the Aillil of the World Ocean, or Horned Cernunnos of the Secret Paths, or even The Dagda who rises up like the korn to the sky waiting for Her to return.  There are hundreds of these statues, pictographs, carvings all over the world.  They are all symbols of an important underlying idea.  Some are of one Aillil, many with two, and others with four; very rarely with three, each with a missing element:  a blank spot or silver circle where their sacred object should be.  You could see that the circle of Ouroboros was incomplete.  Just a silver circle at the tip of His penis.  That is where we take our name from.  Its where the Queen should be to take His life-force and give it form in the world below.”

            “Yes,” was all I said and waited.

            “You’re supposed to ask who She is and where did She go,” continued Dianna.  “The answer is we don’t know precisely.  There are many names, but most of them just translate as Lady from Heaven, Her of Nysia, or Gentle Hand.  Each Aillil-HE that we know of alludes to a greater power behind Her.  They all tell of a First Mother of which they are just a small part.  Even the most powerful, Dyannu, states in the Book of Nihau that She is but a faint lamp next to the brightness of Her from which She came.  We do know that this Queen existed before an event called the Cataclysm.  In fact Her leaving Nysia either caused or was caused by this Cataclysm that nearly destroyed Man and laid waste to the First Kingdoms.

            “Since that time the King symbolized by Ouroboros, Cernunnos, and others has been separated from the Queen.  The Silver Circle is trying to bring Them back together as a balance against the power of the Queen’s church otherwise, with the demise of the silé, the Queen will completely rule Nysia.”

            “Next question:” Dianna continued.  “Why do we care about some missing ancient Aillil that --”

            “Who put Him there?” I asked.  It seemed to me to be the most important question.  “And why?”

            “Who?”

            “Ouroboros.  Who put Him there in the pool?”

            “It was placed there by a cult of Ouroboros many centuries ago to try to tell us something is missing and maybe give clues how to find the missing Queen and call Her back.”

            “Why hasn’t She come back?  And, yes, why do we, you, care?  The world seems to be doing just fine without this Aillil Queen.  And isn’t the Queen of the Ys the Queen of Nysia?”  I thought about Deriache and Nuadhu calling the Queen to Her temple in the Nysian jungle.  What would Dianna think of that story, I wondered.

            “I thought I was asking the questions?” said Dianna.

            “I got curious against my better nature.”

            “Your curiosity is your better nature, Uillceal.”

            “Not if you asked my mother.  And why have you never told Kepheria about the King?”

            “It is for each woman to find Him or not for themselves.  Few women venture below the surface of that cold pool.  Those who do have an innate desire to know the unknown and perhaps unknowable.  How long do you think you spent in the cave looking at Him?”

            “A minute. Minute and a half.  I couldn’t of held my breath more then that.”

            “As silé you should know that the body can do amazing things when it wants.  You were in that pool for eight minutes.  I estimate you spent half of that below the surface.  That’s the kind of effect He has on those He calls.  The king enthralls those who see Him.  He sticks fast to our minds.  Few of us ever mention Him to others.  Those who are told of Him aren’t effected in the same way even if they see Him later.  Its discovering Him unexpectedly that seems to have the effect of captivating us.  I’ve wanted to tell Maisha and Kepheria.  You’ll want to tell them too, but something will always stop you:  the time won’t be right, someone else will walk into the room, they won’t listen or they’ll change the subject.  Something will always come up.” 

            It was the first time I had ever seen anything like sadness cross Dianna’s face. She had an incredible secret and she couldn’t share it with the two women she loved most:  my mother and her own daughter.  By their nature they were excluded from ever knowing this part of Dianna, and now, me.

            “Why is She important?”  said Dianna going back to our question answer format.  “She is a missing element in the forms.  She created Nysia along with Caldon.  To know Her and Her proper name and place within the Forms of Making would give great power.  I don’t understand the Forms, but I was told you do.  Your training as silé by your mother and in sorcery by your father along with your visions makes you unique.  Which is why the Circle sent me to be with you for this trip.”

            "How did they or you arrange that?"

            "Maisha's my daughter.  She and Kepheria share a interest in trade and profit.  The casual floating of an idea at just the right time is all it takes.  She and you were already friends.  Many girls go to the seeress together,”

            “This whole trip has been a set-up to see if I would see the king?”  My mind was reeling with too much information. I finished my sherry and ordered another to cover my confusion.  So much had happened in just a couple of days.  The whole framework of my life was being shaken.  I was a fish in a bowl and people kept knocking on the glass.

Chapter 7: Ploum’s and Sephaile Hill

            We waited at the café ‘til Maisha and my mother joined us then we went to Ploum’s.  The dressmaker’s shop was a commotion of designers, seamstresses, buyers, sellers, and customers.  Bolts of fabric, spools of thread, and cutout patterns were scattered across several worktables.  Ploum, a round, balding man was busy going table to table like an overly large bee in a flowerbed, overseeing the progress of each creation.  His wife, Tuirn are monogamist, was negotiating with a seller of brocade.  It was a wonderful bluish purple with gold thread in a stylized wave design.  Apparently Ploum had bought some last year and the seller was trying to get a better price, but Ploum’s wife, I never heard her name, said it was last year’s style and they had all they needed.  I could tell it was just a tactic.  She knew Beltane was coming soon and blues and purples were favorite colors for Keltii women's gowns.

            Ploum noticed us then and came right over to my mother.

            “Madam Gwynlambth, it’s a pleasure to see you again.  Is this your lovely sister?”

            “I’ve told you before, it’s Kepheria, and this is my daughter, Uillceal, and my friend Dianna of House Coughne and her daughter, Maisha.”

            “Daughters?!  No!  You are both much too young to have daughters so grown.  You trying to fool Ploum?”  That is the Tuirn idea of flattery.  He went on and on.  I tuned most of it out. 

            Ploum had one of his assistants escort us to the back showroom so we could look over the dresses for ideas.  He said he would be back to size us momentarily.

            “Oh these are pretty,” I said.  I had found a rack of very colorful dresses with ribbons and ruffled underskirts in the back corner of the shop.  Many of them had very high slits up the sides, front, or back.

            “Gwynlambth-daughter,” my mother said with some amused exasperation.  “You have the most hideous taste.”

            “Those are for the whores, Uillceal,” said Dianna.

            “I still think they’re pretty; and my size.”  I picked out a sea-green one with a slit up the left leg.  I held it against me and looked in the mirror.  “It matches my eyes.” 

            It was also a perfect fit.  At two arms, a hand and a thumb tall and still only fifteen I was already taller than the average Keltii girl my age.  I was already as tall as Kepheria and only a few links shorter then my father, Mezjio.  Yet a sizable majority of these dresses were my size or larger unlike most in the shop which were smaller.  Strangely the width across the hips was narrower than the shoulders.

            Dianna was whispering something in my mother’s ear and gently laughing.  Kepheria’s face was turning pale and red in turns.  “Uillceal, put that dress back this minute!  This fari!”

            She hadn’t talked to me like that since . . . I couldn’t quite remember.  She had always taken my misbehaviors in stride.  Now she was furious and flustered. 

            “I’m . . . I’m sorry, mother.” I managed to stammer as I fumbled putting the dress back on the rack.  “I just thought they were pretty.”

            “If you like the color I’m sure Mr. Ploum has more material.” she said through stiff lips.  “Now come lets get you measured.”  She took my arm and steered me to one of the backrooms where Mr. Ploum’s assistant was waiting, tape measure in hand.

            “Oh good,” he said.  “Have you found anything you like?”

 

            "I found out later what the dresses with the slits were for.  They’re made for boys.  In Tuirn only boys can be whores so the married men can say they haven’t cheated on their wives.  ‘As true as a Tuirn’ we say in the Ys lands.  I’ll explain more about that later.  Unfortunately that was not my last trip to that city."

            Amak realized he had never been to Tuirn.  He hadn't been to that part of Nysia in the last two thousand years.  These Celtic Fur-balls or whatever they called themselves had probably been hunting with sharp sticks and gathering berries last time he was in that area.  It was strange how things can change over time.

 

            Ploum agreed with me that the usual purples and blues of Beltane were not good colors for me.  I tried to get him to use the sea-green material I had seen in the other dress, but he just dismissed it with a flick of his hand.

            “That was last year’s style two years ago.  No, we want Beltane with the fires and the men and their bulls.  We will warm them and captivate them.  You will be their fire, dear Uillceal.”

            He designed an off-shoulder, long sleeved, drop-waist gown of warmest red, almost rust, for me and convinced Dianna to go with a similar dress with a fuller skirt with no sleeves in a slightly brighter red.  Maisha and Kepheria went with a more traditional dark blue using inserts of the brocade I had seen earlier.  Maisha’s was to be very tight to show her slim figure while my mother’s would expose almost half of her sizable breasts with a cut out high collar buttoned across the neck.  It had a little train with a wrist loop for her to flourish.  Did I mention she’s a show-off?  Ploum retook all the measurements and assured us that the gowns would be delivered in plenty of time for Beltane.

            We went back to the hotel for dinner and bed and woke early the next day so Kepheria and Maisha could go back to the Chancery to work out the final details of our new trade compact.  Dianna made no effort to get ready and instead lounged about the room in her peignoir making a big show of enjoying her morning coffee.

            "Mother," said Maisha.  "We need to be at the Comptroller's office in twenty minutes.  Are you getting dressed or not?"

            "Not," said Dianna.  “Me and Uillceal are going to Sephaile Hill.”

            That was news to me, but it sounded much more intriguing then the Chancery.

            Mother and Maisha left and then Dianna and I were alone.

            “Sephaile Hill is a three hour carriage ride from here.  I think you should see it.”

            “Didn’t think there was much to see since the bulls were killed and the earthquake knocked the lingam over.”

            “There is still a feeling about the place.”

            “You just want to see if I have a vision there.”  I turned and glared at her.  I was irked at being used.

            “Cynicism can bleed hope,” she said.

            “Hope was the first sin,” I countered.

            “Without hope what else is there?”

            “Everything,”  I needled.

            '“Uillceal!  You are just too much!”  Dianna, unlike my mother, hadn’t much experience with difficult students.

            “Too much for you perhaps.”

            “I’m to instruct you in the way of the Silver Circle.”

            “The people with no answers looking for a Queen with no name.  I’m not sure this ‘way’ is of interest to me.”

            “We have questions you have never thought of.  That I am sure intrigues you.”  She was right about that.  I’ve always liked questions; almost more than the answers.  And images of the King in the pool had hovered at the edge of my dreams all night.  I felt drawn to Him yet wondered if there was a cure to what I felt could become an unhealthy obsession.

            We got dressed and Dianna hired a ewe drawn carriage for the trip taking Caen for protection.  Dianna liked his quiet demeanor; mistaking silence for unawareness.  We left Tuirn going north along the coast with Caen loping alongside.  We went past Dyannu’s cave where She had birthed Nereus then headed east over the coastal hills to the flat plains of the interior.  Here we passed rundown shanties and empty homesteads

            “These lands have been abandoned by their owners.  They emigrated to Tuirn to seek a better life,” said Dianna.  “For most of them it has ended in debt and slavery.  More and more of the land is being organized into large estates farmed by slaves while the owners live in Tuirn.  Whole estates are run by slaves from the overseers down, never seeing their masters.  The smaller landholders can’t keep up with the raising rates on the money they borrow and the taxes they pay while at the same time they are being undercut by slave labor.  It’s the lingering death of the western freeman.”

            Dianna instructed the driver to turn northwest back towards the coast.  After about eight kings the road ended in a sand filled semi-circle depression.  It was about a half-king in diameter with the west side open to the lapping waves of the Gede sea.  White granite blocks jutted up from the beach at strange angles.

            “This was Eirmeare?”  I asked.

            “Nereus took it to His realm beneath the waves.  The blocks you see were part of the eastern wall left behind to guard against Tuirn attack.  They say that when the waves came no one screamed or ran, but instead praised the Son of Dyannu and Okeanus and went happily to His abode beneath the briny waters.  The people of Eirmeare had been neither Fir Bolg nor Tuirn and had been peaceful, never needing to take up arms as the druids had decreed that no tribe should conquer or hold Eirmeare.

            “The city,” Dianna continued, “was central to the kingship rituals of the Gede tribes and was sacred to Nereus and His fathers Ouroboros and Okeanus as well as The Dagda and Dyannu.  A candidate for kingship would sail into the harbor at dawn in white robes in imitation of Nereus rising from the sea then walk barefoot along the walkway to The Dagda nine kings away.”  She pointed out a white limestone walkway that rose from the sands of the beach and headed east.          

            “The would-be king was escorted by three druids; one in front and two behind.  If he failed to make it to Sephaile Hill before Dyannu passed overhead they stabbed him to death where he stood.”

            We got back in the carriage and bumped down the limestone paved walkway.  As we progressed down the once white crystalline road I noticed faded brown stain marks.  They grew more and more numerous ‘til the last chain-length was completely rust colored from the blood of failed kings.  The tall dry grass and lavender along the road and walkway hid forsaken bones, lost crowns, and unrealized dreams of glory.

            We disembarked at the base of the hill and then walked up the ancient worn path to where the lingam stone had once stood next to the altar.  The quake had toppled the slim stone monolith across the altar, shattering them both.  After over two hundred years the pieces were all but overgrown by grass and wildflowers.  The lower parts of the broken lingam were smooth and dark from centuries of people rubbing it. The rest was rough and pale grey with spots of red and orange lichen. 

            “The men would rub it for strength and bravery before battle.  They would cut their sword hands and offer it their blood.  Whole tribes would gather to touch it when the druids laid a bull in sacrifice upon the altar and would smear the lingam with its fat.  On nights when Caldon and His Eye were gone from the sky the women held secret rites to guarantee fertility for the land and themselves.  They would rub it with more than just their hands.  They would partake of orgiastic rites and rub their naked breasts and bodies on it and on Dyannu’s Day if there was an eclipse a druid would be caught and blindfolded and laid on the altar.  Then the women would strip him naked and collect his seed over and over again and coat the lingam with it and dance for The Dagda and rub themselves on it.”

            “Lucky druid.”

            “Not really.  Our ancestors were savages, Uillceal.  The druid was sent to The Dagda when they were through.”

            “The women?”

            “Tore him to pieces.  Some say one of the women was also killed with him, but that is not as well attested.  The pieces of flesh were taken to a cave near Leid that is sacred to Cernunnos and there fed to the snakes.  The Tuirn didn’t like the women’s rites to The Dagda and tried to stop them.  They said it was promiscuous and gave license to adultery.  You know how they feel about that.  They are so scared their women will leave them for a better fuck.  They’re probably right.  I would.”

            The idea of a bunch of women rubbing their gighs against a stone column to the accompaniment of flutes and drums sounded primitive to me.  And killing a druid; preposterous.  Did any of those things really happen or were they just stories I wondered.  I touched the fallen stone lingam and brought my fingers to my nose as if expecting to smell the fishy-fruit scent of women or the pungent smell of some doomed young druid’s semen.  Nothing.  In fact I got no feeling from the place at all.  Any Aillil presence that used to be there had long left.

            “The Dagda isn’t here anymore,” I said.  “I think the quake was Him leaving.  The Dagda doesn’t bless these lands.  Soon Tuirn will starve.”  Why had I said that I wondered?  I hadn’t thought about it.  It had just come to me.  I could see people starving; crying for food for their children and flames as cities burnt.

            “There will be wars in the west,” I found myself saying.  “Tuirn will send its slaves into battle, but there will be no succor.  Their maws will open and not be filled.”  I felt dizzy.  It wasn’t a visitation from an Aillil like I was used to.  Instead it was a conjunction of thoughts and images rushing into my head.

            Dianna looked unperturbed.  “The Circle’s projections have come to the same conclusion.  Slaves are cheap but they don’t care about the land.  Without a king the west lands will be laid to waste and that isn’t a good thing whether you like Tuirn or no.

            “How many free tribes are left in the west?” I asked.

            “Only those bordering the northern jungles and the hills of the south are independent.  All the rest have been usurped into Tuirn; enslaved.”

            “They have no druids; no kings.  Just their Law.”

            “It is part of what we want to fix.” said Dianna.

            I just shook my head.  Might as well strive to keep the waves from the shore.  Maybe Nereus should wipe the whole land clean, I thought, but he probably didn’t want the Tuirn any more then I would.

            “When we get back to Ys I’ll arrange for you to meet one of the elder sisters of the circle,” said Dianna.  “She’ll be able to answer your questions better than I can.  She’ll help you see what we are trying to do.”

            “There is nothing here,” I said without answering.

            With our business in Tuirn concluded we set off back home early the next day.  The sloop could sail up the river with the west wind so we didn’t have to bother with ox drawn barges like on the Conht.  Our cargo for the return trip was finished goods: furniture, textiles, glassware, wire, thread, rope, perfume, cigars and tobacco from the Old Kingdoms, furs and two live foxes from Brittanea, and a complete set of weights and measures in both Gedeic Standard and Lusitanii Grimoriea for my father.  Apparently his last set had been melted by an uncooperative daemon.

            When the sloop had passed through the series of gates taking it up the mountains and started across the loch late that afternoon I called Dyr-Lugh to come above deck to help me practice my swordsmanship.  I had decided to see if I could seduce him.  I was curious about what type of a lover the blonde swordsman was and why Dianna seemed so interested in him and also whether I was brave enough to go through with it.  I made sure to get as close to him as possible while practicing my swordplay, using every and any excuse to have our bodies touch.  After about an hour the evening skies were bringing storm clouds from the south.

            "We should go below.  Those clouds herald strong winds,” said Dyr-Lugh.

            "Please, let’s not." I pleaded.  "I hate being below-decks in good weather.  In a storm I'm sure to get sick with the walls rocking back and forth."

            "If you stay up here you might get tossed into the loch instead."

            "Not if you stay with me."  I gripped one of his strong arms and wrapped it around my shoulders.  What did it take to get him interested, I wondered?  I don't have Maisha's blonde good-looks or my mother’s breasts, but I'm far from ugly.

            "I'd advise against it, Gwynlambth daughter.  It isn't safe for you to be out here.  I should take you to your mother."

            I turned in his arms and tilted my face up invitingly.  "Kiss me.  Kiss me, Dyr-Lugh."

            "I think not.  I am pledged to your mother," he said dryly without a hint of indecision or regret.

            "Don't you like women, Dyr-Lugh?  You are pledged to House Gwynlambth.  That includes me."  I let my hands wander across his muscular body.  It was an exquisite body.

            "A sword can't have two sheaths.  I love Kepheria.  That is enough for me.  Come I will take you to your mother."

            I was fed up with his nonsense.  No woman should have to beg for a kiss. 

            "Then go below, little blade!”  I pushed him away.  “I'm no child that needs her mother to cling to when it thunders, are you?  Any man satisfied with just one woman is not a man I’d want.  Such a man isn’t a man at all!  I'll stay here with the storm; perhaps a water-sprite will come looking for a lover; or even a loch trout.  Better sloppy fish kisses then your dry pecks, half-man.  Go!"  And he did. 

            I stayed above decks with the rain and wind watching the ship-hands man the rigging and sails, shifting foot to foot.  I was standing behind and to the side of the first mate at the helm watching his muscles flex under his wet shirt and tight breeches as he worked the wheel.  He looked back at me with a quizzical half-smile probably wondering what a house-lady was doing above decks in a storm.

            "It's just a little rain and wind," he yelled back.  "Nothing serious."

            I didn't say anything; just returned his little smile.

            Another crewman came up to me with a sealskin cape with a hood.  I accepted it.  I didn't need my hair getting full of snarls again.  I wondered what Dianna would think of my failed attempt at seducing Dyr-Lugh or rather his failure to be seduced.  Did she know just how besot he was over my mother?  I had never heard of a sword acting so oddly before.

            Normally they are happy to oblige any woman who asks:  Keltii, Tuirn, Ys, probably even Minotaur if they have women.  A blade belongs to a House and the women of the House see to all his, and consequently their own, sexual needs, but no woman would claim exclusive right over a man's drives and desires and no man would claim ownership of a woman.  Even though Kepheria was married to my father Mezjio to suit Lusitanii custom, she still took all the swords to her bed in their turn.  I reflected that soon it would be my right and responsibility as a daughter of the House to see to the men as well.   How was it then that Dyr-Lugh was reluctant to even kiss me?

            Then I realized that Dyr-Lugh was in love.  I had wondered about my mother's romantic frivolities being a danger, but this was serious.  If Dyr-Lugh was in love to the point of wanting no other woman then he was an unstable element in our house and lives.  Should I tell Kepheria?  She'd want to know why I was seducing Dyr-Lugh without asking her first.  Dianna was right that my mother still thought of me as her little girl.  Should I tell Diana that her would-be lover was impotent outside my mother's bedchamber?  I decided to keep my own counsel for the time being.

            The next morning we finished crossing the loch and transferred the cargo to the barges. The return trip downstream was much quieter. We had talked ourselves out after two weeks of constant companionship.  We floated down the Conht, the Dannue, and finally docked at our warehouses on the Rahn.

            We parted company with Dianna and Maisha and left our cargo there and then journeyed overland by carriage.  I was alone with my mother for the first time in weeks and I was wondering what to tell her about all the things that had happened since we had reached Niantic.  There had been the King in the pool, the initiation with the seeress and her inexplicable vision of my future, spending the night with great-great-grandmother Beibhann at House Gwynlambth, Dianna’s inviting me to join a secret society seeking to rediscover an unnamed Queen of Nysia, and a failed seduction of my mother’s most intimate swordsman.

            It was a lot to think about.  Usually when my mind was that full my mother could sense it and know just what to say.  I looked over to her sitting next to me.  Her eyes were closed and her chin was dropped onto her chest while her sleeping body rocked back and forth with the rhythm of the coach.  I put my arm around her and rested her head on my shoulder and we slept the rest of the way home.

Chapter 8: House Gwynlambth

            I slept late the next day.  Dyannu was already shining bright on a early spring day when I arose from my bed covers.  My Ys girl had my bath ready.  She had made the water extra hot with just a little almond oil.  It made my muscles feel really good.  She always knew just what I needed.  I soaked while she tsked, tsked over my hair, oiling it and brushing it and cutting the ends; all the travel had caused them to split.  Then she soaped me up all over and scrubbed me down with a rough sponge.  After, she gave me a deep massage and rubbed me down with a light oil.  I chose a spring-green high-waisted dress to wear and wore my hair down with only a slim gold headband to hold it out of my face.  I was feeling lazy.

            I went down to the kitchen passing through the garden hall with the large bay windows with the northern exposure along the way.  I was famished.  When I got there cook was just taking some muffins from the oven.  He smiled when he saw me.  He knew I liked to eat.  He would tease me that I ate more than my older brother Sileres.

            “Would you like some eggs today, Gwynlambth daughter?”

            “Yes please,” I said.

            He sliced open two muffins and laid the halves in a large buttered skillet with three eggs and put it over the kitchen fire.  I helped myself to a large glass of goat-milk from the pitcher in the ice-box and some early strawberries from the fruit bowl while I waited.

            “Have you seen my mother this morning, cook?” I asked as he set the skillet in front of me.  I had decided to eat in the warm kitchen rather then move to the dining room.  The eggs were still a little runny, just the way I like them.  I broke the yolks and started mopping them up with the muffins.

            “Yes, she left early to go to the warehouse to check on the cargo you brought in yesterday."

            I had hoped she was out in the fields where I knew the Ys men would be preparing for the spring planting.  I had had my fill of rivers and cargo.  After I finished my eggs and muffins I grabbed another handful of strawberries and went back to the garden hall.  I stood in the middle of the book lined room and looked out the large bay window.  The six panes reached up four men high to the ceiling.  They had been put in when my mother was still a little girl.  She had told me her grandmother had objected strongly, but that her mother had decided to value aesthetics over defensibility.

            “What are they going to do?  Shoot the books?”  Arian had asked, pointing to the shelves lining the walls.  “A northern exposure lets in the light.”

            “I’d of rather kept the arrow slits and spent the money on fixing the west tower.  Peace can’t last forever,” had been grandmáthair Neidria's estimation, but peace had outlived both her and her daughter and showed no signs of ending.  With the Queen’s court the old feuds were being settled by law instead of blood.  Some said the days of the house swords were over.  If we didn’t have house swords anymore what would the men do with their time, I wondered.  It made me think about my conversation with Dianna in Tuirn and her belief that there was a need for a counter to the Church’s power. 

            I sat down on the window bench and looked out over the north garden awakening to the new spring.  I was in a mood to be cared for, not for thinking about politics.  I wanted someone to ask me if I was alright and did I want some tea and would I enjoy a game of cards.  I was in a very me mood.  I stared at my reflection in the window.  My lips had become pressed in a thin, bloodless, straight line below my long slender nose.  I pushed them out in a little pout letting the color back in.  They reminded me of Maisha’s lips and the way she’d pout just enough to make you feel sorry for her without her actually whining.  Unfortunately that made me remember everything else about the trip to Tuirn:  the seeress, Beibhann, the history of the Kelti, Dianna and the Silver Circle, and Dyr-Lugh.  My mind doesn’t let me forget things.  It just chews on them like a cow with its cud; over and over and over again.

            I had a choice:  I could go up to the library and get to work on finding clues as to where Nuadhu's book might be or . . .  or maybe I could find a distraction in the gardens I thought. 

            I called to my Ys girl to bring me my wool cape.  It wasn’t really cold outside, but I wanted to be warm.  The dark brown wool cape hung down just past my hips.  It was a twill of Lusitanian weave.  It had been one of my father’s that I had borrowed some years ago for a picnic blanket and never given back.  Along one edge was a large faded blueberry stain from a long ago slice of pie.  I liked to wear it when I went looking in the gardens and woods for herbs, roots, or berries.

 

            “My father is from Lusitania,” said the man-girl to the Khazadii.  “Me and Sileres visited our family there once.  Its far to the south just past the mouth of the Bealtine sea at the edge of the arid southlands at the feet of the Alentea mountains.  They have excellent fruits and wines for being so far south.  The ocean currents bring in warm air which climbs into the foothills dropping gentle rains as it cools.  Have you ever been there, dwarf?  Try blinking once for yes or two for no.”

            Amak tried it and was so surprised that his eyelids still worked he blinked them about five or six times.

            The man-girl leaned over so he could see her upside down face with the gray-green eyes.

            He blinked once. 

            He had captained a company of spearmen for the Lusitanii many hundreds of years ago in their constant fight with the Bulgari across the Rift Sea.  Amak couldn't remember if the spears had been iron or bronze tipped back then, but he did remember that the Lusitanii were very formal.  All social interactions being conducted according to strict rules defined by each person’s rank and standing.  They had treated Amak with much respect.  They had never called him 'dwarf', but he had still been a mercenary; the hired help.

 

            I went out the hall door to the north garden.  Here was where my mother kept her strawberry plants under glass-paned frames to catch Dyannu's weak spring light.  I opened the top of one and helped myself to some more berries.  They were still a little green.  Most of the other shrubs and flowers in the garden had just come to leaf.  The early bulbs along the walk were just raising their heads from their winter sleep. 

            It had been a fair winter that year.  Caldon had been at His farthest from Dyannu, apohelene in the old-tongue, but Nysia had wintered on the near side receiving Dyannu's warmth, unlike the year of my birth when Nysia had been on Caldon’s far side and the snows had reached over eight eels high and at the height of the season, just when Kepheria had gone into labor, there had been two days of darkness as Nysia had passed into Caldon’s shadow.  The coming spring would prove to be cool though, for as Caldon neared Dyannu, Nysia would be swinging away to the giant planet’s far side and there were frosts that spring when the korn was young.

            I bent down to clear the sticks and debris of winter away from the flower beds, but soon grew bored so I went around to the sword-tower where the men lived.  Maybe there would be someone there to talk with.  There used to be men on watch at all times on the towers.  I remembered looking down on Ys from the King's mountains.  The land below had been crisscrossed with crumbling walls and dotted with abandoned towers reminding me of the bloody House feuds of the past.

            "There goes my mind again," I had thought.  "Is there no getting away from it?"

            I hoped one of the men were around.  They told wonderful stories and sometimes I could talk them into a game of chess.  They wouldn't play against me very often anymore because I almost always won.  It wasn't my fault I told them; it was Rowan who had taught me.

            The lower door of the round stone tower was unbarred.  I opened it and walked in.  The room was empty except for a high table to one side with four stools around it.  The fire was almost completely out.  There were just some ash covered embers in the pan.  The men's towers are always cooler then the houses as their body temperatures are higher than those of us women.  Having lived outside in the mountains for many years after Darmougne Ford the men’s bodies had adapted by burning hotter.  A true Keltii man is known for his body heat.  Keltii women love them in the winter, but in the summer it is impossible to sleep with them.  Many of the men retreat to the cooler mountains at the height of Llamas to find relief.

            On the wall opposite the stove was a plaster-stone form of Cernunnos-of-the-Wood with His curling horns and heavy gold torc.  When the torc was lifted water from the aquifer below the tower would pour out of His mouth into a deep stone basin.  It was for that water supply that House Gwynlambth had been built on this site.  Surrounded by the Miserere de' cild swamp and the Beren hills to the south and west and the Bight Point salt-marsh to the north, House Gwynlambth seems poorly located.  Indeed arable land for crops or grazing are not easily in reach or defendable, but our water supply is secure from any enemy and has only failed once in the history of the House which is some two-hundred years long.

            Máthair Fiona had chosen this spot for its defensibility and its spring after the Coming of the First Keltii.  We had been feuding with Houses Beoi and Vexelli and their allies, clan Mollohae, for a number of years in the hills and mountains.  When the Keltii came and the Fomor were defeated Fiona knew that she needed to stake out a secure position in the Ys lands or our enemies would wipe us out.  This scrap of land between marsh, swamp, and the thickly wooded hills was ideal.  Over the centuries the máthairs of our house have used it as a staging area for many attacks against our enemies.  We learned the ways into and out of the swamp and how to cross the marsh without leaving a trace and became accomplished sailors so as to be able to land men all along the coasts of the Ys lands.

            "Anyone home?" I called up the stairs.

            "Who goes there!" shouted a voice in faux seriousness.  I recognized it as Rowan's.  The tall hazel-eyed blade was one of my favorite house-swords.  His youthful looks belayed his true age which I guess was over forty.  Only he and Baylin were older then my mother and father.

            "Its me, Rowan.  I'm bored.  Do you want to play with me?"  I finished the last as he came around the bottom of the spiral stairs.  There was something different in his eyes.  The playful gleam that was always in the corner of his eye wasn't quite as clownish as usual.  It was subtly different as was the smile beneath it. 

            I realized he definitely wanted to play with me, but it wasn't chess he was interested in.  I wondered if our days of stories and playing tag or chess were at an end?  I don't think the seeress had prepared me for that.

            "Have you always looked at me that way, Rowan?" I asked.

            "Sorry, but you're no child anymore.  You've grown in the last few weeks.  You are ready to be a lady of the house.”

            "I’m not quite a woman yet, you lech.  I haven't been to the church to sacrifice my hair," I said as I ran my fingers through it; twirling it around and around.  I found myself having fun adjusting to the new circumstances of our relationship.

            "You’ve been to the seeress that’s what counts, not the Queen of that damn church.” 

            "I'm to be an acolyte of 'that damn church'.  Perhaps even high priestess there someday."

            "It's a waste if anyone were to ask me, not that anyone has." He said while those famous eyes of his traveled all over me.

            That stopped me short.  If it wasn't for my silé training I would have stopped playing with my hair and given myself away completely.  I could sense a deep resentment in Rowan.  Maybe deeper then he realized.  No one had asked him about my future and somehow he thought they should have.  Why?  He wasn't my father, but to tell the truth I'm not sure Mezjio had been consulted about my future either.  It has been the women who have ordered our society ever since Darmougne Fords.  Men in Keltii society are for fucking and fighting and they do both extremely well.  Some say they don't know the difference between one and the other.

            "They just want you for your visions."

            That reminded me of Brigit.  "I saw Her, Rowan.  The little girl from the garden."

            Rowan had been the first person I had ever told about my ability to see and talk to the Aillil without the ceremonies and Forms that priests and sorcerers needed to use to call Them.  We had been in the west garden near the old tower that had been partly destroy in some long ago battle and was now home to my father's conjuring room and private quarters.  I’d been chasing butterflies and looking for buggies while Rowan posted guard when I had been visited by a little red-headed girl.  She never spoke a word, but we ran through the garden giggling and playing for hours.  No one else had seen the girl.  All Rowan had seen was me running through the flower beds and talking to someone not there.  I told him about the little girl later.  He had told me not to tell anyone about my visions, but eventually, like all secrets, it had gotten out.

            "Where?  Here?  Today?"  Rowan asked.

            "No.  In the highlands at House Gwynlambth.  I know who She was or is now.  She's Brigit.  She was there with Arawn and Beibhann, my great-great-grandmother.  She was as a vision within a vision.  She recognized me."

            "I told you not to tell anyone of them."

            "I didn't think they were unusual.  I thought everyone could see the Aillil."

            "Not like you do," said Rowan.  His eyes were now more serious.

            "You have visions too.  Don’t you.”  Why had that never occurred to me before.  “That’s why you know to be careful about them.”

            "Used to.  When I was a boy, before I was bladed."

            "What were they?"

            "I don't remember,” he said a little too quickly.

            "You're a terrible liar, blade Rowan."

            "Aye and I don’t care to practice."

            "You care about me don't you, Rowan?"  That was why he was angry about not having any say in my life and why he had told me not to tell people about seeing the little girl.  It was like part of him was my father or rather my mother.  It occurred to me then that every man has a part of the woman within him and for women the same.  Else men couldn't love or women be true friends.

            "I'm charged with your security and the security of House Gwynlambth,"  he said, then added,  "As is every sword here."

            "No!  Don't do that, Rowan!  I can see it.  I'm not just a charge for you; a house-daughter to look after.  You told me stories and played with me in the gardens.  You taught me chess!  You didn't have to do that to guard me."

            "I haven't won a game against you in over two years.  Time you found a bigger board to play on."

            "I have to go, don’t I, Rowan.  There's something I should be doing, isn’t there.  Something I've been trying to put off and not think about.  Something you’ve seen in your visions.  No, don’t try to deny it,”  I said waving off his protestations.  “But before I go.”  I moved a little closer to the hazel-eyed swordsman, barely able to resist pressing my hands against his chest.  "Could you do something for me?  Something Dyr-Lugh wouldn't do."

            "That's a short list.  There's not much that scoundrel won't do."

            "He wouldn't kiss me.  Will you?  It'll be my first.  My first as a woman."

            "Then I guess my list is one shorter than his."

            Rowan picked me up by the arms, lifting me up ‘til my toes barely touched the floor, pressing me hard against him.  His lips burnt like flames and his chest was a furnace against my breasts.  Rowan’s kiss had all the passion a woman could want and all the sweetness a young girl needed.  It was all I could do not to wrap my thighs around him.          

            "Thank you," I said when my feet touched the stone floor again.

            "Happy to oblige." He said.

            I was so happy Dyr-Lugh had turned me down on the ship.

            So much had changed for me in just a couple of days.  Outwardly everything seemed the same, but now the way I looked at my life and my society was completely different.  The certitude that I had had in my past and future were gone.  Instead I had a past of lies, a present of intrigue, and a future consisting of a seeress’ unclear vision and a secret society’s shadowy plans.  I’d become involved in something, a game, sort of like chess, and I needed to find out who were the players and what were the rules.

            Obviously one of the objectives of this game was to control me and use my visions.  The visions were a liability, but also my advantage.  Beibhann had told me a lot, more than anyone would have wanted me to know I suspected.  If I could also find Nuadhu’s book I could start moving some pieces of my own.  I could become a player instead of a pawn.  It never occurred to me not to play the game, to just go about my predetermined life’s plan oblivious to the currents around me.  That’s not the way of a Kelti Lady of the House, especially a silé.  Politics is our life’s blood.

            I went back to the garden reading room walking past the tall bay windows to the spiral staircase in the back of the room just past Mezjio’s observation table.  I went up the twisting staircase, ascending into the dark; my hand gently gliding along the dark polished banister.  It had been made in one piece from the heart of a fallen giant oak from the barrow-lands.  The hardwood had been steamed and bowed over and over into a spiral and carved into the form of a scaly, multi-legged dragon.  At the top of the stairs I took a small lantern from the between the sharp inset ivory teeth of the head and light the wick with a Quick Flame making.

            We kept the histories, biographies, and chronologies of the women and men of House Gwynlambth in the second floor library out of the direct sunlight.  Many of the earliest were written on stretched, beaten sheep skins or woven tree bark.  There were even engraved tablets hurriedly chiseled out from the sides of the mountains from when we left and went down to the Ys lands.  Books of every size, shape, and color with covers from plain cloth to tooled leather to gold filled the curved walls from floor to ceiling.  There were two rolling ladders to reach the upper rows.

            Life-size portraits of past máthairs of our house were interspersed along the book lined walls.  A smaller one of Kepheria was on a table.  When she died a larger one would be commissioned and hung with the others and mine would replace hers in turn.  There were nine including Beibhann and Brigit.  Following them in order were Beauloius, Fiona, Lyssa, Demarch, Eiryn, Neidria, and Arian.  There had also been many other daughters of the house who had gone on to found Houses of their own or pursue other lives outside of the Kelti House social order.  One of them, Ceilwen, a daughter of Fiona, had gone south to join the Keltii hill-clans.  They are a strange mix of tribes with different customs not just from us but each other as well.  Some are headed by men, others by women, most are cattle rustlers, some are tinkers and traders, and two that I know of are esthetic priesthoods.

            Ceilwen had never sacrificed her hair to the Queen.  Once she had visited the seeress she had come back to House Gwynlambth, changed into trousers, grabbed a sword, bow, armor and had headed south.  Three years later she had sent a note to one of the house-swords asking him to join her as her husband and leader of her tribe.  He had left with even less hesitation then she had.  Apparently they had cultivated a romantic interest when she was quite young and Fiona hadn’t approved.

            Another ancestor, Venuia, daughter of Eiryn, had pursued a quieter life as a silé traveling through the highlands as a midwife and healer.  She had had visions such as mine when she was young it was said.  She was the eldest daughter, but the eldest daughter didn’t always become máthair.  When Eiryn died her surviving sister and daughters called Venuia back from the hills to head the house, but the men wouldn’t hear of it.  Apparently she had acquired a reputation of being asexual and the men weren’t going to have a máthair who couldn’t or wouldn’t take care of their needs.  So the rather young seventeen year-old Neidria had been chosen instead of either of her two older sisters.

            Other times sisters had bitterly vied to become the lady of the house.  Sometimes to the death.  Two daughters of Lyssa were continually feuding to the point were the house-swords were split into two camps.  This only stopped when the second daughter got the first to be chosen as The Dagda’s corn-wife at Samhain.  Well I think you know what happens to corn-wives at the end of the year when the corn-king goes to His sidhe under the hills.  Lyssa was upset though some say she was secretly glad to be rid of one of them anyway, but she kept careful watch on Demarch from then on.

            There were also histories of the other Keltii Houses and their máthairs with extensive genealogies and books full of tales and exploits of kings, druids, máthairs, silé, sea captains, and other noteworthy men and women.  Shelves of compendiums of the kings for every glen, grove, and grazing ground in the Ys-lands since the Fir Bolg first came down from the mountains and complete biographies of each of the holders of the office of High or Ard-King and the Four minor Kingships, the Tetrarchs:  the Kings of the Watch, the Wood, the Wind, and the Barrows. 

            The Barrow King is most often called the Wren King for the diminutive birds that live amongst the tombs and oaks of the dead kings which are his charge.  He is the only king who can veto the Ard-King and can challenge him directly.  The King of the Watch sees to the borders of the Ys lands and is the sword of the Ard-King.  The King of the Wood sees to the health of the lands and especially the cattle and stands with the High Druid when he judges in court.  The King of the Wind sees to the fleet and the security of the shores and ships that do commerce with the Ys lands.  It is the only Kingship once held by a woman captain Deirdre of the Magdalene.

            I took down one the histories of the kings and started leafing through it.  Parts of Keltii society I had never questioned before now showed themselves as ill fitting puzzle pieces.  Why in a matriarchal society did we place such a premium on kingship?  Every copse of trees, every standing stone, shrine or altar to an Aillil, every well, spring, crossroad, and open field had a ‘king’ to look over it.  Even if it had a queen or female Aillil, an Aillil-HE, as its primary protector, as most of the rivers and springs did, it also had a Kelti-blade as king, or consort, standing in as the male Aillil-VAU.

            The Keltii blades contest over these kingships, often to the death, for no apparent gain beyond a couple head of cattle, the sexual favors of a pretty woman they could have had anyway, and some notoriety.  I had always known this, but now I asked:  why?  Piecing this together with a cult of Gödel that had been overlooked by the silé and máthairs I perceived a deep-seated need by the men to have a patrimonial hierarchy within the loose mathairarchy of the Keltii of the Ys-lands.  How deep was that need and was it conscious or unconscious?  What did the men do at their lodges far from our women’s eyes?  Just drink and fight or was there more?

            That line of thought brought me to another question:  Why, after three hundred years of rule did we still call ourselves the Keltii of the Ys-lands?  That is, why was it still called the Ys-lands?  Shouldn’t we simply be the Keltii and the land be Keltica or some such?  Was it simply the conservativeness by the druids who resisted any change or was there another reason?  Did we rule here or did the Ys?  Why did we still consider the land to be theirs?

            True the Ys-men did all the work in the fields and the Ys-girls and mae-mae’s  took care of the house chores.  They tilled the land, planted and harvested the crops, herded the sheep and goats, cleaned, cooked, and cared for us.  Why?  We had never forced them to.  We had no whips or chains to beat or hold them.  Other societies had slaves.  Half the population of Tuirn were slaves.  If anyone ever told us the Ys were our slaves we would be aghast. 

            “They’re free,” my mother would argue if she even thought the point worth arguing.  “They come and go as they please.  They like caring for us and the land.  Its their land and we freed them from the Fomor.  It’s the way things are.”

            What if what we were seeing wasn’t the way things were?  Like a man skating out over what appears to be a frozen lake falling through thin ice, or a star disappearing into the Broken Sky, we could sink below the surface in an instant with little warning.  What if the Ys were free and did come and go as they pleased and we were the ones who were the slaves?  That sent chills up and down my spine. 

            “Oh, Uillceal,” I said to myself. “Actual intrigues aren’t enough for you that you have to go think up some more?”  I chided myself, but I also remembered that there is a silé rule that what causes you the most discomfort must be closest to the truth.

            I went back to the stacks and started to look through them systematically, trying to keep in mind those facts I already knew without adding new elements.  I was trying to find Nuadhu's book.  Therefore I should find the man first and work back.  Where was Nuadhu?  Nuadhu had been the first Ard-King of Ys and had been buried in the barrow-lands some three hundred years ago.  In The Keltii Kings of Ys tabulated by Tor of Cahill or was that Cahill of Tor, the old style of the script made it hard to tell, there was a chronicle of the burial and funeral games for Nuadhu and a pressing of a lithograph of the tomb where he was lain.  It would have been easy enough to find the tomb except that the barrow-lands were now three hundred years overgrown since that time and there had been no Wren King to care and tend to the dead kings and their tombs for over a century; not since Ceilbone of Meath went mad and hung himself.  Since then many of the stone tombs had been crushed or misshapen by the roots of the towering oaks and had become overgrown by ivy and undergrowth.  Without a Wren King the spirits of the dead kings were said to rest uneasily if at all.

            No one ventured very far into or stayed for very long in the barrow-lands these days.  The last procession was eight years ago when the previous Ard-King, Nathan of Fenton had been laid to rest after being slain be the present holder of the office:  Almout, a blade of House Gnarring of máthair Ellsinore, sired upon Lady Ailene of House Forsyth by her sword Haslen.

            According to the account written by Tor, or was it Cahill, the burial party had walked no further then two chain along the twisting paths between the oaks before they interred him in the nearest open tomb prepared by the Ys.  Nathan hadn't been a popular king and few people beyond those needed for officiating had joined the precession.  Only three of his lodge brothers had came to see him off to the Blessed Lands.  Mother had been there with grandma Airen to give the rite of Passing Through.  I would have to ask her more about it, I thought.

            I turned the pages back to the lithograph of Nuadhu’s tomb.  I was going to have to go into the barrow-lands to see if the book was there.  That would be my first step, but I had a feeling it wouldn't be that easy.  No doubt others would have known the value of Nuadhu's chronicles, not the least of them Nuadhu himself, and of saved them from being destroyed or ruined.  My thought was that if the book itself wasn’t there, there might be a clue as to where to look next, but when was I going to get a chance to go?  The barrow-lands were over two days hike from House Gwynlambth and a lady of the house couldn’t just disappear for a few days without telling the máthair and taking a couple of swords.  Even in those peaceful times House Gwynlambth had a few enemies that wouldn’t have minded inconveniencing Kepheria by holding hostage her daughter and heir.  I was going to need a cover story to tell my mother and two trustworthy swords.  Rowan was definitely one.  Dyr-Lugh was not.  Who else could I ask?  Cean?  He was quiet.  Baylin?  He was very steady and good in the woods.

            I stayed in the library for the rest of the day reading tedious tomes until my eyes turned raw and my head nodded.  I dragged myself to my rooms and after a small tea retired to my divan ‘til dinner.  Cook had prepared the last of the aged beef from fall’s slaughter with a mustard sauce and pickled tomatoes.

            “I heard you spent most of the day in the library,” said Kepheria.  “Were you looking up anything in particular or just browsing.”

            "Mostly browsing through the genealogies."

            "Must be pretty dry stuff,” said Mezjio.

            "Some of it was interesting.  You can tell a lot about history by how people write about it.  Sometimes how it is written tells you more then what is written."

            "Well you must of found something interesting, you skipped your archery practice today.  You don't often miss it."

            So that's why she was asking about my time in the library.  She was wondering what I had found so interesting or, more to the point, important enough, to miss bow practice.  She knew I loved my archery and had just finished making a new bow for myself.

            "I'll practice tomorrow," I said keeping the topic off the library.

            "No.  Tomorrow you'll be helping with the ewe's in the Beren.  Several have dropped their lambs already and the rest are sure to follow in the next day or two.  You need to be there as I'll be busy at Bight Point."

            "Well, I'll bring my bow in case any wolves get too close."

            "Just keep a watch on the ewes and help with the birthing.  I like the bonders, but they have a tendency to breach.  The dogs will watch for the wolves and I’ll send Dyr-Lugh to order the Ys-men.”

            "So what was interesting in the genealogies?" asked my father.  Leave it to a sorcerer not to leave better enough alone.

 

            "You have to understand one thing about House Gwynlambth, unlike other Houses of the Máthairs, my mother is married to my father, Mezjio.  This is unusual because most Keltii women aren't married at all in the sense that it is meant in other lands.  Keltii-blades are bond by love, honor, and sex to the máthairs and daughters of a house.  There are some women who have a particularly favorite sword and perform the rite of xxxxxxxxx to consecrate a special bond between them, but even that doesn't entail a monogamist relationship.   Among the Houses of the Keltii monogamy is bad taste.  Only the freemen and women who have forgone the right of the blade and house to become farmers, fishermen, and craftsmen have marriage in the western meaning.

            "Ours is a society that grew out of Darmougne Fords and the feuds of the highlands before Lugh and the other First Keltii came.  As the male population again reached parity with the women, the Houses started to attract swords to stay permanently instead of joining the patrols.  Soon house-feuds over men, cattle, and grazing land became violent and bloody.  Some even aligned themselves with the Fomor to destroy their Fir Bolg rivals.

            So for most young woman it is unusual to have their father at the dinner table.  The blades have their own kitchens.”

 

            "Umm . . . The accounts of the Ard-Kings and their successions.  Pretty graphic some of it.  Especially recent history.  Like Almout's execution of his last challenger."

            "He had him pickled like a herring.  It took three days for him to die," said my father.

            "And after . . . " I said.

            "Almout made the druid Galed eat of the flesh and then burnt him at the stake.  Ghastly affair."

            "Yes, well my question is: how did he get away with it?"

            "What do you mean?  He's the High-King."

            "No other Ard-King in history has ever taken revenge against a druid sponsoring a challenger before.  It has always been the responsibility of the druids to judge which candidates were worthy of challenging the Ard-King or any of the other Four-Kings of the Land.  They neither encourage them or help them with makings or prayers nor do they favor the challenger or the incumbent in any manner.  They are completely neutral judges and have been charged with their duties for hundreds of years before the Keltii or even the Fir Bolg came to being.  Yet Almout was allowed to kill one and terrorize the rest to the point where none of the Tetrarchs have been challenged in over three years."

            "There's been no challengers?"

            "There's been no sponsors.  The druids have been completely cowed."

            "Uillceal, surely there’s another reason.  Perhaps there have been no worthy candidates,” said my mother.

            “Great Math himself petitioned druid Faust for sponsorship to challenge Baccau for King of the Woods.”

            “What did he say?”

            “Aside from no, he said ‘The office is already being adequately seen to.’”

            “Well then, you see, no need for a new king if the current one is still strong.”

            “But isn’t it the challenge which proves who is the stronger; who should be king?”

            “Yes, but it is up to the druids to decide who should challenge the kings, like you said, or they’d have nothing to do but fight every day.”

            “What else is there for the kings to do?  But the question remains: who gave the king that much power? To kill a druid?  The silé have grown weak; we have known this.”

            “Should we have stopped Almout?  We have no right--”

            “We are the máthairs of the Keltii.  The lands are ours.  It is our responsibility to check the kings’ power.  That power ultimately comes from us.  The druids may judge the contests, but its the leading silé and máthairs who have been entrusted with the crown symbolizing the Ard-King’s right to rule the land.  The same crown originally given to King Gödel by Iaonea when he crossed the loch.”

            “Yes but we crowned Almout as Ard-King already.  We can’t take the crown back.”

            “If the Houses and the silé have lost confidence in Almout’s ability or right to rule then they can call for challengers to come forth.”

            “But then the druids would still have to sponsor them.  Which you said they won’t do.”

            “With the silé prodding them on they would have to or they’d look the fool or you could refuse to renew Almout’s title at Samhain.”

            “Oh I’m sure a challenger will come along without us having to resort to such distasteful maneuvers.”

            “It is a silé axiom:  levers of power do not long lie idle.  Didn’t the Priestess of the Church crown the new King of the Watch, one of Almout’s lodge brothers, just last year when Fini was passed-on by his lodge.  That function used to fall to the silé of coven Estden.  And at the last Samhain ceremony didn’t She stand on the right-hand side of Almout across from you and help place the crown on his head.”

            “Symbolizing the king’s returning dual powers over the land and spirit of the Keltii.”

            “Symbolizing the Church’s creeping power over the silé.  We never shared that responsibility before.”

            “Uillceal!”  My mother rose to her feet.  Her face had turned red.

            “Mother?” I remained sitting.

            “Insolence!”

            “Truth.”

            “Well that is why you are to become an acolyte,” my mother said recovering her composure and sitting back down.  “The church is growing in power.  That is true.”

            “Because we let it and it’s a power that may grow faster and bigger then you like.  Sending me and my visions there may not be the right thing to do.”

            “We’ve discussed this before.  You agreed that it was the best way to protect the interests of the house.”

            “When the knife stabs you in the heart we need to remember who gave them the blade . . . and the hand holding it.”

            “Uillceal!”

            “Mother.”

            “Such interesting conversations around Keltii dinner tables,” interjected my father.  “When I was growing up in Lusitania there was hardly any conversation at dinner.  What there was of it was all about the weather and the currents and winds and would we call down a daemon or an Aillil that evening and did the eye of the cockatrice have a third pupil or only the two and how would we find out without looking.  All horrid boorish drool compared to Keltii máthairs and daughters.”

            Weird thing is I think he meant it, but if he thought the gaze of a cockatrice was perilous the look my mother gave him was truly deadly.  It shut him up, but didn’t quite wipe the smile from his face.  I reflected it was a smile similar to my brother Sileres’.

            “Where is Sileres?”  I asked.  “I thought he’d be home by now.”

            “Probably in the north tower with Rowan and the men.  Why?”

            “Oh, just wondering.”

            I retired to my room after dinner.  My Ys girl had my nightgown laid out; the one with the pink flowers.  I changed and sat down at my mirrored vanity.  I found myself playing with the pink shell buttons between my breasts while she brushed my hair.  My mind was busy with so many thoughts I couldn’t keep still.  As my girl went to braid my hair I shook her off.

            “Not tonight,” I said.

            She looked at me dumb founded.  She had been braiding my hair every night for the last ten years of my life.

            “Go.  You are dismissed,” I said rather brusquely.  She bowed and left.

            I started walking restlessly around my bedchamber.  I had the feeling something was no quite right; an edgy dissatisfaction sat in my jawline.  I caught my reflection in my silver ewer on the breakfront bureau.  I looked very pretty in my nightgown, one of my favorites bought by my father on one of his rare trips.  It was made of the whitest Old Kingdom linen with pink silk flowers sewn all over and with lace around the collar and cuffs.  It was wispy and dreamlike and made me look every bit the little girl my mother, father, and Dyr-Lugh thought I was.  I suddenly hated it.

            I ripped the front open, exposing my breasts, sending the delicate shell buttons scattering across the floor.  I shook the gown the rest of the way off and kicked it into a corner and stood naked in the middle of the room.  I felt different.  I remember thinking my rooms, all pink and dreamy, needed to be reappointed.

            I grabbed a cloak from the armoire fastening it over my left shoulder; leaving the right bare.  Beibhann’s sword was hanging on the door.  I grabbed it and buckled it around my waist for a belt as I headed barefoot up the stone stairs to the top of my tower. 

            A sea breeze was coming from the northeast across Bight Point, bringing the smell of salt on the chilly air.  Above was the thin waxing crescent of Caldon returning to the sky.  I could hear a chorus of owls to the southwest in the Beren hills where I would be spending the next couple of days looking after the lambing ewes; whippoorwills were singing in the marshes to the east.  To my immediate west was the men’s tower I had visited that morning.  Rowan was there.  Was that what was making me restless tonight?  Had his kiss awakened something inside me?  Was that what being a woman was about?

            There was no denying the idea of seeing Rowan and feeling his lips on mine again was compelling, but I had a feeling that something else was calling to me that night.  In the woods beyond the northern garden I could see the light of a camp fire.  Voices, definitely male, rose up to my ears carried on the chill night air.

            A voice I recognized as my brother’s friend Math’s baritone was letting out a string of profanities at some injury.  There wasn’t an Aillil he failed to curse or call down upon the head of whoever had had the temerity to slight him.  I expected the clash of swords to quickly follow on the heels of such a verboscious tirade.  Instead I heard my brother laughing.

            “Well if its true there’s no arguing it and an argument, even as well spoken as that, doesn’t make it less so,” said Sileres.  “I’d only been trying to help a friend.”

            “Some help.  Some friend,” said some other voice I didn’t know.

            “’tis good I don’t kill every man that slights me,” said a more contrite Math.

            “Yeah you’d run out of people to drink with,” said the unknown voice.  Which sent my brother to laughing again. 

            I wanted to go down there I realized.  I wanted to sit by the fire and talk man-to-man and maybe even have an ale.  And then make love?  I was feeling kind of confused.  I was becoming a woman and looked forward to embracing all that that entailed, but I also wanted to enjoy the company of men without sex becoming a problem.  I envied men sometimes.  Their lives are so much simpler then ours.  Fight, fuck, drink, die.  They didn’t have to contend with politics.  That’s an over simplification of course; the Ard-King and the Tetrarchs do have duties and politics to tend to as do the druids, but overall it seemed a less complicated life.

            I closed my eyes gently and started to call forth the form for a Far-Eye making.  A very simple form.  It was one of the first makings Kepheria had taught me.  I pictured the circle first, making sure it was perfectly round and silver.  Then I added the seven lines emanating from the center.  Now I opened my eyes and beheld my vision floating before me.  To the left of the circle I traced out the symbols for Caldon’s Eye, Dyannu’s Light, and, as it was night, an owl glyph.  The silver flame flowed from my finger like a fountain pen writing in the air.  Between the symbols and glyphs I added smaller notations to control and direct the current flow. 

            The form being completed and held perfectly suspended both within my thoughts and before my eyes I activated it:  “G’ish!” 

            Power flowed  along the lines from the center of the circle to the symbols along the left following the paths laid out by the notations then back to the circle.  Now the circle became filled with a silver light which then dimmed leaving behind a clear lens floating in front of me like a pool of water.

            It is a fallacy to think the form creates an eye that actually moves to the target.  It is more accurate to say that it brings the target to you.  The lens bends the light of a distant object or person and magnifies it.  The only limit to the range is the necessity to change the focus so the image doesn’t become a big blur.  Continuous adjustments need to be made to the form notations to keep the power flow correct.

            I centered the lens on the camp fire in the woods and willed it to come forward.  I could see Math, Great Math as he is called, sitting on a log by the fire.  He looked every bit like the shaggy great-bear of the Beren Hills he was legendarily sired by.  He had mounds of reddish blonde curls down to his massive shoulders and was a full two eels high when he stood.  His strength was as well attested as his conception was legendary.  Great Math knew no equal in feats of strength or endurance.  It was said he would only be beaten in combat when he walked hand-in-hand with a snake in a garden.  A strange geas uttered by his mother, a Ys-woman who had died on the couching bed.

            Leaning on an ash tree to his left across the fire was my brother Sileres.  At just a thumb taller then me at an eel and a half and slender of build, he and Great Math couldn’t be more different.  We, on the other hand, shared very similar features; having slim long noses, green-eyes, and black wavy hair.  My brother’s was cut short and lacked the hints of red I had gotten from our mother.  He had grown a lot since he left home over three years ago.  His face was fuller; growing to contain that smile of his.  His chest was deep if not as broad as Rowan’s.  He was wearing a tartan kilt of House Ghent where he had been fostering with socks and black shoes.  The highlanders still wear kilts while most of the men in the Ys-lands proper wear trousers and boots.  His calves showing beneath his kilt were well muscled as were his lower arms and wrists which are so necessary for swordsmanship.  Sileres had also taken up the highland habit of an extra blade carried strapped to the lower left leg I noticed.

            “So why did you come back here, Sileres?  Shouldn’t you have pledged to a house by now or do you miss your mommy?”  asked Math.

            “Talk about insulting your friends.  If this goes on surely only one of us will be left drinking the rest of this half-barrel alone.  Well it wasn’t for your pretty face, Math,” said Sileres.  “And yes I do wish to see my mother, Lady Kepheria, and my father, Mezjio.”

            “Mazgi?  What kind of a name is that?  Is he Volceii?”  asked the unknown man.  I switched my focus to him.  I didn’t like his face.  It was too round with a stupid looking red stripe on the chin that I supposed was meant to be a beard.  His dress was stylish and expensive which made him look worse; like a sow in a gown.

            “It’s Mezjio,” said Sileres.  “He’s Lusitanii.”

            “So your not Keltii?”  asked the man.  Sileres almost imperceptibly stiffened.

            “The Lusitanii are distant cousins of the Gaels and Gedes and Mezjio has lived in the Ys lands for many years and holds a kingship of the land given to him and his father by Ard-King Foysthe for building the waterway to Loch Gödel.”

            “Oh.  So women can buy pretty dresses in Tuirn.  Smart bit of work that for a foreigner.”

            “And sell wool and goods to support your lazy arse, Dalion.”

            “My arse is no lazier then yours, Sileres.”

            “Your brains are.”

            “Sword isn’t.”  The round faced stranger pulled his long slim sword from his scabbard and lunged at my brother.

            Sileres was having trouble clearing his sword of its scabbard. I gasped almost losing my spell.  Math wasn’t even moving.

            As Dalion stepped forward and thrust, Sileres crouched down to the left.  Dalion recovered and went to slash at him.  Sileres raised his still sheathed sword to block the blow.  Dalion went to a two handed overhead grip and went to slash down at my prone brother, but suddenly stopped and slowly fell to his knees.  What had happened, I wondered.  Then as Dalion finished falling face down I could see my brother’s left hand pulling his dirk from Dalion’s right-side.  He had thrust it through the ribs under the arm  piercing the lung and heart.  Math was still sitting on the log.

            “I see you’ve perfected your little trick,” he said.  He glanced toward the dead man.  “Pity, I was just beginning to like him.”

            “You would.”

            “Is he mendable?  Your mother is just a chain away.”

            “If we rushed.  You’d have to get up and help me carry him.”

            “Such a shame and him so young.”  Math reached for his mug.

            “You’re all heart, Math.  You didn’t even get up to help me.”  Sileres turned the body over.

            “Well if he killed you I would have avenged your death.  Then your prophecy would have come true.”

            “Well, unless you’ve already drunk all the ale pass me a mug.”

            Math poured a heavy measure of the ale into a stein and handed it to my brother.

            Sileres took a big mouthful of the foamy drink and stood over the body and spat it out in three directions, east, west, and finally north.  “I commend this man, Dalion of Fiona of House Belhord, lodge brother of Lugh the Artful, to The Dagda of the sidhe and his zelem to Caldon the Father.  May his mug be ever full and his--”  Sileres stopped then squatted down and placed his head cautiously to the prone man’s chest.  “I missed the heart,” he said, kneeling up.  “Come on, Math lets get him to the house.” 

            “Oh good, maybe Kepheria can see about this wart I got on my elbow.”

            “Stop playing in the dirt I told you.  Now help me pick him up.  Gently, I think one of the ribs snapped.”

            “Shouldn’t we just kill him?” asked Math slowly rising from the fire.

            “No.  He’s not too bad a man and besides, he’s one of my lodge brothers.”

            “Lodge brother, eh.  So why did you come back anyway?” asked Math picking Dalion up from the ground, eschewing Sileres’ help.

            “Can’t a boy see his mother?  I want her advice before I chose a house.  I value her insight in this matter.  She taught me a lot about women.”

            “Wouldn’t mind learning a bit about women from your old mom myself,” said Math with a smile.

            “Nice.  She’s treated you like a second son for years.  You want to make your own mother?” asked Sileres.  “I also wanted to see my father.  I’ve been having a recurring dream that I hope he can help with.  I’d also like to learn some more forms.  They can be useful in a fight.”

            “What is the dream about?” asked Math.  He found all types of dreams and prophecies of interest due to his geas.

            “I’m falling upside down into the sky, but the weird part is that it isn’t my dream.  I’m in someone else’s dream.  Who’s I don’t know.”

            They started out of the woods toward the house.  I lost concentration on the form as my own thoughts began to fill my mind.  I had had things to do that day and I feared I had let it go to waste and tomorrow I’d be away in Beren Hills.  I had found nothing in the library pertaining to Nuadhu’s book.  Just dry histories and a lithograph of questionable worth and I was no closer to knowing what Dianna and the Silver Circle were really up to or what my vision at the seeress meant. 

            I looked to the southwest where the Garden tower stood in dark outline against the night.  A glimmer of light shinning through one of the ivy covered windows of the tower went dark and the chill of a Wind-Travel making passed by me towards my mother’s rooms.  Mezjio was going to bed early.   It was too late to do anything that night, I realized.  I think it always was.

The Wren King; Chapter 9: Garden Tower

                I didn’t get to see Mezjio until I came back from Beren Hills.  Mother sent Fion and Rashid, our house’s newest sword along with three Ys men to watch over the dogs.  I set up camp on the flat topped Kobold hill to have a good view while the men and dogs rounded up the ewes.  It’s actually against their nature to gather in one area to give birth.  Ewes, like other wild animals, usually separate from the flock to drop their young, but the dogs kept them in a loosely defined area around the south side of the hill.  I would walk along all day with Kelly helping me spot ewes in labor.  She was especially good at finding ones having difficulty.  When she found one that needed my help she’d run back and forth and give a little bark.  If wolves showed up while I was busy she’d howl ‘til one of the larger Pharziian hounds came to scare them away.

                So I spent the days elbow deep in lamb uteruses turning lambs around for birthing and the nights battling wolves.  I had decided to take both my sword and bow against my mother’s advice and I needed them as the wolves were more bothersome then I remembered from years past.  The first two nights I helped the men scare off the wolves off with Glow Lights, but they soon learned that the big balls of light didn’t burn.  After all I didn’t want to set the woods afire.  The patches of scrubby, sap laden pines that ringed the hill would have gone up like tinder if I had used real fireballs. 

                On the third night, as I was reading in my tent, all the dogs started howling and there were the sounds of snapping and biting all around the camp.  I grabbed my bow and quiver and quickly ran outside.  As my eyes were adjusting to the darkness I felt a vibration like a soft thud through the ground and a presence to my left.  I quickly turned and was knocked to the ground by a large grey wolf.  I just barely grabbed it by the throat before it was able to rip mine open.  I tried to reach for my stilettos in their wrist sheaths, but each time I did the wolf’s jaws snapped closer and closer to my neck.

                The wolf, sensing victory, started clawing at my arms and shoulders with its front-paws.  I wrapped my legs around its rear legs and shoved as hard as I could with my arms finally gaining room to draw one of my thin daggers.  I stabbed the wolf repeatedly in the side of its neck hoping to strike the carotid artery.  On a man it would be near the base of the ear; just behind the jawbone.  I hoped on a canine it would be similarly located.  But the snapping jaws and twisting wolf were making hard to hit my target.  Blood and fur were making my grip unsure; both the wolf and I knew I was about to lose my grip and my life.

                Then a big brown-black blur crashed into the wolf, rolling both of us across the ground.  It was Banjo, one our Pharziian hounds.  As I lay stunned on the sparse dry grass he grabbed the wolf by the head and shook it in his enormous jaws.  There was an audible crunch then the wolf went limp and lifeless.  Banjo dropped it next to me like it was a present and sat down wagging his stumpy tail.  I got up and patted his head which was easily an eel above the ground.

                “Good boy, Banjo.  Good boy,” I said.  I wondered how big he’d get when he was full grown.

                While the howling and chaos continued around us I retrieved my dropped bow and arrows and cast three small Glow Lights in a circle around me at about twenty arm lengths and started looking for wolves to shoot while Banjo stood guard, but, unlike the targets I used for practice, the wolves wouldn’t stand still.  I used up a dozen arrows in about five minutes and couldn’t be sure I had hit anything at all.  It wasn’t ’til morning when Dyannu rose above the mists that I found four dead wolves lying on the ground in a semicircle about the camp with arrows sticking out from their necks and chests.  I had the Ys men cut off their heads for me.  I still don’t know what had made the wolves so aggressive, almost desperate, that year. 

                Three of my dogs had nasty bites that I had to treat.  Kelly, my H’ranic shepherd, and Volt, another Pharziian hound, both healed, but Dina, my other shepherd, never recovered.  Her wound festered and despite my best efforts she died shortly after.  I stayed in the hills three more days ‘til the new lambs were steadier on their legs before I went home.  Over all I had lost three ewes, four lambs, and one ram to the wolves, but only one lamb and ewe to breeching.

                When I came home mother had tea served in her room and mea-mea Mugwe, my old Ys nanny, had the large full-length tub brought in so she could give me a bath and a rub while I told Kepheria about the wolves.  I stripped down out of my dirty clothes and handed them and my weapons to my Ys girl then slowly submerged my naked body into the hot water.  I could just barely touch the opposite ends of the long tub with the tips of my toes and my arms stretched out over my head.  I stayed under the water like that for almost two minutes with just my nipples breaking the water’s surface, letting the heat seep into my tired body.  Then I stood up so Mugwe could soap me up while I talked with my mother.

                Kepheria listened politely to my tales about the wolves, but she was more interested in how many lambs had been birthed and if I had lost any to breeching.  At House Gwynlambth the yearling fleece is mixed with that of the older ewes to make a weave that is both very soft and strong.  That is the secret of our custom yarn which was much sought after in Tuirn.  Also, the milling process for our yarns and the knitting technique we used for our sweaters was minimally invasive to retain the water shedding oils of the wool favored by the freemen who ply the misty waters of Ys’ many bays and lochs for fish, clams, crabs, and sea-leaf.

                After the first year the ewes would be kept for wool and milk while most of the young rams would be slaughtered for meat.  Only the strongest rams would be kept for breeding and for the men’s chariots.  Though they are not the fastest many of the men favor the bonders for their toughness in the races.  After Mugwe rinsed me off, I put on my robe and walked up the tower stairs to my rooms and found they had been completely redone.

                Gone was the ubiquitous pink and lilac décor of my childhood.  It had been replaced with dark green and white with brick-red trim.  The walls were still papered with a floral design, but now roses and tulips were replaced by thorn-berry, foxglove, chamomile, and saw-bulbs.  The divan and tea service, once the center piece of my quarters, had been moved to the side; replaced by a large dark-finished maple desk.  On top were all the papers, books, and charts that had been building up in the corners of the room and at the foot of my bed.  There was even an armoire where my Ys-girl had placed my bow and quiver and Beibhann’s sword while I was downstairs.  I wondered what had made Kepheria realize I wasn’t a little girl anymore.

                I sat down at the vanity while my Ys-girl finished toweling my hair dry.  While she combed and brushed it I shrugged my robe off my right shoulder to inspect a large bruise gone all black and green on the outside of my breast.

                “Aye!  That looks a nasty hurt, m’lady,” said my girl.

                “I got slapped by my bow string shooting wolves in the hills.  I’ll have to learn to make allowances for things that are growing.”

                “Of old, before the Fomor came, the woman of Ys were skillful with the bow.  When they came of age the noble ladies would cut off their right breast.”

                “Oh that’s nonsense!  No woman is going to cut off her breast to avoid hitting it with a bow string now and then.  Better a bruised boob then no boob.”

                “Well true it is.  At least of the noble ladies.  Aside from avoiding being hit it allowed them to hold the bow closer to the body for a better aim.  The common women had another remedy that may be more your liking if you’re so vain as not to forgo a might bit of flesh for your practice.”

                I held my two breasts in my hands, hefting their weight.  They had definitely grown in the last year, but even then I realized they would never be the size of my mother’s or grandmother’s.  Still, maybe one was enough; the seeress had said I’d have no children.   I closed my hand over the right and pushed out the left and turned it side to side to see how it looked in the mirror.  I must be insane, I thought,  I was sitting at my vanity contemplating cutting off one of my breasts.  I shook my head.

                “What did the other Ys women do?” I asked.

                “Oh, they had guards made to cover the breast.  Most were simple. Just cups of hardened leather.  Others were pretty affairs of silver and such with gems.”

                “Mmm.  Maybe I could get one made.”

                “Oh I don’t be thinking anyone makes them anymore.”  She finished with my hair and left.  It was still early, but I was very tired.  A pretty white gown had been laid out for me, but I chose to sleep nude.  The sheets were still pink I noticed as I slipped into them, but that was alright.  A girl shouldn’t grow up all at once.

 

                When I finally dragged myself out of bed it was well passed dinner.  I really wanted to go back to bed, but I needed to talk to my father and this was the best time.  It had already been six days since we had come back from Tuirn and twelve or thirteen since I had seen the seeress.  I needed to know more about the vision I had had about the robed people with the strange orb and whether they were a threat to the Ys lands.

                I threw on a light shift and wrapped my long blue cape about my shoulders and cinched it around my waist with my sword belt.  It seemed to be becoming a natural part of my outfit.  It sat on my left hip as if it had always been there as much an accessory as my hair combs or gloves.  The thought of it not being there seemed more strange then the idea of a three-hundred year old ghost having left it for me.

                I hadn’t told my mother about how it had been given to me by Beibhann yet.  I had just said something about finding it at our ancestral home.  I thought about telling my father about it, but if I told him about seeing Beibhann he would tell my mother.  There were no secrets between the two.  Part of my caution with my mother had to do with her being a gossiper and her strange lack of guile.  For being a silé she was transparent.  Her thoughts were easily readable on her face or in her actions for anyone with any talent to see. 

                Mezjio, on the other hand could keep a secret in his right hand without his left being the wiser.  Sorcerers have to be circumspect, especially from each other.  One of the reasons I think my father decided to stay in the Ys-lands was the paucity of sorcerers in Brython.  Lusitania, his homeland, was rife with them.  Others preferred the Independent Cities and Tuirn where the money was while those of a more mystical bent preferred the wastelands of the Gev desert or the ice bound lands of the far southern Sax lands. 

                In Brython we only had three.  One had been my father’s apprentice and was now a rival who lived in the south selling his skills to the warlords of the hill-tribes.  The other reportedly lived in the northlands on Larghan hill just south of the tropical forests where the mossy oaks and red leafed maples give way to the acacia, mahogany, rosewood and teak.  No one had heard from him in several years.  Still one should be careful not to discount a sorcerer before seeing a body and maybe not even then.

                Kepheria and Mezjio were as different as Dyannu and the dark side of Agor orbiting at the farthest edge of Her reach.  My mother loved parties, people, and of course her romantic dalliances.  While father, a strange concept for a Kelti house, was a sorcerer who spent more time under the stars with beings and powers better left unnamed then with living people beneath Dyannu’s light, and aside from the needs of some of his arcane rituals he seemed to have no sexual interests outside of mother.  Indeed, Kepheria once described my father as a ‘brooding, moody nightmare crouching in ruins seeking to decipher the secrets of the Celestial Supernals from the chirping of crickets.’  Yet they seemed made for each other.  Even their fights seemed choreographed and scripted and when they made up you could hear my mother moaning like a banshee across the house.  No other man could do that for her.

                My mother and father are not only very different from each other, but also very different from other Keltii men and women in that they are actually married.  This was to please Mezjio’s family.  The Lusitanii are very conservative as you must know if you’ve been there, dwarf.  Most Kelti máthairs are not married in the western sense of the word.

                My mother still sees to the sexual needs of her swords and they to hers, but she pledged to have no daughters by any man but Mezjio.  I wonder what she saw in him to make her marry and have children by an outsider at such a young age.  Kepheria had only been seventeen when she meet Mezjio and then birthed Sileres within the year.  I had been born just two years after when she was twenty.  Kepheria had had only one other child since then.  A boy, named Aeren, when I was five.  He had had wiry brown hair and olive green eyes and was always full of trouble.  I’m sure he was Rowan’s son.  He got lost in the Miserere de' cild swamp when he was only eight and was never found.  That had been only four years ago.  My mother had been upset of course, but it had been Sileres who had cried for days.  That had been shortly before he had left to be bladed.

                Mezjio is a Lusitanii who are cousins of the Gedic peoples of which the Fir Bolg and the Tuirn are part.  They had split off to the south at about the same time as the Aeolians, another related people, had headed west across the sea to settle beyond the lands of the Brittanii.  Some Aeolii blood still lives on amongst the Keltii, especially those descended from the southern tribes near Poilhnise like my mother.  It is from them that my mother and I get our long slim noses and gentle cheeks.  However, Kepheria had reddish-blonde hair while most Poilhnise favor very black locks like the Lusitanii which me and Sileres take after.  We each favor our father’s black wavy locks, but our maternal grandmother’s sea-grey green eyes.

                Mezjio’s father, Utmar, had come to Ys about thirty-five years ago leaving his young wife and baby boy behind in Lusitania.  He had come to help engineer the canals along the Dannue, Rahn, and Conht with his uncle and had later superseded him in the project.  It had been Utmar’s vision to extend the canals his uncle had built to make a continuous waterway all the way up the mountains to the loch.  It took him some time, but he eventually convinced the máthairs and the Ard-King to back the project. 

                The máthairs had wanted a better trade route west then expensive oxen-pulled wagons over bumpy roads or the uncertainties of sailing north around the pirate infested jungles of the Durfey Cape and the Ard-King and the Tetrarchs wanted a better way to move large numbers of men and supplies in case of war with Tuirn.  Indeed once construction started the Tuirn decided they also needed a canal to the loch on their side.  It had became a race.  It was decided that the winner would get to rename the loch.

                The Tuirn had had plenty of money and slaves, but my grandfather had had an innate ability to read the land.  He could tell just where the mountains were strongest and where they would fail.  Then his son, my father, came north from Lusitania, lending his newly acquired arcane arts to his father’s project. Together they accomplished more in the next three years then in the previous six.  They didn’t finish under budget, that had been blown in the second year, but they beat the Tuirn.

                Utmar had ordered his men to dismantle a flat-bottomed barge and have it hauled up the mountain and reassembled.  Then, just as the last lock was ready, they dug just deep enough to let it scrape its way into Loch Gödel, as it was officially renamed, well ahead of a Turin sloop on the opposite side.  The Tuirn said Mezjio and his father had cheated and still call Loch Gödel, or King’s Loch, Loch Gede to this day, so imaginative, and therefore have actually betrayed us three times, but no Kelti cares what those westerners think or say. 

                Mezjio told me it had been my mother’s idea to have the barge brought up the mountain, but she later told me it had been her mother, Arian, who had thought of the plan and had made her tell it to Mezjio.

                The reigning Ard-King, Foysthe of Lady Nemi of House Erth, had declared a fete and had given Utmar a sword of office marking him a king-of-the-land and giving him place of honor in his lodge and several herds of sheep and cattle.  He quickly passed those honors on to his son and retired back to Lusitania being mindful that any king of the Ys lands, no matter how minor the title, could be challenged to the death and he had made plenty of enemies.

                Despite the danger of holding such an honor Mezjio decided to stay.  He had fallen in love with Ys, the Keltii, and apparently my mother as well thanks to grandmother Arian, and after some lessons in swordsmanship managed to defend himself successfully enough to discourage any further challengers.  Thereafter it had become a belief amongst the Keltii that a man slain by the sword of a sorcerer does not go to Elysium beneath the sidhe hills nor does his zelem go back to Caldon the Father or his fourth soul cross the Nord Sea to the Temple, but they are all taken by the Kelippoth of the Broken Sky to be taken by the sitra ahra.  It is a belief my father hadn’t seen his way around to refuting.

                I’d come halfway up the stairs that spiraled around the tower and stopped.  Here was a secret door that opened on to an inner, hidden stairway that went to my father’s conjuring room.  It was guarded by a daemon named Baliel.  He would challenge whoever knocked to answer a riddle.  Not that the riddle was important.  If Baliel didn’t know or like you he’d kill you riddle or no.  He liked me.  I knew the answers to all his riddles and had even taught him some.  But I think he liked me mostly for our trips behind the veils of the world.  He would take me to see other planes and dimensions that exist interleaved within our own.  He said it was necessary to for me to travel nude.  He would prepare a infusion of tansy and chamomile tea with a little honey and have me strip off my clothes.  He said it was necessary for the forms to work properly, but I think he just liked gawking at young naked girls and hoped the herbal mixture would warm my nether regions so he could rape me.  Tansy can have that effect. 

                I warned him that my father would destroy him if that happened and that I didn’t want to lose a valuable ally.  Not to mention that any woman who survived being ravaged by a daemon would be sure not to live through the resulting childbirth.  And, as is known, every mating with a daemon is fertile.

                I placed my palm on the wall.  “Adyr!”  That means secret place; a rather standard password.  The door opened letting out curls of smoke smelling of treacle and rosewood around a tall jade skinned man with tiny curled horns sticking out of golden hair.   Actually Baliel is jade all the way through except for a secret hollow spot where his Talisman of Life is kept.  If that spot is hit and the talisman is broken, Baliel would be destroyed.  My father had told me where it was.  I later told Baliel and gave him his freedom in exchange for safe-keeping my father’s seven souls.

                “House-daughter Uillceal, is it?”  Everything seemed to be a question with Baliel.

                “If it pleases you.  Is Mezjio busy or my I enter?”

                “If you wish to enter, that you may, but my riddle first you must answer, before you go on your way.”

                “If a riddle you have for me, I will answer, and then my father see.” Daemons like that sort of thing.

                “If you please:  What is tall as the sky and deep as the sea, can’t be held and yet holds everything?”

                “Didn’t we do this one before?”  I asked.

                Baliel frowned at my lack of proper form.

                “Sorry.  Let’s see, tall as the sky . . . Tall as the sky . . . . A mountain is pretty tall.  So is air.  It makes up the sky, but not the sea.  Mmmmm.  Mountains and sea beds are made of rock.  Rock!  Wait, it’s not rock.  Rock can be held.  It’s space!  Space is everywhere and holds everything.  Is that the answer, daemon Baliel?”

                “Indeed your answer is correct.  Your logic is perfect in every respect.  Will you enter?”

                “If I may?”  I entered the door and proceeded up the inner stairs to the top of the tower.

 

                “Have you ever seen a sorcerer’s work room before, dwarf?” asked the girl to Amak.  “How they think to discern the meaning of the universes and the powers of the Aillil and Supernal in such squalor is beyond me.  Surely Caldon did not create Nysia amongst scribbled notes and dirty glassware.  Nor did the Hidden One devise the powers and engrave their havat upon the spheres with His tools and materials scattered hither and yon.

                “Along with the torn pages and open books filled with squished, squiggling penmanship in every fari of margin-space, spilled salts and acids, and half completed and forgotten experiments and meals were circles of power and forms of calling.  If not for the ever present Watcher standing guard there is no telling what monstrosities would have come visiting House Gwynlambth from the Broken Sky, the Celestial Spheres, Caldon, or beyond.  I had cleaned, tidied, and organized that room over a dozen times, yet every time I came back it was as messy as before.  In fact I think everything within it had a secret place that it gravitated back to once I left.”

               

                “Father,” I said.  “This place is a mess.  Isn’t it dangerous to have this place cluttered so?”

                “Strange, I asked the same about your room four days ago.”

                “You left the desk.”

                “My contribution to your mother’s project.  Baliel found it in my storeroom.  There were a couple of books on celestial science and a Hammurabic translation of the Arbatel in it as well that I thought you might find useful.”

                “Do you know why mother suddenly decided to redo my rooms?”

                “Oh, I think you told her.” said Mezjio as he started going through his pockets looking for something.  I was more perplexed by his statement then by any of Baliel’s riddles.  I hadn’t even seen Kepheria before I had left for the Beren.

                “Here it is,” he said.  He held a tiny round object between finger and thumb.  It shone a delicate pink in the light of the haphazardly scattered candles about the workroom.

                It was one of the shell buttons from the nightgown I had ripped.  I was embarrassed to think my mother and father knew about that incident.  It had been such a peevish thing to do and then I wondered if my father had pictured me standing nude in the middle of my room.  Why was I imagining him imagining that?  I wondered if a late night visit to Rowan’s chamber would help me get a grip on those thoughts or make them worse.

                “I’m sorry, father.  It was a very pretty nightgown.  My favorite.  But how did you go from a button to a desk?”

                “Your Ys-girl said you were very agitated that night.  What she said made your mother remember some past ladies of the house who had suddenly left House Gwynlambth after going to the seeress.  She said she was too old to have to start over raising another daughter.  But you have something else on your mind.  Something that happened on the trip.”

                “Yes, I --”

                “A vision of ill portent.”  My father raised his eyebrows up and down the way sorcerers do when they are trying to be dramatic.  It always made me smile.

                “Is there no surprising a sorcerer?”

                “The readings simply said you’d come upon a puzzle, a riddle of importance to your future.”  Mezjio said turning serious.

                “It might be more important to the Keltii then me personally.  I think a warlord of some kind is coming from the west or south with a powerful orb and sword to conquer the Ys lands.  I saw him in a vision I had at the seeress’ grotto.”

                “You didn’t tell your mother about it.” It wasn’t a question.

                “No.”

                “Mmm. Troublesome.  Come. Sit.”  He gestured to two small armless chairs facing opposite each other over a low table by a window shining bright with Dyannu’s light even though it had been almost midnight outside the tower when I had entered.  On the table was a large clear crystal sphere sitting within a framework of moving copper rings at various angles; some rotating so slow they seemed to be still, others completing an orbit every few seconds.  We sat down and Mezjio’s eyes, brown like well polished wood, stared unblinkingly into mine.  “Tell me every detail,” he said.

                I told him of everything I could remember from entering the seeress’ sidhe, to my reaction to the paste, ending with the failed card reading and the vision.  I worried he’d sensed my omission of the king in the pool.

                “There were four man-sized figures and one child,” I told him.  “The child was carrying an amber colored crystal orb.  The tallest man behind him had no hood and I believe he was the leader.  He had a strange helm and armor of blue and gold with a black cross and two black eagles on his breast and a sword almost as big as himself.”

                “That is the insignia of the Order of the Holy Sofi.  It is one of the militant septs of the Bulgari.  The Lusitanii have been at war with them for centuries.  The blue and gold mark him as a senior war chief, a Tephelem.  I don’t know why one would come so far north.  Tell me more about the others.”

                “They all wore hoods.  One of them had a raised sword with the hilt covering the face so I couldn’t see anything.”

                “The hands.”

                “Hands?”

                “If it was holding up the sword you should be able to see the hands.”

                I closed my eyes and tried to remember.  “It was wearing gloves.”

                “What type? Color? Design?”  My father adjusted the rings around the crystal.  I could feel a slight hum as the vibrations of the crystal resounded within my mind.

                “The fit is tight for using a weapon.  The fingers are slim, long.  The leather is green; stained from long use.   There is a circular design on the back of the right -- no left.  On the right is a pocket.”

                “What of the others?”

                “One is shorter than the others.  I can’t see the face.  The hands are crossed over the chest.  I can sense great strength.  He’s built like a bull.”

                “A Minotaur?”

                “No.  A Man.  The shoulders and chest are broad and deep.  I feel the Aillil about him.  It is like he comes from some place far away.  I see now that his robe is white, not grey or black like the others.  It’s not the robe though.  It is like a light comes from inside the robe.”

                “That would be an Ailf.  At the beginning of time some of the first race separated from Man and chose to cleave onto Caldon.  Those became the Ailf; immortal Men.”

                “I remember my lessons, father.  They had to forgo having children and were separated from Man so to keep Them from iniquity as it is said in the books of the Hammurabii.”

                “Who do you see next?”

                “There is a child carrying an orb.  An amber colored crystal strangely cut of seven heptagons connected by peculiar triangles.  It holds a potential I don’t understand.”

                “Is it not one of the seven manifestations of power?”

                “It is not evocation, invocation, abjuration, or any other power I can identify.”

                “I am not familiar with this object.  But sometimes powerful items are carried by children as manifestations of innocence who can hold energies without being corrupted by them.”

                “Innocent children?” I asked.  “Aren’t even Lusitanii beyond such myths?  Children are the greediest, cruelest, most self-centered beings on Nysia.”

                “Yes.  It’s that pure selfishness that lies next to unconditional love in their hearts.”

                “Love.  That’s what the last figure said.”

                “Tell me about it.”

                “I see now that it had no hands.  The sleeves of the robe just end.”

                “That means they are dead.”

                “Why would there be a dead person in my vision?”

                “I don’t know.  What is it doing?”

                “It is the only one who spoke in the vision.  It said: ‘love’.”

                “ ‘Love’.  Love what?  Love who?  Is it a question?  An imperative?”

                “It was simply, ‘Love’.  It made me scared.  It was the one part of the vision that seemed to actually be directed at me.”

                “Well quite the eclectic mixture.  A Bulgari, an Ailf, a child with an orb, a ghost, and a swordsman.  These are marching on the Ys lands?”

                “ ‘From the west comes one seeking vengeance by sword and spell.’ is what the seeress said.”

                “Spell?”

                “An old H'rancis word meaning a making.”

                “Oh.  I’ve never been to H'rancis.”

                “You’ve barely been out of the Ys lands since you got here.”

                “I like it here,” said my father a little defensively.  “But I am going to Lusitania in a couple of months.  There is to be a college of the Principles of Balthazar to discuss matters of the Forms of Caldon.  Some of the membership are worried about the Broken Sky.  They say it is getting closer.  Would you like to come?  You’ve never seen Lusitania.  I think you’d like to visit your family there.”

                That was a totally alien idea to me.  In the Ys lands family is the House and its máthairs and long lists of aunts and cousins for the women.  For the blades there is no home but their House and no family but their lodge.  To contemplate ‘family’ outside of those norms was almost as mind warping as the seeress’ vision.  I knew that my father had family in Lusitania, but had never considered the ramifications of them being my family as well.

                “Yes,” I found myself saying, “I think I’d like to.  Will I be able to attend the sessions of the conclave with you?”

                “The sorcerers of Lusitania are very traditional, but you’ll be with me.  If you don’t make yourself obvious then they won’t mind.”

                “In other words if I don’t speak they’ll deign to accept my feminine presence in order not to not insult you.  Father,” I asked him, “how did you come to marry a máthair of the Keltii and live in the Ys-lands after being raised in a society that’s scared to shit of breasts.” 

                “I think it’s the vaginas that scare them more,” said Mezjio stroking his short bread.  Even as a silé I had trouble telling when he was joking.  “Do you think Sileres would come?”

                That had been his true question.  As a father in the Ys lands he had nothing to give his son, but in Lusitania his family had lands and status.  My father wanted to introduce Sileres to Lusitania to entice him to live there.  In Lusitania my father hoped to keep his son safe from the duels and combats that make up a blade’s daily life here in the Ys-lands.  I knew that would never be.  Sileres’ blood might be half Lusitanii, but his heart beat with the rhythms of the Ys-lands.  Still, I thought, he should visit and, besides, I didn’t want to go without him.

                “Yes, father,” I said.  “I’ll ask him myself.  What of the vision?  Is it important?  Is there a danger?”

                “If not for the details and strange incongruities I would dismiss it as just random noise, static crossing the ether.  That said, I’m not sure if this vision relates to Ys, even less to you, but it is a strong sign.  We’ll look in the histories first.  Perhaps this is a past event remitting itself into the present or perhaps your strong reaction to the seeress’ preparation made you pick up a seeing meant for someone else in a different place, different time, different world.”

                “Won’t it take a long time to search the histories?  I was just in the library a few days ago.  It’s very easy to go astray or overlook what might be just a passing remark amongst hundreds of books.”

                “We’re sorcerers.  We have ways.”

                That was the first time my father had ever said I was a sorcerer.  I had always been his student and helper or apprentice.  Obviously he didn’t mean I was an equal, but it was definitely a step forward in recognizing my abilities.

                Mezjio took out three plain paper bookmarks.  One each white, blue and green.  “What three words or phrases best describe your vision?”

                “Well, Bulgar lord or warlord would be one.”

                “That might be too general, but Sept Sophi or Telephem might be too specific.”  He wrote Bulgar Warlord in grimorean on the white bookmark.

                “Next.”

                “Orb or crystal?  Magical yellow crystal?  No.  Seven sided orb?”

                “Yes that it’ll do.  I’ll add amber-colored.”  He wrote that on the blue bookmark.  “Next.”

                “A ghost that says: ‘love’.”

                “That is a very specific element of your vision.  It might not turn up anything, but if it did . . .”  His voice trailed off as he wrote on the third, green, bookmark.  “Now we need the library.”

                I got up to go to the door.

                “Oh no, Uillceal  We aren’t going to the library.”

                “But--.  Of course not.”  I stopped and turned with my hands on my hips.  “What made me think that?”

                “Think I’d ever get anything done if I had to walk to the library all the time.  It comes to me instead.”

                My father got up out of his chair and proceeded to a full length mirror set on a stand to one side of the room.  Using a Quick Flame making he lit two small candles on either side.  The scent of patchouli and roses filled the air.

                “Come,” said my father holding out his left hand.  I walked over to him and took his hand.  With his other he passed a small wand over the surface of the mirror and said: “Library.”  The reflective surface rippled like water then the image of the second floor library in the house appeared.

                “Your activation word is ‘library’?”

                “If I made it complicated I might forget it.”  He stepped forward through the mirror holding my hand as I followed him.

                “Are we actually ‘in’ the library in the house? Or is it an illusion?  And if it’s an illusion what use is it?” I asked stepping through into the unlit book-lined room.  I walked over to the small table that held my mother’s portrait where I had left a small lantern almost a week ago.

                “We are in a state the allows us to interact with the library without actually being there.  We are seeing a projection of the library and our interactions with it are translated into different functions.  When we reach for a book it is opened for us and the contents shown here.  The actual book in the library never leaves the shelf.”

                “How do you know the projection is complete?  Isn’t it possible that something could be missing and you wouldn’t know?  ‘The map isn’t the country.’”  I picked up the small lantern and stared at it suspiciously then lit the candle with a Flame Finger.

                “I used the projection table in the house to scan each and every book and then saved the results in this illusion.  I had to slave three minor demons to keep it all in memory and have it regularly updated.  Now take the bookmarks we made.  Along the edge you will see some engraved script in silver.  Repeat the script and then very carefully say the written words as you pass the bookmark across the spines of the books.”

                I did as he said and soon saw little white flags poking out of the tops of several books.

                “Repeat with the second and third markers.”  I did and more flags, blue and green, appeared.  By far the most were white for Bulgar warlord, followed by a dozen or so blue for the seven-sided amber-colored orb.  There was only two green marks in the library for ghost or spirit saying: ‘love’.  No book had all three.

                One of the green flags was in a slim collection of verse.  That was no help.  The second was a book purporting to be an encyclopedia of dream symbolism.  It said a ghost speaking was an omen of things to come.  Very helpful that.  It went on to say that the ghost was usually a deceased loved one.  Again, helpful.

                “Why is this book even here?”  I wondered out loud.

                “Check the author.”

                Dream Interpretation and Readings by Venuia ni Gwynlambth, my great grandmother.  I gave it a quick leaf through.  I wasn’t overly impressed.

                “Have you found anything useful?” I asked my father.

                “A Bulgar warlord did once visit Ys about seventy years ago.  His name was Magna, Sir Darius Magna.  He was ostensibly here on a trade mission, but he spent most of his time trying to recruit blades to fight in the south against the Lusitanii.  He got a few interested swords, but they quit when they learned of the religious requirements.  The Tetrarchs finally asked him to leave.  There had been a tentative agreement to trade honey and wines for manganese and other minerals, but the Bulgars were never heard from again.  The other references don’t mention anyone specifically or a warlord visiting Ys proper.”

                “That leaves us the orb,” I said.

                We quickly realized we were on to something.  In Donui’s Compilation of the Histories he mentions that in The Book of Man there was chronicled an amber-colored orb of great power found by the dwarves and given to the Ailf to be the center piece of the Great Temple in the frozen north.  The orb had disappeared, the temple left unfinished and a great war had broken out between the two races.

 

                Amak knew that history very well.  It was part of what the Khazadii call the Betrayal.  At least we are honest with ourselves about our crimes, he thought.  The Khazadii had stolen the orb, Nysia’s Heart, back from the Ailf just before the temple was to be completed.  The resulting war had almost split the world apart and Naraka, once a city of peace, had been destroyed.  The race of Man had been mere slaves then so it is no wonder their history of the time was incomplete.  It had been many thousands of years ago, before even his father had been formed.  It was a crime for which the Khazadii, the Ailf, the whole world was still paying the price.

 

                “What do the other sources say?”

                “The orb itself was lost, but there are many references to shards being found.  Either the orb had been broken or, some say, pieces were cut off when it was shaped.  The shards are said to have magical powers of their own.”

                “What type of powers?”

                “The usual.  Invisibility.  Travel to other worlds.  Mind-control.  Attraction of wealth and sex.”

                “Hardly powerful.  I can do most of that with a pretty dress and a smile.  The rest is just legerdemain sorcery.”

                “Still the question is why is it in your vision?  Does someone have it now or are they soon to find it?  Will they use it against Ys somehow?  And why?”

                “The seeress said they come for revenge, but we’ve never meet the Bulgari in battle.  Do they think we are allies of Lusitania?”

                “The Lusitanii and Keltii are distant cousins and some swords do serve there as officers, but most are on the western frontier fighting the Saxæ.  Perhaps this Telephem is in the pay of someone else, like the Tuirn.”

                “Given the history of Tuirn that is worth looking into.”  I thought back on all their past treacheries.  “They are a most deceitful people.”

                My father raised his brows and moved back slightly.  Apparently my recent revisiting of the past had let more acid leak into that last comment then I had intended.

                “I’m tired,” I said.  “My sleep cycle has been turned upside-down.  This late night studying is your style not mine.  I should go to bed.”

                Mezjio leaned forward and gently kissed my head.  “Goodnight,” he said.  “I’ll investigate further and let you know what I find.” 

                Then he passed his hands over me and I was back in my room.  Sorcerers just can’t do anything the regular way I thought.  I threw my mantle and sword to the end of the bed, crawled beneath the covers, and fell instantly asleep.