Crystal Rose (20 page)

“The Jura are mystics. What do you think?”

“That perhaps Lady Aine Red will not even have to inyx up so
much as a spark. The talisman itself may be enough.”

Now, he felt the full force of his uncle’s gaze. “Do you
still not understand? The scroll is no more than a tanned skin, naked until
written to by Art. The shard of crystal is just that—a piece of rock—lifeless
unless touched by the aidan. Aine-mac-Lorimer is the talisman, Nephew. Without
her, the other things are so much hide and stone.”

Saefren found himself with nothing to say to that. Unlike
the House Jura, the Claeg was not a House of mystics. The Claeg had been
farmers, warriors, landlords, and occasionally courtiers. They had never
produced an Osraed, and few, if any, Prentices or cleirachs. They were
practical people—strong of bone and will— pragmatic, above all things. Now here
was The Claeg, himself, speaking mildly of the touch of the aidan and of a
flesh-and-blood girl who was also a magical talisman for an even greater
magic—also incarnate in a young, self-possessed cailin.

Saefren had seen the magic—the Weaving, as the initiates
preferred to call it. He could not deny its existence, nor, strictly speaking,
could he doubt its source. That Airleas Malcuim on the Throne of Caraid-land
with Taminy-Osmaer at his side was preferable to being lorded over by a Feich
was obvious. That Taminy, though possessed of great power, was a good, gentle
girl was also obvious. But was she Osmaer? Was she allied with the Meri? Or was
she literally
self
-possessed—seduced
by her own abilities into believing herself more than she was?

Uncle Iobert would say such a strong Gift could only be
wielded by one aligned with the Spirit of the Universe, but Saefren had heard
scripture quoted to support the idea that there was another force in the
world—a force as evil as the Meri and the Spirit were good. Saefren would never
call himself a scholar, but it seemed to him that the very fact the Corah
sometimes referred to this world as the World of Light and Shadow surely
alluded to its dual nature.

So then, if the Meri was the Light, what was the Shadow?

oOo

It was cold in the cave, and wet and dark. Daimhin Feich
found all those things exceptionally depressing. Especially so in the middle of
a cloudy night; there would be no walking out into the warmth and light of the
sun. Soaked to the knees, Daimhin, his cousin Ruadh and two kinsmen waded
through the surf into a narrow slit in the cliff face, and negotiated a close,
dark passage where their torches and lamps smudged the hemming ceiling with
soot and stained their eyes with glare.

Without warning, the walls and ceiling flew away and what
had seemed like blinding light was all but swallowed in a chamber so large it
dwarfed the throne room of Mertuile.

Blinking, shivering, Daimhin Feich tried to take it in—tried
to see what the chamber contained. When his eyes had adjusted to the balance of
light and shadow, they began to register the peculiar shapes that surrounded
them, the tiny points of light scattered throughout the gloom like stars in the
night sky.

In a moment, the shapes began to resolve and Feich found
himself in the midst of an eternally frozen congregation in an underground
Cirke. He swung his lamp to dispel the impression; the forms were mere stone—but
they were covered with jewels.

Heart tripping over itself, Feich splashed through a shallow
pool onto a gravelly shore. It took him a long moment of groping toward the
nearest misshapen pillar before he realized that even the sands beneath his
feet glittered. Stunned, he stooped to scoop up a handful of jeweled grains.
Though the largest were only the size of pebbles, the sight of them amazed him
beyond words.

Not so, his young cousin. “I thought you were here for
something a bit larger than that,” he said sharply. His voice shattered on the
crystalline walls and fell to fragments in the rush of surf.

Daimhin let the gem-sand slide through his fingers like a
rain of solid rainbows. “Nervous, Ruadh?”

“This is a holy place.”

How matter-of-fact he
sounds. How anxious.

Daimhin looked around at the glittering chamber. Legends
were strong here—ancestral fears hard to set aside . . . for some.

“You think so?”

Ruadh didn’t answer, but his feet made uneasy sounds in the
crystal gravel.

Daimhin raised his eyes and lamp to the pillar before him.

Even this close, his eyes tried to tell him this lump of
rock was a cowled and cloaked penitent, frozen in the act of bending the knee
to . . . He turned his head, following the direction of the stone worshiper’s
devotion, and saw the largest structure of all—the gleaming altar of this
stygian sanctuary. Seeming at once liquid and solid, it appeared to have been
caught in the act of pouring from a long crevice in the wall. It, like every
other structure in this place wore a mantle of pure crystal.

He moved across the jeweled strand until he was within arm’s
length of the great mass. That other prospectors had been here before him was
obvious from the gaps and holes in the altar drape. Still, it was awe
inspiring, the individual stones ranging in color from dark blues and violets
to bright gold.

Color. He hadn’t even imagined the colors. He had figured to
march in, chip out the first stone that came to hand (or two, perhaps, to be
safe), and leave this dank hole as quickly as possible. Now he realized that
color was critical. The color had meaning. He wanted the color of power. The
color of passion. His eyes scanned the altar mass until, in shadow beneath a
fluted ledge, his lamp light fell upon what he sought.

Summoning his silent cousin to hold the lamp, he took from
his belt pouch a silver chisel and a small silver hammer brought him by the
superstitious Cadder, and set to chipping. The lamp quivered in Ruadh’s hand,
scattering quaking brilliance over the glittering form. Still, Daimhin Feich
chipped at the root of his crystal until at last it succumbed and tumbled into
his open hand—big, heavily faceted and the color of fresh blood.

Beg forgiveness and pardon
from the Spirit alone. Confession of your transgressions before men is
unworthy; it has no relation to Divine forgiveness. Confession before others
results only in humiliation, and the Spirit—beloved is She—does not desire the
humiliation of Her lovers.

—Utterances of Taminy-Osmaer
Book of the Covenant

The chamber was dark except for the four points of flame
that danced atop candles set at the corners of an invisible square. The place
reeked of incense; sweet, pungent, musky; its smoke lay in loose coils about
the candle sticks. In the midst of it all, Daimhin Feich sat cross-legged, the
blood-red crystal cupped in his hands. His eyes watered and stung. That was the
sole result of his efforts so far.

Cadder had spoken of “communing with the stone.” He’d tried
that; he’d only given himself a headache. He knew Taminy was rumored to have
conjured in the old tongue, but Cadder assured him no Osraed had ever used it.
Just as well; he knew not one word. He knew singing was part of the ritual of
Weaving. Knowing no duans, he put his plea for the stone’s acknowledgment into
clumsy words, then constructed a simple melody. Mellifluous as his voice was,
the stone remained unimpressed.

He opened his eyes now, sniffling and hacking a little, and
glanced around. Was the room wrong? He had assumed darkness was beneficial, if
not necessary. If nothing else, it helped him concentrate. Should he not sit on
a carpet? Were special words needed—what the Osraed called inyx? If so, was
there somewhere at Ochanshrine a book of such incantations?

Frustration roiled in him like a wind-bedeviled cloud. Damn
Cadder! He clearly knew more than he was telling. Offers of reward had not
helped, perhaps a subtle threat would pry some artful information from those
zealot lips.

That in mind, Feich rose stiffly, moved the candlesticks
back to the fireplace mantle, doused the wretched incense and opened a window,
letting in cold night air. Then he gathered up two of his personal guards (one
was a Dearg, now, so as to send a strong political message), and went over to
Ochanshrine.

Caime Cadder, he knew, was wont to worship at night when the
holy Osraed were tucked away in their private chambers or dining in the Abbis
refectory. Accordingly, he went to the Shrine proper and was not disappointed;
Cadder was there in the bottom-most tier of seats, eyes rolled back into his
head, lips moving soundlessly, hands folded obsequiously in his lap.

Feich’s lip curled. Perhaps that had been his failing with
the smoky red stone—he had not made himself look ridiculous enough. Leaving his
guards to hover nearby, he moved to sit next to the cleirach, pinning him with
a gaze as chill as the water in the belly of Ochan’s sea cave.

As if he felt that chill, Caime Cadder shivered and opened
his eyes. He all but leapt from his seat when he saw who sat beside him.

“Regent Feich! What-whatever are you—?”

“I have it,” Feich said, patting a velvet pouch at his
waist. “But I can’t use it. You must show me how.”

oOo

“I have something to show you,” Catahn had said. The air
around him shimmered and danced with anticipation and Taminy, looking up at him
from Wyth’s manuscript, smiled.

“Show me? Show me what?”

“If you’d come with me . . . ?” Diffidently, he’d held out his
hand. Taminy had taken it and allowed him to lead her from the room.

They had passed through the heart of Hrofceaster and out
again into a courtyard snug in the windless lee of the crags. It had been
showered with sunshine the moment they stepped from the shelter of the fortress
and she had been delighted with the play of light on the water of a spring-fed
fountain—water cascading from the mountain face that rose steeply to form the
rearward wall of the court. Twisted pines sat here and there in huge wooden
pots amid hand-hewn benches; wild vine roses twined up walls that glittered
with mica and quartz. A few brave blooms even dared the wintry day.

“It looks poor now, I know,” Catahn had said. “But in
spring—”

She hadn’t let him finish the apology, but leapt to throw
her arms around his neck and kiss his bearded cheek. “It’s beautiful,” she told
him. “The most beautiful gift I’ve ever known. Thank you, Catahn.”

A second kiss deepened the stain of red that hid beneath his
beard. He had barely spoken to her as they sat together watching the Sun shift
the shadows across the little court.

She sat now, blanketed, on one of the wooden benches in a
small pool of sunshine—soon to disappear as the Sun traveled over the ramparts
of Catahn’s fortress. The roses were without bloom and nearly leafless, the
conifers shivered in a chill breeze, but the Sun yet gave warmth and strewed
diamonds in the spring’s icy flow. The Ren’s gift was beautiful and dear.

She had been in commune with Iseabal, ensconced now at
Halig-liath, and mulled over what the girl’s aislinn messages told her. The
Gilleas had come to Nairne at her summons, had met with The Claeg and had been
delivered his talisman. None had been more astonished than Aine-mac-Lorimer to
discover that she was, in spirit, the key to that talisman.

Taminy afforded a smile for that. Her message had been
well-received; The Gilleas had enlisted himself in her Cause and would travel
with The Claeg to Creiddylad, but not before they visited the Jura, the
Graegam, the Madaidh and the Skarf. With the strength of those Houses they
would press Airleas’s Regent to return Colfre’s heir to the throne of
Caraid-land.

She prayed for them every success, but knew that,
ultimately, the Chieftains themselves must decide the fate of their Houses. She
could only speak to their spirits, seek access to their souls. If they barred
those doors in her face . . .

She looked up, sensing approach long before the heavy
pinewood door in Hrofceaster’s flank creaked to announce her visitor. She
frowned. Odd, this visit, and unexpected.

“Such a marvel!” Deardru-an-Caerluel stopped in the middle
of Taminy’s courtyard before the fountain pool, her eyes on the cascade of
water from the riven rock of Baenn-an-ratha. “A garden in the heart of Catahn’s
fortress. Eyslk told me of it, but I could not believe. I’d to see it with my
own eyes before that.” Those eyes moved to Taminy’s face. “A gift from the Ren,
she said.”

Taminy nodded, smiling now, but still attempting to probe
gentle fingers of sense into the older woman’s mood. “He wanted me to have a
bit of home. I’m looking forward to seeing the roses bloom again.”

“He wants you . . . to make this your home, Lady. Those roses
will not bloom until late spring.”

Unease fluttered in Taminy’s heart. Deardru was overfull of
something that clearly distressed her. “Speak plainly, mam. Why have you come?”

The full lips twisted upward. “Your magic doesn’t inform
you? You’re not the Wicke Eyslk believes you, then.”

“I’m not a Wicke, nor does Eyslk believe me to be one. She
knows what I am.”

The Mistress-an-Caerluel turned to face her full on. “And
you know what Catahn is. Yet you let him stay close to you.”

“And this distresses you? Why?”

“I have told you why. Catahn is not what he seems to be.
Perhaps your Gift has bewicked him, confused him, made him seem gentle and
meek. He is neither. Catahn is a man of strong will and stronger desires. He
sees what he wants and takes it and what he doesn’t want, he puts
aside—forever.”

Taminy tried to fan warmth into her suddenly chill core.
“You speak of your husband—Catahn’s brother.”

“I do. Catahn wanted . . .” Her lips thinned, tightened. “. . . what he knew was his brother’s by right. And he did not care whose suffering he
caused in having it.”

Taminy looked over at the fountain, its water bubbling clean
and cleansing from the ageless rock face. There was a message in that wonder of
nature, but she was unable to fathom it. What had she said to Airleas—that
strong emotion and the aidan combined with difficulty?