Meri (32 page)

“Come! Now!” Skeet shrieked at her against the wind.

Rapacious, it tore the words from his lips and devoured
them.

Still Meredydd resisted, wrenching away from his tenacious
grasp as she clambered soddenly to her feet. He shook her, harder than she
thought he could, and thrust his face close to hers.

“She won’t come now!
She will
not come
! Come with me!”

Meredydd glanced around her. The entire world was in
frantic, drenched motion. Earth, sea and sky blurred and she realized that if
the Meri were to appear in this barrage, she would never see Her. Reluctantly,
she allowed Skeet to lead her to the burrow he had dug away from the assault of
the waves.

It was a sandy pocket, just big enough for one person. He
had cloaked it with one of the ground covers from their sleeping kits and
secured it with large rocks. He pulled the cover back now, and pushed Meredydd
inside.

“Stay!” he ordered her and shook a slender finger in her
face. The lid closed and he disappeared.

When the adrenaline ceased harrying her blood, Meredydd
began to feel the chill of her predicament. Her clothes were more than just
wet; they were completely sodden. And her body, no longer protected from the
cold by her stubborn will, quaked uncontrollably. Struggling to find a
comfortable position, she discovered her back pack instead. There was, within
it, the last change of clothes she’d soaked—dry now, thanks to her attentive
Weard.

Feeling a relief that bordered on the euphoric, she began to
drag out the clothing, then stopped. Perhaps she should remain as she was.
Perhaps some suffering was called for. She had been driven to abandon her
Pilgrim’s Post, she had fallen asleep twice and had constantly allowed Skeet to
ply her with luxuries and comforts. She felt suddenly guilty.

She sat very still, pondering the idea, dry clothes tempting
her fingers, wet ones mortifying her body.

“The Meri,” she heard Osraed Bevol remind her, quoting the
Book of the Meri, “is not reached by the weak, or by the careless, or by the
ascetic, but only by the wise who strive to lead their soul into the dwelling
of the spirit.”

She began to strip off the wet clothes as fast as her hands
could move. It was difficult in the small, dark pocket, and the dark, as much
as the constant howl of the wind, was oppressive in such close quarters. She
used the arduous task of removing her sopping garments as a defense against
that oppression, pushing the sodden wads of fabric up under the lip of the
cover to act as stop-gaps, gratefully extracting the dry replacements.

The sand within the burrow was damp, but it was paradise
compared to the cold misery she had known only minutes ago. When she finally
curled up in the relative warmth of her new condition, she was suffused with a
great, wonderful contentment—a peculiar thing to feel, she supposed, when one
huddled in a damp hole on a storm besieged beach while wind and wave and
thunder assaulted on every side. But content she was, and exhausted, and the
combination of these pulled her into the arms of sleep.

Silence woke her. She opened her eyes to absolute darkness
and her ears to virtual hush. There was a rhythmic hissing sound outside her
safe little haven—the voice of a calm sea. She pulled herself upright, rubbing
at the ridges and depressions the backpack had left in her cheek.

Above her head the cover rippled gently; she sensed it and
reached a hand up to feel. Water soaked through the fabric at the touch of her
fingers and ran down into her hand. She held the hand there until a palmful of
water pooled, then brought it to her lips. It was cold, fresh and good, despite
the slight taste of canvas-oil. She got a bit more water, then gingerly lifted
the cover from her den.

Moonlight, blinding and beautiful, poured in under the flap,
nearly drowning Meredydd in its pale tide. It glittered in tiny points of light
across the wet sands, mimicking the stars strewn overhead. The entire world was
jeweled, like the great cavern Meredydd had always imagined rune crystals came
from—some subterranean cathedral, shimmering with magic just like this.

She was awed by it, songless and wordless—unable even to think.
Out of the pocket she came and down to her Pilgrim’s Post. She took up her
place on the damp dune and began, again, to wait. She knew, of course, that no
one had ever waited this long for the Meri, but she didn’t let herself dwell on
that. This place was magic—this night was magic. It was as if the Eibhilin
world had merged with the world of men and decorated it with sublime radiance.

She waited expectantly now, eyes on the moon-bright waters.
Mist rose around her from the moist sand, and she imagined she was being
watched over by Eibhilin who hid their unimaginable glory with coarser nature.
The moon glided across the perfect sky, glazing a silver path over the waves.

A path down which the Meri will
come
, thought Meredydd.

Her stomach growled and she thought of Skeet—faithful,
fleet-Skeet—and wondered where he was. Still asleep, she thought, and smiled.
She would apologize for making his role as Weard so exhausting and difficult
and she would tell him she could not have asked for a more perfect, devoted
companion. She was a little ashamed to have ever thought him too young or too
ignorant. He knew, it seemed, everything he needed to know.

The moon rode over and dipped toward the Sea, then into
it—or apparently so. Meredydd knew the true ways of moons and stars and planets
and yet still imagined that in some world the moon boiled the water into a
hissing froth when it set.

She enjoyed the moon-set, watched the silver fade from the
face of the Sea. The jewels were returned to their box and the swathe of light
disappeared as the moon drew in its train.

When it was gone, Meredydd nearly held her breath. The world
around her seemed hushed and expectant; only the waves whispered among
themselves, but every blade of grass, every grain of sand tarried in silence.
Together, they waited.

And waited.

And waited.

Nothing stirred; nothing breathed. Meredydd was alone as the
magic oozed out of the night like water from a riven bag. The light of the moon
faded from the horizon; the silver beach tarnished, dulled, blackened. The
chill of exhilaration was replaced by mere chill. Even the waves whispered
differently now—backbiting the lone, lonely figure sitting cross-legged on her
sandy throne.

“Silly Meredydd,” they murmured sibilantly. “Silly, silly
Meredydd.”

Despair swept over her, and she could not dam up the tears
it brought with it. They overflowed her eyes and poured down her cheeks in a
flash-flood of anguish. Had this been what Taminy-a-Cuinn found one hundred
years ago somewhere along this stretch of rock and sand? Was this what sent her
into the Sea to meet death instead of eternal life?

Meredydd cried until she had no tears left. Until the sense
of loss became a sense of resignation. Until the only thing she wanted in life
was home and Osraed Bevol and Skeet...and Gwynet. There could be nothing warmer
than a home fire, nothing sweeter than a shared cup of hot cider, nothing more
desirable than family. Jewels.

She took a deep, shivering breath, trying to fill the empty
space within her with something besides vacuum. She could come back again in
three years. Wyth had failed his first Pilgrimage; that didn’t mean he’d fail
this one. If he could be brave enough to weather the extra years of
Prentice-ship, she certainly could.

Her backbone stiffened a bit, bringing her sagging frame
upright. Well, she thought, taking a final, tear-spangled glance at the vast
ocean, she had better find that lazy Skeet and tell him she was ready to go
home—after supper. Her stomach had never felt so empty.

She was on her knees when she saw it, far out from shore
like a false moon-rise. She stared at it, not registering what it was at first,
but only watching numbly as the pale patch spread out upon the dark water like
a spill of milk on black velvet. But this spill was spreading with a purpose,
undulating just beneath the waves. And it was coming right toward the spot
where Meredydd now stood. She could see, now, that it was not just a milky,
pallid green; it was radiant. Radiant with Eibhilin Light—the Light of the
Meri.

Despair, resignation, hunger, cold, loneliness—all fled
before the Light wending its way shoreward. Meredydd wanted to dance, to sing,
to shout aloud with jubilation. Oh,
where
was Skeet? Could he see her? Could he see
this
?
She wanted him to see this.

She glanced around, wildly, her eyes scouring the beach for
her young Weard. She dared to turn toward his camp; there was no fire laid and
the cover of his burrow was open, catching the Eibhilin Light as it flapped in
the breeze.

Anxious now, she made the pass again. More details came to
light in the approaching glow of the Meri—hillocks and rocks and tangles of
driftwood. Her eyes moved south along the waterline again, toward the Bebhinn
marshland—there, a branch; there a piece of flotsam; there a rock; and there,
something that did not belong on the beach at night. Half in and half out of
the water, it looked like a large rag doll—limbs awry, trailing in the surf.
But it was not a doll, it was a boy.

Terror pulsing in heart and head, Meredydd glanced wildly
out to sea; the milky radiance continued its slow approach, serene and silky.

She twisted back toward the body. The
body
! Dear God, no! That was Skeet; she couldn’t
think of Skeet like that—an empty shell floating lifelessly like a discarded
rag.

With one final glance for the Meri, Meredydd bolted from her
post and up the shoreline to where he lay, as sodden as her clothing had been
and as limp. She pulled him free of the water’s icy grasp and hauled him onto
dryer sand. Water poured from his mouth and nose. She held him so that it would
all be expelled.

The beach was growing lighter. Meredydd did not look at the
light. She rolled Skeet over and felt for his breath—there was none. She
listened for his heart with her ear, with her palms.

There was no rhythm. She didn’t accept what that told her.
She knew a duan. One she had never used. One Osraed Bevol had taught her and
which she had heard him sing but once. It was an Infusion duan, and he had used
it to focus a Revival inyx.

But Meredydd was not Osraed Bevol. She needed more than a
duan to focus her frenetic energies. Her pack lay back in her sandy den, the
Farewelling crystal in one pocket. Unhesitatingly, she rose and flew over the
sand to get it.

The beach was now awash with Eibhilin Light. Meredydd did
not look at the Light. She fell into the burrow, fumbled for the pack and dug
out the crystal. It was a clear one and just fit into the palm of her hand. She
raced with it back to where Skeet’s still form lay, frosted with the glow from
the water.

Meredydd dropped to her knees beside him. Shaking so hard,
she could barely hold the rune crystal, she cupped it just above Skeet’s still
heart. She closed eyes that barely noticed the radiance lapping at the shore so
very near them, and began the duan.

“See the rain fall on the land—soak
the earth.
See the sun blaze in the sky—bring rebirth.
Water to the stream, to the lake, to the well.
Heat to the land, to the corn, to the dell.
Return what is taken. Return the water.
Return what is taken. Return
the heat.”

The beach now blazed with Light, but Meredydd did not see
the Light. She droned the duan, feeling it gather her fading faculties. Sensing
its warmth between her shoulders. Trembling

with nothing like cold as a Door opened above and golden
power flowed through the crown of her head, down her arms to her hands.

“Return what is taken. Return the water.”

The Light was in Meredydd’s hands. It leapt from her fingers
to the surface of the crystal and ran like soft, golden lightning from facet to
facet until it had covered the gem in a cloak of incandescence.

“Return what is taken. Return the heat.”

In the clear crystal heart a spark flared, grew, blazed
bright and fierce. Meredydd opened her eyes and the Light flooded them, bathing
her face and arms and Skeet’s still form.

“Return what is taken. Return the water.”

She laid the crystal over the boy’s heart, holding it there
with one hand while, with the other, she tilted back his head.

Almost did she succumb to her own sense of incompetence when
she realized the full import of what she was trying to accomplish.

“Return what is taken. Return the heat.”

She had never woven this rune. Never called upon an inyx of
this power. She had watched Bevol confer the breath of life on a young woman
who had fallen from the Mercer’s Bridge over Halig-tyne. She had adored him
that day—Osraed Bevol, a saint so strong in the Art he could bring the newly
dead back to life.

How dare she attempt what was an exceptional feat even for
the Osraed?

She swept the doubts aside—she had to for Skeet’s sake—and
bent her head over his. She put her mouth over his mouth and breathed her
breath into his body.

The crystal in her right hand radiated her Light, mingling
with the Light from the water lapping only inches away; the duan rolled through
her mind; the breath flowed from her lungs. Two times. Three. Four.

Tears formed behind her eyes and spilled over again. How
long had it taken Master Bevol that day? She couldn’t recall.

Surely it hadn’t taken this long.

She raised her head and keened in anguish. Skeet would die
and her single-mindedness would have killed him.

Beloved God
, she prayed,
dearest Meri, don’t let Skeet die
!

She lowered her head again and suffused Skeet’s body with
breath and anguish and a plea. Again. And again. And again.