Moonheart (46 page)

First they shared music, the Indian woman thought, now the smoke sacred to Mother Bear. Would they share blood next? She regarded this stranger to her land with open curiosity. Hornless, she still conducted herself with more assurance than the women of the tribes. There was a deepness in her that bore the unmistakable touch of Mother Bear's something-in-movement, but it appeared to move at cross purposes in her. Mayis knew Taliesin's heart— by the First Bear's dark eye, he'd opened it to her often enough. But what of this woman? Who was she, and what did she seek?

"Do you ever have trouble," Sara asked suddenly, "figuring out what's real and what's not?"

May'is'hyr blinked slowly. "How so?"

"Well, you're a shaman too, aren't you?"

"I am a rathe'wen'a— a drummer-of-the-bear— yes."

Sara sighed. "It's hard to explain. It's just that I seem to have trouble working out what's really happening and what's a dream. Dreams become real, or cause things to happen in the real world, but I'm not even sure what the real world is anymore."

"There is only one reality that I know of," May'is'hyr said thoughtfully, "and that is what lies in one's heart. The harmony between oneself and sen'fer'sa. Dreams have their root in reality, but they are important only in how they affect your drumming. We speak to the spirits through our drumming, and that is the final measure of our reality. Do we proceed upon our Way, in our growing close to Mother Bear, then we are real."

"That sounds... sort of dogmatic."

May'is'hyr smiled. "Mother Bear is not something dire to be feared. She reflects our joys as well as our sorrows. Yestereve, when we four joined our music, we were close to her. This morning, with her smoke between us and our words questing for truth, we are close to her as well. It need not be dry and serious, Sara. Only true."

"And dreams? They're real too if you... learn something from them?"

"They can guide you." May'is'hyr studied her for a moment, then added, "Have you been troubled by dreams?"

Sara nodded. "Only I'm not sure if they actually
are
dreams. The first time I met Taliesin I thought I was dreaming. But then he turned out to be real. And then there's..." She motioned vaguely about them. "I'm not sure about anything anymore."

"Tell me what troubles you," May'is'hyr said. "Perhaps I can help."

So Sara did, starting with the day she found the ring and going straight through, leaving nothing out. And the more she talked, the more convoluted the whole mess seemed to her. It was like a ball of yarn made up of a hundred different colors, with odd bits of twigs and straw and dirt caught up in it. You picked up one strand and tried to follow it, but it changed color, got mixed up with two, three, four others, until it was hard to remember which one you'd started with.

"Two things I can tell you," May'is'hyr said when Sara was done. "The first is that, whatever else Taliesin might be, he is still a man and has a man's heart. Who can say what it is that joins a man to a woman? Mother Bear alone can tell us and she remains curiously silent on that subject. This I know: You have been in Taliesin's thoughts since the day you met him on the shore. It is as though he was led astray by one of the honochen'o'keh, so enspelled has he been."

"And the second thing?" Sara asked.

May'is'hyr sighed. "Pukwudji. He is a prankster, that one, cousin to Old Man Coyote. He wears a hundred faces and knows a thousand tricks."

Sara knew a measure of relief. "So I shouldn't take him too seriously?"

"That is more difficult to say. He is like a still pool in that he reflects your heart. If you are mean and small-minded, he will treat with you accordingly. If you are gentle and caring— then he will care for you, be gentle with you."

"So you never can know, can you?"

"In here," May'is'hyr said, touching her breast. "You know in here. For it is
your
heart he reflects."

"I guess I should ask Taliesin then... about these trials."

"I think that would be wise. Taliesin is a strange man— strange to me at least; the Way he follows is different from the Way my own people follow. His people hold great store in an individual's private struggles. It is not so with our Way. With us the knowledge is secret— but only until one asks. We have totems. His people have themselves."

"Oh, boy."

May'is'hyr laid her hand on Sara's arm and smiled. "Don't be afraid. Your tale fills me with forebodings, but know this: You are among friends. We wilt help you however we can." She stood up and looked at Sara. "Your clothes will be wet for awhile yet. Shall we see if we can find you something more becoming to wear than one of Hagan's old shirts?"

The shift in subject brought a shift in mood.

"I kind of tike this shirt," Sara said.

May'is'hyr frowned. "It makes you look fat as a beaver," she pronounced. She puffed out her cheeks and pretended to waddle about. "I saw you more as an otter," she added. "However, you know best..."

Sara laughed. "Okay, okay. What did you have in mind?"

"Something comfortable, I assure you. I have a dress for you. We need only take up the hem a little."

Sara bundled up her clothes and the two of them, with Hoyw trailing behind them, returned to the tower, chatting like old friends.

"No one knows who built this tower," Taliesin said. "Mayis and Hagan lived here for two years before I met them. Mayis was living with her father when they found Hagan washed up on the shore, half dead, big hand clenching that axe of his. A wonder he didn't drown, holding onto its weight! Hagan it was who decided that they should live in the tower. All it needed was some new wattling and turf on the roof. It was surprisingly sound, even after having stood deserted for who knows how many years."

He and Sara sat alone outside the tower, with their backs against the stone wall, a blanket over their shoulders and the broad vista of the ocean spread out before them. Sara wore a dress of soft doeskin that hung to just below her knees and warm leggings tied to her calves with finely braided grass thongs. Her wild curls had been tamed into two braids which, while they weren't as splendid as May'is'hyr's, still made her feel very much Indian.

They had dined on roasted duck, corn meal cakes garnished with slivers of pine bark, and rosehip tea that Taliesin had laid in a supply of over the summer. Now May'is'hyr and Hagan were inside, Mayis working on a beautiful new blanket that was already half finished on her loom, while Hagan braided a fishing net, his big fingers deft and quick as they first worked the rough hemp into rope, then knotted the rope.

Sara and the bard sat for a long time in the silence of the wood and the soft drum of the sea on the limestone cliffs below. The sky was clear, showing a dazzling display of stars. Northward, lights danced in the sky, every color of the rainbow, keeping time to their own magical rhythm. They reminded Sara of The Merry Dancers shop, which made her think of how she'd come to be here in the first place, which brought her around to Kieran's accusations about the bard. And Pukwudji's strange comment about trials.

The day had been spent quietly, but now, with the night lying dark and secret about them, Sara decided it was time to have a serious talk.

"The king's druid who made you leave Gwynedd," she asked. "What was his name?"

Taliesin's frown was lost in the darkness.

"Tomasin," he said at length. "Tomasin Hengwr t'Hap."

Thomas Hengwr. Sara sighed. So that much of what Kieran had told her was true. "Do you hate him?" she asked.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, for what he did to you. Do you hate him? Would you try to kill him?"

Taliesin shook his head, more from confusion than in reply. "Why should I?" he asked. "He is only a stone now, overlooking the sea."

"But if he was alive..."

"You must understand, Sara," Taliesin said gently. "Tomasin was only the instrument of my exile. I would not say that he was a good man himself, but... how could I remain when I was no longer welcome in my own land?"

"Kieran said you were born in the Summer Country. Where's that?"

The bard's eyes almost shone in the darkness. "The Summer Country. The Region of the Summer Stars. It is everything that is good. It is magic and wild and gentle, fey as starlight, true as a friend's heart. I've only walked its borders, Sara, but how my heart yearns to be there in truth."

For a moment he was quiet, then he added: "I have been told by others that I was born there— but I have no recollection of it. Not in the sense of a homeland that once I knew. Only as a homeland for which I yearn. I thought— when my coracle bore me west on Eil Ton's waves— that it was to the Summer Country I was bound, for legend often spoke of it lying in the west."

Again he was still. When he spoke once more, the yearning had left his voice.

"I do not hate Tomasin. Yet when the sea took my coracle and the Gwynedd shores fell away behind me, I laid that curse of stone upon him. I bade him watch the sea for so long as Gwyn ap Nudd still trod the fields of men. It was ill done, I admit." He turned towards her, his face close to hers. "Why do you ask me this?"

For the first time Sara told him all that had happened to her in the short time since they'd parted on that shore near Perce Rock. The only thing she left out was last night's dream.

"So he lives still," Taliesin said. "In your land, in your time. I can only wish him well, Sara. Truly. This... this Dread-That-Walks-Nameless... It is not I."

"Then what is it?" she asked.

"If it were necessary for me to hazard a guess, I might say it was Arawn, the Lord of the Undead, come to bring Tomasin back to Annwn because he lives beyond his allotted lifespan. So I would say, were it not for this." He held up his hand and his own gold ring winked in the starlight. "Arawn has no use nor need for a bauble such as this. For there is only as much magic in our rings as in any gifting ring. No more. Or if so, only because it was given to me by my master Myrddin who was the greatest bard the Green Isles ever knew. But its magic is a binding magic. It opens the paths of the Way, awaking power that is already present, rather than bestowing it.

"I suppose," he added thoughtfully, "this thing that stalks Tomasin seeks the ring for that purpose: to awake more power in itself."

"But what
is
it?" Sara asked.

"I can't even guess. It's a riddle as tangled as any I've heard; the few clues we have mean nothing to me."

"I thought you were good at riddles."

"So did I," Taliesin said.

Sara sighed.

And there was still another matter that needed talking out. She'd put off asking him about it all day, but she knew she couldn't go to sleep with the question unanswered. Who knew what tonight's dreams might bring?

"Are there some sort of... trials in store for me?" she asked finally. Taliesin stiffened at her side. To his credit, he didn't ask how she knew or what she meant. There was no room for lies between them. But her heart felt cold as though he could sense his grandsire's eyes upon him, could hear again that old voice telling him:

Leave her to riddle on her own or all the worth will be undone.

"Yes," he replied at length.

"What are they? Or better yet, why are they?"

"All who follow the Way face certain trials, Sara. It is how you face up to them that measures your growth, your worth."

"My worth? To who? To you?"

He turned to her, hurt in his eyes. The darkness hid it from her.

"You need never prove your worth to me," he said.

"Then to who?"

"To the Old Ones. To the Homed Lord and the Moonmother. To the world's taw of which ours is but an echo."

"What's my trial going to be?" Sara asked.

"I fear it's already begun."

"You mean Kieran's demon?"

Taliesin nodded.

"But that thing's got nothing to do with me," Sara protested.

"There is no such thing as chance in the workings of the world," he replied, repeating something he'd told her the second time they'd met on the shore.

"What am I supposed to do?" she asked, her voice bitter. "Play John Wayne with some monster just to score points with your 'Old Ones'?"

"I don't understand," Taliesin said.

Sara pulled away from him and stood up. She walked to the edge of the cliff, her back to the bard.

"Pukwudji was right. He's got good reason to worry about me. Shit,
I
am worrying about me."

"What has Pukwudji to do with this?"

"He told me about your 'trials' last night."

"Sara. It is not through lack of love that this must be. But there can simply be no growth without a struggle of some sort."

She turned to face him.

"Just what exactly am I supposed to do?" she demanded. "Defeat this Mal'ek'a... this... whatever the hell it is?"

"I don't know. You must seek the answer to that in your own heart."

"Damn you! Just more riddles. Aren't you going to help me at all? I thought after last night that we were lovers— friends at least. I don't understand what's going on, Taliesin. I haven't since this whole mess began. All I want is..."

Her voice trailed off. All she wanted was what? She didn't even know anymore.

"What's the big secret?" she asked in a more even tone. "I mean, last night I felt close to you. Like we had something to share with each other. But now you're sitting there like you're a hundred miles away from me. Why, Taliesin? Why does everything have to be a mystery?"

Each word she spoke struck him like a dagger. It was hearing again his own voice raised in protest to his grandsire. He felt the distance between them, sensed the chasm that could become so wide and deep that they might never bridge it if he didn't say something right now.

His own stubbornness rose in him, as it had so many times before. His own arguments with Myrddin returned. He saw himself in Maelgwn's court once more, calling down the moonsilver magic to bind silent the king's bards and druids and so free his foster father after he'd been told to leave well enough alone by both Myrddin and his grandsire. He saw himself wandering the fey borders of the world, always in search of those mysteries that lay ever out of reach. And when he looked at Sara and saw the same struggle beginning in her Aye, he thought. Bedamned to the Old Ones.