Rising From the Ashes: The Chronicles of Caymin (15 page)

The day of Lughnasadh dawned warm and sultry with the full heat of summer. The sun was not fully up when Caymin and the other younger apprentices were sent out to gather bilberries.

“Why do we need these?” Caymin asked through a yawn.

“For tonight,” said Daina. “They’re part of the feast of Lughnasadh.”

“But why do we celebrate this? It is not a solstice or an equinox.”

“It’s the harvest festival,” Diarmit said. “Didn’t you ever celebrate any of these things?”

Caymin shrugged. “I watched the villagers when they had celebrations, but I never knew what they were for.”

They found a patch of bilberry bushes full of the almost-black berries. They picked them, placing them in baskets to take back.

“Later, we’ll have contests,” Gai said.

Caymin glanced at him. “What kind of contests?”

“Running, sparring, archery.”

“Don’t worry,” said Cíana. “You don’t have to participate in everything. But you should do the archery. You’re better than all of us.”

“I just want to get to the feasting part,” Diarmit said, stuffing a handful of bilberries into his mouth. “And there had better be more to eat than these berries.”

By the time they returned to the village, the older apprentices had set up targets for archery and spear-throwing contests, while the elders had prepared a running course.

“What are you doing?” Daina asked when Caymin sat on the edge of the weapons ground.

“Watching.”

“Why aren’t you competing?” Diarmit asked.

Caymin tilted her head. “Why do we need to compete?”

“We don’t need to,” Cíana said. “We like to. It’s fun to see if you can best the others.”

Gai sauntered over. “And it’s good practice, for when we need to do this against enemies.” He looked at her. “Unless you’re afraid.”

Caymin’s eyes glittered at the challenge. “I am not afraid.”

“Well, then.” Gai crossed his arms as he looked at her.

She got to her feet as Neela called everyone to the archery targets. Instead of the fixed straw targets they usually shot at, five discs of wood had been hung by different length ropes from a long pole.

“That doesn’t look so hard,” Gai said just as Neela walked along, setting the discs to swinging back and forth and spinning on the ropes suspending them.

Cíana smirked. “And now?”

Fergus stepped up first with one of the heavy bows. It creaked as he drew, holding the string to his jaw as he followed the movement of the first disc. He loosed the arrow, but it glanced off the edge of the disc as it spun, ricocheting toward the sky. He drew another arrow from his quiver and struck the second disc, though not in the middle. He moved down the line, ending with three targets struck.

“Not bad,” Ivar said, pulling the arrows free and setting the discs to swinging again for Cíana.

She, too, ended with three targets hit. Méav and Ronan each hit four discs. Gai stepped forward.

He nocked his first arrow and drew, following the motion of the disc. When he loosed the arrow, it struck the disc nearly in the middle. He smiled and drew again, and again hit the second disc and the third. His fourth grazed the edge of the disc, veering off wildly. Clenching his jaw, he drew his fifth arrow and let it fly. It hit the edge of the last disc, quivering where it struck. He threw his bow to the ground with the others as he stalked away.

Diarmit stepped up next, but only managed to hit one of the discs. With a shrug, he turned to Caymin. “Your turn.”

She stepped to the bows and found the one she preferred. She checked the string and gave it a tug as Ivar set the discs to swinging again. She nocked her first arrow, drawing the string and setting her hand against her jaw as she pushed the bow away with her left arm. She took a breath and held it as she followed the movement of the first disc, watching the rate of spin, and let loose the arrow. It struck the target in the center, but she wasn’t watching. Her second arrow was already nocked and the bow pushed into position as she followed the movement of the second disc. She had her third arrow drawn almost before the second struck its disc. She let the third fly and reached for her fourth, and heard the third hit as she aimed and released. Dimly, she heard exclamations from the others watching as the fourth also struck the disc. She reached for her fifth arrow and barely looked at the target, feeling the motion rather than watching it. As she released the arrow, she turned away before the sound of its impact reached her ears.

“All five!” Diarmit stood and pounded her on the back, almost knocking her to the ground.

Cíana pulled her down to sit as Ivar yanked all five of her arrows from the middle of the discs. “And you didn’t want to compete,” she said with a smile.

Caymin grinned.

“I’m not looking forward to going after that,” Una said as she stood.

Caymin glanced toward Gai, who sat, stony-faced, scarlet patches on his cheeks and her grin faded away.

“Come on,” said Diarmit. “Spears next.”

“You go. I will watch,” Caymin said, sitting where she could see the action as the others lined up.

Enat sat next to her. “You shot well. Why are you looking so glum?”

Caymin glanced at her. “It hurt Gai’s pride that I beat him.”

Enat pondered for a moment. “Yes, it did. But wounded pride can be a good thing for some people.”

“But it did not matter to me. I should have let him win.”

“Letting Gai win would have wounded him in other ways – more than beating him.”

Caymin frowned. “I do not understand.”

“Gai wouldn’t have wanted you to let him win. If you had and he’d found out, it would have made him feel worse than being outdone by your best effort. Always give your best, Caymin. Always.”

Caymin thought about Enat’s words after Enat left her. By the time Neela announced that they were ready to begin the running course, Caymin had made up her mind to do her best as Enat had said.

She lined up with the others, and took off when Ivar gave the signal. To her surprise, the course was laid out in a way that evened the competition. There were open stretches where her scarred leg put her at a disadvantage as she fell behind, but then the course moved into the forest where it wound through thickets and over or under fallen logs – places Caymin could scramble through more easily than the others, so that she ended up finishing in fifth place, coming across the finish line on Gai’s heels.

Diarmit came in last, flopping on the ground, his chest heaving. When he sat up, he declared, “I’m not moving another muscle unless it involves eating.”

Neela laughed and said, “Eating is exactly what we’re doing next.”

Everyone gathered for a small meal of barley cakes and smoked venison.

“Isn’t there more than this?” Diarmit asked, reaching for another barley cake.

“There will be more at the feast tonight,” Enat told him. “But it’s important for all of us to go there hungry.”

Caymin looked up. “Where are we going?”

That question was answered late in the day as all of them gathered to carry baskets filled with food: the bilberries picked that morning, along with more baskets of meat and bread. They carried empty baskets as well.

“What are the empty baskets for?” Caymin asked.

Enat leaned on her staff. “You’ll see.”

They proceeded to the clearing planted with all of their crops. To Caymin’s surprise, Timmin was there, also holding a staff, waiting for them. They gathered near as he drew a silver knife from his belt, like the one Enat carried, and used it to cut a sheaf of barley from the stalks that had grown almost taller than Caymin. That first sheaf was carefully set aside, and then a few people harvested some of the beans and cabbages, placing them in one of the empty baskets, while Caymin and the rest dug up onions and carrots and turnips, depositing them in yet another basket.

When they had enough, the baskets were slung over their shoulders and carried in a procession up a steep hill. The sun had sunk behind the mountains to the west as they set their burdens down and gathered together. The five older apprentices led the five younger to make a circle. Méav and Caymin stood together and waited as Fergus and Gai worked with Una and Cíana, murmuring incantations and pointing to direct the shallow ditches that began to appear in the earth, connecting each pair of apprentices until the lines in the ground joined together in the pattern of a pentagram.

“It’s our turn,” Méav whispered. She and Caymin raised their hands, whispering words of power, and fire ran like a living thing along the ditches, illuminating the lines of the five-pointed star.

Darkness fell in earnest as Timmin stepped inside the pentagram, holding the first sheaf of barley. He raised it overhead, murmuring more words of blessing, then tapped the end of his staff on the ground. A hole opened up. He bent over and placed the sheaf inside it, tapping again with his staff to bury it.

Niall and Daina held their hands to the skies, speaking the incantation for water, and doused the fire in the ditches. Then Ronan and Diarmit shifted the earth to heal the scars, leaving it untouched.

The elders all stepped into the center of the pentagram, raised their staffs until they glowed brightly in the darkness. As one, they brought their staffs down and the ground trembled under Caymin’s feet, seeming to spread out from the hillside like ripples in water.

“Please say it’s time to eat,” Diarmit whispered.

Enat chuckled and pointed her staff at a pile of wood that had been stacked off to one side. It burst into flame as the others retrieved the baskets of food. “Now, we eat.”

They feasted late into the night, laughing and listening to Neela sing a song about the god Lugh and his funeral feast in memory of his mother, Tailtiu.

“This tale is the origin of Lughnasadh,” Cíana whispered to Caymin, who was hearing it for the first time.

The others told stories of their villages’ traditions for the harvest celebrations.

“We always slaughtered a young bull,” said Una.

“This was when all the matches in our village were made,” Diarmit said, his cheeks stuffed with bread.

“Ours, too,” said Daina. “My sister was matched last year. I would have been next year, but…”

Caymin looked around, realizing something for the first time. “Do all with power stay alone? Do they not take mates?”

“Some do,” Fergus said. “The mage in our village had a man and children, but many wander from place to place. Can’t easily do that with a family.”

“What of our mages, Enat and the others? They are alone,” Caymin murmured.

Méav leaned close and whispered, “Neela and Ivar are not always alone. They spend nights together when they wish. The apprentices before us told us that Enat had a mate, a woman named Sorcha. She died long ago, and Enat came here to be mage to us.”

Caymin looked at her to see if she was serious. “Two women can be mates?”

Méav smiled. “Two anyones can be mates if they love each other. There are more reasons to be mates than just to make young.”

Caymin thought about this as Neela began another story. Among the badgers, there had been some of both sexes who had paired up, mated for life, but not to breed. She had never thought about taking a mate of her own one day. Being the only two-leg among the badgers, she had always pictured herself thus, alone among her clan.

Later, trudging back to the village under a blanket of stars, Enat said, “You’re very quiet, little one.”

Caymin shrugged. “I am tired.”

It was true, all the activity and excitement of the day had exhausted her body, but still, Caymin lay in the dark, unable to sleep. Nearby, she heard Enat’s gentle snores. All the others had memories of growing up with family – a human family. In recent weeks, her mind had drifted more and more to the mother and father she had only seen once in her spiritwalk. And more and more, she wondered what her life might have been if she’d lived with them. She felt a powerful ache of loneliness for Broc and Cuán and the other badgers – the only family she had known. She drifted into a restless sleep, remembering snuggling with Broc for warmth.

She felt herself flying through the night sky, soaring over hills and lakes until, at last, she was walking through familiar woods. Approaching the hidden entrance to the sett, she lowered herself to hands and knees and crawled inside. There, in the room deep under the earth, was Broc. Her cubs were big now, no longer nursing. They had just returned from hunting, and were grooming one another. Broc licked her front paws and wiped her muzzle.

“Broc?”

None of the badgers stirred at the sound of Caymin’s voice. She reached out, but her hand passed through Broc’s solid body as if she were merely smoke. She understood, then, that this was also a spiritwalk, though it felt different than her usual ones. This felt more real, as if she were actually there.

“Broc, I wish you could hear me. How I long to speak with you.”

Broc raised her head, her nose twitching as she sniffed.

“Can you feel me?”
Caymin reached a hand out again and rested it on Broc’s side. Broc swung her head around, nosing the place where Caymin’s ghostly hand lay.