The Witches of Eileanan (8 page)

All the while Isabeau had been talking, she continued to concentrate on the seeds in the pot, warming them with her mind, feeding them with her own energy. As she recited the last few languages, she saw the soil begin to stir and blessed the many times she had seen Meghan perform this trick.

A hiss of satisfaction escaped Jorge for his blind eyes had seen what the witches had not. Seychella was on her feet in an instant, and when she saw the first seedlings feeling for the sun she called, "Bravo!"

"Isabeau the Foundling has passed the Trial o' Earth— the challenge o' knowing," Meghan said, and there was satisfaction in her voice. She brought Isabeau a plate of bread and cheese and apples and a cup of mint tea. "Eat deeply o' the good earth, my bairn, and goodwish the fruits and beasts o' the world, for without them we should die."

Isabeau, who liked her tea hot, heated it with her finger before drinking, and ate some of the bread and cheese. She felt strength returning to her, and jubilation, for she had passed the first three Trials.

The blind warlock now rose to his feet and carried a candle over to Isabeau, who smiled at him and lit the wick without even a twitch. Bored, she decided to give them a demonstration of what she really could do. She lifted her hand so the flame leaped from the candle to the tip of her finger, and then played with the flame, until she was juggling three tiny balls of fire. Before she could do anything more, Meghan said sternly, "Ye have shown us the flame, now show us the void."

Obediently, Isabeau winked the candle flame out, feeling a little resentful.
The challenge o' the flame and the void's an elementary exercise
—
any novice could do it,
she thought. Nonetheless she waited for the praise she thought inevitable.

"Humility and self-control are necessary attributes o' any witch," the Sorceress Seychella said sternly. "If a witch misuses the One Power, or grows to enjoy the use o' it too much, only evil can follow." Isabeau felt her heart sink.

She had heard the same words many times from Meghan, but had never paid much heed, being too eager to exercise her will upon the One Power. "Nonetheless, she has succeeded in the challenge o' the flame and the void and so passes the Trial o' Fire. Draw close to the good fire, lassie, warm yourself and bask in its light. Goodwish the fire o' the world, for without warmth and light in the darkness we should die."

Isabeau crouched by the fire until her cheeks were red and her limbs warm, before returning expectantly to her spot.

"Now for the final challenge, the Trial o' Spirit," Jorge said.

Isabeau waited but nothing happened, no one moved or spoke. She glanced at them all, meeting the silver-haired witch's sad blue gaze, Jorge's glazed eyeballs, Seychella's impatient glance. Only Meghan did not meet her eyes, staring sullenly at the ground.

"Tell us what ye see," Seychella said, and Isabeau looked about in some perplexity. She saw nothing that she had not seen for the past four hours—loch, waterfall, forest, sky.

"In your mind's eye, lassie," the unknown witch prompted.

In desperation Isabeau shut her eyes but saw nothing but fizzling darkness. She thought back to the morning of her eighth birthday, when she had been tested in this way before. She remembered how Meghan had drawn something on a piece of paper and had made her guess. "A star in a circle," Isabeau said, and heard them sigh in relief. Involuntarily she looked at Meghan and saw her guardian was staring at her with her piercing black eyes. The stare made her blush and stammer, "I remember the game. I see nothing now."

"Odd," Seychella said. "Do we pass her or fail her? She has given the right response."

"Surely she must see it. It is the challenge o' clear seeing," the stranger said. Isabeau looked appealingly at Meghan but it was Jorge who answered, saying, "She gave the right answer. Who are we to understand the ways o' the Power? How she came to the right answer is surely a matter for Eà."

Relief flooded her. She tried to remember if she and Meghan had ever played that game again, but she did not think they had. Surely her teacher should have prepared her for that Trial? And why had she not seen anything, when they all expected she would?

"Isabeau has given the right answer to the Trial o' Spirit," Jorge intoned. "Feel the blood pumping through your veins, my bairn, feel the forces o' life animate ye. Give thanks to Eà, mother and father o' us all, for the eternal spark, and goodwish the forces o' Spirit which guide and teach us, and give us life."

Isabeau was not allowed to rest for long, though they gave her more water and congratulated her on her Passing. Seychella was openly puzzled about the final Trial, but bowed to Jorge's judgment. Isabeau crouched by the fire again, for the sun was obscured by rising clouds and the wind was sharp, then rose and found a flat patch of rock to do her
ahdayeh
exercises.

"Snow Lion Goes to Drink," Seychella snapped, and immediately Isabeau felt her body swing into the loose, arrogant walk that she had been taught.

"Snow Lion Sniffs the Air," and Isabeau turned to face the witches, every nerve alert, her back straight and her head raised.

"Snow Lion Leaps the Rock."

Isabeau lightly bounded into the air, her arms close to her body, landing a good six feet away, her feet together, knees bent. For the next hour, the commands flew and Isabeau was made to show every one of the thirty-three
ahdayeh
stances. As her body grew tired and the commands more difficult, she felt her muscles beginning to ache and her legs tremble. Only once did she stumble badly though, and that was toward the end, performing Dragon Dives for the Kill, an exercise that involved a complicated somersault and tumbling run. Although Isabeau made the somersault as tight as she could, the rock was uneven and she stumbled as she landed. The witches said nothing, just sat at the points of the pentagram on either side of the fire, and waited for her to recover herself.

Isabeau had hurt her ankle in the fall, but she knew better than to complain or show any sign of pain. She finished the final three steps, landing neatly back in her position before thankfully sinking to the ground. Her whole body ached and she felt tears prickling her eyes, but she said nothing, only looked down at her hands clenched in her lap.

Then the Second Test of Power began. Isabeau felt her confidence returning as she easily passed the Trials of Air, Water and Earth. The first exercise involved lifting a stone from one spot to another—the challenge of moving an unmoving object. For the second, she poured water from one jug to another without moving either receptacle—the challenge of the ebb and flow uncontained. For the Trial of Earth, she called beasts to her—an otter from the loch, a coney from the forest, a crested falcon from the sky, a salamander from the sun-baked rocks, a spider from its web. This was easy for Isabeau, living as she did with Meghan of the Beasts, for all the animals in the valley were her friends. After coming to Isabeau's hand, the animals clustered around Meghan, and she spoke to them kindly, petting the coney's soft fur, stroking the falcon's bright head.

Isabeau should have found the Trial of Fire the easiest of them all, for all she had to do was use fire as a tool. She had forged many knives and spades before, and had sometimes been allowed to make simple jewelry to sell in the village markets. But her task today was to make a moonstone ring, and her hands trembled as she twisted the heat-softened silver. She had never made a ring before, and this ring would be worn by Meghan if she passed the Second Test, while she would wear her guardian's. She wanted the ring to be perfect, so Meghan could accept it with pride. It was a serious statement of trust, to give something forged by your own hand—as serious as giving away something that had been long worn and used by you, since such things could be used against you if they fell into the wrong hands. Yet this was the custom of the Coven, and so the ring she would win if she passed was the ring given to Meghan by her previous apprentice, Ishbel the Winged. Isabeau knew this ring would be one of her greatest treasures, yet one day she too would give it away, in return for a newly forged ring from the hand of her own apprentice.

It was while she was waiting for the silver to soften again that she noticed Meghan talking with a long-eared hare. Hares were not easy to talk to if you had no hindleg or white tail, but Isabeau noticed Meghan beating her hand rhythmically against the ground and wondered what had happened to alarm her. When next she glanced up, Gitâ was scurrying away from the wood witch at a great pace, even taking flight every few steps, unfolding the sails of skin between his legs.

Some other donbeag must be invading his nest,
Isabeau thought idly, before turning her attention to setting the moonstone. She recognized the jewel—she had found it one day several years before while exploring in the mountains, and had given it to Meghan, expecting it would be made into a pretty belt buckle or brooch to sell. It was the only moonstone she had ever found, a slightly misshapen circle that glowed with lambent light.

She set the moonstone between silver single-petaled roses, as Meghan had instructed her the previous night, before Isabeau had been sent out to face her Ordeal alone in the forest. The other witches had left her alone with Meghan, who had spent some hours teaching her the rituals of the Testing. Once Isabeau had her responses word-perfect, and understood what was expected of her in the dawn, her guardian had taken down a narrow book with a blue cover. This was, she learned, her acolyte book, and Meghan had written in it nearly every day of her life. Meghan would not let her read it, but showed her several pages which described her conduct and progress at the lessons Meghan chose to teach her, usually in censorious tones.

The wood witch had then turned to a page very early in the book, and showed Isabeau a design drawn there. It was of a ring, the jewel set between two roses, the single-petaled variety that grew wild, in the mountains. Engraved on the band were delicate lines of thorns. Meghan made Isabeau practice her visualization Skills on the drawing, until Isabeau could draw the design again perfectly. "Remember," the witch had said, "for when ye make your first ring tomorrow."

She wondered why Meghan had insisted that she use such a design, for usually witches set their jewels in the emblem or crest of their family, or designed new shapes and patterns for themselves, according to their history. She had asked Meghan, but the old witch had just scowled and snapped, "Why must ye be always asking questions? Ye will understand when the time is right."

Isabeau had known better than to ask again, but as she carefully engraved the band of the ring with the waving lines of thorns, she wondered again. It was not an easy design to re-create in silver, but at last she finished and set the ring to cool with mingled hope and anxiety.

After each challenge, Isabeau was told to breathe, drink, eat, and warm herself and each time she goodwished the element as instructed. The sun was sinking into a bank of dark clouds, and the wind was rising, and Isabeau was so tired she could barely sit upright. She had no doubt the witches would not let her rest until the end, despite the threatened storm. However, she knew she had only one more Trial to pass, so she took several deep breaths and began to gather in her will.

Meghan passed her a piece of broken pottery. Isabeau ran her fingers over it and concentrated. She felt nothing. She had seen Meghan do this before—hold an object and tell its past—but had never tried it herself. With all her strength she stared at the shard of pottery, willing it to speak to her, but she heard nothing. In despair she passed it back to Meghan, whose face was shuttered.

Her failure astounded Seychella. Under the Creed, a witch did not have to pass the Trials in all four of the Elemental Powers but must succeed in the Trial of Spirit to be permitted entry into the Coven. As far as she could remember a novice had never passed all four elemental challenges but not the final one. Despair rocked over Isabeau and, despite herself, she began to cry.

"Stop your greetin', lassie," Seychella said. "Greetin' shall no' do any o' us any good."

Again Jorge spoke in her defense. "Her face is veiled. She canna open her third eye. I can sense the spirit in her, but she canna see. This happened to me when I was a novice, before I lost my sight. My guide allowed me to try a higher challenge in another element and when I succeeded, I was allowed to pass the Second Test o' Power."

Reluctantly Seychella agreed to allow Isabeau this loophole. Although the sun was still above the horizon, it was darkening quickly as storm clouds poured into the valley. Dragonclaw was completely hidden, and the wind was blowing the witches' long hair about wildly. Isabeau looked apprehensively at the greenish clouds, lit with lightning.

"Did ye call up this storm?" Meghan asked the black-haired witch, who shook her head indignantly. "This is no' the shape or direction storms take around here in spring." Meghan muttered and looked accusingly at Isabeau.

Isabeau found the higher Trial of Fire ridiculously easy, for all she had to do was handle the flames, which she had already done. She laughed when they told her, and conjured a ball of flame that she tossed from one hand to another. She was juggling seven balls when Seychella said with a barely suppressed smile, "Enough! I think we can say ye can handle fire!"

"I did this before, why make me do it again?" Isabeau asked, smug curiosity in every line of her body.