Rising From the Ashes: The Chronicles of Caymin Page 13

  “Why? What is wrong?” she asked.

  “The energy it must have taken to work such a spell from such a distance,” Una said.

  “The forest? That was his spell?”

  “What else could it have been?” Niall said.

  “They’re afraid he won’t be alive,” Cíana said solemnly.

  Diarmit turned to her. “It might have killed him?”

  “Magic takes energy,” Gai reminded him. “You know that. If it demands more than you have, it can kill you.”

  A somber silence fell over the group. Caymin looked from one to the other, bewildered. “Timmin is old,” she said tentatively.

  “Yes,” Daina said. “But because he is old, he is the wisest among us. It will be a great loss to us if he dies.”

  Caymin fell silent. All her life, she had lived with death. Badgers, foxes, hawks, owls – they all hunted. For them to live, something else had to die. It was simply the way things were. There was a sense of loss, of course. Other badgers had died in the winters she lived with them, and she missed them, but she knew, if Broc or Cuán had died, she would have felt a keen grief.

  Cíana must have been watching her, because she said, “You told us about the night the wolves attacked. You would have died fighting them, to save the badgers.”

  Caymin nodded.

  Cíana dipped her head. “The same with Timmin. He fought the invaders with magic, and he may have died doing it. We honor that.”

  This, Caymin understood.

  The day wore on with no sign of the elders. The prisoner stirred and sat up. He looked longingly toward a nearby pail of water.

  “He is thirsty,” Caymin said.

  Méav stood over him with her spear as Caymin filled a gourd with water and raised it to his lips. He gulped it down, plus a second gourd-full of water. They eyed him curiously.

  “What kind of animals did those skins come from?” Méav wondered.

  “I do not know,” Caymin said. So many things about him were strange and wondrous, like the brooch he wore at his chest, fastening his furred cape. It was made of metal, worked with intricate designs. She leaned forward for a closer look.

  “Take care,” Méav warned her.

  Caymin glanced into his pale blue eyes, but he was smiling. He nodded and she reached out to touch the pattern – a long, sinuous creature with wings spread.

  “Drage.”

  She frowned. “Dragon?”

  His eyes widened. “Ja!”

  “Caymin,” Méav said in a low voice. “Come away.”

  Caymin backed away from the man and waited with the others.

  The sun was on the far side of the sky by the time Enat and the others returned to the village, Ivar carrying Timmin in his arms.

  They brought him into the meetinghouse, and Caymin got a glimpse of his face, nearly as white as his beard. Someone fetched a sleeping mat from one of the dwellings and they made Timmin as comfortable as they could.

  The apprentices were shooed outside while the elders worked. Enat emerged after what seemed like a long time and called Caymin to accompany her to their cottage to gather herbs and roots she needed.

  “Will he live?” Caymin asked as Enat loaded her arms with pots and jars.

  “I don’t yet know,” Enat said. “He’s very weak. The spell took nearly all he had. And he had a great deal.”

  “But it worked. The invaders left. They are gone.”

  Enat’s expression darkened. “Not all are gone. And now they know we’re here.”

  CHAPTER 12

  Back Into the Mist

  For the next days, Caymin barely saw Enat. She slept alone at the cottage, making the porridge and oatcakes she liked so much. She brought some to the meetinghouse, leaving them outside the door for the elders who were still tending to Timmin. Neela thanked her tiredly, and then closed the door again. No word came as to whether Timmin was improving or not.

  The apprentices were left on their own to speculate what would be done with the stranger. He had been brought into the meetinghouse as well so that the elders could heal his leg.

  “They’re trying to talk to him,” Diarmit whispered, listening at the door. “He just keeps saying the same things over and over.”

  “Come away from there,” Ronan said.

  “What do you think they’ll do with him?” Diarmit asked as he joined the others.

  The older apprentices looked at one another darkly.

  “What?” Daina looked from one of them to the next.

  “Well, they can’t just let him go now, can they?” Méav said.

  “He knows too much about us and the forest, now he’s been here,” Fergus seconded.

  Caymin sat up. “What would they do with him?”

  “There are ways,” Una said. “Spells that can take away someone’s memories, but it’s near impossible to only take the memories you want. It might leave him completely addled.”

  “In the meantime, we’ve work to do,” said Ronan. “It’s past time we should be finishing the harvesting. The crops have been ready.”

  Gai scowled. “Can’t we hunt? We need meat as well.” He glanced at Caymin. “You can speak to them better than we can. You can call something to us.”

  She looked at him, aghast. “I would never. Hunt if you must, but you cannot hunt animals who trust you enough to speak with you.”

  “She’s right,” Una said. “No matter how skilled any of us ever becomes at speaking with them, we can’t call animals to us. It isn’t sporting or right. We hunt by stealth, and we’ll honor the spirit of any we kill.”

  Fergus and Una shared a meaningful look. “I’ll go with Gai to hunt,” he said. “If the rest of you don’t mind harvesting.”

  They left to get bows and spears while the others collected baskets and headed to the planted clearing. There, they spent the rest of the day gathering the last of the barley and wheat and oats, digging up parsnips and turnips, pulling carrots and onions, cutting cabbages and picking beans. They filled two baskets with apples.

  Caymin tried to block the occasional stabs of fear she felt from animals in the forest where she knew Fergus and Gai must be in pursuit. Underneath all, she felt Péist, faint and indistinct, but there. Always there. She smiled.

  When they had gathered all they could carry, they shouldered the baskets and carried them back to the village. To their surprise, they found Ivar, Neela and Enat sitting around the fire outside the meetinghouse, a pot of stew hanging over the flames.

  “How’s Timmin?” Méav asked as she set her basket on the ground.

  “Finally better,” said Enat.

  Caymin noticed how tired she looked. “He will live?”

  Ivar nodded. “He’ll live. But he’s still weak. That spell cost him dearly.”

  The others deposited their baskets and joined the group at the fire.

  “And what of the stranger?” Ronan asked.

  “He’s well enough to walk,” Neela said. “In a few days, we’ll remove all memory of the forest and his days here, and take him where others can decide what to do with him.”

  She dished out bowls of stew for each of them.

  “What happened when you were at the village?” Cíana asked Ivar as she passed a bowl to Daina.

  “They were ready to fight,” Ivar said. “I was organizing them to go meet the invaders at a valley beyond their village, but the invaders stopped on the far side and never advanced. We could see them camped there. We didn’t know what they were waiting for, why they didn’t attack. Then, they just retreated back the way they came.” He glanced at Caymin. “Not until I got back here, did I realize they were just a ruse to distract us while the others came across the lake.”

  “Thank the goddess you were warned that they were coming from that direction,” Enat said to Caymin. “When things are calmer here, I would like to meet Péist.” She looked around at the harvest baskets. “But for now, we have more work to do, getting everything you harvested stored away and picking t
he rest tomorrow. It’s nearly the equinox.”

  A triumphant shout diverted their attention as Gai and Fergus appeared with the carcass of a stag slung over their shoulders.

  Ivar got to his feet. “I’ll help them skin and then butcher the meat.”

  Neela sighed. “Well, let’s get the bowls cleaned and back to work.”

  Caymin gathered an armful of bowls to wash while the others took the harvest baskets to the storage cellar dug on the outskirts of the village. Diarmit accompanied her.

  “You really can talk to the worm-creature?”

  Caymin shrugged. “As I said, it is not really talking so much as I feel his thoughts.”

  “But he didn’t show you who hurt him?”

  Caymin knelt at the edge of the stream. “No. Why?”

  “No reason.”

  Diarmit knelt beside her and they scrubbed the bowls in silence. As they carried the clean bowls back, Diarmit said, “Only, we know someone who enjoys hunting and hurting things, don’t we?”

  She looked at Diarmit as, from somewhere in the trees, they could hear Gai telling Ivar about their hunt.

  Within a few days, Timmin was well enough to be moved, “but not well enough to live by himself,” said Enat. “So he will be staying here with us for a bit.”

  Caymin helped set up a sleeping mat for him near the cottage’s fire. He leaned heavily on his staff as Enat accompanied him. A chair from the meetinghouse had been carried by Ivar and padded with a sheepskin. Timmin groaned a little as he settled his frail frame into it.

  “Caymin, would you make Timmin a cup of tea?” Enat said.

  Caymin pulled the kettle from where it hung over the fire, and mixed the hot water with some herbs and leaves to aid healing. She glanced questioningly at Enat, who nodded. Holding her hand over the cup, she whispered words of power to enhance the healing.

  Timmin thanked her, and sipped at the tea. “I couldn’t have made better myself.”

  Caymin beamed with the praise. She peered at him. “Can you tell me more about the magic you used against the invaders?”

  “What did you see?”

  “We were all hidden, watching the invaders as they began to chop at the trees with their axes,” Caymin said. “I could almost feel the pain from the trees. Suddenly, it seemed the trees moved, surrounding them. The moonlight disappeared and a great noise rose up. It felt as if the forest was fighting back.”

  Timmin nodded. “The forest did fight back.”

  “But the trees did not actually move. Or did they?”

  “Yes and no.” He looked at her. “If you can probe the minds of your enemies, you can sense what they fear most. Those strangers come from a land of great superstition. They knew this forest has ancient power and they feared it. All I did was use their fears against them.”

  Caymin frowned. “But we saw it also.”

  Timmin smiled grimly. “It was a costly spell.”

  “The distance he cast the spell and the number of people he made feel it,” Enat said. “Don’t ever attempt such a thing again.”

  Timmin shrugged. “Aye, but it worked. We can hope they’ll never come back.”

  Enat pursed her lips, but said nothing more on the subject. Instead, she said, “You should get some sleep.”

  With a heavy sigh, Timmin agreed and allowed her and Caymin to help him to his makeshift bed.

  “Sleep well, Timmin,” said Enat, covering him with a blanket.

  “You as well,” he said with a yawn.

  Caymin wandered through thick mist, swirling about her so heavily that she could not see her outstretched hand. She knew this mist. It was the same that had surrounded her when Enat guided her on her spiritwalk. She followed, letting the mist choose her path for her. When it parted, she was unsurprised to find herself on the outskirts of her village again.

  There, as before, was her mother, her red hair tied back as she cut carrots into a kettle of hot water, while she watched little Caymin laughing as she sat on her father’s lap, plucking at the small harp he held.

  All around them, other villagers called to one another, cooking over their fires or chasing their own toddling children. In the distance, she heard older children calling from the field where they tended the cattle and goats and sheep, bringing them in for the night.

  Caymin smiled, looking at the peacefulness of it all. She sat, watching her family in wonder, listening as her father plucked the harp and sang a song.

  Too soon, the mist swirled around her once more, and she walked on, following the path it laid before her. When next the fog parted, it was full night, with fires burning in front of some of the dwellings, others with plumes of smoke rising from smoke holes in their roofs. It seemed most had retired for the night, though a few men still lingered at one fire and Caymin saw a woman leaning close to another, using its light to sew a torn garment.

  Suddenly, the night air was filled with screams and yells and the sounds of chaos as warriors swarmed the village. Swords flashed and more screams followed. Thatched roofs were set afire and ignited bottles of oil were thrown through doorways. Soon the entire village was ablaze and a pall of smoke obscured what was happening. Warriors entered dwellings, hauling people outside where most were put to the sword. She saw bodies falling, heard women scream as they were dragged by their hair. Caymin watched as her father ran from their burning cottage, armed only with a scythe. He used it well, keeping two warriors away from their door, but when a third warrior joined the fight, her father could not swing the scythe fast enough to keep all three at bay. He dropped the scythe and lunged at one of the warriors, grabbing at his sword, but one of the other warriors moved in, plunging his sword into her father’s back.

  Her mother emerged from the cottage as he fell. She ran to him, catching him and clutching him to her. Behind her, a crying Caymin stumbled out of the cottage as the roof and walls collapsed, sending a geyser of sparks into the night sky. Her mother reached one arm toward her to shield her even as she clung to her dead husband, but the warriors wrested his body from her arms and pulled her to her feet.

  As her mother struggled to free herself, one of the warriors knocked little Caymin into the flames, taking no heed of the little girl’s screams of pain as she writhed.

  Caymin stood torn between her younger self, burning and screaming in the flames, and her mother being dragged away by cloaked warriors….

  The mist swirled about once more, and she heard a voice in her ear.

  “Come away now.”

  She felt herself rising through the mist into wakefulness and opened her eyes to find Enat kneeling beside her.

  “I saw…”

  “I know.” Enat wrapped her in her arms and held her, rocking her as she cried.

  When she quieted, Enat released her. Caymin sat up, wiping her face with her blanket. “How? How did I have this spiritwalk tonight? I did not have the potion.”

  Enat glanced toward the fire where Timmin lay sleeping. “You’ve been wanting to go again since that night, wanting to see more. I think Timmin’s presence, his magic, opened the door for you in your sleep.”

  “They did not kill her.”

  “What?” Enat turned back to Caymin who had reached for her old cloak.

  She stared at the design woven into the cloth – a blue wolf with red eyes, holding a yellow sword in one paw. “They killed my father, but they took my mother.” She held up the cloak. “If I can find the ones who wear this, I may find her.”

  Enat was silent for a long moment. “It’s not likely, little one, that she could still be alive.”

  But Caymin wasn’t listening. She lay back down, holding the cloak in her hands while Enat went back to her bed.

  From far away, Caymin felt Péist’s concern at her distress. “I am unharmed.” That wasn’t exactly true, she knew. As much as she had wanted to see her family again, to know what had happened to them, she almost wished now she hadn’t seen. Her fingers unconsciously went to the scars and ridges on the side of
her face, and she closed her eyes against the image of her father’s death. But her heart held fast to the knowledge that her mother had not died that night.

  When she opened her eyes again, she saw that Timmin was awake, watching her from his bed.

  “Focus,” said Ronan to Caymin as she tried to levitate a rock he held in his hand.

  Frowning, she concentrated harder.

  “Stop. You’re not going to frighten it into moving by glaring at it. Pull the power from deep inside you,” he said. “Feel it rise, and with it, the stone.”

  The stone rocked in his palm and slowly began to rise, spinning in the air.

  “Well done,” he murmured. “Now feed it, just enough to hold it steady.”

  “Look at Caymin,” said Diarmit, who was working with Méav and hadn’t succeeded in getting even a feather to levitate.

  “You’d do better to look at this feather,” said Méav. “And get the wretched thing to lift.”

  Diarmit reached for the feather and tickled her under the chin with it.

  “Bah.” She slapped at his hand and got up. “I’ve had enough of this one.”

  “I’ve had enough of this altogether,” Gai said, dropping the stone he was levitating under Una’s tutelage. “What do you think they did with him?”

  The meetinghouse door stood open and the elders were nowhere to be seen, nor was the prisoner.

  For days, the elders had ensconced themselves in the meetinghouse with the northman. Occasionally, their raised voices could be heard as they argued about what to do with him.

  “They agreed to alter his memory,” Fergus said. “They’re probably taking him away to the villagers to let them decide what to do with him.”

  Caymin frowned. “But will they let him go?”

  Méav turned to her. “What would you do with him? Let him go back to his land and take the chance he’d tell them all about us if his memory comes back?”

  Daina looked troubled. “Surely, they wouldn’t kill him…”

  “The invaders came here with one goal,” said Fergus. “They wanted our land, our forest. We have to do what we must to protect it.”

  “My father would have had him executed after he told us all he knew,” Gai said. He glanced at Caymin. “I’m not saying it’s the right thing, but it’s what must be done.”