Taminy Read online

  Taminy

  Book Two of the Mer Cycle

  Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff

  www.bookviewcafe.com

  Book View Café Edition

  March 26, 2013

  ISBN: 978-1-61138-248-8

  Copyright © 1993 Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff

  THERE IS NO MOON...

  Yet there is light—laid out upon the surface of the water like a stole of palest green. No, not on the water, beneath it—within it.

  The old man writhes upon his couch, Struggling to turn his head away from the vision, desperate to close his eyes to the dream. There is no turning away. That radiance—he has seen it before with his material eyes, a young man, then, at the end of a long journey. Yet on this shore stands a girl, waiting for a favor from the Divine, a favor to which she has no right. For Mereddyd-a-Lagan seeks a favor only bestowed upon young men—the Kiss of the Meri, the bestowal of the station of Osraed.

  The brilliance of the water grows, and holds out ethereal arms to the one who waits. The old man cries in his sleep at his scene of diabolical heresy: The Inhabitant of the gleaming water beckons; the girl answers the call. What follows, the old man cannot comprehend, for instead of destroying the young woman as he expects, the Meri calls her into a lover’s embrace and draws her beneath the Sea. He waits for some sign that the girl has drowned, but instead, sees her rise from the waves, dripping glory.

  Only when she has reached the shore, clad only in the gleaming jewels of salt spray, does he realize his mistake; this is not the same girl. Where Meredydd-a-Lagan had chestnut hair and eyes, this girl has eyes the color of the sea and hair of flax. She laughs, her eyes seeming to find him, though he is invisible, and shakes the last beads of liquid light from her long hair.

  He knows her. Ealad-hach is certain he knows her, but he recalls no name, no circumstance, only fear that, because of her, some hideous fate looms over the Land Between Two Rivers.

  DEDICATION

  To my mother, who was a singer and dreamer of great dreams.

  Special thanks:

  To my families, whether they be Bohnhoffs, McCreas, or Tyras.

  To Chris Dickenson, and “Wolfman” Patrick Connors. To Dr. Jim Robinson and Cynthia McQuillen, my dear soul-sister.

  Thanks for being always there giving support, saying prayers, weaving spells ...

  To Jim Baen for publishing the original version of this book and for being a gem of an editor. I miss you.

  And to Bahá’u’lláh, for helping me understand the words, “I loved thy creation, hence I created thee.”

  A TELL OF THE FIRST PILGRIMAGE

  from Osraed Tynedale’s Brief History of the Cusps

  The Meri first appeared on the western shore of Caraid-land during the fifth year of the reign of Malcuim, called the Uniter for his consolidation of the noble Houses under one lordship. His truce with the two most powerful of the Houses, Feich and Claeg, was uneasy at best, and often as not the two were, separately or together, seeking to undermine his authority.

  On the eve of what might have been a disastrous day for Malcuim, an eve which saw the Claeg and Feich plotting an assault on the Castle Mertuile, a great storm assaulted the country’s Western shore. This storm not only shattered the plans of the conspirators, but it began an adventure for a boy named Ochan-a-Coille which would revolutionize the history of Caraid-land. Ochan, from a Forester’s family in the wood north of Mertuile (near the present-day town of Storm), was a young man of great virtue, but he had a penchant for daydreaming. Though he loved the woods of his childhood, by the age of fifteen, he was uneasy and eager, chafing to expand his knowledge of the healing arts, praying to use his native abilities for more than grafting branches.

  His father, thinking him unfit to follow the family trade, and having several sons much better suited to Forestry, sent his youngest boy to the Cyne’s castle to seek a more studious calling. So Ochan, traveling to that end, happened along the cliffs north of Mertuile just as the storm struck in all its fury. He was despairing of shelter, ready to give himself up as lost, when he saw the lights of the Castle glittering in the distance. He began to run and, in careless haste, he fell down a shaft in the cliff.

  The shaft fed into a deep cave, breached by the sea and filled with enough water to break the boy’s fall. When he rose from the salt pool and cleared his eyes, Ochan found himself surrounded in glory. For a moment, he thought he must have died and gone to some afterlife, but when the chill of the cave penetrated his disorientation, he could only stand gawping at the place. In a chamber where there should have been no light, there was light in abundance. It seemed to come from everywhere and from nowhere, amplified and refracted and colored by the thousands upon thousands of crystals—large and small—that studded the walls and ceiling of the huge chamber.

  It was as he rose from the freezing pool that Ochan saw what lay at his own fingertips, gleaming in water no less pure and clear than the crystals. It was the largest, most perfect crystal in sight—lucent invisibility, tinted with just enough color that his eyes could perceive it. He took it in his hands and held it up to the omnipresent light. And the light grew brighter.

  Before him, the water bubbled and frothed, brilliance breaking from its surface and roiling in its clear depths. And while he stared, clutching the great crystal, a Being rose from the pool, wrapped in radiance so intense as to be nearly blinding. White-gold was the Light and, in its embrace, moved a form like a maiden’s—the core of a flame dancing above its wick.

  Ochan trembled, but did not run, for the Being breathed gentleness and peace. He waited, awe-struck, for its approach and nearly melted away when a sweet voice embraced him.

  “Ochan,” it said. “You have reached your goal. I am the Meri—the Star of the Sea. I am the Gate between God and Man, the Bridge between Heaven and Earth. Open the Gate, Ochan-a-Coille. Step across the Bridge.”

  She came to him in the shallows, golden-eyed and gleaming, and held out a hand of light. He took it, hugging the crystal to his breast, and shivered with joy as the brilliant Being bent and kissed his forehead. He was flooded at once with light, with knowledge, with love, with peace. And he knew, when he left the cave in the morning’s light, that the crystal he held was both a tool and a symbol of the Meri’s power.

  Ochan went straight to the Castle Mertuile and gained an audience with the Cyne, claiming to have a marvelous story to tell him. Cyne Malcuim, rough, unlettered and battle-calloused, was wise enough to listen to the words of the radiant young man. He gazed upon the crystal, which Ochan called Osmaer—meaning, Divinely Glorious—and watched Ochan focus, through it, unheard of powers.

  The Cyne made Ochan his Durweard and covenanted to listen to his words of guidance.

  “What are you to be called?” the Cyne asked him, and Ochan said, “I am to be called Osraed—which is to say, Divine Counselor. I am to heal the sick and educate the hungry and be companion to the Cyne.”

  Cyne Malcuim was cheered by those words, taking them as a sign that he was favored by the Meri over the Chiefs of the other Houses. Upon the sea shore, over the mouth of the crystal cavern, he raised a Shrine to mark the spot where the Meri had first appeared.

  Osraed Ochan advised the Cyne well and helped him consolidate the realm of Caraid-land, bringing the rival houses together, freeing Caraidin slaves, and holding the first Assembly of Peoples. Based upon the success of that first Assembly, Malcuim instituted an annual gathering, whereat the Chiefs of every great House and the Eiric from every settlement came and consulted together before the Cyne, to discuss their needs and offer the goods and services of their people. A settlement arose around the Cyne’s Castle and, because of the great crystal of Ochan, he called the place Creiddylad, which means Jewel of the Sea.

  Ochan tau
ght the most promising young men of Creiddylad and the surrounding villages what the Meri had imparted to him in Her Kiss. They transcribed Her teachings as they fell from Ochan’s lips and recorded the Tell of his accidental Pilgrimage.

  The fifth year of Ochan’s residency at the Castle Mertuile, the Meri gave him a vision which caused him to send the eldest of his students to the sea shore, to seek Her out. Of the five that went, two returned as Osraed, each bearing a golden star-like mark upon his forehead.

  After ten years, Ochan had collected a dozen fellow Osraed, and the Meri bid him set up a school away from the Cyne’s center of power. Taking a handful of Osraed and Prentices with him, Ochan followed the Meri’s call up the Halig-tyne to a great bow in the river, in the wooded fringes of the Gyldan-baenn, whose peaks formed the eastern frontier of Caraid-land. In the shadow of a gleaming cliff was a tiny settlement, too small, even, to have a name. Atop the cliff was the ruin of an old fortress.

  Here, on the war ruin, Ochan raised Halig-liath—the Holy Fortress—with help from every able-bodied and artful man, woman and child at the Cyne’s command. As the work on the holy place progressed, a village grew at the bottom of the cliffs, lining both sides of the curving river. The village was called Nairne because it was built in a grove of river alder.

  For many years thereafter, Ochan resided at Halig-liath and taught. He instituted the Osraed Council, ordained the Triumvirate and determine the succession of the head of that Council—the Apex. Each year Cyne Malcuim would journey to Halig-liath at the summer Solstice to fete the departing Pilgrims as they left on their trek to the Meri’s Shore. When the new Osraed would return from the Sea, the Uniter would call them to Creiddylad to hear their Tell. Thus began the traditions of the Farewelling and the Grand Tell—traditions that remained inviolate until the six hundred fifth year of the House Malcuim.

  PROLOGUE

  The Meri is not reachable by the weak, nor by the careless, nor by the ascetic, but only by the wise who strive to lead their soul into the dwelling of the Spirit.

  Rivers flow to the Sea and there find their end and their peace. When they find this peace and this end, their name and form disappear and they become as the Sea.

  Even so, the wise who are led to the Meri are freed of name and form and enter into the radiance of the Supreme Spirit who is greater than all greatness.

  — The Book of the Meri

  Chapter Two, Verses 5-7

  On the darkened shore, the girl froze—a wild thing in the act of bolting. But she did not bolt. She wavered for a moment, then dropped back to the sand, her face set. She did not see the Watcher in the waves.

  Stubborn. Loyal, too, or she would not have made it here—would not be sitting there.

  Stay, Sister Meredydd, you have met your Goal.

  On the shore, the girl Meredydd turned her face downward into darkness. Tiny rinds of flesh sifted down to lie on the cloth of her tunic. She lifted a trembling hand to her cheek, stroking it with her fingertips. The flesh crumbled and fell. She stared at her fingers, eyes wide. The fleshy remnants clung to them and they, too, glowed.

  She did not take her eyes from her hands as she rose from the sand. Once on her feet, she rubbed at her cheeks, at her arms—her movements desperate, fevered. Robbed of its covering flesh, the substance of her arms gleamed gold-white in the darkness of the night, brighter than the gold-white heart of the fire where her young companion, Skeet, lay in sodden sleep. The girl removed her tunic, her boots and leggings, her shirt. Then, after a moment’s hesitation, she stripped off her undergarments and stood, naked, upon the beach.

  She would not be cold, the watching Being knew, for heat radiated from her pied body, leaking, along with the light, from patches where flesh had come away with cloth.

  Ah, I remember. How well I remember.

  With hands that no longer trembled, the girl continued her task, shedding what was left of her outer self, shaking her hair to free the flame hidden within the drab chestnut strands, until finally she was bare of flesh, blazing and lustrous like a tiny sun—like a star.

  The Watcher recalled Her own moment, a hundred years past—Her moment of terror and wonder. She’d shed the husk to find, within, a Jewel—a becoming vessel for the Star of the Sea, a fitting home for the Meri.

  Joy, She sent the girl. And peace.

  When the last scrap of slough had dropped, when the once-girl had surveyed her new body with eyes garnet-bright with wonder, she raised those eyes to the Sea and found the Meri’s green-white flame beneath the waves. It filled the water with glory and washed, like translucent milk, upon the shore. The girl stepped down to the waterline, letting the Sea lap at her gleaming toes. She waited calmly now, her eyes sparkled, expectant.

  The Meri rose, then, from water that seethed and roiled, shedding emerald fire on froth and foam, sending it in questing trails to the shore to kiss the toes of the gleaming Pilgrim.

  “Beautiful Sister.”

  Her voice came from nowhere and everywhere, and filled the cloudless sky and covered the milky waters. “I have waited long.”

  The girl of gold opened her mouth, found her voice, and though a thousand questions burned in her breast (the Meri knew), said only, “I have traveled far.”

  “I have traveled with you, Sister.” The Meri lay a welcoming carpet of brilliance before her golden twin. “Come home, Sister. Come home. This is that for which you have been created. Not to be Osraed, but to be the Mother of Osraed. Not to carry the torch of Wisdom, but to light it.”

  The girl bled a great sense of unworthiness through the touching streams of gold and green. She was disobedient, inattentive, stubborn—

  “You are kindness; you are compassion; you are obedience tempered with love; you are justice tempered with mercy; you are strength of purpose; you are faith and reason. You will be the Mother not of the bodies of Osraed, but of their spirits—the Channel of the Knowledge of the First Being. For this you have proved worthy.” The Meri extended radiant “arms.” She laughed again, filling sea and sky and shore with Her voice. “Come into the water, Sister, and do you get wet.”

  The girl laughed too, then, and raised her own arms of Light and stepped from the shore into the milky Sea. The Meri met her in the surf and embraced her, drawing her down beneath the waves. She felt the girl’s wonder that she could breathe here just as she had above in the air—was amused by her realization that she no longer needed to breathe. For a moment they floated, wrapped in luminescence—the girl’s gold, the Her own green. Great emerald eyes locked with eyes like garnets.

  Now, Sister, said the Meri without sound. Now, hold the knowledge of all that has been.

  The banners of their individual radiance mingled—green and gold—and the girl from the shore ceased to be Meredydd-a-Lagan and began to be Something Else. When at last the brilliance separated—the gold and the green—the two which had been One floated apart, still touching. Emerald eyes caressed eyes like garnets.

  The Lover and the Beloved have been made one in Thee.

  The Meri smiled a smile that could be felt and heard, if not seen. And I had wondered what that verse meant.

  Now you know.

  Now We know.

  The green radiance withdrew, separating completely from the gold.

  Farewell, Sister Meredydd.

  Farewell, Taminy.

  Toward shore, she went, the green luminescence fading from her as she neared the beach, dying as she stepped out onto the sand—merely a glimmer now, only moonlight on wet skin and pale hair. There was a boy there, sitting beside a fire. Waiting, with his eyes on the milky gold water. Beside him sat a little girl with moonlit hair, and beside her was a man—a copper-bearded Osraed—holding out a robe.

  Taminy-a-Cuinn took a deep breath of winy sea air and laughed. “Ah, Osraed Bevol! I have not breathed for a hundred years!”

  CHAPTER 1

  One walks upon the Shore;

  One glides beneath the Sea.

  In the water meet the tw
ain

  Who never met and meet again.

  In the water they combine

  The human soul and the Divine.

  Humanity is glorified,

  Divinity personified—

  The dance of glory to and from

  One to return, One to become.

  One glides beneath the Sea;

  One walks upon the Shore.

  —The Meri Song

  Book of the New Covenant

  There was no moon. Yet there was light—laid out upon the surface of the water like a stole of palest green. No, not on the water, beneath it—within it—as if the very nature of water had been transmuted.

  The old man writhed upon his couch, struggling to turn his head away from the vision, desperate to close his eyes to the dream, but dream eyes are forever open. That brilliance—he had seen it before with physical gaze, a young man, then, at the end of a long Pilgrimage. But on this shore stood a girl, waiting for a favor from the Divine, a favor to which she had no right.

  Usurper! She lingered to commit heresy.

  The radiance of the water grew and held out ethereal arms to the one who waited. They stretched toward the shore, wave-borne, beckoning. The girl moved closer to the water, closer, until it kissed her toes, until her face caught the brilliance of the waves and reflected it back, mirror bright. Her dark eyes glittered with it. Even her hair, blending into the mahogany night, was woven with emerald threads.

  The Inhabitant of the waters called and the girl answered, stepping into the waves’ embrace.

  To your death! cried the old man’s soul, shivering. To your death, Meredydd-a-Lagan!

  But the girl did not die. Transformed she seemed to him—not flesh upon bone, but light upon light. She melted into the liquid glory, her hair fanning out on the waves in banners like sunbeams. The spectral luminescence that wrapped her was mottled now—pale green, dappled with amber, the hues fusing to a whorl where they pulsed and wheeled.