Meri Read online

  Seeing that she had finished that task, he continued, “Now, set the bowl here—” He tapped the table before him. “—and bring me some salt.”

  “Salt, Master?”

  He nodded. “Salt.”

  She went into the pantry for that, emerging with a little jar of sea salt which she brought immediately to him.

  “Put a handful of the salt into the water.”

  She did, then waited for the next instruction.

  He smiled. “It’s time to go to school, anwyl,” he said and pushed back his chair and rose. “Put the salt away and we’ll be off.”

  Meredydd eyed him dubiously, wondering if she was supposed to ask what she had just done or simply laugh. But he was already on his way out of the kitchen, humming to himself and patting his hands together rhythmically. With a backward glance at the bowl of water, she returned the salt to the pantry and followed him from the room.

  o0o

  Theology was her first class that morning—Osraed Ealad-hach presiding. The subject was the Regeneration of the Meri, an important theme at this time of year with Solstice coming on and Pilgrimages being planned.

  It was a subject which never failed to engender heated debates. Ealad-hach was a Traditionalist—Tradists or Trads, in Prentice vernacular. His students considered his views to be particularly hoary and called him Scir-loc or “White Hair.” Meredydd had always wondered why he taught theology when the special knowledge given him by the Meri was in the field of Earth Sciences. It had always seemed to her that Osraed Bevol had a shrewder understanding of the scripture. His gift of knowledge was broader, encompassing sciences of earth, sky and spirit as well as the arts of healing and divining.

  As a Tradist, Osraed Ealad-hach held that the Meri was, by Her very nature, eternal and unchanging. The Book of the Meri clearly stated that She shared God’s very nature, and so Her regeneration occurred through Her selection each generation of new Osraed—Divine Counselors—who, after receiving Her inspiration, would then dispense Her wisdom wherever needed.

  There was, too, the figurative or symbolic regeneration which she afforded to the faithful believer. According to Ealad-hach’s personal theology, it was irrational and unscientific to suppose that the Meri literally regenerated.

  “‘The Spirit was the First Being,’” intoned the Osraed at the beginning of the discussion, “‘the Creator of all, the Guardian of the Universe. The Vision of the Spirit, the Mother of all wisdom, It gave in revelation to Its first-born, the Meri.’ That, of course, is Chapter One, Verse One of The Book of the Meri. You all know it, have committed it to memory; no doubt, some of you whispered it with me.”

  He smiled beatifically and tapped his reading lenses into the palm of one hand. “We know too, of course, that the First Being does not change Its skin—figuratively speaking—or evolve. It is above egress and regress, beyond change. And it stands to reason that the Meri, being the ‘first-born,’ of the First Being, is also above and beyond all physical phenomena.”

  This observation led one of the Prentices to ask, as he was expected to, why then, the Meri appeared to regenerate. Why every generation, or thereabouts, changes were noted by the Prentices singled out by Her for the role of Divine Counselor.

  “According to the Book of Pilgrimages,” the boy remarked, “there have been changes in the color and radiance of her...person and even in the color of her eyes and the expression in them.”

  “Ah,” said the Osraed Ealad-hach, and the assembled Prentices rolled their eyes in preparation for the coming lecture. “If you had read your history with attentiveness, you would have noticed that the aspect changes of the Meri are connected with upheavals here, in Caraid-land, most especially those involving the spiritual conditions of its people and rulers.

  “For example, our histories tell us of a great war that had embroiled all of Caraid-land and her near neighbors. The Royal policy so enraged the Meri that She changed aspect in the darkest days of the war and sent forth a legion of storms that destroyed most of Cyne Earwyn’s navy and that of his enemy, as well. At the same time that She lashed the Sea to rebellion against human arrogance, She unleashed upon the Royal House at Creiddylad a plague of Osraed all Telling a future that frightened the Cyne into finding a peaceful solution to the war.

  “And then,” he reminisced, as if he could remember it, himself, “there was the year that an Osraed Council ordered all practitioners of the Wicke expelled from Nairne. Those embittered females then spread across the countryside, leaving evil in their wake. No sooner had they left Creiddylad than that city was struck by a plague that killed by the hundreds. That year the Meri changed her aspect and elected not one Prentice to be Osraed for many Seasons. It was ten years before another Osraed was chosen. And then...” His eyes fell on Meredydd briefly. “...there was at least one occasion upon which a girl went from Halig-liath as Prentice.”

  Startled, Meredydd raised her eyes and met his in what she thought must be an audible collision. Old Scir-loc merely raised his brows and moved to stand behind his workbench.

  “Begging pardon, Osraed Ealad-hach,” said Lealbhallain tentatively, “but if the Meri is, as the Book says, a child of the First Being and Its Vision, then is not the Meri a creation?”

  Ealad-hach turned and speared the young Prentice with a practiced and accurate eye. “The Meri is identical with the Creator.”

  “But, pardon again, sir—but I have heard it advanced by the Osraed Bevol that the Meri is both a creature and an instrument of creation. ‘The Lover and the Beloved have become one in Thee,’” he quoted swiftly, practically tripping over the words in his haste to get them out. “He explained to me that it is Her spirit that is transcendent, but that her body, being a physical phenomenon, must be subject to the Universal laws of integration and disintegration, and that-and that She-She....”

  The look with which Osraed Ealad-hach fixed poor Lealbhallain had so intimidated him that he simply stopped speaking.

  “It is the Osraed Bevol’s opinion that the Meri’s body is a physical phenomenon. It is not an opinion that we share. Do you share that opinion?”

  Leal swallowed noisily, drawing a snicker from his confreres. “Well, sir, I.... That is, it would explain...certain ...things...sir. About the Meri, I mean.”

  “And do you deem it necessary that the Meri be explained? She is the Meri. Perhaps She need not be explained at all. Perhaps She is inexplicable.”

  Prentice Brys-a-Lach and his pet, Phelan Backstere, both hummed and nodded sagely, patting their fingers together in silent applause.

  “Then why do we even discuss the subject?” asked Meredydd, before she could think better of it. “Why aren’t we simply told, ‘The Meri is as the Meri is,’ and have an end to it? What good does it do to study something which will not permit study?”

  Ealad-hach, a tall man, raised himself to his tallest and looked at Meredydd over one high ridge of cheek bone. “Are you being impertinent, Prentice Meredydd?”

  “No, sir. I’m being frustrated. The Corah tells us we must seek out knowledge with open minds and that when the conscious spirit commands the mind, the mind can think all thoughts. All thoughts, not just two or three, not just thoughts of here and now, but of spiritual things. Thoughts of the Meri. Thoughts of the First Being.”

  “So, you think you can study your way into the Meri’s good graces, do you? Recall, Prentice, what the Book of the Meri tells us on that score; Chapter Two, Verse 5: ‘One does not reach the Meri through much learning. Nor is She reached through the intellect or religious teaching. She is reached only by those chosen. To Her chosen, the Meri reveals her glory. On Her chosen She bestows Her kiss.’ Her chosen, Prentice Meredydd, not the well-studied or the thoughtful or the hard-working.”

  “Yet,” argued Meredydd, “Osraed Morfinn, in his ‘Commentaries and Meditations,’ says, ‘If men thought of God as much as they think of the world, would not all attain liberation?’ Is that a purely rhetorical question, then? Are we not intended to t
hink of God; to think of the Meri and to strive for understanding? And in striving for understanding, must we not question our own beliefs to make certain they conform to the truth?”

  Ealad-hach fiddled with the sleeve of his robe, winding a stray strand of thread around one finger. “What is your point, Prentice?”

  “Merely that if the Meri is, indeed, our living Link with the Creator, then the fullest knowledge of Her should be sought.”

  “If you will recall,” said Osraed Ealad-hach, “this discussion began with the advancement of a theory, by Prentice Lealbhallain, that the Meri has a physical nature which is—how did he put it—subject to the physical laws of integration and disintegration. Do you support his theory?”

  “I support no particular theory, Osraed. I have yet to be certain.”

  “You are of an age for Pilgrimage, Prentice. Don’t you think it prudent to be certain of what you believe you will find at the end of the Journey before you get there?”

  “I suppose—”

  Ealad-hach pounced. “I think you must do better than suppose, Prentice. I think you had better be certain that it is not a merely physical creature you seek.”

  “I never suggested that She is merely physical. I simply shared my perceptions of the Corahtic references.”

  “Your theory, Prentice Meredydd, will appear on my desk tomorrow morning. I will meditate on them over Cirke-dag, while you meditate on the nature of the Being you claim to worship and adore—oh, and along with that, Chapter Twelve of the Book of the Meri.”

  Meredydd’s cheeks flamed. “But Osraed! I advanced no theory, I—”

  “No, you advanced careless, inconclusive thinking. It might serve you to recall another passage from the Book of the Meri. The one in which we are told that the Meri is not reachable by the careless. I want more than perceptions from you, cailin. I want conclusions!”

  “Only if they match your own,” Meredydd muttered.

  “What?”

  She blushed all the way to the roots of her hair. “Nothing, Osraed. Nothing.”

  “I thought,” murmured Lealbhallain during a break between sessions, “that you were being open-minded, not careless.”

  They stood in the circular concourse where the three great wings of Halig-liath’s academy met, waiting for the Osraed Ealad-hach to vacate the classroom. It was cool there and the breeze was fanned by the passing of a myriad lively young bodies. Their laughter, talk and scuffling was carried upward into the shallow conical vault where it circled like an invisible but noisy flock of birds before fluttering out through the open casements.

  Meredydd sighed, savoring the caress of air against her still flaming cheeks. “Thanks, Leal. I wish you were the Osraed. I’d have much better marks.”

  “What’s the matter, then, Prentice Meredydd?” Brys-a-Lach appeared unexpectedly at her shoulder, making her jump. “Don’t know how to handle old Scir-loc, of a sudden?” He grinned at his crony Phelan, who had materialized behind Lealbhallain.

  “You shouldn’t call him that, Brys. It’s...disrespectful.”

  “Eh?” said Brys, feigning deafness. “Eh? Wha’s-at? What shouldn’t I call him, cailin?”

  “Scir-loc!” she whispered fiercely.

  Brys made a comically horrified face and glanced over her shoulder. She could hear Phelan wheezing frantically behind her. She turned, a scowl creasing her face, and saw old Scir-loc, himself, barely a yard away and glaring at her. His bony face was red as a chicken’s wattle and she could almost see him shaking in rage. He said nothing, but turned on his heel and disappeared into the Northern Wing.

  Meredydd whirled on Brys. “You-you unscrupulous... fish! How can you be so-so mean-spirited and still dare to call yourself a Prentice?”

  “Oh, Meredydd!” Brys cooed. “Please abuse me further. It tickles my ears royal to hear you use such words for me. Unscrupulous fish! By the First Being, you make me quake! I dare call myself a Prentice because my father says I dare.”

  She started to coil herself for another attack, but saw Aelder Prentice Wyth entering the classroom just down the North Wing hall. “I don’t want to be late for class,” she said and shoved past him. Lealbhallain followed close behind.

  Today Aelder Prentice Wyth chose to discuss the use of symbology in riddles. Riddles had always seemed to Meredydd an absurd way of imparting information, and she’d decided they were more of a mental game than any part of spiritual discipline. Osraed Bevol had never stressed them in his private tutoring, but she had always done reasonably well with them anyway.

  Wyth began with that hoary old poser, “What has four legs in the morning, two legs at noon and three legs in the evening.”

  Everyone’s hand went up except Meredydd’s. She was exercising her mind in the excellent web supplied by the window-frame spider, climbing, sliding, swinging. It vibrated beneath her like ship’s rigging in a stiff breeze, chanty-singing, strong and resilient.

  “Did you hear me, Prentice Meredydd? Prentice Brys says you are daydreaming and not paying a bit of attention to me. Is this so?” Aelder Wyth stood nearly atop her.

  Meredydd blinked. “No, sir,” she lied before she could stop herself.

  “Good. Then you will be able to tell me what enters a trap but is never caught.”

  She could hear the web whispering lightly from the window, a breeze brushing its silken fibers. She strained to hear what it said, then smiled up at Aelder Wyth. “The wind,” she said. “The wind enters a trap but is never caught.”

  Aelder Wyth was not impressed. His long, angular face displayed a tight displeasure out of keeping with such a minor incident. “Remove that mocking grin from your face, cailin, and tell me the answer to this riddle: That which flies gives birth to that which does not fly; that which does not fly gives birth to that which flies.”

  It was all Meredydd could do not to roll her eyes. “The riddle describes the life cycle of a bird. The bird gives birth to an egg—which does not fly—and the egg, in turn, gives birth to another bird—which eventually flies.”

  Aelder Wyth walked about the room, then, calling out riddles to other students. They were simple ones for the most part, and only Phelan guessed wrongly what was always behind you, but which, turning, you never saw. (The answer, of course, was the back of your head, and Phelan should have known it, but he rarely paid any attention to anyone but his lord-god Brys, and very likely had missed Wyth’s lecture on the Form and Logic of Riddles.)

  It took the class a minute or two to twit Phelan adequately and Meredydd thought Wyth was finished with his puzzling, when he came up behind her and said, “I have a white house with no doors and windows.”

  Startled, she squeaked and said, “You have an egg!”

  Brys echoed the squeal, then guffawed. Phelan giggled inanely and the other Prentices snickered. Aelder Wyth, for his part, speared Brys-a-Lach with his sharp, over-large eyes and said, “What can you beat without leaving a bruise?”

  Brys grinned. “An egg.”

  The class was suddenly so quiet Meredydd could hear the spider web trying to trap the wind. Then she laughed, explosively and loudly, unable to withstand the mental image of Brys beating a defenseless egg to prove he could do so without bruising it.

  “Silence!” demanded Wyth and the class complied, their eyes dancing between Meredydd and the red-faced Brys. “Will you share the joke with us, Prentice Meredydd?”

  She choked back her laughter and tried to appear contrite. “It was only that Prentice Brys’s poor egg would not only be bruised, it would be an omelet.”

  There was a prolonged wheezing sound like air escaping a bellows, then the boys burst into raucous laughter again. High up on Aelder Wyth’s cheeks, two spots of bright color glared.

  Meredydd drew an essay assignment. Brys got no reprimand at all. She felt scalded after that, and sat silently at her bench, huddled a little as if that might make Wyth forget she was there.

  She dreaded the Dream Tell session and prayed Wyth would run out of tim
e and have to relinquish them for dinner. But he didn’t. He got to Aislinn Interpretation with fifteen minutes to spare and immediately brought the entire class’ attention back to Meredydd.

  “Prentice Meredydd, did you do your reading assignment?”

  “Yes, Aelder Prentice Wyth. I did.” She did not mention that she had done it two years ago.

  “And do you feel ready to interpret another aislinn?”

  “Yes, Aelder Prentice Wyth.” Untrue, she thought, I’ll never be ready.

  “Very well, here is the dream. Class, please take notes.”

  Ten bark pads came out of ten satchels. Ten writing sticks poised.

  Meredydd swallowed.

  “To the wall,” he ordered.

  She went.

  “I dreamed,” he said, making no game of it this time, “that I had set off to Nairne on Cirke-dag. On my way to worship, a great, black horse came and swept me away to...the House of Secret Pleasures in Lin-liath.”

  There was a murmur of amazement from the class and Meredydd, the figure of a horse half-drawn under her hand, froze.

  Wyth’s eyes grazed the murmurers’ faces. There was immediate silence. “His eyes,” he continued, “held fire and his hooves struck sparks from the earth. No sooner had he left me outside this... place, than I was walking to Halig-liath. The same animal appeared and carried me again to Lin-liath. Then, I found myself on Pilgrimage, walking to the sea. I had just sighted the waves, when the same black beast took me back to that infamous House. I awoke. Tell me this aislinn.”

  Meredydd blinked at him, squeezing the bluestick so hard it snapped between her fingers. “I can’t Tell the dream, Aelder Wyth.”

  “Oh? And why not?”

  She was sweating now, cold, clammy sweat that clung to the middle of her back and made her scalp want to wriggle. “Because it’s the same dream I had last night. Except for where the horse carried me, it was the same dream.”

  Aelder Wyth gaped at her. The other Prentices followed suit, looking like a nest of startled owls. Meredydd might have laughed under other circumstances, but under Wyth’s incredulous, riveting stare, she could do nothing but gape back.