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  “Ah,” interrupted Faer-wald, “but that’s not strictly true. She did express displeasure with the socio-economic situation in Creiddylad and is sending Lealbhallain-mac-Mercer there to look into it. And, dare I say it, She is obviously desirous of having female Prentices at Halig-liath—though why She should wait all this time-”

  Kynan waved that aside. “Obviously, women haven’t had the capacity until now, regardless of what men like Osraed Bevol say. I want to hear Eadmund’s point.”

  “My point is that these Cusps, these periods of difficulty, must be tests, otherwise the Meri would simply and forthrightly tell us what was Her will. The fact that there is any mystery at all supports the idea that we are being willfully placed in a position wherein we must fall back on our spiritual resources.”

  He glanced about at his listeners for approval and Ealad-hach gave it.

  “Osraed Eadmund is right. This outrageous claim of Wyth’s can only be understood in that light. Sonship—what is that? A concept without precedent. The Meri is, Herself, the offspring of God. What can it possibly mean to say that Wyth is Her son—that he is God’s grandson? Pah!” He gave his temples one last impatient shove, then lowered his hands almost forcibly, shaking the sleeves of his robe down over them. “What disturbs me most, Osraed, what troubles my soul day and night, is that these Cusps always involve women. Always. Every time a female goes to the Sea, there is calamity. I have dreamed of an entire train of women, going back to antiquity, who have visited the Shore. Some were convicted of the Wicke-craft by the highest courts of the land, and yet marched themselves down to the Sea to wait for the Holy One. Night after night, I see them. Condemned by the very act of taking Pilgrimage without leave-”

  “Except for Meredydd-a-Lagan,” murmured Eadmund.

  “What?”

  “Except for Meredydd-a-Lagan, who took her Pilgrimage with the permission of the Osraed Council.” His eyes were back-lit with hope. “This is significant, brothers. I know it is! Don’t you see? Women have gone to the Sea without sanction, without permit, and calamity has always followed. But this time, a cailin went forth with the agreement of the Council, if not,” he added, glancing at Ealad-hach, “the blessing of all its members, and almost in response, we are suddenly to be instructed to enroll women at Halig-liath.”

  “Meredydd-a-Lagan died in the commission of heresy,” said Ealad-hach. His voice was a dry old rope, twisted and frayed.

  The others glanced at him and tried not to show their discomfort at his open denial of Wyth’s Tell.

  “Are we to take the position, then, that Wyth Arundel and Bevol are lying?” Osraed Faer-wald’s broad brow wrinkled ferociously. He shook his head. “No. No, it’s inconceivable. An Osraed lie?”

  “An Osraed can be misled by strong emotions. Bevol is an old man—not as old as I, to be sure, but old. He has lost his wife, his child, and a Prentice who was like a daughter to him.”

  Faer-wald waved his hands as if to ward off the thoughts his crony was voicing. “No, Ealad, I reject that. I reject it. Bevol may be aging, but I will not swear that he is tetched. And Wyth is fresh from the Meri’s touch. Her Kiss is almost unbearably luminous on him. How can you accuse him-”

  “I do not accuse him,” said Ealad-hach testily. “And you’re right, of course. It is inconceivable that one of us should lie. No, we must assume that Wyth is giving the Meri’s Tell. What we must use all our resources to determine is what that Tell means. We must pray, brothers. We must pray for guidance. Our brother Bevol is right in one thing: We cannot suffer this evil to remain faceless. We must name it before we can fight it.”

  oOo

  Eyes closed, the Osraed Wyth savored the caress of wind on his face. Laden with the spices of the river and the silken cool of approaching autumn, it teased and tempted him. He could smell the Backstere’s; he could taste the river. He opened his eyes and let them wander the long, high, verdant valley—a bed of green velvet upon which the Halig-tyne and her sentinel woods lay like a necklace of emeralds and silver.

  “I feel as if I’ve been gone a lifetime,” he said. “I think I half expected to come home to find my house empty and Halig-liath covered with vines. I thought everything would be changed.”

  Beside him Bevol smiled and leaned elbows on the sun-warmed parapet. “Everything is changed, Wyth, because you are changed.”

  Wyth followed his elder’s gaze to the bottom of Halig-liath’s great mount where the Holy River wound about its base, and where, bright-hued and clean, the doll-sized houses of Nairne cheerfully cluttered her banks. He felt as if he could reach down and snatch that villager just leaving the tavern. Snatch him up and plop him down onto the deck of one of those little, toy fishing boats bobbing along the quay.

  “That isn’t enough. Not for Her. Not for the Meri. She wants Halig-liath to change—and soon. She wants the order of things to change.”

  “You will give a full account tomorrow, if you are able.”

  “Will I also give the Pilgrim’s Tell before Cyne Colfre at Mertuile? Or will he send his ambassador up again this year?”

  “Ah.” Bevol’s gaze went down the river and out to Sea, making Wyth suspect he could see all the way to Creiddylad. “Well, as a matter of fact, we have heard nothing from our Cyne about this year’s Grand Tell. A message from the Privy Council told us only that our monarch is involved in delicate negotiations with a delegation from the South. That the royal Court may not receive us again this year. There was no mention of any ambassador. I believe you will have to give the Tell to only these hallowed walls and the good citizens of Nairne village.” His hands gestured up and back toward the Fortress above them, then swept the panorama below. “If you’ve no objection, the Osraed Council favors this coming Cirke-dag. Lealbhallain is eager to be off on his mission.”

  “I’m agreeable,” Wyth said. “Will you now tell me about Meredydd?”

  Bevol did not take his eyes from the valley. “When you are more rested.”

  “Please, sir. Don’t put me off. I want to know.”

  Bevol glanced at him askew, then nodded. “Very well. I will tell you of her last moments, as I promised.” He took a deep breath. “Come into my sanctum and I will Weave it for you.”

  Wyth followed the older Osraed back along the parapet and into the cliff face through a doorway laboriously hewn there centuries before. There had been colorful little tiles around it once, but they had discolored in high wind and hard winter or fallen away. Through dim, cool passages smelling of earth musk and time, Bevol led the way to his private chambers, the place he studied and wove inyx, prayed and meditated. With a tingle of delicious longing, Wyth knew he would soon have such a place of his own. He ran a hand along the cool walls—walls that had seen the passage of hundreds of Osraed and felt the caress of their fingers as they went to and fro in the Holy Fortress’s secret heart of hearts.

  It was to a circular inner chamber within his offices that Bevol led his guest—a room that took light from a series of arcing shafts cut through the native stone above, and ending high on the roof top of the Academy’s South Wing. Light cascaded down the paneled walls, leaving the core of the little cell in partial darkness. A palpable darkness, Wyth thought, that seemed to pace the heart of the chamber like a restive cat.

  “Please sit,” invited Bevol, and Wyth did, finding the padded bench about the perimeter of the circle a more than adequate perch.

  Seating himself, Bevol placed something on the floor at the heart of the living darkness and sat back, his eyes on the spot. It was a crystal. One of the largest, clearest crystals Wyth had ever seen—a crystal that seemed to suck the timid light away from the safety of the walls to trap it within.

  “I have already described Meredydd’s Pilgrimage to you. She did well, though she didn’t know it. She chose wisdom as her guide, found the Gwenwyvar, saved Gwynet-a-Blaecdel from certain destruction and found, in herself, the ability to channel healing. Yet, her greatest test came during her vigil.”

  B
evol’s hands moved, drawing Wyth’s attention down to the great, clear stone. The thick, light-spangled darkness around it began to eddy. “It was a long, difficult vigil, tested by wind and rain. She confronted loss, guilt, vengeance, self-loathing and love. Do you see her waiting, Wyth?”

  “Yes!” he whispered and didn’t lie. In the darkness before him, she sat, woven from the warp of the crystal and the woof of Bevol’s mind. She sat conversing with ghosts, consorting with her own spirit, expelling her own demons. He saw her mother and father in the parade of wraiths. He saw himself.

  “She fought her own exhaustion and lost; she fought a storm to a draw. And when it was over, when she thought herself lost, the Light came into the water. She had been preparing to leave, but there the Meri was.”

  “Green!” exclaimed Wyth softly. “The Light is emerald green. Leal went the next week and said it was amber. It was amber when I went.”

  “So it was ...Watch.” Bevol directed his gaze back to the pool of vision. “The Light excited Meredydd beyond joy and she leapt up to see if Skeet was watching her Great Moment. But Skeet was watching naught but his own soul slip away.”

  Wyth could see the boy as Meredydd had seen him, face down in the shallows like a sodden doll. He felt the tearing of her spirit between the advancing Light and the boy’s advancing darkness. He watched her make a choice of which he could only say that it was just like her—just like her to use every ounce of herself in one inyx. To sing all of her soul into one duan.

  Huddled over Skeet’s limp form, she drew Light from the ether and poured it into his failing heart. Then she breathed life into his lungs.

  Wyth was amazed to the core. If he had always known Meredydd-a-Lagan was exceptional, he had never suspected she was invested with that powerful a Gift. “But ...” he whispered, “only an Osraed can restore life, and even then ...Has she been accepted without ever having seen the Meri?” He shook his head and spread his fingers toward the aislinn pool in a gesture of bemusement. “What am I seeing?”

  “A birth,” said Bevol. “Watch. What do you see?”

  He saw a darkened empty strand and felt his spirit fall heavily. “The Light is gone. The Meri has abandoned her.”

  “Ah,” breathed Bevol. “Ah, but see—she returns to her post. Steadfast, disciplined, she waits once more until ...”

  Until she began to shift uneasily in the sand and rub at her arms as if chilled or in some other discomfort. Until the chafing became fevered and turned to anguished clawing. Until scrapes and scraps and ribbons of cloth began to come away in her hands and fall to the sand. Until there was no cloth left to rend.

  Horrified, heart plummeting from throat to stomach, Wyth watched the aislinn Meredydd shred first her clothes, then her flesh until ... until ...

  He was astonished and ashamed, rocked by waves of wonder and fear. Her naked, golden radiance was beyond beauty, as if, with clouds torn back, he glimpsed a corner of heaven. He felt as if he had stolen a look at God’s face. No, not God’s face, but ...

  Wyth’s breath caught in his lungs as the golden, gleaming Being that had been Meredydd-a-Lagan stepped into a Sea that throbbed with emerald glory to meet a second Eibhilin creature face to face. Together, arm in radiant arm, they slid beneath the waves.

  Wyth dared breathe, the air leaving his body reluctantly as if it might never return. “Then it’s true. Meredydd is a Being of Light—one with-”

  Bevol raised a hand. “But it’s not over. Watch.”

  The waters within Bevol’s aislinn pool of tame darkness pulsed and flickered with ghostly lightnings of gold and green. Then, from the roiled brilliance stepped a Being of verdant luminosity. She came to shore, losing her radiance drop by drop until she stood in naked humanity, peering out of the vision pool with laughing green eyes.

  “Oh, Master Bevol,” she said, “I haven’t breathed in a hundred years!”

  The image floated, static, the words echoing softly from the girl’s parted lips while over one white shoulder, Wyth glimpsed a Face in the gleaming waves—a Face of holy flame with garnets for eyes. His senses blew past the already fading image of the strange cailin and collected themselves before that Face, clinging until nothing remained but translucent darkness, prowling in silent circles like a black cat seeking a resting place. And Wyth sat watching it, waiting for his soul to return from a journey it hadn’t, perhaps, been ready to take.

  Bevol leaned toward him across the circle. “What did you see?” the elder Osraed asked, eyes tight and watchful.

  “A birth,” said Wyth. “I believe I have seen a birth.”

  Bevol nodded. “Of more than you know.”

  Wyth at last made his eyes focus on the other’s face.

  “Then ...” Dare he put it into words? “Then Meredydd has become ... the Meri?”

  Bevol smiled. “Essentially correct. She hosts the Meri’s Spirit and gives substance to Her Essence.”

  “But this is what Osraed Ealad-hach has dreamed, is it not?”

  “Yes.”

  “He believes it is death.”

  Again Bevol nodded. “It is that, too,” he said.

  oOo

  He was utterly exhausted by the time he reached Arundel. Exhausted and overwhelmed by his new knowledge. There were still things he didn’t understand; who the girl was that came out of the Sea as Meredydd entered it; how Ealad-hach could find so much to fear in the idea that a female might be Osraed; and how he had not recognized Meredydd in the Meri when he saw Her.

  Dear God, when She kissed him!

  What was he to do now, he puzzled. In light of all he knew, what must his next task be? She would tell him, of course. He knew that as surely as he knew he breathed. But his certitude was underpinned with white terror; given what he now knew, what would the touch of the Meri’s spirit feel like when it next came over him?

  It was darkening as Killian, in his last task as Wyth’s Weard, drove the new Osraed out to his family estate. No longer bored, the younger boy was still agog with the events he had witnessed. He would return to his own family and regale his relations and friends with tales of how a great, gleaming creature plucked Wyth from the beach and attempted to devour him.

  But he would have to give his tell soon, for every night of sleep would separate him further from the already corrupted memory. In a week he would remember the Pilgrimage as only marginally eventful and pray his would be more spectacular.

  Deposited before Arundel Manor, Wyth stood and listened to the creak and rattle of the Nairne-bound carriage. He stood, staring at the house’s brick facade as a moon peeked shyly over the eastern hills. Dim lights went on in several first floor windows, dashing his hopes that his mother might not be at home.

  He inhaled deeply of the cool, fragrant air and followed Killian’s progress across the Bridge to Lagan. His errant thought of Meredydd he withered where it bloomed, ears groping for the rush of the Halig-tyne. She crooned in sweet sibilance, pulling his thoughts away downstream to wash them.

  Wyth stirred and considered picking up his pack and opening the door. But the door was already opening, he realized, and he stood, dumb, peering into the dark entry way.

  “Who is it, please?” asked a familiar, scratchy voice, then, “Oh, but it’s Master Wyth—oh!” And the manservant ran, leaving the door wide open.

  Smiling, Wyth shouldered his pack and stepped inside, closing the heavy carved door behind him. The hall was dim, lit only by the wicks of two floor lamps on either side of the stair. The servants hadn’t gotten to lighting the door lamps yet, nor any of the upstairs lights, it seemed. But the dark was soothing to Wyth. It was muted, peaceful. He desired peace and quiet above all things just now.

  He was not to have it. He was at the center of the large entry when the servant reappeared from the direction of the dining chamber, followed closely by the Moireach Arundel.

  “Wyth! Wyth, you’re home! Dear God!” She slipped past the gawping servant and hurried to her son’s side. Her eyes went at once to
his forehead and read his success. She stopped, hands hovering halfway to her mouth, eyes huge and flowing with a slurry of swift-passing emotions. Wyth could not read any of them with external senses, yet knew them to be ambiguous.

  Pride won out, and the Moireach waved at the staring manservant. “Lights, Adken! Lights! All must see my son’s triumph!”

  It was then that Wyth realized Adken was not alone in the dining room doorway. Silhouetted there were at least five other individuals who must have been dining with his mother. That lady was beside herself with excitement. And, as the wicks glow brightened the entry way, Wyth found himself surrounded by family and friends. He was overwhelmed once again.

  Deluged in their expressions of delight and amazement. It took him a moment to realize that he was being overwhelmed by more than the mere expression of those things. Deep inside, a door had opened, allowing their emotions to walk through his soul.

  Agape, he stood, fielding this one’s awe and that one’s astonishment that someone they knew could have possibly seen the Meri. His eldest sister’s jealousy cut through all, tormenting him; her pledge-bond’s amazement was tinged with disbelief. Neither of them, he realized, had expected him to come home an Osraed. As for his mother ...He looked at her beaming face with its glittering eyes and marveled at how pride and grief could dwell together behind that facade. He had won her an honor; he had lost his family an heir.