Meri (18 page)

Me-re-dydd...

Her name. Had it spoken her name? Or had Skeet, fearful,
whispered it?

Me-re-dydd
.

“Here I am,” she said and waited.

Let nothing distract you from
your goal
.

“No. I won’t.”

The path. Keep to the path. The path of Meredydd. The
path of Taminy.

Meredydd felt a chill that was not part of the watery glen. “What
path, mistress?”

The path of Meredydd is the
path to the Sea. This path, here
.

This path
? Meredydd
glanced around. “But, which path, mistress?”

This path, here
. The
Gwenwyvar’s head bobbed.

Meredydd looked at the pool, ablaze now with the glory of
the moon, followed its rippling trail her to where the stream poured out and
continued on its way toward the Sea, a silver ribbon in the velvet dark. A
ribbon of light—the Path of Taminy.

She nodded. “Yes. I understand. I must follow the Bebhinn to
the Sea. And then what must I do?

Wait
.

Meredydd licked parched lips. “Wait? For the Meri?”

Wait for your destiny
.

“Will I see her? Will I see the Meri?”

Wait.... You are good at
waiting
.

There was a twinkle of wry humor in that, and Meredydd
marveled at it. What sort of creature was this Gwenwyvar?

“That’s all, just wait?”

Ah, but first...a task
.

“Yes, mistress? What task must I do?”

A jewel. A jewel of great value, of great virtue. You
must find it.

“And where shall I look for this jewel, mistress?”

A village due north. A dark
place. A place of veils. Go there and find the jewel and bring it to me
.

“But where shall I find it? Where in the village shall I
look?”

That is the test
.

Meredydd licked her dry lips. “Yes, mistress.”

One thing more.... You must
leave your companion to seek the jewel. This is your test, alone. He cannot
attend
.

Meredydd felt a thrill of fear. “Leave Skeet? Oh, mistress,
must I?”

There was no answer, only the moon’s beams slanting
obliquely through the trees while a cloud threatened to obscure it altogether.
Already the white form was becoming more nebulous, more fickle. Locks of
ghostly hair detached and floated away on the breeze along with frays of
gossamer gown.

“Oh, wait!” Meredydd scrambled to her knees. “Please don’t
go! Are you—are you really the Gwenwyvar—the White Wave?”

I...am...

“Please, what sort of spirit are you? Are you of the
Eibhilin?”

Your goal. Let nothing distract
you from your goal
.

A gust of wind swooped down from the sky, tearing the
Gwenwyvar’s fragile form to vapor, dismembering and dispersing it utterly. Far
off thunder growled and the moon hid her face behind a cloud, leaking silver
onto its uneven hem.

The soul of the Osraed must be a steady lamp
which burns in a shelter that denies even the strongest winds.

— Book of Pilgrimages (On the Osraed)

Due north. She faced that way now, the rising sun at her
right hand, the forest spread before her in a pristine tangle of tree and
shrub. She shivered, though it was not really very cold, and glanced back over
her shoulder.

Across the pool, Skeet stood and regarded her unblinkingly,
his hands thrust deep into the over-sized pockets of his jacket, his expression
studious.

Yes, Skeet
, she thought
absently,
this is what Prentice-ship is about.
Obedience. Following the promptings of the Spirit
.

She had not, she realized, as she took her first step under
the verdant canopy, even bothered to ask how many miles north she was expected
to travel. She was momentarily perturbed at herself for being so careless, then
knew an absurd pleasure at her own ineptitude. Surely this meant that she was
improving in that essential quality of obedience. The Gwenwyvar had told her to
jump and she had not even asked, “How far?”

She turned as she ducked down behind a massive, gold-flanked
oak and waved at Skeet, a gay smile on her lips, her hand caressing the amulet
at her neck. Perhaps, at last, she was getting somewhere.

Keeping the Sun at her right, she walked—at first pondering
her task, then, realizing the danger of preconceptions, clearing her mind of
all but the sights and sounds of the forest around her. It did no good to ask
herself where in a woodland village one might be expected to find a jewel of
great value when she had no idea of what the village, itself, would be like.
For all she knew, it could be patently obvious where the jewel was; the
difficulty of her task might be in how she went about getting her hands upon
it.

She had traveled for what seemed like hours when the ground,
which had been gently rolling, suddenly sloped away downward into what appeared
to be a deep wooded depression. Mist rose from it, gold-tinged by the Sun, and
dissipated into the blue-grey stipple of the sky. She peeked through the
trailing limbs of fir and thought she spied the unnatural angle of a roof-peak
below.

Just the sort of place a mystic
village might be expected to inhabit
, she thought wryly, and stepped
carefully onto the woody hillside
. She began to
imagine what she would find when she got to the bottom of the deep vale: A
scattering of poor houses, a wayside roadhouse. Perhaps the Osraed or the
Gwenwyvar or whomever was actually in control of her Pilgrim Walk had just
relocated Mam Lufu’s nameless village to this spot, where she was expected to
find it again and execute, with whatever degree of success, her third task.

She moved cautiously down through a thick band of mist and
felt, all at once, as if she was swimming in a lake of diffuse, particulate
water. Indeed, when the ground beneath her feet leveled off once again and
cleared to reveal a soggy carpet of oily-looking dead leaves, the layer of fog
floated above her, so thick the Sun was at a loss to penetrate it. She reached
up a hand. It disappeared into the chill cloud just above her head.

She snatched it back again, thrust it under her arm and
glanced quickly about, still half-expecting to see the familiar wayhouse, the
white stone circle, the falling-down corral of the jumbled market square.

For that reason, alone, the true state of the village
stunned her. It was not the same as the place where Mam Lufu lived. Oh, it was
poor and sodden, but it was also mean and dark and filthy, and there was about
it a sense of decay. The absence of sunlight contributed to that effect,
Meredydd realized, and she felt that absence keenly, shivering though her
senses told her it was merely cool, not chill.

Damp clung to her face and hands as she moved forward. The carpet
of leaves gave way to grass-choked mud, rutted by wagon wheels. There were
buildings ahead; she could see their lower regions—flaking mudpack, falling
stone, rotting wood. Except for the obvious passing of wagons and the
depressions left by horse hooves and booted feet, she would have thought the
place derelict. It was eerily quiet; there was no birdsong, no wind sough, only
her own feet uttering squishy little whispers as she moved forward toward the
nearest building, her head bent and tilted—listening, peering ahead, holding
her breath.

He appeared with no warning, his face thrust close to hers,
his near toothless mouth leering horribly, his eyes glistening and bloodshot. “Cailin!”
he reeked at her and brought a claw-like hand to her shoulder.

The shriek that shot from her throat met the chill air as
little more than a wild hiccup. The twisted face with its grease-buffed skin
grinned, the mouth split. He laughed. Meredydd recoiled from the rank odor of
his breath and wrenched her shoulder from his talon grasp. Her heel slipped
into a rut and she all but toppled over—would have if the warped creature hadn’t
caught her at the last minute.

“Ye’d best watch yer step out here, girlie. Ye might muddy
up yer nice clothes.”

“I—I...” she stammered. “T-thank you.”

“Ah?
Thank
me, she say.
Well, well, cailin, if ye really wish to thank me
proper
....”
The leer wrested itself into something a babe in arms would have found
disturbing.

“Pardon, kind sir,” Meredydd chattered, glancing anywhere
but at his face, “but what place is this?”

He pursed his lips then grinned again. “I calls it Dark’ole.
Somethin’ ye fall into and canna get out. Blaec-del, tha’s the proper name.
Blaec-del Cirke.”

Meredydd blinked. “Cirke? Is there a-a Cirke, then?” Perhaps
she could enlist the aid of the Cirke-master.

“Aye. There is tha’.” The misshapen head twitched in a
northerly direction. “T’other end of town. An what might you be, then, girlie—a
White Sister on yer way to take the vow?”

Her heart hammering against her ribs, Meredydd lied. Well,
it was a very small lie, really, because she was more or less taking a vow. “Yes,”
she said breathlessly. “I wish to see about...going into the Cirke.”

“Well, well. Then I’d say it were a rare fortune tha’ Old
Mors come across ye first. I’d surely hate to see a young joy like yerself take
up the piety not knowin’ what was bein’ missed.” His hand was back at her
shoulder again, tugging at her. “I got me rooms over livery, sister. Come up
hither while yer still a
laywoman
an’ I’ll
give ye somethin’ to take to th’altar.” He wheezed gleefully at his pun, his
talons tightening, pulling more strongly at Meredydd’s shoulder.

She resisted, but found “Old Mors” was much stronger than
his spindly, twist frame implied. He was drawing her to the right-hand side of
the road where she could make out the gaping, crooked maw of a stable. “Please,
sir,” she begged, “let me go. The-the Cirke-master is expecting me. He’ll
wonder where I’ve gone.”

“He’ll wonder naught, sassy cailin. Ye didn’t e’en know
there were a Cirke in this ’ole. So, now, come get evil with Old Mors an’ give
the Cirke-master somethin’ to repent ye of.”

Terrified, Meredydd lost her temper. “I don’t
want
to get evil with you!” she shouted. “Get
your hands off! Now!”

“Woo-hoo-hoo!” Old Mors cackled at her. “Fearsome! I’ll like
this, I’m thinkin’. Hands off! Hands off!” he mimicked.

“You’ll like naught, sir,” said Meredydd angrily, trying to
strike a defiant pose. “I lied. I’m no Cirke-bound White Sister. I’m another
order of Sister altogether. And if you treasure your soul you’ll unpaw me.”

“Or what? Or what?” he cackled. They had reached the stable
door and Meredydd could see the animals within. The lecher glanced back over
his shoulder, following her gaze. “Turn me into a horse? Eh? Aye, go ahead,
Dark Sister. Make me a stallion. I’ll still take me a young mare.” He got both
hands up now—one on her throat, one at her waist—and dragged her forward into
the dust-shrouded stable.

“I’ll give you a mare,” she hissed and stamped, with every
ounce of her strength, onto his foot. On the solid ground within the stable the
heel of her boot was especially effective. He yawped and wheezed, letting go
with one hand and hopping painfully about while Meredydd struggled to get away
from him.

She had almost managed it when he recovered and lunged at
her again.

A loud
chuff
! at her
shoulder made her jump to one side as a huge, black shape, radiating heat and
smelling of sweat-matted horse hair and leather, forced its way right into Old
Mors’s face, bowling him completely over. Meredydd turned and fled.

“Hey, y’ old sot!” cried the horse’s rider. “Quit yer tommin’
and take care of my mare. Gawd, but ye’re a disgrace. Glommin’ onto children,
now, is it? Leave somethin’ about for the boys to wed, will ye?”

Whatever else the rider might have said was lost in the
pounding of Meredydd’s heart and the wild confusion of a street that seemed
suddenly to have come to life. She heard voices raised in raucous laughter;
discordant music played on an out of tune stringed instrument; the slurping,
sucking sound of people moving through the all-encompassing muck; the creak and
pop of wagon wheels and springs.

In the misty pandemonium, Meredydd remembered only that the
Cirke was at the north end of town. She turned that way and ran, hugging the
right-hand side of the rutted street.

The Cirke dominated the center of the village. It was not
half so big as the sanctuary at Nairne but, compared to the rest of the
buildings of Blaec-del, it was quite grand. Even the fog stood off it, as if in
awe or respect, and Meredydd could see right up the bell tower to the bottom
ledge of its peaked roof.

Without hesitating, she skinned up the flight of stone steps
and through the heavy plank doors. They creaked closed behind her, lending a
welcome support for her quivering backbone. The sanctuary breathed tranquility
over her; the guttering candles, torches and altar braziers whispering holiness
and safety.

Shadow Eibhilin danced for her along the walls, their songs
silent. She reached again for her amulet. Trapping it securely between her
fingers, she stood away from the door and moved down the narrow center aisle,
glancing from side to side.

The floors were foot-worn, aged stone; the wooden benches
were faded and glossy with much restive sitting. The altar was plain, unadorned
but for simple brass braziers and a hip-high chunk of granite whose thick
scattering of mica glittered like jewels in the half-light.

Jewels! Meredydd glided up to the altar stone and laid her
hands upon it gingerly. Was it a chunk of the Cirke’s altar stone that she was
to appropriate? That could be construed as a jewel of great value...or was that
virtue? Well, perhaps here the two were synonymous.

She glanced around, wondering what she might use to chip off
a bit of the stone, then caught herself and grimaced. No mission of Pilgrimage
gave her the right to desecrate a sanctuary. She would ask for a piece of the
altar stone if it came to it, but first, she’d like to hear a bit of its
history. That might help her determine if it was the jewel she sought.