No, not the world, she realized. The floor, and the walls, and the ceiling. This place, this cavern—yes, she only then remembered. She was in the caves beneath Craos’a’diad, the Mouth of God.
And it vibrated with energy, with life! It was disconcerting to the young woman, overwhelming, and thrilling, and surprising, and somehow entirely familiar.
Become aware of your very center. Aoleyn heard Seonagh as if she were seated right next to her stern teacher, listening to one of her many lessons. And this time, unlike so many others, Aoleyn paid attention.
She felt her center, and tried to align its vibration with the song of the crystals within the cavern—like the one that had stabbed her, she realized!
Aoleyn almost lost the moment, then, and had to force herself to calm again, to count her breaths, to hold tight to the place of her intimate focus, to bring forth the magic of the song that was all about her.
She reached out—not physically, but spiritually, and she felt something, touched something.
Something tangible, as much so as if she had grasped it with her hand.
And suddenly, Aoleyn realized that she was not blind, for there was light, all about her, from the walls and the ceiling, shining brilliantly from several diamond-flecked crystals, the bright glow sparkling off the myriad of other crystals jutting from the walls and the ceiling all about her.
A beautiful light, Aoleyn thought, full of color and warmth.
The light of Usgar bathing her.
* * *
Seonagh inadvertently let out a gasp of relief and nearly fell over when the diamonds flickered to life in the cavern.
Her concentration faltered, throwing her out of the ritual joining and the far-sight spell, and she came back to her corporeal senses, as did the other two women. All three appeared drained, and rightly so. The magical crystals flecked with quartz were typically used for simple glimpses, spying something for a few heartbeats at a time. Yet this trio had been holding their ritual for a long while—Seonagh was surprised to see that the moon had risen above the mountain now.
Seonagh looked to her companions, noting that Connebragh, who was young and doing well with the Coven and so would see no threat from the rise of Aoleyn, seemed quite pleased by the development within the cavern.
Sorcha, though, simply looked drained. Seonagh understood—it was quite possible that Aoleyn would wind up being Sorcha’s replacement in a few short years, and while that would simply move Sorcha to a similar position as Seonagh, it was not Aoleyn’s fault. No matter what, someone would be called to the Coven to replace Sorcha. Aoleyn was simply the future; Sorcha, like Seonagh, the past.
It was always the way, Seonagh thought, that the older members of the community harbored resentment for the beauty, the strength, the talent, of the younger members. It was not just among the Coven either. Seonagh figured this a universal truth for men and for women. How could an aging warrior, his muscles growing weak, not harbor some envy, some resentment, for the young emerging hero?
“She has heard the song of Usgar,” Seonagh said to the other two. “Go and get some rest.”
“And you as well,” Connebragh replied, her suspicion evident. Typically, the witches would rotate the responsibilities of this night; now that the girl was awake and active with the crystals, the three of them were expected to pass off their duties to the next watch.
“In due time,” Seonagh answered, and she smiled, knowing that she had confirmed Connebragh’s suspicions, and not caring. “I will keep watch a bit longer.”
Connebragh just shrugged and nodded, then started to rise. Sorcha did not even bother to stand, but simply lay down where she had been sitting and passed out.
“No call to exhaust yourself,” Connebragh warned. “Aoleyn has found her power and created the light—she will not need constant watching.”
Seonagh nodded. She knew that she, too, had to rest, somewhat at least. She took up the long quartz-flecked crystal, but did not reach for its magic. Not yet. She hoped to glance in on Aoleyn every short while, for just a glimpse, just an assurance. She reminded herself repeatedly that Aoleyn didn’t need her then.
A bit of commotion over by a campfire caught Seonagh’s attention. She noted the tribal leaders, and more pointedly, Tay Aillig, staring back at her. Then striding forcefully toward her. He was only visible in silhouette, but his gait spoke of anger—of course, all of that one’s mannerisms constantly spoke of anger, a deep-seated bitterness toward the world.
Behind Tay Aillig, at the campfire, one of the venerable tribesmen rose slowly to his feet. Usgar-forfach Raibert looked fearsome in the firelight, despite his advanced age, and Seonagh shuddered to remember the man in his youth. He had never been particularly violent toward her, nor toward any of the women as far as Seonagh could remember, and he had rarely spoken. But in battle, Raibert had been the most feared man in the tribe, something Seonagh had witnessed personally only once. A cold sweat beaded on her brow just thinking of that long-ago day.
“You look fearful, crone,” Tay Aillig said as he approached.
Crone? Seonagh thought but did not say. She had thought another decade would pass before she began hearing that moniker. More amused than insulted, she smirked and replied, “Not of you, man.”
Of course, Tay Aillig’s scowl showed no sign of relenting.
“The girl is awake,” Seonagh said matter-of-factly.
“And yet, you’re frightened,” Tay Aillig reasoned. “Aoleyn must be in some danger, then.”
Seonagh’s sudden, wide smile stole his confidence, for it was a sincere and toothy grin.
“I never doubted Aoleyn,” she said. “I’d be telling you more, but you’re just a man, and not to know what the girl does in the cave. Not to know of the cave at all, eh?”
For a heartbeat, she thought Tay Aillig might lash out at her, though in truth, she didn’t even care.
“Take care your words,” he said deliberately, and loomed over her, physically imposing. “Or you might lose your tongue.”
Against that obvious threat, Seonagh’s hand reflexively moved toward her pouch and her private stash of crystals, and her mind ran an inventory of them, considering which ones she might use in combination to knock this man away or even destroy him. Surely Tay Aillig had little comprehension of the true power of Usgar, or what destructive forces an angry witch might conjure!
But Seonagh wasn’t radiating confidence. She was exhausted from her extended look into the cavern. And her nemesis was right beside her, close enough to strike—and a single strike from Tay Aillig would kill.
She would have to produce some powerful magic before that to even have a chance, and she honestly saw no way she could accomplish that.
But at that moment, Seonagh did not care. She had suffered Tay Aillig’s barbs and jabs for years in the encampment, but she would not suffer it here, in this sacred place, the entrance to the cavern that was the source of her Coven’s power. This was a woman’s place, not a man’s, not any man’s, and certainly not Tay Aillig’s.
She rose to her feet with surprising grace, matching Tay Aillig’s stare, looking him directly in the eye, her neck craning up at the man. Tay Aillig was nearly a foot taller than she, and right now he used all of that height to loom over her. But Seonagh did not back down an inch.
They held that pose for a long moment, neither blinking, neither moving, neither speaking, until a voice interrupted them.
“What are you about, both of you?” Usgar-forfach Raibert demanded, and only then did Seonagh realize that their little encounter had drawn outside attention. Tay Aillig blinked and stepped back, and Seonagh slumped back as well.
“The girl is awake,” Tay Aillig told Raibert.
“And for what purpose do you know this?” Raibert asked, his tone brusque.
Tay Aillig stammered, so clearly uncertain.
“This is woman’s work,” Raibert chastised the younger man.
Seonagh started to speak up. “He demanded—” she
began.
But Raibert didn’t acknowledge that she’d even begun to speak, he simply continued on, chastising Tay Aillig. “We have no place in this affair and we are demeaned for even speaking of it. We are here only to watch over these lesser creatures and to decide if the girl should be given to Brayth now, or if she is destined for the Coven. Do not interfere.”
He did not even wait for Tay Aillig’s response, he simply swung about and walked back toward his campfire. Tay Aillig turned to follow, but stopped, and glanced over at Seonagh.
He no longer wore his scowl. Now his face was stone, his eyes unblinking, his smile creasing his face as if he knew something she did not. The scowl, the outward expression of anger, had never scared Seonagh, had rarely even unsettled her.
But this was different. This look, unreadable, had Seonagh’s thoughts spinning and her heart pumping. A chill ran down her spine.
Tay Aillig’s walk back to the campfire was not the aggressive stride that had brought him storming up to Seonagh’s face. But there was something else in it—not humility, surely! Seonagh thought she recognized a not-insignificant amount of quiet confidence and satisfaction there.
She shuddered again.
19
HARMONY AND DISCORD
It wouldn’t stop, each shivering note grabbing at the core of life energy and flicking it, like a million tiny fires burning into every reach of the tormented fossa. The creature wailed and threw itself about the debris-filled pit, sending shards of bone flying all about.
The beast leaped straight up, thirty feet, to crack against the ceiling, and tumbled back down into the jumble of sharp-edged skeletons. And it didn’t even try to land on its feet, demanding for pain, shrieking for it. Anything to silence the assault of maddening magic.
And the beast howled and wailed, full voice, trying to overwhelm the discordant twanging that plucked at its life energies and filled it with such agony.
But no matter the demon’s volume, the mountain’s magic sounded clearly. No matter the crashing and churning, the fires burned bright and hot, so agonizingly hot.
The fossa leaped face-first into the wall, crashing hard, chipping the stone with its teeth. It sprang as it bounced away, flying across the tight pit to slam hard into the opposite wall, then back again.
And again, relentlessly, furiously, insanely.
A normal creature would have been killed, bones shattered in the wild rampage, the long falls into spearlike bones. But such assaults couldn’t hurt the fossa.
But that song, that noise, that defiant, incessant twanging of the magic of Fireach Speuer! That, the fossa could not suffer!
After another long fall back into the pit, the creature burrowed deep under the pile of bones, and kept digging furiously when it came to the stone floor, its rending claws sending stone dust flying all about. It dug wildly, paws rolling, face planted firmly against the stone—which it even bit.
The magic had never been like this before, not this intense, not this loud!
The awful mountain sang now with full volume, as if mocking the beast. As if it would obliterate the beast.
In that moment of agony, the fossa hoped it would do just that—better nothingness than this unending torment!
The fossa dug, trying desperately to use the simple exertion, the focus upon its fury and its unending scream, to minimize the taunting notes of Fireach Speuer.
Trying desperately, and futilely.
* * *
The winding ways of tunnels began to mesmerize the young woman. Every wall thick with crystals—huge ones, many larger than even the stone of Usgar in the glade beside the winter encampment. All were shining in various hues, some from the inside, their diamond flecks brought alive through Aoleyn’s call to the magic, while others caught that light and twisted it through their angled sides and colored with the various flecks of gemstones and minerals within.
It was more than warm in here, it was hot, and Aoleyn was glad that she was wearing only a simple shift. And even still, she felt sweat on her brow.
And then there was the music. She could hear such beautiful music! But not with her ears. No, its vibrations were within her, flowing brilliantly, blissfully, elevating her mood and her heart with the song of Usgar.
Aoleyn took in her immediate surroundings. Far behind her, down an unremarkable path almost bereft of crystalline formations, loomed a solid, unremarkable wall. She had the feeling—perhaps it was a memory—that the witches had brought her into this place from that direction. Had they sealed the entrance behind them as they left? She pondered that for a short while, trying to make sense of it all.
What was this place, after all, and why was she here?
They seemed to be ominous questions to her at first, but only for a moment. For she heard the song and decided that this was not a place to dread.
The ceiling above her arched high overhead—as high as five tall men standing on top of each other. To one side, where she had touched the crystals, the cavern ended abruptly, while in the other direction it extended beyond her vision, narrowing and vanishing in twists and turns, to a deeper darkness beyond the range of the magic she had managed to call forth.
The floor beneath her was smooth gray stone, but she realized as she looked at the paths before her that they did not remain as such. She would be crawling over and under crystals if she meant to go deeper into the cave.
Perhaps she should stay put, she asked herself, and wait for the witches to return?
But what if they didn’t? What if this challenge was to see if she could find a way out and not simply starve to death on a warm stone floor? Aoleyn smiled as she grew confident of what certainly had to be the truth. She would not stay in place. Not with these brilliant and glorious crystals all about, singing to her soul. The song quieted and the light diminished, but only for a moment, until Aoleyn reached out and touched the diamond-filled crystal again and called upon it, now with purpose and all her heart.
The light returned, then grew tenfold, reaching farther out than previous, and with a brilliance to rival a cloudless summer day under the high sun. It wasn’t just this crystal she was igniting, either, but diamond flecks all about her in a widening circle, as if she was lighting distant torches with her thoughts.
Yes, she heard their song and answered their refrain, creating a glorious harmony sweeter than anything she had ever before experienced.
She heard other songs, too, some familiar, like wedstone and malachite.
One cluster of nearby crystals caught her attention and she moved to them, lightly touching them to feel their vibrating magic. They appeared quartzlike, but more opaque, greenish-gray. They sang of her imagination, of things she wanted to see, of images she might create.
She didn’t understand at first, but on impulse glanced back behind her to the wall, almost as if the song of this crystal had bade her to do so.
She saw the wall, then through the wall! Outside, to the glade beyond, where sat Seonagh and some others, where, farther back and higher on the slope, a campfire burned and the men of Usgar moved about in the nighttime shadows.
Aoleyn waved, or started to, for she recognized that they could not see her. Something was out of sorts here, for the brilliant light in the cave did not spill out, but was blocked by the wall—but the wall wasn’t really a wall!
Or was it?
“No,” Aoleyn whispered, one hand still touching the smoky quartz formation. The song was telling her that the wall was an illusion, but it was also an effective one. One that worked both ways, clearly.
She realized then that she could simply walk out of the cavern. Was that the test? Aoleyn smiled. No, if it were that simple, then she would pass … but only eventually.
The song of this enchanted cavern reverberating within her, subtle and sublime, wonderful in its harmony. Aoleyn felt as if her entire body was vibrating along with it, pulsing with divine energy. As she fell deeper into her focus on that song, she began to recognize the variations in the music.
Like the subtle bass of the smoky quartz she now touched, or the higher soprano sound of the diamond-flecked crystal she had previously used.
She felt as if she were holding Seonagh’s crystal bars, all of them, and dozens more. With an intensity many times greater than those thin, singular notes, she found herself in the midst of a chorus. A thousand voices lifted beside a thousand drums’ rattles, a thousand bells and a thousand flutes.
She could play them.
She turned her attention back to the diamonds, separated that song from the others. To this point, she had only worked with its intensity, lifting its volume, but now the clever girl coaxed it to sing more softly instead.
The light in the cavern grew dimmer.
She softened it more and more, extinguished it altogether, and then went further, focusing her thoughts upon darkness, something more absolute than the pitch blackness into which she had awakened.
Aoleyn felt as if she had gone there, as if she had created something more than an absence of light, but rather, a tangible darkness. She moved her focus to the side, separating one diamond crystal from the others, and she coaxed that one singular crystal to sing.
The darkness remained complete.
Aoleyn let go of all her call to the stones except to that one crystal, keeping it constant, keeping it soft. Instantly, she was bathed in the glow of just that shard.
The girl put her hand to her mouth, trying to sort the possibilities here. Had she actually done more than halt the magical light? Had she reversed it to create a physical darkness?
The thought shook her. Could she walk under the sun and blacken the area about her in profound shadow?
The potential for layers and layers of magical subtlety assailed her, overwhelmed her, and then, very soon, captivated her.
She brightened the cavern once more and moved about, looking to the various crystals, listening for hints of their songs, for the many and varied magical enchantment waiting for her call.