And so Aoleyn had to go to this area often, for many of her menial tasks involved bringing food and water to the ugly slaves. Every morning, the crone would indicate a cave by which side of the channel it was on and the number along the line, and Aoleyn would gather a sack of food, usually scraps from the previous night’s meal, and a small jug of water, and would run to her appointed delivery.
She had always before been directed to the small caves along the right-hand stone wall of the channel, barely alcoves, where the older girls and women were kept—they each had their own chamber, and there were chained.
Often, though, when Aoleyn found them in the morning, the slaves were not alone. Often an Usgar man was there, disheveled and sometimes even still asleep.
But never did she find the slave girls asleep. Usually she found them sitting and folded tightly, huddled and rocking, sometimes crying, often bruised. Whenever one looked up to see her, Aoleyn was struck by the look in her eyes. Hollow, vacant, absent, even, as if there was no one really there anymore behind the glazed and hopeless façade.
A look that scared the child, who wasn’t old enough to understand the reason.
“Will I see the old man with the giant wrinkled head?” Aoleyn asked one morning when the crone had unexpectedly instructed her to take the largest basket of food, and told her that this day, she would go to the central cave on the left-hand wall. That was the largest cave in the channel, Aoleyn knew, where all the child slaves were kept.
“No, child, he is gone,” the crone said.
Aoleyn looked at her curiously.
“His woman, too,” the old woman said with a look that Aoleyn couldn’t quite place, though it seemed rather gleeful.
“The Crystal God needs to eat, child,” the old crone said with a cackle, seeming very pleased with herself. “Go, go,” she added, shooing Aoleyn away, then lifting her hand as if she meant to swat the little girl, which sent Aoleyn running.
Despite the unsettling words of the crone, Aoleyn rushed up the trail toward the rocky channel with a spring in her step, anxious to see the children her own age, perhaps even the baby whose birth she had witnessed. It wasn’t a conscious thought, but she was also glad that she would not have to go to the women slaves this morning.
Up the channel, she turned through a boulder tumble and moved around a very large slab of stone to the tall triangular entrance to the main uamhas cave. She noted immediately that she wasn’t the only Usgar there, for a pair of guards, strong warriors, stood watch just inside the large cave’s entrance.
They smiled at Aoleyn as she entered.
“Be quick, little one,” a warrior told her.
As soon as she got fully through the entrance, Aoleyn knew that she hadn’t needed the prompt, for the place smelled awful, with piles of poop lying all about. The slave children ran from her, even the boys who were twice her age and size, and none dared look her in the eye for more than a moment before shying and whimpering and scrambling aside.
Even in the dim light, Aoleyn could see their open sores. Somewhere in the back darkness of the place, she heard another young slave vomiting and crying.
She felt as if the walls were closing in on her, as if the stones themselves were alive, and hungry. She rushed for the central stone and dumped her basket upon it, as she had been instructed, and turned to flee as fast as her little legs would carry her.
But amidst the cries and the retching sounds, the many coughs and the whistling of the mountain wind through the cracks in the stones, Aoleyn heard a different sound: a voice, comforting and steady, and in the cadence of a litany or one of the witches’ spells.
She veered to the side as she made her way back to the exit, avoiding the rush of half-starved slaves as they tried to get to the feeding stone.
Aoleyn glanced at the Usgar guards, who were chatting and paying her no heed. She considered the earlier warning, but still moved to the side, to the darkness, inching her way around an outcropping of stone in the cave wall.
She saw the new mother, sitting with her back to Aoleyn and rocking slowly. The woman was chanting, Aoleyn heard—and to her baby, Aoleyn saw as she shifted.
“You are stupid. Too stupid to talk.”
The words shocked Aoleyn and left her with a foul taste in her mouth. How horrible! No wonder the lakemen were such pitiful creatures, she thought, if their mothers talked to them so from the time of their birth!
The woman seemed not to notice her and continued her chant, or lecture, or admonishment, or whatever it might be, but Aoleyn’s attention was fully stolen then as the mother shifted again, this time bringing the baby’s head under a single shaft of light that sliced in from a hole in the natural ceiling.
Little Aoleyn opened wide her eyes and wide her mouth and fell back in surprise. The baby’s head wasn’t stretched, not even the little bit she had seen when she had witnessed his birth. He looked perfectly normal, and perfectly pretty, with his soft light hair and, when the light hit him just right, a pair of sparkling eyes the color of the waters of Loch Beag on a bright summer’s day.
The little girl fell back around the outcropping and leaned heavily on the wall, trying to make sense of it. Was this the same child? Was it an Usgar child, substituted in for the slave to wet-nurse?
But no, none of the tribe’s women had given birth in the last year.
She started back around for another look, but stopped short when a guard called out to her.
“Out!” he demanded. “When the uamhas are done eating the food, know that they’ll start eating your own flesh, silly girl!”
Aoleyn left the cave in a dead run, scrambling back to the main channel and down to the village.
* * *
The seasons passed quickly for the growing Aoleyn, because even in the boring routines of the day, the spirited young girl found new adventures and new paths to wander, both physically and mentally. Her chores regarding the slaves had lessened these last few years, and she had been given much more freedom to roam, to move about the camp and out of the camp, to learn some of the ways of Fireach Speuer on her own. In many of those wandering moments, Aoleyn would find herself watching the uamhas. Not so much over the winters, where she preferred to sneak into the grove near the physical incarnation of Usgar, and because the slave caves were quite horrible through those months, but in the warmer months and the summer encampment, the uamhas inhabited a thick pine grove, with branches bending low to form protective natural chambers. Here, the uamhas could go out instead of simply filling their freezing lair with urine and feces.
Watching the uamhas women fascinated Aoleyn. They were the only adults among the slaves and their communal mothering of the younger uamhas touched Aoleyn deeply. Never once did she see one strike a child, and most of the contact came in the form of hugs. Still, most fascinating of all to the girl was the slave boy three years her junior, one whose head was not misshapen. The Usgar guards called him Thump—even the uamhas called him that—and none of it was in an affectionate way. His movements were always simple, his behavior dull, and in all the times Aoleyn watched him from afar, she never saw him speaking.
His mother had kept him, though, even though very early on, she had known he was quite stupid. Even thinking of that moment in the slave caves high up on the mountain made Aoleyn wince. That and his birth were her earliest memories, the only two from that year that she really remembered at all.
For all her curiosity, though, Aoleyn could only give the uamhas a passing thought. Much of her time out of the encampment was spent exploring the mountainside and gathering food or herbs, and she thought it would not be a good thing to steal the berries near to the slave quarters, for those were likely the best food the poor folk would get.
During these years, too, Aoleyn took great care to never fail at the tasks the old crone gave to her, even when her curious eye took her far afield. Her successes became a source of pride and also a source of mutual endearment between her and the old woman.
Indeed, as the ye
ars passed, Aoleyn came to suspect that the crone even appreciated her daydreaming side adventures—on one winter’s day in her eighth year, Aoleyn became convinced that the crone had seen her in the grove, up in the tree overlooking the Crystal God. That was against Coven rules and should have brought a stern punishment to Aoleyn, but the crone had said nothing, had merely smiled when next they were together. In fact, only a few days after that incident, the crone brought to Aoleyn a crystalline spear tip and held it out for her to take it.
She did, with trembling fingers, wondering if this was some punishment. Her trepidation couldn’t last, however, for in that magical moment, trembling fingers closing tight over the blessed weapon barb, Aoleyn had come to understand why the Crystal God was so revered, even beyond the wintry warmth it offered. She could feel the power within the spear tip, manifesting itself in varying ways. She felt warmth, and a deeper hint of stinging heat, like she could thrust it within a pile of branches and set it ablaze. Similarly, she felt like she could float off the ground, and suddenly she wanted to do that, and oh, wouldn’t it be wondrous?
She only held the spear tip for a few glorious and inspiring heartbeats before the old woman yanked it away. “Someday you will know,” the crone promised.
“When?” the eager girl asked then, and day after day from then on. Even at her tender age, Aoleyn knew that there was something special to be found here with the magic of Usgar, something otherworldly and profound, something beyond her mortal experience. She didn’t know how to express it, didn’t understand the significance of it, and certainly knew no way to comprehend the deep passions for which the Coven led the tribe in service to Usgar.
But she knew that there was something … something powerful and profound.
“Someday” became her litany as the seasons changed and the Usgar continued their traditions, moving their camp every spring and autumn, chasing the rhythms of the great mountain. Aoleyn found that many of her chores once again involved the slaves as she passed her tenth birthday, mostly running food to their caves or the grove of pines near the summer encampment, and never involving any lengthy stays or interactions. Indeed, she had been warned in no uncertain terms not to interact with them any more than necessary.
But, as with everything about her, Aoleyn did observe the uamhas at length, and as closely as she could. It seemed to her that the faces changed as the years went on, mostly with the few boys. Aoleyn couldn’t be sure, though, because these ugly people of the lake all looked alike to her (other than the varying grotesque skull shapes). Still, she seemed to recall that there had once been boys bigger and older than she, and now the oldest of them seemed about her age now, and only one was bigger.
Two things had remained constant with the slaves, though: the mother and her son, the one Aoleyn had watched being born those years before. The one whose head was not elongated—was still not elongated!—which confused Aoleyn more than a little. She had asked the crone about it, had even put forth her theory that because he was born on the mountain, the Crystal God had prevented him from being ugly.
The crone had laughed and told her she was right, but Aoleyn knew that the old woman was lying to her, or at least, that she was not divulging the whole truth of the matter.
Still, the mystery remained, and Aoleyn took special notice of the young slave boy whenever she spotted him at his chores. He never talked to the others, she noted, and rarely lifted his gaze from the ground unless his task at hand forced him to look up.
Aoleyn remembered vividly the mother’s words to this boy.
She felt bad for him, because he was stupid.
But at least he wasn’t ugly.
* * *
Things began to change again for Aoleyn as the summer of 847 began to wane. She had just passed her fourteenth birthday, and was no longer a child.
“My time with you is short,” the crone explained one hot morning, completely without warning. “You will soon become a woman. You may even one day find a place in the Coven—such a journey has been whispered about you.”
Aoleyn held her breath, her sadness at thinking that this old woman would no longer be overseeing her washed away at the mere thought that she might get to handle those magical crystals on a daily basis.
“When?” she asked.
“When, what?”
“When will I join—?”
“Silly girl, that has not yet been determined,” the crone replied. “Not the time, nor even that you will. You do not join the Coven, you are brought into the Coven, but only if there is room and only if you are the worthiest. There can only be thirteen dancing in the magical circle. There are thirteen now, and most are still young and quite powerful, even Mairen.”
“How, then? You must tell me.”
“I must do no such thing. There is no answer, nor would it be my place to tell you even if there was an answer!”
Aoleyn huffed a sigh of frustration.
“Child, the sun is warm before you,” the crone said, and offered a common blessing in the old tongue, a hope that the sun would be bright and warm. “Grian dearsach’s’blath. There are only three other Usgar girls around your age, and none have your wit or the heart you found for the blessed weapon crystal you once held.”
Then it was a test, Aoleyn thought, but did not say. She remembered when the crone had given her that spear tip, and now suspected that all the girls were handed one to touch and feel in their hands and in their heart as they neared the change to becoming young women.
“Perhaps you will be called to the Coven young—some are,” the crone went on. “Perhaps you will be thrice your present age and will have birthed several children before you are called. Perhaps you will die before the opportunity is given. We cannot know.” She reached up and gently stroked Aoleyn’s thick raven-black hair. “But the sun is warm before you. I have seen the eyes of the warriors upon you.” Now it was the crone’s turn to sigh, and it seemed to Aoleyn to be an exhibition of sympathy.
“You are not tall,” she explained, “nor will you be. Such a small thing! Your hair and eyes too dark, your body too thick with muscles and curves, perhaps.”
Aoleyn crinkled her face in surprise. She knew that she didn’t much look like most of the other women of Usgar, who stood tall and very lean, with brighter hair and eyes, but she hadn’t really given it much thought to that point. What did it matter, after all?
“Most warriors want larger wives, that their children will be big and strong,” the crone explained.
“I am strong!” Aoleyn protested. It wasn’t that she wanted a warrior to marry her, but she wasn’t much enjoying these demeaning words!
“I know you are, child,” the crone replied, quite condescendingly. “And you might be strong in the crystal—I sense that in you—and so you will perhaps find a place in the Coven. If that happens, a great warrior will desire you as a wife, and so your place in the tribe will be one of rank in any case.”
Aoleyn resisted the urge to shout at the crone for even saying such a ridiculous thing. Her place in the tribe would be determined by the man who decided that she was worthy to mother his children?
She started to question, trying hard to be polite. “But—”
The crone held up her hand. “Enough.”
“But—”
“You have work to do,” the crone interrupted in a tone of finality. “I have not yet given you over to your next teacher. Do not end our time together wickedly.”
Aoleyn wisely nodded and went back to her chores.
* * *
“That is Egard, Tay Aillig’s nephew,” Mairen said to the crone and another woman, middle-aged, standing beside her, the three watching some children, including Aoleyn, fighting from a ridge not far away. It had only been a few days since the crone’s serious discussion with the fourteen-year-old Aoleyn, and here the girl was, off her duties and focus.
“I warned you,” said the crone, and the third woman snickered and shook her head.
“She’s her mother’
s spirit,” Mairen remarked.
The third woman, Seonagh by name, nodded her head and looked on with a mixture of emotions. It pleased her to see Aoleyn standing up to Egard and two other boys—she had knocked one down hard and had Egard up on his toes by taking a handful of his balls with a mighty twist. She hadn’t backed down at all from the three, and would send them running!
But she had done so for a reason that could not sit well with Seonagh. Egard and his friends were bullying a slave boy, the simpleton. Aoleyn had come to his rescue.
Soon to retire from the Coven, Seonagh had a special interest in this one.
“That spirit got Elara killed,” Usgar-righinn Mairen warned, and walked away. “Aoleyn will be yours to teach from morning of the spring equinox. Break that spirit.”
“As you command.”
“And teach the idiot girl the difference between human and uamhas!” Mairen insisted. “She’ll get herself thrown into Craos’a’diad with such foolishness! For the sake of a slave!”
Seonagh didn’t watch Mairen go, but kept staring at Aoleyn, who was still facing the nephew of mighty Tay Aillig. The girl was possessed of a tender heart, clearly, but for a slave? Seonagh sighed, remembering another so much like that. And not just emotionally. The black eyes, the black hair, small of stature but packing a mighty wallop, like there was simply too much fight within her tiny frame. Aye, another so much like Aoleyn, full of fire and fight and so willing to bend the rules.
So full of spirit.
Until that spirit had gotten her shattered by the demon fossa.
Aoleyn was so much like her.
So much like Seonagh’s dead sister.
6
MATINEE
“A full month?” the huge, shaggy man said, shaking his head and grinning his near-toothless smile.
“Two if I tarry,” Talmadge replied.
“All the way to the mountains? Mountains in the west?”