Mother Ocean, Daughter Sea

by Marcellas, Diana

• ISBN13: 9780812561777
• ISBN10: 0812561775
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2002-10-13
• Publisher: Tor Fantasy

Summary

The shari'a people are an ancient race-a proud and gentle people, ruled by witches who harnessed the powers of the world for the benefit of all. When the seafaring Allemanii tribes came to their shores, the two races lived side by side for generations, staying apart but trading and learning from each other in peaceful harmony. But something went horribly awry and the shari'a people were suddenly and brutally slain by the settlers who had come to dominate the land. They feared the shari'a . . . and more important, the witches who led them and who held powers that the Allemanii could barely comprehend. The remnants of this gentle people were scattered, and any shari'a who held the knowledge of the old ways and powers were proscribed and hunted to death. That was long ago, and young Brierley thinks she is the last shari'a witch in the world. She knows what discovery it would mean, but she cannot deny her gifts as a healer; risking discovery, she goes out time and again to bring solace . . . despite the fact that those Brierley saves are the very people who killed most of her race. When she saves the life of a nobleman's wife-a nobleman sworn to obliterate any trace of witchery-Brierley stumbles into a web of deceit and power struggles more deadly than anything she has ever faced. But she refuses to walk away-and by staying the course, Brierley gains the possibility of finding a love to last the ages, as well as a way to reclaim her people's heritage. With Mother Ocean, Daughter Sea, Marcellas has crafted a beautiful first novel that explores what it means to be different, to value that difference, and what happens when one trusts in true love.

Author Biography

A native of Oregon, Diana Marcellas lives in a small resort town, Pinetop-Lakeside, in northeastern Arizona. She recently left her dayjob as director of Legal Aid for the White Mountain Apache to reenter private law practice, and continues to teach history and legal advocacy part-time at the local community college. A fan of SF and fantasy since sixth grade, she began writing SF and fantasy during law school over twenty years ago, published several science-fiction novels in the early 90s, and is currently writing fantasy forTtor. Her first book in "the witch of two suns" series, Mother Ocean, Daughter Sea, appeared in September 2001, and the second book, The Sea Lark's Song, was published in December 2002, with the third book, Twilight Rising, due out in August 2004. She is currently working on the next book in her series as well as other writing projects.

"My life is an interesting combination," she says, "of the very prosaic and people-oriented practice of law and the more solitary daydreaming of writing fantasy. My Apache friends are often after me to write "Apache Tony Hillerman" mysteries, but my first love is fantasy and SF, which I began reading as a girl and have never stopped. I first thought up my shari'a witch, Brierley Mefell, while in college, and she has lived in my imagination for over thirty years, much beloved, always fascinating. Other characters have appeared over the years to join the collection of people in my head, but Bri has been with me since the beginning and hers is a story I always wanted to write. Now, thanks to Tor, I have the wonderful privilege of living in Brierley's world, as least vicariously, as I write her ongoing story."

Diana's interests include medieval history, practicing Wicca as a solitary witch, Apache tradition and culture, Zebra finches (she has a flock of fourteen), and needlework.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1
  
When the second sun sets into the sea, the shadow of the offshore islands slowly climbs the coastland slopes, ascending the serrated pattern of the trees: one by one, each dark pine and everwillow passes from daytime green to silhouette shadow. The dying sunlight glances off the exposed rock of the mountain, warms the thin soil on the higher ledges, then shadows the ridgeline of topmost pine. Above Peak Willenden, a first evening star emerges in the east, a beacon for all wayfarers who wend their way home.
In the gathering dusk of the Companion's setting, Brierley Mefell made her way down the sandy bluff to the beach below, careful in walking on the uncertain footing of the path. The bluff stood the height of four tall men, steep and sandy, and was treacherous in the darkening nightfall. She descended to the beach with a final awkward step onto the sand, then sat down on a broad stone to rest. She put down her staff and bag, then rubbed the ache in her arm from the healing she had done that day.
A herder boy had run too quickly after his flock and had tumbled himself onto rocky ground, breaking his forearm bone as he fell. It was not a grave injury, but painful to a young and active boy, and a Calling had taken her to him today. With her witch-sense, through her hidden witch gift, she had healed his broken bone by taking his pain into herself. It was her craft, that healing, and the pains of it were well accustomed and accepted. But she had not intended to return home this late.
Beyond the beach on which she sat, across a swirling pattern of cove-caught waves, stood a long row of large sea stones. Several of the great stones were large enough to be small islands, and were together the remnant of an earlier sea bluff now nearly eroded into the sea. Among their dark procession in the gathering gloom, Brierley's island home flickered with the white flash of breakers, beckoning with its promise of rest and sanctuary. Beyond the island's deep shadow, across a wide wave-swept bay and just visible above a northern headland, the tallest pinnacles of Earl Melfallan's castle stretched spidery fingers into the darkening sky. Beneath the headland, a distant fishing boat crept along the shore, weathering the point toward harbor and home.
The earl's castle was her constant visible reminder of the dangers of her hidden witchery. In all the Allemanii lands, the shari‘a witches were proscribed as evil and forbidden to live, and so died a quick and agonized death whenever found. The Allemanii High Lords had a long memory, and had suffered greatly under witch's curse—or so they said in their histories. In the three hundred years since the Disasters, the tales of Witchmere's evil had grown with their telling, becoming a legend of trouble and pain, of domination and plague and oppression. Or so the Allemanii would have their history: the journals in her cave told a different tale, although her predecessors also wrote of times they themselves did not remember. Their warning of secrecy, however, was clear, for the shari'a proscription still existed, preserved in the High Lords' laws.
How long had the shari'a lived in these lands before the Allemanii came from over the sea? How had the Allemanii's search for a new homeland, far away from blight and war a thousand miles to the west, turned into the destruction of an entire people? The Allemanii themselves had felt uneasy with their answers, and so had crafted excuses for their triumph, tales of lightness and fate, of black evil and men's agony. She sighed softly. Who had the truth? Were the shari'a truly evil? Or did that evil lie in the Allemanii who had hated them? Who?
Who could give her answers? On all of Yarvannet's shore, Brierley knew of no other shari'a witch. She was alone, and often wondered if she was the last of her kind, the last of the shari'a everywhere.
Many years before, the fishing town of Amelin had welcomed a pale young woman and her infant daughter, and had believed her tale of a husband's fishing accident in a northern town and the need to escape memories. Jocater Mefell she called herself, but had no history before the ship plank touched down onto Amelin's wharf. Had Jocater left behind shari'a kindred in Duke Tejar's northern counties, or to the east in the earldom of Mionn? Brierley never knew: by the time Brierley was aware of herself, her mother had long since deliberately forgotten.
In time, Jocater had married a shipwright in the town, a widower of middle years who wanted someone to keep his house and give him the comfort of wife and family, a busy man who needed sons for his shop to replace the two lost to plague years before. For all Amelin knew, Alarson and his Jocater had lived contentedly: only the occupants of their house knew of the worsening strain, the disappointed husband, the too-strange and barren wife, the arguments, the hurt feelings, the mutual bitter regret about the marriage. The stirrings of witch-sense, rigorously denied, had tormented Brierley's mother all her unhappy life. Unable to cope with Alarson's emotions, she had finally fled from him into madness and a plunge off a high sea cliff that extinguished all pain, all need.
That night, as her mother lay in her death shroud, twelve-year-old Brierley had sensed Alarson's relief that Jocater was dead, a relief as keen as a twisted joy, however carefully he hid his joy behind the pretense of grief he showed to neighbors and friends. And that same night Brierley had left his house, never to return. A fine gesture, she thought sourly: he was glad I left. Two years later Alarson had drowned in a sailing accident, before the time Brierley needed to forgive him. She appreciated being spared the effort.
He's dead, she thought, and dug the end of her staff in the sand. Dead for years now. Why are you thinking about him? She scowled more fiercely and banished the memory.
She braced her hands on her staff and stood, then swayed as the night wind suddenly buffeted hard against her back, its fresh breeze swirling down the forested slopes. It whipped her pale brown hair into streamers, and tugged impatiently at her broad-brimmed hat. She braced herself against its push and blinked wearily, half-blinded by the squat bluish sun on the ocean's horizon. In this autumn season, both the Daystar and Companion began to move together to the other side of the world, bringing into the late evening the True Night, a time of star-filled darkness that grew steadily longer as the world changed toward winter. As she watched, the Companion's blazing arc finally vanished beneath the Western Sea, and the world seemed to grow colder.
She turned and studied the top of the short bluff behind the beach, wary of any observers who might have strayed away from the coast road to overlook her beach. The beach was blocked to both the north and south by a tall jumbling of rocks, and was accessible only by the steep descent down the bluff. In that isolation lay her safety, and she hid her small boat here among the rocks each day, concealing it from above, and took care that her use of it to reach her island refuge was never observed. In the gathering night, she saw no one above, and her faltering witch-sense confirmed that absence of mind and eyes. She was alone.
Brierley pulled her small boat from its sandy crevice among the sea rocks and hauled it across the sand toward the waves, resting at short intervals as she again checked the bluff tops. Finally, at the edge of the sea, she pushed the boat into the water and stepped aboard. As the boat slid into the water, she dipped her paddle into the sea, and slipped across the waves with long-accustomed practice and rounded the southern end of her island. She waited for the proper wave, then neatly guided her boat into a half-submerged tunnel. The sound of the waves thundered in the enclosed space, then quieted as she turned a bend into the hollow heart of the island.
Ahead, above a rocky platform carved from the island stone, the small square shape of her Everlight gleamed in the shadows, its mellow light repeated in moving patterns in the water below. It flickered as it sensed her approach, then flared in welcome.
“Good evening, Everlight,” Brierley murmured as its love suffused into her mind, bringing promise of peace and rest, and a comfort of long familiarity. “I am glad to be home.”
She stepped from her boat onto the ledge and tied its bowline fast to a stanchion, then reached up to touch the Ever-light, reinforcing its bond with her. Once the Everlight had likely guarded the ancient caverns of Witchmere, the great capital of the shari'a, and had somehow come to this cave to guard a witch's home yet again. It had a mental presence, and it loved her, but the Everlight no longer spoke, if in fact it ever had.
“Ah, well.” She sighed, wishing it could speak and tell her answers. She touched the Everlight in a second caress. The Everlight flickered in response, dancing its reflected selves into the gently surging waters of the entry pool.
She bent to retrieve her cloth bag and staff from the boat, then climbed the long stair above the landing. Outside the doorway to her cave, she took off her hat and hung it from a peg, men leaned her staff and bag against the wall below. She walked into the upper level of her home, a small space scarcely a dozen paces long but comfortable enough for a single occupant. The stone surrounding her reverberated faintly from the pounding waves, a blanketing sound that walled off all rumor of the outer world. Only here did she escape the harsh light of her witch-sense, a knowledge of the heart and physical pain, of motives and thought not her own. Only here could she heal herself after healing others, mending the damage to her body and mind. She stretched and glanced around the dimly lit cave, finding comfort in its familiarity.
She rubbed her aching forearm again and winced at the stab of pain, then crossed the stone floor toward her bed and table, drawing off her tunic as she went. She stepped out of her long skirt, dropping both to the floor. Dressed only in a linen bodice and petticoat, she bent over the wide table and replenished the oil in her lamp from a flagon, struck a match to light the flame, and then sat down in the single chair to draw off her shoes. Her lamp shed a golden glow over the wood and stone, fabric and leather of the cave, catching the polished shine of the carved oak bedstead in the nearby corner. The light gleamed on the worn flagstones that led downward to her bathing pool and pantry and, on the opposite wall, warmed the bright-colored leather of the books ordered neatly on shelves.
How many had dwelt in this cave? She had often wondered. Some of her predecessors had not left a written record and so left no traces, but all of the cave's contents, handed forward from witch to witch, were old, perhaps dating back to the Disasters three centuries before, when the shari'a had suffered their final defeat. A few of the oldest books had crumbled to dust when opened. She had not dared to disturb others, so cracked and ancient they seemed, and regretted the loss of their answers.
She counted her beloved books with her eyes, knowing many volumes well, others only begun, still others for the next year or the year after. On most of the shelves stood books of herb lore and healing, various histories, religious texts and hymnbooks, and the other books that had caught the interest of the cave's many occupants. In the center of the shelves, on the middle shelf on the far wall, stood a row of twenty-three journals, each carefully hand-bound in leather and brass, most timely recopied by later occupants of the cave and so preserved, five now too fragile for handling. Each was the record of a witch's life, speaking from years now long vanished into time. Through the journals, the twenty-three had preserved their knowledge and experience for those who might come after them, and had written to affirm a belief in the future of the shari'a, however forlorn that belief had been for a few.
On the table beside her lay Brierley's own journal, to be the twenty-fourth of such volumes, and was the compilation of what Brierley Mefell had learned and felt and known in her short life, for whomever might come after her to this place. If one ever did. She had seen the signs of too long an emptiness when she found the cave eight years before: it had been abandoned long enough to crumble a pile of witch's bones to dusty ruin.
She lifted a shawl from the bedstead and wrapped her shoulders against the chill draft of the cave, then opened her journal to a new page.
My dear child, she wrote, do not despair. I believe that the Blood will continue beyond me, and that I am not the last.…
She shook her head impatiently and began again. Today I went to Natheby to watch the fishing fleet before my Calling to the herder boy. By the docks I spoke to a northerner captain named Bartol about the lands farther up the coast. He had many strange tales, but no hint of other shari'a—
Or, rather, he had many tales of witches, each shrunken and evil and wishing men into death. In Allemanii minds, we have become creatures of the night, murderers of children, drinkers of men's blood, an evil concealed deep in the earth, within the boles of trees, or in any woman's heart.
At the end, he asked too pointedly about husband or father, glancing about for a protector against his intentions, and so I clouded his mind and slipped away. An unwise choice: I had misjudged him and he sensed what I had done. He raised a hue and cry throughout the docks, shouting “Witch! Witch!,” and caused great panic among the wharfside folk.
She stretched and rearranged her shawl, warm in its woolen folds, then smiled ruefully.
I spent two hours among the wharf piers before the Natheby folk tired of the search and found more fun in taunting Captain Bartol. Duke Tejar's men are not liked here: it is easier to believe in a man's wounded vanity than a legend come to horrible life.
A foolish risk to ask about witches: I may end up undone by my wish to know too many things—
One thing I know: best to stay away from Natheby until Captain Bartol is safely gone home.
Her smile faded as she stared into the lamp's light. The flame flickered restlessly and the wick end crumbled ash into the oily pool beneath the flame, smudging the gleaming oil.
My child, be careful. The Disasters still live with us, and none of the Blood can walk openly in the High Lords' lands. Be vigilant, and take great care.
I wish I could meet you, my child. I feel alone. I wish…for many things I do not have.
Thora Jodann was content with the sea and the fisherfolk of this shore, and found her completion in simple things—a lark's caroling, the blue twilight of autumn, a fisherman's chant as he threw his nets. I wish I could find her peace, but it is lonely without you, my child, my hoped-for apprentice, so very lonely. When will I meet you? Will I ever meet you? And if I do, will you and I ever meet any other of our kind? Are we the last, you and I?
She stopped and bit her lip. I am tired, my child. Forgive me. The Beast presses too closely tonight. She shut the book and rose, then turned down the flame in the lamp and climbed into her bed.
Beyond the stone walls, the sea murmured ceaselessly, a varying rhythm of water and tide and seaborne life. The sea gave a cloaking sound to ward away the world, or perhaps some substance had been built into these walls to make a sanctuary for a witch gone beyond her strength. Or perhaps one need only believe in such a thing—
She closed her eyes, and listened to the crash of the waves and the surge of water in the channel nearby. As with the Everlight, the journals often took the cave's protection for granted: did only she wonder about such things? So many books, so many voices speaking from dusty years: somewhere on the shelves, surely, she would find her answers.
Against the darkness of her closed eyes, from deep within her mind, the Beast rose from a churning sea, beginning the ordeal that followed every Calling. As its terrible gaze fixed upon her, pitiless and knowing, Brierley found herself standing upon a beach of firm wet sand, her heart pounding, held motionless by that horrible great eye. She had healed today, using the gift: the Beast now came for her, to seize her if it could.
The Beast advanced slowly upon her through the breakers, coiling and uncoiling its serpent's limbs beneath a gas-bloated body, its stench of rotting flesh corrupting the breeze. As it neared her, its massive head swayed higher. It advanced still further, then roared as it struck down at her. No! she shouted, and darted aside from its terrible jaws. The Beast roared again, menacing her, wanting her, and filled her ears with the sound of its fury and need.
In her bed, she threw her hands to her eyes and pressed hard against them, covering the Beast with scintillating patterns that beat as frantically as her panicked heart. The Beast roared from within the sparkling light, heart-stoppingly close. She drew a ragged breath, then another, and willed away the Beast. No! The Beast's smell filled her nostrils, and its roar filled her ears: she felt its touch graze her wounded arm, and that coldness leapt into her body, seeking her heart.
No!
With that silent shout, she drew harder on her will to drive it away, denying the Beast. No! Baffled and roaring, the Beast began to retreat into the sparkling sea, and she shouted in triumph. Groaning, the Beast sank slowly downward into the waves and submerged, its single eye gleaming pallidly beneath the green water, then faded in the white splash of a wave. The sea waves ran up the beach, sighing in a final splash of foam.
Brierley lifted her hands from her eyes and took a deep breath, then another, aware of the sour smell of her own sweat, arid of the light-headed dizziness that tipped the edges of her bedstead and doorway. She tried to breathe more deeply, shuddering as if the Beast's cold touch still lingered near her heart, and slowly warmed beneath her coverlet.
She touched her arm. The ache had vanished, as always, dispelled by the sympathetic magic of the Beast. Madness? Delusion? Her books did not say, but each shari'a witch who healed recorded a similar mental vision, always the same for its bearer, always inflicted after a Calling. For some, they saw a giant bird descending upon a crag, others a fiery worm aroused from its burrow, each time to be defeated by the edge of a ragged will. For some of those who continued to heal—and some did not—the record stopped abruptly from one day to the next.
Had they failed against the Beast? She suspected so.
She listened to her heartbeat as it slowed, then counted a dozen measured breaths. The sea air moved lightly through the darkened cave, chilling the sweat on her face and body. Beyond the cave walls, water crashed against stone, shielding her in a womb of sound. She shivered slightly and nestled under her blanket, rebuilding her warmth, then shuddered again with more than the chill of the cave.
Prescience? Already she felt the tug of another Calling, a dim vision of a future self bending above a sickbed, lending strength, risking the Beast.
Tomorrow. In Earl Melfallan's castle high atop the headland.
She sighed in dismay. As a prudent witch, she avoided the earl's castle as often as she could. It was a risk to come too close to lords, and such mistake might not be retractable. Should she go?
“If I am the last,” she declared aloud, “I will be a flame to the end.” Her voice echoed hollowly in the chill cave, and her smile turned grim. “Ah, brave words, Brierley,” she told herself mockingly. “You'll be stubborn to the end that will surely find you.”
She turned on her side and pulled the cover over her head, then listened to the sea, finding comfort in the sea's unending voice.
Mother Ocean,
Daughter Sea,
Strength unchanging,
Strengthen me.
The child's prayer repeated again in her mind, then broke into fragments of other memories and, finally, fell into dreams she would not remember.
* * *
Brierley awoke the next morning to the pale gray light of the Daystar. A wide crack above the stairway to the lower cave chamber admitted some light into the cave, enough for her to see her way during daytime. During the rains, water cascaded through the crack and down the worn stairs to the bathing pool and nearby cistern, replenishing her supply of fresh water. Now the morning fog rolled heavily into the bay, bringing light and moisture. She listened to the slow drip of water on the stairs, sniffed the moist air to smell the sea, then threw back the covers.
When she left the cave an hour later, the Daystar had climbed well above Peak Willenden, burning away the morning mist, which still clung in patches to the bay. She hid her boat in its crevice on the beach, then glanced around carefully. The cove was empty of visitors, even the errant boys who sometimes came exploring the high rocks for seaweed and shells. Above her beach, the trees on the bluff top and the sea slope beyond moved gently in the morning air, their leaves dancing in the sunlight. The wind blew cool and fresh from the ocean. She took off her hat and shook loose her hair, letting the sunlight beat upon her face, delighting in the brisk wind. The world sparkled with light and life. On such a morning all things seemed possible.
Since Brierley's earliest memories, her mother had warned her against her true nature and had practiced what she taught by refusing all parts of her shari'a self. She would not hear the thoughts of others, not even Brierley's. She would not try to heal, disclaiming any skill in the art, even that of a mother's in tending her child's hurts. Jocater hated the strange senses that colored each day in ways others could not see, and tried to teach her daughter the same hatred, urging her daughter to wall up her shari'a self to be forgotten and despised, as Jocater herself had despised and forgotten. Fearful of discovery, her mother avoided friendships with the other women, and forbade Brierley to play with the other children of the town, lest her child seem strange to them and they guess what she was and so bring down the end. And Brierley had obeyed Jocater for a time, frightened by her mother's earnestness.
As a child, she had watched the other children at their play, yearning to join in, and one day, when she was nine years old, she had suddenly found herself friends with a blacksmith's son named Jared. How that had happened, she didn't know, but suddenly Jared was there before her, smiling and teasing, and daring her to race him on the beach. For several sun-drenched afternoons, they had hunted seashells and assaulted any shell-star unlucky enough to crawl across their path, and had built a fort in the rocks, where Jared defended her against the dragons who attacked their castle, and Brierley had helped him fight with her own stick-sword. He told her jokes and made her laugh, and deliberately fell down over his own feet so that she would laugh again, and she had run to him, afraid he was hurt, and saw him laughing up at her, promising her he was all right. And she had loved him.
Jocater finally heard of it, and solemnly forbade her to see Jared again. Sadly Brierley had obeyed. But she could not tell Jared so, could not say the words to make him go away, and so had stood before him mute, tears filling her eyes, as he looked first baffled, then hurt by her refusal to talk to him, then very angry, and he had run off. Twice more he had tried to talk to her, and each time she had been struck mute, unable to speak such words to him, and so had hurt him as thoroughly as if she had spoken the harsh words Jocater insisted. In the years since, she had seen Jared from time to time in the town, and had heard that he was now a soldier in Revil's guard, and doing well. But she had never told him why.
It was on a day such as this a few years later, she remembered, looking again around the peaceful cove, a day like this that she had changed her mind about what she was. There had been no great event moving the choice, no desperate peril that demanded action: only the quiet of the day, when even the sea rocks seemed spirit-filled and the suns had struck down from the sky, touching all with a shimmering light. Life had called to her that day, the life bound into the gift. She had never regretted the choice—but, to spare her mother anxiety, she had not told Jocater.
She picked up her staff and slung her cloth bag on her shoulder, then climbed the path up the sea bluff to the coast road. To the south lay the track to Natheby and Amelin, the fishing towns governed by Earl Melfallan's cousin and vassal, Count Revil; to the north, a well-traveled road led to Port Tiol and Yarvannet Castle. At the top of the bluff, she turned north and walked along the road, breathing deeply of the morning sea air. In a nearby pine grove, a sea lark caroled its welcome to the day. She walked along easily, watching the trees move on each side of the road, happy with the day.
She had walked nearly a mile when a voice hailed loudly from behind her. She turned. A stocky, bluff-faced man seated on a wagon tipped his wide felt hat to her, his white teeth gleaming in the shadows of the road.
“Mistress Brierley!” he called. “A good morning to you!” His stout wife nodded shyly from the wagon seat beside him, and two small boys popped up their heads in the back, their dark eyes alight with mischief.
Brierley smiled up at the man as he tugged his mule to a halt beside her. “And a good morning to you, Master Harmon,” she replied. “More vegetables for the earl?”
“Ah, no, not today. Fish!” He reached behind him and took a gleaming mackerel from a sack and waved it about. “Count Revil's steward took my new onions for part of yesterday's catch. Isn't this a fine fish?”
She stepped closer to inspect the fish, then solemnly agreed on its quality. The oldest boy sniggered and she glanced at him; both boys promptly ducked behind the sacks, giggling. Harmon turned and gave a measured swat on the nearest behind.
“Hey, there, lads,” he bellowed. “Give respect to the mistress. She brought you into the world, young Egal, and don't you forget it!” He turned back and beamed proudly at his wife. “And another to come in the spring!”
Brierley smiled. “Congratulations, Harmon. That is good news.”
“Ah, yes, my wife is a jewel, a fine mother and help to me, aren't you, Clara?” His wife ducked her eyes and flushed, a pleased smile on her broad face. “We'll want you for the midwifery again, Mistress Bri, if you will.”
“Of course.”
“Good, good. Are you going into the town? Want a ride?”
Brierley looked over the well-laden wagon and the two hefty occupants of the wagon seat. “I hardly think you have room, Harmon, but I'll be glad to walk beside you.”
“Ocean, no, my boys can walk. They've younger legs than you or me.” The boys promptly wailed a unisoned protest, but Harmon chased them out and made a place for Brierley among the heavy sacks. She leaned gingerly on a sack, and the ripe stench of sun-warmed fish swirled past her nose.
“Comfortable?” Harmon bellowed genially.
“Yes, thank you,” Brierley lied.
Harmon chucked the reins at his mule, and the small cart lurched into motion. “Haven't seen you about lately,” he called over his shoulder, “not that you're easy to notice with the way you slip about. Are you up on your news?” Without waiting for an answer, Harmon waved his hand expansively. “Master Cormley had another prize foal out of that black mare of his. The creature had scarcely dropped to the ground when five bidders came swanning around the birthing stable, slavering to beat all over a mere animal. Was a sight, believe me.”
Harmon and Cormley, Brierley remembered, had a years-long rivalry over their stock lines, with neither impressed by the other's.
Harmon waved his hand again. “Count Revil's having a festival next week, celebrating something or other. Biggest wheat crop in five years? Most shell-stars caught ever? I forget, myself. Then a big to-do by a northerner captain about witches loose in the port. Usual stuff.”
Brierley hid a smile. Harmon Jacoby would watch the skies fall down, eyes mildly agog, then get back to his business of minding crops, wife, and sons. “Witches?” she asked casually.
“Who pays attention to northerners?” Harmon shook himself irritably. “Them and their fancy ways, snooting at decent folk. Everyone knows—who has any sense, mind you-that the High Lords stamped out that evil long ago. Destroyed half the land and the sea besides and themselves, too, the tales say, but they did it. But there they go, half of Natheby, running and screaming in circles, looking for a witch!”
“Did they find one?” Brierley asked.
“Aren't any witches, girl, not now.” Harmon snorted and hunched his shoulders over the reins.
Brierley hesitated. It was too bright a morning to disturb Harmon with such probing. Harmon believed more of his beloved tales than he pretended, but the local commonfolk had no better weather vane. Harmon heard everything in time and sifted it through his jocular commonsense humor, his dislike for prance and outlandish finery, and his love for his land, his wife and sons, and his good lord.
Would that life were that simple, she thought, but guessed it might be for Harmon. Let it be, Brierley, she told herself, for Harmon's sake.
Harmon noticed her silence and turned to wink at her. “Don't you worry yourself, Brierley. I'll wager that captain had a fine laugh afterward. If you ask me, he knows too much of Duke Tejar's prancing finery and arrogant ways.”
“Not too loud, Harmon,” Brierley reproved. “You can lose your head talking that way about Melfallan's own lord.”
“And who's here save you and my boys and my Clara? And you a slip of a girl no one would notice in the shade?” He waggled his finger at her. “You should eat more, Bri. Skin and bones you are, and too pale for a sea-shine lass.” His face lit with a sudden idea. “Hey now, I'll give you one of my fish to fatten you!”
She laughed and waved him away. “You and your fish!”
“Fine fish!” he shouted and snapped the reins smartly. “Get up, mule. We haven't got all day!”
The cart jounced down the cobbled road that wound along the seashore bluff toward the port. When the boys began to puff, Clara took pity on the youngest, barely three years old, and lifted him to her ample lap to cuddle him. His brother clambered back into the wagon as it stopped and sat a precarious perch atop the sacks, his face aglow at the shifting, scary ride as the cart again lurched forward.
“Mind you hold on, Evan!” Harmon bellowed.
“I will, Papa!” the boy shrieked, his voice high with excitement. Brierley smiled, amused, and prudently took hold of Evan's small belt to steady him.
At the next long rise, the road passed the northern headland's broad foot and turned downward in an easy grade toward the harbor. They passed a mule train hauling logs, then met a brightly dressed party of lords and ladies riding leisurely up the slope. A lean-limbed forester followed them, balancing a pair of hooded falcons on hand and saddle horn. Harmon waved at them all and received a stern answering nod from the forester. The others, the noble folk, ignored the farmer's genial greeting, content with their own graceful conversations and soft laughter.
Brierley watched the several women ride by, each accompanied by an attentive suitor and aflutter with scarves and high fashion, and wondered if they were happy. Unwillingly, she caught a flash of worry from one, fatuous vanity from another, a stab of despair from a third. She turned her face away. Sometimes, after a healing and a night's sanctuary in her cave, her witch-sense dulled for a time, giving her unaccustomed peace out in the world: she wanted to keep it a while longer, if she could. As Harmon does with witch's rumors, she thought. She smiled to herself, understanding him very well, then smiled more broadly at the irony that each could be a grief to the other, his exuberant emotions, her witchly shadowy dangerous self.
“Get up, mule!” Harmon shouted, and snapped the reins smartly on the mule's hindquarters. Through the narrow scrabble of trees on the bluff edge, Brierley could see sunlight shimmering on the wide sea below. “Get up, mule! We haven't got all day!” The mule put new effort into its stride, and stepped along briskly. As they rounded the last curve of the descending road, Harmon pointed ahead. “Look there, Evan,” he said. “Port Tiol and our earl's own castle!”
“I see it, Papa!” Evan cried.
Beneath them, Yarvannet's capital and principal fishing town spread itself around the curve of a wide bay, with a neat assembly of dock storage and piers, cobbled streets, low-standing stables, and clapboard houses. Several ships bobbed in the calm waters near the central wharf, their mast pennons flapping in the sharp sea breeze. To the left, ranked beneath the lee slope of the headland, stood the stone mansions of Yarvannet's nobility, each with a private stable and armory, a narrow wooden stair descending precipitously to the beach, and a pier with small watercraft. The white stone and painted wood of Tiol's many houses shone in the sunlight, brilliant color against the gray-green waters of the bay.
Above the town, the headland grew rocky and hard, rising into the massive stony outcrop that served as foundation for Melfallan's lofty castle. Its pinnacles and towers rose five hundred feet above the sea, sheer cliff on three sides, a narrow and easily defended bridge on the fourth. She saw a host of tiny figures traveling to and fro along the crest road and bridge into Yarvannet Castle. Far above the travelers' heads, metal glinted on the castle heights as Earl Melfallan's soldiers kept their never-ending watch against pirates and any other disorder that might disturb the earl's lands.
As Yarvannet's earl, Melfallan enforced the laws of road and sea, kept the peace, and occupied himself in other lordly affairs of which Brierley had only vague understanding. She usually avoided Tiol whenever possible, managing that task enough to have never actually seen Melfallan in the flesh—and thus preventing him from seeing her, the more relevant point for a prudent witch. But Harmon thought Melfallan a promising young earl, she reminded herself, well-trained by old Earl Audric in his duties—not as winning as the sunny Count Revil, true, but none had Harmon's higher regard than Natheby's good count.
Harmon clucked sharply to his mule and the wagon lurched forward again. Brierley hastily grabbed the wagon side, then helped Evan regain his seat aboard the fish-soft sacks. As they descended to portside, Harmon hailed all who passed him on the road, a jolly man exuberant with the morning and his load of fish. He drove straight to the fishmonger's store by the central wharf, and there dickered with the sour-faced and freckled proprietor. Harmon's sons promptly vanished into the crowd of passersby like darting bream into seaweed.
Clara called after them, then sighed and clasped her hands placidly on her swelling abdomen. “I expect they'll be back,” she said resignedly.
“I expect so.” Brierley touched Clara's arm. “Another son, perhaps?” she asked.
“A daughter, surely,” Clara promptly declared, her eyes twinkling. “I'd like peace of mind for the first few years and the worry after. Girls are like that, never boys. I should know.” She sighed feelingly, then cocked her head. “And you, Bri, have you a young gentleman yet? You're of a woman's age now. Seventeen, is it?”
“Nineteen next month. And no.” Brierley looked away. “Not yet. Besides, one needs a dowry and a father to ask after such things. I have neither.”
“I had heard your stepfather's property went to that other relative of his when he died.” Clara's head wagged disapprovingly. “Odd that he'd not provide for you, you orphaned and all.”
“I wasn't of his blood.” Brierley shrugged. “The wealth belonged to the family, and I had no rightful claim on it.”
“Nonsense,” Clara said briskly. “But, that aside, Harmon'll speak for you, as much as we owe you for your kindness. Now, don't protest. I've often wondered how you keep yourself, but you seem to manage well enough. But too thin and pale, Harmon's right on that.” Clara's friendly eyes inspected her from hat to shoes, assessing the possibilities. Brierley shifted to her other foot, uncomfortable under the good woman's scrutiny. “Now, I know a fisherman's son in Amelin that might do, a quiet good-looking boy, quick with a net and lines—”
“Clara,” Brierley said desperately.
“Hmmm?”
“Is that Egal down there?” She pointed at random far down the wharf to where several children played among bales of hemp. Three seemed the right size. Clara turned obligingly and squinted.
“Likely so, but Evan will watch out for him. He always does. Oh, you're going?”
“I must. Thank you for the ride.”
“Any time, on any occasion,” Clara answered, her smile slightly forced. (Have I offended her?) Clara's thought dropped neatly into Brierley's mind, followed by a rush of anxiety and shame, asking such personal questions of the young midwife that Harmon so admired. Then confusion, hiding the eyes to examine her clasped hands. (I hope not. I so like her.)
“May I come visit you soon?” Brierley asked. “When I have more time?” She had often sensed Clara's loneliness on their isolated farm, a quiet existence with its comforts but too often brightened only by Harmon's trips into town and Brierley's own rare visits. “I would like to very much.”
Clara looked up and smiled, her face lighting with shy surprise and pleasure, as always. “Oh, yes. Please do. You are always welcome, Bri.”
“Then I shall. Good-bye then…for today.”
“Good-bye, Mistress Bri.”
I preserve the gentle ones of the world. As Brierley walked down the broad seaside wharf, she remembered that passage from the book of Thora Jodann. Thora had not written often or at length, but somehow her words remained vivid in the memory. Hers was an older book of uncertain age, much worn and bent, often quoted. Other witches of the cave had studied deeply into alchemy and the healing arts, filling many volumes with their research; a few had turned in other directions, coveting power for its own sake—from their books came the occasional histories of Yarvannet's political fortunes. Thora had ignored the intellectual arts, forswore any influence over others, and had poured herself out in a brief span of years, then ended abruptly, from one day to the next.
Several writers had called Thora a fool; others had championed her with elaborate argument. A few contended that Thora had seen the Disasters at first hand and had founded the line of shari'a witches in Yarvannet's secret cave, writing the First of All Books. Some of her words implied as much. None could ignore her.
Brierley stopped at the end of the wharf and watched the flow of tradesmen, sailors, fishwives, and boys pass up and down the short staircase to the street. Each swept a brief shadow across the broad planking, a dancing, shifting pattern of tall angular shadows, a blend of swift and slow movements, blurred by the double shadow of the two suns. The wood vibrated slightly with their footsteps, in fascinating rhythm with their passing shadows. And, as always, underlying the pattern lay the ever-moving sound of the sea.
Whom do I preserve? she wondered, as her witch-sense awoke to full strength. She perceived the passersby as a current with many eddies, a light of many variations. She listened, entranced by the patterns of their fellow minds. Whenever she tired, those patterns oppressed and bewildered, driving her to the sanctuary of her cave, but now—
Whom? That skew-faced tailor, mind-twisting and hating? That fatuous wife, plotting her revenge on her neighbor? That steward, who has robbed his master? Allemanii or not, these were the only people she had known, these gentle—and not so gentle—people of Yarvannet's sea and wharf side. But the High Lords who had destroyed the shari‘a long ago slept in uneasy graves, and these folk were not at fault. She stepped forward and descended the stair, joining the current of townspeople abroad on their business.
Whom do I preserve? All.
She made her way through the town, then ascended the streets until she reached the turning onto the road that bridged the crest of the highland and connected Yarvannet Castle to the port town it defended. On the crest road, the character of the townspeople changed: the clothes turned to finer cloth, more intricate stitchery, velvets instead of homespun; the horses bore ornaments of gold in their bridles instead of bright ribbons; and minds held different worries, different assumptions. She stepped to the grassy edge of the road to make way for another party of young noblefolk, then stepped aside again as a company of soldiers strode by, the sun glinting on their sword belts and spears.
A supply wagon rumbled past her toward the castle, laden with stores, its driver hunched comfortably over the reins. The boy's dark eyes flicked with casual interest over all who passed, as he thought of his stomach grumbling for a noon meal, the understeward's promise of sword-training next spring, a servant girl's smile the previous evening. (I wonder if she…or was she smiling at Maxter? The twit—he gets all the pretty girls.) Brierley followed in the boy's dusty wake, taking advantage of his wagon's bow wave through the stream of horsemen and people flowing outward from the castle.
In the sky above, the Daystar had passed its zenith and now cast shadows at opposite angle on the castle walls ahead, strong dusky gray to the muted blue of the Companion. The suns warmed the sea below, and crosscurrents of air swirled, plucking at hat brims and ribbons and blowing lustily over the headland, interrupted briefly by flurries of water-rich scent from the sea. On either side of the crest road, sea grass rippled in broad patterns of purple and silver, and a fine dust rose from the roadbed, swirling upward and away over the castle towers.
At the final rise to the castle bridge, she sat down on a stone to catch her breath, and admired the white granite of the massive gate wall, her head cocked beneath her broad-brimmed hat, her staff grasped firmly in her slender hands. At this distance, barely three hundred yards from the castle gates, she could hear the vast murmur of the many minds within Earl Melfallan's stony fortress, a restless shifting of thoughts and emotions at the edge of her perception, but there nonetheless, as changeable a rhythm as the surf and the stir of the breeze and the sea larks piping high above her head.
More soldiers stamped back and forth on the crest road, carters hied to their mules, and another party of gentlefolk rode by, bright with ribbons and gold. With each person passed a flash of emotion, a fragment of thought, and, in a deeper sense, the sum of each personality, quickly past. Brierley tipped her hat brim forward, shading her face from the sunlight, and studied her pale hands and their grip on her staff.
When I am old, she thought peaceably, I will sit like this in the suns' light and listen as I do now, drowsing now and then, foolish in my old age and the mock of children when they pass. Get up, old woman! they'll cry. Stir yourself about! Stop sleeping! And when I blink at them sleepily, doddery in my oldness, the children will point at me and laugh, their voices high and piping. They will run away and skip and jump, bright youth on the morning.
When I am old—
I preserve, she thought with sudden fierceness, and tightened her slender fingers on her staff.
Her mother had refused the gift, and had thus denied her essential self as shari'a and witch. Perhaps others of the shari'a did the same, if others still existed anywhere, and so hid away from the High Lords' cruel justice. Brierley breathed deeply of the brisk wind and smiled. On a day like today she had chosen differently. On a day like today, this day, she chose again—to heal, to practice her witch's craft.
Content, she waited, knowing the Calling impended, and soon.
 
Copyright © 2001 by Diana Marcellas

Excerpts

Chapter 1
  
When the second sun sets into the sea, the shadow of the offshore islands slowly climbs the coastland slopes, ascending the serrated pattern of the trees: one by one, each dark pine and everwillow passes from daytime green to silhouette shadow. The dying sunlight glances off the exposed rock of the mountain, warms the thin soil on the higher ledges, then shadows the ridgeline of topmost pine. Above Peak Willenden, a first evening star emerges in the east, a beacon for all wayfarers who wend their way home.
In the gathering dusk of the Companion’s setting, Brierley Mefell made her way down the sandy bluff to the beach below, careful in walking on the uncertain footing of the path. The bluff stood the height of four tall men, steep and sandy, and was treacherous in the darkening nightfall. She descended to the beach with a final awkward step onto the sand, then sat down on a broad stone to rest. She put down her staff and bag, then rubbed the ache in her arm from the healing she had done that day.
A herder boy had run too quickly after his flock and had tumbled himself onto rocky ground, breaking his forearm bone as he fell. It was not a grave injury, but painful to a young and active boy, and a Calling had taken her to him today. With her witch-sense, through her hidden witch gift, she had healed his broken bone by taking his pain into herself. It was her craft, that healing, and the pains of it were well accustomed and accepted. But she had not intended to return home this late.
Beyond the beach on which she sat, across a swirling pattern of cove-caught waves, stood a long row of large sea stones. Several of the great stones were large enough to be small islands, and were together the remnant of an earlier sea bluff now nearly eroded into the sea. Among their dark procession in the gathering gloom, Brierley’s island home flickered with the white flash of breakers, beckoning with its promise of rest and sanctuary. Beyond the island’s deep shadow, across a wide wave-swept bay and just visible above a northern headland, the tallest pinnacles of Earl Melfallan’s castle stretched spidery fingers into the darkening sky. Beneath the headland, a distant fishing boat crept along the shore, weathering the point toward harbor and home.
The earl’s castle was her constant visible reminder of the dangers of her hidden witchery. In all the Allemanii lands, the shari‘a witches were proscribed as evil and forbidden to live, and so died a quick and agonized death whenever found. The Allemanii High Lords had a long memory, and had suffered greatly under witch’s curse—or so they said in their histories. In the three hundred years since the Disasters, the tales of Witchmere’s evil had grown with their telling, becoming a legend of trouble and pain, of domination and plague and oppression. Or so the Allemanii would have their history: the journals in her cave told a different tale, although her predecessors also wrote of times they themselves did not remember. Their warning of secrecy, however, was clear, for the shari’a proscription still existed, preserved in the High Lords’ laws.
How long had the shari’a lived in these lands before the Allemanii came from over the sea? How had the Allemanii’s search for a new homeland, far away from blight and war a thousand miles to the west, turned into the destruction of an entire people? The Allemanii themselves had felt uneasy with their answers, and so had crafted excuses for their triumph, tales of lightness and fate, of black evil and men’s agony. She sighed softly. Who had the truth? Were the shari’a truly evil? Or did that evil lie in the Allemanii who had hated them? Who?
Who could give her answers? On all of Yarvannet’s shore, Brierley knew of no other shari’a witch. She was alone, and often wondered if she was the last of her kind, the last of the shari’a everywhere.
Many years before, the fishing town of Amelin had welcomed a pale young woman and her infant daughter, and had believed her tale of a husband’s fishing accident in a northern town and the need to escape memories. Jocater Mefell she called herself, but had no history before the ship plank touched down onto Amelin’s wharf. Had Jocater left behind shari’a kindred in Duke Tejar’s northern counties, or to the east in the earldom of Mionn? Brierley never knew: by the time Brierley was aware of herself, her mother had long since deliberately forgotten.
In time, Jocater had married a shipwright in the town, a widower of middle years who wanted someone to keep his house and give him the comfort of wife and family, a busy man who needed sons for his shop to replace the two lost to plague years before. For all Amelin knew, Alarson and his Jocater had lived contentedly: only the occupants of their house knew of the worsening strain, the disappointed husband, the too-strange and barren wife, the arguments, the hurt feelings, the mutual bitter regret about the marriage. The stirrings of witch-sense, rigorously denied, had tormented Brierley’s mother all her unhappy life. Unable to cope with Alarson’s emotions, she had finally fled from him into madness and a plunge off a high sea cliff that extinguished all pain, all need.
That night, as her mother lay in her death shroud, twelve-year-old Brierley had sensed Alarson’s relief that Jocater was dead, a relief as keen as a twisted joy, however carefully he hid his joy behind the pretense of grief he showed to neighbors and friends. And that same night Brierley had left his house, never to return. A fine gesture, she thought sourly: he was glad I left. Two years later Alarson had drowned in a sailing accident, before the time Brierley needed to forgive him. She appreciated being spared the effort.
He’s dead, she thought, and dug the end of her staff in the sand. Dead for years now. Why are you thinking about him? She scowled more fiercely and banished the memory.
She braced her hands on her staff and stood, then swayed as the night wind suddenly buffeted hard against her back, its fresh breeze swirling down the forested slopes. It whipped her pale brown hair into streamers, and tugged impatiently at her broad-brimmed hat. She braced herself against its push and blinked wearily, half-blinded by the squat bluish sun on the ocean’s horizon. In this autumn season, both the Daystar and Companion began to move together to the other side of the world, bringing into the late evening the True Night, a time of star-filled darkness that grew steadily longer as the world changed toward winter. As she watched, the Companion’s blazing arc finally vanished beneath the Western Sea, and the world seemed to grow colder.
She turned and studied the top of the short bluff behind the beach, wary of any observers who might have strayed away from the coast road to overlook her beach. The beach was blocked to both the north and south by a tall jumbling of rocks, and was accessible only by the steep descent down the bluff. In that isolation lay her safety, and she hid her small boat here among the rocks each day, concealing it from above, and took care that her use of it to reach her island refuge was never observed. In the gathering night, she saw no one above, and her faltering witch-sense confirmed that absence of mind and eyes. She was alone.
Brierley pulled her small boat from its sandy crevice among the sea rocks and hauled it across the sand toward the waves, resting at short intervals as she again checked the bluff tops. Finally, at the edge of the sea, she pushed the boat into the water and stepped aboard. As the boat slid into the water, she dipped her paddle into the sea, and slipped across the waves with long-accustomed practice and rounded the southern end of her island. She waited for the proper wave, then neatly guided her boat into a half-submerged tunnel. The sound of the waves thundered in the enclosed space, then quieted as she turned a bend into the hollow heart of the island.
Ahead, above a rocky platform carved from the island stone, the small square shape of her Everlight gleamed in the shadows, its mellow light repeated in moving patterns in the water below. It flickered as it sensed her approach, then flared in welcome.
“Good evening, Everlight,” Brierley murmured as its love suffused into her mind, bringing promise of peace and rest, and a comfort of long familiarity. “I am glad to be home.”
She stepped from her boat onto the ledge and tied its bowline fast to a stanchion, then reached up to touch the Ever-light, reinforcing its bond with her. Once the Everlight had likely guarded the ancient caverns of Witchmere, the great capital of the shari’a, and had somehow come to this cave to guard a witch’s home yet again. It had a mental presence, and it loved her, but the Everlight no longer spoke, if in fact it ever had.
“Ah, well.” She sighed, wishing it could speak and tell her answers. She touched the Everlight in a second caress. The Everlight flickered in response, dancing its reflected selves into the gently surging waters of the entry pool.
She bent to retrieve her cloth bag and staff from the boat, then climbed the long stair above the landing. Outside the doorway to her cave, she took off her hat and hung it from a peg, men leaned her staff and bag against the wall below. She walked into the upper level of her home, a small space scarcely a dozen paces long but comfortable enough for a single occupant. The stone surrounding her reverberated faintly from the pounding waves, a blanketing sound that walled off all rumor of the outer world. Only here did she escape the harsh light of her witch-sense, a knowledge of the heart and physical pain, of motives and thought not her own. Only here could she heal herself after healing others, mending the damage to her body and mind. She stretched and glanced around the dimly lit cave, finding comfort in its familiarity.
She rubbed her aching forearm again and winced at the stab of pain, then crossed the stone floor toward her bed and table, drawing off her tunic as she went. She stepped out of her long skirt, dropping both to the floor. Dressed only in a linen bodice and petticoat, she bent over the wide table and replenished the oil in her lamp from a flagon, struck a match to light the flame, and then sat down in the single chair to draw off her shoes. Her lamp shed a golden glow over the wood and stone, fabric and leather of the cave, catching the polished shine of the carved oak bedstead in the nearby corner. The light gleamed on the worn flagstones that led downward to her bathing pool and pantry and, on the opposite wall, warmed the bright-colored leather of the books ordered neatly on shelves.
How many had dwelt in this cave? She had often wondered. Some of her predecessors had not left a written record and so left no traces, but all of the cave’s contents, handed forward from witch to witch, were old, perhaps dating back to the Disasters three centuries before, when the shari’a had suffered their final defeat. A few of the oldest books had crumbled to dust when opened. She had not dared to disturb others, so cracked and ancient they seemed, and regretted the loss of their answers.
She counted her beloved books with her eyes, knowing many volumes well, others only begun, still others for the next year or the year after. On most of the shelves stood books of herb lore and healing, various histories, religious texts and hymnbooks, and the other books that had caught the interest of the cave’s many occupants. In the center of the shelves, on the middle shelf on the far wall, stood a row of twenty-three journals, each carefully hand-bound in leather and brass, most timely recopied by later occupants of the cave and so preserved, five now too fragile for handling. Each was the record of a witch’s life, speaking from years now long vanished into time. Through the journals, the twenty-three had preserved their knowledge and experience for those who might come after them, and had written to affirm a belief in the future of the shari’a, however forlorn that belief had been for a few.
On the table beside her lay Brierley’s own journal, to be the twenty-fourth of such volumes, and was the compilation of what Brierley Mefell had learned and felt and known in her short life, for whomever might come after her to this place. If one ever did. She had seen the signs of too long an emptiness when she found the cave eight years before: it had been abandoned long enough to crumble a pile of witch’s bones to dusty ruin.
She lifted a shawl from the bedstead and wrapped her shoulders against the chill draft of the cave, then opened her journal to a new page.
My dear child, she wrote, do not despair. I believe that the Blood will continue beyond me, and that I am not the last.…
She shook her head impatiently and began again. Today I went to Natheby to watch the fishing fleet before my Calling to the herder boy. By the docks I spoke to a northerner captain named Bartol about the lands farther up the coast. He had many strange tales, but no hint of other shari’a—
Or, rather, he had many tales of witches, each shrunken and evil and wishing men into death. In Allemanii minds, we have become creatures of the night, murderers of children, drinkers of men’s blood, an evil concealed deep in the earth, within the boles of trees, or in any woman’s heart.
At the end, he asked too pointedly about husband or father, glancing about for a protector against his intentions, and so I clouded his mind and slipped away. An unwise choice: I had misjudged him and he sensed what I had done. He raised a hue and cry throughout the docks, shouting “Witch! Witch!,” and caused great panic among the wharfside folk.
She stretched and rearranged her shawl, warm in its woolen folds, then smiled ruefully.
I spent two hours among the wharf piers before the Natheby folk tired of the search and found more fun in taunting Captain Bartol. Duke Tejar’s men are not liked here: it is easier to believe in a man’s wounded vanity than a legend come to horrible life.
A foolish risk to ask about witches: I may end up undone by my wish to know too many things—
One thing I know: best to stay away from Natheby until Captain Bartol is safely gone home.
Her smile faded as she stared into the lamp’s light. The flame flickered restlessly and the wick end crumbled ash into the oily pool beneath the flame, smudging the gleaming oil.
My child, be careful. The Disasters still live with us, and none of the Blood can walk openly in the High Lords’ lands. Be vigilant, and take great care.
I wish I could meet you, my child. I feel alone. I wish…for many things I do not have.
Thora Jodann was content with the sea and the fisherfolk of this shore, and found her completion in simple things—a lark’s caroling, the blue twilight of autumn, a fisherman’s chant as he threw his nets. I wish I could find her peace, but it is lonely without you, my child, my hoped-for apprentice, so very lonely. When will I meet you? Will I ever meet you? And if I do, will you and I ever meet any other of our kind? Are we the last, you and I?
She stopped and bit her lip. I am tired, my child. Forgive me. The Beast presses too closely tonight. She shut the book and rose, then turned down the flame in the lamp and climbed into her bed.
Beyond the stone walls, the sea murmured ceaselessly, a varying rhythm of water and tide and seaborne life. The sea gave a cloaking sound to ward away the world, or perhaps some substance had been built into these walls to make a sanctuary for a witch gone beyond her strength. Or perhaps one need only believe in such a thing—
She closed her eyes, and listened to the crash of the waves and the surge of water in the channel nearby. As with the Everlight, the journals often took the cave’s protection for granted: did only she wonder about such things? So many books, so many voices speaking from dusty years: somewhere on the shelves, surely, she would find her answers.
Against the darkness of her closed eyes, from deep within her mind, the Beast rose from a churning sea, beginning the ordeal that followed every Calling. As its terrible gaze fixed upon her, pitiless and knowing, Brierley found herself standing upon a beach of firm wet sand, her heart pounding, held motionless by that horrible great eye. She had healed today, using the gift: the Beast now came for her, to seize her if it could.
The Beast advanced slowly upon her through the breakers, coiling and uncoiling its serpent’s limbs beneath a gas-bloated body, its stench of rotting flesh corrupting the breeze. As it neared her, its massive head swayed higher. It advanced still further, then roared as it struck down at her. No! she shouted, and darted aside from its terrible jaws. The Beast roared again, menacing her, wanting her, and filled her ears with the sound of its fury and need.
In her bed, she threw her hands to her eyes and pressed hard against them, covering the Beast with scintillating patterns that beat as frantically as her panicked heart. The Beast roared from within the sparkling light, heart-stoppingly close. She drew a ragged breath, then another, and willed away the Beast. No! The Beast’s smell filled her nostrils, and its roar filled her ears: she felt its touch graze her wounded arm, and that coldness leapt into her body, seeking her heart.
No!
With that silent shout, she drew harder on her will to drive it away, denying the Beast. No! Baffled and roaring, the Beast began to retreat into the sparkling sea, and she shouted in triumph. Groaning, the Beast sank slowly downward into the waves and submerged, its single eye gleaming pallidly beneath the green water, then faded in the white splash of a wave. The sea waves ran up the beach, sighing in a final splash of foam.
Brierley lifted her hands from her eyes and took a deep breath, then another, aware of the sour smell of her own sweat, arid of the light-headed dizziness that tipped the edges of her bedstead and doorway. She tried to breathe more deeply, shuddering as if the Beast’s cold touch still lingered near her heart, and slowly warmed beneath her coverlet.
She touched her arm. The ache had vanished, as always, dispelled by the sympathetic magic of the Beast. Madness? Delusion? Her books did not say, but each shari’a witch who healed recorded a similar mental vision, always the same for its bearer, always inflicted after a Calling. For some, they saw a giant bird descending upon a crag, others a fiery worm aroused from its burrow, each time to be defeated by the edge of a ragged will. For some of those who continued to heal—and some did not—the record stopped abruptly from one day to the next.
Had they failed against the Beast? She suspected so.
She listened to her heartbeat as it slowed, then counted a dozen measured breaths. The sea air moved lightly through the darkened cave, chilling the sweat on her face and body. Beyond the cave walls, water crashed against stone, shielding her in a womb of sound. She shivered slightly and nestled under her blanket, rebuilding her warmth, then shuddered again with more than the chill of the cave.
Prescience? Already she felt the tug of another Calling, a dim vision of a future self bending above a sickbed, lending strength, risking the Beast.
Tomorrow. In Earl Melfallan’s castle high atop the headland.
She sighed in dismay. As a prudent witch, she avoided the earl’s castle as often as she could. It was a risk to come too close to lords, and such mistake might not be retractable. Should she go?
“If I am the last,” she declared aloud, “I will be a flame to the end.” Her voice echoed hollowly in the chill cave, and her smile turned grim. “Ah, brave words, Brierley,” she told herself mockingly. “You’ll be stubborn to the end that will surely find you.”
She turned on her side and pulled the cover over her head, then listened to the sea, finding comfort in the sea’s unending voice.
Mother Ocean,
Daughter Sea,
Strength unchanging,
Strengthen me.
The child’s prayer repeated again in her mind, then broke into fragments of other memories and, finally, fell into dreams she would not remember.
* * *
Brierley awoke the next morning to the pale gray light of the Daystar. A wide crack above the stairway to the lower cave chamber admitted some light into the cave, enough for her to see her way during daytime. During the rains, water cascaded through the crack and down the worn stairs to the bathing pool and nearby cistern, replenishing her supply of fresh water. Now the morning fog rolled heavily into the bay, bringing light and moisture. She listened to the slow drip of water on the stairs, sniffed the moist air to smell the sea, then threw back the covers.
When she left the cave an hour later, the Daystar had climbed well above Peak Willenden, burning away the morning mist, which still clung in patches to the bay. She hid her boat in its crevice on the beach, then glanced around carefully. The cove was empty of visitors, even the errant boys who sometimes came exploring the high rocks for seaweed and shells. Above her beach, the trees on the bluff top and the sea slope beyond moved gently in the morning air, their leaves dancing in the sunlight. The wind blew cool and fresh from the ocean. She took off her hat and shook loose her hair, letting the sunlight beat upon her face, delighting in the brisk wind. The world sparkled with light and life. On such a morning all things seemed possible.
Since Brierley’s earliest memories, her mother had warned her against her true nature and had practiced what she taught by refusing all parts of her shari’a self. She would not hear the thoughts of others, not even Brierley’s. She would not try to heal, disclaiming any skill in the art, even that of a mother’s in tending her child’s hurts. Jocater hated the strange senses that colored each day in ways others could not see, and tried to teach her daughter the same hatred, urging her daughter to wall up her shari’a self to be forgotten and despised, as Jocater herself had despised and forgotten. Fearful of discovery, her mother avoided friendships with the other women, and forbade Brierley to play with the other children of the town, lest her child seem strange to them and they guess what she was and so bring down the end. And Brierley had obeyed Jocater for a time, frightened by her mother’s earnestness.
As a child, she had watched the other children at their play, yearning to join in, and one day, when she was nine years old, she had suddenly found herself friends with a blacksmith’s son named Jared. How that had happened, she didn’t know, but suddenly Jared was there before her, smiling and teasing, and daring her to race him on the beach. For several sun-drenched afternoons, they had hunted seashells and assaulted any shell-star unlucky enough to crawl across their path, and had built a fort in the rocks, where Jared defended her against the dragons who attacked their castle, and Brierley had helped him fight with her own stick-sword. He told her jokes and made her laugh, and deliberately fell down over his own feet so that she would laugh again, and she had run to him, afraid he was hurt, and saw him laughing up at her, promising her he was all right. And she had loved him.
Jocater finally heard of it, and solemnly forbade her to see Jared again. Sadly Brierley had obeyed. But she could not tell Jared so, could not say the words to make him go away, and so had stood before him mute, tears filling her eyes, as he looked first baffled, then hurt by her refusal to talk to him, then very angry, and he had run off. Twice more he had tried to talk to her, and each time she had been struck mute, unable to speak such words to him, and so had hurt him as thoroughly as if she had spoken the harsh words Jocater insisted. In the years since, she had seen Jared from time to time in the town, and had heard that he was now a soldier in Revil’s guard, and doing well. But she had never told him why.
It was on a day such as this a few years later, she remembered, looking again around the peaceful cove, a day like this that she had changed her mind about what she was. There had been no great event moving the choice, no desperate peril that demanded action: only the quiet of the day, when even the sea rocks seemed spirit-filled and the suns had struck down from the sky, touching all with a shimmering light. Life had called to her that day, the life bound into the gift. She had never regretted the choice—but, to spare her mother anxiety, she had not told Jocater.
She picked up her staff and slung her cloth bag on her shoulder, then climbed the path up the sea bluff to the coast road. To the south lay the track to Natheby and Amelin, the fishing towns governed by Earl Melfallan’s cousin and vassal, Count Revil; to the north, a well-traveled road led to Port Tiol and Yarvannet Castle. At the top of the bluff, she turned north and walked along the road, breathing deeply of the morning sea air. In a nearby pine grove, a sea lark caroled its welcome to the day. She walked along easily, watching the trees move on each side of the road, happy with the day.
She had walked nearly a mile when a voice hailed loudly from behind her. She turned. A stocky, bluff-faced man seated on a wagon tipped his wide felt hat to her, his white teeth gleaming in the shadows of the road.
“Mistress Brierley!” he called. “A good morning to you!” His stout wife nodded shyly from the wagon seat beside him, and two small boys popped up their heads in the back, their dark eyes alight with mischief.
Brierley smiled up at the man as he tugged his mule to a halt beside her. “And a good morning to you, Master Harmon,” she replied. “More vegetables for the earl?”
“Ah, no, not today. Fish!” He reached behind him and took a gleaming mackerel from a sack and waved it about. “Count Revil’s steward took my new onions for part of yesterday’s catch. Isn’t this a fine fish?”
She stepped closer to inspect the fish, then solemnly agreed on its quality. The oldest boy sniggered and she glanced at him; both boys promptly ducked behind the sacks, giggling. Harmon turned and gave a measured swat on the nearest behind.
“Hey, there, lads,” he bellowed. “Give respect to the mistress. She brought you into the world, young Egal, and don’t you forget it!” He turned back and beamed proudly at his wife. “And another to come in the spring!”
Brierley smiled. “Congratulations, Harmon. That is good news.”
“Ah, yes, my wife is a jewel, a fine mother and help to me, aren’t you, Clara?” His wife ducked her eyes and flushed, a pleased smile on her broad face. “We’ll want you for the midwifery again, Mistress Bri, if you will.”
“Of course.”
“Good, good. Are you going into the town? Want a ride?”
Brierley looked over the well-laden wagon and the two hefty occupants of the wagon seat. “I hardly think you have room, Harmon, but I’ll be glad to walk beside you.”
“Ocean, no, my boys can walk. They’ve younger legs than you or me.” The boys promptly wailed a unisoned protest, but Harmon chased them out and made a place for Brierley among the heavy sacks. She leaned gingerly on a sack, and the ripe stench of sun-warmed fish swirled past her nose.
“Comfortable?” Harmon bellowed genially.
“Yes, thank you,” Brierley lied.
Harmon chucked the reins at his mule, and the small cart lurched into motion. “Haven’t seen you about lately,” he called over his shoulder, “not that you’re easy to notice with the way you slip about. Are you up on your news?” Without waiting for an answer, Harmon waved his hand expansively. “Master Cormley had another prize foal out of that black mare of his. The creature had scarcely dropped to the ground when five bidders came swanning around the birthing stable, slavering to beat all over a mere animal. Was a sight, believe me.”
Harmon and Cormley, Brierley remembered, had a years-long rivalry over their stock lines, with neither impressed by the other’s.
Harmon waved his hand again. “Count Revil’s having a festival next week, celebrating something or other. Biggest wheat crop in five years? Most shell-stars caught ever? I forget, myself. Then a big to-do by a northerner captain about witches loose in the port. Usual stuff.”
Brierley hid a smile. Harmon Jacoby would watch the skies fall down, eyes mildly agog, then get back to his business of minding crops, wife, and sons. “Witches?” she asked casually.
“Who pays attention to northerners?” Harmon shook himself irritably. “Them and their fancy ways, snooting at decent folk. Everyone knows—who has any sense, mind you-that the High Lords stamped out that evil long ago. Destroyed half the land and the sea besides and themselves, too, the tales say, but they did it. But there they go, half of Natheby, running and screaming in circles, looking for a witch!”
“Did they find one?” Brierley asked.
“Aren’t any witches, girl, not now.” Harmon snorted and hunched his shoulders over the reins.
Brierley hesitated. It was too bright a morning to disturb Harmon with such probing. Harmon believed more of his beloved tales than he pretended, but the local commonfolk had no better weather vane. Harmon heard everything in time and sifted it through his jocular commonsense humor, his dislike for prance and outlandish finery, and his love for his land, his wife and sons, and his good lord.
Would that life were that simple, she thought, but guessed it might be for Harmon. Let it be, Brierley, she told herself, for Harmon’s sake.
Harmon noticed her silence and turned to wink at her. “Don’t you worry yourself, Brierley. I’ll wager that captain had a fine laugh afterward. If you ask me, he knows too much of Duke Tejar’s prancing finery and arrogant ways.”
“Not too loud, Harmon,” Brierley reproved. “You can lose your head talking that way about Melfallan’s own lord.”
“And who’s here save you and my boys and my Clara? And you a slip of a girl no one would notice in the shade?” He waggled his finger at her. “You should eat more, Bri. Skin and bones you are, and too pale for a sea-shine lass.” His face lit with a sudden idea. “Hey now, I’ll give you one of my fish to fatten you!”
She laughed and waved him away. “You and your fish!”
“Fine fish!” he shouted and snapped the reins smartly. “Get up, mule. We haven’t got all day!”
The cart jounced down the cobbled road that wound along the seashore bluff toward the port. When the boys began to puff, Clara took pity on the youngest, barely three years old, and lifted him to her ample lap to cuddle him. His brother clambered back into the wagon as it stopped and sat a precarious perch atop the sacks, his face aglow at the shifting, scary ride as the cart again lurched forward.
“Mind you hold on, Evan!” Harmon bellowed.
“I will, Papa!” the boy shrieked, his voice high with excitement. Brierley smiled, amused, and prudently took hold of Evan’s small belt to steady him.
At the next long rise, the road passed the northern headland’s broad foot and turned downward in an easy grade toward the harbor. They passed a mule train hauling logs, then met a brightly dressed party of lords and ladies riding leisurely up the slope. A lean-limbed forester followed them, balancing a pair of hooded falcons on hand and saddle horn. Harmon waved at them all and received a stern answering nod from the forester. The others, the noble folk, ignored the farmer’s genial greeting, content with their own graceful conversations and soft laughter.
Brierley watched the several women ride by, each accompanied by an attentive suitor and aflutter with scarves and high fashion, and wondered if they were happy. Unwillingly, she caught a flash of worry from one, fatuous vanity from another, a stab of despair from a third. She turned her face away. Sometimes, after a healing and a night’s sanctuary in her cave, her witch-sense dulled for a time, giving her unaccustomed peace out in the world: she wanted to keep it a while longer, if she could. As Harmon does with witch’s rumors, she thought. She smiled to herself, understanding him very well, then smiled more broadly at the irony that each could be a grief to the other, his exuberant emotions, her witchly shadowy dangerous self.
“Get up, mule!” Harmon shouted, and snapped the reins smartly on the mule’s hindquarters. Through the narrow scrabble of trees on the bluff edge, Brierley could see sunlight shimmering on the wide sea below. “Get up, mule! We haven’t got all day!” The mule put new effort into its stride, and stepped along briskly. As they rounded the last curve of the descending road, Harmon pointed ahead. “Look there, Evan,” he said. “Port Tiol and our earl’s own castle!”
“I see it, Papa!” Evan cried.
Beneath them, Yarvannet’s capital and principal fishing town spread itself around the curve of a wide bay, with a neat assembly of dock storage and piers, cobbled streets, low-standing stables, and clapboard houses. Several ships bobbed in the calm waters near the central wharf, their mast pennons flapping in the sharp sea breeze. To the left, ranked beneath the lee slope of the headland, stood the stone mansions of Yarvannet’s nobility, each with a private stable and armory, a narrow wooden stair descending precipitously to the beach, and a pier with small watercraft. The white stone and painted wood of Tiol’s many houses shone in the sunlight, brilliant color against the gray-green waters of the bay.
Above the town, the headland grew rocky and hard, rising into the massive stony outcrop that served as foundation for Melfallan’s lofty castle. Its pinnacles and towers rose five hundred feet above the sea, sheer cliff on three sides, a narrow and easily defended bridge on the fourth. She saw a host of tiny figures traveling to and fro along the crest road and bridge into Yarvannet Castle. Far above the travelers’ heads, metal glinted on the castle heights as Earl Melfallan’s soldiers kept their never-ending watch against pirates and any other disorder that might disturb the earl’s lands.
As Yarvannet’s earl, Melfallan enforced the laws of road and sea, kept the peace, and occupied himself in other lordly affairs of which Brierley had only vague understanding. She usually avoided Tiol whenever possible, managing that task enough to have never actually seen Melfallan in the flesh—and thus preventing him from seeing her, the more relevant point for a prudent witch. But Harmon thought Melfallan a promising young earl, she reminded herself, well-trained by old Earl Audric in his duties—not as winning as the sunny Count Revil, true, but none had Harmon’s higher regard than Natheby’s good count.
Harmon clucked sharply to his mule and the wagon lurched forward again. Brierley hastily grabbed the wagon side, then helped Evan regain his seat aboard the fish-soft sacks. As they descended to portside, Harmon hailed all who passed him on the road, a jolly man exuberant with the morning and his load of fish. He drove straight to the fishmonger’s store by the central wharf, and there dickered with the sour-faced and freckled proprietor. Harmon’s sons promptly vanished into the crowd of passersby like darting bream into seaweed.
Clara called after them, then sighed and clasped her hands placidly on her swelling abdomen. “I expect they’ll be back,” she said resignedly.
“I expect so.” Brierley touched Clara’s arm. “Another son, perhaps?” she asked.
“A daughter, surely,” Clara promptly declared, her eyes twinkling. “I’d like peace of mind for the first few years and the worry after. Girls are like that, never boys. I should know.” She sighed feelingly, then cocked her head. “And you, Bri, have you a young gentleman yet? You’re of a woman’s age now. Seventeen, is it?”
“Nineteen next month. And no.” Brierley looked away. “Not yet. Besides, one needs a dowry and a father to ask after such things. I have neither.”
“I had heard your stepfather’s property went to that other relative of his when he died.” Clara’s head wagged disapprovingly. “Odd that he’d not provide for you, you orphaned and all.”
“I wasn’t of his blood.” Brierley shrugged. “The wealth belonged to the family, and I had no rightful claim on it.”
“Nonsense,” Clara said briskly. “But, that aside, Harmon’ll speak for you, as much as we owe you for your kindness. Now, don’t protest. I’ve often wondered how you keep yourself, but you seem to manage well enough. But too thin and pale, Harmon’s right on that.” Clara’s friendly eyes inspected her from hat to shoes, assessing the possibilities. Brierley shifted to her other foot, uncomfortable under the good woman’s scrutiny. “Now, I know a fisherman’s son in Amelin that might do, a quiet good-looking boy, quick with a net and lines—”
“Clara,” Brierley said desperately.
“Hmmm?”
“Is that Egal down there?” She pointed at random far down the wharf to where several children played among bales of hemp. Three seemed the right size. Clara turned obligingly and squinted.
“Likely so, but Evan will watch out for him. He always does. Oh, you’re going?”
“I must. Thank you for the ride.”
“Any time, on any occasion,” Clara answered, her smile slightly forced. (Have I offended her?) Clara’s thought dropped neatly into Brierley’s mind, followed by a rush of anxiety and shame, asking such personal questions of the young midwife that Harmon so admired. Then confusion, hiding the eyes to examine her clasped hands. (I hope not. I so like her.)
“May I come visit you soon?” Brierley asked. “When I have more time?” She had often sensed Clara’s loneliness on their isolated farm, a quiet existence with its comforts but too often brightened only by Harmon’s trips into town and Brierley’s own rare visits. “I would like to very much.”
Clara looked up and smiled, her face lighting with shy surprise and pleasure, as always. “Oh, yes. Please do. You are always welcome, Bri.”
“Then I shall. Good-bye then…for today.”
“Good-bye, Mistress Bri.”
I preserve the gentle ones of the world. As Brierley walked down the broad seaside wharf, she remembered that passage from the book of Thora Jodann. Thora had not written often or at length, but somehow her words remained vivid in the memory. Hers was an older book of uncertain age, much worn and bent, often quoted. Other witches of the cave had studied deeply into alchemy and the healing arts, filling many volumes with their research; a few had turned in other directions, coveting power for its own sake—from their books came the occasional histories of Yarvannet’s political fortunes. Thora had ignored the intellectual arts, forswore any influence over others, and had poured herself out in a brief span of years, then ended abruptly, from one day to the next.
Several writers had called Thora a fool; others had championed her with elaborate argument. A few contended that Thora had seen the Disasters at first hand and had founded the line of shari’a witches in Yarvannet’s secret cave, writing the First of All Books. Some of her words implied as much. None could ignore her.
Brierley stopped at the end of the wharf and watched the flow of tradesmen, sailors, fishwives, and boys pass up and down the short staircase to the street. Each swept a brief shadow across the broad planking, a dancing, shifting pattern of tall angular shadows, a blend of swift and slow movements, blurred by the double shadow of the two suns. The wood vibrated slightly with their footsteps, in fascinating rhythm with their passing shadows. And, as always, underlying the pattern lay the ever-moving sound of the sea.
Whom do I preserve? she wondered, as her witch-sense awoke to full strength. She perceived the passersby as a current with many eddies, a light of many variations. She listened, entranced by the patterns of their fellow minds. Whenever she tired, those patterns oppressed and bewildered, driving her to the sanctuary of her cave, but now—
Whom? That skew-faced tailor, mind-twisting and hating? That fatuous wife, plotting her revenge on her neighbor? That steward, who has robbed his master? Allemanii or not, these were the only people she had known, these gentle—and not so gentle—people of Yarvannet’s sea and wharf side. But the High Lords who had destroyed the shari‘a long ago slept in uneasy graves, and these folk were not at fault. She stepped forward and descended the stair, joining the current of townspeople abroad on their business.
Whom do I preserve? All.
She made her way through the town, then ascended the streets until she reached the turning onto the road that bridged the crest of the highland and connected Yarvannet Castle to the port town it defended. On the crest road, the character of the townspeople changed: the clothes turned to finer cloth, more intricate stitchery, velvets instead of homespun; the horses bore ornaments of gold in their bridles instead of bright ribbons; and minds held different worries, different assumptions. She stepped to the grassy edge of the road to make way for another party of young noblefolk, then stepped aside again as a company of soldiers strode by, the sun glinting on their sword belts and spears.
A supply wagon rumbled past her toward the castle, laden with stores, its driver hunched comfortably over the reins. The boy’s dark eyes flicked with casual interest over all who passed, as he thought of his stomach grumbling for a noon meal, the understeward’s promise of sword-training next spring, a servant girl’s smile the previous evening. (I wonder if she…or was she smiling at Maxter? The twit—he gets all the pretty girls.) Brierley followed in the boy’s dusty wake, taking advantage of his wagon’s bow wave through the stream of horsemen and people flowing outward from the castle.
In the sky above, the Daystar had passed its zenith and now cast shadows at opposite angle on the castle walls ahead, strong dusky gray to the muted blue of the Companion. The suns warmed the sea below, and crosscurrents of air swirled, plucking at hat brims and ribbons and blowing lustily over the headland, interrupted briefly by flurries of water-rich scent from the sea. On either side of the crest road, sea grass rippled in broad patterns of purple and silver, and a fine dust rose from the roadbed, swirling upward and away over the castle towers.
At the final rise to the castle bridge, she sat down on a stone to catch her breath, and admired the white granite of the massive gate wall, her head cocked beneath her broad-brimmed hat, her staff grasped firmly in her slender hands. At this distance, barely three hundred yards from the castle gates, she could hear the vast murmur of the many minds within Earl Melfallan’s stony fortress, a restless shifting of thoughts and emotions at the edge of her perception, but there nonetheless, as changeable a rhythm as the surf and the stir of the breeze and the sea larks piping high above her head.
More soldiers stamped back and forth on the crest road, carters hied to their mules, and another party of gentlefolk rode by, bright with ribbons and gold. With each person passed a flash of emotion, a fragment of thought, and, in a deeper sense, the sum of each personality, quickly past. Brierley tipped her hat brim forward, shading her face from the sunlight, and studied her pale hands and their grip on her staff.
When I am old, she thought peaceably, I will sit like this in the suns’ light and listen as I do now, drowsing now and then, foolish in my old age and the mock of children when they pass. Get up, old woman! they’ll cry. Stir yourself about! Stop sleeping! And when I blink at them sleepily, doddery in my oldness, the children will point at me and laugh, their voices high and piping. They will run away and skip and jump, bright youth on the morning.
When I am old—
I preserve, she thought with sudden fierceness, and tightened her slender fingers on her staff.
Her mother had refused the gift, and had thus denied her essential self as shari’a and witch. Perhaps others of the shari’a did the same, if others still existed anywhere, and so hid away from the High Lords’ cruel justice. Brierley breathed deeply of the brisk wind and smiled. On a day like today she had chosen differently. On a day like today, this day, she chose again—to heal, to practice her witch’s craft.
Content, she waited, knowing the Calling impended, and soon.
 
Copyright © 2001 by Diana Marcellas

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Excerpted from Mother Ocean, Daughter Sea by Diana Marcellas
All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.