The Dark Swan/Part 2
From out of the darkness I heard a faint “hissing” audible, for I was used to mute quiet. I held my torch up in the darkness and saw the shape of a snake resting between the three roads.
I knew that the creature was sent by Bride. If she could not stop me, then she would be my guide. I held the light over my head and followed the snake as it slithered down the path to the left of me. The snake's scales shimmered like jewels. The path was rough and faded into grassy knolls where I walked but the snake kept me from loosing my way. We traveled through the night and into the next day and I stopped only to chew on a piece of corn bread or drink some water by a well. None tasted as sweet and pure as the well of my Goddess but the water quenched my thirst.
Before the next night approached, my torch went out. I was no longer in Bride's domain. Her snake slithered away while I rested, for he was not an omen in this land. I awoke alone in the dark and I shook. I pined for Bride. I wept for myself but I knew I must travel onward.
I arose from the ground and walked along the same warn path, hoping that I would not lose my way in the darkness. In the distance I could see lights aglow. I folded my sleeve over Bride's symbol and held my cloak fast in the darkness. I continued on towards the fire light.
In time I approached two men. They were dressed in the armor of Giobhniu and there torches lit up the night.
“Where are you going?” asked one of the men. Still I could find no words. I said nothing to the men.
“Where are you going?” the man repeated. This time he pushed my shoulder, knocking me to the ground. The other man laughed.
Laying on the road, I could feel my lover coming to me, using her powers. She pushed sound from out of my throat and it quaked strangely from my lips. My words were low and husky. They fell out like seeds onto the wind, involuntarily plucked from my chest.
“My lover is sick,” I said to the men. “I am going to find her medicine.”
“Why did you leave her behind boy?” the second man asked. He waved the torch threateningly at me in the night and rubbed the hilt of his sword. He would strike me dead if I gave him the wrong answer. I was not trained in combat. I had been a slave and I was a disciple of Bride but I was no soldier.
“She will die,” I growled, “if I do not bring her back medicine. There is a witch in the village beyond here. I believe she can help me.”
The fire of Bride was in my eyes. She was with me. I did not need to be on her land, for I was her eternal servant. I carried Bride with me in my heart.
“Let him pass,” the first guard said.
“Why ought we do that Brac?” the second man breathed down my neck.
“'e's a bloody twig. 'e can't do any 'arm!”
Brac put an arm on the second man's shoulder, drawing him aside.
They whispered loudly for a moment, conspiring amongst one another.
“This witch,” Brac inquired, “what be her name?”
I did not hesitate for I could hear the name whispered in my brain running through me on the shuddering lips of Bride.
“Her name is Daere.”
“We know who you speak of.” Brac looked relieved that he would not have to turn me away or leave me beaten in the middle of the path.
“She lives just beyond here, in a little forest glen. But she's an old bat. She's as wild and crazy as they come. You'll be lucky if you get any sense from 'er!”
“Thank you,” I said and I passed the men, into darkness. My eyes adjusted enough to find the path. Lights from splendid homes flooded across the road way here and there. They made my lady's sanctuary seem like a hovel in their grandeur.
As I walked, I could feel Bride at my heels.
“Why have you left your sanctuary?” I whispered to her in my head. “Your power grows weaker.”
“I will not loose you, my Patricius.”
“But what of the sisters of Bride?”
“Without me, the well will freeze to ice in the ground. The flame will go out and the forest will be cold and dead.”
“You would leave them behind? Those who have trusted you, been loyal in your worship since birth?”
“It is you who left Patricius. Your quest is foolish. You will die.”
“I will bring you back your mantle” I spoke to her stubbornly and pressed forward along the road. Her footsteps sounded beside me.
I followed the path through the territory of Giobhniu for the entirety of the night, Bride by my side with every step. I thought of Ailsa shivering without her fire. I thought of Lynn, thumping the ice of Bride's sacred well with a withered oak limb and, I thought of Mayra, keening for me and for her departed Goddess. I cried.
As the sun rose a brilliant red in the sky above me, the path faded into a dense wood ahead of us. The roots of the trees and shadows of the vines and plants ahead had the appearance of looming monsters. I could hear creatures scurrying about in the groves, slithering, crawling and flying on a temperate wind.
As soon as I stepped into the forest, I could smell swamp and bog marsh. The putrid odor crept up my nostrils. It burned in my eyes. Within moments of traveling through the wood, I could no longer decipher where I had entered and had no hope of finding an exit.
“Bride? Are you with me my love?”
“I am here.” I could hear her voice faintly on the wind. My heart surged with warmth.
Up ahead in the forest, I heard a ewe, bleating. It sounded in pain and lost as I was. I hurried towards the sound, pushing branches and thorns aside. I found myself in a dense clearing and among high grass stood the terrified, ewe, a wolf had its jaws wrapped about its bony leg. I could see the blood seeping along the Ewe's white fleece.
“Save it.” was what Bride whispered in my ear. But I was not strong.
“It is in pain. Would you let my creature die. Would you abandon it out of selfishness, as you have abandoned your sisters, without even saying goodbye?”
“I am weak. I have no magic.”
“Do you have faith?” she asked.
“I trust you without question.” I reassured Bride inside my head.
“Than save it.”
I surged forward and kicked the wolf hard in the ribs. It yelped.
“Again.”
Again I kicked the wolf and this time heat ran through my wrist where Ailsa had burned Bride's symbol into my skin. The warmth flowed up my palm and to my fingers, shooting out in a ball of flame. The wolf ran in terror and the fire in my palm subsided, leaving my hand hot and sore.
I knelt beside the ewe, it was breathing softly. Again I felt a sensation emanating from Bride's symbol. This time it was cool and like liquid running over my veins. I touched the ewe's leg and the blood receded. The ewe's leg healed and it stood up shakily.
As I looked into the ewe's eyes, they changed. The ewe grew tall and its wool disappeared into a wrinkled skin. Before me stood a wizened woman. She had an air like Lynn about her. Her hair was gray like the coat of a hunting hound and she had strange scars about her neck.
“I am Daere,” she said. “Thank you for saving me. I needed to know, that you were truly loyal to the Goddess Bride. I keep her memory as well, though I am among the people of Giobhniu.”
I was mute again, Bride need not force words from my mouth in this space, in the company of another disciple.
“I know who you are, Patricius. I know what you seek. I see the future. You will succeed in your quest and Bride will find worship again in Ireland but you will lose much.”
“You are ready.” She looked into my eyes and I did not falter. “Follow me, I will tell you what you must do.”
The old witch said nothing more but walked off into the forest until we came to a tiny house in the woods. It had only one room, a hard bed off to the side and in the center, a huge, boiling cauldron. She drew me near to the bubbling brew and inhaled the smell. It was pungent, as though onions had been left to rot in a storage cover for weeks.
“You will not be able to enter the roots of Yggdrasil in that body, Patricius.” Daere placed a clay cup into the concoction and carefully withdrew the potion into a tiny silver flask. “If you are able to reach the place where the clovers grow four leaves instead of three, you must drink this and your spirit will take on it's natural form, Patricius.”
“What is more,” Daere whispered, “there will be still more challenges along the way. The dragon of Giobhniu spirals itself in front of those roots. The only way you might defeat it is complete trust in Bride that she might give you the power to go on. Do not seek to defeat that dragon using your own wits or you will never escape with your head about you. Please hurry. Bride's disciples grow fewer. They are leaving her for Giobhniu's worship as Bride's land grows cold. Those that stay may soon die of hunger. You must retrieve Bride's mantle and bring her back to her people.”
I nodded solemnly. I took the flask from Daere's cool and wrinkled hand and I wrapped my cloak tighter around myself as I walked out the door of the tiny cottage and into the wind. In the coldness of the forest, I felt Bride's breath inside me once more and my body was warm as I trudged onwards.
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