Skin (34 page)

‘Yes,' I said. ‘I will go.'

Throughout the following day I was given nothing to eat or drink, and was told to
speak to no one as I went about the harvesting and extracting of the plants that
would carry me that night.

Before sunfall, Steise called me to the Great Hut. She tipped a fine brown powder
into a cup of broth and handed it to me. Immediately I recognised the pungent smell
of fly agaric, a fungal herb forbidden in Caer Cad for the violent displays of strength
it would incite among the warriors. I retched against its bitterness. ‘What is it
for?' I gasped when it was swallowed.

‘To change form takes courage,' Steise said. ‘The powder dispels the fear.'

It did not stop my heart thundering as we walked to the cave, a small stone dome
at the edge of the hutgroup. Ebrill and the other Mothers waited near its entrance,
tending the fire that was heating the stones. Steise commanded one of the lesser
Mothers to take the stones into the cave and pile peat over the smoke hole to trap
the magic.

At Steise's word, I stripped to nakedness and handed her my dress and cloak with
trembling hands. The women began a low chant, whipping branches of birch against
my bare arms and back.

I had learned of the risks in this journey. The body could be torn apart as the bones
transformed, or the animal form that claimed the soul may refuse to release it. Sometimes
the magnitude of the deformation could cost a life. I picked up the basket of bottles
and powders
I had prepared.

Steise held open the doorskins.

I crawled into the dark cavern, feeling my way over the thick straw that covered
the floor, struggling to breathe in the steam. Only by heat did I know where the
scorching stones lay. ‘Steise!' I called. ‘Are you still there?'

I could hear the women wedging rolled skins around the doorway to make a seal. ‘We
will wait you through the night.' Steise's voice was muffled through the leather
door.

I closed my eyes and tried to lessen my heartpound. If I was steady with my breath,
there was just enough air to allow my chest its rise and fall. Wet herbs hissed and
steamed in the stone pit, and in moments my skin was soaked in sweat. A slow, sweet
calmness washed through me. The fly agaric was working. In the blackness, I traced
my fingers over the bottles beside me, and drank three drops of artemesia, followed
by six of selago. Softly, I began chanting the first poem.

For many hours I sat, sipping, chanting, calling the change. Every so often the door
was undone and Ebrill brought fresh-heated stones into the pit, briefly breaking
the darkness with their soft red glow. The cave became hotter, the fragrant steam
thicker. But still I was woman. Still I was here.

It had not been done correctly. I had not learned enough of the herbs, the quantities,
the poems. I chewed some mugwort but it only muddied my memory for the poem. What
would bring the change?

I leaned forward to tip water from a jug over the stones, my skin searing in the
rush of steam. I began a chant I did not know well. A raven chant. The words would
not come. But then they did and I cycled them over until the poem became fluid. Shaping.

There was someone in the cave with me. It was not Ebrill, it was Heka. And she was
not angry, nor ugly. She was beautiful. She knelt before me and handed me two vials
from my basket. Wolfsbane and
mistletoe. A dangerous blend. But I trusted her. I
drank them both and she was gone.

Now the spirit could dislodge from the bones. The heat bore down as the plants pushed
from within. Rivers of sweat poured down my back, but my mind began to lift beyond
the cave, beyond my curdling body. I felt an intense prickling beneath my skin. My
eyes sprang open but there was only blackness. I tried to steady myself, but could
not lift my arms. They spasmed mercilessly as their shape was shifted and bent. There
was an agony of bursting as a thousand tiny arrows broke through my skin. My head
dropped forward and I vomited with the pain. I was being wrung by the laws that make
one thing this and another that.

Some say they are the same.

What you truly know, you will also love.

B
RIGHT
LIGHT
. A wide sky above me. I had never known such sharpness of vision, every
pebble, every crawling beast, clear under my gaze.

I staggered on clawed feet, lifting my arms to steady myself, but they extended endlessly
to each side, black and glistening, their weight almost toppling me. Others of my
kind reeled through the sky.

I was near a deep pit. Something within smelled good. I tried to lift myself in flight,
but my command of my wings was weak and I fell to the ground, plummeting back into
the darkness and heat of the cave, before I stood as raven again.

Once more, I attempted flight, but could only hop awkwardly on the stony ground.
I lurched to the pit's edge and peered in. There was a carcass, a human form. I was
hungry. I launched down onto its leg
and jabbed and pulled. The meat was tough but
sweet. It was newly dead and did not tear as easily as an older kill. The eyes would
yield more readily for a quicker meal. I hopped to the shoulder, then the forehead,
cocking my head.

The sight of the face, rictal in death, hurled me back to the cave, naked and human,
wailing at the doorskins. ‘Let me out!' I screamed. ‘Let me out! She is dead!'

The door released and I threw myself out onto the icy ground where Steise gripped
my shoulders. ‘Tell me what you saw, girl? How did you travel?'

‘I took raven form,' I sobbed. ‘I saw Cookmother, my suckling mother, in the burial
pit.'

The Mothers dressed me and comforted me, murmuring about the raven, the most powerful
messenger of death.

‘Come,' Steise, said, frowning. ‘Let us go to the seeing hut. We will observe what
has befallen her.'

Steise filled the basin with water, tipping in a small jug of hare's blood that poured
in thick clots. Swirling the water, she began to chant.

I waited beside her, stricken with fear.

‘Breathe,' she commanded. ‘Open your spirit eye that you may also see.' We chanted
in a shared rhythm until she gasped at a sight. ‘There is pattern in the water,'
she said, moving aside. ‘You make the final clarity. The image in the bowl resides
in our knowledge. The water is only its mirror.'

I leaned forward. Despite the dawn's cold stealing in through the doorcrack, I began
to sweat again with the exertion of summoning vision. Another blink and it was there.
‘Cookmother!' She was alive. The raven had taken me to what had not yet occurred.
Could I prevent it? She lay on a healing table with Cah and Ianna beside her. When
did she become so weak?

I reached out to touch her through the veil of water.

Steise grabbed my hand. ‘You will disturb the sight,' she hissed. ‘Just look.'

I saw Ianna wiping Cookmother's face and Heka mixing a tonic at the table. I could
not see the herbs but I knew she did not have the plantcraft to heal Cookmother or
aid her passage into Caer Sidi. ‘I have to go back,' I murmured.

The image began to disperse. Frantically, I splashed my hand through the water to
make it return, but it did not. ‘I have to treat her,' I said. ‘This is why the raven
took me to her—to call me back.' I was fastening my cloak, ready to run back to the
gully or forest or wherever I could pass.

‘You cannot go back now,' said Steise. ‘The bend of the flesh into animal shape can
cause infection. If illness comes, you must be within our protection.'

‘No!' I shouted. ‘She has only a short time.' I was filled with a panic so blinding,
I scarcely noticed Steise's form, suddenly tall before me. I had never seen her draw,
or take on a glamour.

‘You must hear this truth.' Her eyes were white flames. ‘Or you will never find the
path. If we do not bless your passage, there is no way back.'

‘It is different for me,' I cried, refusing to shy from her. ‘I have journeyed before,
unblessed, unprotected.' I pushed past her. Only the love of Cookmother gave me the
courage to do it.

Outside, the winter sun had risen and the valley was pale with a milk light. I fetched
my sandals from the sleep hut and bound my sword-sheath to my belt, my heart thudding
in my defiance of Steise. Then I ran from the huts, into the gully that trapped the
mist, and up onto the hill beyond.

But it was as Steise had said. There was no mist. No border to cut. The trees and
stones around me looked suddenly familiar. I was back
at the huts of the Mothers
of change. Steise waited in the doorway of the seeing hut. Unspeaking.

I tried again from a different direction. This time I ran straight toward the forest.
I ran until the trees became thick, until I broke into a clearing, breathless and
panting, right back near the huts from where I had come. I fell exhausted to the
ground. I was trapped. I could not escape here without the blessing of the Mothers.
My bones were aching and my skin was damp, despite the cold.

Ebrill helped me to my feet and led me back to the sleep hut where I fell into a
feverish sleep.

I slept for several days and nights, drifting in and out of dreams. Whenever I roused,
Steise was beside me. Each time I asked her when it would end.

‘Soon,' she promised, though her pale eyes were full of uncertainty.

Finally my fever lifted. Dull evening light crept under the doorskins and a fierce
wind wailed outside. Steise sat, waiting, by the fire.

‘Is she dead?' I asked.

‘Not yet.' She handed me water and a bowl of porridge, my first food since I had
fallen ill. ‘You have taken raven form and survived it,' she said. ‘You may leave.
If that is still your desire.'

‘Yes!' I sat up, the room spinning. ‘I will leave as soon as I have eaten.'

‘Is there not one you would like to see before you leave?'

I looked up. Her half-smile confirmed it. I had earned the right to see Taliesin
just as I was determined to leave. I did not want to leave Cookmother in her illness
for a moment longer. And yet, she had survived the past few days. Surely the shortest
delay would cause no harm. ‘Does he know I am still here?'

‘Yes,' Steise said. ‘Shall I tell him that you will come?'

I looked down at my sweat-soaked under-robe and arms still streaked with soot. ‘Might
I wash first?'

I wiped my body with sage water and re-knotted my braids. It was almost sunfall.
I would speak with him for the fewest of moments, and then I would leave for Caer
Cad.

With wind whipping our skirts, Steise led me to a solitary dwelling hidden among
a clump of trees just north of the hutgroup. I had noticed it as I gathered plants,
but never had I seen smoke from its roof peak. Steise stopped a few paces from the
door. ‘He is there,' she called over the roar of the wind, and turned back.