Skin (38 page)

‘Yes,' she said. ‘I am frightened.' She glanced at Llwyd. ‘About the problem, we
are both in agreement. It is the solution that divides us.'

Llwyd sat unspeaking for some time, then turned and looked to me. ‘It is the Kendra's
knowledge that must decide whether we fight or submit.'

‘Yes,' said Fraid. ‘You are right.'

It took a moment for me to understand what they were asking. ‘But I am not the Kendra…'
I faltered.

‘But you are chosen by the Mothers,' he answered. ‘If you did not possess knowledge,
you would not have been chosen.'

‘It is true I have learned with them…' I grew more panicked. ‘But I have not asked
them such questions.'

He met my gaze. ‘It does not need to be asked. It is within you because you have
walked with them. You must claim this knowledge, Ailia, and tell us your counsel.'

My thoughts began to fragment. The clarity, the knowledge, I held only moments before
was entirely lost. I thought of the Mothers who had taught me. Of Tara. Of Steise.
What would they tell me now? Nothing came. ‘What said Ruther?' I spluttered. ‘Does
he still advise we form bondage with Rome?'

Llwyd sighed and looked away.

‘Ask not of Ruther,' said Fraid. ‘He has not been often among us and when he is,
he speaks highly of the Roman commanders. I meet with him because he holds knowledge
of the invasion but—' her eyes darted from Llwyd to me, ‘—do not trust him, Ailia.
He has great allure but he is not clear in his alliances.'

I braced my palms on the boarskin beneath me, my fingers finding the hard, wrinkled
tip of the snout. My heart started to race.

‘Ailia?' said Llwyd, imploring. ‘Do not give us another's answer.
It must be
your
knowledge. The Roman forces prepare to attack and we must decide which is worth more:
our freedom or our lives. What does the Kendra's knowledge say?'

I looked to his face and then the Tribequeen's and I was sickened to realise that
this was no longer a test, but a true question. That Fraid looked to me, that Llwyd
himself required my guidance, set me reeling. I was not ready. It was beyond my learning.
My need for Taliesin was blinding now. ‘I…I do not know.'

I pushed myself to standing on unsteady legs, gasping for air. ‘I must be gone,'
I stammered. ‘This is a mistake. I am without skin. I cannot yet give what you seek.
Perhaps I cannot ever give it.'

‘No, Ailia—' Llwyd stood. ‘Wait!'

But I stumbled backward, bowing quickly before I rushed out of the room into the
dim winter moonlight.

The icy air rushed into my lungs as I ran through the township. Soon my chest ached
but I pushed myself faster down the hill and into the fields. I wanted my heart to
feel nothing else. This was my truth: moving in secret, untethered, unknowing. I
should not have sought to know my skin. I was born not to know it. The unknowing
shaped me. Knowing now would have broken me apart.

I ran the river path toward Taliesin. If I could not bring him here then I would
go to his place. If I could not help him then I would be lost with him. What Llwyd
was asking I could not give.

A heavy snow began to fall, iceflakes prickling my face as I ran. Ahead was the Oldforest,
black under the swirling sky.

‘Ailia!' A figure loomed before me, tall and strong-shouldered, his face shadowed
in the grey light. I gasped. It was Llwyd. He was young and beautiful, his long hair
dark. He could not have pursued me here by flesh. He had travelled by spirit drawn
from the time of his young man's strength.

I stood in the tumbling snow, awed in the face of the skill he had used to shape
this change. But I would not be swayed. ‘I am going to the Mothers!'

‘You cannot,' he commanded, his voice resonant. ‘You are still without skin.'

How could I tell him that the Mothers cared nothing for skin? For it would desecrate
his knowledge, and he would never believe me. ‘You ask too much of me!' I cried.
‘I am mourning my milkmother. I have lost all that binds me to Cad. Now you ask me
to give wisdom that determines the life or death of the tribe. Wisdom that I do not
have. Do not keep me here.' I went to push past him, but he blocked my way.

‘Then think of others,' he said. ‘Think of the tribespeople. If you force through
now, you will tear open the skin that holds us all.'

I stopped, wondering fleetingly if he spoke the truth. But then my thoughts filled
with Taliesin. It was he alone who drew me on, nothing else. What harm could arise
from our union? ‘Do not burden me with what I cannot carry, Llwyd. I do not have
the power you think I have.'

He stood firm in my path, snow mounding on his cloak. ‘Do you not think that I, too,
have felt unworthy of knowledge?' he said. ‘There is no one born who does not doubt
themselves before it. I, too, struggled to hold what was handed to me…' He paused.

I stared at him as glinting iceflakes caught in his beard. For Llwyd not to have
learned would have been a terrible loss. But I was not like him. The knowledge had
been poorly matched to me. ‘I will never be Kendra!' I shouted. ‘I will never have
skin.'

‘You
will
be Kendra,' he said. ‘You will hear the Singing and you will return to
us with its truth.'

‘No!' Tears fell from my cheeks.

Gradually his glamour was subsiding and he contracted to his old man's shape. ‘You
must—' His voice was aged and rasping again.
‘Or else we are all lost in a world
that only you have the power to understand.'

I could not hear any more. He was wrong. I pushed past him.

‘Ailia!'

I did not look back. I had my own knowledge of the Mothers. I had walked with them
and knew they did not ask of my skin. And had I not cut through the realms once before
with my sword? I was outside the laws of skin. I would set my own path.

Llwyd's shouts grew fainter behind me.

I ran straight through the Oldforest until I reached the hazel pool. Its black water
churned. ‘Taliesin!' I screamed. ‘Taliesin, come!'

My words condensed in the cold air.

There was a strangeness to the water when I crouched to quench my thirst. It was
as thick as syrup in my cupped palms and no sooner had I sipped it than I spat it
back. It was foul with the taste of rot. Was this the Mothers repelling me? But I
thought only of Taliesin and how it would feel when he held me. I cared not for the
warning of the river, nor for the doings of the Romans, nor for the harm of which
Llwyd spoke. I did not want to be Kendra. I wanted only to join with Taliesin and
stay with him in his place. I was fit for no other.

I tore off my cloak, dress and sandals, shrinking against the furious cold, and refastened
my sword belt over my under-robe. At the river's edge, with the shallows shooting
ice currents up my legs, I was caught by a moment of fear. I had journeyed through
this pool only once before and that was by the guidance and seduction of my fish.
Alone, I had no recollection of how far or how deep I needed to swim. I could only
jump and trust that Taliesin would take me through.

I braced to jump, my feet numb in the water. I would not survive long submerged in
this coldness. This passage would be death or a return to Taliesin and I would take
either.

I closed my eyes and launched into the deep centre of the pool, then turned and swam
down, face-first into the drop.

Soon the breath drained from my chest and I was dizzied with cold and pain. Pressure
squeezed my ribs as I kicked downward, my lungs screaming for air. Finally, I opened
my mouth and sucked in a mouthful of cold, silty water. It filled my chest to breaking
then, somehow, I found the air in it. The pressure lessened and the pain subsided.
The water flowed in and out of my lungs. I was breathing it.

I could see nothing in the blackness, but as I swam my fingers brushed against walls
of stone beside and above me. I was underground. I swam effortlessly, water coursing
through my body like blood. There was bliss in it, sustenance, and I was not afraid.

Soon there was a glow ahead. I eddied forward, drawn to the light, then I was free
of the underwater chambers and rising toward a bright moon. My face broke the surface
and I gasped air, a human breath.

I was within a wide lake, a shoreline not far in the distance. It was still dark
but the air was warm; the seasons were askew again. I had journeyed. Joyously, I
took another breath and began to swim. Yet as I drew closer to shore, I recognised
a shape rising out of the water, lit by the three-quarter moon. It was Glass Isle's
mighty Tor. I remained in the hardworld. Yet had I not travelled by trance to come
here? By journey?

Night mist clung to the shore of the Isle. I crawled onto the pebbly bank and collapsed
on my side. It was the same bank that met the canoe when I first arrived with Sulis.
I was sure of it.

I stood up, wringing the lake from my under-robe. I could not find the shape of what
had happened. If I had not journeyed to the Mothers—if I was still in the hardworld—then
how had the season been turned? How did I swim such a distance?

I checked the strapping that held my sword to my waist. I would
rest in my temple
bed this night and leave at first light. If I walked the same forest path that led
me to Taliesin, the same mist-filled gully, I would surely be able to cut through
once more to the place of the Mothers who held him.

I walked the treeline in the darkness, searching for the opening that led to the
temple. But when the shore began to curve to the north and I had been walking almost
half an hour, I knew I must have passed it.

I walked back, scouring the forest edge as I went, but still the path was not revealed.
At last there was a small gap in the trees, marked with a clump of buckthorn heavy
with berries. Had the path been so narrow and unformed? I did not recall it so. I
took a few steps but the spongey ground and overhung branches soon turned me back
onto the shore, my skin prickling with fear. I walked back and forth with a quickening
pace, but the line of trees was as dense as a wall. This was maddening. There was
nothing for it but to return to the buckthorn path. It had to be the path to the
temple. There was no other.

I would be through in moments, I told myself as I stood poised at the mouth of the
track. I had walked the Oldforest by night before, so why did this path set my heart
thumping?

The moon scarcely penetrated the forest canopy. There was a bank of sheared earth
to my right and I trailed my fingertips tentatively along it. Soon all light was
banished. Whether my eyes were closed or open made no difference. I pawed forward
over the uneven ground, my arms outstretched, groping into the space before me.

I tried to calm myself, to argue with my pounding heart, but my muscles were strung
taut, alert to every sound that echoed in the blackness. Was that the rustle of
a wolf? An animal smell rose through the odour of wet leaves, but I was so addled
by loss of sight that my mind was surely bending my senses. I had to be nearing the
temple clearing. Or was I wandering deeper into the Isle's forests? I stopped. I
had lost
all sense of direction. Moments as long as hours passed while I stood, unmoving.

The darkness began to attack, full of spirits, circling and readying. I spun toward
the sound of footsteps behind me, then others in front. There was a wailing cry and
I did not know if it was my voice or another's.

With a jolt, I realised what was happening. This was my long night. My trial. And
I was failing it. The making of fire or finding of food was beyond me now. The test
of the long night was to banish fear. But with every shaking breath, I summoned what
waited in the darkness. The rot beneath my feet was not leaves, but bodies, infected,
predatory, clamouring for me.

Even in my terror, I recognised this darkness. There was something monstrous in
me that called it forth. What I had feared my whole life was upon me. I was utterly
alone. It was my punishment. Deserved. For placing my lover before my milkmother,
for shunning the wisdom of my Elders, for thinking I could live outside skin. If
fear could be withstood during the long night it would not return again. But fear
had slaughtered me.

I sank to the ground and curled into a ball, my body aching with the need for sleep.
But there would be no escape from the full passage of this terror.

I lay for many hours, rigid.

I learned the true shape of my fear.

I learned what it was to be only myself.

Dawn came like a kiss, its flesh light filling the forest. Never had I been happier
to see the day. The scene of last night's torment was now so tranquil, the path clear
when I turned to find it. I had survived.

I moved slowly, fractured by the night that had torn through me. But when I finally
stepped free of the trees, there were no temple huts. No initiates. There was nothing
here at all. ‘Sulis?' I called feebly. ‘Taliesin?'