Taminy (3 page)

Calach
looked up to catch Bevol’s eyes. “I dreamed a great, deep chasm opened up
through the heart of Caraid-land, splitting it from Sea to Mountain. The Sea
filled it.”

Bevol
nodded, his gaze going unfocused, losing its waggish glint. “I’ve seen it too,”
he said, “and have not wanted to know its meaning.”

“Has
it to do with Meredydd’s transmutation, do you think?”

Bevol’s
brows rose. “You say transmutation. You don’t believe she was drowned?”

Calach
became distracted by the light glinting from his pen. “Even death is
transformation, is it not?”

Laughter
rippled from Bevol’s lips. “A pretty diplomacy, Calach. I never know what side
of the wall you fall to.”

“The
top of the wall offers a superior view of both sides,” observed the elder
Osraed. “But then you know that. I sense it is not all you know.”

Bevol
sobered. Sobriety did not sit well on him and so made Calach uneasy. “Sensible,
sensitive man,” Bevol murmured. “Stay atop your wall as long as you may.”

oOo

Gwynet-a-Blaecdel
sat in the high-ceilinged classroom and wondered whatever had made her new
guardian think her capable of grasping these lessons. The portly Osraed at the
head of the room went on about runelore and the historical use of crystals in
weaving inyx while Gwynet watched dust motes wheel, golden, against a shadowed
recess above his head. She lowered her eyes once, only to have them collide
with her teacher’s. Thereafter, they stayed aloft.

If
the Osraed thought of surprising the obviously distracted child with a
question, he did not, and she was grateful. She sighed as she left the
classroom with her little satchel of books and slates and papers. She couldn’t
yet read the books and expected never to be able to absorb the knowledge in
them.

Tomorrow,
the Osraed had said, they would be tested on the history of crystals in the
Art. All she could remember of it was the heart-stopping tale of a boy who
fell, feet first, into a sea cave full of natural treasure.

Shoulders
stooped, eyes floor-crawling, Gwynet ran head on into Osraed Bevol. “Maister!”
she cried and dropped a clumsy curtsey.

Bevol
responded with a chuff of exasperation, which sailed over the girl’s fair head.
“None of that, Gwynet. I’m your guardian, not your Cyne. Save your curtseys for
Colfre, if you should ever meet him.”

The
very thought of that eventuality flung her into two more hasty genuflections. “Oh,
I’m sure I should ne’er meet the Cyne.”

“Eh,
well, with the infrequency of his visits to Halig-liath, your chances are more
slender than they once might have been.... How have your classes been today?”

Gwynet’s
eyes skittered sideways to poke at the tiny crevices in the stone walls. “Oh,
well ...” She shrugged one bony shoulder.

“Yes?”
he prodded.

She
raised her face then, her brow a map of consternation. “It’s all so thick,
Maister. Or, that is, I am. I cannot seem t’stick my mind to’t. All them Cynes
and Cwens and Eirics and Osraeds by the bushel. And as to the Crafts-” She
rolled blue eyes in exaggerated distress. “The Runecraft class is set to cull
crystals tomorrow. I’d not know a good Weaving crystal from a lump of coal.”

The
Osraed’s eyes seemed strangely watery and he squinted them up crookedly and bit
at his lip. “I’m sure that’s not true, Gwynet. We’ll work together on crystal selection
and I’ll see that you get your history as well.” He patted her shoulder, then
turned her in the direction of her next class. “Go on, now, child. Osraed
Calach is likely anxious about you already. He tells me you’re first in the
classroom every day.”

“Oh,
aye, Maister. I do like Osraed Calach, he’s a sweet soul.”

Bevol
chuckled. “He is that, so you’re well matched. Off, now.”

She
went running. Against the rules, of course. There was nothing about her that
was not against some rule or tradition or widely-held belief. Bevol grimaced
privately and stepped into Osraed Tynedale’s empty history classroom.

“Well,
Dale, how are we doing today?”

Tynedale’s
bird-bright eyes fluttered to Bevol’s face. He should have been named Robin,
Bevol thought. It suited. Especially in moments when, as now, the round,
cherubic face matched Robin’s red breast for color. The Prentices called him “Dumpling”
and sniggered that he was a poor specimen with only two raisins and a prune to
the bun.

“I
assume,” he said, his voice all bristle, “that you refer to that wafer-brained
would-be Prentice of yours.”

“Wafer-brained?
Gwynet? I admit, the child is timid-”

“Timid?
She cowers, Bevol—
cowers
. And when
she’s not cowering, she’s daydreaming. Whatever happened to that child to make
her so impossibly blank?”

“A
good deal more than has happened to any other child at Halig-liath. Meredydd
... extracted her from an abusive household. It’s been weeks since her last
beating; she still limps a bit.”

“Shuffles,
actually,” corrected Tynedale, his face losing its Robinesque shading. His brow
knit ferociously beneath his thinning curls. “I understand your feelings of
sympathy for her, Bevol. She ... can’t help reminding you of Meredydd.” The
twin currants disappeared for a moment in a wrinkling of doughy flesh. They
glistened a bit more when they appeared again. Tynedale cleared his throat. “Yes,
well, the point is this—she hasn’t Meredydd’s talent. She’s a vague child,
unfocused.”

“Ah,
and Meredydd, if I recall, was self-absorbed, glib and stubborn.”

Tynedale
reddened again. “She was all those things. But she was also immensely gifted.”

“I
wish Ealad-hach had been as charitable in his assessment of her. She might not
have suffered so much.”

“Ealad-hach
recognized her talent,” said Tynedale, gathering up his texts. “His Tradist
indoctrination simply refused to allow him to accept it. I find nothing wrong
with educating cailin of outstanding ability. But as long as Ealad and his
brother Tradists, view it as tantamount to heresy, we must not encourage it.”
He paused in his gathering and snorted delicately. “Whatever must he think the
God is about—to give a girl child so much ability and expect her not to use it?
Whatever would the purpose be?”

Bevol
pursed his lips. “Oh, to teach her humility, no doubt.”

“Meredydd-a-Lagan
did not need to learn humility. She needed to learn self-acceptance. I pray she
did not perish afore time.”

“She
didn’t perish at all, so you needn’t worry on that account.”

Tynedale
eyed his fellow Osraed uneasily and grappled his books. “Must go,” he murmured.
“Have a seminar ’cross court.”

He
waddled energetically from the room, leaving Bevol to chuckle in his wake.

oOo

Gwynet
lay sprawled upon the braid carpet before the fire she had built for her Master’s
homecoming. Before her, between supporting elbows, and triangulated with her
nose, was a crystal.

It
was a blue crystal. She liked those best because they reminded her of water and
evening skies ... and her own eyes. With the firelight playing so, each facet
formed a tiny world in which it was always just sunset. She liked this crystal
especially well because Taminy had given it to her, saying it was a very pure
crystal—a good crystal for Runeweaving.

Gwynet
grimaced, squinting her eyes against the blaze of a multitude of roseate
sunsets. But what made it good? Its facets seemed no smoother or glossier than
any other crystal she’d pored over in the last week or so. It was no bigger, no
sharper of corner, no clearer than any of those crystals. It was not as
grand-looking as the one Aelder Prentice Aelbort had used in her Weavecraft
class that afternoon. It was arguably truer of color.

She
stared at the symmetrical little cluster of worlds until her eyes blurred them
into a wheeling montage of azure and gold. Fire in the sky. Bright, clear fire;
growing hot and sweet and pure; pouring out of the sky in a river-

“Oh!”
Gwynet scrambled to her knees as the flames from the hearth licked out and over
the gleaming fender like a hot tongue and poised, tip drooling, as if to taste
the azure stone. In a gasp, it had flicked back again, shedding sparks across
the carpet while Gwynet scrambled forth again to pat at them.

She
had assured herself that all were cold and sat back with a shudder and a sigh
when she heard a soft chuckle behind her.

She
jumped and spun. “Oh, Taminy! I’d such a start. Did you see?” Her hand trembled
toward the homey fire, docile again within its grate.

“Aye.”
The older girl faded from the shadows, her long, flaxen hair catching fire
sprites and weaving them through its length.

“What
was it, please?” the child begged. “Say, mistress, were’t demons?”

Taminy’s
laughter lay pleasantly against Gwynet’s ears despite the fright she’d had, for
the older girl was usually so muted and wistful.

“Demons?
Of course not, Gwynet. It was you.”

“Me?
How? I’ve ne’er called fire up like tha’. I swear it.”

Taminy
came to stand on the hearth rug and reached down to pick up the blue crystal. “You’ve
never used a rune crystal before, have you?”

“Used
it? Oh, mistress Taminy, I wasn’t using it. I don’t know how.”

The
other girl sat beside her on the braid rug, the crystal still in her hand. “You
mean you’re not
supposed
to know how.
And the Osraed won’t deign to teach you for another year or more. You’ll cull
them, sort them, type them and codify their uses, but you’ll not weave one tiny
inyx through them, oh, no. And that” —she nodded toward the innocent flames—”is
probably why. Half the houses in Nairne and the Cirke stable, besides, would be
burnt to the ground the eve of the day you lot were turned loose with these.”

Gwynet
blushed. “But what’d I do?”

Taminy
held the crystal up before her eyes and frowned into its faceted depths. “What
did
you do?”

“I
was just picturing.”

“Picturing?”

“Aye.
Like I used to do in leaf dew. I pictured the crystal was all these little
worlds with bright, hot waters flowing out the skies and then-” She shook a
hand at the fire and peeked up at Taminy’s pensive face. “Are you sure it weren’t
demons? Dew never done that.”

“There
are no demons, Gwynet.”

“My
old guardian, Ruhf said-”

“Your
old guardian Ruhf was making excuses, Gwynet. There are no demons, only wicked
people ... and weak ones.”

“Am
I wicked, Taminy?”

“No.
You’re not. But even innocence can be dangerous. You must be very careful with
this crystal. Careful not to ‘picture’ in it without Osraed Bevol about to
guide you. You wouldn’t want to burn Gled Manor down.”

“No,
mistress!”

Taminy
fell silent then, her eyes locked on the stone in her hand. Puzzled, she seemed
to Gwynet, as if she grasped for something that eluded her; as if she had lost
something and thought the crystal must contain it. She wilted just a little,
like a flower set too long on a sunny sill. Then she blinked, shook her head
and handed the rune crystal back to Gwynet.

“What
you just did, Gwynet, without meaning to, was start a Weaving. You reached
through the crystal and wove your will to the flames and pulled them to you.”

Gwynet
was stunned. “I did? I ...? But, mistress, I don’t know any-any spells—any
inyx, I mean. And I don’t know any of the runesongs—the duans. How could I
Weave when I don’t sing and I don’t know the words?”

“You
said your dewdrops never did anything like that. What did they do?”

Gwynet
studied the other’s fire-lit face and tried to remember. Remembering was hard
sometimes. It was all bound up in pain and feeling like a rabbit in a hunter’s
snare, but she remembered going to the rill in the early morning to bathe and
she remembered the dewdrops.

“They
... they made me feel all wonderful. Like I were happy. Sometimes I might wish
that the sun’d shine all day and Ruhf’d not be like to lay hands on me.” She
lowered her head and blushed. “Sometimes I let myself fancy it worked. That he
were lookin’ askew at me and might will to touch me, but couldn’a. I’d pretend
my wishing done it.”

“Perhaps
it did.”

Gwynet
puzzled that. “But how?”

Taminy
stood, her face fading back into the shadows of the dusky room. “Ah, Gwynet,
some people are born singing duans. They breathe them in from the ether and
breathe them out into the world.”

“Meredydd
was like tha’, weren’t she?”

“Yes,
she was.”

“And
you. Are you like tha’?”

Taminy
was already moving toward the door, receding completely from Gwynet’s fire-lit
patch.

“I
was once,” she said, and was gone.

oOo

Osraed
Bevol arrived home a bit late that evening, his mind still picking its way
through the signs and portents of his last meditation. Gwynet was engaged in
the sage pursuit of practicing her alphabet, while Skeet, upon seeing him,
commented reproachfully on his tardiness and began scurrying to put the meal on
the table.

“Where
is Taminy?” he asked the boy, watching him ferry pots of hot food into the
large dining chamber.

“Upstairs.”
He cocked his head, flicking his eyes upward. “She did come down today, though.
Roamed about the house a bit.... Spoke to the Little One about crystals.”

“Did
she?” Bevol nodded. “That’s encouraging.”

Skeet’s
eyes dropped to the bowl of vegetables in his hands. “Aye, I do suppose. What
must it be like, Maister Bevol? What must it be like to be dumped back upon the
earth after living in the Sea? What must it be like to have to walk where
before ye’ve darted like a silkie?”

Bevol
shook his head. “That, Skeet, is something you and I will never know. Nor is it
something Taminy could describe to us even if she would.” His gaze went to the
ceiling of the dining room as if he could see through it into the chambers
above. “But, we will do all we can to help her adjust, for she must do more
than walk, Skeet. She must run. She must fly.” He sighed volubly. “I sometimes
wonder if Mam Lufu might not be better suited to this.”