Seer of Sevenwaters Read online

  “We’re nearly there, Sibeal,” he said.

  I nodded, but said nothing. Nearly there. Nearly at the end of the quest. Nearly at the point where, one way or the other, my heart would surely break.

  ~Felix~

  Gareth and his companions have made a fire. We see it as we approach along the shore, a welcome sign of warmth and life. I do not realize until this moment how cold and wet I am, shivering and weary. Something beyond my own frail body has carried me to this point. Soon the mission will be done, and whatever it was—inspiration, compulsion—will be gone. For a brief time, I have been more than an ordinary man. Soon I will be myself again. But not my old self. This has changed me. I think it has changed us all.

  When they see that Gull and I are with the others, the men who have stayed behind shout greetings and run to meet us, helping to bring the three survivors in to the fireside. They have found driftwood to burn. A good supply stands neatly stacked, ready for use. I smell fish cooking.

  I am watching Gareth. He has not spoken; he did not run forward when he saw us, but stayed by the fire. Back on Inis Eala, he seemed a man of even temperament, more given to smiles than anger, a man whose pleasure was to make others happy. He seemed the kind of man anyone would want as a brother. On the journey he has been all leader, making a leader’s hard, swift decisions. I see now that those decisions have cost him dear; they do not come naturally to such a man as this. When he sees us, his face shows naked relief. It is as if an unbearable burden has been lifted from his shoulders. As we reach the level place where they have made their fire, he moves forward to throw his arms around first Gull, then me. He greets the survivors; he acknowledges all the men who undertook this mission. He sends someone to find Gull’s bag, the one with his healing supplies. The men who stayed behind start organizing dry clothing, places near the fire, food and drink for both survivors and rescuers.

  Only then does Gareth come over to Sibeal, where she stands quiet and composed, watching it all. I saw how she was on the ship, when he ordered Svala bound; I saw her expression when Gareth ordered the men not to dive in after Gull. I wonder if Sibeal will refuse so much as to glance at him. But she takes his hands, looks up at him with her face all peace and speaks quiet words. I am too far away to hear what she says. Gareth nods and lifts a hand to his face. It is possible he is wiping away tears. Sibeal has been true to herself. If she has perhaps not offered forgiveness, she has at least given understanding. Can a man be warrior and peacemaker both at once? Not without great cost. Only in a person like Sibeal, whose weapons are courage and conviction, compassion and inspiration, can the two be truly combined.

  At her mooring, Liadan rocks gently in moon-spangled water. Close to this little beach, there is no hint of the monstrous tidal rush that washed Gull and me up the rocky passage earlier today. Today. This same day. So brief a time to contain so much.

  I think that if I sit down I may never get up again. As soon as I stopped walking, pain flowered in every part of me. My joints ache. My chest aches. There is weariness in the very core of my body, and I long for sleep. But not yet. The mission is not complete.

  They are both here, Knut and Svala. A rope still tethers his ankle, lest he run mad and injure himself or others, but they have moved him to a place nearer the fire’s warmth. He has a blanket to sit on and a cloak around his shoulders. The moonlight touches his skin, white as pearl. His eyes are wide. He is staring at the skin, as Cathal and Gareth unroll it on the rocks at a safe distance from the fire. They handle it as carefully as they might a weaving in fine silk.

  Svala has been perched on a vantage point high above the camp. Now, as the skin is revealed, she creeps down crabwise, wariness in her every move. It is as if she cannot quite believe what she sees. I believe it. I grew up on tales of sailors and mermaids, selkies and the misguided men who loved them. This tale, Svala’s tale, is full of pain, sorrow and beauty. When it is finished I will make a new song.

  “Felix!” Sibeal calls softly. “It’s time.”

  I move to stand beside her. The skin lies before us, an oddly shaped mat of earth shades, slate and shingle, sand and pebble, stone and shadow. The firelight touches it gently.

  Svala reaches the flat ground and walks toward us, slowly, so slowly. I think even now she doubts the evidence of her own eyes. She comes to the far edge of the skin. A trembling courses through her body, but she stands as tall and proud as a queen. Her eyes are on the two of us, Sibeal and me.

  “Felix,” Sibeal murmurs, “you say what must be said. I think she will understand.”

  In my heart I hear the tolling of a great, solemn bell. I remember the sound of the creature singing, joining me in celebration of wrong put right. I think of Paul. “What was cruelly stolen from you, we now return to you,” I tell Svala, making sure I meet her eyes and trying to form the right images in my mind, as I know Sibeal does. “It is yours; take it. We are sorry. We are more sorry than we can say. We will never trouble your shore again.” I do not ask her to let us go safely out of the bay. Now is the time for this one thing only.

  “Take it, Svala,” says Sibeal in a voice lovely as the nightingale’s song. “Be yourself again, in all your strength and dignity. Take it.”

  Then, without a word or a glance at each other, we step back from the skin. Around us the men of the crew are still and silent, caught in the moment. They have forgotten, for now, how many lives were lost here.

  Svala nods. It is an acknowledgment of what we have done. She bends to take the edge of the great skin in her hands. I stare, not knowing what I will see, not understanding how this can possibly work, but aware that we are about to witness something truly remarkable.

  Svala lifts the skin one-handed, flipping it up and through the air as if it weighs no more than a lady’s silk kerchief. As it rises above her, Knut screams. “No! No! In Thor’s name, no!” He is on his feet, wrenching at the rope that binds him, desperate to get away. Nobody helps him. All eyes are on her.

  The skin comes down, settling around her form. All happens in a few moments: under the moonlight she changes, growing taller, taller still, as tall as an ancient oak. Wider, longer, her form stretching, her limbs thickening, the features of a lovely woman becoming those of a serpent, a monster, a sea beast like the one in the bay. Her jaw lengthens; the skin that clothes her seems to swell as her form expands to inhabit it fully. Only the eyes are the same, liquid, lambent, full of the moon and the wild sea, but larger, so much larger. They are just like those of the creature that vaulted Liadan in one great leap; the monster that brought us safely out from underground. She is done. She is complete.

  “Morrigan’s curse,” someone mutters, and another man makes the sign of the cross.

  Svala rears high, pawing the air with her long-clawed forelegs as if to test that everything is working as it should be. She switches her huge tail from side to side; men shrink back against the rocks. The moonlight shines on her scaly skin, and now it is not a patchwork of duns and grays and browns, but a triumphant garment of sparkling silver and glittering gold. Svala was beautiful as a woman. As a creature, she is magnificent.

  Knut is wailing. “Save me! Oh gods, save us all!”

  One or two of the men bid him be brave. His collapse is unnerving; it compares ill with the bravery of our three survivors. Even Colm is standing quiet now, his arm in Gull’s.

  The creature tips back her head and roars. The sound rings out like the braying of a great trumpet, echoing all around the bay. It fades away. There is a heartbeat of silence. Then comes the answer. From the moonlit water rises a great head, a sinewy neck, a broad, scaled back in gleaming blues and greens. The toothed jaws open wide, and Svala’s mate bellows his response. There are no words in it, but I understand his call. Here! I’m here, beloved! Come to me!

  But she is not quite ready for that. There is one job to do first, one act to make this tale complete. She turns. I grab hold of Sibeal’s hand and we retreat to safety, for the creature could crush us without
even noticing. “Get back!” Cathal shouts, and the men scramble for the other side of the fire. There are no spears in hand, no knives or clubs. The men recognize Sibeal’s authority as a druid, and though every instinct must tell them it is folly to stand before such a monster unarmed, all have obeyed her.

  “No! No!” shrieks Knut. “Help me!”

  Too late, far too late to take any action, the men realize what is about to happen. Several shout and one or two move forward, but there is no time. The creature bends her neck, her head comes down. She seizes the Norseman in her teeth, lifts him, shakes him as a dog shakes a rat. There is a high squealing sound. Sibeal blanches in horror. Svala tosses her prey high. Blood sprays as he falls. The creature catches him in her mouth, closes her jaws and swallows. He is gone.

  The silence is absolute. The men who rushed to help Knut are frozen where they stand. I am still as stone with Sibeal’s hand in mine. I hear her forcing her breathing into a pattern, steady and slow. I make an effort to do the same. Too late to help. Too late for anything.

  The sea beast in the bay trumpets again. Svala moves. Her progress down the rocks to the water is fluid and graceful, remarkable for a creature with such bulk. She slithers, glides, dances her way to the sea. She reaches the water’s edge, and for a moment she pauses. She turns her massive head, looking back at us. Sibeal sucks in her breath sharply, as if she has been hurt.

  “Are you all right?” I whisper.

  “Mm.”

  Sibeal bows to Svala. It is acknowledgment and farewell. I do the same. The moon shines down on the creature’s glimmering skin like a mother lighting her lost child home. Svala wades, swims, dives, is gone.

  Nothing to say. Nothing at all. After a while the men behind us start to move about, talking in low voices. Sibeal and I stand there, hand in hand, watching. She is trembling now. I wonder what she felt in that moment when Svala’s eyes met hers. Eventually, far out in the bay, the creatures surface. They swim and tumble and dive, moving in perfect unison, as if they were two parts of one whole. It is a dance of ecstatic greeting, a graceful, powerful celebration of love. My heart trembles to witness it, for it seems deeply private. Yet they have chosen to celebrate in the moonlight. They know they have a spellbound audience, and honor us by sharing their joy. They circle and play, roll and leap around each other, churning the quiet water to great splashing waves. Glancing sideways, I see that Sibeal is crying. On her other side Cathal has come up silently. He looks out over the bay, his black cloak around him, his grave face transformed with wonder. Oh, there is such a song in this!

  “I saw it, Felix,” murmurs Sibeal. “I saw everything in a moment, as if, in creature form, Svala could show what she thought and felt with perfect clarity. As a woman, she struggled to make me understand. But in that sliver of time when she looked back at me, it was all there—the abduction from this island when she came down to the shore, curious about the ship; the rough confinement in Freyja’s hold; the terror of Inis Eala, an alien world for her, a world in which only I had the slightest understanding of her misery. And . . . and Knut. Knut holding sway over her because of that tiny strip of skin he wore. Knut taking her unwilling to his bed. Knut filling her with disgust, loathing, terror. We did that. We were responsible, because we believed his story and lodged them together, away from the community.” A shudder goes through her body. “I even saw her with Rodan.”

  “Rodan?” I do not remember this name.

  “The Connacht man who fell from the cliff. He . . . he made advances to her and she pushed him over. She was always stronger, bolder, more sure of herself when Knut was not close by. Oh, gods.” Sibeal lifts a hand to wipe the tears from her face. “That was harsh justice. And Knut . . . I wish I had not seen that. But it brings the story to a fitting close. At the end, she was bursting with happiness. She was herself again, like the selkie woman in your song, Felix. Joyous and strong and free.”

  We are all bone weary. Gareth sets watches for the night. Two stand guard while the others rest. Sibeal believes we are in no danger, provided we do not linger on this isle too long. The camp grows quiet. The fire dies to a glowing mound.

  I thought I would fall instantly into the deep sleep my body craves. But I cannot sleep. My mind is wakeful. I have lived a lifetime since I arrived on Inis Eala with my past wrapped in shadows. In time I will write of this adventure. Perhaps not a song. To capture such monumental events in the form of a ballad would be to render them smaller; to force them within the limits of what our minds can readily accept. This tale calls for something longer, larger, a recounting that evokes all the horror and the grandeur, the peril and the profound mystery. Some day I will set it down. Not yet. I do not know what the future holds. I cannot guess. I only know that soon she will be gone. After that, a chasm yawns.

  I lie awake long, under the moonlight. At some point, as the night wears on, I look across to where Sibeal has been lying not far from me, and I see that she is no longer there. Since I know I will not sleep, I rise and go to look for her. I do not know if this is the time to speak of what comes next. For some while I have closed my mind to that, thinking only of the mission. But soon we will be back on Inis Eala. We cannot part with so much unsaid between us. I do not know what Sibeal thinks about this; I do not know how she feels, only that she is unhappy. To me our parting is the hewing asunder of a lovely growing thing; the smashing of an instrument whose music holds the power to change the world; the sundering of a single self. It is wrong. Even in the light of her vocation, her remarkable druidic skills, her dedication to the gods, it is wrong. In the great pattern of flower and tree, bird and beast, stone and star, what is between Sibeal and me fits perfectly. How can it not be right? Surely even the labyrinthine mind of a druid such as this Ciarán of hers must know it is right.

  I find her not so far away, at the other end of the strip of pebbly shore. She is seated on the rocks, so still she might herself be a stone, formed by the forces of nature into the semblance of a delicate young woman. And Cathal is here, down on the strand near the water. The moonlight throws his long shadow behind him on the shore.

  He is surrounded by seals. I walk up to Sibeal; she puts a finger to her lips, and I sit down beside her without a word. Her hand creeps into mine.

  I look again. They are not seals, but small beings in hooded cloaks of gray. Or perhaps those are their pelts. Within the darkness of each hood the moonlight finds a pair of bright eyes that belong to a creature surely not listed even in the most comprehensive of bestiaries. Whatever they are, they are Other. If I did not trust the evidence of my eyes, I would know this in my bones.

  They are conducting a conversation with Cathal. I cannot be sure if they speak in Irish or in some Otherworld tongue that, by its very nature, can be understood by folk such as Sibeal and me. I had thought the day could hold no more wonders, but I was wrong. The strangeness of this stops my breath.

  “He is close,” one of the beings says, and its voice is like the stone of the island, hard and strong and forbidding. “Only she keeps him out; her power is great. While she was gone, we fought a hard battle to hold our isle against him. She came home just in time.”

  “You say my father is close.” Cathal is exerting hard-won control over his voice. “Then why could I not feel his presence on the voyage here? I thought he would challenge me. He has waited four years for me to leave Inis Eala and come back within his reach. Why did he not confront me as soon as I came out from my safe place?”

  Another being speaks; the sound reminds me of a gurgling stream. “She is home. Mac Dara will not come here while her protection lies over the island. No sorcerer has the power to challenge her. No mage may pass within her boundaries, save when she chooses to allow it. As with you, Mac Dara’s son.”

  “And beyond the isle, on the journey?”

  A third being speaks. I hear in its voice the shrill crying of gulls and the endless song of the ocean. “You are of the Sea People,” it says. “You are kin. On the way to this place,
you bore our Queen on your ship. Her protection lay over you and the two who walk with you.” The hooded head swivels; the pinpricks of light that form its eyes are on Sibeal and me. “Druid and bard; teller of tales and singer of songs.” After a moment, the being adds, “Lamp of hope and questing spirit.”

  “Left hand and right,” puts in another of the small creatures.

  “Moon and sun.”

  “Shadow and light.” They are all joining in now, as if it were some kind of game.

  “Still pool and waterfall.”

  “Conscience and courage.”

  A silence after this, as all of them turn their eyes on the one who has just spoken, as if its contribution was somehow inappropriate. For myself, I like greatly what was said, for it recognizes the depth of the bond between Sibeal and me.

  “My father troubled you, then, before we brought your Queen home,” says Cathal. “How?”

  “Storms.”

  “Great waves.”

  “Days of darkness.”

  “Cloud. Tempest. Icy chill.”

  “Monsters from the deep. A plague that killed the fish and left us hungry.”

  “Sea-Father fought for us,” a creature said. “He was weakened by that, and by the loss of her whom he loved. If she had not come home when she did we might have lost him, and our isle with him. Mac Dara is strong.”

  Cathal stares out across the water. “I cannot fight him,” he says in a low voice. “My craft is gone. There is not a shred of magic in me. I could not so much as raise a spark to make light when it was needed. Even before, I struggled to match my father’s power. Now, he would simply laugh at me. I cannot wage war against a prince of the Otherworld. I cannot even defend my family.”