Boulder, Colorado, September 2001
She has gone, and he does not know what to feel.
He’s gotten better about that, over the years. Especially in the two years with Her. For a long time, his emotions were a foreign landscape, a storm. A place he couldn’t ignore, couldn’t leave, but also could never quite grasp or control. Riding the whirlwind. That’s improved with practice, with discipline. With learning to order his mind. And in the years with Her, he’s learned also to speak. Not always. But more. So when the truth he’s unable to ignore presses on him, he can go to Her for peace.
She’s good at that. Giving him peace. It’s odd, because She is not a peaceful person to be around. More than anyone he’s ever known, She has the way of speaking difficult truths. Perhaps it goes with Her being an Oracle. She takes a step sideways, and the horrible things, the things you think you cannot look at and live, become commonplace. He’s seen Her do it with others. She’s done it with him. Not with everything. He hasn’t told Her everything.
Perhaps he never will.
Always, She shines a light into dark places. Turns rocks over to expose the pale, wriggling things beneath. Fearless.
Until now.
And that is why he’s so very, very angry with Her. Because a fool could see Her fear. Smell it on Her, taste it in Her sweat. And She would not speak of it. Would not. Would not give him the chance to do for Her what She has done for him. Or, if he could not, at least give Her what he can. A willing ear. The comfort and protection of his body, if nothing else. She’s seen him comfort and protect others; why can She not let him do the same for Her?
But, no. No, it was simply, “I’m sorry, I can’t do this anymore. Not this business, not magic, not any of it.”
And She hadn’t been sorry; he could tell that. It was a lie, a social nicety. She’s a terrible liar, though She will keep trying. But he thought they were past that.
Nor would She tell him another thing. She just took that sideways step, this time away from Herself and away from him. Leaving him with all his care, all he could offer, all he was, in his hands.
She might as well have slapped his face. In fact, he’d have preferred Her to slap his face. He could have responded to that.
So, he’s angry. All right. That’s one.
He grabs his sword and storms out the back door, cursing in the Gaelic; he needs to blow off steam. He’s already had one workout today, numb and cold, bare chested in the autumn air. After he woke up. After he woke up alone. But his body is something he understands, something he can control.
Not now, it seems. He’s good at this, he knows he is. Skill acquired in bits and pieces over the course of ten years made whole. But now, his thrusts are weak; his swings go wild. He might as well be a child playing at swords with a stick. No form, no technique. He finds himself flailing away at a couple of birch saplings at the back of the garden, poor young things that have never done him any harm. They tremble, their last leaves falling, bark and branch splitting under his onslaught. He pretends not to hear their cries.
“Galla!” he shouts, to cover the tree voices. Bitch. Which She isn’t. “Baobh! Luid! Strapaid! Druis!” Whore. Which She isn’t, either. Sometimes wanton, aye. But never loose. She’s never given him reason to doubt. “Tha thu ‘nad fhaighean!” And She’s not a cunt. “Aireamh na h-Aoine ort!” But he would like to damn Her, just now. Damn Her for leaving him.
And he’s on his knees, the sword gone, cast aside, hurled away, and he’s sobbing into his hands. Weeping for what he’s done to the poor trees. Weeping for himself.
A secret he’s kept from Her, is how much stronger than he She is. She is so self-contained. Although he makes a pretense of it, he is not, not in the same way. He has always needed other people to see him, to identify him, to give him a name. She, She’d just as soon be invisible, for all it matters to Her. She finds the gaze of others hard to bear.
It occurs to him that perhaps Her retreat is the ultimate form of invisibility. The final bending of energy, the last trick She has. Making it so no one can see Her. Not even Herself.
Knowing this, knowing She’s afraid and in pain, doesn’t make it any easier. He needs Her, and that’s the plain truth. He’s always needed Her, even before they met. It had frightened him, and he’d tried to deny it: the one time in his life he’d ever lied to himself, and a bad job he made of it, too. He needs Her light in his darkness. He needs Her shape in his heart.
His heart, that She’s broken by Her leaving.
And doubtless he deserves it. For he’s broken Her heart, more than once.
What is it Zee says? “Payback is a bitch.” That’s it.
That’s two.
And now, now there’s this business with the Ring of Omicron to settle. The mages who damage innocent children beyond repair. The mages who rip out souls. He will never, ever forgive Her for leaving it to him.
And that’s three.
She could not possibly believe him capable of letting it go. Not that horror, not that atrocity. Not anywhere, but especially not here, in this place he has learned to call home. It’s vile; it makes him physically ill. But what could She think he might do? He can’t heal what’s been broken. He can’t mend the ruined lives, can’t restore the shattered souls. All the gods know he would if he could. If it meant his life, he’d give it gladly for any one of those fractured children. But his life can’t buy them back.
Heal the people of the Ring itself? Well, if they cared to be healed, perhaps. He cannot imagine they care. If they cared, they would not be the Ring at all.
He needs Her. His abilities are not like Hers. His magic, if he has any, is to bring together, to protect, to find, to speak, to know. Little things that won’t work here. Where true magic is concerned, Caitlin is the one with power. He’s muscle, and he knows it. Giving Her energy, if She needs it. Backing Her with his brawn.
But he can’t fight the Ring of Omicron, not even with his sword. He discards the notion the moment it occurs to him. As well as magic, they have guns. He’s taken a few bullets in his time, and he’s not keen to do so, ever again. Besides, it would do no good. He’d die before he could swing the blade once. Pointless. And while he thinks he would not mind death, he’d like it to count for something.
They could use killing, though.
He hasn’t thought like that in years.
He’s lying on the bed, fully clothed, boots on the duvet, which She hates, thinking it over and trying not to smell Her smell. She left with very little. Some clothes thrown into a duffle bag. And the cat, so he doesn’t even have McGuyver to talk to. Threw it all in a rented car and drove off, McGuyver swearing at the top of his lungs. So it’s likely She’ll be back someday, if only for Her things. Meantime, Her smell is everywhere.
Gods, he wishes She were here. He’d like to hold Her. Make love to Her, if that would help. Anything.
What if he’s never to love Her again?
No, stop. He’s thinking of the Ring, and what’s to be done about them.
But never to taste Her. Never feel Her beside him. Never to stroke Her hair.
He would give anything, if She would be visible to him.
The phone rings, taking him by surprise. At first, he thinks not to answer it. Then he thinks, She probably told Her friends She was leaving. She takes care of details like that. Perhaps She told them even before She told him, which hurts. Or perhaps it doesn’t. Perhaps She left him until last because She didn’t really want to go.
Anyway, the phone might possibly be for him, so he picks it up.
“Aye,” he says.
It’s Spruce, asking if he and Caitlin would like to come to dinner, meet her new man. Someone she’s serious about, he can tell by the tone of her voice. So Caitlin didn’t tell everyone. She left his sister to him.
And Spruce reads his quiet, because she asks what’s wrong.
“Caitlin’s left me,” he tells her. He hopes the blunt trauma won’t hurt as much. But the words twist the knife in his gut.
<
br /> “What?” Spruce squawks in his ear. Then, “What did you do?”
“I didna do anything.”
If he’d shouted, if he’d protested, sounded angry, she wouldn’t have believed him. But he hears his own voice, tired and numb. So she does.
“What happened?” Spruce whispers.
“I dinna ken, not rightly.” True enough. “Something upset Her; She wouldna tell me what. Not about me, I dinna think. Still, She’s gone.”
“Where?”
He know what she’s thinking. If Caitlin’s not gone far, if She’s perhaps staying with a girlfriend a few days, things might yet sort themselves out.
“Gordarosa.” To the house. The house that was supposed to be their place, together. Someday. Their someday house for their someday family, which is another thing he hasn’t been able to give Her. Not for want of loving. She never speaks of it, but he knows it grieves Her. And perhaps that’s part of it. Perhaps She’s tired of being disappointed.
Gods, man, stop doing this to yourself.
“She’s told me tae stay here as long as I like. But I think it may be right tae… tae move. Get me ain place.”
“When did this happen?”
“A few days ago. Less. I dinna ken.”
“Don’t move,” Spruce commands him. “Give it time.”
“I’ll try.”
There doesn’t seem to be anything else to say after that, but Spruce, of course, has to have the last word.
“Timber. Don’t do anything stupid.”
“I’ll try that, too,” he says, and rings off.
And it’s a good thing he promises. Because, in a little while, he sleeps, and he dreams of Her, of him and Her together. And when he wakes, he does not want to live.
He thinks, You’re never done choosing between life and death. Because you can’t choose to live just once. You have to keep choosing it, every day, with every breath. It’s only when you choose death that you can stop.
He had thought, when Mitch made him choose ten years ago, that he had chosen once and for all. It had seemed so, then. He’d chosen to live, and he’d given it his best. Done what was put before him. Some of it, he’d enjoyed. The sword. The travel, researching his thesis. The random willing woman. But it hadn’t been a Life. Not until he met Her, had he begun to have a Life.
He wants it back, he realizes. He wants Her back.
He does not think he’s told Her any of that. When they fought, when She’d announced to him that She was leaving, abandoning magic, abandoning him, did he put it so baldly? Did he actually say, “Don’t go?” Calling up the memory, he sees he did not. He was too angry, too shocked, too full of words like “duty,” and “calling,” and “obligation.” He put everything in terms of their work and what She must do, never speaking of his need, of his love. Of his heart. Gods, what a mess he made of it. No wonder She left.
He digs up the number of the house in Gordarosa and calls. Gets the machine, which does not surprise him. She’s being invisible, and when She’s invisible, in pain, threatened, She does not answer the phone. In Boulder, he winds the cord through his fingers, waiting for the beep.
“Caitlin,” he says when it finally signals him to speak. “Will ye please pick up if you’re there?”
She does not. He imagines Her sitting, knees drawn up, watching the phone as if it’s an animal likely to bite.
“I…” Now that it comes to it, he has no idea what to say. Thirty-two years old, with all the women in his past, he’s never done anything like this before. Because, of course, it was never a particular woman he wanted. Just a release, a nice fuck. Or a not-so-nice one.
“I’m sorry for everything I said,” he goes on at last. “Please call me. I need tae know you’re all right.”
And then the machine cuts him off, and he hasn’t said the right words; he’s made a mess of it again.
He hits “redial,” tries another time not to get lost in the sound of Her voice telling him She’s not home but he can leave a message.
“Caitlin,” he begins after the beep. “I…”
He doesn’t get any farther. There’s a click on the line, and then She’s there, sounding so close and so far away.
“Timber. I’m all right. McGuyver’s all right. Everything’s fine. Please don’t call me anymore.”
She’s speaking very fast, and he knows She is not all right; She has shut down, closed Herself off, and She doesn’t want to risk letting anyone in. Him, most of all.
“Don’t hang up,” he says, and, for a miracle, She doesn’t.
“Please come home,” he says. “I need ye.”
She doesn’t answer, but he can hear Her breathing. Perhaps crying.
“Talk to me,” he whispers. “Please.”
“I can’t.” Her voice is so soft, he almost can’t hear Her. “I’m sorry. I just can’t.”
“Is it me? Have ye changed toward me?”
“No.” He hears the catch in Her throat. Aye, She’s crying. Would that he could hold Her, kiss away Her tears. But She won’t let him in. “It’s me. I told you. I’ve changed toward me.”
It’s a line from every failed romance, so he’s heard tell. It’s never been said to him.
“What can I do?” he asks.
“Nothing. You can’t do anything. Timber, I…”
For a moment, he thinks She’ll tell him. Tell him She’s lost, alone, afraid. But instead, She just says,
“I’m sorry. I have to go. Please don’t call again.”
And hangs up.
“I love you,” he tells the hissing line in the moment before it starts screaming. “Forever.”
He is a dead man walking. He thought it was bad before, when his heart felt so aching and empty, and his soul was so full of pain. But now, it’s as if both heart and soul have been ripped right out. There’s nothing left of him. He’s on permanent auto-pilot, doing what needs to be done to keep his body functioning. Because that’s all he has, and he has no idea what else to do.
He’s never felt so powerless, not even on the streets. On the streets, at least his physical strength counted for something. But he cannot use it to help the woman he loves, or to solve the problems in the town in which he lives.
He needs to become more than he is.
In the Otherworld, he could do it. He can shapeshift there, be whatever he needs to be. He doesn’t do it often, only at great need. It’s uncomfortable and doesn’t come easy; it’s still too new. But if this isn’t great need, he doesn’t know what is.
Can he confront the Ring in the Otherworld? Some of them, perhaps. The mages, if he can find them, if he can get through their protections. The Mundanes, perhaps not. Mundanes don’t always have presence in the Otherworld.
And what would that accomplish? Evil or not, they’re men. He doubts he can remove them from the Otherworld, as he might a Being of pure Spirit. If he had to. If it were the right thing to do.
He must deal with them on this side. Somehow. And that brings him back to the one tool he has: his body. His fighting skill.
He ponders the sword. In some cultures, among the Hmong in particular, the shamans carry swords. As protection from spirits. As a weapon against evil on the paths. He knows his sword has a presence in the Otherworld; he’s had it with him at times.
If the Spirit Sword could merge with the material sword.
If he could merge with his Spirit Self.
Becoming more. Combining the powers he has there with those he has here.
It might be enough.
He meditates on it for a full day before the answer comes to him, falling into his empty mind full-formed. With it, pieces of a vision never fully understood come into sudden, clear focus, as if a camera angle has changed to show him something previously unseen. He’d thought it a metaphor, when he’d thought of it at all. Now he realizes that it is no more than the literal truth.
He promised Spruce he’d try not to do anything stupid. He doesn’t believe this is stupid. Reckless, dang
erous, foolhardy, rash, all those things, aye. But not stupid.
In the room set aside for magic and for Journeys, he summons the Spirit Horse. It comes, with hoofbeats like drums, like thunder, and he finds himself on its back, sword in hand.
“Take me home,” he tells it. “Take me to Skye.”
In the Otherworld, the Isle is different. Same colors. Sea blue, grass green. Purple heather, grey stone. The mists. The vast vault of the sky overhead, blue at the apex, fading down to almost white. After the clear, dry, Colorado sky, it disturbs him, just a bit. Still, it’s as he remembers.
The place itself it different, though.
He’s on a quest, now, so it’s all right. And it’s good to be moving in a direction, any direction. It makes him feel he has a purpose.
The Journey shapes itself to the hunt, as it does. He sees what he needs to see, finds what he needs to find. Places. People. Beings. He comes across an old woman; she might be his totem wearing a different face, or might not. He asks for knowledge, and she gives it. She gives it for nothing, which means she might well be his totem and bound to help, but it doesn’t really matter. The information is all bound up in symbol, but that doesn’t matter, either. Not here.
So, he crosses mountains and valleys, and speaks with this one and that one, and at last he comes to the bridge. The bridge which no one can cross, who has not first proved himself a champion.
Well, that’s a laugh.
He gets down from the Horse. Except he hasn’t, not really, because he’s still here, and somewhere, in the back of his head, he can still hear the thunder, the drumming of its hooves. That used to bother him. In the beginning, the dissonance of the idea, riding and not-riding at the same time, would throw him right out. He’s learned better, but for a moment everything shifts. He’s upset, and well he knows that he shouldn’t be attempting this kind of thing at such a time. But he has no choice, not really, and so he firms his mind, takes hold of his purpose, and in a minute the ground steadies.
So, he gets down from the horse and looks at the bridge. Thin as a hair, short as an inch, tall as a tree, sharp as a sword. All at once. It swims in his sight; it changes from one thing to another at a touch. It would shake a man off at a single step. The chasm beneath is deep, bottomless. Not a good place to take a fall.
But he has no intention of setting foot on the bridge. There are ways and ways of crossing. He’ll use another.
Backing off, he sits on a stone and breathes in the moist air of Skye, this Skye, anyway. It’s a balm to his wounds, a tonic in his veins. There’s power for him here, if he would claim it. Someday, perhaps. For now, just a taste, just enough. Enough to help him find a clear path to his own center, and shape it. To become something feathered, beaked, taloned, winged.
He rises from the rock an erne, a white-tailed sea eagle. His eight-foot wingspan takes him aloft, spiraling up on the wind from the chasm. With the bird’s eyes, he can see the bottom far below: water churning over sharp rocks, cutting its way to the sea. Could be fish down there, in the calmer shallows. Salmon, pike. For a moment, he’s tempted. Then he remembers what he is, what he’s about. He’s not an eagle, but a man. There’s danger in forgetting that.
He wheels once above the bridge and alights on the other side. With a wrench, he regains his own shape. This edge of the chasm looks much like the first: grass strewn with rocks and gorse, rising to hills not far off. Nestled among the hills, he can see a house. The house he’s seeking. The house with seven doors.
A red-haired woman comes down from the house. His heart wrenches; at first, he thinks it’s Her, as he always thinks every red-haired woman is Her. But in a moment, he sees it’s not. This woman’s hair is coarse fire, not soft, like banked embers. This woman is lean, not gently curved. She walks with a free, swinging stride. She doesn’t move as if dancing to music no one else can hear.
She’s carrying a sword.
“That was a nice trick,” she says, coming up to him.
Her words are the Gaelic of his childhood, only half-remembered except for the curses his uncle taught him. Still, he falls into it as if it never left him.
“It got me across,” he says.
“I’m not sure it counts. One is supposed to cross the bridge, you see.”
“And did I not? Your bridge is a wily thing. It seems to me a man must use what tricks he has, to reach the other side. One can’t solve a riddle by taking it at face value. One needs to look at it sideways.”
The way She does. The way he’s learned from Her.
The woman laughs. “Good answer. I like you. I think my mother will like you. If you can reach her.”
Her sword comes up. He steps back.
“I don’t want to fight you.”
“Then you may return the way you came.”
Another test, another challenge. By all the gods, he’s tired of them. But it’s the way of things, in the Otherworld and in the World-That-Is as well, to keep testing, keep pushing, keep asking for proof. And when at last you cannot meet the challenge, it’s the end.
It wouldn’t be a good end, not here. He still has things to do. So he unsheathes his own sword, raises it, takes a stance.
She rushes him before he’s ready, almost getting in under his guard, almost ending the fight right there. Only some quick footwork saves him. Recovering, he brings his blade around backhand, with less style than he’d like, but still on the mark. The woman deflects it without trouble; steel rings on steel. She raises an eyebrow at him, as if to say, “Is that all you’ve got?” Then she’s on him again, and this is a real battle, and he stops thinking because he’s fighting for his life.
And he feels alive.
The blood sings in his veins; his nerve endings hum. Everything about him, every sense, is sharper. Clearer. Everything is in tune, without any of the false notes he’s come to expect. Every part of his body moves together as one, from the small muscles in his wrists, keeping the blade steady, to the large ones in his legs and back, putting him where he needs to go. He has never felt so aware, so familiar with himself, except, perhaps, when making love. And perhaps not then.
It frightens him a little.
There’s a savage in him. He’s always known it. Sometimes he’s used it. More than once, it’s helped him survive, even when, especially when, he wasn’t sure he wanted to. Mostly, he does his best to keep it in check.
With the realization, he slips a bit, misses a beat, misses a step. The woman catches his mistake, his hesitation. Of course she does. She closes with him, thrusting the targe on her arm at his face. He wants to flinch away, but if he does, he’ll open himself to a killing blow and he will have lost.
So he lets the savage take over. He takes her targe on his forehead, the spike of it barely missing his eye. They’re too close now for blades, close as lovers. But he has the weight of her, and the height. He grabs her sword wrist in one hand, and trips her up with a leg behind her knee. She goes down hard on her back, the wind knocked out of her. And his sword is at her throat, and it’s over.
He feels everything, all at once: the breath in his lungs, the sweat dripping into his face. The nicks and cuts she’s given him. His face bleeding from the spike of her targe. Nothing serious.
They stare at each other.
He wants her, he realizes. He wants to fall on her here, now. Take her brutally. Bury himself in her, and bury his anger, his pain. And perhaps she expects it. These things do happen, after battle. In this primal place.
But he cannot. No matter how the savage in him rages, he cannot do such a thing. Not and remain himself, the man he has worked so hard to be, for so long.
Besides, it’s not this red-haired woman he wishes to punish.
So he relaxes, removes the threat of his sword. Brushes his hair out of his face. Gives her a hand up.
“I believe my mother will see you,” she says. “Wait here.”
She goes.
He hunts up his scabbard, sits down on a rock. Checks his sword for b
lood, for damage. There is none. He gives it a wipe anyway, with a rag that he finds in his pocket. Blood from his cut cheek is running into his beard, so he wipes that, too.
“What is it you want of me?” someone asks.
He looks up at a woman very like the woman he has just fought. Older, tougher, leaner. She’s made of seasoned leather and sinew, like the clothes she wears. Her red hair is threaded with grey.
This is the one he has come to see. Scáthach, the Shadow. Warrior and teacher of warriors, demi-goddess of the Isle of Skye.
“I want to become more than I am,” he says.
“What you want is of no concern to me.”
Before he can blink, she waves her hand, and he’s back in the magic room of the house in Boulder, his drum falling from his hand. He curses himself. He answered too quickly, with too little thought. The bridge, the battle, her question all threw him off. Caught him off balance, even though he knew he should expect challenges.
He’ll have to try again. Not today.
In the morning, he’s back on the Spirit Horse, back on Spirit Skye. Again, he crosses the bridge in his own way. He fights another fight, with a different daughter. It goes a little better. He doesn’t do anything too asinine, and defeats her. Again, he wrestles the savage in him, and is told to wait.
When Scáthach appears, again she asks,
“What do you want of me?”
“I need the power to defeat my enemies,” he says.
“Power is a double-edged sword,” she replies, and waves her hand, and throws him out of the Journey a second time.
The third day, after the third crossing and the third battle, Scáthach asks her question the third time.
“I will grip the double-edged sword in both hands, if that will give me mastery,” he says.
“Do that, and you’ll cut yourself and master no one,” she says. But she laughs before she tosses him back like a fish too small to keep.
Well. He needs to reflect more. He had hoped that the third time would work. It’s three, or it’s seven, or it’s nine, or twenty-one, or however many it takes. Though he does wish it won’t go on too long. The battles are getting old.
He goes out for a beer, for some air, surprised to find the world has gone on without him. The Americans are still haunted by some outrage earlier in the month, one he hardly noticed in his concern for the outrage at home. There’s a new war. There’s always a new war. And, as always, there are those for it and those against it. It tires him, but it also makes him think. About himself, about his position. About what he needs and what he wants to accomplish.
Violence isn’t always the answer, he knows. Some would say it’s never the answer. “Violence begets violence,” goes the old saw. It feeds on itself and is never satisfied. When you’ve had your revenge, wiped out your enemies, what then? It’s a letdown, a disappointment, coming off that energy. Like after sex, when things go dark for a time, and you feel as if there really should have been more to it than that. So you keep after it, keep after that transcendent feeling, until you wear yourself out, and then, at least you can sleep.
He’s pretty sure Caitlin would tell him violence isn’t the answer at all. She has a soft heart. She feels bad about killing slugs in the garden.
And yet, he’s worn himself out on Her. Too many times to count. His trouble crashing on Her like a wave on a rock that never breaks. So there’s something in having a soft heart.
But Caitlin never had the experience of the world that he had. She turns inward; he turns outward. Everything he is, he shows to the world, even if the world finds it an affront. She has secrets at Her core that no one can penetrate. She protects Herself from the world, and he flies in its face.
So he’s learned that there must be violence, sometimes. After all, the slugs in the garden must be killed. They’d take over, else.
Some people think they have no right to judge. To label this one a slug, and this one not. To make the choice between life and death.
He’s not one of them.
The fourth time he returns to Scáthach, she seems surprised to see him.
“You’re a persistent fellow,” she remarks.
“Aye, I am,” he says.
“Well?” She lifts a red eyebrow at him, telling him to get on with it.
“There’s a need for justice in the world,” he says.
“And you think you’re the one to dispense it?”
The turn of the conversation startles him; he expected an “Aye” or a “No,” and to be tossed out or not, as Scáthach saw fit. On the other hand, he didn’t give her a full answer. And he’s been thinking about these things.
“If I’m the one to hand, aye, I do.”
“Justice will not wait for you to be to hand,” she says, and throws him back.
For a long time, he lies on his back, fuming. He always slips; there’s always a catch. He’s supposed to be smart. He’s supposed to be brilliant, in fact. He should be able to see his way.
The fifth time, Scáthach says,
“You are old to begin this training.”
“I learn fast.”
“Cú Chulainn started as a youth, and he was born with a sword in his hand.”
“Cú Chulainn was god-touched.”
One corner of her mouth turns up.
“And you are not?”
And he’s back in the World-That-Is.
The sixth time, he rails at her.
“I don’t know what you need from me!” he shouts. “I don’t have the answer you want!”
“Petulance does not become you,” she says with a sniff.
He’s angry, frustrated, tired, heedless. The insult undoes him. He goes for his sword.
“Would you fight me for it, then?” Scáthach asks. She sounds curious, and a bit amused.
He pauses to consider. If he thought he had a chance, perhaps. But.
“No,” he says.
“You don’t want it badly enough,” she tells him, and banishes him once more.
The seventh time, he speaks from his heart.
“I’m a man, with a man’s needs, a man’s desires, a man’s flaws. I am doing the best I can, in the only way I know how.”
He waits.
“Go on,” she says.
“I cannot be everywhere. I cannot see everything. I cannot know all there is to know or address every sorrow, every injustice. What I can do, I will do. I cannot do it without the gifts you have to give.”
Again, he waits.
“Go on,” says Scáthach a second time.
“You can take me or not. You can instruct me or not. You can choose to give what I ask, or not. Nothing I do or say will change that.”
“Go on,” the warrior goddess tells him a third time.
“No,” he replies. “I’m tired. I’m tired of crossing the bridge and battling your endless daughters. I’m tired of the games and the riddles. You’ll do what you do. One way or the other, this is the last time. But one way or the other, I will make an end to the Ring of Omicron. If I must, I’ll give my life for it. I’d prefer not to,” he can’t help himself from adding.
“Preferring to live is always good for a warrior,” she says. “So is finding the line that will not be crossed. We cannot always have what we prefer, after all.”
“Aye.”
“You say you’ll give your life. Will you give your death?”
The question takes him aback; he’s not sure what she means. Truth to tell, he’s never thought much about an afterlife. One time through has been enough. More than enough, he sometimes feels.
“Aye,” he says. “I will.”
“Fiodh MacDuibh,” she says, musing over him in Gaelic. She’s never said his name before. He wasn’t sure she knew it. As usual, the naming makes him more solid. He knows she’s seen him. He wasn’t certain, before. All this time, all these Journeys, these confrontations, and he’s never been certain he existed for her.
“I’ll ask you for two oaths,” Scáthach says.
“What are they?” Not even now, not even for a goddess, is he going to swear any oath unheard.
“After your death, whenever it comes, you’ll go not to the Summerland. And you’ll not take another life for your own. No other house for your soul. You’ll come here, to me. To pay me with your skill for what I’ve given you.”
“Do I have the choice?” he asks. He’s been under the impression that, if there is an afterlife, it’s out of his control.
“Of course.” She smiles. It doesn’t comfort him. “Your witch could have told you that.”
He sees Her, Caitlin. The beauty of Her. If he could choose, he’d choose to be with Her again. His other half, the One who fills him, heart and soul. If he doesn’t swear, and he dies, which he will, perhaps he could merge with Her. Be with Her always, complete.
But perhaps She wouldn’t let him in, even then. And that would be too much. It would be the end of everything. Of everything that he sees, now, he has always believed has no end. It’s late for him to come to that. If he’d understood before, his life might have been different.
Or it might not.
So again, he must choose. Let his soul, what there is of it, continue here at some future time. Or risk its absolute death, very soon.
He doesn’t fear the risk. But he’s been taught that destroying souls for any reason is a bad thing. Redeeming souls is why he’s here. He’s said he’d pay any price. And he doesn’t lie.
“I’ll swear,” he says. “What’s the other?”
“You must go back to her. If I have your death, she must have your life. All of it, without holding back.”
He blinks. It’s all he can do.
“I’m not sure She’ll have me,” he blurts out. “Gladly, if She will.”
Scáthach turns compassionate eyes on him, a soft expression on her hard face.
“You’ll have cause not to be glad of it,” she says, and he remembers that she’s supposed to be Druid-gifted, with insight, and foresight, and all the rest. “Still, you must do it.”
He can’t imagine being anything but glad of going back to Her.
“I swear.”
The goddess nods. “Then give me your hand. You’ll need your body where you’re going.”
He reaches out. Her hand grasps his, callus meeting callus. She pulls; he feels the wrench of passing altogether out of the World-That-Is and into somewhere else. Somewhere solid, where he is also solid, and his skill at Journeying will not help. But he has other skills, and more to gain.
A windswept moor, and standing stone. Far away, on a green hill, the house with the seven doors. The House of Battle. Scáthach’s house.
His house, for the time.
He kneels and gives his oath.
Battle Blessed