‘Meghan told me ye were to be Tested this summer solstice, and needed me here to complete the circle,’ Feld said, a broad smile across his face, pushing his glasses back onto his nose with one ink-stained finger. ‘I was to bring Ishbel too, but nothing I could do or say would wake her, and so at last I thought to bring your great-grandmother. She is no’ o’ the Coven, but a witch nonetheless.’
‘No witch, but powerful at least,’ the Firemaker said haltingly in the common dialect. After a thousand years with the Prides, the descendants of Faodhagan had remembered little of his language, but both she and Iseult had learnt from Feld after he had gone to live in the Cursed Valley.
Asrohc announced with a flick of her writhing tail that she was going to hunt something down for her dinner. Iseult warned her with a laugh not to pursue anything in the Veiled Forest if she did not want Meghan and the Celestines after her. ‘Apparently the Awl has its own flocks in the fields outside Dunceleste. Why do ye no’ snack on them?’ she suggested. ‘Be careful, though. Ye are still the last o’ the she-dragons and do no’ want to be losing your life to a poisoned spear!’
Those evil red witches have broken the Pact of Aedan already, I see no reason why I should not, Asrohc yawned, showing a long supple tongue as blue as the sky above them. She flexed her translucent gold wings and launched easily into the air, her shadow darkening the hill before swinging away.
Iseult took Feld’s arm in one hand and the Firemaker’s in the other and led them down to the clearing, barely able to contain her joy at the sight of two of the people closest to her in the world. If the Firemaker had guarded and directed her winters, Feld had looked over her summers, the two of them teaching Iseult nearly everything she knew.
Iseult felt some trepidation at introducing Lachlan to her fierce, proud great-grandmother. Lachlan flushed and fidgeted under the Firemaker’s intense scrutiny, but surprised Iseult by not retreating into his usual surly silence. Instead, he set out to charm the old woman, greeting her with the ritual gesture and salutation of the Khan’cohbans, and treating her with respectful deference. After a while, the Firemaker’s stiff back and stern glance softened, and Iseult relaxed in relief.
There was much talk and laughter around the campfire that afternoon. Feld had been much alone over the past eight years, and he mellowed alarmingly under the influence of Meghan’s goldensloe wine. They were all shrieking at the sight of him trying to dance a jig when Iseult suddenly looked up and saw a pale, ghostly figure standing under the trees, watching them.
Her immediate reaction should have been a stab of fear. Instead Iseult felt immense happiness well up from deep inside her. She recognised that slender figure surrounded by a nimbus of floating silvery hair. She had spent eight years of her life tending that fragile form, combing out the great length of hair, coaxing her to swallow water or gruel. It was Ishbel the Winged standing there so gravely. Iseult’s mother.
She stood up, saying nothing, staring. Slowly the laughter and teasing died. ‘Ishbel!’ Meghan cried. ‘Ye’ve come!’
‘Aye, Meghan, I have come,’ Ishbel answered softly. ‘I heard your voice in my dreams again and knew ye wished me here. My dreams are often disturbed these days.’ She sighed and stepped over the tree roots. ‘Iseult …’ she said, holding out her hand to her daughter. With colour staining her cheeks so her scars stood out strongly, Iseult scrambled to her feet and crossed the clearing to her mother’s side. Ishbel’s fingers closed over hers. ‘Ye are with babe, my bairn.’
Iseult nodded. Ishbel sighed and tears filled her vivid blue eyes. ‘To think my baby girls are auld enough to bear their own babes. ’Tis strange …’
She sat with them by the fire, Iseult unable to take her eyes off her. Even though she had seen Ishbel the Winged every day during the spring and summer of the past eight years, she had not then known who the sleeping sorceress was.
Ishbel asked for news of Isabeau, and Meghan told her she was safe in Rhyssmadill with Latifa the Cook. Hesitantly, she asked about the Key, and a little of her stiffness left her once she heard Meghan had located all three portions of the Keybearer’s badge.
The shadows were growing longer and soon the Ordeal must begin, the night of solitude and fasting all acolytes must endure before being allowed to undertake the tests for entrance into the Coven. Ishbel turned to Iseult and asked shyly, ‘Will ye walk with me for a while, my daughter?’
Together they moved through lines of light and shadow, both shy and unsure what to say. Iseult said finally, ‘I often wondered if I was bid to tend ye because ye were my mother.’
‘I knew always that ye were there.’
‘Why did ye never wake for me?’
‘I wandered in a far place. I did no’ ken my way back. I was searching …’
‘For my father?’
‘Aye.’ Ishbel’s eyes filled with tears. ‘But I have no’ been able to find him.’
‘The queen-dragon told Meghan he was still alive.’
She shook her head. ‘If he were alive, he would have answered me,’ she said. ‘Nothing would keep him from answering me.’
Iseult bowed her head and clenched her fingers together. She knew dragons did not lie. Ishbel smiled at her sadly, and said, ‘Your father was a remarkable man, Iseult, I wish ye and Isabeau could have known him.’
Iseult nodded her head and told her mother some of the stories the Scarred Warriors of the Fire Dragon Pride told about him on winter nights about the meal-fire. ‘He was the youngest to ever receive all seven scars,’ she said. ‘And he talked with dragons and flew on their backs.’
Ishbel told her much about how their love had flowered, saying softly, ‘Did ye ken ye and Isabeau were conceived on Midsummer’s Eve? We thought it an omen o’ joy to come at the time. Strange how your path can be twisted so awry …’
Her blue eyes brimmed with tears again, but she shook away her melancholy and said affectionately, ‘Meghan tells me ye have a talent with air.’
‘Indeed, I seem to. I have always called what I owned to my hand. Then I can jump …’ She hesitated, then burst out, ‘Can ye teach me to fly?’
‘I do no’ ken. I have always been able to do it and have never been able to explain to anyone else how. Perhaps ye may have inherited the Talent, though if so, why do ye no’ fly now?’
‘Could ye try to explain to me? Or maybe just show me? Meghan says ye can learn many a Skill just by listening and watching.’
‘Indeed,’ Ishbel said, floating a few inches above the ground. She swung her legs forward and, slowly and with infinite grace, did a backward somersault. She smiled at Iseult’s fascinated and envious gaze and drifted up to sit on one of the massive tree branches far above her daughter’s head. She patted the branch affectionately. ‘Come sit with me, Iseult,’ she called.
Iseult bent her legs and did a high somersault that brought her within inches of grasping the branch Ishbel sat on.
‘Why do ye run and jump?’ Ishbel called. ‘Ye are using muscles and body energy, no’ the One Power. Ye are displacing the air, no’ the air displacing ye.’ She slid off the branch and floated down light as thistledown to stand beside her daughter. ‘Lie on the ground,’ she commanded. ‘Close your eyes. Listen to the breeze in the branches. Relax all your muscles, feel yourself light as a feather, light as thistle-down, light as a bellfruit seed, lighter …’
Her voice blurred into a warm, gentle flow, sweet as honey. After a while Iseult felt as if she were floating. Then Ishbel’s voice brought her back.
‘Did I float?’ Iseult asked eagerly. ‘I felt as though I did.’
Ishbel shook her head. ‘Ye almost did, my bairn. I felt a change in the air, an energising. I think perhaps ye could, if ye keep trying. Often we need to accept the possibility o’ being able to do something before we can. I feel ye have always concentrated on your body’s energies rather than on the world’s energies. I will know more after the Tests.’
The witches spent the night of their Ordeal on Tulachna Cele
ste. At the first lessening of darkness, Iseult rose stiffly from her crouch and began her exercises, warming her muscles and quickening her blood. Lachlan joined her silently, naked as she was, then Meghan came from the forest, her grey wiry hair loose around her body. The white streak in it flowed like a river, spreading out like a delta near her feet. Feld was close behind her, embarrassed after so many years spent fully clothed against the cold of the Cursed Valley. He fluffed out his long beard and gazed studiously at the ground.
Ishbel floated down from the sky, startling them, as they had expected her to come along the side of the hill. In the pale dawn, she seemed made of spun ice, so white were her lips and skin and so fair her hair. Only her eyes had any colour, and they were blue as ice shadows.
As the witches began to gather, so did the Celestines. Slowly they climbed the hill, their robes ghostly in the wan light. Many more arrived for the singing of the summerbourne than Iseult and Lachlan had ever seen before. How did they all get here? Iseult wondered to herself. She had noticed how many of them seemed to materialise between the stone doorway.
Cloudshadow cast her an enigmatic glance out of her crystal-clear eyes. They travelled the Old Ways, of course. The singing of the summerbourne has made the Old Ways less dangerous than they have been in years, and many of my brethren were eager to hear the winged boy sing and see how strongly the spring runs. Stories of the winged boy have spread far through the hills and forest …
As if knowing the Celestines had all come to hear him, Lachlan sang more beautifully than ever before. These last few months in the forest had seen him overcome his reluctance to use his blackbird voice, and he sang a lilting melody that wove all through the humming and trilling of the Celestines. From deep within the earth the spring of water bubbled again into life and cascaded down the hill. Where the enchanted water wound through the forest, fruits swelled and ripened, berries darkened, and nuts began to bulge in hard green knots within the leaves. Birds flocked down to bathe in the sparkling stream, while nixies cavorted in the shallows, their tinkling laughter sounding like far-off sleigh bells.
The Celestines were all excited by the strength and clarity of the summerbourne, and the air rang with their high-pitched trilling. They all wanted to touch Lachlan’s forehead but Cloudshadow ushered them away into the garden, knowing the winged prionnsa still had his Tests to take.
As soon as the faeries had gone, Meghan silently scratched the shape of a six-pointed star within a circle into the turf and bade them take their places. Feeling unaccountably nervous, Iseult obeyed. She knew she must succeed in the examination if she was to be permitted to join the Coven as an apprentice, and she was eager to learn all she could of the mysteries of witchcraft and witchcunning.
Before undertaking the apprenticeship examination, acolytes had to again prove themselves in the First Test of Power, which most would have first undertaken at the age of eight. Lachlan had passed his First Test with ease as a child, but since then had suffered enchantment and exile, and no longer possessed the easy confidence he had once enjoyed. Iseult had been given the First Test by Meghan soon after their meeting, in order to ascertain the limits of her power so, although she had been brought up far away from the witches’ sphere of influence, she knew what to expect.
Both she and Lachlan had been extensively coached all spring and summer for this second Test of Power, and they knew their responses by heart. Both were by nature competitive and warred with each other to do best. Iseult faltered at the Trials in the element of water, and Lachlan had difficulty with the Trials of Fire, but at last they finished, and were told to make their first witch ring, as was the custom. Meghan watched critically as they laboured to fashion the moonstones they had found into rings. Iseult set her jewel between two single-petalled roses and engraved the silver band with wavering lines of thorns. It was a device she knew well, her dragoneye ring featured the same pattern. Lachlan set his moonstone in a tangle of antlers, engraving the band with leaping stags.
It was the usual practice for apprentice witches to exchange their first-made ring with their mentor. Since Meghan was mentor for both Iseult and Lachlan, she had some difficulty in choosing who to swap rings with. Lachlan was her kin, and so had first claim on her. However, the moonstone ring she wore had been made for her by Isabeau only six months earlier, having been exchanged for the ring made by Meghan’s previous apprentice, Ishbel. Meghan was loath to give Isabeau’s ring away. Under normal circumstances she would have worn the ring for at least eight years, until her apprentice was admitted fully into the Coven and she was free to take on another acolyte as apprentice.
The presence of Ishbel and Feld complicated matters further. Ishbel was Iseult’s mother, but Feld had undertaken much of Iseult’s early training. In the end, Meghan decided to let Feld act as Iseult’s mentor, for the moonstone ring he wore had been made for him by Iseult’s father, Khan’gharad. It seemed fitting to the old sorceress that one of the twins should have their mother’s ring, the other their father’s. Khan’gharad had wrought his ring within the shape of a coiled dragon, a suitable design for a girl who had been raised by the great magical creatures.
This meant Lachlan would receive Ishbel’s ring, which Meghan had given to her long ago at her apprenticeship test—it had been wrought by Tabithas the Wolf-Runner and was surely filled with power. Since Meghan NicCuinn had been Ishbel’s teacher, why should Ishbel not stand as mentor for Lachlan, Meghan’s kin? ‘A potent ring indeed for the lad,’ she said and kissed Ishbel in thanks.
Once both acolytes were wearing their moonstone proudly on their right hands, the final challenge had to be met—the Trial of Spirit. In this examination Iseult had her revenge on Lachlan for his smugness over her failure at the trial of water. She was easily able to gain emanations from the bogrose brooch that Meghan passed her. She knew it had once belonged to a woman of hot temper and fierce affections, quick with a slap or a kiss.
After she said all this, in halting tones, she was surprised to see Feld wipe his eyes with his long beard and sigh, ‘Aye, that’s my mam, indeed. How clearly ye conjure her for me!’
Lachlan heard no voices from the past, nor saw visions of former owners, nor even gained an impression of emotion from the scarf he was given—all of which would have been acceptable responses. Despite all Meghan’s lessons, he could not overcome a reluctance to open his mind. He was both fascinated by and frightened of the One Power. Indeed he had seen the worst of it, as Meghan said—his brother ensorcelled and tricked, his brothers transformed and hunted down, himself trapped as half bird, half man. Meghan said he had showed exceptional promise when first Tested at eight. He had disappeared when only ten, and was transformed back to human shape when only fifteen. For eight years he had refused to let Meghan or Enit teach him, so embittered and full of rage that all he wanted to do was fight against the Banrìgh.
The First Trial of Spirit he had passed easily, for he had had to reach out and pluck a thought or image from someone else’s mind. The Second Trial of Spirit involved opening himself up to reading the energy vibrations of something else. He had been badly burned by such an experience in the past, having held Maya the Unknown’s boot in his hand one day as a child. In what everyone saw as a fury of childish spite and jealousy, he had accused his brother’s new wife of being one of the dreaded Fairgean, their country’s bitterest enemy. Jaspar had been furious. Only Maya’s intervention had saved Lachlan from a whipping. Lachlan would have preferred that to what followed—his beloved brother’s cold silences, the distance between them. Only Donncan and Feargus had believed him, and it was just a few weeks later that the Banrìgh had transformed them all into blackbirds and thrown them from her window.
Nothing Meghan said had helped him to overcome his block. The old sorceress had hoped the pressure of the Tests would drive him on, but he merely shook his head and passed back the scarf, his face shuttered.
Because he had not passed the Second Trial of the Spirit, Lachlan had to pass a Test of an e
lement to compensate, just as Isabeau had had to do earlier in the year. He chose water and easily showed he was able to handle and control the element by spinning it into a whirlpool in the bowl, then changing direction so the whirlpool spun in an anticlockwise direction.
Ishbel smiled at them both gently. ‘Ye must both now show us how ye use all o’ the elemental powers. It is time to make yourself your witch’s dagger, to be used in all sacred rites and rituals.’
‘Take the silver o’ the earth’s begetting,’ Feld intoned, ‘forge it with fire and air, and cool it with water. Fit it into a handle o’ sacred hazel that ye have smoothed with your own hands. Speak over it the words o’ the Creed and pour your own energies into it. Only then shall ye be admitted into the Coven as an apprentice. Only then shall ye have passed your Test.’
Iseult and Lachlan obeyed with alacrity, keen to get the Tests finished so they could rise and stretch. Iseult finished first, accustomed to working with weapons, and said Eà’s blessing over her narrow blade with a sigh of relief.
As they walked back down the hill, Ishbel frowned and said to Meghan in an undertone, ‘Is it no’ strange that Iseult is so strong in the spirit when Isabeau was so weak? I would have thought …’
Sharp-eared, Iseult looked up in interest and was surprised to see Meghan’s lean cheeks colour for the first time since she had met her. What was there in the comment to embarrass Meghan? And was it true there was something that Iseult was better at? She was used to finding herself compared to her twin and being found lacking. She observed Meghan’s flush with interest, but the witch shot her a silencing glance from her bright black eyes and said nothing.
The afternoon was spent in idleness, all the witches tired after the Ordeal and the Testing. Meghan insisted Lachlan and Iseult keep apart, so Cloudshadow took the winged prionnsa away into the gardens with the other Celestines. Later Iseult heard him singing for them, and she felt warm tenderness fill her. How much Lachlan had changed from the surly, suspicious hunchback she had first known! She wondered if she had changed as much.