S. Stirling - The Sword of the Lady

The Three looked at him. The Maiden spoke gently: 'Because here is where Mind begins. There has to be a one first place… and this is that one. From it, all else springs.' 'Fermi,' the Wise One added.'Not to be too paradoxical.'

The Mother cast an exasperated sidelong glance.'Don't stray from the issue just because you're limited enough again that you can be distracted, Marian.'

To Rudi:'It nearly didn't happen here either. Mind is a weapon as well as a blessing, and its power is terrible even when newborn.' 'The Wanderer spoke of a child with a knife, or with fire.'

She nodded.'Terrible especially when newborn.'

They faded before his eyes. For a moment he saw the island, but with no cover save a few crumbled ruins of brick and stone, a bank of sand that glowed with heat. Hills of salt lay where the ocean should have been, save for pools in the distance that seethed in a bubbling roil that would end only when they were gone forever. The air lay thick, hazy, hot, and motionless. 'A thousand times ten thousand times that was the end,' the Maiden said.'Or others that were worse.' 'What could be worse than that''

The same landscape, but the very air was gone somehow; the sea had turned to ice, that sublimed outward into the outer dark beneath a sky that crawled with steely energies and strange, powerful engines. Then another vision, where water still curled on the sandy beach beneath a clear blue sky where birds flew, but their patterns were mathematics precise beyond his comprehension. A man walked between buildings that were perfect, and empty. He turned to look at Rudi for an instant, and where his eyes should have been were silvery tendrils that waved and sought. 'We could agree on stopping those histories,' the Mother said, as the campfire returned.'Edging them out, cycle upon cycle, until they vanish in implausibility.' 'Yet the Others would not let us do much more,' the Maiden said, sadness in her voice.'What we did… was something so terrible that only a greater terror made it possible to think it.'

The Mother nodded.'All we could do while Mind was divided… was take this island out of its year, so that it could then reach across the spiral and make the Change. The Change gives you time, no more, as the island was given time. Time to learn, so that when you regain the powers taken from you they'll be used properly. How the future of this turn on the Wheel is shaped… what we become… that is up to you. You youngsters. You are the seed of God. We can turn through time-we have traveled the endless coil-but we cannot do more than help, and open possibilities.'

The Maiden scowled.'The Others can. They take, because they care less for the damage they do, they who serve entropy. So we have made the Sword for you, to sever their power and show humankind the truth of things. That much we can do in this turn of the Wheel, without breaking reality asunder with our contentions. All the rest is your burden.'

Rudi took a deep breath.'I will bear it.'

There was a glint of tears in the Mother's eyes as she spoke with a trembling tenderness: 'Then bear what you must, O my child, my child.'

The Maiden's warmth, a scented flower meadow in spring: 'Do what you must, beloved.'

The Wise One's sternness, like rock and iron: ' Become what you must, to serve the world's need.'

And he was… elsewhere.

The others saw him as he stumbled down the stairs, bleeding from nose and ears and eyes and mouth. The sheathed form of the Sword lay across his palms. He met their eyes, and choked out: 'Remember. Remember, all of you. Most of all you, Matti, anamchara, beloved.'

Mathilda's voice was infinitely gentle:'Remember what, my darling'' 'That I was a man, before I was King. Remember for me, when I forget.'

His hand closed on the black double-lobed hilt, and the moonfire in the opal glowed. He drew the Sword, thrust it high.

And screamed as pain beyond all bearing ripped through him like white fire, turning his body to a thing of ash and smoke.

He screamed, and knew.

THE NEMED (SACRED WOOD) CASCADE FOOTHILLS NEAR DUN JUIMPER

MONTIVAL (FORMERLY WESTERN OREGON) IMBOLC,

FEBRUARY, CHANGE YEAR 24/2023 AD

BD breathed out, and in, and out, and in, her chest vibrating with the deep-toned sounds of the power raising, breath steaming in the chilly air. That was full of the mountainside forest scents, the musty smell of damp earth and the spice of fir resin, wet wool and the sputtering torches. Every one of her sixty-odd years ached in her joints, from today and from the hard travel south from the Kyklos villages. Mist drifted across the steep forests and the outthrust knee that held the nemed, merging into the clouds above.

This Imbolc ritual had given her no peace. As many as could make the journey to the nemed had come, and it was crowded, almost enough to jostle her; she was far from the only non-Mackenzie. The dim late-afternoon sunlight slanted through the circle of great bare-limbed oak trees in shafts, picking out people in hooded robes of many colors, though white and yellow dominated. It was Imbolc and the rising of the sun, the lengthening of the days that started the Wheel of the Year anew.

Beginnings, she thought. Start of term for Moon Schools, babes brought for wiccaning, apprenticeships started. But not this time.

On the roughly chiseled altar a large sheep's milk feta perched on top of the huge round of braided bread. This was the only time of the year when sheep's milk was used to make cheese, for the ewes went dry when the lambs were weaned. The crackle of the teine eigin, the need fire in the bowl-shaped stone hearth, gave a little warmth.

Sternly BD brought her mind back to the chant and the purpose of the power raising. It was possible to lose oneself in the chant, but once concentration was lost, so was power. And power was their need. The strength of the CUT to influence people who were in any way corrupt had left every realm in the countries of the Meeting Montival, she reminded herself

— in Montival exposed. Castles were falling through treachery. The CUT's ability to defile was like tentacles of poison stretching into minds, like threads of mold in spoiled bread.

Thank you, Athena, that some can detect their High Seekers. And fight them. Gray-eyed One, Maiden of the Spear, Defender of the Polis, aid!

In her mind's eye she could see the spiral, the cone of power rising. It wobbled, dangerously. She shook her head and took a deep breath, projecting the ahhhh in deeper tones than the people around her. The lower sound caught, spread, humming through bone and blood until her very teeth vibrated with it. Folk focused on the task at hand. She hadn't been the only one distracted by fear.

We are losing this war.

Juniper was in the center. She held her rowan staff overhead, turning deosil, the staff-the distaff-taking up the power, revolving widdershins above her head. BD focused on the silver raven, perched on the head of the staff; inwardly she felt a sudden spurt of homely laughter at what a real bird would do, held horizontal like that.

Flap his great wings and go: crawk! she thought.

In her mind's eye the power was stabilizing, the buildup almost complete. The air felt heavy with it, like the tension before a thunderstorm; she could smell the tingle in the air, feel it prickling the little hairs along her forearms and on her neck. From her usual position in the East, as Apollon's Pythia, she shot a glance across at Judy, who also was watching. Judy caught her glance and nodded. They signaled the other two guardians and raised their hands. Voices soared from the deep tone of the ahhhh, rising to a banshee shriek as the Mackenzies followed their lead.

Birds and small animals broke from cover, flew and ran, rustling the branches and tall grass around. Juniper twisted the staff in a complicated figure-eight pattern, raising it high and then bringing the heel to the ground with a thump that dug it in several inches through the yielding turf and soft earth beneath. She ran her hands up the staff gathering the melded power and flung them up, palms to the sky. 'Light!' she cried.'Gods most high! Lugh of the Sun! Brigid of the Healing Flame! Give us Light! Lugh, help us see! Lugh, help us see into hearts! Lugh, God of Light!'