The Skull of the World.

Book Five of the Witches of Eileanan.

Kate Forsyth.

For Dani, Mich.e.l.le and Sarah, soul sisters and kindred spirits, in memory of the many wondrous adventures we've shared growing up together

Natural magic . . . is nothing more than the deepest knowledge of the secrets of nature.

Del Rio, Disquisitiones Magicae, 1606 Nature performs in a natural way the things that the magician achieves by his art.

Pico della Mirandola, Conclusiones philosophicae, cabbalisticae et theologicae, 1486

A New Thread Is Strung

The Black Pearl

Nila dived deep into the ocean, his eyes wide open, his arms curved before him. The aquamarine water fell into violet shadows and the young Fairge prince plunged into the dusky depths, his powerful tail twisting behind him. His nostrils were clamped shut, the gills on either side of his neck flowing open and shut as he breathed. Little phosph.o.r.escent fish darted all around him, and he saw the serrated shadow of a giant swordtail pa.s.s below him. He glanced up and saw the surface of the water, gleaming and shifting more than a hundred feet above him. The dark shapes of fish soared overhead like birds in the wind, and all about him the flowers of the sea bloomed in the delicate shades of rose and cinnamon and blue.Nila hung in the water, his hands moving deftly among the cl.u.s.ters of ugly gray sh.e.l.ls that clung beneath the rock shelves. He took a sharp-edged coral knife from between his teeth and used it to pry open the sh.e.l.ls, swallowing whole the live tissue within. Every now and again he grinned as he tucked a little shining orb inside a bag woven of seaweed that hung around his naked waist.

Something made him turn. A tiger shark swam toward him, the jagged rows of teeth bared. The tiny eyes were fixed with terrible intent upon the Fairge.

Nila turned and dived, his tail undulating gracefully behind him as he plunged through a curtain of seaweed and sea anemones into a deep grotto. The tiger shark had to turn abruptly, almost ramming its nose into the reef. Nila watched its shadow pa.s.s back and forth, back and forth, until at last it slunk away and there was only the blue glimmer of water.

The Fairge prince waited, his heart hammering uncomfortably. He had been too long underwater, but he dared not swim to the surface to breathe until he was sure the tiger shark had gone. He looked about the grotto, searching for another way out, and saw a great corrugated sh.e.l.l, all encrusted with weed and barnacles. He pried it open with his coral knife and found nestled within a large opaque sphere. He grasped it and then, with a twist of his silvery tail, swam for the surface.

The light filtered down all about him. He glanced at the pearl in his hand and suddenly stilled, even though his lungs were burning for air. Unlike the other pearls he had found, this one was a dark, smoky color, unusually large and perfectly formed. He rolled it in his fingers, frowning, then tucked it carefully inside the pouch.

Through the light-dappled water he saw the wavering face of a girl, her brown hair hanging down as she peered anxiously into the sea. He beat his tail more vigorously, leaping up out of the water to seize her in his arms and drag her in. Her anxiety melted into relieved laughter, and he kissed her smiling mouth, sliding his hands down her brown naked flesh, transforming into his land-shape so he could tangle his legs with hers.

She clung to,him, saying rather tremulously, "You were so long, Nila. What were you doing? I was worried ..."

He mocked her gently. "Afraid I had drowned? Fand! You know I am the best deep-diver in my family.

As if I could have drowned in these shallow waters!"

"Even those of the Fairgean royal family can drown," she replied. "You could have hit your head, or been taken by a giant octopus. I wish you would not swim where you know I cannot follow."

Fand was a slim girl with the full-lipped mouth and brightly colored eyes of a human, though her fingers and toes were as webbed as any young Fairgean. Her straggles of wet hair hung down to her knees, and she wore only a belt of seaweed and sh.e.l.ls hung with a little curved dagger. The daughter of a Fairgean warrior and a human concubine, she was a slave to the royal family and had accompanied the Fairgean queens down to the southern waters to a.s.sist in the birthing. Nila was there with the other young warriors to protect the women and newborn babies until they were strong enough to brave the long journey back to the icy seas of the north.

Nila kissed away her fears, turning so they could drift together into the sh.o.r.e, the gentle waves lapping against their bodies, the sand warm beneath them. The little cove was protected from spying eyes by high bluffs of rock, so for once they felt free to take their time exploring each other's bodies, whispering and smiling, teasing and pleasuring. Usually they had only a hurried coupling among the sharp rocks of the sh.o.r.e or in the cold, ghost-haunted ruin of the witches' tower where no one else dared go. This past month had been blissful for both of them.Free for once of the idle cruelty of his many brothers, Nila had enjoyed sporting in the mild waters, diving for pearls and making love to Fand in the soft sand without fear of being discovered. Not that his father and brothers would disapprove of his relationship with the young half-human slave. That, after all, was what females were for. It had just never occurred to any of his brothers to look twice at Fand, who was considered rather useless, since she had not inherited the ability to transform into the Fairgean sea-shape.

Her delicately formed features and sea-green eyes were too human to be beautiful, and there were plenty of full-blooded Fairgean women to keep his brothers occupied.

If just one of his brothers had suspected Nila was emotionally drawn to the halfbreed, however, they would have taken pleasure in taking her from him. They would have used her for their s.a.d.i.s.tic games, and then killed her when they had grown tired of the amus.e.m.e.nt of Nila's pain. The Fairgean princes had been raised to be brutal and ambitious, and there was much hatred and rivalry between them. It did not matter that Nila was the youngest of seventeen sons and a long way away from inheriting the black pearl crown. Life was hard for the Fairgean. Strength and ruthlessness were admired, and mercy mocked as weak.

Nila's mother had been a gentle woman, though, and she had tried to shield her son from the vicious contests of his older brothers. Since she was the least of all the queens and the Fairgean king had so many other sons to distract his attention, she had to some extent succeeded. Nila had grown up knowing something of love and tenderness, and when his father the King had gambled his mother away with the toss of a sea-stirk knuckle, Nila had been filled with inarticulate rage and anguish. Away from the protection of the Fairgean king's cave and worn out by the brutality of her new husband, his fragile mother had soon died, leaving Nila with a profound hatred of his father and his kind.

He had known Fand all his life, for she had served in the King's court since she was a child. This was probably how she had managed to survive without the ability to transform, for the King and his immense retinue lived within the shelter of the caves, where hot water bubbled and hissed even when icebergs drifted in the ocean outside. Although she still had to fight for sc.r.a.ps of food, Fand had a stone ledge on which to lie and so did not have to struggle to stay afloat in the rough, icy waters or battle for a place on the rafts. Nila's mother had been kind to her and given her the occasional fragment of fish to eat and rags of fur in which to wrap herself, and so Fand had not died of starvation or exposure as so many of her kind did.

They had grown up together, King's son and slave, and the callous gambling away of the gentle woman they both loved had united them even closer. Nila did not share his brothers' contempt for halfbreeds. He remembered well his half-sister Maya who had been kind to him before she had been taken away by the Priestess of Jor. He loved Fand more than anything else in his cold, barren life. She returned his pa.s.sion with equal ardor, and so they kept their love secret with obsessive care.

Nila stirred and stretched, filled with contentment. He rolled over so he could look down at Fand, whose eyes were closed, a half-smile on her full-lipped mouth. "I have something for you," he whispered. As he drew the black pearl out of his pouch, she opened her eyes, the curve of her lips deepening. The smile faltered when she saw what he was holding. She knew as well as Nila that black pearls were worn only by royalty.

"We can hide somewhere along the sh.o.r.e until the pod returns north," he said urgently. "They will think we have drowned . . ."

She rolled over and hid her face in her arms. "In these mild waters? You said yourself it would be hard to drown here."

"There are always dangers, as you yourself said. We could make them think we had been eaten bycarnivorous coral . . ."

"You know your father would never be satisfied unless he saw your body himself," Fand replied wearily.

"You know he needs as many fully trained warriors as possible for the a.s.sault against the tailless humans.

Besides, you are still his son. He would tell the priestesses to find us and they would look through their far-seeing mirrors and then indeed all would be lost. You would only be beaten and humiliated. They would kill me."

Nila's hand dropped, defeated. "I wish . . ." he began but Fand sat up, shaking back her long hair. "It is no use, Nila," she said flatly. "You are a royal prince and I am nothing. Soon the King will remember my existence and think to give me away to one of his cronies who does not care that I am a mere halfbreed.

He may even take me for himself. He has always had a taste for human flesh, you know that, and the younger the better. And when that happens, I shall no longer kick and kick to keep my head above water but just let myself drift down into Jor's cold embrace. And you will fight at your father's side and be given other women as prizes and in time you will forget your old playmate and lover. Do you think I do not know that is how it must be?"

Nila protested, catching her hands and trying to kiss her, but Fand held him off, her eyes wet with defiant tears. "I do not want you to pretend we can ' ever be together forever and happy," she said. "I want what is between us to be always true and real. No pretense. No lies. Did we not promise each other that, right at the very beginning?"

"But I want you forever and happy," Nila said. "I'm only the seventeenth son, my father does not care-"

"Do not be so naive," she interrupted coldly, scrambling to her feet and brushing the sand from her arms.

"He may not care for you but he is proud of his virility and of his sons' strength and skill. And remember what happened to your grandfather. Your father was the thirteenth son and yet he inherited after all your uncles were killed in the last disastrous attack on the land-hugging humans. Whole families were wiped out then and the Fairgean spent decades fighting to survive at all. His memories of that are as fresh as if the battle happened yesterday."

Nila was silent. He knew what Fand said was true. His fingers closed upon the black pearl and he said pa.s.sionately, "I wish they all would die! Then I would be king and I could make you my queen and then we could be together forever and happy. I hate my father!"

"Be careful what you say," Fand said quietly. "You know the priestesses watch. Often I feel their eyes upon me. Come, we have been here too long. I must get back to the pod."

Kneeling by her side, he seized her hand, pressing the black pearl into her palm. "Can you not wear it secretly and know that I wish things could be different?"

Fand smiled down at him wistfully and swept her other hand along her naked body. "How could I hide it?

What would I say when they found it? It is death to me to wear the black pearl, you know that." She lifted it so she could examine it, a perfect sphere the size of a storm petrel's egg and glimmering with smoky color. It was as large as the black pearl the King wore in his crown.

"It is beautiful. I wish that I could wear it proudly, saying to the world that I was your woman. But I cannot." She pressed it back into his palm, smoothing back the silky black hair that hung down his shoulders.

"Then I shall wear it!" Nila said. "So you shall know I am true."

"They will try and take it from you," Fand said in alarm. "It is provocative, wearing a black pearl like that!They will think you have ambitions for the throne. Remember how your brother Haji was murdered. If they do not challenge you in court, they will give you loreli fish to eat and you will die in agony like Haji did. Or you will find sea-urchins in your bed like they say your father's elder brother did, or a sand scorpion. Far better that you should offer the pearl to your father as a gift, though even that will be seen as seeking favor. You should throw the pearl back into the sea, give it as an offering to Jor that we may have fair weather for the swim back to the winter seas." She gave a little shudder, and Nila knew she dreaded that long, exhausting swim when everyone else plunged and dived through the waves as powerfully as the sea-stirks.

The prince looked down at the black pearl, weighing it in his hand. For a moment he was tempted to do as she said and throw it back into the sleepy blue sea, but then he shook his head. "No," he said with determination. "Jor himself led me to the pearl. I would never have found it had a tiger shark not tried to have me for its supper. I was driven into that grotto, I was meant to find the black pearl. If you will not wear it as a symbol of our love, I shall-and you shall know you are the queen of my heart."

She disregarded his sweeping declaration, clinging to his arm and begging him not to be a fool. All her arguments only made him more determined. "I shall have a care, Fand, I swear to you. Besides, can you not see into their hearts? You will warn me if they have evil designs."

Fand looked about her swiftly, and made a shushing noise. "Do you want the Priestesses of Jor to know what I can do?" she hissed. "Nila, the summer seas have gone to your head like sea-squill wine! I would rather be a slave than an acolyte of the priestesses. You must be more careful!"

Nila's expression sobered and he caught her to him. "I'm sorry," he whispered into her messy brown hair.

"You are right. I should be more careful. Come, let us get back to the pod before they start looking for us and notice we are gone together."

Fand straightened her belt of seaweed and sh.e.l.ls, and combed back her hair with her fingers. "I shall walk back and you can swim in from the other direction," she said. "Nila, please, will you not give the sea back the pearl? I can see only troubled waters ahead for us."

His lipless mouth set in a straight, hard line and he shook his head determinedly. "No, Jor himself led me to the pearl. I shall not scorn his gift."

"Nila, you know I sometimes have the curse of future-seeing. I say again I see only storms and tidal waves ahead" for us."

He laughed and swept his webbed hand out toward the sea, lying blue and still under a cloudless sun.

"Well, I see only calm waters, my love. You know I was born with the caul over my head and they say that means I can never drown. Bring on the storms, I say!"

The Spinning Wheel Turns

The First Blow

On the Spine of the World winter comes snapping and snarling like a wolf. The wind shrieks white for days, until snow shrouds the landscape and icicles hang like fangs from the mouth of the cave. In winter the world is reduced to absolutes of black or white, death or life, bitter cold or burning hot.

Inside the cave the bonfire leaped high, casting grotesque shadows over the intent faces and still bodies of the Khan'cohbans. They sat cross-legged in a wide circle, watching two figures who circled each other warily. There was no sound save the wail of the storm and the soft slap of the combatants' feet on the stone.

Isabeau crouched low, her eyes flickering over the face and stance of the warrior opposite her. He was much taller than she was, with two heavy curling horns on either side of his ma.s.sive brow. He carried a long wooden stave, its metal ends "flashing red as they spun in the firelight.

Faster than thought, the staff drove for Isabeau's shoulder but she threw herself to the right in a low dive, rolled and was on her feet again, just as the wooden stave cracked against the rock mere inches from where she had landed. Her staff was already swinging upward in response. The warrior swayed away as fluidly as water. Isabeau almost overbalanced as the wood connected with nothing but air. As she recovered he spun on the ball of one foot and struck her hard with the other, just below the junction of her ribs. She fell heavily, the breath knocked out of her. More painful than the impact was the disappointment. Only a few seconds into the contest and already she had received her first blow. Two more and the compet.i.tion would end, with Isabeau humiliated before her pride.

She rolled and sprang to her feet, her staff flying up. The warrior's staff hammered into it, almost knocking her down again. Her fingers stung, but she only gripped her staff tighter, turning and thrusting it up to try and slide under his guard. It was like ramming the wind. He simply twisted away, turning a cartwheel that took him well out of her reach.

He was striking at her again before she had a chance to recover her breath, swift as a snake. She swayed first one way, then another, evading his blows, every sense in her body straining to antic.i.p.ate his next move. Her teacher had told her, "Become one with your enemy. When your heart beats with his and your minds move together, only then can you know what his next move will be."

Isabeau breathed deeply in through her nose and out through her mouth, endeavoring to control her breath and with it that intangible essence the Khan'cohbans called coh. Like many words in the Khan'cohban language, coh had many subtleties of meaning. G.o.d, lifedeath energy, spirit. What the witches called the One Power, the source of all life, all magic. Ea.

She felt her heart and her veins fill with power as her lungs filled with air. For minutes they fought as if they were partners in an elaborate dance, wooden staves whistling as they spun through the air.

Isa-beau's Scarred Warrior teacher smiled in satisfaction. Then Isabeau was knocked flying again, and his mouth compressed grimly.

But then Isabeau brought her staff around in a low sweeping movement that knocked the Scarred Warrior's feet from under him. Her teacher punched his left hand into his right palm, the gesture of victory.

Isabeau was on her feet in an instant, triumph filling her. The Scarred Warrior attacked again, more fiercely than ever. Isabeau had to twist and sway and feint more nimbly than ever, panting harshly as she tried to control her breath. With an unexpected move, the Scarred Warrior spun and kicked high, and Isabeau fell as if she had been knocked down with a hammer.For a moment all her senses reeled. She got to her feet slowly, disappointment clear on her face. That was the third blow. The contest was over.

Isabeau bowed to her opponent, lifting one hand to cover her eyes, the other hand bent outward in supplication. That was the proper way to greet a Scarred Warrior who had proved his mastery over her.

Her opponent brought two fingers sweeping to his brow, then to his heart, then out to the snowy darkness. Then they both turned, heads lowered, and knelt before the old woman in the snow-lion's cloak. There was a long silence.

"This is the fourth long darkness that Khan has lived with us on the Spine of the World and so in our eyes she is like a child of only four, as blind and mute as a newborn kitten," the Firemaker said, her long-fingered hands sweeping through the air. Beneath the snarling muzzle of the snow-lion cloak, her old face was set in deep lines of pride and determination, the eyes between their hooded lids as blue as Isabeau's own. Isabeau bent her head lower, unable to help feeling a little p.r.i.c.k of humiliation at her great-grandmother's words.

"She has lived through twenty-one winters, however, and so in truth is no child. She has been silent and learned as no child of four can. She has pleased her teachers and now, in the contest of the wooden stave, has struck a blow against one vastly her superior. In the eyes of the Firemaker and the Scarred Warriors, this is proof. Khan is ready to seek out her name and her totem."

Despite herself, Isabeau's eyes flew -up in excitement. Her great-grandmother made the gesture of a.s.sent, and a little shift and murmur ran over the crowd. Isabeau lowered her face again, though her fingers gripped her stave tighter than ever. The naming-quest was one of the most significant events in the life of the Khan'cohbans. Isabeau would never be truly accepted as one of their own until she had undertaken the dark and dangerous journey to the Skull of the World, and returned safely with the knowledge of the White G.o.ds' intentions for her.

Although Isabeau knew her destiny lay outside the Spine of the World, she still longed to undertake her quest and attain real status within the pride. The storytellers often told the tale of how her famous father Khan'gharad, Dragon-Lord, had won his name. Until Isabeau had survived the journey to the Skull of the World too, she would never truly understand her father and her great-grandmother, or her twin sister, Iseult, whose characters and philosophy had been so molded by the Khan'cohban way of life.

The queen-dragon had once told her that she would never find her true calling until Isabeau had embraced both her human and fairy heritages. Thee must know thyself before thee can know the universe, the queen-dragon had said. Thee must always be searching and asking and answering, thee must listen to the heart of the world, thee must listen to thine own heart. Thee must search out thy ancestors and listen to what they may teach thee, thee must know thy history before thee can know of the future.

So Isabeau had sworn to do as the queen-dragon had commanded, thus accepting a geas that had taken her far away from those that she loved best in the world. She had traveled up to the Spine of the World, spending six months of the year with her newly discovered parents at the Towers of Roses and Thorns, and six months with the Pride of the Fire Dragon in their snowy mountain home. In the summer she studied the lore of the witches in the great library at the Towers, and in winter she studied the art of the Scarred Warrior and the wisdom of the Soul-Sage with her Khan'cohban teachers. Although she was often lonely and unhappy, Isabeau had worked hard, eager to grasp the secrets of both cultures and philosophies, and now she had her reward in the words of the Firemaker.

Before Isabeau had a chance to feel more than a flush of pride and self-satisfaction, her Scarred Warrior teacher came to her and dissected her performance critically. She had been too quick to attack, he said."The art of the Scarred Warrior is not to fight, but to be still. Not to act, but to react. When the wind blows, the tree bends. When an enemy strikes, the warrior responds. The warrior is not the wind but the tree. You try too hard to be the wind."

She bowed her head, accepting his words. She knew them to be true.

"You shall set out on your naming-quest in the morning," her teacher said. "You must reach the Skull of the World. Listen to the words of the White G.o.ds and return to the haven before the end of the long darkness, or die."

Isabeau nodded. Fear touched her like an icy finger, but she repressed it sternly. He said then, in an unusually gentle voice, "You fought well, Khan. I thank you, for now I am released from my geas and can once more hunt with my comrades. I had thought it would be many years before I could once again skim in the chase."

"I thank you," lsabeau replied. "It is not the art of the student but that of the teacher which struck that blow today."

Although his fierce dark face did not relax, she knew she had pleased him. He said gruffly, "Make your preparations. I shall see you in the morning," then dismissed her with a gesture.

Isabeau went then to the fire of the Soul-Sage. The shaman of the pride was sitting in meditation, her legs crossed, her eyes closed. In one hand she held a stone of iridescent blue, flecked with gold. A falcon's talon hung on her breast from a long leather cord around her neck. It rose and fell gently with her breathing.

Isabeau sat opposite her, closing her own eyes. She felt the soft brush of feathers on her hand as the little elf-owl Buba crept out of the blankets and into her palm. She cupped her fingers around the fluffy white bird, not much bigger than a sparrow, and let herself sink into nothingness. Against her sensitive palm she felt the flutter of the owl's heart and it was like a drumbeat leading her down into a profound meditation.

For a long time she floated in this exquisite nonbeing, her heart and the owl's heart and the pulse of the universe in perfect rhythm.

So you go in search of your name and your totem, the Soul-Sage said without words.

Isabeau felt another little stir of fear and excitement. Yes, she responded. The Firemaker thinks I am ready.

1 shall cast the bones for you, the shaman said after a long silence.

Thank you, teacher, Isabeau responded, her excitement quickening. She opened her eyes. Across the dancing flames the Khan'cohban's face was inscrutable. She pa.s.sed the skystone in her hand through the smoke and dropped it back into the little pouch of skin she carried always at her waist. Taking a smoldering stick from the fire, she drew a large circle and quartered it with two swift motions. Then she poured the contents of the pouch out into her hand and brooded over them. Suddenly she threw the bones and stones into the circle without opening her eyes.

Isabeau gazed anxiously at the pattern the thirteen bones had made in the circle. She then looked at the Soul-Sage, who was regarding the pattern intently. After a while the shaman pointed one long, four-jointed finger at the bird's claw.