The older girl chuckled. "All right. Let's go walking and I'll show you where the herbs grow hereabout."

"And teach me more the silent history?"

Taminy smiled all the way to her eyes. "And teach you the silent history."

Gwynet, for her years, was quite knowledgeable about herbs. Taminy was able to show her a number of sun-loving plants the dank reaches of Blaec-del had not favored, but she was pleasantly surprised with what the child had learned by eavesdropping and experimentation.

"Well, everyone knows 'bout willow, of course. But I got to think that if willow was good for the head-ague and sassafras for t'other agues and the blood, well then, why not try a bit of both? So the next time I had a bit of pain, I tried tha' and it seemed to work wonderful well. I even tried a cup on Mam Airdsgainne's poor old joints. Worked so well, she forgot to gnaw on Ruhf's customers when they come in."

Taminy smiled fondly at the golden child, watching her dabble pale toes in one of the rare pools in the Bebhinn's swift-flowing stream. Her hair was bright as a newly minted ambre, but not nearly as bright as the mind it crowned.

"This is a fey place, in't it?" she asked.

Taminy made herself more comfortable on her rock beside a gentle waterfall. "What makes you say that?"

"Well ..." Gwynet swiveled her head all about to take in the dappled cup of greenery that surrounded her. "... part of it's the herbals. Look how many of the best ones grow right here-fennel and sassafras and willow and even a little marshie-mallow down there in tha' wee still spot. It's like ... like a Wicke or an Osraed might've planted it all so they'd only have to come here and not wander all o'er the woods."

"Like we did?"

"Well, aye." Gwynet shot Taminy a roguish glance from beneath her golden curtain of hair. "It did come to me tha' we might've come just here."

"Oh, but we had to come here right at the beginning of evening to watch the colors change. You see, it is a fey place, as you say."

"I'm right?" squeaked Gwynet. "Are there paeries and-and aelven folk?"

Taminy laughed. Bless you, Gwynet. Bless you for seeing magic in all things. "The only aelven folk here are you and me. But once, not that long ago, a little girl named Meredydd came here and met the Gwenwyvar."

Gwynet jumped up, staring back into the pool with wide eyes. Only the rippling wake of her hastily withdrawn toes marked the crystalline surface.

"The Gwenwyvar lives here? But I thought she were in tha' pool above Blaec-del-the one Meredydd dunked me in to heal me."

"The Gwenwyvar lives ..." How to describe it to the child? "The Gwenwyvar lives wherever she needs to live. She abides in the Water of Life and appears in the aislinn mists to whatever soul the Meri wills."

Gwynet peered hard at the water. Already the shadows were moving-the light, changing-and the aquas, greens and browns of the pool's depths were growing cooler, deeper.

"Will I see her again?" she asked, voice wistful. "I only did see her the once, you know, and just for a moment, and I felt so strange, like waking from a dream-well, I thought I must've dreamed it, but Skeet and Osraed Bevol both say no."

"You may see her again," Taminy told her. "She's part of every Pilgrim's journey."

"They all see her?"

Taminy smiled wryly. "I didn't say all see her. I said she's a part of every Pilgrimage."

Gwynet shook her head, settling back on the soft summer grass.

"Not every Prentice at Halig-liath has ... eyes that will see aislinn visions or Eibhilin beings. Some boys are rushed into the Academy because their parents or their Cirkemaster or the Chief of their House hopes they might have those Eyes ... or believes they ought to have them."

Gwynet squinted at the water-sparkles rippling away from her in the breeze. "Like Aelder Prentice Brys, you mean? He says he saw nothing on his Pilgrimage but some grimy ol' Wicke in a stick shack who gabbled nonsense at him and give him a lump of clay. 'What'm I to do with this,' he says, and she says, 'Boy, it's what you make of it.'" Gwynet nodded emphatically. "It's what you make of it. Sounded wise to me. He thought it was fool-like."

"And what did he make of it? Did he say?"

"Oh, he got a hole in the bottom of his shoe, he says an' used it to patch tha'. It come out when he crossed the Bebhinn."

Taminy laughed. A clever young man, Aelder Prentice Brys. Clever, but not wise. She sighed soul-deep, then. Year after year they came to the Sea, bright-eyed and dreaming. And she would peek into their dreams and hear and see and touch the aislinn spirits they entertained there. Such spirits: Glory and Power and Wealth; Respect and Prestige; Beauty and Knowledge. And once in a long, long while, Love, Passion, Wisdom, a real and urgent Desire for Her.

Taminy shook herself. No, nor for her-for the Meri, for the Animator.

How few and far between those had been in the last hundred years, those earnest, hungering, thirsting souls; souls to whom a full cup was not a chalice overflowing with jewels, but enough Wisdom to be held in the palm of one hand. Jewels. Jewels like Gwynet or Bevol or-bless them-Calach and Tynedale, were rare. So rare.

"He helps out in Osraed Tynedale's class sometimes," Gwynet was saying. "Aelder Brys, I mean. An' he knows a powerful lot about-oh, everything. I think he could mouth the herbals in order and not miss a one, but ... he doesn't seem to care. And Tam-tun, he's another. He says he'd be in Seamaster's school in Eada if he had to pick. But for his mam and da, you know."

Taminy nodded. "I know. It's painful to have to follow someone else's path in life, no matter what the circumstances. What about you, Gwynet? Do you care to be learning the Art?"

Gwynet gazed up at her with the full force of a child's amazement in her eyes. "Oh, Taminy-mistress! I do care to learn. And I can't image at all how someone could not." She puzzled for a moment then said, very gravely, "It was when Osraed Wyth come home. Prentice Aelbort took me to watch. And in he come with his face all light. And I thought, "Gwynet, tha's for you. You must look for tha' light and you must find it.'" Again that emphatic nod, as if she was making a pact with herself.

Taminy gazed at the child wonderingly, running aislinn fingers through the warm, silken flow of her thoughts-pure, they were, and unvarnished and untrained. And I am feeling them. And that is the most wonderful thing of all.

"I only hope," Gwynet went on, "tha' my eyes can see the aislinn things."

Taminy, caught off guard, laughed aloud. "How much proof of your own Gift do you need, Gwynet-a-Gled? You drew fire through a crystal with no tutoring. You found your own way to the use of the herbs and medicaments. And you knew by instinct what I had forgotten."

She leaned out from her rock and extended one hand into the gentle tumble of water cascading over its stony ledge. It came back cupped around a tiny pool of water that sparkled in the slanting sunlight like a palmful of jewels. Droplets fell, crystal-bright, from between her curving fingers.

"I learned it from the Gwenwyvar, who bid me take a handful of water from her pool and said that if a crystal could not be had, pure water might be used to focus the Weave."

"Water!" marveled Gwynet, scooping of a handful of her own. "Then when I was praying peace to my dewdrops ..."

"You were weaving inyx, even then."

Taminy gazed across the glittering liquid in her hand and tried to conjure the sensation, the aura, of the Weave. She watched the tiny points of light dance, out of focus, and emptied her mind of anything else. In a heartbeat she was wrapped in a sparkling veil, shrouded in a teeming world of radiance. The Sun was warmer here and brighter and the gurgle of water became song. Her heart beat faster, buoyed by the ease with which she had come here. Perhaps the sundered pool could someday reunite with the Sea.

"What do they see?" Gwynet's voice floated, disembodied, into Taminy's aislinn state. "People like Prentice Brys, I mean. When the Gwenwyvar comes up from her pool, what do they see?"

"Perhaps they see nothing," said Taminy. "Or perhaps they see only a wisp of cloud or a clot of steam. And when she speaks ..." She hesitated, feeling something kiss the fringes of her perception: Curiosity. Suspicion. "... perhaps they hear only the wind. The Meri gives a call, Gwynet. As you called the fire to your crystal, the Meri breathes a call into the world. It is a whisper-a sweet, still song like a breeze from the Sea. It summons those who hear it. It draws them to the Water of Life and bids them drink."

In a sudden flutter of wings, a blue-black bird dropped from the trees to settle on the rim of Taminy's cupped hand and sip the water there.

Indecision-she felt it, sharp and clear, on the periphery of her awareness. Indecision and thirst. "You see, even the creatures feel the summons and, as they have no taught fears, they come."

A second bird, this one a bright red, fluttered down to join the first. Wonder washed over the indecision.

Taminy withdrew from her gem-scattered veil and turned her head. Her eyes touched the fringe of brush and fern that ringed the glen Nairne-side and, from the place where her gaze lit, appeared a girl of perhaps seventeen or eighteen-timid, wary, but drawn.

The birds fled Taminy's fingertips and sailed skyward, and the girl's eyes followed them out of sight. Finally, she brought her gaze back to Taminy, seated on her rock.

"Are you ... are you a Wicke?" she asked and Taminy felt as much anticipation as fear in the words.

She smiled. "No. Are you?"

"But you ... you called me."

"Does that make me a Wicke? You came."

The gray eyes widened. "I'm the Cirkemaster's daughter, Iseabal."

"Yes, I know. I'm Taminy. I'm Gwynet's tutor." She gestured at the little girl, who was regarding Iseabal with open-mouthed astonishment.

The Cirkemaster's girl glanced back and forth between them, picking the leaves from her skirt. "I'm intruding," she said and licked her lips. "I beg pardon."

"Not at all. Please, don't go." Taminy slid down from her perch onto the grass behind Gwynet, then lowered herself to a mossy rock.

Across the pool, Iseabal vacillated. "May I ... may I stay and listen?"

Well, Iseabal, thought Taminy, perhaps you are to be dedicated to God, after all. Aloud she said, "Of course you may stay and listen. Come, Iseabal, and sit with us."

A shy smile preceded the girl from the hedge of brush and trees as she came lightly, with lifted skirts, across the bridge of stone at the head of the pool and over into Taminy's verdant classroom.

The Council session had been relatively sedate. Osraed Wyth had appeared long enough to announce his intention of compiling a Book of the Covenant, and confirmed that he would lead a class on the Covenant for first year Prentices. There was no mention of Meredydd's fate or her guilt or innocence as a Wicke. The subject of formally opening Halig-liath to girls had been broached and a reluctant discussion begun when a dispatch from Creiddlylad curtailed it.

Bevol was first to read it, his face opaquely denying the other Osraed access to his thoughts.

"Well," asked Ealad-hach. "What is it?"

"The General Assembly has been postponed again due to ongoing diplomatic overtures to the Deasach. Oh, and there is also the matter of a new wing the Cyne is adding to the Castle to house his collection of historical and artistic objects. He's overseeing that project personally, of course."

"This is the third time he has postponed the summer Assembly," observed Faer-wald. "If he waits much longer, we'll be into the harvest. Forecasts indicate a wet, cold autumn is to be expected-with early snows. That could make travel very difficult for the members."

"Well, travel we must," said Bevol, "unless we yield to the idea that this summer's agenda will have to be carried over to the next spring session."

"But we have a full agenda," objected Eadmund who, with Bevol, represented Halig-liath in the Assembly Hall. "After Tell Fest, Ren Catahn Hillwild presented us with an entire list of issues the Hillwild wish to address in the Hall. I assure you, they are not minor ones. Add to that what the villages bring and we could be in session from now until next Solstice. How does Cyne Colfre propose to put these issues off?"

"He does not propose to put them off," said Bevol, eyes still on the dispatch. "He includes a list of items he has gathered for the agenda and proposes to poll the Assembly by post to obtain permission for some of these matters-the 'more mundane among them,' as he puts it-to be fielded by the Privy Council."

"The Privy Council?" repeated Faer-wald. "But that's hardly appropriate. The Privy isn't an elected body; it's not representative. It's purpose is to advise the Cyne in personal diplomacy and the civic affairs of Creiddylad."

"Might we hear the Cyne's agenda?" asked Calach.

Bevol passed the dispatch back to the Chamber Prentice and bid him read it aloud. This he did, while the Osraed scribbled their notes and furrowed their brows and pulled at beards and lips.

When the reading was finished, Bevol shook his head. "He's asking for a blank slate. He's asking us to leave the selection of items for the Privy Council's agenda to their discretion."

"That is unacceptable," murmured Calach. "We must know what issues the Privy Council is to act upon. Most of those items are of regional or even national interest."

"Perhaps we need to remind the Cyne that the Covenant requires the Hall to sit with the Crown on all national issues." suggested Osraed Kynan.

"I say we must go further." said Tynedale. "We should indicate those issues which may not be decided by the Privy Council."

"That," said Bevol, "would be most of them."

Ealad-hach made a sound eloquent with frustration. "The Cyne is no ignoramus. He knows what things may be dealt with by his Privy Council and what things must go to the Hall."

"I am sure he knows," said Tynedale. "But if we do not seek to document the limits set on that institution, it may begin to exceed them and assume duties covenanted to the Hall."

"Covenanted. Yes, exactly," said Ealad-hach. "The Covenant stipulates that national and wide regional issues are to be decided by representative government. Colfre knows the Covenant. Surely we can trust him to abide by it."

Bevol lifted an eyebrow. "The way we can trust him not to interfere with the celebrations of the Cirke? He has participated, unbidden, in the Waningfeast rite. The Farewelling has not been missed by a Cyne since the last year of the reign of Siolta the Lawgiver, yet Colfre has seen fit to pass it two Seasons running. And the Grand Tell has been waived for the first time in history. Even in the Season of Siolta's murder, Cyneric Thearl and the Cwen Mother saw the newly Chosen at Mertuile despite their grief. Yet this year, with no more reason than a delicate diplomacy, our Osraed remain at home and the Osmaer sits in her place at Ochanshrine." Bevol's voice was gentle, empty of anger, but filled with a passion intended to persuade. "Brothers, if it were one thing or another-only the sipping of wine from the Star Chalice, only the raising of the Privy Council to handle matters reserved to the Hall-then I would not suggest that perhaps we must offer our Cyne closer guidance."

"He will not like it," said Ealad-hach.

"Hardly germane," countered Tynedale. "I hold with Bevol. I believe we must reply to this dispatch immediately and seek to define the limits of the Privy Council lest they seek to define their own ... and ours."

Bevol called for a vote in which only Ealad-hach gave a negative tell. It was decided, then. A response would be drawn and sent to Creiddylad with the new Osraed Lealbhallain on the mid-week packet.

CHAPTER 6.

The Spirit is found in the soul when sought with truth and self-sacrifice, as fire is found in wood, water in hidden springs, cream in milk, and oil in the lamp.

This Spirit is hidden in all things, as cream is hidden in milk. It is the source of self-knowledge and self-sacrifice.

This is the Spirit of all, which men call God.

- Osraed Haefer Hillwild

Commentary and Observations

His mother and sisters cried and covered him with hugs and kisses. He returned them with fervor, realizing again how complete a change he was making in his life. He'd felt it first while packing-that sense of something slipping away. When he had closed the door to his room that morning, he recognized the symbology of that ordinary act. It was not a happy recognition.

The new Osraed, secure in his faith and purpose, was eager and prepared; the boy, leaving the security of his home village for an unfamiliar city, was anxious and sorrowful. And now, standing on the docks with his family around him, Lealbhallain-mac-Mercer knew what it meant to be torn.