Sevenwaters: Seer Of Sevenwaters Part 29

Lovely beyond compare.

"Oh-ree-oh," we sang, a ragged chorus indeed, but full of new heart.

Come here, come here, you creature fine

Oh come away with me

And I will give you hearth and home

And children one, two, three.

We started the refrain once more; even Donn had joined in now. As we sang on I became aware of another sound. Beneath the tune a low, humming accompaniment had begun, a sound surely conjured from sea and shadow or arising from the very depths of stone. I felt it vibrating up through me, filling my whole body. One by one we faltered and fell silent. Gull cleared his throat.

"She laughed to hear those words so bold," sang Felix. I could no longer see him, for the darkness was almost complete, but I imagined him sitting bolt upright on the creature's back, arm around Colm, eyes fixed ahead. Where others saw only shadow, he saw the s.h.i.+ning light of a mission achieved. If ever your hope falters, I thought, I will remind you of this moment.

She laughed to hear those words so bold

And shook her tresses free

She gazed upon the surging waves

And never a word spoke she.

Felix went on to relate how the sailor boy found a sealskin on the rocks nearby and, while the beautiful creature was distracted, hid it away under the decking of his boat. Then he took the woman home with him, not back to his mother and three sisters, who would likely have been less than impressed, but to a little hut by the sea. And there they lived for some while. He was happy enough, wed to the loveliest woman anyone in those parts had seen in a lifetime. But she pined. She wandered the sh.o.r.e; she tossed and turned by night; she was always searching for what had been stolen from her.

As the story unfolded verse by verse, there was a gradual lightening of the gloom around us. The water in the tunnel was higher. The creature made a slos.h.i.+ng sound as it waded on. My mind was on Gull's description of the monstrous current that had caught him and Felix, sweeping them far up the underground pa.s.sage. I put my cheek down against the sea beast's hide, closing my eyes. You are strong. You are brave. I know you will keep us safe. The deep humming continued; I took it as a good sign.

Felix's ballad drew toward its close. A wise woman from the local village helped the selkie to search for her skin, and they found it hidden under a pile of fis.h.i.+ng nets. As the pa.s.sage lightened around us, and the sound of lapping water could be heard ahead, Felix sang the final verse:She slipped into the silvery skin

A seal once more was she

She dived into the briny depths

Joyous and strong and free.

Before we could draw breath for one last refrain, the creature threw back its head and roared. This was no sound of challenge, no trumpeting of war. It was a shout of triumph. Before us opened the mouth of the tunnel, and beyond it was the water of the bay, and the night sky overhead, and the moon sailing high, full and cool and l.u.s.trous.

"Hold on tight!" ordered Cathal.

Water was surging in on either side of us now as the tunnel broadened. The tide was rising fast. An image came to me, of the creature leaping forward and diving into the depths, as the selkie in the ballad had done, and of the human pa.s.sengers being thrown hither and thither to be tumbled in the wild flow or pulverized on the rocks. But no. He would not do that. We were carrying Svala's skin.

Before, the creature had edged sideways so we could step onto his back. Now he made a bridge of his neck and head, laying his chin on a rock shelf to one side of the pa.s.sage entry. If we were bold and kept our balance, we could walk across to safety. From here, the moonlight would allow us to make a way around the bay to the place where Gareth and the others waited.

The sea beast's neck was broad enough to walk on, though doing so would require a degree of confidence-his scaly skin was wet and slippery. I judged the length to be about eight strides. The hardest part would be walking on his head; to reach the rocks we must pa.s.s between his great eyes and within easy snapping range of his formidable jaws. Cathal took charge.

"Sigurd, you're first. When you get to the brow, you'll wait and help the others over the last part. Gull, you're next-go right over, stand on the rocks and make sure everyone moves up and out of the way quickly. Oschu, you'll take Thorgrim on your back. Berchan and Felix, you're with Colm. Donn, you all right to go with the warriors?" Donn gave a stiff nod. I saw how much this would help him. Cathal had just recognized him publicly as fit, capable, ready to move on. "Sibeal," Cathal said, "you and I will carry the skin over. We're going last. All right?"

"All right," I said. Oh, he was wise. The precious skin had won us safe pa.s.sage from underground. The creature might be well disposed toward us at present because we had retrieved it. All the same, the sea beast was a wild thing, and the workings of its mind were largely beyond our understanding. Cathal knew, as I did, that while we carried Svala's salvation her beloved would not harm us.

Johnny would have been proud of this team. We crossed to safe ground in orderly procession. Even st.u.r.dy Oschu, with the sick man balanced across his shoulders, was as steady as if walking on an ordinary bridge of wood or stone. When everyone else was over, Cathal and I picked up the skin. He made me go first this time. I had thought I might cross as easily as the warriors had, but balancing was hard while carrying the heavy bundle. At one point I slipped, and in regaining my footing I made the mistake of glancing down. A rus.h.i.+ng tide under moonlight is a stunning sight: natural magic at its most powerful. I thought I would be quite content if I never saw one again.

"Three more steps, Sibeal," said Felix, and I looked up. He was waiting right by the creature's mouth, holding out a hand. I walked on, and Cathal came after me, and as I stepped onto solid rock, Felix took my end of the skin so I could clamber up higher, to a flat area where the others were standing in a silent group. Cathal was on the sea beast's muzzle; he was stepping over its mouth; he was on dry land. He gave his end of the skin to Berchan, who stood ready, and turned to face the creature. "We thank you," he said gravely. "We honor you. We go now to take this to her, and to make good the injustice that was done." And perhaps, after he had spoken the words in Irish, words the sea beast surely could not understand, he also sent the creature another kind of message. For Cathal's ancestry was, in part, that of the Sea People, folk not unlike Svala in their power and their wildness. In the moment when he stood facing the creature, still and silent, perhaps like spoke to like. Then Cathal turned to us. "Let's get these fellows to shelter," he said. "Everyone all right to walk?"

Save for Thorgrim, everyone was, and Oschu announced himself fit to carry the sick man all the way to the camp. I hoped there was a camp. I wondered if the others had found anything to burn on a fire, and whether they had managed to catch some fish. Suddenly, it seemed a very long time since I had eaten. As we set off over the rocks, I turned my head to see the creature swim powerfully out into deeper water and disappear below the surface.

No songs now. Even the strongest men must have been exhausted, and the way was difficult despite the moonlight. The distance was not so long, but the pace was slow. The patch of pebbly beach where we had first come ash.o.r.e seemed the only such place on this side of the bay. We clambered over heaps of stones that lay holus-bolus like the remnant of a giant's juggling game. We picked a route through narrow c.h.i.n.ks in what at first seemed impenetrable b.u.t.tresses of rock. I walked beside Felix. From time to time we brushed against each other, not quite by accident. Once or twice I looked up and found his eyes on me, and what was in them filled me with joy and sorrow both at once. Sometimes I watched him without his being aware of it. I found myself memorizing his features, the strong jaw, the straight nose, the chestnut hair, pleasing even in its current salt-crusted, unkempt state, the deep lake-blue eyes, like those of a sage in an old tale . . . And when he looked up and saw me watching, he smiled.

"We're nearly there, Sibeal," he said.

I nodded, but said nothing. Nearly there. Nearly at the end of the quest. Nearly at the point where, one way or the other, my heart would surely break.

*Felix*

Gareth and his companions have made a fire. We see it as we approach along the sh.o.r.e, a welcome sign of warmth and life. I do not realize until this moment how cold and wet I am, s.h.i.+vering and weary. Something beyond my own frail body has carried me to this point. Soon the mission will be done, and whatever it was-inspiration, compulsion-will be gone. For a brief time, I have been more than an ordinary man. Soon I will be myself again. But not my old self. This has changed me. I think it has changed us all.

When they see that Gull and I are with the others, the men who have stayed behind shout greetings and run to meet us, helping to bring the three survivors in to the fireside. They have found driftwood to burn. A good supply stands neatly stacked, ready for use. I smell fish cooking.

I am watching Gareth. He has not spoken; he did not run forward when he saw us, but stayed by the fire. Back on Inis Eala, he seemed a man of even temperament, more given to smiles than anger, a man whose pleasure was to make others happy. He seemed the kind of man anyone would want as a brother. On the journey he has been all leader, making a leader's hard, swift decisions. I see now that those decisions have cost him dear; they do not come naturally to such a man as this. When he sees us, his face shows naked relief. It is as if an unbearable burden has been lifted from his shoulders. As we reach the level place where they have made their fire, he moves forward to throw his arms around first Gull, then me. He greets the survivors; he acknowledges all the men who undertook this mission. He sends someone to find Gull's bag, the one with his healing supplies. The men who stayed behind start organizing dry clothing, places near the fire, food and drink for both survivors and rescuers.

Only then does Gareth come over to Sibeal, where she stands quiet and composed, watching it all. I saw how she was on the s.h.i.+p, when he ordered Svala bound; I saw her expression when Gareth ordered the men not to dive in after Gull. I wonder if Sibeal will refuse so much as to glance at him. But she takes his hands, looks up at him with her face all peace and speaks quiet words. I am too far away to hear what she says. Gareth nods and lifts a hand to his face. It is possible he is wiping away tears. Sibeal has been true to herself. If she has perhaps not offered forgiveness, she has at least given understanding. Can a man be warrior and peacemaker both at once? Not without great cost. Only in a person like Sibeal, whose weapons are courage and conviction, compa.s.sion and inspiration, can the two be truly combined.

At her mooring, Liadan rocks gently in moon-spangled water. Close to this little beach, there is no hint of the monstrous tidal rush that washed Gull and me up the rocky pa.s.sage earlier today. Today. This same day. So brief a time to contain so much.

I think that if I sit down I may never get up again. As soon as I stopped walking, pain flowered in every part of me. My joints ache. My chest aches. There is weariness in the very core of my body, and I long for sleep. But not yet. The mission is not complete.

They are both here, Knut and Svala. A rope still tethers his ankle, lest he run mad and injure himself or others, but they have moved him to a place nearer the fire's warmth. He has a blanket to sit on and a cloak around his shoulders. The moonlight touches his skin, white as pearl. His eyes are wide. He is staring at the skin, as Cathal and Gareth unroll it on the rocks at a safe distance from the fire. They handle it as carefully as they might a weaving in fine silk.

Svala has been perched on a vantage point high above the camp. Now, as the skin is revealed, she creeps down crabwise, wariness in her every move. It is as if she cannot quite believe what she sees. I believe it. I grew up on tales of sailors and mermaids, selkies and the misguided men who loved them. This tale, Svala's tale, is full of pain, sorrow and beauty. When it is finished I will make a new song.

"Felix!" Sibeal calls softly. "It's time."

I move to stand beside her. The skin lies before us, an oddly shaped mat of earth shades, slate and s.h.i.+ngle, sand and pebble, stone and shadow. The firelight touches it gently.

Svala reaches the flat ground and walks toward us, slowly, so slowly. I think even now she doubts the evidence of her own eyes. She comes to the far edge of the skin. A trembling courses through her body, but she stands as tall and proud as a queen. Her eyes are on the two of us, Sibeal and me.

"Felix," Sibeal murmurs, "you say what must be said. I think she will understand."

In my heart I hear the tolling of a great, solemn bell. I remember the sound of the creature singing, joining me in celebration of wrong put right. I think of Paul. "What was cruelly stolen from you, we now return to you," I tell Svala, making sure I meet her eyes and trying to form the right images in my mind, as I know Sibeal does. "It is yours; take it. We are sorry. We are more sorry than we can say. We will never trouble your sh.o.r.e again." I do not ask her to let us go safely out of the bay. Now is the time for this one thing only.

"Take it, Svala," says Sibeal in a voice lovely as the nightingale's song. "Be yourself again, in all your strength and dignity. Take it."

Then, without a word or a glance at each other, we step back from the skin. Around us the men of the crew are still and silent, caught in the moment. They have forgotten, for now, how many lives were lost here.

Svala nods. It is an acknowledgment of what we have done. She bends to take the edge of the great skin in her hands. I stare, not knowing what I will see, not understanding how this can possibly work, but aware that we are about to witness something truly remarkable.

Svala lifts the skin one-handed, flipping it up and through the air as if it weighs no more than a lady's silk kerchief. As it rises above her, Knut screams. "No! No! In Thor's name, no!" He is on his feet, wrenching at the rope that binds him, desperate to get away. n.o.body helps him. All eyes are on her.

The skin comes down, settling around her form. All happens in a few moments: under the moonlight she changes, growing taller, taller still, as tall as an ancient oak. Wider, longer, her form stretching, her limbs thickening, the features of a lovely woman becoming those of a serpent, a monster, a sea beast like the one in the bay. Her jaw lengthens; the skin that clothes her seems to swell as her form expands to inhabit it fully. Only the eyes are the same, liquid, lambent, full of the moon and the wild sea, but larger, so much larger. They are just like those of the creature that vaulted Liadan in one great leap; the monster that brought us safely out from underground. She is done. She is complete.

"Morrigan's curse," someone mutters, and another man makes the sign of the cross.

Svala rears high, pawing the air with her long-clawed forelegs as if to test that everything is working as it should be. She switches her huge tail from side to side; men shrink back against the rocks. The moonlight s.h.i.+nes on her scaly skin, and now it is not a patchwork of duns and grays and browns, but a triumphant garment of sparkling silver and glittering gold. Svala was beautiful as a woman. As a creature, she is magnificent.

Knut is wailing. "Save me! Oh G.o.ds, save us all!"

One or two of the men bid him be brave. His collapse is unnerving; it compares ill with the bravery of our three survivors. Even Colm is standing quiet now, his arm in Gull's.

The creature tips back her head and roars. The sound rings out like the braying of a great trumpet, echoing all around the bay. It fades away. There is a heartbeat of silence. Then comes the answer. From the moonlit water rises a great head, a sinewy neck, a broad, scaled back in gleaming blues and greens. The toothed jaws open wide, and Svala's mate bellows his response. There are no words in it, but I understand his call. Here! I'm here, beloved! Come to me!

But she is not quite ready for that. There is one job to do first, one act to make this tale complete. She turns. I grab hold of Sibeal's hand and we retreat to safety, for the creature could crush us without even noticing. "Get back!" Cathal shouts, and the men scramble for the other side of the fire. There are no spears in hand, no knives or clubs. The men recognize Sibeal's authority as a druid, and though every instinct must tell them it is folly to stand before such a monster unarmed, all have obeyed her.

"No! No!" shrieks Knut. "Help me!"

Too late, far too late to take any action, the men realize what is about to happen. Several shout and one or two move forward, but there is no time. The creature bends her neck, her head comes down. She seizes the Norseman in her teeth, lifts him, shakes him as a dog shakes a rat. There is a high squealing sound. Sibeal blanches in horror. Svala tosses her prey high. Blood sprays as he falls. The creature catches him in her mouth, closes her jaws and swallows. He is gone.

The silence is absolute. The men who rushed to help Knut are frozen where they stand. I am still as stone with Sibeal's hand in mine. I hear her forcing her breathing into a pattern, steady and slow. I make an effort to do the same. Too late to help. Too late for anything.

The sea beast in the bay trumpets again. Svala moves. Her progress down the rocks to the water is fluid and graceful, remarkable for a creature with such bulk. She slithers, glides, dances her way to the sea. She reaches the water's edge, and for a moment she pauses. She turns her ma.s.sive head, looking back at us. Sibeal sucks in her breath sharply, as if she has been hurt.

"Are you all right?" I whisper.

"Mm."

Sibeal bows to Svala. It is acknowledgment and farewell. I do the same. The moon s.h.i.+nes down on the creature's glimmering skin like a mother lighting her lost child home. Svala wades, swims, dives, is gone.

Nothing to say. Nothing at all. After a while the men behind us start to move about, talking in low voices. Sibeal and I stand there, hand in hand, watching. She is trembling now. I wonder what she felt in that moment when Svala's eyes met hers. Eventually, far out in the bay, the creatures surface. They swim and tumble and dive, moving in perfect unison, as if they were two parts of one whole. It is a dance of ecstatic greeting, a graceful, powerful celebration of love. My heart trembles to witness it, for it seems deeply private. Yet they have chosen to celebrate in the moonlight. They know they have a spellbound audience, and honor us by sharing their joy. They circle and play, roll and leap around each other, churning the quiet water to great splas.h.i.+ng waves. Glancing sideways, I see that Sibeal is crying. On her other side Cathal has come up silently. He looks out over the bay, his black cloak around him, his grave face transformed with wonder. Oh, there is such a song in this!

"I saw it, Felix," murmurs Sibeal. "I saw everything in a moment, as if, in creature form, Svala could show what she thought and felt with perfect clarity. As a woman, she struggled to make me understand. But in that sliver of time when she looked back at me, it was all there-the abduction from this island when she came down to the sh.o.r.e, curious about the s.h.i.+p; the rough confinement in Freyja's hold; the terror of Inis Eala, an alien world for her, a world in which only I had the slightest understanding of her misery. And . . . and Knut. Knut holding sway over her because of that tiny strip of skin he wore. Knut taking her unwilling to his bed. Knut filling her with disgust, loathing, terror. We did that. We were responsible, because we believed his story and lodged them together, away from the community." A shudder goes through her body. "I even saw her with Rodan."

"Rodan?" I do not remember this name.

"The Connacht man who fell from the cliff. He . . . he made advances to her and she pushed him over. She was always stronger, bolder, more sure of herself when Knut was not close by. Oh, G.o.ds." Sibeal lifts a hand to wipe the tears from her face. "That was harsh justice. And Knut . . . I wish I had not seen that. But it brings the story to a fitting close. At the end, she was bursting with happiness. She was herself again, like the selkie woman in your song, Felix. Joyous and strong and free."

We are all bone weary. Gareth sets watches for the night. Two stand guard while the others rest. Sibeal believes we are in no danger, provided we do not linger on this isle too long. The camp grows quiet. The fire dies to a glowing mound.

I thought I would fall instantly into the deep sleep my body craves. But I cannot sleep. My mind is wakeful. I have lived a lifetime since I arrived on Inis Eala with my past wrapped in shadows. In time I will write of this adventure. Perhaps not a song. To capture such monumental events in the form of a ballad would be to render them smaller; to force them within the limits of what our minds can readily accept. This tale calls for something longer, larger, a recounting that evokes all the horror and the grandeur, the peril and the profound mystery. Some day I will set it down. Not yet. I do not know what the future holds. I cannot guess. I only know that soon she will be gone. After that, a chasm yawns.