‘A hole,” he said. “A great light hole.”
I frowned, and would have asked more, but Loth started to climb the hill, and pulled me after him.
He may have been joy incarnate when he smiled, but I was truly getting sick of all this pulling and tugging.
‘I will follow by myself,” I said, and pulled my hand in his once more.
This time, he let it go. “Your feet are on the hill,” he said. “I have no need to lead you.”
ALL MY BREATHLESSNESS HAD RETURNED BY THE TIME we reached the top of Pen, and for a few long minutes I did nothing but haul in deep painful breaths. Loth had walked inside the Stone Dance, but I turned back to look at the view spreading below me.
I could see the river, stretching out all silver and mystery in the deep of the night, its waters at the southern shoreline reflecting the light and movement of the Slaughter Festival revelry.
I wondered for a moment where Brutus was… what he and Genvissa were doing (were they lying together? Coupling to the frenzy of the music?) and I felt a great cold fist clutch all the entrails in my belly into one twisting, jealous mass.
I hated her so much…
I wanted to be like her so much…
‘Cornelia.”
I turned about, back to where the Stone Dance rose behind me.
Ecub stood under one of the great stone arches, completely naked, and I was not surprised.
‘Join us,” she said, and without prompting I slipped the shoes from my feet, and the cloak and robe from my body, and walked into the circle of the Stone Dance.
The cold and frost of the night did not touch me, nor did the sudden roar of flames within the Dance perturb me.
ERITH WAS INSIDE THE DANCE AS WELL, AND ANOTHER woman I did not know and who was introduced to me as Mais. Loth joined us, as naked as were we three women.
Fire was everywhere. I think the flames came from the stones of the Dance themselves, but they did not touch me, nor did their heat sear me.
As the quiet introduction finished, Loth drew me to one side, and the three Mothers—Erith, Ecub, and Mais—began a dance. It was like, yet unlike, the dance that Blangan had drawn me into inside Mag’s Dance. It had the same sensuality, but not its sexuality. It had the same sinuosity, but not its com plexity. They danced in a circle, weaving their way about each other, their outstretched hands brushing each time they passed.
Their heads they kept bowed, as if in homage.
It was a dance, I thought, that only women with the wisdom of maturity and experience could execute: a younger woman would only have blundered the steps.
I blinked, for suddenly their forms appeared indistinct to me. They were still there, I knew that, for something within me could sense not only their presence, but their continued dance, but as heartbeat succeeded heartbeat their forms vanished completely, and all I could see was the center of the circle about which the Mothers danced.
It was filled with vision.
A pond, crystal clear yet with unknowable depths.
A grassy verge, verdant with health and life.
A white stag with blood red antlers, skeletal and dying, his eyes frantic, his breath heaving in agony from his bloodied, foamed, gaping mouth.
His heart, torn from his breast, and hanging by a tendon.
It beat. I could not see it, but I knew it. That heart continued to beat, but so slowly that its measure had to be counted in aeons, not in moments.
Beside me Loth muttered something, his voice tight with excitement, but I paid him no attention.
All I could see, all I knew, was that pitiful stag crawling on its belly toward the pond, dying—literally—for a draught of its healing waters.
I cried, and held out my arms to the stag, and would have gone to it, save that Loth held me back.
And then the waters of the pond stirred, and an arm rose from its depths. It was an arm of no natural creature, for it was composed of the water itself, and it glittered with the shards of firelight leaping about the Stone Dance.
It reached for the stag, but in vain, for the pitiful creature was as yet too far from the edge of the water.
The arm moved in a gentle circle, as if waving, or summoning.
Cornelia, whispered a desperate, dying voice, so strangled and breathless it was barely audible, let alone understandable. Cornelia… Cornelia …
And then the vision was gone, and everyone—Loth and the Mothers—was staring at me.
I CRIED OUT, I THINK, AND ERITH HURRIED FORTH, holding my clothes. She assisted me to dress, wrapping my cloak warmly about me, and all the time she sent Loth wondering glances.
I knew that whatever she and her companions had thought would happen tonight within the Stone Dance, what had happened was not it at all.
Loth had garbed himself quickly in his hip wrap, and had built a fire in a cold ring of stones in the center of the circle. He beckoned myself and the three now-clothed Mothers in close, and we sat about the growing flames, grateful for its warmth and comfort.
‘Og is alive ,” Loth said eventually, his voice wondering and relieved and mystified in equal amounts.
“Og is alive.”
‘Barely,” said Ecub, always the one to see the dour side of things, but even her voice was rich with relief.
‘But alive,” said Erith. “Alive, and that is all we need for hope.”
‘And Mag called Cornelia’s name,” said Mais.
‘Aye,” said Loth. “She has picked Cornelia to help her. That is clear.”
Then, as one, Loth and the Mothers looked at me. “Mag needs you to help her,” Erith said.
‘Against Genvtssa?” I said.
‘Of course,” said Loth. “Against everything she and Brutus plan.”
‘No,” I said.
‘How can you say ‘no’—” Mais began, but Erith silenced her with a raised hand.
‘Why do you say ‘no,’ Cornelia?” she said.
‘Because if I did this, if I set out against Brutus, then I would lose him forever.”
‘Do you not love this land, Cornelia?” Loth asked.
‘Not so much that I would lose Brutus for it!”
‘You must aid Mag!” Ecub said. “You must] She named you, she—”
I shook my head, slowly, forcefully, side to side. “No. I will not!”
‘Cornelia,” Loth said, “if you help us against Genvissa, if you help destroy the Game, then you will have Brutus back!”
‘No. No. He will destroy me if I plot against him again. I will not do it.” I could feel my voice rising, and I could not stop it, nor did I want to. How dare these four try to set me on a course that would destroy any regard that Brutus had left for me (and Hera alone knew how little that was)? “I… will…
not… do… it.”
‘Cornelia,” Loth began, his voice hard and heavy, but Erith forestalled whatever he was going to say.
‘Cornelia is tired, and cold, and shocked by what she saw—as are we all. This is no time for us to argue, nor to persuade Cornelia to a course she fears. Loth, be gentle now. Walk Cornelia back to the ferry.”
I sent Erith a glancing smile, grateful to her, and was even more grateful when Loth’s face relaxed and he gave a nod.
‘Yes,” he said. “Perhaps that would be best. Come, Cornelia. I will walk you back to the Llan.”
WE WALKED IN SILENCE FOR A LONG TIME, AND FINALLY it grew so uncomfortable that I blurted out the first thing I thought of.
‘How is it your head grew like that?” I said. “Were you born with those great bony spikes?”
I wished to snatch back the words as soon as they had left my mouth, but Loth did not seem perturbed by them. Presumably he’d faced similar questions all his life.
‘I was born as any other child,” he said, “and grew as did any other child. But when I was six or seven, I was stricken with aches in my head so painful, so agonizing, I could barely move. I could not stand light, and I was racked with nausea so bad that whenever I retched my head exploded in pain infinitely greater than what I already experienced.”
‘And that was the growth of these horns?”
‘No. I endured these pains and spasms for many months, with barely a single pain-free day in all that time. I would not eat, and lost so much weight my father and aunts thought I would die.
‘Eventually, driven to desperate measures, they asked in an old man with a cruel skill. He was a head borer, a lifter of evil spirits.”
He stopped, not only talking but walking as well, and I could see his face twist with the memory.