Phaedra’s face turned scarlet red. She glanced at Marin then
away.
“As for the witch,” Maveen said, commencing her crocheting
again with a vengeance, “she wasn’t born on Contúirtia. She was from some
heathenish place somewhere beyond the Celadon Sector. Her mother was supposedly
fleeing the wrath of a religious zealot and came here to ask for asylum.” She
snorted derisively, her fingers flying. “Stupid menfolk of Comhcheol took her
in because she was a comely wench with a head full of curly black hair down to
her knees. She was a Rom if you ask me. The gods only know who fathered that
child of hers.” She looked up at Marin. “Some say it was Raphian Himself!”
Marin shivered. Such talk unsettled her. Anything that
bordered on the paranormal always had.
“There’s nothing mystical about who the witch’s father was,”
Phaedra said. “She once bragged that he was a highly placed official on the
planet where she’d been born and it was from his wife’s wrath that the witch’s
mother was fleeing and not a religious zealot.”
“That’s more likely the truth of it,” Maveen said, then
stopped crocheting, laying the piece in her lap. She sniffed the air as Phaedra
had done. “That smells more like creosote than tar pitch for a roof.” She lay
her crocheting down and stood up from her rocker and went to the edge of the
porch, peering in the direction of Taegin’s cove. “Marin,” she shouted, “get
the men. There’s smoke pouring from the cove!”
* * * * *
By the time the McGregors and Taegin—along with a wagonload
of neighbors who’d seen the smoke—arrived at the cove, the hut was fully
engulfed in flames. The floor had fallen through and the creosote pylons upon which
the floor had sat were crumbling to the sand. A few trees around the structure
were aflame, the leaves of nearby plants shriveling, as buckets of water were
filled from the waterfall and poured on the conflagration. It took most of the
afternoon and into the evening before the last flames were put out and all that
remained of the structure Taegin had been lovingly working on for over three
weeks lay in a smoldering pile.
Constable O’Malley came over to Taegin, running a sooty hand
over his beefy face. “There’s a tin of kerosene over by the stack of tin
roofing, son. Looks like this was deliberately set.”
Taegin nodded. His face was blackened with smoke, his eyes
red from the heat and fumes. His
an Domhnach
best shirt was torn in
places, burnt in others. He stood facing what had been his dream for longer
than he could remember, his heart aching.
“We’ll help you rebuild,” the constable said, putting a hand
on the Tiogar’s shoulder. When he received no answer, he patted the younger man
and walked off, motioning the others who had come with him into the wagon.
The McGregors were the last to leave, Silus pleading with
Taegin to spend the night with his family, but the Tiogar declined. The tent he
had been sharing with Marin was now a pile of rubble—as were the few belongings
they’d brought to the cove with them. All he asked was the loan of another
tent, which someone had hurried off to bring him back one. The tent had been
pitched, towels, washcloths, a clean set of clothes for Taegin and Marin, two
cots and bedding had been provided by the Boyles, Phaedra’s parents, who owned
the dry goods store in Comhcheol.
“If you change your mind, we’ll leave a light burning for
you,” Maveen said.
Long after the others had gone, Taegin stood where he had
been standing for over two hours. He was bone-tired but could not force himself
to move away from the sight of his shattered dream. The only light came from
the glowing embers of the fallen wood, a single lantern and the half-moon that
was rising overhead.
Marin didn’t know what to say to her husband. Her heart
ached for him. She too had lost the beginnings of her new home, but it didn’t
have the same overwhelming meaning for her as it did for Taegin. Wherever he
was, that was her true home. She ached to tell him so but she didn’t think that
moment was the time to express how she felt. Instead, she went to him and
slipped her hand in his, laid her head on his shoulder.
“I’m going to have to talk to her whether I want to or not,”
Taegin said.
Marin closed her eyes. There was a tone in her husband’s
voice that did not bode well for the woman who had caused it. “You’re sure it’s
Kali who did this?” she questioned.
Taegin looked down at her. “Who else would it have been,
wench? Who hates me enough to do this to me? Who wanted to hurt me this badly?”
A part of Marin despised the person who had stripped her man
of his precious dream. Another part of her knew a killing rage she feared
Taegin felt as well. She’d had a long talk with the constable, and he had told
her no one would blame Taegin if he took the witch’s life for what she’d done,
but Marin didn’t want her husband to have the death of a woman on his
conscience—even a woman as patently vicious as Kali.
“What would the law do to her if you arrested her?” Marin
had asked.
“She’d never make it to trial,” O’Malley had prophesied.
“Taegin Drae is a respected man in Comhcheol, a war hero. There’s not a man—or
woman—here who doesn’t have a deep care for the Tiogar. The witch is hated by
every living soul in the village and I suspect by a great many lying under the
ground as well!”
“She’d die in her cell?” Marin had asked, stunned at the
vehemence of the man who was sworn to uphold the law in Comhcheol.
“She’d die up on that mountain,” O’Malley corrected. “She’d
never see a cell. We got no love for witches in Contúirtia.”
Taegin slowly lifted his wife’s hand to his sooty lips and
kissed her equally dirty fingers. He had been proud of her as she had worked
alongside the men to help put out the flames. She had worked unceasingly in
bringing water, wet clothes and food to the workers, and he could tell she was
as tired as he was.
“Take off those clothes, wench, and let’s take a swim. I
feel gritty.”
Marin smiled. “You’ll say anything to get me out of my
clothes, won’t you, milord Tiogar?”
He snorted softly. “The goddess Morrigunia Herself could
drop down naked before me tonight, wench, and I’d have to decline Her offer.”
He kissed her hand again then released it. “I’ll go to the tent and fetch us
some clean clothes and meet you on the shore.”
“Are you saying not even I could tempt you tonight?” she
countered.
He shook his head. His shoulders were stooped as he walked
away from her and she could feel the sadness welling within him. She doubted he
wanted her to try to arouse him in the water but perhaps a wild romp would help
him lose himself for a while. If nothing more, she could bathe him in the
cleansing salt water then lead him over to the waterfall that plummeted down
behind what was left of their hut.
“I’ll go get the clothes,” she said, running to him and
passing him, turning around so that she was walking backward, shooing him away
with the backs of her hands. “You go strip those smelly clothes off and I’ll
join you. How’s that?” She snatched up the lantern.
He was too tired to argue with her. He simply turned and
headed toward the beach, his head down, his hands hanging loosely at his sides.
It was Marin’s scream as he tore the shirt from him that made his heart stop
beating. He spun around, going to one knee in the sand as Marin screamed again.
He dug his booted feet into the sand and ran as fast as he could for the tent.
It was coiled on the skirt that Siobhan Boyle had given to
Marin. Three feet of blotched brown skin diamonded with lighter brown patches
was glistening in the light of the lantern, a triangular head raised, tail
standing straight up in warning as an ominous rattling sound underscored
Marin’s harshly drawn breath. A pale red forked tongue flashed out of the slit
of a mouth to taste the air.
Taegin threw the flap aside just as the viper moved, its
body shooting straight for Marin, fangs exposed. Marin screamed again, throwing
up an arm to protect her face, but the creature never touched her. It was
knocked from the air by a being that had changed in the blink of an eye from man
to beast. One moment his hand was outstretched toward the viper and at the next
instant the viper was being pinned down by a massive shaggy paw, the snake’s
body whipping about on the tent’s floor, coiling around the furry appendage,
lashing along a black and orange striped leg. As she watched in horror, the
beast twisted its huge head toward her—amber eyes glowing with deadly intent,
fangs extended—and she heard her husband’s voice in her mind, “
Get the
shovel, wench!”
Her mind seething with disbelief, her gaze went dazedly to
the pair of britches that lay ripped on the canvas flooring, the boots that
were split open at the side seams, unable to move.
“Get the shovel, Marin. Now!”
came the shout in her
mind that galvanized her into action.
Marin ran outside for one of the shovels and brought it back
to drive it down between the feline’s huge paw and the viper’s wedge-shaped
head. The sound of the head detaching from the body made her ill and she bent
over to throw up. She’d never killed anything—not even a bug—and it sickened
her, even if she had taken the life of something trying to take hers.
Everything she’d eaten for
an Domhnach
dinner came back to haunt her.
Somewhere in the depths of her mind, she heard her husband pulling on a pair of
britches but the sound barely made sense to her. Strangely, she half-giggled,
wondering why a huge cat would need pants to cover his back legs.
It was as she dredged up the last of her meal that she felt
strong arms lace around her and pull her back to a firm, human chest. She
turned in her husband’s sweaty arms and pressed herself tightly to him, her
hands scrabbling at his naked chest.
“It’s all right,” he said. “It’s done for.”
Marin was trembling so violently, he picked her up and took
her out of the tent. Although he was dead-tired, he walked barefoot the mile
and a half from the cove to the McGregors with her in his arms. As promised,
his adopted family had left a light burning, and when Silus heard him call out,
he and Timothy came hurrying out.
“What’s happened now?” Silus demanded as he skipped barefoot
down the steps.
“Take her,” Taegin asked, and stumbled beneath the slight
weight of his wife.
Silus took her from his arms and frowned as the Tiogar
collapsed, going to his knees. The young man was panting, his arms quivering,
bent over as though the last of his strength had been taken from him.
“Get her inside and have Maveen see to her,” Taegin said.
“She’s more scared than anything else.”
“What about you?” Timothy asked, and made to help Taegin to
his feet.
“No!” Taegin said, holding up a hand to ward the young man
off. “I have to… I am going to…”
Father and son watched as Taegin began to change, his
britches practically exploding from his hips as those hips became the haunches
of a powerful beast. Fur sprouted on Taegin’s limbs, joints cracked, sinews
stretched with a pulling sound, claws came out in a squelch of sound, bones
shrieked as they extended. As one, they hurried up the steps, needing to put
distance between them and the beast that was already snarling viciously behind
them.
“Taegin!” Marin called out, trying to get out of Silus’
arms, but the older man would not allow it. He told her to be quiet.
“He’s doing what he has to,” Silus told her. “You knew what
he was when you Joined with him.”
“Aye, but—”
“He went through Conversion a week before the Joining, Da,”
Timothy reminded his father. “Why is he going through it again this soon? He
should have at least another few months before his next cycle.”
The roar shook the panes in the windows as Maveen—belting a
robe around her—came into the sitting room. Everyone stopped still in their
tracks as the roar came again, this time further up the mountain.
“He’s going after her,” Marin said, “that’s why.” Silus had
laid her on the settee and she automatically sprang up, trying to get past him.
“You can’t let him!”
“What brought you here, lass?” Maveen asked. “What did the
witch do?”
“That doesn’t matter. He—”
“What did she do?” Maveen demanded.
Marin groaned. “She put a viper on my cot.”
Maveen gasped, her hand going to a pendant, which hung
around her neck. She touched the talisman, her lips moving silently.
“The gods have mercy on her then,” Silus whispered, “for the
lad surely won’t.”
Chapter Thirteen
He had been roaming the caves of Mount Gogadh for over an
hour, searching for the scent he remembered from long ago. The keen night
vision had held him in good stead and he could see things he couldn’t in his
human shape. His nose to the ground, he had at last found her spoor and was
following it higher up inside the mountain. Stopping as a small animal leapt
away from his approach, he sat down on his haunches for a moment, furious at
himself for having come after her during a Conversion. Though he was incapable
of human speech, he was fully cognizant and capable of human thought. True
Conversions often lasted nearly a week and came four times a year—at the very
most—but one caused by the fury that had gripped him at the McGregors or the
fear that had altered him in order to protect his mate would last only as long
as the emotion lasted. Already he was feeling the changes striving to revert
and he was angrier with himself than he was with Kali. He struggled to hold his
animal shape for it was in that condition that he wanted to meet up with the
treacherous slut.
His whiskers twitched and he opened his huge jaws and
yawned. He was tired—too tired to be doing what he was trying to do. While it
was true he had more power and stamina in his felidae form, he was worn out
both mentally as well as spiritually, and his physical strength was waning.
Soon he would need to rest, to feast if he was still in his beastly form, and
then pick up the scent again. But that wasn’t why Taegin Drae was so annoyed
with himself.