Rising From the Ashes: The Chronicles of Caymin (20 page)

She looked at Diarmit as, from somewhere in the trees, they could hear Gai telling Ivar about their hunt.

Within a few days, Timmin was well enough to be moved, “but not well enough to live by himself,” said Enat. “So he will be staying here with us for a bit.”

Caymin helped set up a sleeping mat for him near the cottage’s fire. He leaned heavily on his staff as Enat accompanied him. A chair from the meetinghouse had been carried by Ivar and padded with a sheepskin. Timmin groaned a little as he settled his frail frame into it.

“Caymin, would you make Timmin a cup of tea?” Enat said.

Caymin pulled the kettle from where it hung over the fire, and mixed the hot water with some herbs and leaves to aid healing. She glanced questioningly at Enat, who nodded. Holding her hand over the cup, she whispered words of power to enhance the healing.

Timmin thanked her, and sipped at the tea. “I couldn’t have made better myself.”

Caymin beamed with the praise. She peered at him. “Can you tell me more about the magic you used against the invaders?”

“What did you see?”

“We were all hidden, watching the invaders as they began to chop at the trees with their axes,” Caymin said. “I could almost feel the pain from the trees. Suddenly, it seemed the trees moved, surrounding them. The moonlight disappeared and a great noise rose up. It felt as if the forest was fighting back.”

Timmin nodded. “The forest did fight back.”

“But the trees did not actually move. Or did they?”

“Yes and no.” He looked at her. “If you can probe the minds of your enemies, you can sense what they fear most. Those strangers come from a land of great superstition. They knew this forest has ancient power and they feared it. All I did was use their fears against them.”

Caymin frowned. “But we saw it also.”

Timmin smiled grimly. “It was a costly spell.”

“The distance he cast the spell and the number of people he made feel it,” Enat said. “Don’t ever attempt such a thing again.”

Timmin shrugged. “Aye, but it worked. We can hope they’ll never come back.”

Enat pursed her lips, but said nothing more on the subject. Instead, she said, “You should get some sleep.”

With a heavy sigh, Timmin agreed and allowed her and Caymin to help him to his makeshift bed.

“Sleep well, Timmin,” said Enat, covering him with a blanket.

“You as well,” he said with a yawn.

Caymin wandered through thick mist, swirling about her so heavily that she could not see her outstretched hand. She knew this mist. It was the same that had surrounded her when Enat guided her on her spiritwalk. She followed, letting the mist choose her path for her. When it parted, she was unsurprised to find herself on the outskirts of her village again.

There, as before, was her mother, her red hair tied back as she cut carrots into a kettle of hot water, while she watched little Caymin laughing as she sat on her father’s lap, plucking at the small harp he held.

All around them, other villagers called to one another, cooking over their fires or chasing their own toddling children. In the distance, she heard older children calling from the field where they tended the cattle and goats and sheep, bringing them in for the night.

Caymin smiled, looking at the peacefulness of it all. She sat, watching her family in wonder, listening as her father plucked the harp and sang a song.

Too soon, the mist swirled around her once more, and she walked on, following the path it laid before her. When next the fog parted, it was full night, with fires burning in front of some of the dwellings, others with plumes of smoke rising from smoke holes in their roofs. It seemed most had retired for the night, though a few men still lingered at one fire and Caymin saw a woman leaning close to another, using its light to sew a torn garment.

Suddenly, the night air was filled with screams and yells and the sounds of chaos as warriors swarmed the village. Swords flashed and more screams followed. Thatched roofs were set afire and ignited bottles of oil were thrown through doorways. Soon the entire village was ablaze and a pall of smoke obscured what was happening. Warriors entered dwellings, hauling people outside where most were put to the sword. She saw bodies falling, heard women scream as they were dragged by their hair. Caymin watched as her father ran from their burning cottage, armed only with a scythe. He used it well, keeping two warriors away from their door, but when a third warrior joined the fight, her father could not swing the scythe fast enough to keep all three at bay. He dropped the scythe and lunged at one of the warriors, grabbing at his sword, but one of the other warriors moved in, plunging his sword into her father’s back.

Her mother emerged from the cottage as he fell. She ran to him, catching him and clutching him to her. Behind her, a crying Caymin stumbled out of the cottage as the roof and walls collapsed, sending a geyser of sparks into the night sky. Her mother reached one arm toward her to shield her even as she clung to her dead husband, but the warriors wrested his body from her arms and pulled her to her feet.

As her mother struggled to free herself, one of the warriors knocked little Caymin into the flames, taking no heed of the little girl’s screams of pain as she writhed.

Caymin stood torn between her younger self, burning and screaming in the flames, and her mother being dragged away by cloaked warriors….

The mist swirled about once more, and she heard a voice in her ear.

“Come away now.”

She felt herself rising through the mist into wakefulness and opened her eyes to find Enat kneeling beside her.

“I saw…”

“I know.” Enat wrapped her in her arms and held her, rocking her as she cried.

When she quieted, Enat released her. Caymin sat up, wiping her face with her blanket. “How? How did I have this spiritwalk tonight? I did not have the potion.”

Enat glanced toward the fire where Timmin lay sleeping. “You’ve been wanting to go again since that night, wanting to see more. I think Timmin’s presence, his magic, opened the door for you in your sleep.”

“They did not kill her.”

“What?” Enat turned back to Caymin who had reached for her old cloak.

She stared at the design woven into the cloth – a blue wolf with red eyes, holding a yellow sword in one paw. “They killed my father, but they took my mother.” She held up the cloak. “If I can find the ones who wear this, I may find her.”

Enat was silent for a long moment. “It’s not likely, little one, that she could still be alive.”

But Caymin wasn’t listening. She lay back down, holding the cloak in her hands while Enat went back to her bed.

From far away, Caymin felt Péist’s concern at her distress.
“I am unharmed.”
That wasn’t exactly true, she knew. As much as she had wanted to see her family again, to know what had happened to them, she almost wished now she hadn’t seen. Her fingers unconsciously went to the scars and ridges on the side of her face, and she closed her eyes against the image of her father’s death. But her heart held fast to the knowledge that her mother had not died that night.

When she opened her eyes again, she saw that Timmin was awake, watching her from his bed.

“Focus,” said Ronan to Caymin as she tried to levitate a rock he held in his hand.

Frowning, she concentrated harder.

“Stop. You’re not going to frighten it into moving by glaring at it. Pull the power from deep inside you,” he said. “Feel it rise, and with it, the stone.”

The stone rocked in his palm and slowly began to rise, spinning in the air.

“Well done,” he murmured. “Now feed it, just enough to hold it steady.”

“Look at Caymin,” said Diarmit, who was working with Méav and hadn’t succeeded in getting even a feather to levitate.

“You’d do better to look at this feather,” said Méav. “And get the wretched thing to lift.”

Diarmit reached for the feather and tickled her under the chin with it.

“Bah.” She slapped at his hand and got up. “I’ve had enough of this one.”

“I’ve had enough of this altogether,” Gai said, dropping the stone he was levitating under Una’s tutelage. “What do you think they did with him?”

The meetinghouse door stood open and the elders were nowhere to be seen, nor was the prisoner.

For days, the elders had ensconced themselves in the meetinghouse with the northman. Occasionally, their raised voices could be heard as they argued about what to do with him.

“They agreed to alter his memory,” Fergus said. “They’re probably taking him away to the villagers to let them decide what to do with him.”

Caymin frowned. “But will they let him go?”

Méav turned to her. “What would you do with him? Let him go back to his land and take the chance he’d tell them all about us if his memory comes back?”

Daina looked troubled. “Surely, they wouldn’t kill him…”

“The invaders came here with one goal,” said Fergus. “They wanted our land, our forest. We have to do what we must to protect it.”

“My father would have had him executed after he told us all he knew,” Gai said. He glanced at Caymin. “I’m not saying it’s the right thing, but it’s what must be done.”

“Well, our elders are wiser than that,” Una said. “They did what they could to learn what he knew, they removed his memories of what he’s seen and heard here, and they’ll let others decide what to do with him.” She turned back to Cíana and held out a small clay pot. “Now, back to work. See if you can move this pot over to that table.”

When the elders returned, they returned one by one from various directions. Timmin had insisted on accompanying them to see the stranger off.

“They were checking different parts of the forest to make sure no one else is here,” Niall told the others.

Nor did they elaborate on what had happened with the stranger once they were all back.

“But you live with Enat, and Timmin is still staying with you,” Daina whispered to Caymin. “Haven’t they said anything?”

“No. And I have not asked.” Caymin shook her head. “I have learned I will not get answers to all questions.”

One such unspoken question was how long Timmin would be staying with them. Where she and Enat often sat in companionable silence for long periods of time, or could talk about almost anything, things were different with Timmin there.