Brighid’s Quest

CHAPTER SIX

“You couldn’t have told me about this, either?” Brighid muttered to Cu as she stepped inside the longhouse.

“There really wasn’t time,” he said under his breath. “And I don’t think the simple telling of it would have been adequate.”

It was a beautiful building. More rectangular than circular the two longest walls supported huge hearths in which fires crackled merrily around enormous, bubbling pots that, from the wonderful smells drifting throughout the room, must be filled with well-spiced stew. Long rows of trestle tables were formed by smoothed wooden planks resting snugly atop stone pillars that had been carved to look like blooming flowers. But what drew Brighid’s eye were the walls of the great building. From the outside they looked like the walls of Cu’s small lodge, but on the inside they had been meticulously smoothed and covered with painted scenes so lovely they rivaled any of the treasured pieces of art gracing the marble walls and hallowed halls of Epona’s Temple.

The centermost scene was breathtaking. A silver mare, silhouetted in the golden light of a rising sun, arched her proud neck and presided regally over the room. The mare’s eyes were wise-her gaze benevolent. All around her vignettes of Partholon had been brought to life with a master’s hand. There was the Temple of Epona, glistening with pearlized walls and stately carved columns. The Temple of the Muse’s elegant grounds were filled with silk-clad women, frozen in time, clustered around each of the nine Incarnate Goddesses, listening in rapt attention to their daily lessons. There was even a scene wherein two centaurs raced through wither-deep grass that Brighid easily recognized as the Centaur Plains. Framing each one of the scenes were intricate knots that hid birds and flowers and animals indigenous to a land much more hospitable than the Wastelands.

“It’s truly amazing,” Brighid said.

“I’m pleased you like it,” Ciara said. With an elegant unfolding of her hand she motioned to a section of one of the tables that had been arranged away from the others. The benchlike sitting area on one side of it had been removed to accommodate Brighid’s equine body. The other side remained fashioned for more diminutive human hindquarters. “I hope this will be comfortable for you. I thought Cuchulai

Brighid eyed the eagerly waiting children with suspicion. Their inquisitive looks made her more uncomfortable than a pack of starving coyotes. The moment she sat beside the table, Liam rushed forward and ladled for her a generous portion of thick stew filled with chunks of potato, meat and barley, and a side dish of warm greens that smelled a lot like spinach.

“The wildgreens are special for you, Brighid.” Liam’s nervous excitement brimmed over and spilled around them. “They’re a real treat so early in the spring. I, um, I mean we hope you like them.”

“I’m sure I will. Everything smells wonderful.” Brighid smiled tentatively at the boy. He practically wriggled out of his skin with pleasure.

“Can Fand eat at our table, Cu?” Kyna asked the warrior as he helped himself to the wildgreens she offered.

“Of course, but be sure she stays under the table. Not on it,” Cu said.

“Leave the trays and go eat now,” Ciara prompted when the two children looked as though they would be content to stand all night and watch every move Brighid made as she attempted to eat under their intense scrutiny. They obeyed, but reluctantly, still throwing curious looks over their shoulders at the beautiful centaur.

“The children are enamored with you, Huntress,” Ciara said with a smile.

Cuchulai

Ciara laughed. “Oh, do not think they have forgotten you, Warrior.”

Cu scowled and turned his attention back to his bowl.

Brighid ate silently, letting her eyes dwell on the incredible scenes that filled the walls.

“I sense that you are surprised by our artwork,” Ciara said.

Brighid’s gaze shifted to her. “Yes,” she said frankly. “I am.”

Ciara’s warm smile didn’t waver. “You wouldn’t be if you knew the story of our birth.”

“I know some of it-that your people come from a group of women stolen from Partholon by the Fomorians during the war more than one hundred years ago. When the Fomorians realized they were losing the war, they escaped into the Trier Mountains with as many human women as they could capture. They pla

“Yes, that much is true. What else do you know?”

Brighid lifted one shoulder. “Only what Lochlan told us. That the Fomorians escaped the Partholonian warriors, but they couldn’t escape the plague brought to them by Epona’s outrage at the violation of her women. The demons grew sick and weakened. Then a group of pregnant women, led by Lochlan’s mother, attacked their captors, killed them, and searched through the mountains, helping the other groups of women rise against their captors, too.”

Ciara nodded and took up the thread of the story. “Their plan was to return to Partholon. They knew their pregnancies meant death sentences for them. No human woman had ever survived the birth of a child fathered by a demon. It was their desire to return to their homes where they would die surrounded by their loved ones.”

Ciara’s beautiful face glowed with the telling of the tale and Brighid listened, entranced by the Shaman’s singsong voice.

“But then the impossible happened. As they began the journey back to Partholon, Morrigan MacCallan went into labor and survived the birth. She brought forth a boy child who had wings as well as the spark of humanity. She looked upon her son with the fierce love of a mother, and named him Lochlan. And then another woman survived the birth of her infant. And another. And another.” Ciara paused, holding Brighid’s eyes with her own. “What were the women to do? Some would say they should have killed or abandoned their children and returned to the lives that waited for them in their beloved Partholon. The infants were, after all, the spawn of demons. But their mothers did not see them as such. They saw their humanity instead. So Epona led the young mothers here, to our canyon, where they built new lives from the dreams of their old world. And here we have stayed for more than one hundred years, waiting to fulfill those mothers’ dreams by returning to the world they loved with a depth of spirit second only to their love for their children.”

“And Epona gave Lochlan’s mother the Prophecy, which he fulfilled after dreaming of Elphame and following that dream to Partholon,” Brighid said quickly without looking at Cuchulai

“Oh, but it does. You see, the largest group of pregnant women were captured during the great battle at the Temple of the Muse.”

Brighid’s eyes widened in understanding. “So many of you are descended from either Incarnate Goddesses of the Muse, or their acolytes.”

“That’s right. You already know that I am granddaughter of the Incarnate Goddess Terpsichore, Muse of the Dance. This room is filled with descendants of all nine of the Goddesses. Our mothers and grandmothers knew the magic of the Muses, and they passed that knowledge along to us. It was their greatest wish that the wonder of Partholon not die in the Wastelands. Does the beauty surrounding you now make sense?”