15. Into Darkness #3
Eoghan had grown. Darkness like a shadow surrounded him.
The others held back. Tuathal recognized Forchel.
The younger wise one seemed to be chanting, mouth moving without sound.
The king and queen wore simple clothes, blue and brown, not proper garb.
Two of the youngest fosterlings hid behind them.
A few servants, male and female clustered like sheep off to the side, Meren among them.
"The land demands blood," Eoghan declared. "Harvest will fail without a life."
"Was the gift of Tuathal, allav and prince, not sufficient?" Fiachta asked, quiet and intense.
"What gift?" Eoghan sneered, or the presence wearing him sneered. "Song is no gift. Only blood will feed the land and please the gods," he crooned, "Only blood, bloooood." The last came as a hissing moan, a sound not made by mortal throat.
Forchel tried to step forward. Eoghan gestured and the younger priest staggered, shoved back, but not by the hands of men. Gasps rose around him, and Tuathal echoed them. That should not be. No wise one held power so.
"No!" The word forced itself from him, unheard by the others. More followed. "No. Not that royal blood, not that fear, not war." The ropes holding him had grown looser as the warriors watched Eoghan, not him.
No. He would stop this. Not blood, but something else. He leaned forward, took a step toward the dark waters and reeds ahead of him. "Not that life but this one."
"Tuathal?" the whisper caressed his ear as her hands had once caressed his body. Meren moved, hurried to the queen's side and pointed toward him. "Great queen, that is no common slave or stranger, but Tuathal the Open Handed."
"A life for the land," the power in Eoghan hissed. "The failed king is no king, the land rejects him. Blood the price of kingship," he reminded all around.
Tuathal heard a woman's steps coming close, or did he?
Ahead the dark waters, the place of final death.
One given twice to death never returned, extinguished forever as water swallowed fire, as the bog drank gifts and lives.
He froze, fear holding him tighter than the ropes.
He would be no more, not even a song remembered, or a name praised or reviled.
"Please," a woman pleaded. "Please take another, me, not the fosterlings."
Her words drove him. No. Fiachta was the land's king, had not failed his duty, did not live under a gesh's weight. War must not come—death must not swallow the land.
Tuathal pulled forward against the ropes.
The cords went slack, and he dragged the bindings toward the waters, into the black waters.
The allav had died by fire, now the man would die by flood.
He breathed, and the ropes slid off as if they'd never been tied.
Another breath, and he forced sound from his throat and tongue.
Tuathal chanted, croaking words as he walked toward the water. He held out his hands, hands charred by his gesh.
"To the waters I go, to the waters a gift.
"Nameless I go, nameless without gift.
"What I was is no longer, a gift to the waters.
"Darkness around me, darkness of waters, of land, of night."
The mud beside the trackway grabbed at him, slowed him. He began to sink, cold mire holding him, pulling him into the bog.
"Twice I die, fire and water, honorless, nameless, a gift to the waters."
Bitter cold numbed him. Waist deep, chest deep he sank, too deep to save.
Voices behind him, men and a woman, a shriek, chanting, other calls, a raven's cry.
He raised his hands, black as the night, black as forgetfulness.
Water touched his throat, rising, icy. He tilted his head back, one last glimpse of the sun and sky, then cold darkness swept over his eyes.
Power! Awan coursed through him, golden and flowing like the sun at harvest time. He sent it out, to the land, as he had before. Water covered his fingers.
Hands touched his, warm, strong, gripping, pulling. Too late, yet the mire released him, slid away, head above water. "No," Fiachta shouted. "Full price has been paid. Do not die, father's son."
How? Not now. He let them carry him back to solid land. Blood stained the water from a grey-robed body—Eoghan! Blood streaked Fiachta's face, and the faces of the wise ones. Forchel now wore the torc of the wisest, and carried the carved and capped staff. Tuathal closed his eyes.
"A true sacrifice, willingly made," he heard Forchel chanting. "The evil is gone, all curses lifted." Sunlight poured on his closed eyes, warmth.
"Here, yes that, now," a woman called, Aisling? He opened his eyes.
Meren knelt beside him as Aisling handed her a bowl. "Please, great allav, drink this," the younger woman urged, eyes wide and pleading.
He tried to reach for it, but his hands and arms, all of him, shook with cold and exhaustion.
"I have him," Fiachta said, holding his shoulders. "Steady his hands for him." Odhran helped him take the bowl. He drank, then ate soft bread heavy with honey and soft roasted apple.
"Rest, bard," Forchel commanded. "The curses are lifted from the land, and all is paid in full."
He could do nothing else. He closed his eyes.