“Who was your master?”
Nimue smiled at me. “Merlin.”
“That’s not possible,” I blurted out. Even if Merlin had been real, he would have lived nearly five hundred years ago.
“Time does not move the same here. For me, it seems like yesterday. I will let Andraste explain. She has been here a very long time.”
I looked up the street at the temple, which had been so clear in my visions. The path around the side of the temple did not give justice to its glory. At its front, great steps led upward to the domed building that sat high above the town. What had been two exquisite statues of ravens now stood battered and crumbled at the base of the stairs. The temple’s main body was circular. Wisteria had nearly overtaken the walls. Rubble lay on the steps though a path had been cleared to the top.
Nimue and I walked up the long steps, Thora bounding ahead of us. I was awash in a hundred different emotions. But most of all, I was determined to go home. My heart ached for my love. I gazed down at my hand. I was surprised to see that the knife cut had healed, and a scar had sealed itself over the cut. I stopped and stared at it.
“What is it?” Nimue asked.
“I had…I had a cut here. It’s gone.”
Nimue took my hand and examined the scar. “Was it a bonding ceremony?”
Apparently the Wyrds didn’t know everything. I nodded.
She ran her hand over the scar. “Your druid?”
“Yes.”
“Time has passed in the real world. Now you know how much.”
“Banquo will be looking for me.”
“He is a druid. He will understand.”
“He will not abandon me here. And I will not be left here to rot!” I said, feeling indignant.
Nimue smiled softly and let go of my hand. “I remember what it feels like to love,” she said in something of a whisper then turned and led me up the stairs toward the shrine.
As I followed behind her, I felt sorry. The Wyrds had always seemed…menacing. But Nimue was nothing of the sort. She reminded me so much of Madelaine. And if her words were true, then five hundred years had passed since she had loved. My anger must have seemed trite to her. Five hundred years was a long time to nurse a broken heart.
“Nimue?” I called.
She stopped.
I rushed up the stairs to join her. I was surprised and saddened to see her cheeks wet with tears. “I’m sorry,” I whispered.
She shook her head dismissively. “It’s all right. I understand you. Come,” she said, then led me into the temple.
We walked through the crumbling hall into the main shrine. Here, a massive statue of the Dark Goddess lay on the floor. Her nose and arm had been broken in the fall. I remembered the statue of the Goddess as it had been before the earthquake. It had been made from crystal dragged from the sea and polished to shimmer with sparkling white light. At its base, offering platters and vases were once heaped with flowers, blood, and bones.
“This is the eternal flame of the Morrigu,” Nimue said then, motioning to a large chalice nearly five feet in height that burned with flickering orange and blue flames. The room smelled strongly of lamp oil. Nimue then led me down a hallway in the back of the shrine.
“Here is your room,” Nimue said, extending her hand toward a hall on the left, and then we emerged onto the cauldron courtyard where the older woman, Andraste, as Nimue had called her, rested on a stone bench.
Thora wagged her tail and went over to her.
“Well, Graymalkin, up to no good?” the old woman said to Thora, gently setting her hand on Thora’s head.
I stood in silence.
The older woman rose, leaning heavily against her cane, then came to look at me. To my surprise, she pulled herself upright so she could look me in the eye. Her face was lined, and those lines had lines. But she smiled softly, and her eyes, which seemed very gray, crinkled. “I’m Andraste,” she said.
Where had I heard the name before?
“Oh, it rings in your memory, doesn’t it? Your face rung in my memory too. Always the queen, are you? Come, Cerridwen, sit,” she said, then led me back to the stone bench.
“Do you remember anything?” she asked.
I frowned, not sure I understood her question. “I remember this place through the images your cauldron gave me.”
Andraste grinned. “But do you remember this place?”
She was talking about soul magic. “I…I’m not sure.”
“Cerridwen, when you drank the potion of knowledge, what did you see?” Nimue asked.
“This place as it had been and its fall.”
“This place was once the most beautiful and magical of all places. Our people were strong. My father would go off to battle on the Morrigu’s red-sailed ships. I remember how my mother, dressed in black and purple, would stand by the ocean and let drops of blood fall into the water to protect him. We did not fear death. Death was a passage.
“We worshiped the Dark Goddess in each of her aspects: battle goddesses, death goddesses, and goddesses of magic. Yet our lady destroyed us much as she destroyed others. She shook the earth. The people fled. When it was over, the island was empty and cluttered with dead bodies. And I, a child, had hidden in a trunk. It was the goddess of this land, the same who plucked you from Epona’s grasp, who opened the trunk and bade me crawl out.
“She told me, ‘I have changed what had to be changed. Now you are the only one left. You will age and grow old as one grows old in the otherworld. I will give you the ability to look into the world of man, and I shall counsel you on what must be done. You will do my bidding.’
“And I, a child of ten, became mistress of this island. And while I was a child, the Morrigu taught me what I should know. And now, I will teach you.”
“But what is your…our…purpose?” I asked.
“We are the Wyrds. And now, finally, we are three. Now we will change the course of history.”
Chapter 24
Later, and I am not sure if it was day or night since the sun never rose, Nimue took me to explore the city, Thora trotting along beside us.
“Why only darkness?” I asked Nimue.
“When she drew this island into the abyss, the Dark Lady cast out the sun. She permitted only her colors to rule in this place.”
I looked around then said, “Black, gray, silver, purple, and red.”
“White as well. All colors of the Dark Goddess. Silver is the color of the spirit of this world and of the Crone. Black and gray are the colors of magic. Purple is the color of the soul. Red is the color of war. White has many meanings; it is the color of divination, visions, anything involving power and consciousness. This is why the moon is sacred to all aspects of the Goddess. Its light is all-powerful.”
It seemed to me that the Morrigu was like a petty child. She was capricious, killing and taking what she believed to be hers. When she’d grown weary of her people, she’d simply snapped her city into the otherworld, painted it with her colors, then went to play somewhere else. While I had no love for the White Christ, his priests—other than Father Edwin—sometimes counseled love and justice. Their Savior was said to have been a kind man. The Morrigu, on the other hand, seemed vicious.
But as much as I loathed her viciousness, I felt her within me. I knew she was right; I had belonged to her all along. I had been hers the night I took on my raven wings and killed Alister. I had always been hers, whether I knew it or not.