Brighid's Quest

“I’m not exactly sure,” he said.

“Not sure?”

Cuchulainn scowled at her. “That’s right. They’re not what you think. The only thing I know for sure is that the New Fomorians are different.”

“Well, of course they’re different!” Brighid wanted to shake Cu. “They’re a mixture of human and Fomorian. There has never been a race like them.”

Cuchulainn walked over to the hearth. Stirring the glowing embers to life, he fed them blocks of dried peat from the stack nearby and the coals flamed into a lively, crackling fire. Then he turned and gave Brighid a weary, resigned look.

“Take off your packs. Relax. It isn’t much, but I’ll tell you what I know.”

As Cuchulainn helped her unload she watched him carefully. Grief and guilt had aged and hardened him, but there was something else about him, something that tickled the edge of her mind but which she couldn’t quite understand.

Had the hybrids cast some kind of spell over him? Cuchulainn shunned the spirit realm, and he would have little protection against a magical attack. Though Brighid did not have the training and experience of her mother, she was not a stranger to the powers of the spirit world. Nor was she a stranger to the ways in which powers granted by the Goddess could be twisted and misused. Silently she promised herself that later, when she was free to concentrate, she would see if she could detect any malevolent energy hovering around the settlement. Until then all she could do was what she was best at—finding a trail and following it.

“Here,” she said, tossing the warrior a fat skin from her last pack. “Your sister sent you this.”

Cuchulainn uncapped the skin, sniffed the liquid within, grunted in pleasure and took a long drink. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and settled onto his cot. “It’s been too long since I’ve tasted wine from Epona’s Temple. My mother would say there is no excuse for living like a barbarian.”

“That’s exactly what your sister said.”

Cu’s smile looked almost normal for an instant. “I miss her.”

“She misses you, too.”

He nodded and took another drink of the rich red wine.

“Cu, why are there so few adult hybrids?” Brighid asked softly.

He met her eyes. “Here’s what I know. I have counted twenty-two full-grown, adult hybrids—twelve females, one of whom has just announced that she is pregnant, and ten males. And there are seventy children ranging in age from infants to young adults. Ciara and the others say that everyone else is dead.”

“How?” Brighid’s head reeled at the disparity in numbers.

“It was the madness. Ciara says it was more difficult to withstand the older they became. Of the original hybrids born of human mothers only Lochlan, Nevin, Curran, Keir and Fallon remain.” Cuchulainn paused, clenching his jaw. “Of them Fallon is mad.”

Brighid nodded. “Her jailors at Guardian Castle say she remains mad. Elphame’s sacrifice didn’t touch her.”

“It was too late. She had already accepted the darkness of her father when El drank Lochlan’s blood and took on their madness. Apparently there is no reversing it once it has taken hold.” His stomach tightened as he remembered the horrific scene when Elphame had slit her own wrists, forcing Lochlan to share his blood to save her life. With the hybrid’s blood she had taken within her the madness of a race of demons. “It should have driven El mad, too. It was only through Epona’s power that she remains sane even though the madness lies dormant within her blood.”

“But accepting the madness didn’t kill your sister, and it didn’t kill Fallon. How did it kill the other adults?”

“Suicide. Ciara says that when a hybrid was no longer able to bear the pain of withstanding the evil within him, he chose suicide rather than a life of violence and hatred.”

The Huntress tilted her head and sent him an incredulous look. “So what she’s saying is that someone who has pretty much decided to accept hatred and evil has the capacity to make the ultimate sacrifice of taking his or her own life?”

“Yes. As a last act of humanity.”

“And you’re believing all of this?”

Instead of the anger with which Brighid expected him to respond, Cuchulainn’s expression turned introspective. He took another drink from the wineskin.

“At first I didn’t believe any of it. For days I walked around armed, expecting winged demons to jump out at me from behind every rock.” His brows tilted up and some of his old sparkle lit his eyes. “Demons failed to appear. But can you guess what did jump out at me?”

Brighid snorted a quick laugh. “If you’d left me to lodge with them I think I would have called them demons. Very small demons, but none the less frightening.”

“The children are everywhere. There are so many of them and so few adults that it’s a constant struggle to care for them and keep them fed. Not that they’re helpless—or at least not as helpless as human, or even centaur, children would be at their age. They’re hardy and intelligent. Despite their rather exuberant show when welcoming strangers, they’re incredibly well-behaved.” Cuchulainn met and held Brighid’s sharp gaze. “And they are the happiest beings I’ve ever known.”

“There’s nothing new about the young being happy, Cu. Even your silly wolf cub runs and frolics. It is the way of youth before the responsibilities of the world encroach upon their unrealistic dreams for the future.”

Cuchulainn heard the bitter undertone in the Huntress’s voice and wondered what had happened in her youth to put it there.

“But before Elphame’s sacrifice, the New Fomorian children had no carefree period of innocence. From the day they were born, not only did they have to struggle to survive, but they had to wage a constant war against the dark whisperings within their own blood as they watched their parents succumb to the evil and die around them.”

“If that is actually what happened.”

“I’m tired, Brighid.” Cuchulainn ran a hand across his brow. “I didn’t come here as a hero who would lead them back to their ancestral homeland. I came here filled with hatred.”

Brighid nodded her head slowly. “I know.”

“Elphame didn’t. At least I hope she didn’t. I wouldn’t want her to think that I would betray her trust.” He shook his head and held up his hand to stop her when she tried to speak. “No, I don’t mean that I came here with the intention of slaughtering the hybrids. But I was looking to cast blame and to find a battlefield on which to avenge Brenna.”

“That wouldn’t bring Brenna back, Cu.”

“No, it wouldn’t. And instead of a battlefield or a race of demons I found a people who are imbued with happiness.” He rubbed his brow again. “Happiness is all around me. I’m surrounded by it. But I can feel none of it.”

Brighid felt a rush of sympathy for him. Living within a face that was too old for his years, he looked lost and alone.

“You need to go home, Cu.”

“I need—”

Cuchulainn’s words were cut off by a tapping sound against the door flap followed closely by Kyna’s shining head.

“Ciara said I should come for you.” She grinned at Cuchulainn. Then her bright eyes and smile flashed at Brighid. “And you, too, Huntress. The evening blessing is about to begin. You don’t want to miss it, do you?”

“We’ll be right there, Ky,” Cuchulainn said.

The child’s head disappeared.

“Evening blessing?” Brighid asked.

“They honor Epona every day, both at sunrise and sunset. It’s a little like being back at my mother’s temple.”

“Except for the cold, dreary land, the absence of the riches of Partholon, and the presence of hordes of winged children,” Brighid said.

Cuchulainn tossed the wineskin back to the Huntress and grabbed his cloak.

“Exactly like that.” He paused in front of her on his way out of door. “I am glad you’re here, Brighid.”