WARNING: Two part chapter ahoy!
Two days ago I suddenly felt the urge to track down that damn obscure Irish movie about a magical horse and two boys I watched once as a little girl a very long damned time ago. Turns out it had Gabriel Byrne (and Ellen Barkin) and was so rich in poignant Irish mythology I was possessed to write this chapter. And it turned into a beast. For flow and sanity I divided this sucker up into two, so double update today!
Well into her autumn years, but so late into her life she was closer to the stars than Talamh Mathair, she knew the secrets of the Earth-Mother perhaps better than any duine-arach alive. She had birthed babes, used herb and Will to steal back souls from the brink of death, and had eased them into the final sleep so that they might one day rise again.
Airmid supposed many believed her blessed to serve as the Righ's personal druid. Where he drove even his own brother from his chambers, she alone was summoned to his side. With the queen consort long dead she was undoubtedly the duine-arach alive who knew him best. Yet she did not have the Righ's ear, for the Righ heeded no council but his own. Instead hers was the burden of keeping his soul from slipping from the mortal coil entirely.
When his little brother had at last been driven from his chambers the last of the Righ's fire sputtered and died. He collapsed upon his bed, eyes glazed and gasping for breath.
Airmid's keen hearing warily regarded his shallow breaths and faint, fluttering heartbeats. He was now over two hundred years old, into that twilight time of such uncertainty. Some rapidly aged and decayed in a scant few years after. Those who cleaved closer to the fire in their hearts could exceed even three hundred, and like his parents and grandparents before him, was dragonborn.
But a Righ or Banrigh had not died of old age in over five hundred years. And Ardanach Ruadhluan was the only one since Queen Eithle to have surpassed two hundred.
Her usual elixirs and potions could do nothing for one whose soul was already stretched so very thin. The Righ had been fasting, abstaining from all food and water to heighten his connection to their ancestors. Even a simple sip of water could help revive his body and ties to the mortal world.
Airmid was eternally hopeful. She had gruel and humble bread readied alongside a tea more vitalizing than water alone. Water to bank the fires and earth to ground against air.
"My Righ, I-"
"The boy." Dull gray eyes fixated on her, a ring of silver around their edges. "Has he eaten yet?"
For a moment Airmid thought the Righ referred to the crown prince. With horror she realized he referred not to his trueborn grandson but the great-grandson most of the Isles wanted dead.
"No, my Righ. Not since yesterday." He and the she-dragon had been granted near the usual rations permitted to those exempt from the Long Night's demands; the young and the elderly, the pregnant and the crippled, those stranded as men without fire or dragons without Will. "Erna should be seeing to his breakfast shortly."
"It is time."
Airmid swallowed thickly. From the beginning she had advocated the gentler path. At first it had been mere herbs with affinity to earth and fire. Then the slightest additions of those that helped make dragonfire burn a bit hotter and brighter. And only then the traces of manbane's most impotent ingredients.
To a pure dragon such things were harmless or perhaps even mildly beneficial to their flame. Most of manbane's components were toxic in meaningful quantities. To one of their blood a gentle dosage should have helped feed the spark without risking the flaring up of an inferno that could consume them from the inside out.
But the Righ was neither patient nor gentle. Nor were the ancestors. The boy was among the daonna-arach now, and he had endured a Long Night when their souls collectively raged against the monsters in the dark and in turn called out to all able to take up the cause. He would soar with them, or he would burn by them.
"I have only the lore to go by," she cautioned. "Old Gormlaith has been dead over a century now, and she was the last to do a proper Lighting." One where the recipient had lived, anyway. Since the downfall of the Dragon Riders the thefts of human children by the desperate and childless had all but died off.
"And yet were the odds not improved?"
"Aye," Airmid conceded, "and perhaps made all the greater by your blood."
Unless the light of the Lord Moon's blood burned too bright for one of lowly lineage to hold. Not that there had ever been such precedent for an adoption of a human bastard into the royal clan to begin with. Among the lesser clans were such a Lighting had been attempted the odds had been most favorable toward those directly born from a duine-arach, exile or not. For a grandchild otherwise of human descent? Far less so.
"Then it shall be done."
Airmid suppressed a sigh and conceded to the Righ's demands. His Will was her own, and it was his Will to see this ordeal through to the bitter end.
When his arachtide had fully broken, and the last of his bones had snapped back into place and scales forced into skin, he lay shaking on his hands and knees with scarcely the energy to hold himself up. Only Myrna's presence at his side, her soothing murmurs in his ear and gentle fingers easing shoulder blades where wings had shriveled away, gave him strength to do that much.
His mate helped him into a sitting position and eased a water skin to his lips. His parched throat, sore from the screams and the shift, thanked her. His stomach roiled rebelliously.
Caedmon grimaced and pulled away from the skin. He cleared his throat and struggled for his first true word in weeks.
"M... Myrna."
"My prince," she whispered fondly. "Ever so eloquent."
She shucked her gown aside to lay beside him, skin to skin without scales or anything else between them. He twined his arms her and pressed her close. For a time Caedmon basked in her warmth and was content.
Then the shadow that had hung over his head for two impotent weeks descended with a vengeance. With a huff Caedmon made to roll out of bed and haul himself into clothes. Better he go drag himself to Womb Isle before his grandmother transported herself and all her court with her. Because gods knew she would raise merry hell the Righ over the subject of taking in a human bastard Rider and slighting both their own race and their shared blood. And then see Crown Isle burned through the throwing of their fires.
Myrna rolled over and trapped him beneath her. He growled in annoyance. "Not so fast, my prince. Your hoary bitch of a grandmother can take a day for you to pull yourself together." She fluttered her lashes. "Unless you mean to arrive upon me."
Caedmon's first instinct was to retort it was a miracle Soraid Knoth had allowed him enough time to overcome arachtide before airing her grievances. Then he recalled his grandmother was never so courteous. She would have seized upon the chance to upstage her Ruadhluan grandson with the one that bore her name... If Amleth was in a presentable state.
He huffed a laugh. "So that's why the Knoths have been so quiet. Can't go parading my baby brother if he's as beastly as I am."
For a moment Caedmon did want to fly due south to Womb Isle. With luck Amleth would still be coming out his arachtide and he could turn their own argument upon them.
Then Myrna pressed her chest against his, and all urgency flew from his mind. Caedmon could be the honorable twin and wait a day.
A loud rumble disturbed the morning calm. Eragon tensed, gaze snapping to his escorts. Ciar stared stoically back. But Brede could not entirely pull down her smile.
Saphira's own good humor rolled across their link in waves. That was you, little one.
Eragon's eyes flicked down to his treacherous stomach. It had not even been a full day since he'd last eaten. How could his body had already grown so complacent on two or three hearty courses a day?
"There will be a feast soon enough, my prince," Brede said diplomatically. "I'm sure Erna won't keep you waiting long."
Saphira crossed the threshold into their chambers first. Eragon lingered, unable to tear away from Brede Standa. Distantly he remembered his great-grandmother's name was Marit Standa, that the woman in Brede's vision of his family tree resembled her. When the pair bowed to him and turned to leave, he finally found his voice.
"Wait!" Brede froze as she shifted back to him. "My great-grandmother was a Standa. Does that make you my cousin?"
"Distantly, but yes. You're five generations removed from our last common ancestors."
Eragon blinked. Of course daonna-arach had the long-lived memories of dragons. Folk in Carvahall could rarely name all eight great-grandparents. Few were literate and there was far more practical things to remember than the names of long-dead ancestors.
"What can you tell me about my other relatives?" he asked bluntly. "The recent ones." For an afternoon Oisin had droned on the names and deeds of prior Righs and Banrighs, but it was not the long dead Eragon cared for.
"On the Standa side Lord Torin and his brood are closer cousins to you. On the royal side..." Brede paused, before heaving a reluctant sigh. "You saw your great-uncle, Berach, last night. He's the Righ's younger brother. His mate is Imke. Their boy, Niall, is around your age. You have two uncles... half-uncles." She wrinkled her nose as if the concept were utterly alien to her. "Beline had a proper mate before... Well, Prince Caedmon is the Righ's heir. His mate is Myrna. Then there's Amleth Knoth, but he doesn't count. Not like Caedmon does."
Eragon leaned heavily against Saphira's side, drawing strength from her as he did his best to mask his surprise. He hadn't realized he had relations so close among the daonna-arach, as close as Garrow had been. His shame at Beline grew only heavier. What sort of mother ran off to have bastards by a human man and die without ever returning to her original children?
Absently he granted Beline and Ciar their leave. They gracefully took it. Only in the privacy of his own chambers did he allow himself to slip to the floor and stay there.
Saphira nudged him with her snout. I actually met Myrna the night before last. She was quite civil to me. And glimpsed her mate. He was the gold dragon pacing up a storm last night.
Eragon was not surprised by that. Caedmon shared the Righ's same fierce presence and raging temper.
The arrival of Erna and her maids with platters of food proved the best possible reprieve from his thoughts. He inhaled the aroma before stopping short. Saphira was not so fortunate. She sneezed a plume of fire that singed a roasted lamb.
"Forgive me, my prince," Erna murmured. "Most of this food was readied the day before. The spice helps compensate for the flavor."
Whatever they had used had near eradicated Saphira's delicate sense of smell. For once Eragon's duller senses gave him an advantage. Yet they were both ravenous enough to wolf down the food without complaint.
Perhaps the servants realized how hungry they were for they came earlier than usual to clear away their platters, all picked clean. Erna lingered with a steaming goblet in her hands.
"For you, my prince, to recover your spirits after a long and stressful night."
Eragon dubiously considered her offering. He felt the heat radiating from feet away. For a moment he thought the goblet silver before realizing it shone like milk-glass. Shining silver runes were engraved into its sides. Erna's steady gaze never left his own.
At last he grudgingly accepted the goblet, for it was hot enough to burn. Squinting against the steam, he made out the mulled drink, deep and red. Strange spices floated on its surface. He raised it to his lips. Its contents were thick and viscous, like molten steel down his throat. Eragon gagged at the taste, like earth and iron, but downed it all the same.
Erna carefully took the goblet back from him. She bowed low and bid them a good rest.
Eragon scarcely heard her. Hunger sated and stomach roiling all the same, his exhaustion suddenly throbbed in his temples and dragged down his eyelids. He curled down on the bed as Saphira coiled herself protectively around him. He dreamed of fire.
Somewhere between sleep and waking, he floated in warm darkness, and knew naught but peace.
Then the fire shifted away, and the ruthless sunlight poured in. Eragon grunted in protest. And then he shivered. Acclimated to her body heat the loss of her warmth and her insulating wing membrane was made all the worse.
A glance outside revealed it was early afternoon. His body demanded more rest to make up for its missed night. Oisin Laoghaire was not so understanding.
Man and weredragon silently appraised the other. Dark shadows ringed Oisin's eyes, but they had regained their former brightness. He bowed his head curtly. "Good afternoon, my prince. I hope you had a good rest."
Up until you barged in, Saphira muttered privately. Eragon choked back a laugh.
He stood to be more on eye level with the man, for even in human shape Oisin towered over him. "I take it we're finally learning why your people dread the Long Night?"
"Our people," Oisin corrected. His tone was nowhere near as sharp than how he had first scolded Eragon's blatant attempts to mark himself apart from the daonna-arach. "To not cause you undue stress it was decided for you to learn of its true implications after its passing. Only recently has your knowledge of the Word become adequate enough to fully comprehend our histories."
Eragon's resentment at being left in the dark like a child was nothing new. The Righ regarded him as somewhere between captive and hapless infant. He did perk up at the promise of full knowledge, for the mystery of the daonna-arach was one he and Saphira had but fragments to piece together.
"Where do we begin?"
Oisin arched an expectant brow. "Early in your instruction I taught you of the gods. What do you remember of them?"
Eragon held back a groan. For a moment he inwardly rolled his eyes at the hours about to me wasted on groundless mythology. As a very young boy Aunt Marian had done her best to instill the proper rites and rituals in her boys, but there had been so many to remember. After her death Uncle Garrow had stopped caring. There had been too much work to do without worrying over which spirits might get offended over what, and so Eragon had grown up with Carvahall's gods as distant and nebulous figures in the background of his life. His interest over the weredragon deities was no greater.
"There are the Mother and the Father," he said gamely, recalling those invoked in the prayers of the Long Night.
Their tutor arched his brow higher. The expectant silence grew.
They care a lot about a sky god and an earth goddess, Saphira hissed over their link.
Of course there was an earth goddess. Eragon could think of too many human ones to name. The Urgals had Rahna and even the dwarves, who honored Helzvog as lord of stone, had Sindri preside over the fertile earth.
So too were sky gods just as ubiquitous. The dwarves had Urur and the Urgals Parkun. The humans had too many to name, proud and quick-tempered lords of storm and sun and high-vaulted heavens.
He recalled the terms in the Word and awkwardly strung them together. "Mother Earth and Father Sky?"
"Adhar Athair is Talamh Mathair," Oisin intoned. Earth-Mother and Sky-Father. "Now open your minds to me."
They did so, for the grueling force of Oisin's lessons was no longer so hard to bear. This time he sent far more than words and grammar across their link.
Eragon grit his teeth against the surge of visions and sensations, scents and songs. His mind formed vague impressions into a woman, eternal and matronly, soft and plump like Aunt Marian had been. Her mantle was the rich green earth and the vast blue seas. She smelled of salt and soil, sex and the milky scent of a newborn. She was the warmth of the womb and the quiet dark of the grave. She was the gift of bounty and the hardness of famine. She was the Earth Mother, Lady of the World and Waters, patient and cruel, fickle and bountiful.
Always, there was a masculine force alongside the feminine, eternal and entwined. Eragon's mind comprehended him as a vast dragon, scales the sapphire of a noonday sky. Beneath the vault of his wings stretched the width of the world. His wing-beats were the winds, his breath the clouds, and his eye the blazing sun. His fire was a searing radiance that dimmed all else in creation. He was the summer breeze and the winter wind, hearth-fire and raging inferno, the spark. of life given and denied. He was high and distant, all-seeing and all-guarding. He was the Sky Father, Lord of Wind and Flame.
Eragon staggered from the onslaught, falling against Saphira's side. He felt the tremble of the muscles beneath her hide but her solid stance on four legs kept her grounded.
Oisin's face smoothed into serenity. He regarded them calmly, finally free of the taught impatience that had plagued his being since their very first lesson. "There are countless lesser spirits and deities, but they mean little in the grand scheme of creation. Now, you surely you know one not so insignificant."
"Triath Luan," he murmured. "The Lord Moon."
Oisin's lip quirked. "Correct. Perhaps it is best that you and Saphira make yourselves comfortable, my prince."
The she-dragon obligingly coiled up on their bed. Eragon settled himself by her paws. He was surprised when Oisin lowered himself to the floor too to remain at his eye level.
Oisin's mind invited them onward. Eragon allowed himself to be swept away into the story, their surroundings falling away as the dream became their world.
Sky gods and earth goddesses are ubiquitous in Indo-European mythology. Even a few of the gods mentioned for multiple races fits the pattern so much I had to poke fun at the coincidence.
Eragon refers to gods and hells in his expletives so obviously people in Carvahall keep some form of a pantheon. The only human god outside of those practiced by the Wandering Tribes is Angvard, who seems to be both a Surdan and dwarven (!?) death god. Eragon obviously didn't grow up in a religious household so I'm assuming the worship of individual gods is largely localized. Each region probably has its own important deities (probably primarily agricultural for Palancar Valley), traditions, and rituals. There are probably broad patterns in common, especially in neighboring traditions where ideas are most commonly exchanged.
And then there are the daonna-arach. You can tell a lot about a culture by looking at their religion and cosmology, as they say a lot about their traditions and how they see themselves in relation to the world around them. We'll be seeing a big part of the weredragon identity shortly ;)