A Templar's Gifts (11 page)

A
top a wide swath of green sat an ancient hill fort. It had the look of a great stone beehive whose top and front had been scooped away. An interesting thought for, coming across the slope, I felt as if a swarm of bees was circling my head. “Can ye feel the power?” I asked Aine.

She nodded, aghast. I felt as she did. The beat of the land nearly took my breath away. It was in the wind that blew strong and cutting on the flat so high above everything. It was beneath my cold and tired feet. My body was tight and ached anew with every step in its direction.

As if in a daze, we circled around to the front.
Double walls of interlaced blocks of stone two hand spans wide and one layer deep were stacked in an upward spiral. The entrance was a hole in the foremost wall that nearly reached my chest. I had to hang on the neck of the horse to bring him low enough to enter, but he didn't seem to mind, as once inside the circular courtyard the wind dropped and I left him free to wander.

He took up a spot by the exposed inner wall and Aine and I took a look about. A great tree had taken seed at sometime during the centuries of exposure. Twigs and broken limbs were scattered on the ground.

“We'd better make a torch or two. It's dark inside the walls,” I said, wrapping a limb and lighting it with a spark from my flint.

“Are we going to sleep in there?”

I shared the trepidation she felt. I'd never come across a place with as much power as I could sense here. I nodded. There was a small doorway in the inner wall that came immediately to two sets of steps, one leading up and one leading down. The air inside was raw. “Which way?” I asked softly.

I didn't need to see Aine's response, I could sense it. She was frightened. “I'd rather go up. I don't know what happened down below, but I'm no' about to sleep there.” In the tight space her arm pressed against mine. I was not ready for the rush of fear that leapt from her to me. It made me sweat and tremble.

I took the stairs slowly, testing my weight before moving from one to the next. They were solid, perhaps as strong as when they were originally built. The light of the torch struck the dappled walls, and their spots and shadows looked eerily like eyes watching our every movement.

We stopped at the first landing and stared out across the space. A platform had no doubt once existed here, but it had long since rotted away. We moved on and up as the stairs twisted and turned until we came to the second landing. This appeared intact and stretched to the wall opposite, but creaked ominously when I set my weight on it. “I don't trust these old timbers. We can either sleep at the ground level or go below.”

A shaft of Aine's fear pelted mine. “I don't want to sleep in here at all. It's too much. I can't think straight. It sounds like bees buzzing in my head. Like the walls are screaming.”

The power ebbed and flowed through the soles of my feet. I felt adrift and yet strangely desirous of finding out what lay below. “We'll sleep just inside the door.” My voice sounded odd, disjointed in my ears, as if it belonged to someone else. “I'm going below to see what is there.”

“Then go alone because I will not,” Aine said angrily.

I left her at the door without another word, making my way as if in a dream.

The steps were small and twisted tightly. The dark was deep and dense, as if the very air was black. The light of the torch flickered as I moved, casting a dancing shadow on the mottled walls. Lower and slower with every step, I descended, the pulse of the land beating like a gigantic heart.

“Tormod?” Aine's voice was like a whisper in my head. Only the power was important now. Calling me. Drawing me.

At the last stair I became disoriented. I stumbled forward and the torch flew from my grip, sputtering out of sight. Alone in the dark I could hear my heart hammering and feel the cold seeping into my bones, making me one with the black, pulling me forward. My feet began to tingle first, and then it ran up my legs and torso. As if hundreds of midges were streaming through my blood, the power of the ancient space suffused me.

“Where is it, boy? Tell me now and the pain will end.”
Welts of scalding heat screamed along my skin. Mewling, panting, desperate sounds rent the air.

“Tormod!” Aine shouted from above. “What has happened?”

I couldn't speak, couldn't move. And yet I heard voices and saw places and scenes within the blink of an eye. The black was like an endless doorway reaching
forward and back. It was fluid, like a pond, with ripples that spread and flowed outward. Something was wrong with the energy here, and the power was demanding that I make it right.
I am not a healer,
I thought.
I am not even an apprentice.

Then, as if in response, the power shifted. Instead of making me whole, as I knew it was trying, it reversed and I felt myself quickly unraveling. The heat diminished and a cold as I had never felt before swept through me.

A floodgate of terror expanded around me. I saw images of blood and sacrifice. The power was surging and building, but it was not for the good. “No!” I screamed. “No!”

“Tormod!”

And the dark took me away.

T
he earth was hard beneath me and soft arms enfolded my chest. A small fire burned nearby, and I saw that Aine looked perhaps as I felt.

“Where am I? What has happened?” I had the memory of her voice and a song I didn't recognize, my arms around her neck, and the persistent demand that I help
her help me up the steps. My body felt as frail as a bird, and I drifted as if I were floating.

“Are ye truly alive?” her gasp was ragged, as if she'd been shouting for a very long time, and she untangled herself to look me over.

“I feel of another world.” Speaking stole what little energy I had left. “I dropped the torch,” I said, searching for memory in my thick and foggy head.

Aine looked at me strangely. “Aye. Ye did, but it's been days, Tormod. I thought ye'd never awaken.”

I shook my head. Days. I had no notion of time passing. I started to sit, but my body would not oblige. “I can hardly move.”

“Ye're weak. There was not much food and no way to get ye to swallow what I had save water. Here. Ye'll need more.” She handed me the skin and it felt to weigh ten stone.

I looked around. We were just inside the doorway of the broch. “Days,” I mumbled to myself. “What is this place?” I asked.

“A chamber o' sacrifice,” Aine said with a shudder. “I've read much over the last few days. There is a wrongness here. Something to do with the power. Something grounded in blood.”

Her words sparked a memory that came to me haltingly. “There is a place below that is damaged. A doorway of sorts, sealed by the power. It is like a lake that's been
turned on its side and a stone has been dropped into the center. There are ripples and in the middle, a place that is thin,” I said.

Aine lay down on her side and stared at me as if she might never blink.

“It wanted healing and tried to pull it from me, but I don't have what it needs,” I said.

“Do ye know what it needs?” she asked. I shook my head no.

“I feel as if I've had a lifetime of dreams,” I said.

“Ye've been like the dead, but I know o' the dreams. I sang to ye as much as I could, an' when I did yer visions became mine. Some were very unpleasant,” she said. “The ones o' fire and burning were the worst.” She released a long breath and her eyes wavered. “I am sore tired, Tormod. Mayhap ye could let me sleep awhile. We will speak more later.” Her request had barely ended and I'd not answered before I heard the soft rattle of her breath.

I was not long behind.

When I stirred from the depths of sleep a long while later, I felt better. It was, no doubt, from having slept with Aine wrapped around me, but she was nowhere in sight. My head felt light when I crawled to my knees and then gained my feet. Bile washed the back of my throat.

“Tormod?” Aine called from outside.

“Aye.” It was agony to answer. I heard her steps come near and in moments she was beneath my shoulder, helping me up and out into the light of day. The brightness was like a brand on my eyelids. I squinted, praying for my eyes to adjust.

“Are ye feeling any better?” she asked. A strange listlessness filled me.

“The ache in my head has gone, but I'm weak an' tired still.” We sat in the courtyard under a bright, cold sky. Perched as high as we were, the land was like one vast green carpet that stretched over hills and rolled on forever. The colors were crisp and vibrant, and everything had a sharp edge I didn't remember before.

Where the camp of the Bruce had been, we saw no trace. Way off in the distance glistened the blue water of several lochs that dotted the landscape. Looking down I was reminded of the map that began the whole of my journey and changed my life.

“Which way is home?” I asked aloud.

“There, I would think.” She pointed toward the east.

“Why?” I wasn't really questioning her statement as much as wondering how she made the judgment. I had no idea of my own.

“I heard once that there is a string o' lochs in the Highlands that resembles the shape o' a horse. There ye can see the head, an' over there the backbone. The tail points toward the ocean.”

I stood, marveling for a moment, and then noticed a ripple of mirth that swam across the surface of her mind. “Yer having me on!”

Her giggle broke, unhindered. “Aye. I don't have any idea which way we should go.” Her laughter loosened the tension within me and I smiled. “Seems as good a way as any.” She got up and brought back my pack. “There's no' a whole lot o' food left. I had to feed the horse a bit an' there's no' much to forage up here.”

I ate a raw potato. It tasted old and flat, and did little to fill the hole inside me. There were only fish and sparse vegetables in the sack. The rapid beat of a heart flit across my mind, and I turned automatically in the direction of it. A large hare darted through a hole in the wall.

“Dinner.” I got to my feet, dizzy with the movement, but Aine held me back. “Wait.” Softly she began to hum, and from my sensing of him I felt the rabbit stop. She nodded in its direction and I went after it. I was no stranger to catching and killing animals in the wild, but this seemed different. My stomach grumbled then, and I quickly grabbed it by the neck and twisted hard and fast.
Never let an animal suffer needlessly.
My da's words echoed in my mind, but oddly enough the image of the Templar hung before me.

Then the place around me changed. Dark. Cold, hard-packed earth. Men all around, broken and bleeding.

“Confess and all your sins will be absolved.”

A man's sobbing cut the air and whispers rustled.
“Innocent. I am innocent!”

A shiver rippled through me as Aine took the rabbit from my limp fingers. “Come. Ye do too much, too soon.”

We built a new fire outside in a bare patch of earth. Aine was adamant that she wouldn't go back inside the broch. I wasn't sure how I felt about it, or about anything. I skinned and cleaned the rabbit listlessly, and Aine skewered the meat on thin sticks she'd cleaned. She laid them in the fire. I stared at the flames, the smell of the meat making my stomach roll. I forced myself to look away.

She turned the skewers and the meat sizzled and popped. The sound, the smell. I barely made it to my knees and crawled a little away before I was sick. There was nothing in me, but it didn't stop the retching.

I felt Aine's hand on my back and the song in the air. My heaves slowed. “I know it's the last thing ye want to do, but ye have to eat.”

My stomach clenched at the thought. “Not the meat. You take that. I need to settle. Another potato.”

She nodded. “I'll save some for later.”

I didn't know how to tell her that I might never be able to eat it. For some reason it triggered memories of a vision I had tried to forget. I saw the Grand Master,
Jacques de Molay, burned at the stake. The image had been uppermost in the string of dreams I'd had below.

I rested awhile and Aine saw to the horse. Part of me wanted to just lie down and let whatever was to come take me, but the other part knew I couldn't. “Should we stay another day or move on?” she asked.

“We have to leave here.” I stood, but my legs were trembling. “Let's move on as soon as we can.”

“Ye'll get no argument from me,” she replied, readying the horse. I put out the fire and hefted our pack, nearly dropping it again. My arms were so weak I could hardly carry it.

“Ready?” she asked.

I nodded and followed her and the horse. When we were just beyond the outer wall, I looked back at the great stone fort. I had something to do here, but it was not something I was equipped or ready for just yet.

W
e rode for long stretches, and walked for short, then did it again and again. The horse was strong and chosen well for travel, but we were two passengers to the one and our burden was much.

Late in the afternoon of the second day, we stopped to eat the last of the food in my pack. Down to two small onions and a dried-up bit of herring that we ate cold. My stomach was protesting and I was feeling the lack.

“Tormod, ye don't look well,” Aine said, watching me from across the small fire we had built.

“Well, how am I supposed to look? Every part of me pains, we're lost, an' out o' food,” I snapped at her without a moment's thought or hesitation. Surprise and hurt whipped through her to me.

“An' why am I to blame for all o' this?” Her voice was low and lethal.

“Well, I didn't eat all the food,” I said beneath my breath. I knew even as it left my mouth that I was not being fair.

“No, ye didn't. Ye took a little lay-down an' left me to do everything to keep ye alive!” Her eyes flashed and her fists curled. “If I knew ye'd be such a beast, I'd no' have wasted my time.”

“Oh, really?” Irritation was quickly turning to something worse.

“Oooooo, ye make me so mad!” she snarled, readying for the confrontation that escalated between us from nowhere.

“Go on then, just try it. I've a mind to turn ye over a tree stump and wallop ye for the first time ye slugged me!”

Aine launched herself at me. I had just enough mind to turn my face away before her fists rained down. And just as quickly, I wrapped my arms tight around her, pinning her own down by her sides. “Ye let me go, Tormod MacLeod, or I'll knee ye so bad ye won't stand for days!”

“Someone should have taught ye manners by now, Aine Cleary. An' I've a mind to do it!”

Her eyes were blazing and my temper was burning hotter than I'd ever felt. I didn't know where mine ended and hers began. It was as if the emotion bounced between the two of us with nothing to bank or dispel it and so it grew and raged.

Aine twisted in my arms, trying to maim me with her knees, and I struggled, determined to turn her aside
and give her the beating she deserved, when in the burst of a heartbeat my world went black.

Aine sat on a high rock, her knees drawn up before her, her eyes red from crying. Her fear and hurt wafted through me as did the thoughts at the edge of her mind. She thought me like him, William, the man who raised his fists to her with little provocation. She blamed herself.

I was flat out on my back, and the brightness of the day burned the backs of my eyes. “What happened?”

“Tormod, I fear there's something grievously wrong with ye.” Her voice was nothing like the Aine of a moment ago. She was timid and worried.

Memory came at me in a rush. “Lord, did I hurt ye?” I raked my mind, praying nothing had come of our argument.

“No. Ye fainted before we got anywhere.” The relief I felt at her words made me light-headed. “But that was no' right.” She didn't make to move any nearer me. “I've been sitting here thinking about what happened, an' though I know I was to blame as much as ye, something more is at work. If ye think on it, there was truly nothing so disastrous happening to either one of us that would have warranted that attack.”

I knew what she meant and agreed. But it had happened, reason or not. “Did ye come to any conclusions?” I asked, struggling to sit.

“Aye. I don't know how, but ye know the way ye can feel the emotions o' others?”

“Aye.” It was my greatest problem at the moment. I felt her terror of me. It was making me sick with disgust.

“Well, I think, between us, it's no' just that ye feel what I feel. I think ye feel it, an' it grows inside ye, then I feel it, an' it grows in me. An' on to ye again, until it's so mean ye have to pass out before yer body overloads an' allows ye to do something ye wouldn't normally.”

That was exactly it, like it was all growing and multiplying and spreading like a bad vine. “Aye. Ye could be right. I don't know what we can do about it, though. We're kind o' stuck with each other for the time being.” I don't know why I put it to her that way. It hurt her and I felt a beast for it.

She took a deep breath as if calming herself. “I think now that we know what can happen, we just have to watch ourselves. An' when we start feeling out o' control, we have to try an' break the hold. I don't know how. Get away. Jump in a stream if we have to.” She shivered and I felt a darkness slip from her mind to mine.
“Ye wanted to kill me, Tormod. I've felt it before.” Memories of her uncle flitted through her mind.

“I'm no' him, Aine. I'd never hurt ye if I could help it.” I met her eyes, willing her to believe.

Aine got down from her perch slowly and came to my side. She was frightened, but determined to get over it. I felt the courage she was gathering and did my best to make sure my emotions were in check and my thoughts calm.

She knelt down by my side, with wide uncertain eyes. Then slowly, as if in a dream, she leaned toward me. I stayed very still. Slowly she shifted closer, until her body was so near to mine that I took in her breath.

“I'm sorry, Aine,” I said softly, lifting my hands to her shoulders. She was suddenly shy, looking down at my chest, and a flutter of uncertainty passed between us. “Look at me,” I said. “Deeply, horribly sorry that I acted that way.” Purposely I called on a tendril of power and opened my mind wide to her, showing exactly how ashamed I was of my behavior. Her eyes went wide with surprise. And in that moment I moved the small distance between us and kissed her.