The Bretwalda (The Casere Book 4) (47 page)

Conn didn’t answer as he walked around the rock wall. He brushed off carving of haligdoms under the relief carving of each of the Gyden until he found one that was false – as he brushed it, it carved in and he had a cavity. He placed the haligdom in the cavity.

‘Because Ishtar is my mother, and she gave it to me.’

Five of the seven people in the room were surprised; three extremely surprised, but they didn’t have time to do much before things started to really happen in the room.

First the haligdom he placed in the cavity started to glow, and soon the others started to glow; they changed from stone to the real thing. Then the Gyden started to appear; summarily, as if pulled away from a meeting expected. They nonetheless smiled when they saw him; the first to arrive were the Priecuman Gyden – Tabiti, Lilith, Badb, Inanna and Astarte. Then someone who was probably Ashtoreth, because she wasn’t young and beautiful; instead she was a crone and she looked at Conn with contempt and pure hate. But she was weak, very weak. Her presence was barely visible.

That being said, she seemed healthier than the last time Conn saw her – just before she was to disappear from existence. Instead of getting older, she was in fact getting younger.

Then two that Conn definitely didn’t know appeared at the same time; Ishtar and Asherah. The eight chairs appeared at the same time and they went and sat on it. Beowen bowed to them.

Conn started the conversation. ‘Hello mother.’

Ishtar smiled while the other Gyden looked at her in confusion – especially Ashtoreth, who looked at him with more bewilderment.

The Gyden seemed delighted. ‘Hello Connor. When did you understand?’

‘There are many pieces in a big jigsaw. As I found and joined the pieces together, I started to paint a picture that seemed familiar. I only knew for certain when I saw the haligdom. I already had something that was impossible to have.’

‘Yes, sometime after I was imprisoned by my sister,’ she spoke without malice, ‘with my beloved, the earth shook and my prison chamber cracked – and I was able to escape. I took the gem with me and escaped to the only place that she would not know that I had escaped – to  your time and space. After a long time studying your lives, I found myself in the same place as your father and an almost dead woman. I took my chance and took her body for myself.’

Ashtoreth whimpered. ‘Our mother interfered! She should not have done that. She made the chamber crack!’

Conn ignored her. ‘So you are not my real mother.’

‘No, but I sustained the lifeform that gave you birth. And your father sustained me with his offerings. All three of us created you, but I created the pathway for you to follow. You did well to understand my messages. I had to be careful.’

‘And the Casere? That was me as well, wasn’t it?’

‘Yes.’ She looked bemused. ‘In this time and place, events led to me inadvertently creating my own demise and I then had to undo it.’

Conn left that one alone – it created all sort of confusions, contradictions and improbabilities. ‘And because of you, I don’t age.’

She smiled. ‘In your time and place, I think you would call it an unintentional side effect. That is why my mother has created the seat for you here.’ She pointed ‘You must join us.’

Lilith looked at him lustfully. ‘Please! We can fornicate as much as we want then. Really fornicate. Forever.’

Conn looked around at the faces of the Gyden and then back at Caewyn and Beowen. ‘I don’t understand why this is necessary.’

Beowen came forward and held his hand. There were tears in her eyes. ‘Papa, this is the one opportunity that we have to save you – Ashtoreth is weak at the moment. She does not have the power to stop her sisters from doing what is needed. Soon she will be stronger again – her flock is growing. She will not allow this to happen – and without everyone agreeing, it cannot happen.’

Still confused, Conn pointed to the chair. ‘But me becoming a Gyden? Me?’

‘Yes – that is your only option. Otherwise you will live forever – as will Halla. And you will go mad – that too is inevitable.’

Conn shook his head. Him being a Gyden troubled even him because he would be a meddlesome Gyden – and he would become exactly what Ashtoreth wanted to become. He would want virgins offering themselves to him. A mad Marquis was even more problematic; he would be a danger to everyone and to the very systems and structures that he had created. That was not an acceptable outcome.

He looked around. Halla had tears in her eyes. Conn suspected she understood. Caewyn was holding her hand. He looked back at Ishtar. ‘So if I stay Halla will never age either?’

Ishtar had a slight look of concern. ‘No, another unintentional side effect. You ended up with abilities that I didn’t even understand was possible.’

Conn turned and looked at Halla. ‘But, she will die, won’t she, as soon as I … leave.’ He heard Halla gasp.

Ishtar nodded. ‘But she won’t feel pain.’

‘No small constellation, I’m sure.’ Conn looked back at Beowyn, a lump in his throat. ‘And now is the only time we can do this? You cannot give me another month – a year? There are so many people…’

Both the girls shook their heads. Caewyn answered. ‘No, it is now or never.’ Halla’s face was now streaming with tears.

‘There has to be an alternative.’ He stopped and paused. ‘There always is.’ He slowly turned and looked back at the Gyden. ‘No, I will not join you. Instead, I want you to send me back to my time and place – and I want you to send Halla with me. We can die there together. If you can make me immortal, I’m sure that you can do that?’

While most of the Gyden looked bemused, Ishtar didn’t smile. She instead suddenly looked concerned – almost scared. ‘You know not what you ask. It can be done but there are ramifications. More unintentional consequences. You need to stay.’

‘I can deal with those.’ Conn went around to those in the room and hugged them. His hug with Caewyn was very long. She tried very hard not to bawl, but tears ran down her cheeks.

Conn smiled at her. ‘I sense you and Asherah are old friends.’

Caewyn smiled sheepishly and looked down. ‘That is true – I have heard her since I was a child. She is my guide.’

‘And a very meddling one?’ He held her beautiful face by the chin. ‘And you really are my daughter.’

‘Yes, and you really are my father. There is something that binds us more than history.’

He hugged her again. ‘Goodbye daughter.’

‘Goodbye father. I will really miss you. I don’t want you to go but there really is no choice.’

‘I think I understand.’ He then kissed Aga, and then hugged his son. Jowan was Twacuman and yet he had tears.

‘Farewell son. You understand why I must go?’

‘Farewell father. Yes, and we will do what we can.’

Derryth was second last.

‘Farewell old friend. I leave you with the burden of taking care of my descendants. I hope they prove not to be too much trouble.’

‘I survived you, didn’t I. After that everything is easy. And you have given me much to talk about. This is not something you see every day.’

He looked at Beowen and she smiled. She understood better than anyone. They hugged. There were no words.

He went to Halla. ‘You don’t have to come.’

She reached for him and kissed him. ‘We are one. I am bound to you because of these bands and despite them. I would die of a broken heart if you leave me behind even if I didn’t die. I will go with you anywhere.’

He kissed her again and the suddenly turned to face the Gyden. ‘Oh, one last question. The old lady in the Lykiak so many years ago – and in all those other places. Which one of you was it?’

Conn studied their faces and the only one whose face didn’t show a twinge of confusion was Asherah. Conn smiled. ‘The web we weave.’ Without further ado, Conn led Halla to the centre of the room. It always happens in the centre of the room. ‘Okay mother, send us back.’

She made one last attempt. ‘We have a chair for you. You can join us. And live forever. And rule forever. Halla can worship you every day. You don’t have to die.’

‘No, I have already lived more lifetimes than I deserve, and had far too much power than anyone needs. This is not my choosing but it is better for everyone that I not live forever – in either realm. Mother, send me back.’

If a Gyden could sigh, Ishtar did. She looked at Asherah. ‘Mother, I will need your help. And Connor, I’m sorry.’

With a smile to Caewyn, Asherah nodded. ‘Of course, but it is such a shame.’

They were the last words Conn heard in Aeaea.

Chapter 23
Derryth il Halani

‘So what happened after that, Grandfather.’

I was stirred back from my memories. It was almost eighty winters since that day and every day I grieved in my own way. There was always something different about Conn il Taransay. We knew that because of the incompressible way that he arrived in Halani. But Brina was not concerned so neither were we. That day, I learnt why he was so different. He was Gyden born, and that is something very special. Yet he was also just a Priecuman – even though he was from what Ishtar described as another time and space – whatever that meant. There is much we don’t know about this time and place.

I remember my father saying that was not a good idea to befriend a Priecuman because before you knew it, they were gone. He was right, but Conn was a very good friend and I mourn his passing.

I continued my story. ‘Well, it is not every day that you get to speak with a Gyden and the only one I ever met who was not afraid of Gyden was Conn. Even folgere are afraid because they are afraid of losing the love of their Gyden. Anyway, as we stood there, the other Gyden just flickered out until there was only Asherah, and she looked at Caewyn and smiled and told her not to mourn, which I didn’t understand until much later. Then she looked at Aga and told her to take care of her child – which was surprising because she didn’t know she was with child. She then looked at me.’

A young girl in the room had started to giggle. She is Aga’s granddaughter, the youngest daughter of Conn and Aga’s son. She was also my granddaughter because I took Aga as my bedda after that. Raising their child kept me closer to Conn. We also had three more children together, an unseemly number of children, but by the time I was finished, I had ten. My clan needed me. The twenty children sitting on the ground listening to me are either his descendants, my descendants or our descendants.

‘So here I was, standing with Asherah looking at me, and I was very brave and I said “Asherah, I have a request.”. She laughed at me and told me that she was not like the others, she didn’t do requests. I said “No, mother, you need to listen to me”. Then she paused, looked at Beowen, and then back at me and said ‘Very well, you have played your part, what do you want?’.

“And that is why there are so many now who are a mixture of all three tribes”. One of the other youngster finished the sentence for me.

I smiled. ‘You’ve heard it before?’ It was true. I asked Asherah to allow Twacuman to have children with the Priecuman and Ancuman tribes. It made everyone equal – and Conn said that we needed to be equal. She shrugged and disappeared.

I stood; it was getting late, time for lunch, and the children needed to go home. I sent them away. My bones ached and I was going to go and have a hot spa. I keep telling the stories because I am the only one left alive that knew Conn. They are all dead. Even Caewyn and Aga. For Twacuman they didn’t live very long.

Caewyn mourned Conn even more than me, and when her children were old enough to rule she came to me and said goodbye. She said that she was incomplete, like her soul had been wretched from her body. She didn’t understand but I did. Her Gyden wasn’t Asherah after all; her Gyden was Conn and he had taken his love away and she was inconsolable. She was connected to him like no other – a link created from the day she took us on a journey as an eight-year-old.

Elva was the same. She was not there to say goodbye and I don’t think she forgave Caewyn – and forgiveness is what we Twacuman do the best. We don’t know how to hold a grudge – but Elva learnt. Such was Conn’s hold over her. She went, far too early.

Everyone who knew Conn was devoted to him in their own way, and I visited them all – I travelled to all the lands and spoke to them all again. Njil’s son was my ship’s Master. He understood, because he grew up in Conn’s shadow travelling everywhere with his father. Twacuman, Priecuman or Ancuman – it didn’t matter. They were always happy to see me arrive and sad to see me go because I was their link, and there were so few left. Almost every person whose soul had not been totally destroyed by Ashtoreth soon belonged to him in a way no one understood or even realized at the time. Only after he was gone. All they wanted to talk about was Conn and his stories, and they never let me go until they’d heard them all twice, we’d drank more than one bottle of wine, and shed more than a single tear.

As for his disappearance, we told them that Conn left Aeaea to go back to Sytha by boat but he didn’t arrive. All those that know the truth were never going to tell. Not that anyone really asked, because they don’t care. He is gone. The how is irrelevant.

They only wanted the good stories about Meshech and Sytha and Kishdah, and particularly any that they were part of. They wanted me to remind them of the part they played in Conn’s tapestry of life.

All his children are gone too. I visited them all and held them as they cried when we spoke of our time together. All they wanted was another chance to say goodbye. I am Twacuman and tears are a waste of my spirit but they all made me cry with them. Tulia was the first to die. I was with her for a lunar when she ill. “Do you think he forgave me, Uncle”. That was all she ever asked and it didn’t matter what I said, she didn’t hear it from him, so she didn’t believe. She knew I don’t lie, but there was a difference. She died of a broken heart.

Today, his grandchildren and great-grandchildren rule all three lands and they have respect for their ancestor but they didn’t know him. They follow his rules and we make sure they do, but he is just history to many of them. Some come to see me, and ask for stories and I tell them, but it is not the same. They were not there; they did not know Conn il Taransay. They did not revere him like the rest of us did.

‘Uncle?’ I turn, it is one of Conn’s Merian great-granddaughters. She is named after her ancestor that was Conn’s first Merian bedda, Cynilda. She looks just like her, and so much so that I cried when I saw her. She made me miss him. She came to Aeaea a lunar ago to find out more about her ancestor. Her grandmother just knew him as a child.

‘Yes, Cynilda?’

‘Do you have an answer for me?’

I didn’t but I do now. I understand by looking at her face why I am the last one alive that knew Conn. There is no one to tell the stories anymore. Not like before. All this intermixing have destroyed the old ways. Everything has its positives and its negatives. But I would never go back in time and make it how it was. Unless it was somewhere riding through a forest with Conn.

I am the last Wothbora as well. Cynilda want to write down all the stories for me so that no one forgets. Some new-fangled thing called a printing press. A tapestry of life taken from pictures and changed into words. His stories must be heard, and I’m the only one left that knows them. I suddenly realize that if I do that, then I to get to leave and join the wind. I am old, too old, and it is time. Perhaps Conn is waiting for me to go on another adventure. I’d like that.

‘Yes, the answer is yes. Come and see me in the morning. We will start then.’

‘Wonderful, thank you Uncle. It is the best thing.’ She looked at me excitedly. ‘Can we start with Cynilda – I love those stories.’

‘No, we will start where all stories should start, at the beginning. You can call your first chapter “The Aebeling”.’