Naamah's Blessing - Jacqueline Carey [251]
We went.
We went with slow, uncertain steps. The stone doorway loomed above us, its shadow black on the starlit grass. I glanced back to see Nemed watching us, starlight sparkling all around her. With an expression of profound amusement and deep affection, she shook her head at me and pointed at the stone doorway.
Without a word, Bao reached out his hand to me. I took it, and we passed through the stone doorway as we had entered it, hand in hand.
In the space of a single heartbeat, starlight gave way to the bright, ordinary light of day. The sky was a bright, cheerful blue overhead, and the grass beneath our feet was green. There were birds singing and a faint scent of wood-smoke on the breeze.
I let out a breath I hadn’t known I was holding.
“It seems our long journey has come to an end, Moirin,” Bao murmured. “Truly and at last.”
I squeezed his hand. “Aye.”
When we reached the cavern, there was no need to explain. They knew. The mood was one of subdued sorrow and muted joy. Old Nemed’s body lay swaddled in blankets, a makeshift litter waiting to transport her.
I stooped to touch it, then rose, tears in my eyes. “Mother…”
My mother wrapped her arms around me and pressed her lips close to my ear, sighing with relief, her warm breath stirring my hair. “Moirin mine. Ah, child! Don’t grieve for her. She knew her time was nigh. This was the ending she hoped would come to pass.”
“Did you?” I asked.
She kissed my brow. “I dared hope only for your safe return.”
“I’m scared,” I admitted. “And I don’t know what I’m meant to do.”
She smiled. “I know.”
“You will learn in time.” It was the young woman Camlan who spoke, clearing her throat in an apologetic manner. “It need not come all at once. We are here to help, all of us. Nemed did her best to prepare us for this day, and we will do our best to teach you.” She paused. “The last thing she said before she passed… Is it true you made the Maghuin Dhonn Herself laugh?”
I flushed. “Oh…”
Bao grinned. “Aye, Moirin did.”
They absorbed that in silence, save for my uncle Mabon, who played a merry, irreverent melody on his silver pipe. “Will you come and see the place that awaits you?” he inquired, lowering his pipe and winking at the young man Breidh, who gave him a shy, complicit smile. “I’ve helped labor myself to make it ready.”
We nodded.
The place was only a short walk away, less than an hour’s time. It was a cave, but as Old Nemed had promised, it was no mere cave. It was part and parcel of the hollow hills themselves.
There were honeycombed passages, the walls themselves as smooth and sleek and golden as honey. Light slanted in to illuminate it from odd angles, openings covered with slatted shades that could be drawn closed or opened. The main living space was vast and airy, and there were a dozen other chambers suitable for lodging, and a deep, cool cavern at the back that served as a larder, stocked with all manner of supplies.
There was wooden furniture so smooth it gleamed, looking almost as though it had been grown rather than crafted. There were pallets stuffed with sweet, fragrant dried grass and herbs. Outside, there was a stream a stone’s throw from the cavern, a meadow where the horses grazed contentedly, and forest beyond.
It was beautiful.
It felt like home.
“We’ll stay with you for a time,” Oengus announced. “We’ll help you learn all the ways of our folk there wasn’t time to teach you after your first initiation. Do you think you can abide here?”
I glanced at Bao.
He grinned back at me. “As caves go, this is something of a palace, Moirin. I could raise a family here.”
“I would like that,” my mother said quietly.
I hugged her. “So would I.”
That evening, we laid Old Nemed to rest in a green mound in the meadow. It was a somber, peaceful affair. I watched Bao working side by side with Oengus, Mabon, and Breidh, laying thick green rolls of turf they had cut earlier, tamping them carefully back into place. His diadh-anam burned bright within him, still attuned to mine, but his own now that the Maghuin Dhonn