Wary of the Very Idea

“So, young sister, you journey to your Dedfryd Gwlad. And so young for such a quest.”

 

“I . . . I journey to the Cauldron.” Gywn frowned, stepping fully into the High Singer’s chamber. The thick curtain fell back across the narrow threshold, damping the sounds of caer life beyond its brightly colored patterns and casting the small space into muted silence. “I don’t know what Ded . . . Dedfrod Gwled means. But yes, I begin my quest.”

 

“Ded-fryd,” the High Singer pronounced slowly. “Dedfryd Gwlad, The Judgment of the People. It is for that that you quest.

 

“Come,” Boudicca patted the vivid red cushion next to her own, “sit with me. We’ll share tea while I tell you of things you must know for your journey into the Cauldron.”

 

Cut from the living rock of the mountain, the dwelling’s walls and ceiling were marbled with jagged striations of obsidian. Their glassy surfaces reflected the soft yellow light cast by a single globe floating above the circle of cushions. A low, beaten copper table sat before Boudicca on which a glazed tea pot and several matching cups rested. Tendrils of steam, smelling sharp and minty, mixed with the fragrance of herbs smoldering in a brass thurible set amongst the porcelain.

 

Gywn thought she smelled vervain as well as the lightest tease of . . . cinnamon? Dropping cross-legged, she settled herself onto the bright red cushion while the High Singer poured tea into a cup and placed it in front of her guest. She waited quietly while Boudicca replaced the pot and took a sip from her own cup.

 

Both pot and cup looked as if they had been passed down through countless generations. Their surface was shot through and through with a spider’s web of cracks, chips, and the persistent stains left by the strong brews they had held. Still, the blood-red glazing matched the cushions and thickly piled rugs covering the chamber’s floor. All in all, a somber place, Gywn let her eyes wander for a moment before returning their regard to her host. Grim even.

 

“Oh, come now,” Boudicca’s lips crept upwards into a wry smile, “surely I can’t be all that grim. I find red a soothing color.”

 

Gywn’s eyes widened and she almost choked on her tea.

 

Setting her own cup down, the High Singer laughed. “No, I can’t read your thoughts, young Gywn. But really, after all these years, and the many, many young apprentices and singers who have sat where you do now, I can read an all-too-familiar expression.”

 

Recovering, the young woman shrugged and broke into a shy smile of her own. But try as she might, nothing came to mind in reply. She set her tea down and waited. Whatever she had expected, especially in light of her past meetings with this formidably stern woman, this was a surprising revelation. Smiles and humor. Indeed!

 

“I’ll not ask you if you have any questions,” Boudicca finally said. “Sweet Branwen, you’re so full of them you could boil over at any moment. And too worried about asking something which might sound . . . silly, to venture asking a one. Am I right?”

 

Gywn managed a tight nod, a frown’s shadow crossing her brows.

 

“Though with you . . . with you I’d guess such fears wouldn’t suffice to keep you mute for long.” Boudicca cast her a penetrating look that held Gywn’s gaze, then released her while she poured more tea into both cups. “So I’ll merely remind you of what I’m sure your guide already has, many times. There are few silly questions, only ill-considered ones. Ones in which no effort to solve them for yourself has been made. I think we can both agree, that makes common ground from which I may begin to instruct you in your Song’s quest. Yes?”

 

“Indeed.” Gywn nodded, her frown twisting into a wry smile. “I’ve heard much the same, in an amazing variety of ways. But yes, questioning is truly an art of self-discipline and reflection . . . followed by words. Not the other way around.”

 

“Perfectly stated, young sister. Now, shall we begin?

 

“You face an added burden,” the High Singer leaned forward to pick up her cup, “one which if not dealt with now could prove dire to you once you begin your journey within the Cauldron of Souls.

“It will be there that you will encounter all that makes us what we are – all the good as well as the evil. And of evil, none surpasses humanity for its capacity to manifest the inimical soul of fear . . . fear in all its cruel, degraded, endless manifestations. In the waters of the pool you will discover the racial essence of our people. And such is its depth of harsh realities – no illusions, myths, or delusions there – that your every belief will be exposed, weighed, and measured against its hard edge of truth. The false, the mistaken, the misperceived, the misunderstood will be cleaved from you. What is left, if there is something left, is what and who becomes the voice of your song.

“The particular danger I speak of lies here. You begin your quest at a time when our people are under siege as they haven’t been in the memory of generations long past. This must not distract you in your purpose. You depart Glass Rock Caer without family, without friends, without loved ones. Such is your need for every grain of your abilities to concentrate and focus your will, that there can be no distractions. You have but one purpose: to find and master your song amongst the fevered cacophony of an entire race’s memories. Once begun, once you immerse yourself in the Pool of Rânoc, swim its raging waters, there can be no turning back. To falter is to lose yourself, to lose your daemon for all eternity.”

 

Boudicca’s eyes, like burning opals, bore into Gywn’s, searching, dissecting, testing. For her part, Gywn met her piercing glare with patient openness.

 

Satisfied, the High Singer nodded, a grim tightness pursing her lips. “When I call the pool’s waters ‘raging’, you discount my warning? Your perceptions of its placid waters, its gentle ripples of Karma dancing across its surface are of things benign perhaps? Possibly even beautiful and lovingly gentle? Surely a place where you first danced to the sublime melodies of Time couldn’t hold the dangers and dire threats you faced amongst the shadows of its guardian wood, yes? Are these your thoughts, young sister?”

 

Calmly sipping her tea, Gywn lowered the cup to rest on her thigh and directed a steady, level gaze upon her people’s High Singer, Archdruid, and Keeper of the Songs of Time. “In part,” she answered in a sober voice. “Those were my first impressions when finally I was able to approach the pool. And yes,” she shrugged, a wry smile twisting her lips, “I danced and danced, so amazed was I to have finally reached my goal, and so much grander it was than anything I could have imagined. I danced, as I gather many, or all, have before me.”

 

Shaking her head, Gywn continued, “But as I’m sure we all learned, and all too quickly, the reaching of one goal only presents us with a truer view of our journey’s path into the next valley, and the next, and the next.

 

“Raging? Yes, Boudicca, under all those ‘benign perceptions’ I felt the power of prophesy in measure that could surely be called raging. A torrent of raw chaos barely constrained, capable of stripping all sense of individuality from one so foolish as to leap unprepared into its waters. And I gather, even with training, an apprentice can be swept under and lost should she fail in the discipline of her lessons.”

 

Great Goddess, so this is what happens when Morrigan herself is your guide. Boudicca felt a shiver of excitement ripple over her tingling skin. Dear Brid, but the time of the ninth bell surely approaches.

 

The tightness of her expression easing, Boudicca nodded. “Indeed. The dangers increase, not lessen. True, the consequences of failure are the same for a fledgling novice as for an experienced singer, but it is the opportunities for failure that increase with each lesson.

“It is to the Cauldron that we journey, seeking there the cleansing rigors of its extremes. But with a most definite purpose that overrides all else.”

 

Boudicca paused, reaching for her tea. She sipped slowly, replacing the cup and returning her regard to the young woman at her side. “Do you know why these wastelands are as they are? How they came to be nothing more than blasted rock and sand, unable to produce or sustain any form of life beyond the most aggressive and predatory?”

 

Gywn considered the question, then shook her head. “I’ve always assumed this was just how it was. Without cause beyond the lifeless soil and lack of water. What could possibly grow here?”

“Have you never considered the ruins? How did such civilizations as what once stood upon the crushed stones of Nazúch exist in such a land?

 

Gywn frowned but remained silent.

 

“Keep a keen eye as you traverse the lands into the deep wastes to the west,” Boudicca said. “More than one great city once climbed high into the sky between here and the Cauldron. And rivers, roads, and even forests thick with towering boles of green.

 

“Only the broken shards of a mighty civilization poke their jagged edges out of the sands now, but once . . . aye once, long before we came to this world, a wondrous and vibrant land this was. And now these many years, nothing.”

 

“Sorcery?” Gywn hissed, casting a grim look of her own towards the High Singer. “Sorcery such as the Krîll released upon our homeworld, such as Dael mastered, was wielded here, wasn’t it? Powers beyond our knowledge, beyond our wildest imaginings fought over this land, and this is what they left. Did they,” Gywn frowned, “destroy themselves as they did everything else?”

 

“Destroy?” Boudicca cocked her head to the side, her gaze holding Gywn’s in a penetrating grip. “Their mortal shells, mayhap. Nay, those they destroyed most certainly. All evidence says at least this much. But the . . . power, as you say, when is such ever destroyed? Dispersed, made quiescent. Transformed. All possibilities, aye. But destroyed? Never. Impossible.”

 

“Impossible?” Gywn’s frown only deepened. “If anything, High Singer Boudicca, these last months since my . . . since my inner awakening, have shown me just how porous the boundary between impossible and possible can be. I’ve come to be wary of the very idea of impossibility.” She shook her head and shrugged. “Or at least my understanding of it.”

 

This brought a surprised look to the High Singer’s face which she quickly hid by reaching for her tea. Oh Mother Morrigan, your dryw is going to be a true terror when she emerges from the Cauldron’s tempering. A wonderful, terrifying terror, and may the gods be praised, not a moment too soon. “A most sound perception, young sister. And one that I pray you will always keep foremost in your thoughts as you enter your Dedfryd Gwlad.”

 

“Between having my skin turned inside out with all my fears becoming daily facts of life, and the shadow of the Ninth Druid looming just on the other side of my dreams,” Gywn said in a rueful voice and laughed, “why, foremost in my thoughts is becoming a crowded place.”

 

Hiding her extreme shock, the High Singer jerked her hand, spilling the last of her tea in her lap. Oh Mother, she terrifies me already!

 

There is nothing as fierce as our drive to exist. To exist, I say, not merely live. Life is not a choice. Existence, though, requires of us to reach out of ourselves, to grasp ahold of the greater universe, and to fashion of it a place for ourselves. For that we must make a choice . . . or many.

– Caireen: Dael’s Choice