House of Dark Delights (28 page)

Vlatucia conceded to that with a sour little nod of her head. To Bran, she said, “See to the funeral preparations. Tintigern is to be buried with his best possessions. His sword and helmet, obviously. His comb bag, razor, daggers…his favorite drinking horn, the one with the silver on it. Have Adiega and Paullia wash him and dress him in his finest clothes, with his gold wrist
torkas
and enameled cloak pin. Make sure they arrange his hair the way he wore it in battle, like a horse's mane. And tell them to gather as many flowers as they can from the fields and the woods. Oh, and keep an eye on them. Don't let them steal the
torkas
and cloak pin.”

She turned and left without so much as a backward glance at her husband.

Artaros told Sedna to take the bodies to the nemeton and the horses and cart to the family stable, and then he and Bran started back toward the village, Frontu loping along by the old druid's side.

“Did you have the dream again?” Artaros asked. “The one about the demon from the—”

“Every night,” Bran said.

“Are you still unsure of the sex?”

“He's male, I think. But he still occasionally appears to me as a female.”

Artaros nodded thoughtfully. “How far away is he now?”

“Eight or ten
luegae,
not much more than that.”

Artaros stopped in his tracks. “That close?”

“I wouldn't worry,” Bran said. “He doesn't seem interested in coming here. Quite the opposite, actually.”

The old man nodded again, then continued walking. “We'll have to trap him, then.”

“What?”

“I'll explain when we meet with the elders tomorrow night.”

“‘We'? Can you imagine my mother's rage if I show up at a council of elders?”

“She may be too old for me to spank, though I'm frequently tempted, but she
can
be overruled. I still wield a certain amount of authority with the elders.”

“Forgive me, Grandfather, but I think it's safe to say Vlatucia wields more, if only through fear. Gamicu Ivageni is still fresh in their memories.” Shortly after Bran's father left for Alisiia early last month, Gamicu, one of the elders, had had the temerity to question Vlatucia's insistence on serving as chieftain in her husband's absence. One night, Gamicu was snatched from his home by three Germani thugs Vlatucia had retained to do her bidding, though they lived in the woods somewhere nearby, not in the village proper. The next morning, one of the villagers on his way to do some trading with a neighboring village happened upon Gamicu's charred remains in a field. He'd been enclosed in a man-shaped wicker effigy and burned to death.

“I'll never be allowed at that council,” Bran said. “She'll order me away, and there's no one in this village, including you, who would dare take her to task over it.”

Artaros smiled. “There's one I can think of.”

Two

W
HAT IS
he
doing here?” demanded Vlatucia the following evening as the Vernan elders, all aged members of the
uxelli
class, gathered around the fire in the nemeton. She still wore Tintigern's golden
torka
; Bran wouldn't have been surprised if she'd slept in it.

Artaros, standing behind the altar with Bran to one side and Frontu to the other, said, “Branogenas is a
uelis,
a gifted seer. Someday, he will take his place as druid of our clan. It's time he learned how important decisions are made among our people.”

Vlatucia fixed Bran with her most venomous look. “Leave,” she said.

A gray cat jumped up onto the altar, prompting a flurry of mutters and bows from the elders. Frontu stood with his front legs on the edge of the altar to growl at the interloper, who hissed at him.

“Down, Frontu,” commanded Artaros, whereupon the wolf seated himself, his silvery eyes fixed on the cat. Ignoring him with feline nonchalance, Darius settled down right in front of Bran and stared at Vlatucia, as if daring her to defy him; he'd always been fond of Bran.

She looked away, coloring hotly in the way that only redhaired women can. Lifting her chin, she addressed the assembled elders. “Alisiia was a tragic defeat for the Vernae, for our mother tribe, the Arverni, indeed, for all of Celtica. Our days of self-rule are numbered. The Romans have been invading our villages, executing the chieftains, and selling the people into slavery—an unspeakable fate. Our only hope is to do what our sisters and brothers elsewhere are doing, and that is to leave here before the Romans arrive.”

“And go where?” asked Guthor Totavali.

“Any place where we can be our own masters and worship our own gods and goddesses.”

“What about Darius?” Bran asked. Darius, their god of fire from a far distant land, had made his home in their enchanted cave for centuries. It was the sacred responsibility of the Vernae to keep him hidden and protected, for the world was full of fools who understood nothing about his kind, except how to destroy them.

Vlatucia glared at Bran for having spoken. He avoided her gaze, but Darius glared right back at her.

“Bran is right,” Artaros said. “We must think of Darius first. It is he we live to serve, not ourselves. He couldn't travel with us. It's much too risky. He'd be bumping into people constantly, and sooner or later, he'll be recognized for what he is. On the other hand, I hate to imagine what would happen if we were to leave Vernem and abandon him to whoever settles here after we're gone. Even most Celtæ have lost touch with the old ways, the old beliefs and practices, from contact with the worldly Romans and Greeks. People are losing their respect for magic and for the deities who live among us. They think there's only one world, the one they can see, and they're becoming more and more intent upon being the masters of that world.
Some
of them,” he added with a sidelong glance at Vlatucia, who gave him a contemptuous look. “They don't want gods and demons getting in the way of their power, so they pretend they're not real. If we all flee the Romans, where would that leave a god like Darius, who relies for his very existence not just on the solitude of our cave, but on certain druidic spells of safekeeping?”

“I'll stay here when the Romans come,” Bran said.

Darius turned to look at him, as did Artaros and Vlatucia. The elders all started talking at once.

Holding up a hand to silence them, Artaros said, “I shall stay. It is my place.”

Bran shook his head. “You must leave with the rest of the villagers, Grandfather. I know I'm just a
uelis,
but you can teach me what I need to know before the Romans come. I would hate for you, in your advanced years, to have to endure the rigors of slavery under the Romans, and the Vernae need your druidic skills.”

“More to the point,” Vlatucia told her father, “Darius needs a young druid, one who won't be dropping dead in a year or two.”

“Thank you for pointing that out, Daughter,” said Artaros dryly.

“And Bran can father druidic offspring to ensure Darius's continued safekeeping,” Vlatucia said, adding pointedly, “so long as he consents to marry Briaga matir Primius before we leave, so that she can stay behind with him.”

“
Briaga
has to stay and be enslaved?” exclaimed her father.

“No, surely not,” said Bran, picturing Briaga as she'd appeared earlier that day at his father's funeral, dressed in a multicolored silken dress with her face brightly painted and her fingernails stained berry-red, a beaded comb bag dangling from her wrist. She'd giggled and whispered with her friends throughout the solemn rite.

“Of course Briaga must stay,” said Vlatucia. “We must all make sacrifices for the good of the clan, Brennus.”

“Y-yes, but—”

“I'm willing to leave Bran behind, aren't I?” she asked, to which her father responded with a dismissive little snort, knowing full well how much of a sacrifice that was for her.

“But if you end up a slave,” Tolagnas Rodani asked Bran, “will you even be able to protect Darius? Will you have the freedom to do so? What if the Romans sell you to some soldier on his way back to their homeland?”

“I'll teach him some spells to prevent that from happening,” Artaros said, adding, to Bran, “But I don't like the idea of you and Briaga being here all alone. Your children will need other Vernae, unrelated to you, children with druidic gifts whom they can marry in order to perpetuate the druidic line.”

Vlatucia said, “We have but two gifted children in the clan, Sergonas Rodani and Lasrina matir Temari. We shall leave them behind.”

The grandfathers of the two children grudgingly consented.

“Their mothers should be encouraged to remain behind with them,” Artaros said. “And there may be others who are willing to stay, but they must do so of their own free will. No
vassi
are to be pressured. Bran will act as both druid and chieftain, but in secret, otherwise the Romans will kill him.”

“It is decided, then,” said Vlatucia. “Father, you must perform the rite of marriage between Bran and Briaga first thing in the morning.”

“So soon?” asked Bran, panic speeding his heart as he thought about Adiega. Surely, if he sorted through the problem carefully, he could think of some way to make her his wife and keep her with him.

“We needn't rush the wedding, if Bran would prefer to wait,” Artaros said. “Do we have any way of knowing when the Romans will be arriving?”

“I have scouts to warn us when they start advancing on Vernem,” said Vlatucia, “but I should think they'll be here by the Cold Time. That will give us time to pack up our households and prepare for our travels. Meanwhile, we've discussed all there is to discuss tonight, so I declare this council—”

“There is actually another matter that hasn't been addressed,” said Artaros. “We've resolved the issue of who will stay behind, and how to ensure the druidic line here at Vernem, but what of the Vernae who leave to settle elsewhere? Without little Sergonas and Lasrina, and with no married couples who are both gifted, there will be no one to serve as druid to us after I'm gone.”

That observation was greeted with confounded silence.

“There is a way,” Artaros said.

All eyes turned to him.

“Branogenas has detected the presence not far from here of a…nonhuman traveling south, through the deep woods.”

“A god?” Vlatucia asked.

“Not precisely,” Artaros hedged. “He's…well, from what I can surmise based on Bran's dreams, he's more of an elf, from somewhere far north of here.”

“Benign or demonic?” inquired Tolagnas.

“It's hard to say.”

“Why was I not told of this?” Vlatucia demanded.

“I was waiting until we had enough information to act upon,” her father replied.

Vlatucia said, “The presence of a possible demon so close to Vernem, especially at such a vulnerable time for us, is a matter about which I should have been consulted long before this. We need to do whatever is necessary to keep him as far away from Vernem as possible.”

“Actually,” said Artaros, “we need to lure him closer.” He waited for the uproar to die down, then said, “Unless I'm very much mistaken, and I don't think I am, this particular elf is the type that can shift from male to female, and back again.”

“He's a
dusios
?” Vlatucia cried. “The dusii are demons, ravishers of women. Everyone knows that.”

Speaking over the elders' outraged mutterings of agreement, Artaros said, “But not everyone knows that after a dusios, in his female form, mates with a man, that man's vital seed is transformed. When he becomes a male again, and mates with a woman, any child that might result from that union is blessed with druidic gifts.”

The elders grew silent as they pondered the implications.

“If we can capture him…” Artaros began.

“And control him,” Vlatucia interjected.

“And control him,” her father continued, “then we can use him to sire gifted offspring before we're forced to leave here, thus replenishing our druidic line.”

“And how do you propose to effect this…siring?” asked Vlatucia.

“By mating him with as many of our married couples as would be willing,” he said, “first the males, then the females. If all goes well, by the time we leave, some of the wives will have babes in their wombs—their husbands' babes, but gifted.”

“I'm not sure I like the idea of it,” said Guthor, “mating our fellow Vernae like cattle.”

“Do you like the idea of being left with no druids?” asked Vlatucia. “We shall do it, but—”

“If the elders agree,” said Artaros.

The elders were consulted, one by one. Of course they all consented to the plan, even Guthor, who was probably imagining how it felt to be burned alive in a wicker effigy.

“My one requirement,” said Vlatucia, “is that this dusios must transfer seed only between
uxelli
husbands and wives. The wife must be gifted, and of course not with child. If gifted children do indeed result from these couplings, they must be reared in a manner befitting druids and druidesses.”

“Of course,” said Artaros. “The dusios is traveling on foot, through dense forests and difficult terrain, and he appears to be keeping a deliberate distance between himself and us. We must summon him closer if we've any hope of capturing him.”

“Do you have a spell to accomplish that?” asked Vlatucia.

“My spells alone aren't enough,” he said. “I'll need a shrine to focus them, a stone figure representing the dusios himself. It must be erected in the
Cella,
and quickly, within a half-month or less, before he moves out of the range of my powers.”

“Make it happen,” Vlatucia told Bran. “Any man who can move stone and wield a hammer and chisel must help.”

“What happens once we lure him close?” asked Bemmos Modagni. “Will he just walk into the village of his own accord?”

“Not this dusios,” said Bran. “I can feel his resistance to humans, his fear of them. We'll have to capture him somehow.”

“We'll set a trap,” said Vlatucia. “We trap boar. We can trap an elf. Meanwhile, don't mention this to anyone, even your wives. We don't need to be alarming people by telling them we're setting out to capture a demon.”

                  

“May I speak to you, Grandfather?” Bran asked at the conclusion of the council as Vlatucia and the elders filed down the path to the village and Darius strolled off to his cave.

“Of course.”

“In confidence.”

“When have you ever had to ask that?”

Taking a deep breath, Bran said, “I want you to marry me to Adiega.”

Artaros stared at him. “The
vassa
?”

“I love her, Grandfather. She's—”

“Oh, dear,” said Artaros.

“Please, Grandfather. I can't marry Briaga. She's—”

“She's gifted. Adiega isn't.”

“But—”

“I know, son,” said Artaros, resting a hand on Bran's shoulder. “I was young once, too. Love is a powerful force. But so is duty.”

“You sound like Vlatucia.”

With a sigh, the old man said, “In this, unfortunately, she is entirely correct. A god such as Darius can only be properly cared for by druids. He'll live long after you and Briaga are dust, but he'll be safe because your children and your children's children will have the gifts necessary to ensure that safety.”

Bran looked off into the black forest of sacred, primordial oaks, fighting the unmanly urge to weep.

“It would be a slap in the face of the gods and goddesses,” Artaros said, “for you to allow your gifts to die out with you. I told your mother they were the most powerful I'd ever seen, and I meant it. Mine are much weaker. I get by with powders and potions and shrines. You, my son, are that rarest of druids, a true seer. You whisper a few words, and your magic happens. You must perpetuate that power. You must wed Briaga and beget druidic offspring with her, and that offspring must in turn wed only those who are gifted. In that way, there will always be druids at Vernem, and Darius will live forever in peace and solitude.”

Bran didn't trust himself to reply, lest he burst into tears.

“Debu e dibu,”
said Artaros, pointing to the words inscribed on the altar. “To the gods and goddesses are our lives dedicated. So it has always been, and so it must remain.”