View Full Version : A Wyrd sort of Dharma
A/N: As this story will be either completely in flashback or reflection, and therefore Karuka's private thought, it is all in Gaelic. So instead of writing it in perfect Gaelic, which I am not confident in, I'm writing it in normal English. Thank you, and enjoy. To explain the title, Wyrd is the Nordic view of fate, and Dharma is the Hindi view of fate. They differ slightly, and yes, I made the pun on purpose. This is my first work in first person, and it's Karuka talking, so please bear with me.
((Solo))
Althanas is a strange and wonderful world, with many strange and wonderful people. Since I came here, I've met so many people I can't name them all. A few have wanted to hurt me, some without reason. It is a very dangerous world here, more so than back in Ireland. There are many strange and new types of magic, new materials to be seen, new plants and animals...new races. Many people can wield magic, too, not just Druids...I have yet to see anyone else who carries a rune pouch with them.
If anyone else in the Druid Clann I come from had ever seen half of what I've seen, they would swear that they had stepped into a world of Chaos. Here abomination and blessed creature walk side by side, and even fight each other directly...or become friends. They don't think it odd. To them, it's just Althanas.
I've been shown so much kindness here, despite the danger. To most people, I'm just a human with an odd sort of accent. My brown skin...it doesn't make me an abomination. The chakra on my forehead does not make me the "Child of Foreign Gods." Even if it does, the fact that I am of foreign gods doesn't put me at any greater risk. Granted, there's more than enough risk to go around, as I've been discovering lately.
But I've come out of most of it intact, so it's as if the gods really are watching over me. The first person I ever met in this world was kind to me, and an example of the strange things I would encounter. Arsenic Ruin...I wonder what happened to him? Then I met the Mime, and the very next day the swordsman Osato. It was an odd sort of trip we had together, and we were joined unexpectedly by a stowaway by the name of A'rei. Ah...if I could go back home and tell the tale...that's the stuff legends are made of back home. Wills o' th' wisp, a monstrous cat...and a strange magical item, coupled with death, danger, and the unimaginably beautiful...
It was the stuff of legends back at home, a tale worth singing for generations.
I'd have loved to stay in Scara Brae, but my pendulum drew me away from it on a boat. I hate boats. I wandered around, met a scrawny Earth-boy who needed help...that didn't turn out well. Got knocked out by my own hailstorm then. I don't particularly [b]like[b] Hagall, either.
Finally, I was brought here, to Corone. When I first got here, I just wanted off the boat. In the forest of Concordia I was attacked for no reason by an Elf whose name I never got. I almost died then, but a kind traveler took us to UnderWood and got us medical attention. When I was healed, I left that place. Winter soon gripped the land as I wandered through the Comb Mountains and into Akashima, dressed only in my rags and barefoot. I was starving, as well, and thought I was going to die. Fortunately, I was found by a fox-person family, and taken in. I would have died without them, and I want to go back some day. I want to be part of their family...and I think they accepted me as part of them, even though I'm just a human.
Then I was on another boat, and I met the strongest man I've ever seen...Seth Dahlios. He seems to be rather feared...but save when he goes into a murderous rage, I don't see the need to fear him. He's a good man at the core, and very protective of the innocent and his friends. When I met him, though, he was hiding. He has a tragic past, too...I could see it in his eyes. But in his own way, I think he's one of the kindest people I've ever met.
And now I've met a new person. His name is Caduceus Grimaldi. We met to fight each other, but wound up fighting a big creature, instead...a bug bear, he called it. I was hurt in the fight, and he took me to get healed. He invited me to come with him to the Comb Mountains...and since it appears to be my dharma to go with him for a while, I agreed.
But still...I needed better clothes than rags, and I finally had the money to buy them. It still feels a little strange, wearing clothes fit for a person...not as drafty and cold. But what REALLY feels odd are the boots. It's harder to feel the ground beneath my feet, even if my feet are better protected. I've never had a pair of boots before...well, I did, when I was a very little girl. My father made me a pair of boots for the snows.
Leaving the shop, I almost literally bumped right into a woman from a later Earth...Amanda. She was a strange sort. She seemed to know who I am...and she spoke so that I couldn't understand her in the least. We went to a tavern...apparently it was "Miller Time," whatever that is...and she needed to have a beer, rather than an ale. Too strong for her, and too bitter. She didn't seem too drunk to be in danger when I left, so we parted ways.
And now I'm here, sitting in the square, under the stars. I love how calm and quiet it is at this hour. I suppose I should find my way back to Caduceus. Cadu's so funny...the first time I saw him, he was red as anything. And he's been very kind to me, as well.
No one was ever kind to me back in Ireland...not since my father left my mother and I. Well, that's a lie. The Crone was kind, before she died. And Albin...I thought Albin...but he wasn't.
It's been a long time since I've thought of my past. I've changed a lot since the day my mother died. I've killed since then...I've learned a few new things...instead of being dressed in rags and barefoot, I have sturdy clothes made of a fabric called "vlince" and durable leather boots.
It's a strange sort of dharma I've been given, and an even stranger one I have now...but only by remembering the past can we make sense of the present and future.
I was born on a warm and wet summer day, or so I was told. Actually...I was born during one of the worst thunderstorms in living memory. The midwife couldn't even get to my mother in time for the birth, so my father had to help.
My mother said I've always been a contrary sort of child. I was so contrary when I was born, she said, that I came out toes first -- and then had the gall to not have the cord tangled around my neck. So many babies die like that. But I came out fine, and my mother was back up like normal in three days...if she hadn't been forced to take the month-long rest period, she wouldn't have. At least, that's what she always told me. She told me that it drove her insane.
When I was very little, she told me that I was the most beautiful baby she had ever seen -- skin more golden than my father's, and red hair like the deepest of sunsets, with the most intriguing eyes she'd ever seen -- her blue eyes and my father's hazel eyes put together like the gods' sky above. I was so beautiful, she told me, that instead of naming me Caelan, which means "whelp," or "troublesome child," she wanted to name me Aisling or Aine, with Eithne for a middle name -- there have been many great Eithnes.
I'm glad my father insisted on calling me Karuka, which means "heavenly piece of art." I really don't think I'd be a very good Aine. I'm not so sure I make a good Karuka...but the gods have never begrudged me their power, so I'll take it as a good sign.
My very first memory is of the time my father gave me my chakra.* I was a little older than two summers, it was actually coming up autumn.
We practiced all the right prayers for weeks before that. It was very hard to learn them all, because I was little and the words were very difficult. I learned both Anglish and Gaelic from the cradle, but they were my first Sanskrit prayers. The only one of those I still remember is the Gayatri mantra, and "Aum namah Shivaya" or, "Aum, I bow to Lord Shiva."
When the day finally arrived, he did a great ceremony. I was dressed in a beautiful red sari that my mother made me, just for that one day. I can still hear his voice rising and falling in the chants as he invoked Lord Shiva to grant me his favor.
I can feel the sticky wetness of the liquid as he pressed his thumb to my forehead. "Karuka," he told me, his voice echoing the dark jungles and great temples of India, "now, my daughter, if you are accepted by Lord Shiva as my own true daughter, and if you accept Lord Shiva as one of your gods truly and with all of your heart, you will always have a mark on your forehead dedicating you to him, just like the mark on my forehead. It means you are one of his beautiful children, and he will not forget you in life or in death.
Most of the mark washed off after a while. It was just paint, after all...but since then, I've always had the little mark on my forehead, marking me as one of Lord Shiva's.
If I'd ever gone to India, it would have marked me as truly Indian as my hair marked me truly Irish, but for my mother's Clann...my Clann...it marked me as the child of a foreign god. The different was the unacceptable, and I was condemned to never truly be part of either culture.
But I remember how pleased my father was with me, that Lord Shiva had accepted me, and I him. If my father and mother were happy, that was good enough for me.
After all...I was a child, and every child thinks their family the best in the world.
* I made this ritual up.
The rest of my childhood is largely a blur. I played like the other children did, I participated in what holy festivals I was allowed to, and I learned about the Irish and Celtic gods, and a few of the Nordic, since with the Vikings had come the runes my mother used. She was of Scottish descent. Her great-grandfather had come to Ireland, one of the younger sons of a Scottish Kings, and they'd had the Elder Futhark, as well as some of the gods (Thor, Odin, and Loki, mainly) for generations before that.
I was a child of very strong faith, despite the fact that the town Elders told me that I would never hear the gods talk to me since I was of impure blood.
"But I'm pure in here!" I yelled at them, hitting my chest. "I'm pure in here! That's what matters!"
I don't know if that's what matters or not. But I never did hear a god speak to me.
It was a very happy childhood, aside from all the adults who never wanted me to even try attaining closeness to my gods.
One more event stands out in my memory, though, and of course it is not something happy.
Death is something ever-present. It comes and claims the lives of babies and grandmothers, and everyone else, all the same. It comes for the child as she plays in the stream, and it comes for the warrior on Valkyries' wings. Death is natural. Everyone dies.
When I was very little, and we were in town, I overheard a group of men talking about how they wanted to die. One wanted to die "roaring drunk in the arms of a buxom lass." Another wanted to die in the heat of battle. The third man agreed that both were very glorious deaths, but he wanted to die in the woods, close to the gods and the heart of the gods, where it was peaceful and quiet. And I thought that death was best.
Later, I was asked by an old Crone how I wanted to die, and I told her "in the forest." She looked at her runes and told me that it was not to be. She told me that I would die somewhere that was very scary to me, and cold.
I laughed then. I told her "I will never die, not in a million years." But she just looked at me and said nothing.
That summer, we were invited to spend the Summer Solstice in Scotland with some distant relatives of my mother. They had a grand place to live. A big fortress for everyone to be safe and happy in. My mother said it was because her relatives here were the king and his family. I thought it very grand to be related to a king.
More than that, though, I was excited to be going on a trip. I must have bounced so much that the boat nearly capsized, but I had no fear, I was immortal and I was going to have fun at the Solstice in Scotland. After all...what child of barely four summers does not get excited at the prospect of fun and sweetmeats and staying up late?
And Solstice was grand. My Scottish relatives didn't seem to mind so much that my father was Indian and I half-Indian. There were honey cakes and the Druids cast their runes and it was the finest thing I've ever seen in my life. It had been a perfect time, much better than the smaller festivals at home I couldn't even watch.
Home...I still think of it as home...probably because I'm so much a wanderer now. In truth, I have no home.
On the last day, I went out on the loch with my "cousins." They all spoke Gaelic with a funny accent, but they laughed at me, since I was the "ad'rable wee lassie*" and told me that I was the one with the strange accent.
There were nine of us on the boat, and we went all the way across the loch, and then turned around to come back to the shore where my parents were waiting. My cousins were very funny -- Scots have a great sense of humor, as a whole. I wanted to come back for the next Solstice, because everyone was so nice.
We were almost to shore when it happened. There was a sudden bump under my feet, so hard that I went tumbling a few steps. I grabbed on to the nearest thing, which was someone's leg, and he held me while everyone looked around.
I was scared, and I started to cry. I got even more scared when another bump hit the boat, and it was quickly followed by a third, and suddenly we were all in the water.
I screamed, and I felt the water come into my mouth, choking me. I flailed out in the water, but I didn't know how to swim. Something brushed by my foot, and I was afraid, but I didn't know what to do. Everything very quickly went black, and then I saw a bright, piercing light.
The next thing I remember after that is vomiting up leaves and dirty water, and struggling to breathe in the sweet, free air. I coughed for a few minutes, and then I looked around. My father's arms were around me, and he was wet from the loch, too. My mother stood by someone else, fretting over him. He was the one who had held me. Out of nine people on the boat, no one else ever made it to the surface. The loch had eaten them. Water was not a friend, it was dangerous. It had almost eaten me, too.
We stayed for the funeral, burning sacred white bulls instead of the dead bodies that never came back, and then we buried the ashes under grave markers.
When it came time to go back home, I did not want to. I was scared to get on the boat. And when I refused to walk onto the boat, my father picked me up and carried me, kicking and screaming, onto the boat.
I screamed until I was hoarse, until I could scream no more, and my throat was bloody from the screaming. And when I could not scream, I cried.
I never went into deep water again after that. I never learned to swim. And we did not go back for the next Solstice.
Other than my fear of the water and the revelation that I was not immortal, I recovered quickly, as children must, and before the first snowfall I was a happy child again.
*adorable little girl
During my fifth summer, though, my happy childhood was forever shattered. My father came in from the field where he had been meditating and praying to Lord Shiva, and he took my mother aside and talked to her. He talked to her for a long time, behind the curtain that marked off their private space. There was a lot of arguing. I heard them yelling for a while. Mostly my mother yelled. My father spoke softly...and sometimes he spoke very softly, and then I knew he was angry.
That was during the morning, and by afternoon, I had slipped outside and away from the yelling, because even when there was yelling, everything was always okay in the end. Always.
As the sun was just starting to make the afternoon shadows, my father came out of the house. He was wearing simple traveling garb and he carried a leather satchel. He came to me and he picked me up and kissed my forehead, right over my chakra.
"Your father has to go back to India now, Karuka. I would take you with me, but the journey is long and dangerous, and you are little."
"But I am brave, Father. I will go too, if you want. We shall get Mother, and we can all go to India!"
"No, Karuka," he told me. No. It is my dharma to go back, and your dharma to stay. Your mother must stay, as well. It is her dharma to not ever leave this village again. Remember, Karuka, your Father loves you. Keep your faith strong, for it and your courage will be your Father now."
I looked up at him, not understanding. "Why are you going, Father? Why is your dharma taking you away and not us with you?"
"I do not know, Karuka. I know that Lord Shiva has called me to travel back to India, and I do not know if I will be back here again."
Then he smiled at me, and handed me the sword and sheath I've carried with me ever since. It was long, and very heavy in my hands. He took it out of the sheath, and I could see his mark on the hilt. I admired how the blade curved and glinted in the light, in all its bronze glory.
"Here. Your brave ancestors fought with weapons like these...and their women danced with them. You see how broad and not sharp it is on one side? That is so you can balance it. This is not a weapon, and the sharp edge cannot cut flesh. If you keep it sharp, it might be able to cut cloth...but don't draw the sword around your mother, or she will be upset with me."
He patted my cheek and kissed me on the forehead again. "Never forget who you are, my daughter."
Then he left, and bade me not to follow.
When I went back inside, my mother was crying. She cried and cried for days, and I cried too, because I did not understand.
When summer gave way to autumn, I said to my mother, "Surely he will come back before first snowfall." But the first snowfall came, and my father did not. So then I told my mother, "He will come at the first sign of spring!" But the weather warmed, and the equinox passed, and he did not return. So I said to my mother, "He will surely return for the Solstice!"
But he did not come at the Solstice, and then my mother said to me, "I will have to marry Calhoun when the moon is this shape again."
I shook my head. Calhoun was the Clann leader, and he was one of the meanest men in the whole village. "Odin will never allow it, Mother," I said. "I will go to the Sacred Oak and I will pray hard."
My mother gave me a very sad smile then. "You are not a Druidess, Karuka. And I don't think they'll let you become one."
This made me sad, for only the Druidae, the sacred priests and priestesses, could hope to invoke the gods through prayer. But I knew of no other way to get my father to come back, so I decided to try anyway.
For the next month, I went to the Sacred Oak every day to pray. I would climb high up into the branches, and there I felt very close to the All-Father, Odin. Closer than I ever felt to the Dagda, even in his sacred place. Closer than I even felt to Thor, the mighty god who had presided over my birth.
So I went and I prayed my simple child's prayer.
Odin, All-Father
It's Karuka.
I know I've come every day for a long long time to ask for the same thing.
I'm sure you're getting angry with me by now.
And I know everyone else would be angry with me for being here, as well.
But I don't know what else to do.
Please find a way to bring my father back, since no other god has as much power from here to the...the Indus river.
I'll be good my entire life, and do whatever you say,
But don't let anything bad happen.
Sometimes the prayers went on longer than that. And often times I cried while I prayed. I told a lot to Odin, that summer, and in particular that month. I told him how much I missed my father, and that I was scared...scared of so much. Scared of Calhoun and his cruel eyes, scared of the others in the town who called me names, scared that my mother, who was so strong to take care of us for a whole year, wasn't invincible and would have to do what Calhoun said, because everyone had to do what Calhoun said.
After I was done in the tree, I went into the field and sat where my father had done his meditations. I prayed to Lord Shiva to send my father home to us, me and my mother. I told him my mother and I needed my father, and surely is dharma could not be so cruel as to bring him away from us for forever. I also told him what I told Odin, and every day, I believed that by sunset, my father would return to us and everything could be normal again.
But he never came, and at the Autumnal Equinox, my mother was forced to marry Calhoun. We moved into his house. I had a single set of clothes to wear, and a place to sleep in the corner. He would have sent me away if not for my mother. My mother was very pretty, with bright red hair, skin pink like the wild rose, and eyes shining blue. And she would have left and taken me if Calhoun had not agreed to keep me.
But I was not his daughter, and he called me Kennedy, a name meaning "Ugly Head."
I remember things so much more clearly after my mother's second marriage. I suppose it is much easier to remember pain and confusion than it is to remember happy times, like learning the mantras from my father, or playing out in the yard with the baby chickens.
I never held a little downy chick among Calhoun's flock. Even the man's chickens detested me, the younger ones shying away and the older ones pecking viciously at my heels when I went out to feed them. That was one of my jobs. I had to feed the chickens every day, once in the morning, and once in the evening. For a long time, every morning and night I would come in scratched up and bloody. Most of my scars are chicken scars...but I got taller and my feet got tougher, and after a while I didn't bleed for the chickens anymore.
Calhoun's was the biggest house in the village, and it was made half of wood, and half of sod. Most houses were just made of sod.
There were even two rooms in it. Calhoun slept in the small room, and when he wanted my mother at night, he would pull her in with him. I had a little pile of rags in the coldest corner to sleep on. My mother had a pallet near the hearth. My mother argued with Calhoun about this, but he hit her over and over until her body was almost a solid purple, and he turned to me then and hit me again and again until I couldn't move. When I started to cry, he only hit me harder. "Don't ever let me see your tears, abomination! Tears were granted by the gods to people, and only people!"
I would argue with him, and tell him I was a person, too, but he only beat me harder. "Indian filth is not human, Kennedy. And if you ever talk back to me again, I will cut out your tongue."
I can still hear his voice, ringing in my head. To this day, I only feel safe to cry in the rain, when no one knows if the water is fresh or brine.
Sometimes, during the winter, I would wake up at night and not be able to feel my body. It was very peaceful during those times. Since I couldn't feel my body, I was free to be all spirit, and I could pretend to go and play with the dryads at the brook, and even go dance with the faeries under the moonlight, on the thick snow. Those were the happiest times I ever spent under Calhoun's roof. Every morning after, though, I paid for that happiness. Numb from the cold, I had to get up and build the fire.
Sometimes the embers had gone out all the way, and then it was coldest of all. I didn't mind how cold it was, because I couldn't feel it...but I also couldn't feel the logs I was handling, and my little fingers were too stiff to easily make a new fire. Worst of all, it hurt to move my arms and legs and hands, because my elbows and knees and fingers were too cold to bend.
Sometimes I would accidentally make some noise when I was trying to make the fire. Since my mother was there most of the time, she would wake up, and she would look around to make sure that I hadn't woken the beast she was married to. Often I hadn't, for Calhoun slept heavy, and my mother would fish out a little rune and whisper a prayer to Brigid to light our hearth, and most of the time, the fire would light. I know now that the rune she used was Ken, and that on occasion, when she had lost faith in the gods, the hearth wouldn't light, and then we would have to hurry and make the fire. That was the only time I got to spend with my mother during the last ten years of her life. We would sit by the fire, and I felt life and warmth inching painfully back into my often-bruised limbs and form, and she would tell me stories. But when we heard Calhoun stir, she had to prepare him his morning meal of beer soup and I would have to run out in the frigid dawn to feed the vicious chickens. The chickens and goats had better beds than my mother and I did -- nice and thick straw that we would lay out in the evenings. The goats used to ram into me with their heads, but it was my mother's job to feed and milk them, and they were fed and milked in the afternoon.
If the fire wasn't made in the morning when Calhoun woke up, he would beat me again, and then throw me out to feed the chickens. Often, he would beat my mother, too, for the sheer displeasure of having to look at me.
He told me that he had to punish me and my mother for our sins against the gods. My mother's sin was having fallen in love with and given a half-blooded child to a "follower of dark gods." Mine was for being a "child of foreign gods."
His punishments were harsh. Once, when I was eight, he beat me so badly my mother was afraid that I might die if he beat me anymore. She grabbed his arm and pulled him away, telling him to stop. She was pregnant then, about five months along and her belly was getting big. He yelled at her for daring to challenge his authority, and beat her so badly that she started bleeding heavily and lost the baby.
When the town elders questioned him about it, for to beat a woman into a miscarriage was a crime, even for the Clann leader, he said that he had been drunk and unable to control his actions. They did not say anything further.
I went down to the tree after that. It was Odin's sacred oak, and they didn't like me climbing up there, but it was my peaceful place.
Thoughts remain in Gaelic, since I didn't think it made sense to go from having her thinking fluently in Gaelic to broken English.
Radasanth, present day.
Karuka shook her head, yanking herself out of her memories, and walked to the fountain, splashing cold water on her face.
I suppose I should be grateful he did not do worse than beat me...although what he did to my mother was all-but unforgivable. Most of the men of the village would beat their wives and children...common practice...punishment is good for discipline. And he hit my brothers, too...just never until they could barely move.
She looked down at the rippling reflection in the fountain's pool. Even in the dim moonlight, she could see the abnormally deep red of her hair, and golden skin like she'd never seen on anyone else.
He actually protected me, somewhat...in a society where it is dangerous to be even the least bit different. He was the Clann leader, had it suited him, he could have had me killed the first time the harvest was poor. Could have claimed the gods were cursing the land for the sin of its people harboring a heretic...the "Child of Foreign Gods." Different was dangerous...it killed others before and after me...and just gained a lot of humiliation and pain for me. But my stepfather never allowed the village to turn on me far enough to take my life.
The Irish lass sighed, running her hand through her reflection to distort it, and then she settled back down at the base of a tree.
I still hated him.
A/N: Bonus points if you get all the references. Once people start speaking, you aren't going to want to blink, or you'll miss the important stuff. Btw...this is the single most important scene in Karuka's life, right here.
I was often punished for going to Odin's sacred oak, even though the village's primary deity was the Dagda, and his sacred grove was far from Odin's sacred oak. I didn't much care...I felt closer to the god at his tree, and he was the only god I felt close to, other than Lord Shiva. Not any of the Irish gods and goddesses, with their ancient wisdom and their resolute silences. But here, in the tree dedicated to a foreign god -- a Viking god -- I could hear the tree whisper to me, and I thought I could almost hear the god's voice, some days.
Calhoun was being interrogated by the Elders, but I knew they would not punish him. They would not dare. My mother was with him, sitting outside, and she would tell them nothing. She was afraid of Calhoun. Everyone was afraid of Calhoun.
I hated him so much. I wanted to kill him. With my own two feeble brown hands, I wanted to rip out his throat.
I told this to the All-Father, there in the tree, nestled among the branches heavy-laden with acorns. But I eventually fell silent. There wasn't much else to say. We had little protection, my mother and I. And it wasn't the place of the gods to interfere. They had bigger things to do than look after than a child of foreign gods and the woman that birthed her. We really were on our own, my mother and I.
It's very hard to keep faith in any god when all seem to have abandoned you. And how could they be watching and still let this happen? It wasn't right to punish the unborn child for my sins, for my being different.
As I sat in the tree, moping after trying to talk to Odin once more, a rustling sound in the branches caught my ear, and I turned to look at the boy who had settled in next to me. He looked to be about thirteen, and had the curliest and most golden hair I'd ever seen in my life. He grinned at me quizzically, as though he hadn't expected to see anyone else in the tree with him.
"Beware the oak," he cautioned with a more mischievous grin. "It draws the stroke." He spoke Gaelic fluently, but his accent sounded strange.
"LANGER!" called a deep voice from the base of the tree, a voice that had the same accent as the other one. The boy looked down.
"What, Delling?"
"Get out of that tree young man, it's probably special to the local village."
"But she's in here, too." He pointed at me, and I shrank back against the tree, trying to hide.
"Both of you come out, then," was the next command. Reluctantly, I climbed down the branches of the tree and touched back on the ground, not looking up at the big foreign man. The boy called Langer, who I swear had started down well after me, was standing on the ground before I was, and grinning up at the man shamelessly.
"You know better, Langer," the man scolded, before turning to me. I flinched, thinking he was going to speak to me harshly, but he knelt down and spoke to me softly.
"Why is a little girl like you out here on a chilly autumn day without a fur? Where is your father?"
I shook my head. "I have no father anymore. He left for India."
"Well, that's a very long way. What's your name, child?"
"Karuka."
He took his hand and tilted my head up so that I was looking him in the eye. It wasn't in the eyes, because one of them was missing. His eye was very blue, and he had black hair with much gray mixed in.
"Karuka...can you tell us what this tree is?"
I nodded, afraid that once he knew the truth he would make sure I was punished. "It's Odin's sacred oak."
"Are you a priestess of his in training, that you are allowed to climb in the tree, Karuka?"
I shook my head, looking down again. "I...no. They'll never let me be a Druidess. I'm not supposed to be in the tree, but Odin is the only god that I feel hears me...he's my god, everyone else worships the Dagda, mostly, but Odin is my god...and I feel closest to him here."
I expected him to be angry, because I was a child and not have direct access to my gods...the male head of household was. But instead he smiled, looking at me kindly. "In that case, I don't think he'll mind."
"Hey," said the boy suddenly, holding a small white pouch in his hand. "If you aren't meant to be a druidess, why is there a bag of runes here? It's irresponsible of you to drop your pouch."
He put the bag in my hand, but I shook my head. "It can't possibly be mine, I don't have any runes."
"Nonsense, an older druid would never be separated from the rune bag. You must just be stupid and dropped them."
"Lo--Langer!" snapped the old man. "Then again, my nephew may have a point. If they weren't yours before, these runes came into your possession for a reason...here, I'll prove it to you."
The man drew two runes from his own rune pouch -- runes made on opal, which meant he must be a very powerful druid indeed, to ward off the bad luck of the stone.
He showed them to me. "First, this rune, the blank one, is Wyrd. It means destiny. The second rune, the one with the lighting ray on it, is Sigel, and it means power. It is your destiny to have this power...those runes are yours."
I took the bag, still unsure, and opened it. The runes within were scribed on little tablets of white clay, and the characters on them were an earthy red. I pulled one out...it was the blank rune, Wyrd.
Delling looked at it and smiled. "Your rune. You have a lot of potential, Karuka."
"DELLING! LANGER!" called a woman's voice from not far away. She was beautiful, with fiery red hair and flashing eyes. Next to her stood a huge man with a war hammer slung across his back, and his hair was an orange red. Delling smiled. "My wife, Ingrid, and son, Donar," he explained.
Langer stretched out. "Yeah, they'll be wanting to eat. Let's take the whelp with us, it's too skinny."
"Langer!"
And so I went to eat with them...more I was pulled along to eat with them, really. But the food was very good, fish and fowl and vegetables and lamb, and so much of it. I'd never seen so much food at a village feast, much less for a traveling family's picnic. It seemed to my eyes of only eight summers' experience, that as soon as food was taken from the sheepskin cloth, more appeared, miraculously.
"So," started Donar, "the child doesn't have a father? Maybe she belongs to the Crone at the edge of town. The one with the orphans."
I'd never heard of a crone at the edge of town that took care of orphans, but I didn't say so.
The day ended all too swiftly, and I had to get back to Calhoun's house. On the way back, I saw a small hut that I'd never seen before, and outside, a strange old woman churning butter. I thought that was odd...maybe that was the Crone.
I held my rune pouch tight as I went back into the house. I didn't want Calhoun to take it from me. He did, though. When I slipped in the door, he struck me roughly across the face, and then seized my bag.
"Whose runes did you steal, Kennedy?" he demanded of me roughly.
"No one's!" I said. "They were a gift! From a group of strangers that passed by today!"
"There WERE no strangers passing by. Stop lying to me!"
He threw the bag on the floor, and it opened, spilling out a few runes. His eyes traveled over them and he paled. "Faylinn...teach her these...no magic, but how to divine with them. Apparently...she didn't steal them."
He swept the runes back into the bag (not daring to kick holy objects, even if they were clay instead of bone), and tossed them by my feet for me to pick up.
He never told us what the runes said to him, that day.
Learning how to read the runes was one of the hardest things I've ever done. It took me weeks to remember what the runes could symbolize on their own...and it was difficult to interpret them. Making the situation worse still, my mother hadn't been allowed to read since before she married Calhoun, so she was out of practice. She knew Ken still, as the fire rune, and she had used Beorc on both of us before, without Calhoun knowing. Beorc was to heal.
When I finally had learned the ones that she was able to teach me, she started teaching me how to read them in pairs. For some reason, that seemed impossible to grasp and interpret. I would do a reading for my mother as practice, and it would always turn out wrong, both the runes drawn and my interpretation of them. It didn't make any sense.
It was like in that house, where I'd been told over and over how much of a failure I was, how ugly I was, how stupid I was, and how worthless I was, there was a miasma of hatred. In a house so clogged by hate and pain, there was no way for a clear reading to come through. Even Calhoun refused to read inside the house, after the night my runes spilled on the floor.
When he needed to do a reading, he would go to the Dagda's sacred grove. Why I never thought to go to Odin's tree to read, I don't know. I still went there almost daily to pray. I suppose I finally felt accepted into the Clann once I was allowed to read, however hard the reading came.
A child's mind is very expansive, but so very limited, at the same time.
I first went to the Crone when I was nine years old. My mother had conceived another baby, and I knew that if she stood up to Calhoun for me, he would beat her again. His beatings had gotten harsher since I'd started learning to divine, but with every passing day in that house, with every time Calhoun raised his hand against me, the miasma of hatred in that house grew thicker and thicker, until there was no saving that house. I remember my skin crawling every time I crossed the threshold to enter Calhoun's house, and I knew that it was my fault the miasma was there, because I was Indian and not Irish.
My mother collapsed while milking the goats, and Calhoun dragged her into the house. I tended to her, trying to help her feel better, and she pulled me down to talk to me without Calhoun hearing.
"Karuka...I'm going to have another baby. Calhoun will not dare beat me after the trial that happened last time, but he will beat you for us both. I can't stop him, Karuka...I don't have the power."
I nodded. "I don't want you to hurt anymore for me. Calhoun has bad karma, mother...but I think it would get me bad karma to let you suffer in my place. I...I will go live with the Crone at the edge of the village, and come back here when you need me."
I grabbed my rune pouch when my chores for the day were completed, and then went to knock at the mysterious little house at the fringe of the village. I was dressed like always, in a simple tunic and pair of pants with bare feet. I remember that it was cold...nearing winter, when the snows fell.
Everyone tended to stay indoors at that time of year, after their animals had been taken care of. It was the time of year when parents and grandparents told stories around the fire with big mugs of hot honeyed mead, and hot sheep's milk for the children. I loved how the vacant town looked, with the little doorways rising above sod houses that were mostly underground. It was so easy to feel completely alone, even as the smoke from hearth fires curled up around me, and faint strains of laughter drifted up. It felt more like a dream than reality.
I remember looking up at the sky and shivering. It was such a beautiful silvery gray, and it stretched on and on until the point it met the land, and I remembered wanting to find that place...I wanted to go to where the gray sky met the green earth. Surely, that was the gateway to the world beyond? Maybe it was the way to India. If I went to India, I thought, then my mother would have an easier life.
It was cold that day, but not too cold, because by the time I had trudged my way to the Crone's hut at the edge of the village, I could still feel my feet, although my fingers and ears were starting to go numb. Granted, the walk was less than a mile, but I walked slowly and tried to see the gateway to India at the horizon.
The Crone's hut was different from all the other houses in the village. It was made entirely of wood, and it was spacious. There was no dugout part, just a massive cone with a door at the front. The warm brown of the wood shone out from under layers of daub and grass. It would be totally defenseless if the village ever was attacked. It was too easy to light on fire, and I wondered that an old woman and a bunch of orphaned children could feel safe in such an environment. But through grace or craft, the hut stood.
I looked around before nervously approaching the dark door to knock. Maybe the Crone wouldn't want me, because I had a living mother. But if I explained why I needed to stay away from Calhoun, maybe, I hoped...
The door swung open before my trembling hand could touch it, and I was standing face to face with a wrinkled old woman that stood only a head and a half taller than I did. She looked at me for a few moments with her clear, dark eyes, and for a fleeting moment, I knew exactly why I'd come to her door, and that it was for more than a temporary escape from my mother's husband. I've only experienced a few moments of such clarity in my entire life...but I couldn't describe what it meant. Just that my being in that particular place at that particular time was significant.
After a long moment, she spoke to me, and her voice seemed to hold the Wisdom of Ages while belonging to an old woman.
"Karuka Tida...yes, I know why you have come. Come in out of the cold, child."
She moved back to let me enter, and I joined the circle of a half-dozen orphaned children around a blazing fire with some hot gruel and weak, sweet mead. There were stories and laughter, and a sense of family among the little lost souls taken care of by the old woman at the village edge.
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