Wings of Change

Loch Tay

Loch Tay, Alba

53 B.C.E.

Morning mist cushions the still water of the loch when I slip past Mam and Pap, still rolled tight in the fur from the golden bear we killed last summer, and out of the withy gate of the roundhouse. My little sisters sleep all in a pile of baby arms and legs wound together like a nest of snakes, while my brother nestles at my parents' feet. No one else in the roundhouse wakens, Elders or younglings, exhausted by weeks of preparation. But I cannot sleep when day approaches; I never could, haunted by a fear that this might be the day the sun disappears. I take nothing for granted where the gods are concerned.

My woolen cloak scratches my cheek as I search the mist for omens. I am one of the few in the crannog who finds them everywhere; it is my responsibility to read the messages the gods send us. Elder Mam taught me the signs when I was barely old enough to walk. Every clan needs a wise woman; she had to work with the material at hand, and she knew she would not be with us forever. She needed an apprentice, to protect the clan from the vagaries of the gods when she was gone. I am blessed to be Chosen.

Stilling my breathing, I rest my crossed arms atop the largest of the support logs, one of those that descends to the height of three men beneath the loch, supporting the base of our roundhouse above the water. Through the log I feel the lapping of waves, the skirling of mud along the bottom, the nibbling of salmon in search of algae at the base of the logs. Hidden beneath the stillness of morning waits approaching upheaval of all we know. There is a long journey ahead.

Shivering in the chill, I drag my vision from beneath the loch to the sky above the thinning mists. The tops of dark pines are becoming visible, spiking into the air above the loch. I hear a faint cry, coming closer, closer, until it sweeps above my head. Beating wings toss back the mist and I duck as a peregrine drops, beak open in the fierceness of its call, talons spread wide. It circles, banks, backwinging barely an arms-length away from my face. Tied around one leg there is brightness, metal flashing, a rune suspended from a tie of blood-red wool.

The falcon lands on another of the support logs and stares into my eyes. A raptor's eyes are black and gold, but this one has eyes of sea-blue, the murky color of the waves frothing against the shorehead a day's walk from here. I shiver, pulling the cloak tighter around me. Our journey will end crossing the sea to the westernmost isle; the raptor's eyes must be an omen of our journey. But what do they tell?

Stepping forward across the boards of the crannog's encircling deck, I reach out my hand slowly. My eyes never drop as I approach the support log gripped so tightly by the peregrine's talons. Some animals would be threatened by a human gaze, but power emanates from this bird. The one way to gain its respect is by meeting it as an equal. It lifts its head higher, blinking slowly, and clacks its beak at me.

My unprotected hand is close enough for it to smell, warm red blood flowing within the unscarred skin. I am simply a part of the loch, the air, the mist, the crannog's logs. My strength is the quietness of the tors rising, the peace of the burn flowing with clear water, the minute shifting of the ground as it wakens to day. The peregrine drops its head and nips the tender skin between thumb and forefinger, testing, but not breaking.

"I am Aati," I say softly, my words barely louder than the mist. "I will be seer for my clan someday. If you have come to deliver a message, it will be safe with me."

The peregrine cocks its head to one side, releasing my hand, blinking lazily. The eyes drift for a moment, unfocused, before snapping back to capture my gaze. I feel a whisper in my head, like worms crawling beneath my hair. The whisper grows, filling my head, becomes a shout, a shriek. I close my eyes against the pain and see a picture in my head. Elder Mam said it would be like this, when the gate opened to the Overworld. I try not to flinch from my first waking vision, but it is hard, so hard—

There are men with hair the color of flames, dressed in fur and leather. There are men with skin dark as tree bark, in metal armor and cloaks the color of the sky. There are men from across the sea, from many lands, all carrying long knives dripping blood. There are men coming here, to Alba's shores, cursing our land with their feet and their metal and their blood. There are men everywhere, driving us into the forests, cutting down the trees, cutting us down. The vision is enormous, cacophonous, almost too much to fit inside my head.

My cry echoes across the mist-shrouded loch. The vision remains, trapped in my mind. My gaze snaps back to the falcon on the post before me; there is a tear in my hand where its beak gouged, the blood welling up in tiny droplets, pure and red and strong. It is the blood of Alba. There is a message in the flow, if only I could read it. A drop of my blood stains the falcon's beak.

It's sharp cry echoes across the water, slicing through the lightening mist. The peregrine bursts upward from its perch in a rush of striped feathers, soaring into the air above my head, crying out again, and again, sounding like a woman birthing, a man dying, a child weeping. The sound cuts through me like a sacrificial knife as it disappears into the fog-shrouded sky. Numb, I fall to my knees on the rough boards.

Sun is burning through the mist when I hear leather slippers shuffling toward me from the roundhouse. Whispers of waves against the pilings beneath the crannog disappear beneath the rising sounds of those within waking. The fire will be stirred, food cooked, our journey begun. But how will I ever be able to move again with this weight in my head?

The leather slippers slap closer across the boards of the deck until Elder Mam stops before me. She gathers her fur robe closer, lowering herself to the deck. Her weathered skin looks like the folds of Alba's land, hills and valleys, soft tears running down the furrows like rivers which lead to the sea. She takes my bloody hand in hers and cushions it in her grasp.

"Never easy, child," she says, her wispy black hair streaming around her gnarled face. She shakes her head, and her dark eyes shine through the grief in her voice. "We forget to look beyond ourselves, the clan." She glances behind to the withy walls of the roundhouse. "We live small lives here. But there is a world beyond us, other people, some who want what we have and some who just travel past our edges, or strangers who break their journeys beneath our roof and eat a crust at our fire." She sighs, drops my hand, lifts her bloodied ones before her. "This is what matters, this blood. This is our legacy. Remember that, whatever comes. Our blood must live, must stay on this land forever after. It is your job as the next seer to make sure we survive and send our blood across this land in your children, and their children, onwards forever."

She pulls me closer, hugs me to her, my dark hair twining through her gray. "How can we leave here," I say, "knowing what comes?" I think of the Gathering of the Clans we will attend as a clan, as the Damnonii. "We should stay where we'll be safe." I glance past the curve of Elder Mam's narrow shoulder to the shore. No one can reach us here on the crannog, our roundhouse perched above the loch like a floating goose. We have only to smash through the smaller supports and the causeway to the beach falls into the water. No one could harm us then.

But she breaks the hug and pushes me back, hands on my shoulders, holding me there at arms' length. "The world will find us, child." She shakes her head. "There is no hiding from fate. The world will come, and we will be ready for it. That is why we leave now," she went on. "We will make our blood stronger, finding mates for all of you from other clans. And your children will fight for Alba and keep the clan alive."

A stiffening breeze blows up, wafting away the streamers of mist and revealing the length of shore stretching out east to west. I shiver. Finding a mate is not foremost in my mind, but I know it has to happen. I only hope it will be a man I can respect, and who will respect me.

The noise inside the roundhouse grows, my sisters scurrying out the gate and over the causeway to the shore where they relieve themselves behind the trees. In a little while we will be on the path to the Western Isles and the greatest Gathering of the Clans since Elder Mam's youth. I scramble to my feet and help her rise.

The blood from the falcon's bite smears both of our hands. She holds them aloft. "This is what matters," she says again, softly. "Remember that, child. This is what matters."