The Journey From Oidhche Shamhna

Disclaimer: Not mine.

The Journey From Oidhche Shamhna

Chapter 2

Salazar

Salazar had started preparing for the trip not really wanting to go. His people were getting ready to move again due to the encroaching Romans. However, his father had deemed it more important that he complete the test at Oidhche Shamhna this year, which may be meaningless in their new land, than to stay and help with the plans and prepare for the journey to a new land.

Salazar stood at the front of the column waiting for the last of the wagons to be loaded. He and his father had already walked the long line, making sure the proper order was maintained. In the front were the highest-ranked families of the tribe, followed by the lesser members. These were then followed by the ones who had lost status due to breaking with the tribe's rules, or having squandered their fortunes. After them, only the elves and the servants remained to pull the wagons laden with supplies.

Within each group, further divisions set one family against the other. In Salazar's clan, the size of the dwelling, the area of land controlled, even the number of elves owned could place one family at the top or the bottom rung of power. The status changed often, and it fell upon the matriarch of each family to keep close watch to make sure her hearth did not feel a slight.

Once the families were in the proper order, and the wagons loaded, the elves would hoist the wagon tongues and pull the tents and supplies behind the pilgrims to Oidhche Shamhna. Following the laden carts came the manservants who would be in charge of the livestock and its clean drinking water. The female servants would stay behind to tend the homes and children too small or those too ill to make the trip.

Each year they made this trip, each year they would travel to the circle to welcome the old ones, and each year they would return home complaining about how things had changed and that the gods would have disapproved of how everything went. Yet still they would go, because not to go would be to lose face with the rest of the magical world and perhaps to slip down from the pedestal of status they held so high.

Now with the encroaching non-magical peoples, Salazar's people were also preparing to go farther north to the cold, or to return to the land that their fathers' fathers had heard of only in stories. Theirs would be the oldest magical clan in this cold land, and although no one had been back to the old lands for generations, the clan still felt a tug to return to what they called home. They worried about their place in the world, and worried if they would still hold their place within their group if they returned to the old lands.

The elders told the stories of warm water, and seagoing vessels and life among the tall reeds and endless waterways of the fen. They sang songs to drums made from wood and tautly stretched goatskin, ragged with age and only the memory of the original sound remaining. The woman would dance, with gold bands snapping on their fingers, with bare feet slapping the ground and scarves covering their faces. They would compare this cold drab world with the world known only in their songs and long to return to a place they had never been.

Salazar had learned the old songs, and he sang the old prayers to the gods of his people. His were the people who came from the lands across the cold water and east of the men with only one God. Yet he did not want to go back there. He did not want to abandon the soil that his family for many generations had lain in. The ancients may have sent his people out, but he did not consider himself to be of their tribe any longer. The memories of the elders and his tribe he found too separated by time and custom to hold. He felt restless and unsettled as he prepared for this trip.

His clan kept to themselves. They all had learned the stories, as had he, about witches cast out, burnt and alone in a pile of elderberry wood, and of wizards tortured for their ways until life bled out of them in a pool of red on the ground. They were careful not to bring others into their clan to pollute their bloodline, or foreign women to threaten their ways. Salazar's bloodline heralded back to the beginning of life on the two rivers that gave the earth the two worlds of men. Those born on the west and to the setting sun were magical and the gods belonged to them. Those on the east were born without magic and belonged to the gods instead.

The men wore breeches of bright colours and shirts with loose, full sleeves. The woman let their hair grow long, and wore it wildly flying around their heads. In public, they would discreetly cover with a hood, or wrap their heads in a brightly coloured shawl to hide their clan alliance. The married woman wore formal headdresses and rings to signify their bonding. The men would place a mark in the palm of their right hand rather them marring their flesh with a scar.

Salazar's tribe was darker of skin than the other magicals that claimed ties to the north. His hair was so brown it was almost black, his eyes the deepest green, deeper than bronze left too long in the open. Salazar was young and wiry, yet to grow into one of the graceful men of his tribe. He had yet to acquire the fluid movements he would show on the battlefield.

The wagons were now full. The servants stood behind the small herds, and the elves waited anxiously to begin their labours. Salazar nodded his acceptance of the travellers and turned to bid farewell to his mother. His parents would not be making the trip this year. His father's father was nothing more than a small pile of bones that would make his final trip this year to lay in one of the burial mounds, and Salazar's father was the one to stay behind to protect the tribe.

"Son," Issa said sadly. "You must concentrate on your test. It is important to your father that you do well."

"I would prefer to stay." He looked over her shoulder at his father, who stood off the path, frowning at his wife. "There is much to do. We are wasting time. The outsiders could be here in a few days and most of the tribe will be gone."

"Your father has made provisions." She reached up and removed a leather strap from her neck. "I want you to take this."

"Mother, I will take it when it is mine." He reached to stop her movements. "I do not want it yet. I hope not to receive it for a long time."

"No, Salazar, you must take it now." She continued to work the strap until she had it untied and laid it in his hand. "This has always been. Since before we arrived here, since before they cast our ilk out of Iberia, since before we left the old world, it has been with us. Since before memory. It is a link between what was and what is."

Salazar held out his hand for his mother to deposit her treasure. It was a gold coin, so worn with time and the fingers of his family that the runes and likeness once pounded onto its surface was no longer visible. He only knew it was a coin from family stories and old legends.

"I will treasure it, Mother. I will wear it until I give it to my bride." He leaned forward and kissed her forehead. "You will be there to tie it around her neck on her wedding day."

"Your father speaks of returning to the old lands." She glanced over her shoulder where he still stood looking at her. "I will go with him."

"You do not have to." Salazar frowned, knowing his mother had never given in to her husband's demands before. "I am surprised you would leave."

"He is my husband." She smiled at Salazar and patted his shoulder. "Our life was arranged by the old ways, but I cannot say it has been unhappy. He has been a good husband, and I will be a better wife."

"Send word if you leave. I can come quickly." He tipped her chin up to her face. He would know if she was lying if he could see into her mind.

"Salazar, if I have time I will send my familiar. If not, I will just send my love on the wind." She smiled at him.

"I have not decided what I will do yet," he lied easily. "I may yet join you, instead of going north."

"Go," she said, slapping at his arm. "Go before your father is angered and do not say things you do not mean. You would no more leave this place than the moon would fall into the water."

"The journey you plan is too far for father. He will not make it." Salazar watched her closely.

"Then he shall leave us on the way." She smiled. "Do not be sad for it. His spirit shall always be with the gods."

"You and your gods." Salazar was angered. "You pick them up like trinkets. You keep the old gods, and the ones brought from Iberia, and then shove these northern gods in your pocket to pull out when you need them."

"One can never be sure what you need. It is best to be prepared." She smiled slyly at him. "Now sit and drink the tea with your father. He waits for your leave-taking."

Salazar looked to his father and then leaned his forehead against that of his mother. He entered her mind and felt her sadness, then opened his mind to her and let her feel his.

"Mother," he whispered. "May the crossing be gentle and your return swift."

"May your heart be light, and your way peaceful." She completed the leave-taking and then, closing her eyes, turned from him and returned to her dwelling.

Salazar walked to his father and sat on the ground in front of him. His father sat cross-legged and waved for a servant to bring the readied tea in its earthen jug. They waited until the tea was poured into the crystal goblets and, passing their left hands over their portions, they blessed the contents to the gods of long journeys.

"You will complete this test," Sharar said solemnly. "You must be able to support yourself and your people."

"How many will stay in the north?" Salazar sipped his tea.

"Only a handful." His father put the image of the families that would be staying into Salazar's mind, and then quickly pulled out lest he let too much go.

"Fourteen?" Salazar frowned and looked at his father coldly. "The rest will all return to a place they are not wanted to face the persecution that is sure to greet them?"

"We can only leave fourteen, which is the number that has always been." Sharar shrugged his shoulders. "The rest will be free to travel south or to make their own way north, but only fourteen may come with us as well."

"What of this place?" Salazar looked at the dwellings that sat on a base of stone and rock, his own home aging three hundred years.

"We will erase our presence before we leave." Sharar calmly looked over the village that was now his responsibility. "We should have one moon yet. I hope to be prepared by the time you return."

"This is foolish. I go to test for something we do not need."

"No, you need to fit in with these others. The families that stay will need to be accepted and that means adapting to the ways of the clans." His face grew dark. "You will do this to keep the last of the tribe safe until we can join together again."

"Join together?" Salazar laughed. "That is the same story we were told in the old songs - we will join again in the old ways. Have you learned nothing, old man? Have you not learned that there will be no rejoining?"

"All but fourteen will now rejoin." His father scowled. "The stories told the truth in this."

"No, this will not be a rejoining, this will be a massacre at the hands of the Romans, or the monks of Iberia." Salazar became angered and rose to his feet. "You will take my mother to her death."

Sharar threw his head back laughing and stood with his son. "I have never made your mother do anything she has not wanted. She is my song and my joy boy but not my chattel."

"Yet you will allow her to travel on this death march." Salazar spat on the ground.

Sharar put his hand on his son's shoulder and pressed their foreheads together. Salazar saw the arrival of the tribe to what was left of the people in Iberia and his parents' return to the north. He saw a new village, built in the ways of the Romans in the cold north, and saw his mother as an old woman wrapped in her husband's arms.

"I have not told her as yet, but when the people are safe we shall return." Sharar smiled at his son. "You will be patient. Now go. The trip must start today."

"The wagons are heavier this year." Salazar looked evenly at his father. "All the fourteen are going to the circle for Oidhche Shamhna. I take it I am not to notice this."

"Ah, so we come to this." Sharar shook his head and began to walk toward the pilgrims. "They may not have time to return if things progress quickly. You will have the freedom of travelling without a family. However, they must be ready to travel north from the circle."

"It is sure?" Salazar frowned. "It is now."

"Yes, it is happening already." Sharar nodded. "I have one gift to add to the one your mother had bestowed on you."

Salazar watched his father as he signalled one of the servants to bring a small basket tied closed with ropes of hemp. Taking the basket from his father's servant, he turned to his father and bowed.

"I will watch over her, and make sure she is kept safe." Salazar was aware that the passing of the tribe's familiar was also the passing of the title his father held in these lands. "I will care for her until you return."

"She is wise, Salazar." They continued to walk. "She will be as your own familiar, and bring you information. Listen to her."

"I hear Gryffin will be at the testing," Salazar said to change the topic. "I have not seen him since last year."

"Give him my regards, and tell him we will do what we can if his lands are raided. It is important that he not leave, that he completes the circle and takes a measure of his pride back to his clan." Sharar had a liking for his distant clansmen of Godric and their known fierceness on the battlefield. "Tell him we wish him well and will offer to the gods for him."

Salazar laughed and slapped his father on the back. "Which gods, Father? Mother's?"

"There is not enough time to offer to all the gods she has collected. At times I think she fills her pockets with the gods she has found and taken from others." Sharar chuckled with his son. "Now go."

Salazar walked to the head of the line and lifting his hand, he sent a golden orb into the air. The elves, seeing the orb, hoisted the wagon tongues and began to move forward. The movement started slowly, then, as ripples of water rushing out from a stone thrown too hard, the line began to move forward.

Salazar looked back, raised his hand and signalled his leave-taking to his parents. Then, turning to the path, he set off for the circle.

~O~

A special thanks to, Sometime Selkie, my beta who has given her time and efforts to make this better.