Fiolar

Author: * Amlaidh Niafer - 10 Posts on this thread out of 391 Posts sitewide.
Date: May 27, 2006 - 04:10

(OOC: Click on the underlined word for the English translation.)

Days pass in Màrrach Mór, though I would swear I bore witness to the entirety of Scathach's trance in mere moments. The trance could not have been hers alone but a támhnéal shared by all present.

The Shadowy One appears grander and stands taller since her stirring dance in the shape of Manannán's nascmhíl. Scathach delivers my instructions for the second challenge, with my Urra echoing them. In the past year my ear has learned to capture the meaning in the Sgáith words, wood-notes as soft and slippery as the shadows themselves. At midnight their sounds are clearest. At midday, no Deirfiúrach utters a word, for the sun casts no shadow.

I am days away from my first challenge, but the many hours passed in Màrrach Mór have given me focus on bradán, returning to a state of peace. In this state, I cannot be more prepared for my journey through Imbas Forosnai. As a fili, I have studied the pathways and streams that lead to prophetic wisdom. It is the journeys along these paths that bring inspiration to the poet and harper. Before today, my journeys have been an endless knotwork of discovery and inspiration, with twists and turns at every step. The danger in discovering Imbas Forosnai is that it is the point at which life ends...and begins. My first challenge set me down the road of death and rebirth. My second challenge brings me that much closer. Like Tuan mac Cairill, we are all connected to the birds and beasts with whom we share this world. And like Tuan mac Cairill we may only discover their secrets by passing through the Other.

Before my Sisters I step into the dim torchlight and take my seat at the hub of the cuairt coimghí. Brilliant, orange warmth and cold, black shadow battle back and forth across the sinews of my arms and chest. Kneeling in halfshade, I soak in the somber sound of bodhrán-skin, the anthem to my journey. Raising my palms to my face, I close my eyes and recite the ballad my pupil Una mac Roich sang to her brother and the heroes of Samhain. The ballad casts spells and fires the imagination. Its author is one of the Fir Faolan, the MacRoth wolf clan. From day to day they seamlessly pass over Tuan's line between life and death. They see through a wolf's eyes, walk on a wolf's legs, drink with a wolf's tongue.

In three deiseal turns, the nine maidens circle the roth and lay down the lifeless sundries of nine powerful birds and beasts. Ciannait is seated directly across from me, on the Chariot Wheel, surrounded by the remains of the eagle. I motion to her, and she brings to me the bowl of bird-flesh. Pinching a mouthful, I eat the meat. Its blood is cold and bitter on my tongue, but I force it down. At the same time my Urra wraps me in a great eagle-feather cloak, pinching down the front, over my head, with a silver brooch. All is black. There is now only shadow. My heart quickens pace and my body begins to shake. My cocoon grows cold. I lose feeling in every part of my body. Visions race through my mind, all of which are too fleeting to make sense of. Years of inspiration come and go with utmost urgency, as I pass through the rest of my life into death.

On the first day I die.

On the second day I do not exist. I have no self. No feeling. No thoughts. No breath. I am free of all existence.

On the third day I wake. Warmth returns. Seizures begin again. I gasp for breath. The heavy folds of the eagle's shroud give a sense of both narrow confinement and infinite freedom. Within I am both entombed and liberated into the void. Both are true in death. I have passed from this world, but I have returned! I have made Tuan's journey! Upon my return I am heralded with a soft couplet of wisdom, crooned into my ear:

A child is forged in Goibhniu's flame,
By hammer-sire and oven-dame.

I am not alone, within the void of my shroud. There is a frenetic ruffle of feathers and the fresh smell of brine. Next there is a hiss and a cluck. There is another who is more desperate than myself to return to the land of the living: Fiolar!

In his own dialect of the Sgáith tongue, Fiolar asks of me: Cait a-ni bheil thu dol? Cuine tha Thu falbh? Cuine this- thu rithisd?

I answer him in the same dialect: "I will go with you now and return when the Deirfiúrachas bid me."

This exchange in the dark void is a communion with myself. Fiolar is nothing but my own reflection in a silver stream, as I swoop down to deliver death to my prey and bring life to my own being.

Within the confines of my feathery tomb and womb, I cry out, in the same dialect, "Cónaím!" But the word is little more than a screech beyond my cocoon, through Màrrach Mór: My deathbed, my birthplace. Still, the meaning of the word resonates forth to my Urra-deirfiúrach, who ushers me into the Tenm Laida rite. Màrrach Mór rushes back when Ciannait tears the cloak away. Cold and heat, darkness and light, aisling and wakefulness all strike me at once, reminding me that I exist...but as what?

A single golden feather spirals downward, like a maple seed, before me. Before it can hit the ground, I catch it between my fingers. Contact with the quill is a second communion between my physical and spiritual self. Thousands of soft barbs channel ages of muscle memory, prophetic wisdom, and secrets of the Sgáith from its vanes to my fingertips. Streams of mystery pass into me, blurring the line between physical and spiritual.

My eagle-wings unfurl like pennants on a palisade, their sleek, pointed pinions like layers of golden blades. I give another lusty screech, batting my raptor wings so that I lift myself off the ground. The torchlight wavers, clouds of dust whirl across the ground, and my powerful talons clutch at the air beneath me. I am free! I have no name, no past, no future, no land, no cattle, no responsibility, no oaths to break. I am an eagle, high in the gables of Màrrach Mór, bound to nothing...not even the earth.

From the rafters, I point my hooked beak downward and furrow my streamlined brow. I throw out my wings to their fullest extension and fall like a javelin to the earth below. I graze over the tops of heads and elicit shouts of surprise and amusement from many of the Deirfiúrachas.

Never have I seen so keenly - the veins in leaves, the clandestine activity of a hare, the slightest quiver in one of Némdaille's toes, and all things in shadow that would otherwise go unseen. Practicing rote maneuvers that I have never before performed, I dive, glide and sink my talons into my prey - the hare. Red streams of life ooze from the spasming beast, staining its grey coat and my hooked claws. I have performed my duty as a predator of the hunt - dealing death.

I fly o'er wood, and vale and shore,
I hunt for salmon, hare, and more,
A golden spear in darkest night,
When Lleu, in death, had taken flight,
Who am I?

At the hearing of my song, all present respond in unison: "I am Fiolar, Harbinger of the Shadow!" I screech again at the sound of my name. But it is not to be mine for long. Tasting the sweet hazelnut milk in Ciannait's cuach, I remember who I am and become an gun ainm ábhar once again. With my old ways, I remember my oaths and those things which bind me to the world...my geasa.