Brighid drew around her the mantle of cool aloofness she had worn for most of her life. Her smile was polite and disinterested.
"Hello, Bregon."
His eyes narrowed to slits. "Drop your pretenses and leave, sister. There is no reason for you to drink of Epona's Chalice. You chose another path for your life. Our mother was satisfied with your choice. I am satisfied with your choice. Go back to the forests of the people you love so well. Our herd does not need you."
"Our mother was a sad, twisted centaur whose lust for power caused her to never be satisfied with anything, Bregon. The day you accept that is the day you will be free of her ghost."
"So you know she's dead."
"Yes, I know. Niam told me."
Bregon's lips twisted in a sneer at the mention of their sister.
"She died bringing me the news," Brighid continued.
The haughty expression slid from Bregon's face. "Niam? She's dead?"
"Our sister ran herself to her death. Ending the hatred that our mother bred meant more to her than her own life."
Bregon wiped his hands over his face and when he looked up at her Brighid got her first true glimpse of the iron-souled stranger her brother had become.
"Niam was always foolish and weak. She lived that way. She died that way."
"It is not foolish or weak to give your life for another," Brighid said.
"It is if your oh-so-valiant effort is for naught," he sneered.
"Look around you, Bregon. It is because of Niam that I am here." Her voice intensified as she hurled the words at him. "It is because of Niam that I will drink of Epona's Chalice. And it is because of Niam that I will return to the Centaur Plains and take the position my birthright assures me - High Shaman of the Dhianna Herd."
"No, sister. I don't think you will." As Bregon spoke his eyes turned sly, and he moved forward toward Epona's Chalice.
With the grace of a Master Warrior, Cuchulainn stepped smoothly between Brighid's brother and the Chalice.
"I would think again, Bregon," Cuchulainn said, his voice deceptively nonchalant.
Bregon pulled up in surprise. Then his expression changed to amusement. "A man?"
"See there, Brighid, just when I was beginning to doubt your brother's intelligence he manages to dazzle me with his sharp powers of observation," Cuchulainn said amiably.
A roll of laughter escaped from Brighid before she could stop it, and its sound seemed to ignite Bregon.
"How dare you speak to me in such a way you impudent little man!"
Cuchulainn raised his brows as if Bregon had just amused instead of insulted him. "It is true that I am just a man, but this - " he brandished the gleaming white sword between them " - tends to make up for my lack of hooves."
"You're in the Otherworld now, you fool. Swords are a weapon of the physical realm. Here you need power gifted from the spirits. Power such as this." Bregon swept his hands through the air around him, as if he was catching invisible insects. Then he muttered a few unintelligible words and threw the invisible nothing at Cuchulainn. Instinctively, the warrior raised his sword and a ball of light crackled and burst against the white blade.
"But that's not possible!" Bregon sputtered. "It shouldn't have protected you. It's a sword," Bregon said.
Cuchulainn pulled back his lips in a snarl. "It is the spirit of a sword. Now who is being foolish, Bregon?
For what reason would a sword become tangible in the Realm of Spirits?" When the centaur just stared at him without speaking, Cuchulainn answered his own question. "My sword has power here because it is aiding me to fulfill an oath that is binding in all realms."
"An oath? What - "
"Bregon, meet Cuchulainn MacCallan, son of Midhir and Etain. He is my lifemate," Brighid said.
Bregon's face went slack with shock. "You handfasted with this man?"
"She did," Cuchulainn said. Then he began striding toward Bregon. "And even in the Otherworld my sword will protect her life because I have sworn that it is more dear to me than my own." He stopped when the tip of his sword pressed against the centaur's chest. "Now you should leave before I do something that would suggest that I am not honoring her name even as I do my own."
Bregon backed slowly away from Cuchulainn, who followed him, careful to keep his sword held ready.
Just before the centaur reached the forest edge he looked back to where his sister stood beside the basin.
"I will not give up what I have fought to win," he said.
"I hear you, Bregon. Now you hear me. I will bring an end to the hatred and dissension our mother sowed during her unhappy life. I give you my oath on that. You can choose to be for me or against me.
But if you go against me I will cull you from the herd as I would any other traitor."
"I have already made my choice. When you enter the Centaur Plains you had better come with more than this little man." Bregon spat at her, and then he disappeared into the forest.
Cuchulainn stayed near the forest's edge, keeping his keen eyes trained on the shapes and shadows that flitted within.
"Brighid, it would make me breathe much easier if you drank from the Chalice now and we returned to the cave."
"Just a moment more," she called to him. "I have to be sure that..." Her words trailed off as her fingers touched the side of the Chalice. She had to be sure of what? She didn't know - she only knew that she was not her brother and she would not take the cup and callously use it and cast it aside.
It is your turn now, beloved child.
Brighid looked up from the Chalice. A woman, clothed in a gown of rich white samite, was walking across the glade toward her. She seemed to move in a pool of silver moonbeams. As she approached Brighid the woman shifted shape, changing from a beautiful blond-haired maiden, to a middle-aged matron whose body was strong and useful, to an ancient crone with hair the color of snow. But her form did not stop there - one instant she was a woman, the next she was an elegant silver mare, then a powerful centaur who carried the bow of a Huntress clutched in her right hand, and then she grew wings and took the shape of a New Fomorian girl child.
Breathless with awe, Brighid averted her eyes and bowed deeply to the Goddess.
"Hail Epona!" she said. "Goddess of things wild and free. I have come to your grove because - "
"Child," the Goddess said in a voice that was surprisingly gentle. "I know why you have come."
Brighid's eyes lifted. Epona had taken the form of a woman in the prime of her life. She was still clothed in the gown of white samite, and it slicked over her generous curves showing the voluptuous beauty that was the Divine Feminine.
"Of course you know why I've come. I'm - I'm sorry, I didn't mean to..." This time Brighid interrupted herself. She closed her eyes and tried to control the trembling within her. When she opened them she said, "Epona, I ask your permission to drink of your Chalice and to assume the responsibilities of High Shaman for the Dhianna Herd."
Epona studied her carefully. "You watched your brother in the basin reflection."
It wasn't a question, but Brighid nodded. "Yes, Goddess."
"Did you notice that he did not ask my blessing? He took and drank and then he departed."
"I am not my brother, Goddess."
Epona's full lips tilted up. "You have the look of your mother, but you do not have her heart. You have chosen a different way."
"I hope so, Epona."
The Goddess's gaze shifted to the far side of the grove and the smile that had been teasing her lips widened. "Ah, Cuchulainn! You may approach me."
Cu had dropped to his knees the moment Epona had materialized in the grove, and now he stood and approached the Great Goddess with his heart hammering painfully in his chest.
"Hail Epona!" he said and bowed low to her.
"I am pleased to see you here in my sacred grove, Cuchulainn. As the son of my Beloved Incarnate I have been disappointed that you refused the gifts I granted you out of love for your mother."
"Forgive me, Goddess. It has taken me a long time to grow up."
Epona nodded thoughtfully. "A wise and truthful answer." The Goddess gestured at the gleaming sword he still clutched in his hand. "Would you have spilled Bregon's blood here in my grove?"
Cuchulainn answered without hesitation. "To protect Brighid, yes, I would have."
"Even if it earned you my displeasure?"
"I can only hope that you would want me to honor the vow I made to Brighid, witnessed by you and my mother, and that because of that vow you would be merciful and forgive me for defiling your sacred grove." Cuchulainn bowed again humbly to the Great Goddess.
Epona was silent, studying the warrior. When she spoke her voice was thoughtful. "I believe I granted you the wrong gifts. A warrior would consider visions and preordained Feelings as something he should struggle against. Little wonder they have been an uneasy fit within your spirit. I take my gifts back, Cuchulainn." As she spoke Epona made a beckoning gesture with her hand and Cuchulainn gasped and staggered. "In return I grant you the gift of second sight." The Goddess dipped her hand into the basin and then sprinkled three glowing drops of water on the warrior. "From here on you have the ability to see in a sacred manner the shapes of all things in the spirit. You will know the true soul that fills the shell of the body. You will see through the darkness of life."
Cuchulainn fell to his knees, overcome with the rush of power that rained into his body.
"Use your gift wisely, Cuchulainn MacCallan, son of my Beloved Chosen One. Never let your sword end the life of someone whose spirit is redeemable."
"I will try to be wise, Great Goddess," Cuchulainn said in a choked voice.
The Goddess smiled and touched his head. Then she turned to the Huntress.
"Why did you hesitate to drink of my Chalice after your brother left my grove?"
"In my youth my mother told me several things about her quest to drink of your Chalice. Much of what she said I have forgotten - and she quit speaking to me of the Otherworld when she realized that I wouldn't follow her path."
"But there is something she said to you that you have never forgotten," the Goddess said.
"Yes. My mother told me that before I drank of the Chalice I must face my greatest ally and my most powerful enemy."
"And the two are one in the same," the Goddess finished for her.
"Yes. All that I've faced in your grove has been my brother - and I don't believe he is my greatest ally, though he could be my worst enemy."
"He is neither," Epona said. Then she gestured at the basin. "Look within the waters, Brighid Dhianna, and you will find what it is you seek."
Resolutely, Brighid turned back to the basin and peered down into the water. The living liquid swirled and then became still and glassy, perfectly reflecting her face. She looked deeper, bending over the basin, and her body jerked. She was staring at her own reflection, yet within it she could clearly see her mother's face. And she suddenly understood. Her greatest ally and most powerful enemy was herself. If she accepted the power of a High Shaman, she would also be drinking in that which had corrupted her mother - and that capacity for corruption lurked within her. It had been born there, with her spiritual gifts.
"You can let the knowledge paralyze you," the Goddess said. "Or you can accept that she is a part of you and know you must guard against her weaknesses, which are also yours, as well as embrace her strengths."
Brighid turned from the basin and met Epona's eyes. "Why do you allow those who can be corrupted to drink of your Chalice?"
The Goddess smiled kindly at her. "I granted my children free will. It is the greatest gift of all, but with the freedom comes pain and evil, as well as love and courage. Great good is not possible without great evil. One cannot exist without the other. And, child - " she touched Brighid's face in a motherly caress that had the centaur's eyes filling with tears " - just because there is a chance of corruption it does not mean that chance will grow to fruition. Remember always that I believe in the good within you, Brighid."
"Thank you," the centaur whispered to the Goddess. Then Brighid closed her hand around the thick stem of the Chalice, dipped it into the basin, and while the Great Goddess and Cuchulainn watched, she drank of the living waters.
Power flooded Brighid's body, and within its swirling chaos she felt her mind unravel and unfold. She was at once a part of the earth and the heavens and the moon, sun and stars. She saw that everything was, indeed, ensouled and that they were all interrelated. The concepts of real and unreal stretched and bent within her and she understood with a new sense that the spirit realm and the physical world were nothing more than points on a flexible branch that could be bent, curved and rewoven so that the end points of reality and unreality could meet and become one in the same.
It's how I will shapeshift to mate with Cuchulainn. I will simply bend reality...The thought emerged from her tumultuous mind, and it grounded her. She blinked her vision clear and she was once more standing in the Goddess's grove beside the sacred basin, holding Epona's Chalice.
"Brighid?" Cuchulainn was there beside her, looking worried and, she thought, rather pale.
"All is well." She smiled reassurance to him. Then she bowed deeply before the Goddess. "Thank you for your great gift, Epona."
The Goddess cupped Brighid's chin in her hand and raised the centaur's face. "I believe that you will use it wisely, child." Then she smiled at both of them. "Now you must return. You were right to act with haste. Time is short and you have much to do." Epona clapped her hands together and the ground gave way beneath Brighid and Cuchulainn's feet. They floated down in a gentle spiral unwinding to the left.
From behind them Epona's powerful voice cradled their spirits and held them awash in warmth and love.
Know that my blessing goes with you, my children...