The Moonshawl: A Wraeththu Mythos Novel

BOOK: The Moonshawl: A Wraeththu Mythos Novel
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The Moonshawl

A Wraeththu Mythos Novel

 

Storm Constantine

The Moonshawl: A Wraeththu Mythos
Novel

By Storm Constantine © 2014

Ebook edition through KDP 2014

 

This is a work of fiction. All the
characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious, and any
resemblance to real people, or events, is purely coincidental.

 

All rights reserved, including the right
to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form. The right of Storm
Constantine to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by
her in accordance with the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988.

 

http://www.stormconstantine.co.uk

Cover art by Ruby

 

An Immanion Press Edition

http://www.immanion-press.com

[email protected]

The
Calendar of Wraeththu

 

January - Snowmoon

February – Frostmoon

March - Windmoon

April - Rainmoon

May - Flowermoon

June - Meadowmoon

July – Ardourmoon

August - Fruitingmoon

September - Harvestmoon

October - Vintagemoon

November - Mistmoon

December – Adkayamoon

 

Monday – Lunilsday (Lunday – Loon-day)

Tuesday – Miyacalasday (Calasday –
Cah-laz-day)

Wednesday – Aloytsday (Loitsday –
Low-its-day)

Thursday – Agavesday (Gavesday –
Gar-vez-day)

Friday – Aruhanisday (Hanisday –
Har-neez-day)

Saturday – Pelfazzarsday (Pelfday –
Pelf-day)

Sunday – Aghamasday (Gamasday –
Gah-mahz-day)

Acknowledgements

 

Thanks to
everyone who helped me shape this novel. To Louise Coquio and Paula Wakefield,
who were my critics and work-shoppers, and who hauled me over any gaping plot
holes, and all those other niggling infelicities that plague the writer at
work! To Wendy Darling for her keen editing and all the suggestions she made to
strengthen the story. To Lisa Mansell who checked and corrected my Welsh! To
Paul Cashman, for proof-reading and picking up those sneaky typos. To Andy
Collins for his suggestions concerning the background to the story. And to
Tanith Lee for her ongoing inspiration and support.

 

Introduction

 

 

The ancient spirit of Alba Sulh still lives.
Perhaps now, released from human negligence, it stretches its soil-damp limbs,
rises from protective sleep and sees the land is free again. I believe it to be
a contrary spirit, rife with petty evils, random spurts of compassion, and
incomprehensible notions.  For a while, perhaps coiled around the clutching roots
of those trees that remained and were regrowing, it watched, waiting to assess the
new sentient beings who had come to live upon its skin; they might be the same
as those who’d come before. But now, somehow, did it not have the power to
affect those lives in a way it never had?

 

The spirit has many faces, many moods. It rides the
gales above storm-bent forests as a throng of shrieking ghosts. It shivers as
pale light in the deepest glades, offering promises with a silver smile.
Animals can sense it – even see it. And hara? Hara are closer to it than their
human forebears. This is the way we have been made to be, or the way our
harlings are evolving. Alba Sulh desires to be wild and magical. It desires to
be mysterious and misty, to seethe with phantoms and strange whims. This land
was always that, a romantic, idealised archetype in the minds of human
dreamers. Now, with only their thoughts and dreams remaining, they too ghosts
amid the fields, Alba Sulh
becomes
.

 

Ysobi har Sulh

Chapter One

 

 

I rode to Gwyllion in the early summer time, through
the ancient ochre and lilac mountains and then into their deep, lush river
valleys, along the old road, where laden canopies of oak and beech and sycamore
held hands above my head. The light was green, an intense deep glow of many
subtle shades, sometimes almost black, sometimes pure emerald-shot gold. Mossy
banks rose on either side of the road, warted with immense green and gold-furred
rocks, over which an occasional root might trail, it too dressed in moss.

I was still not entirely well. The
hurricanes of recent years still weighed heavily upon me. I was a stranger to
myself, somehow reborn, renewed, but also older in my mind, burdened by
knowledge, yet reassured in some small measure by wisdom.  

Those of you who know my history
– don’t think I’d been sent from home as punishment or reward for my mistakes.
The truth was that a phylarch of the Wyvachi, a sub-tribe of the Sulh, had a
yearning to create his own spiritual customs for his hara. He wished for them
to be taught in the way that hara in Immanion or Yorvik were taught. Not long
after Bloomtide, early spring, a message came from the scholarly city of Kyme
for me, whence such commissions often came:
You might be interested in this assignment,
Ysobi.

I debated for a month or so,
afraid of change yet craving it. A couple of weeks before Feybraihatide I told
Jassenah, my chesnari, about the commission, having already decided I would
take it. We were in the kitchen of our small, comfortable house, with the
windows open and scented air pouring in. Jassenah, with his thick dark gold
hair tied back, ready for work, his expressive face unusually motionless as he
listened to me, my inevitable lies. When my words fizzled out, there was a
silence between us, as there often was. ‘You wish to go?’ he asked at last.

‘I think I wish to work,’ I told
him. There was little for me in Jesith now. My former commissions were no more;
I was not considered “suitable” to continue in that line of work. Somehar else
was now the main hienama of the town. I was regarded as a scholar and, at the
behest of our phylarch, Sinnar, had helped form the Lyceum of Jesith. I had
become immersed in the land – its legends interested me – so I had been
encouraged. Anything to put the past behind us.

‘I see,’ said Jassenah. ‘What
does this work entail exactly?’

‘Apparently, a study of the
landscape, its folklore, and the shaping of a suitable yearly round for the
hara of Gwyllion.’

Jassenah eyed me steadily. ‘And
there is no local har to undertake this native task?’

I held his gaze, wondering why I
felt as if I was deceiving him: this part was correct. ‘The phylarch asked for
a hienama of Kyme. We can only suppose he can afford it.’

‘Are you asking me or telling
me?’ Jassenah enquired.

‘I’d like to do it,’ I replied.
‘It sounds interesting. There could be a book in it.’

Again, a silence.

‘The work is academic,’ I said.
‘And I’d hardly be missed here. I’d like to be doing something worthwhile.’

I was of course trying to escape
some kind of parole on my life. In Jesith I was watched and constrained. I had
no doubt the hara cared for me – they had welcomed me back after all – but they
couldn’t trust me in the way they had. I accepted this. I hadn’t proved
trustworthy.

Jassenah had turned away from
me, tidying pots that were already tidy. ‘How long for?’ he asked. ‘How long do
you intend to be away?’

‘A few months or so. You and
Zeph could visit me. The countryside is said to be beautiful up there.’

Jassenah faced me again. ‘Can
you be honest with me, Ys? Are we really talking about how you need to escape
this
place – perhaps
us
?’

I paused before answering.
‘While we’ve been talking I realise I want to escape,’ I said, ‘but not
us
.
Jesith makes me claustrophobic. It’s like an open prison.’ I took a breath,
wondering if the next thing I said would be appropriate. ‘We could even go
together.’

Jassenah snorted. ‘Of course I
have the time for that!’ He shook his head, laughed shakily. ‘Ys, if you want
to go, go. I’m not your gaoler. I appreciate it’s sometimes difficult for you
here.’ He put his hands on my shoulders. ‘But Jesith is my home, it’s my life.
I love what I do here. I don’t want to leave.’

‘I wasn’t thinking of anything
that permanent,’ I said.

‘I know... It would be good for
you to go. I’m being selfish. I can’t keep you on a leash.’

‘You don’t have to. I thought
you knew that now.’

He nodded, smiled at me, turned
away. He’d never trust me again.

 

In the late afternoon of a glorious Flowermoon day,
I rode my piebald cob, Hercules, into Gwyllion. I’d travelled light, bringing
with me only several changes of clothes, three books, and a few basic
toiletries. This lightness had made the journey easier for both Hercules and
myself. We’d grown even lighter as we travelled. Gwyllion was a small town with
a modest population, and even from the start I found the hara innately tribal.
Their phylarch was like a king to them. He lived with his family on an estate
to the north of the village. Before going to introduce myself to the lord of
Wyvachi, I sought out a local inn – there were only two in Gwyllion – and
booked a room there. The keephar of The Rooting Boar
asked me,
naturally, what brought me to their town, and I explained I’d been hired by the
phylarch.

The inn was empty at that time
of day, so the keephar came to sit with me to satisfy his curiosity about a
stranger to his town. He told me his name was Yoslyn.

‘Oh, the hienama!’ said the
keephar. ‘We were told of this. It will be good to celebrate the festivals
again.’

‘You have no hienama?’ I asked.
A certain discomfort settled over me.

‘Not now,’ said Yoslyn.

‘And there’s nohar among you
wanted to take that role?’

‘Not really.  Hara have too much
to do around here for that. We want somehar to do it for us, make the
blessings, talk to the corn for us... naming days, chesna bonds, all that.’

‘Well, I didn’t think my work
here would...’

Yoslyn interrupted airily, as if
I hadn’t spoken. ‘Tiahaar Wyva told us he’d sent to Kyme for a Nahir Nuri for
us. It will be wonderful for the community. Pity you’re here too late for the
Feybraihatide arojhahn. Many of us want to revive the old customs. Mixing them
with the new, of course!’

My imagination obligingly
presented me with a grisly visualisation of hara being slaughtered in the
fields at Cuttingtide. The phylarch, Wyva, clearly had not presented his
requirements to Kyme accurately. Or perhaps that had been deliberate. ‘I can
train somehar up,’ I said, ‘to do these things for you when I leave.’

Yoslyn gave me rather a hard
look. ‘I doubt you’ll find anyhar round here keen on that,’ he said. ‘We’re
simple hara. We like a simple life, and we’ve no time for so much learning. It
takes a special har to be a hienama. You have to want to be one, for a start.’

I could hardly blame him for these
sentiments. ‘Well, we’ll see,’ I said, smiling with what I hoped was suitable
brightness. ‘I’ll talk to tiahaar Wyva and find out what’s needed.’

First impressions of a har,
unbiased, are always useful, but so is the information you can get from the
hara who regard him as lord of their lives. You can tell a lot, for example,
from whether he is loved, reviled or scorned, or the words that are not spoken
– in fear.

‘So tell me of the family,’ I
said. ‘The family of Wyva har Wyvachi.’

The keephar smiled, a good sign.
It was a smile of affection, reflecting a certain amount of humour. Perhaps
Wyva was not wholly wise. ‘There is Wyva, who is phylarch, as you know, his
chesnari Rinawne and their harling, Myv. He’s a strangeling child, or
changeling maybe. Sweet, but distant as a star. He walks his own path, they
say.’

I nodded. ‘Born this way?’

‘They say so.’

Hesitation? Perhaps I wanted it
to be there, a mystery to solve.

‘The household is not overly
large. Wyva is second generation and has two brothers, Cawr and Gen. Wyva and
Cawr have taken the bond, but only Wyva has made new hara from the blood. Meadow
Mynd is an old house, and was in Wyva’s family long before his hostling became
har.’

‘That’s unusual to find,’ I
said, with a gossipy inflection in my voice. I indicated with the wine bottle
in my hand that the keephar should join me in refreshment. He appeared eager to
do so.

‘The Mynd is a beautiful house,’
he said as he filled a cup. ‘None would leave it willingly, and none did.’ He
laughed as he took a drink. ‘Wyva is a good har, and fair. He’d see none go
hungry.’

‘What of his chesnari?’

‘Good, too. We have no
complaints with any of them.’ Again he laughed. ‘As long as you don’t toss the
count stones with Wyva’s brother, Gen. He’s a renowned cheat!’

‘I shall take care not to.’

‘We need a hienama,’ Yoslyn said
firmly. ‘The spirits are strong in these fields and forests.’

This remark took me by surprise.
‘Can you explain to me what you mean?’

Yoslyn shook his head. ‘You’ll
see. It’s not a bad place; it is rich. But the spirits are strong.’

 

The road to Meadow Mynd was a summer tunnel, a faery
path rising to sun-stippled heights, then down to green shadowy hollows. To
either side, legions of pines in straight lines marched away from me. These, I
supposed, were a legacy of earlier human forestry; the pines had not been
harvested for over a century. To the west of me, paths of sunlight carved down
the occasional wide avenues between the trees. They looked like processional
ways. And then eventually, I saw upon one of these paths a figure on a horse,
rendered in silhouette by the afternoon sun. Horse and rider were both so
still, some three hundred yards from me. I had no inclination to pause, to
call, or to investigate. Neither did I think I’d seen something supernatural,
even though I’d perceived a deep purple glow around the horse. I had to keep
moving.

Meadow Mynd eventually came into
view when the pines thinned out and gave way to older, deciduous trees. Massive
oaks spread their history against the skies. I caught the silver glimmer of
water through the aching green, and a herd of deer for some time walked beside
me, some distance off amid the mossy trunks. They were unafraid and watched me
curiously, the does sometimes pausing to stare unashamedly, heads up, ears
forward. Perhaps hara from the house fed them, and they associated me with
that. As I rode Hercules at a walk up the driveway, I heard the tolling of a
bell in the distance. An odd time of day for that, I thought, unless it was to
gather hara in from the fields. It was a beautiful, yet melancholy sound that
reminded me of days long gone, my lost human childhood.

The house was grey and
sprawling, its walls peppered with yellow lichen, its windows small and
frowning, but for some on the ground floor, which were like doors. Hara were at
work in the gardens – which appeared to be a meld of both ornamental and
vegetable, all strangely mixed up together – and paused in their labours to
watch me draw near. Above the front door was a wide lintel of stone, supported
by two columns adorned with twisted ivy, of both carved stone and living leaf.
A harling squatted atop the lintel like some kind of gargoyle. I assumed this
to be the son of Wyva and Rinawne and waved to him. The harling regarded me
expressionlessly, and then bounded away up the wall behind him like a wild
beast, leaping through the old ivy stems. I could see now what Yoslyn meant
about him.

A har came out of the house,
perhaps having been alerted by a member of staff. I didn’t know who of the
family I was looking at, or even if it was just a high-ranking employee. He was
nearly as tall as me, with a thick mane of loose, curling black hair. His brows
were thick, his mouth wide, his eyes a striking blue. He was not conventionally
beautiful, but possessed an arresting presence. I could tell at once he was a
har used to getting his own way.

‘You must be Ysobi har Jesith,’
he said to me, inclining his head. He had a strong Erini accent. ‘You’re
welcome here to the Mynd.’

‘Thank you, tiahaar...’

‘I am Rinawne har Wyvachi.
Please, come on in. Our hara will see to your horse.’ He jerked his head and a
har previously unseen came running from... somewhere. He led Hercules and my baggage
away, seemingly before my feet were properly in contact with the ground.

‘Good journey?’ enquired
Rinawne.

‘A good time of year to travel,
yes,’ I replied.  

‘You must want a meal...’

‘No need, tiahaar. I stopped at
an inn in town before coming here, booked myself a room.’

Rinawne’s eyebrows lifted. ‘We
have accommodation for you. Private. Not in the house.’

‘Oh, that’s kind of you.’ I had,
of course, expected this, but it was best not to make assumptions.

‘I’ll send somehar to cancel
your reservation. Do you have luggage?’

‘Only what I have in my horse’s
saddlebags.’

Rinawne grinned. ‘You travel
light, then.’ He gestured. ‘Come in. We’ll take refreshment anyway. I always
look upon any excuse for it as a gift.’

I laughed. ‘Thank you.’

‘Wyva will be here soon,’
Rinawne said. ‘He’s out doing something somewhere, perhaps looking at a field
or a ditch. Such things concern him.’

Again I laughed, hoping that was
meant to be a joke.

Rinawne smiled widely.  He
conducted me into a living room that smelled strongly of roses. A huge bowl of
them adorned a table beneath a window. ‘The scent of flowers is like bringing
the outside in with you, isn’t it?’ Rinawne said, brushing a hand over the
white petals. As he moved I caught a scent from him, which I can only describe
as
green
; something of cut grass, of reedy hollows, of the darkest
corners of summer.

BOOK: The Moonshawl: A Wraeththu Mythos Novel
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