The Moonshawl: A Wraeththu Mythos Novel (40 page)

‘Then...’ He drew in his breath,
steadied himself against the dressing table. ‘Suddenly I’m afraid. I feel panicky.’

‘It’s all right. I’m with you.’
I paused. ‘Will Mossamber just... allow this?’

‘You say that as if you assume
he has any control over what I do,’ Peredur said lightly. ‘Do you think he’s cruel
or something?’

‘No, but concerned for you...
yes. You must tell him where you’re going.’

He shook his head. ‘No. He knows
I can take care of myself, and besides I have you to protect me, don’t I?’

I wasn’t convinced what he said
about Mossamber was true, but didn’t argue. Before we left the tower room,
Peredur turned back at the threshold, as if to absorb its familiar ambience, as
if he’d never return to it. In a way, of course, he wouldn’t, because he was shedding
a part of himself that would leave that room forever.

The dawn was beginning to unfurl as we came out
into the yard behind the house. Already, lights were coming on in high rooms
and presently hara would be up and about. Did Mossamber lie awake in a room
somewhere, knowing his chesnari was taking this brave step? What did he think
about it? I’d never met the har; he seemed like a creature of myth to me. And
Nytethorne, who’d known the secret all along, but had been too afraid to tell
me, perhaps fearful of incurring Peredur’s wrath rather than Mossamber’s. Where
was he now? What were his thoughts?

Peredur took my arm. ‘He is
glad,’ he said.

We went to where Hercules was
waiting, and I helped Peredur onto the horse’s back before mounting up behind
him. I put my arms about him and he leaned back against me. ‘We’ll be riding
into the dawn,’ he said. ‘I can hear it rising.’

I urged Hercules forward and he
walked across the lawn. Birds were waking, singing in the morning. Crows argued
in the cedars. Once across the bridge, I urged Hercules into a canter. Peredur
held out his arms to embrace the air and I held him tight. ‘There’s so much out
here,’ he murmured, ‘so much...’

In the sky above us, I heard the
call of a swan, and looked up, but I could not see it flying, not yet.

As we approached the tower hill, Mossamber’s hounds
began to yelp in the farmyard below. ‘They know me,’ Peredur said. ‘Fox,
Bramble, Cutter... I know all their names.’

‘How many are there?’ I asked.
‘Sometimes it sounds like a dozen, sometimes hundreds.’

‘Perhaps that is the truth,’
Peredur said, laughing.

I helped him dismount at the
field, where I released Hercules to graze.

‘She used to bring me here,’
Peredur said. ‘When I was very small. Vivi didn’t like that – she said it was
too far from the house, dangerous. Mum didn’t care. She liked to get away from
Vivi. And Dŵr Alarch looks after its own.’

‘It certainly tries to,’ I said.

He climbed the steps ahead of us
that led to the door, turned the immense old handle ring. The door creaked
open. ‘You don’t lock it?’

‘No. I’m sure the only threats
around here won’t be put off by a barrier of mere wood.’

Peredur was about to enter the
tower, then he paused, turned back to direct his perception over the land.
‘Feel it, Ysobi,’ he murmured. He held out his hand to me, which I took. ‘Close
your eyes and feel it.’

I did so. Holding on to Peredur
in the flesh, my own senses were heightened. From the moment I shut my eyes, I
could see a dark purple mist creeping over the land. It was like fingers, or
footsteps, not devouring or covering, merely moving around, retreating,
advancing,
nosing
.  ‘Is that Vivi?’ I whispered.

‘She travels in it sometimes,’
Peredur said softly. ‘I have too... sometimes. Where it goes so a secret will
open up, or a hole with a darkness in it, or a memory long forgotten.’ He let
go of me and I opened my eyes, for a moment still able to see that dark mist
over the glorious summer landscape. ‘The dead
will
rise,’ Peredur said.

‘Some already have, it seems.’ I
gestured at the doorway. ‘Come, it’s time.’

I could sense that Arianne was
alone in the kitchen above us. She always rose very early. Was it cruel to
spring this on her unannounced? I toyed with the idea of sending Peredur in
without me, then realised this was somewhat cowardly. I had created storms of
emotion in my past and fled them. Now I should simply weather them – even when
they belonged to others.

I went into the kitchen first.
Arianne had emptied all the cupboards and was cleaning them – I suppose she had
to find things to do. She heard me and turned, ‘Ari,’ I said. ‘You have a
visitor.’

Peredur walked past me then. The
expressions on Arianne’s face changed quickly. Surprise, horror, fear,
disbelief, joy. ‘Peri?’ she said.

‘To me, you never died,’ he
said. ‘I saw nothing. You saw everything. This is less shocking for me than for
you.’ He went to her then and touched her arm.

She reached to his face
hesitantly, her gaze flickering all over him.  ‘Ysobi went to see Medoc,’ she
said. ‘We were told... But then, we weren’t, were we? Medoc knew only what the
Wyvachi knew.’

‘Mum,’ he said simply, a word
that had not been uttered in affection in these lands for over a century. They
embraced, wept, laughed, kissed – the stew of reactions that flavour the most
intense moments of life.

‘Don’t leave me,’ Arianne said,
‘promise me, Peri. Don’t.’

‘Neither of us is leaving,’
Peredur replied, ‘not yet.’

Then
I
left them, went
back outside, sat down on the stone terrace that surrounded Dŵr Alarch.
The Swan Tower. Peredur’s tower. Waiting for him all these years.

Around half an hour later, Peredur came out of the
tower and sat down beside me. ‘Thank you,’ he said.

‘My pleasure.’

He turned his face to me,
observed me goldenly. ‘Ysobi, I’m sure of something.’

‘What?’

 ‘I’ll be staying here at Dŵr
Alarch for some time... if you’re agreeable.’

‘Of course. Whatever you want to
do.’

‘Good. I’ll let Mossamber know.’
He dangled his hands between his raised knees. ‘I can’t opt out of the future.
I know that now. For her sake, for yours, for the harling’s, for stupid,
lovesick Nytethorne’s...’

‘Peredur! Please don’t say that.’

He uttered a derisive snort. ‘Well,
I’m just impatient with that sort of thing now.’

‘Understandably, I suppose. But
Nytethorne and I aren’t “that sort of thing”.’

Peredur said nothing, but he was
smiling.

‘So,’ I said. ‘What do you want
to do?’

He leaned back on straight arms,
the morning light falling over him, this
creature
, like a being from a
fairy tale. I could still hardly believe he was real. ‘I want you to let me be
part of whatever
you
intend to do,’ he said. He turned his face to me. ‘I
could demand that, but I won’t. I’m asking.’

I reached out to touch his
shoulder. ‘You don’t need to ask. This is your history, Peredur. If anything, I
should be asking you! Thank you, anyway. Your help and knowledge will be an
asset.’

He reached out in return and
touched my face. So much easier between us to touch than between Nytethorne and
I. ‘That’s settled then.’ He paused. ‘Aren’t you afraid that part of me is
drwg
and will sabotage your plans?’

‘No, not in the slightest.’

He smiled. ‘I hope you’re
right.’

‘I am. Things are proceeding as
they’re meant to be. Can’t you see how the pieces are all fitting together?’

‘Maybe.’ He ran his hand up and
down my right arm. ‘So strong, aren’t you? Yet weak as a kitten in some
respects. True strength, maybe. Kittens are fast.’

I simply laughed, unable to
comment on those observations.

‘Now,’ said Peredur, ‘make me a
sumptuous breakfast, because food’s my main enjoyment. I’m hungry.’

‘All right.’

We went back into the tower.

Later that day, as twilight fell, Peredur asked to
walk with me amid the trees below the tower. At Ludda’s farm the hounds were
fretful, occasionally yelping discordantly but not singing together. I heard
the distant faint tolling of a bell.

‘Do you hear that?’ I said. ‘The
bell...’

‘All the time,’ Peredur
answered. He took one of my arms in his. ‘You are the only other har to hear
it. That is the ghost of Plenty, Gwyllion’s bell, sounding an alarm too few can
perceive.’

‘We will raise it,’ I said. ‘The
Silver Swan will return.’

Peredur laughed sadly. ‘I can’t
feel the future yet. There are too many hidden variables.’ He turned to me, put
his hands upon my upper arms. ‘Ysobi, there is something I must say to you.’

‘Yes?’

‘Don’t tell anyhar else about
Arianne, nohar.’

‘But if she remains...’

‘She won’t,’ Peredur said
simply. ‘That’s one aspect I can see clearly. She’s lent to us and has a task,
but beyond that... whether we succeed or fail... her place is not here and now.
We have our little group and we must be contained, closed. Trust me on this.’
His voice was tight. How difficult it must be for him to find Arianne after all
this time, only to know their reunion wouldn’t last. Rinawne had also become
very attached to Arianne. He wouldn’t be happy to lose her either. ‘You can
trust me,’ I said, ‘but what about Rinawne and Myv? Might they not tell?’

‘Afterwards, they might, and
they also might be believed, but...’ Peredur shrugged. ‘Just for now. Say
nothing.’

‘She can’t leave the tower,
though,’ I said. ‘Are we supposed to deal with the
ysbryd drwg
from
here?’

‘No, she’ll be able to leave it.
Tomorrow, maybe. I’ll see to it.’

I wasn’t convinced Arianne would
ever be able to do that, but Peredur seemed sure. His faith, like Kinnard’s had
once done, could perhaps change reality.

Chapter Twenty-Two

A message came from the Domain the following
morning. Written in an elaborate script in black ink upon a thick piece of
pinkish handmade paper, were the words:
Ysobi:
Please call at the
Domain today. I wish to speak with you. Mossamber har Whitemane.

I was under no illusion that
this was anything other than an order.

Mossamber had kept away from me
completely, occasionally sending out relatives to befuddle and beguile me, but
even when I’d stolen his chesnari away from his house, he’d not shown himself
personally. I knew so little about the Whitemanes, not even who Ember’s father
was. There’d been no opportunity so far to discuss this. The previous day’s
conversations had focused solely upon Peredur and Arianne becoming reacquainted
and, apart from my brief conversations with Peredur, I’d given them privacy for
that. The Whitemanes had kept me out; now I was somewhat ‘in’.

I rode Hercules to the Greyspan,
intrigued about what was to happen. Was I to receive warnings about how I must
conduct myself or would the Whitemane phylarch offer help for my task? I
imagined Mossamber would meet me in some grand, gloomy room, distant across a
vast desk. But as my horse set foot upon the bridge, a rider came cantering
from the other side.

Like all of his kind, Mossamber
was dark-skinned and sensual of feature, but he managed also to appear somewhat
austere. I’d glimpsed him in the darkness of a Cuttingtide night, but now, in
full sunlight I could see him clearly. I could tell he was first generation
immediately, even if I hadn’t been aware of the truth. He carried the years on
his shoulders and within a certain expression in his eyes. He had come alone to
meet me; Peredur had no doubt advised him of my approach. As he drew near, he
gestured for me to halt.

‘Thank you for coming, tiahaar,’
he said, once he did not have to raise his voice for me to hear him.

‘I’m pleased to meet you,
tiahaar,’ I responded, inclining my head.

The horse he rode today was pure
white but with a dark nose and eyes. Its mane reminded me of Peredur’s hair,
spilling wantonly over Mossamber’s hands as he rested them on the animal’s
neck. ‘It’s time we talked,’ he said. ‘Come. There’s purpose to this meeting.
Will you follow me?’

‘Lead on.’

On the Wyvachi side of the
river, we turned back roughly in the direction of my tower, keeping close to
the water.

We kept to a walking pace, so
that Mossamber could draw his horse alongside mine to talk. ‘Peredur will have
explained what we know,’ he said. ‘I never thought this day would come. I
believed we controlled the environment. Now the opposite is true.’

‘What would happen if nothing
were done?’ I asked.

He shrugged. ‘The end,’ he said.
‘Oh, not immediately in some dramatic, crashing fashion, but this community
would die, slowly, as the poison seeped through the soil, through hearts and
minds.’

‘You are sure of this?’

He glanced at me coldly. ‘My
swan convinced me you were sent to help us, like some deharan angel. Are you
telling me now you propose we do nothing?’

‘No. I was just asking the
question.’

Mossamber nodded thoughtfully. ‘I
see what you’re getting at – our own fear
feeds
what we fear, creates
it. There is some element of this, of course, but the egregore has been allowed
to gorge itself for too long. It does have independent existence. Of this I am
sure. So in answer to your question. Yes.’ He tilted his head back a little,
flared his nostrils. ‘You will see.’

For some moments we rode in
silence, keeping pace with the rolling river. Willows had come to crowd the
banks, dipping their hair into the sparkling water.

‘All those years ago, when the
conflict was over,’ Mossamber said at last, ‘we heard a sound as of great horns
being blown down through the valley, as if the dehara themselves had rallied to
battle and were sounding the alarm. Every heart was for a moment stilled. Hair
stood stiff from scalp and arm. Animals cowered. It was not the dehara, of
course, for they had not yet come to these ancient hills. It was older gods,
breaking free of the earth, coming once more to seep into the sap and water,
the roots and stones. I knew then that we had woken something, and now it was
awake it would never sleep again. I felt it flow over the land like a mist,
absorbing everything in its path, so they became part of it; the corpses, the
ruins, the laments still echoing in the air.’ He paused, eyed me keenly. ‘Do
you know how Yvainte har Wyvachi died?’

‘Poison,’ I answered simply.

‘From a nail that been driven
into Peredur’s flesh. Did you know that?’

I shook my head. ‘Only that it
happened in the stables.’

‘Vivyen tried to bind him with
iron, without really knowing what she was doing,’ Mossamber murmured distantly,
as if to himself.

I remembered the legend of the iron-bound
witches Rinawne had told me, what seemed like a year ago.

‘The nail fell when I freed
him,’ Mossamber continued, ‘fell into the blood and dirt, was kicked aside,
later swept up, lost, forgotten, lying beneath the hay in a far corner of the
stalls. Then, years later, Yvainte came upon it, was pierced by it, and its
enchantment killed him.’

‘If bad things have happened, so
have good,’ I said tentatively. ‘That Peredur survived is a miracle, pure and
simple. This land
has
thrived, despite everything. It is a place of
great beauty.’

‘He is its swan, he cannot die,’
Mossamber said. And I wondered then if he wasn’t a little crazed himself.

We had come to another bridge,
this one hump-backed and of mossy stones. Mossamber led the way over it. Ahead
of us ancient forest crowded to the river’s edge. No willows here, but oak,
beech, holly, blackthorn and birch. I saw only darkness before me, and
unnatural stillness, a place where in legend no birds would sing.

‘We are in the days of the Dog
Star,’ Mossamber said, almost in a whisper, ‘in the build-up to the old
festival of Lughnasadh, the hot, pulsing heart of high summer.’

‘When ghosts walk in sunlight.’

‘Yes. This is a treacherous time.’
Mossamber smiled at me conspiratorially. ‘Some believe that Shadetide is the
most dangerous, or even Natalia when the Wild Hunt rides the gales, but no,
they are wrong. At Reaptide, the entity we now call Verdiferel seeps out from
the stones of the earth. He is freed from the round of the year, free to cause
mischief. He is like a serpent you might encounter on the path. His tongue is
forked.’

I had become used to the rather
strange way most of the Whitemanes talked, but it seemed to me that Mossamber
was like a peculiar old oracle, living in a body that appeared young. If an
ancient hero or heroine had stepped forth from the mountainside to walk in
flesh again, this is what they would be like.

We entered the shadow of the
trees, and at first I could hear the creak of sun-warmed bark, the rustle of
leaves overhead. But slowly these sounds died away, until all that could be
heard in the silence was an occasional ominous crack as of a branch falling.
One belief among hara, found commonly in Freyhella and other northern lands
across the water to the east, is that alongside our familiar world there is
another darker version, overlapping it all the time but unseen. Occasionally, a
har might glimpse this strange world, and I felt I was doing so now. The forest
we rode through was like a bleaker version of the woods around the Pwll Siôl
Lleuad; more shadowy, dusty, with many dead trees, and those that lived had
leaves that were almost black. Bracken was spiky and brittle and although I
heard no birds, nor any other animal sounds, sometimes I saw tiny eyes glinting
amid the undergrowth. How could this place be real? Or had Mossamber led me
truly off the path?

‘Where are we?’ I asked, not
wanting to raise my voice. We were riding in single file.

Mossamber turned to me and put a
finger to his lips, then gestured ahead.

We emerged into a glade, where a
black pool shone sullenly in the beams of meagre sunlight that came down
through the blackened canopy. This clearing was larger than that around the Pwll
Siôl Lleuad, and all around it were what appeared to be graves or monuments to
the dead. There were offerings of red and white flowers, either wilting upon
the bare soil, or planted, or cut stems in urns of water. The air was filled
with their sickly decaying scent.

Mossamber dismounted from his
horse and I did likewise.  He gestured at the pool. ‘This is the gateway to
sorrow,’ he said. ‘This forest is not truly ancient. Its trees were planted
only a hundred years ago.’

‘It looks like a graveyard.’

‘It is.’

‘Why do you want me to see
this?’ I asked. ‘What significance has it to what’s happening now?’

‘In this place we buried the
dead,’ Mossamber answered. ‘Both human and hara. Tidied them away into the
earth and covered them with trees. The pool was not black then.’ He put a hand
upon my shoulder. ‘You want to feel what we’re up against? Open yourself to it
here, tiahaar, and know I am close so I might drag you away, if it becomes too
much to bear.’

‘Very well.’ I glanced down at
the ground, unwilling to compose myself upon it, yet that reluctance, of
course, was part of my task. Mossamber stood over me, his arms folded, gazing
around the glade, as if alert for intruders, although I was sure nothing living
lurked nearby.

When I entered a meditative
state, I was prepared for an ugly onslaught upon my senses, gathering malevolent
shadows, hideous shapes. Yet all I saw was a single har, with a brown woollen
cloak wound around him, weeping at one of the graves. In that sound was the
tragedy of the earth’s history. If there is a dehar of grief, I met him that
day. To be near to that entity was to be engulfed in a hopelessness and despair
that is beyond mere words to convey. His tears ran onto the black earth and
trickled in viscous streams to feed the pool. 

As I watched, he became aware of
me and lifted his head. He had a pointed, pinched little face, his white features
striped with red where his tears had burned him. His eyes were entirely black.
I could see he was angry in his grief. He wanted somehar to blame, somehar to
punish. Suddenly, in a rush of fetid air, he was right in front of me,
screaming into my face. His mouth was a yawning grave that went deep, deep into
the earth. I could smell loam and rot. His hands were twisted sticks, grasping
for me. I reached out to fend him off, and when I gripped his body it too felt
like a bundle of twigs and thorny branches, wrapped in rags.

I realised then that the
sticklike creature I had found – or imagined – in my bed weeks ago had not been
a presentiment of Ember, but of
this
. I called upon Lunil to dispel the
vision – to no avail. Then I prayed for aid to Agave, Miyacala, Aruhani, even
the Aghama himself. But still that contorted bundle of grief and fury clawed at
me. I tried to pull myself from the visualisation, but was unable even to do
that. I tried to utter a cry but my mouth was sealed. The creature hauled me
across the cold, dank ground towards the pool. He meant to drown me. The curse
made flesh, if flesh can be made of sticks and thorns.  

A crowd of arms, formed of
congealed filthy fluid, lifted from the surface of the pool. Blindly, yet
sensing my presence keenly, they reached for me with spidery fingers, pawed at
my clothes, took hold. I fought against them, my feet scrabbling helplessly in
the stinking dirt, but I’d never come across anything so powerful in my life
before. The will and intention of these entities – this egregore – were like steel.

And then I saw her. Vivi, the
woman I’d glimpsed at Meadow Mynd. Her face was severe, the skin grey, and she
was dressed almost incongruously in work clothes of shirt, trousers and boots.
Her dark hair hung in tight plaits over her shoulders. I could see there was no
pity or mercy within her. This was the woman who could blind her own grandson,
torture him, cripple him. This was the woman who wished all harish children
dead. She was accompanied by two creatures that I can only describe as dog men,
walking on all fours and with the limbs of a dog, but also hideously human or
harish. These trembled beside her, naked with leathery hides and whiskered
snouts, undoubtedly what I’d sensed around me at the Pwll Siôl Lleuad on the
night I’d met Peredur. Vivi lifted a grey arm and hissed at me. ‘Abomination,’ she
said, matter-of-factly, ‘that which should not live, that which stole,
murdered, killed the world.’

I could tell that to this shred
of living hate the worst idea of all was that Wraeththu could live ordinary
lives upon this land, that they could thrive and be the race that humanity had
lost the chance to be. There was no point trying to reason with her; she simply
wouldn’t hear me.

She stalked closer to me, still
pointing with a stiff arm, like some dire prophet. ‘You can do nothing,’ she
said determinedly, then turned her back on me. ‘Take him!’

The waters ahead of me began to
churn and those disgusting rubbery limbs that held me helpless began to drag me
down into the chill darkness. I was utterly powerless, like a newly-hatched
harling, or a har tied to a stake, waiting for the worst of fates. The only
thing I could do was shriek in my mind ‘Mossamber!’ hoping it would be heard.

Then I felt strong warm hands
upon me, words in a strange language in my ears, his breath within my mouth,
pulling me back to the waking world. I opened my eyes, gasping, coughing,
hanging onto Mossamber like a terrified harling.

‘You see?’ he said.

Behind him, both horses were
still with us, but their eyes were rolling. They trembled. Sweat had foamed upon
their shoulders.

‘Let’s go,’ I said, ‘now.’