The Bitterbynde Trilogy (154 page)

None argued, but tiredness bullied them for they had trudged all night. Foodless, fireless, sleepless, they had plodded on like three ragged, filthy beggars. Their fisherfolks' garb hung in unidentifiable tatters. Their boots, softened by water and minced by uneven ground, were coming apart. Mud sullied them in patches from head to foot. Their hair appeared to be all of the same drab shade—a mousy brownish-grey. In matted hanks it tangled about their shoulders, interwoven with small twigs and leaves. Even their eyes, peering dispiritedly from pinched and grimy faces, were not unblemished. Fine blood-threads knitted across their white ground.

‘What has she put on today, the queen, the queen? What has she put on today, the comely queen?' sang Viviana. ‘Is it crimson is it yellow, is it purple is it blue? Are there diamonds on her collar, are there rubies on her shoe?'

‘Hold your noise!' Caitri flared.

Viviana laughed. ‘No, her gown is dirty brown and her hair is falling down, and they'll run her out of town, the comely queen!'

‘What are you playing at?' Tahquil demanded. ‘Are you deliberately trying to make our position known? To identify me?'

Viviana shrugged. ‘My singing shall make no difference. What might be aware of our presence is aware already and the morthadu are, presumably, asleep.' She began to hum.

‘Please, Via.'

The courtier smiled, though not with her eyes, and the humming evolved into something more tuneless.

Caitri said, ‘Via, if you do not stop that, Tahquil and I shall knock you down and stuff rags in your mouth.'

The humming ceased.

‘'Tis a pity the rain could not wash off the taint of goblin fruit,' sighed Tahquil.

Two pearls crystallised in Viviana's eyes.

‘I cannot help it,' she said. Then she blinked, the tears fell and in their dry sources a cold, remote expression returned.

Halfway down the slope the ring bit into Tahquil's finger. She raised her hand in mute signal and the three of them fluttered like bedraggled thrushes into concealment beneath the shadows of a linden tree. Tahquil extended her senses, probing out into the far reaches of hearing, taste, scent, sight.

Presently she said, ‘I can detect no danger.'

‘Where is the swanmaiden,' sighed Caitri, ‘when we need her?'

Tahquil's finger hurt where the ring stung it. She slipped off both glove and ring, weighing the starry gold circle in her palm. No ridged band of reddened flesh marked its erstwhile abode—her finger remained unmarred.

Caitri was shading her eyes with her hand, gazing down towards Black Bridge. ‘I am not certain of it,' the little girl said, ‘but I think I see things moving down there.'

Tahquil looked again. ‘You may be right.'

With a flash of inspiration she held the ring to her eye like a spyglass. All at once the world expanded, clarified. Every detail appeared intensified, sharp-cut. There, seemingly close enough to touch, was Black Bridge. It stalked across the deep gorge, over waters as smooth and dark as oil. The stone of the bridge was rotten, necrotic. Mosses crawled in the jointed apexes of each arch. Grotesqueries were carved into its stanchions and its ribbed vaulting. This was an ancient structure, mysterious, and desolate, falling into ruin.

At the near end of the bridge and almost out on the span between its low walls, prowled long, lean coagulations of twilight, each one pierced by a double-pronged fork to reveal the red fires smoldering within the black hide. On the river's opposite bank the long grasses stirred, though there was no breeze.

‘Five walk on this shore, two wait at the near edge of the bridge,' Tahquil said wonderingly. ‘Wolfseemings. The morthadu. I suspect that more of their kind prowl on the far side of the bridge.' Slowly, she moved her spy-ring to the right, scanning the rest of the landscape. Two long, feline shapes disconnected themselves from the arch of a fallen tree trunk, then melted elegantly into a fern brake. ‘And that is not the worst of our troubles,' Tahquil added. ‘A pair of grey malkins lurks nigh. Being
lorraly
beasts, mortal to the bone, they will have no qualms about crossing the Ravenswater.'

A strand of unkempt hair whipped across her face. ‘
Obban tesh!
The wind—'tis veering to the east. Should it swing further about they will catch our scent for sure.'

‘What now?' asked Caitri.

‘What now indeed! Stalemate, for the moment. We have not the power to fight malkins or the morthadu—neither can the swanmaiden drive them off. The great cats would rend a bird to shreds and devour her, eldritch or not—and treat us the same way.'

‘Methinks they fear fire,' suggested Caitri, hesitantly.

‘And where's a dry twig to be had,' interjected Viviana, ‘let alone enough material to make brands to bear with us? And what if it rained and our torches were extinguished? The trees are still laden with water enough to provide their own rainstorms. See?'

Perversely she shook a tree fern, kicked its fibrous stem. Glassy beads came rolling off its fronds and showered down on her. She laughed and shook back her wet hair.

‘Hush!' said Tahquil. ‘Sound carries on the wind. The beasts of the pack have sharp ears.'

‘'Zooks, that precludes your calling the Bird I suppose,' said Viviana carelessly. ‘Not that she is much help.'

As if on cue, a shadow passed briefly overhead. The swan sank behind the trees, instantly reappearing in her
alter-native
shape, pushing through malachite frondery. The feathers of her cloak were ruffled, as was her previous cool aloofness. Birdlike, her head jerked abruptly. She kept glancing nervously over her shoulder. The pupils of her strange, avian eyes had dilated like black suns—her kind detested taking their humanlike shape during the day. Only dire circumstances would have driven her to such desperate measures.

‘Hazard!' she hissed, without preamble. ‘Unwholesome wolverhounds hold the span. Sly, sneaking malkins hunt hither. The wind wavers and soon sniffing spiracles shall scent humans. Unseelie hounds and feral felines wait, with hidden hopes. Hazard follows subsequently in Lallillir. Foul water wights wander, singing suck-spirits set forth. Three on foot should swiftly surmount strong-streaming watercourse.'

‘How shall we elude the cats and the lupine guardians of the bridge?' demanded Tahquil eloquently. ‘Surely you cannot lift us and fly us across the Ravenswater?'

‘Several ways suffice to straddle flowing waters. Follow. Follow.'

Down the dene's sheer sides the travellers plunged in the swanmaiden's wake, slipping beneath the emerald lattices of tree ferns. Embroideries of spaghnum moss squelched underfoot. Whithiue was leading them towards the left, downstream of the bridge. What her purpose was they could not guess.

‘Is there a second bridge?' panted Caitri.

‘I saw only one,' returned Tahquil.

The breeze swung gently to the south. A ululation, pure and sombre, echoed down the valley. The travellers thrust words aside and hastened on. After an hour, or maybe two or three, it came to Tahquil that the thunder of a mighty river rumbled more loudly through her consciousness. By now they must be almost level with the Ravenswater's swift and terrible tide. Ahead, the tall stalks of tree ferns parted to reveal the gloss of the sombre river only some ten yards below. Although no rocks tore the surface of the Ravenswater and no snags interrupted the smooth race, foam and bubbles whipping past indicated a flood moving at incalculable speeds.

‘I do not care what sort of boat she has waiting!' declared Caitri. ‘No vessel could navigate
that
current safely. Even if it withstood the battering, we should be swept down to the sea, for how could we hope to achieve landfall?'

The swanmaiden beckoned. Glistering droplets on her feather cloak captured reflections of leaves, distorting them to a semblance of dark green lace.

She stood beside a low stonework thrusting up out of the hillside, as crumbling and corrupt as Black Bridge itself. Leaf mold and detritus had built up against its buttresses, partially submerging them. Moss and lichens velveted the massive blocks so that only their shape betrayed their mortal-sculpted origins.

The swanmaiden pointed with a bird-bone finger.

Deep in the stonework loomed an arched void—an entrance screened with leaves.

‘Here stair starts,' their guide said. ‘Step within. Stair sinks subterraneously. Stone-hewn warren sub-fathoms foundations of watercourse. Here's a historic subway, the hour-honoured under-mine. Wights fail to follow here, for water flows circumjacently, squarely sideways, flawing and fracturing. Finite-span felines fear to stray in such a worm's warren. Hasten. Sooth, wild ones scent sweet flesh and hunt.'

As she and her companions fumbled through the archway, extending their toes to feel for the stair, Tahquil briefly thought,
Why should grey malkins fear to walk down there?

But it was too late to reconsider. Fiendish howls came screaming from every direction. Incandescent-eyed bolts of black energy burst out of the foliage. Instantaneously, a wraithlike darkness shot up and arrowed away into the sky: the swan taking flight. Scissoring jaws followed Tahquil into the orifice of stone, snapping shut on her sleeve, tearing it away. Still ungloved, the ring flashed with the brilliance of magnified stars. The scarlet eyes sizzled and disappeared. The stair treads pushed themselves at the soles of her feet, and with a crunching patter of boots, the refugees passed rapidly underground.

By the saffron effulgence of the ring they descended five hundred and eighty-eight corkscrewed steps that plumbed the ground like a vertical drill. Sometimes the walls pressed close, and the stair bored tightly through. At other times they opened out and the stair hung in emptiness from thin stalks of pillars, with no apparent means of support from beneath. As they went down, a dreadful certitude developed in Tahquil's thoughts—the vial of
nathrach deirge
was missing. During that last flight down the valley-side the neck-chain had snagged on something—a twig, perhaps. Momentarily trapped, Tahquil had wrenched free, plunged on heedlessly, dwelling only on escape. Her right hand now sought her throat. Uncluttered, the tender expanse of skin stretched over the slender collarbones, the throbbing carotid. Her throat was indeed bereft of its precious ornament.

The vial shall be sorely missed. Down here, cold reigns.

Yet this stairwell felt different from the under-roads of Doundelding and the Beithir's lair. In the first place, no friendly wall-fungi conveniently illuminated it, no ionised taste embittered the air. Dead was the air but not entirely, not as air would be that for aeons had failed to circulate through living tissue, nor been stirred through by the passage of living things. It smelled like air that occasionally escaped to be sweetened with sunlight and leaves, before re-entering refreshed. Ventilation must exist, hereabouts.

Possibly also, lungs which required it.

Thoughts berated Tahquil.

Why should malkins fear to walk beneath the Ravenswater? Has she stooped to perfidy at last, the swanmaiden, and betrayed us? But no. It is impossible for creatures of eldritch to break their word—she promised to see us safe to Cinnarine. Yet perhaps she considers this under-mine to be part of Cinnarine
…

After treading upon the five hundred and eighty-eighth step, the companions reached a level place. Many gnawings ate at them, not least hunger. But no food was to be obtained, no heartening dragon's blood was there to be sipped, only water filming the sandstone substrata in random patches. Of course—the stair ended below the uttermost dregs of the minacious Ravenswater.

Caitri collapsed.

How long is it since we slept?
Tahquil's rationality was hampered by a melange of weariness, hunger and longing.
My wits are fuddled. I cannot reason aright. I only know that we must keep moving.

‘Caitri has never entirely recovered her strength since being struck by aelf-shot,' she said aloud to Viviana. ‘A stroke's effects can linger. By rights, we ought to have left her safe in Appleton Thorn. We must keep moving, for warmth.'

Viviana stated, ‘There's dragon's blood.'

‘I do not wish to use it all up,' Tahquil quickly replied. She had no desire to reveal the truth at this time, thus paving the path to despair.

‘'Tis inexhaustible,' countered Viviana.

‘Not necessarily. Let us hoard it for more dire circumstances.'

‘What could be more urgent?'

Caitri made a small sound like a sick bird.

‘Lean on me,' said Tahquil to the little girl. ‘I am no stalwart to bear you on my shoulders, but I can lend you strength.'

For what it is worth.

‘Come, Caitri,' she urged, ‘think what awaits us at the end of this under-mine—the fair, green orchards of Cinnarine blowing in sunny breezes at the height of Summer.'

Caitri stood up. She hooked her arm around Tahquil's shoulders. Viviana took hold of her other arm.

‘And fruit,' the courtier said indistinctly, as though the juices already ran voluptuously in her mouth. ‘Ripe fruit in bunches, waiting to be plucked and slurped.'

They walked on, side by side. Moisture trickled down Tahquil's face. Unlike the moisture behaving similarly on the walls, it was briny.

The under-mine was decorated with eroded carvings and cracked stone furniture. Pointed arches and ribbings had been incised into the natural sandstone. A gargoyle fountainhead jutted from the wall, spouting a thin jet of water into a worn basin. Further on, other fountains protruded, dry and clogged. The tunnel roared softly, like a predator; the resonance of the overhead current. Close, so close over their heads, the entire mass of the Ravenswater oppressed. Tahquil wondered—
How many tons of water? A million? Partitioned only by a layer of rock how thick? Fifty yards, thirty, perhaps in places only ten? That power, generated by water's flow but unable to be sensed by humankind, would here hold ultimate authority. To pass so close beneath the river would be anathema to wights. No cause for human alarm would emanate from eldritch quarters.