The Bitterbynde Trilogy (23 page)

“Wind's got up again.” Sianadh took a swig from the leather bottle, wiped his mouth with his sleeve. “Could be rain coming, I reckon.” Then a thought struck him. “If it be thunder and lightning, we must get down from here quicklike, Imrhien. I have seen these masts attract sky-bolts.”

Night came on swiftly. The wind pushed and shoved. Below, the sea of foliage tossed this way and that, churning, boiling. They roped themselves to the platform and ate some dried fruit. It was impossible to sleep or converse with the wild airs humming and haunting through the rusty cavities of the mast.

There was no thunder, but the wind kept up all night. Near dawn it ceased, and in the stillness the sky lowered its soft gray blanket down onto the top of the mast and a warm, drizzling rain began. Their taltries, pulled over their heads, were scant protection. Soon the travelers were wet through. Rust particles worked their way under clothing, abrading skin. Grumbling and cursing, the Ertishman led the way down as soon as there was light enough to see by, and they continued their journey under the frondescence of the mountain forests.

Water chuckled in rivulets, rolled its glass beads along glossy leaves, strung necklaces on spiderwebs and silver chains down from the drooping ends of branches, pattered rhythmically on little feet, whispered soothingly in soft voices. In the rain, the verdure of the forest appeared richer, deeper, stronger, leaping out vividly. Through the drizzle, Imrhien fancied she heard, high and far off, a quaint little piping ditty:

I bring quenching and drenching
,

I bring peace and increase
,

Filling the veins that net the hills

The silver blood of everything
,

I bring. I sing
.

Despite the discomfort, Imrhien felt happy and refreshed. Rain was the lifeblood of Aia, after all, as the tides were the world's pulse. Water was the life-giver, the welcome assuager of terrible, burning thirst. She listened to the rain's music, splashing along in her wet boots.

A brown-skinned figure about three feet high started up out of the undergrowth and went on ahead of them for a few score paces before disappearing. Later, they saw a little wizened man coming toward them, growing bigger as he went. By the time he passed them he looked like a giant; then he reached a rock and shrank down into it, and there was nothing left of him.

“'Tis all glamour,” Sianadh muttered in her ear, “illusion.”

Farther on, the girl saw a black dog about the size of a calf, standing in the shadows of some blackthorns and watching them go by. His eyes seemed huge and terribly bright. The travelers, grim-faced, strove to show no fear—they did not alter their course, passing closely by the thing. It made no move to attack them or follow.

There were no shadows, no signs of the sun's progress. Sianadh did not bring out the map for fear the weather might further damage it. After several hours he stopped and threw down the waterlogged knapsack.

“No use going on until I can get a direction. We might be walking in circles. We shall start a fire and dry out, at least.”

By now the rain had diminished. Squirrels alighting on boughs tipped sudden wet avalanches on the travelers' heads as they searched for kindling.

Sianadh gave a shout.

“What luck! A hefty heap of sticks, nice and dry in the hollow of this here fallen log.” He trussed up the pile with a piece of rope and heaved it onto his back, lugging it around while he searched for some dry moss to start the first flame. His companion had gathered a bundle of wetter twigs under one arm.

“
Obban tesh
,” groaned the man, “but these here sticks be getting heavy. My back is breaking.” Stooping, he staggered over to where the knapsack lay. “We shall have to make the fire here. I can carry this no longer. Aagh! It weighs like a stone!” He straightened, letting the burden slide from his back.

“
Doch!
” he shouted suddenly. The bundle of sticks, to his surprise, had risen up and started to shuffle away. Sianadh made a grab for it, but it neatly avoided him and shuffled farther.

“Get around the other side of it, Imrhien. Round it up!”

The two of them chased the dodging bundle around the trees until finally it vanished right before their eyes with a shout and a laugh.

“Cursed tricksy wights!” shouted the man into the spaces between the trees. “A murrain on ye!” There was no reply. He rubbed his aching back. “What be ye a-smirking at?” He glared at the girl.

They lit their smoky little fire with the help of Sianadh's tinderbox. The rain stopped. Sunlight filtered down and made shadows. Their clothes steamed. Sianadh mixed water with grains and raisins in a small pan and cooked porridge, after which he seemed to be in better spirits and waxed informative.

“Eldritch wights be divided into two kinds—seelie and unseelie. Nay, I should say three kinds, for those that ye might call
tricksy
are partway between and might be benevolent or nasty, depending on many particulars. Seelie things at best be helpful, at worst be jokers, but the evil things of unseelie b'ain't capable of affection. They hate mortals. There be nowt anyone can do to make unseelie wights love mortalkind.

“Seelie wights must be treated with care, else they can turn against us, too. Both kinds be often dangerous and deceptive, sometimes helpful, but they have their rules that they must abide by. If ye know these rules, it helps ye survive. Like, if ye see an unseelie one and ye don't show fear, ye get a degree of immunity. If ye meet their gaze, they get power over ye, but with some of them, like trows, as long as ye keep looking at them without meeting their eyes they cannot vanish. Or if ye tell it your true name, ye're instantly in its power. It be an unwritten law never to speak the true name of a man aloud in eldritch places—unless he be a foe!

“But if ye can find out a wight's name, seelie, tricksy, or otherwise, ye can have some governance over it. They have other rules, too, strange ones that betimes ye can only guess at. But one thing's for certain—they never lie. Aye, they never can tell an outright, spoken untruth of words—'tis not possible for any of them. Mind, but they be not above equivocating and may twist the truth, mislead, and deceive in all other ways if they can, with their shape-shifting and false sounds and twisted meanings. They use the glamour, too, which in Finvarna we call the
pishogue
, but it be only an illusion, not true shape-shifting.”

He paused for breath, then plunged on loquaciously. Words were wine to him, and here was a steady two-eared jug in which to pour them.

“There be trooping wights with their green coats and solitaries with their red. There be wild ones and domestic. Some be small, some be large, and others be shape-shifters. They dwell on the land and under it, in the sea and in fresh water. Some be nocturnal, and be blasted by the light of the sun, but others not.

“Some wights be clever, some be stupid, same as men. Stupid ones, ye can trick. 'Tis even possible to catch the smaller ones as long as ye keep your eye on them without blinking and never loosen your grip, rough or smooth. They have to give ye a wish, then, or tell ye where their gold is hid. The lesser of the unseelie kind can be warded off with salt and charms and such. Or, if ye have skill with words and rhyming, like the bards, ye can beat them by getting in the Last Word. They do not love the sound of bells, although some say that seelie wights used to ride with the Fair Folk who had bells on their bridles. Truly, as the old rhymes say:

Hypericum, salt, and bread

Iron cold and berries red
.

Self-bored stone and daisy bright
,

Save me from unseelie wight
.

Red verbena, amber, bell
,

Turned-out raiment, ash as well
,

Whistle-tunes and rowan-tree
,

Running water, succor me
.

Rooster with your cock-a-doo
,

Banish wights and darkness, too
.

“But the greater of the evil wights cannot be put off with simple talismans and jingle-bells. Nay, that needs a greater gramarye, which is why we have wizards. But even wizards would hold small sway against such as the Unseelie Attriod.”

The Ertishman finished his porridge.

“Be not fashed—we shall find our way through these wild places. Why, not even a stray sod can lose me. What? You have not heard of the
Foidin Seachrain
? Ha! Those who step on one of those eldritch turves lose their way, even if they have traveled that very path a hundred times before. But a canny man can protect himself against it by whistling. A woman, too,” he added as an afterthought.

The girl clutched at Sianadh's sleeve, pointing urgently up to where the sky showed through the leaves. A horse and rider galloped overhead and were gone in an instant.

“Stormrider! Well, I'll be flayed for boots. I guess that was an outrider or scout come looking for the missing merchant ship that never reached her dock at Gilvaris Tarv. The main Stormrider runs do not pass over these remote places … unless we have been puck-ledden farther astray from our course than I reckoned. Aye, lass, we are a little off course—not lost—ye will never be lost with Sianadh the Bear,
chehrna
. I have my bearings now, and northeast we must go.”

If his companion harbored misgivings, she did not show it.

They stamped out the fire, despite their clothes being still damp, and went on their way, putting fatigue aside, straining all their senses to detect approaching danger. Presently Imrhien heard distant music ahead. Sianadh cocked his head and listened.

“Harpstring trees—a rare find. They be not perilous in themselves.” The music became louder as they neared the groves of harpstrings—melodious notes of liquid gold, as of a million tuneful harps plucked by gentle fingers.

Rows of thin rootlets or tendrils grew down from each leafy branch to fasten themselves to the branch directly beneath. Glittering insects flew among these stretched cords, alighting momentarily, to leap off, leaving the string twanging. The man ran his fingers along a set of filaments, causing a cascade of notes like bubbles, a flurry of sequined insects.

“Pretty, ain't it. I always wanted to play a musical instrument.”

<> signed the girl. Sianadh followed her gaze. The trees a little farther away gave on to a path—not a faint trail like that which had led to the oak coppice, but a fair, broad way paved with stone. The travelers approached it with caution. Around them the air rang, tinkled, thrummed.

Sianadh's brow furrowed in thought.

“If this means what I suppose, then we be on the right track. Aye. We shall follow this road. This b'ain't made by no wightish paws, though they may likely tread it.”

Together they stepped out along the path.

It took them higher and higher up the slope but remained smooth and unbroken. No weeds poked their fingers up through the seamless joins in the pavement. Late primroses bloomed by the wayside. The lilting harpstrings dropped behind, and larches crowded close. It began to get dark, oppressively gloomy.

As the travelers passed a big tree, slowly the hairs rose on the girl's neck. Presently a man and a woman—or what seemed to be a man and a woman—came out and began to accompany them. The strangers did not speak but walked along on each side of them, she dressed in a gown of gray and wearing a filmy white veil over her head, he garbed also in the color of stones. The cold sweat of horror prickled the girl, but she followed the Ertishman's example and continued to march on as if nothing had happened. The tense line of his shoulders showed the strain. From the corner of her eye, the girl saw that the woman's face was comely, but her ears were long and pointed like those of a horse. The man was ugly, his hindquarters sprouting a cow's tail that he switched back and forth as though swatting flies. Eventually the woman-simulacrum went away, and the man-thing seemed to go, too, but his footsteps remained with the travelers until they crossed a footbridge over a stream.

Sianadh sighed like a deflated bellows. He fingered the faintly obscene amber tilhal at his neck. “Praise be to Ceileinh's blue eyes—the protection holds. This trinket may well have been worth the wizard's price. Still, the sooner we be out of here the better.”

The shadows lengthened. The path topped a low rise, and they found themselves looking out over a shallow valley. The girl stared, amazed.

“Flaming chariots!” exclaimed Sianadh. “'Tis that old city of the map, after all!”

Rising up on the valley's other wall, tier upon tier, were the crumbling ruins of a once great citadel built of pale stone. The travelers followed the path down to a bridge over a willow-lined stream, crossed it, and zigzagged their way up to the outlying buildings and into the city.

Broken towers and caved-in roofs caught the last rays of afternoon sun. Windows stared, sightless, at dry fountains filled with soil and weeds. Ivy-covered walls surrounded vacant courts and overgrown gardens. Mossy facades peeled, overlooking empty streets whose choked gutters betokened ages of neglect. The intruders walked delicately, as if the city slept and they feared to wake it.

“We must find a stronghold in which to spend the night,” whispered the Ertishman, looking over his shoulder, “somewhere with a roof in case it rains again.”

Even the small sound of their boots on the cobbles seemed to bounce too loudly off disintegrating architecture as they tramped the streets. Every abandoned mansion, every collapsed bothy and gaping hall, seemed to be roofless, dank, still puddled with the morning's rain.

“There be no choice,” Sianadh said reluctantly. “We shall have to retrace our steps. Near where we came in, not far from that bridge, I saw a building with a roof, beside a pond. It looked to be an old mill. 'Twere too near the stream for my liking, right on it, in fact.” He shrugged. “Anyhow, ye need not fear with me by your side.”