The Moonshawl: A Wraeththu Mythos Novel (37 page)

In my room, before I went to
bed, I performed protective and strengthening exercises of both mind and body –
the Yogic Salute to the Sun, the ancient Cabalistic Cross, and the more recent
Aegis of the Aghama. I prayed to the major dehara, visualising taking their
qualities into me. I had instructed the others to perform similar exercises
before sleep. To do this alone was important, for we must learn to muster our strengths
in solitude as well as when together.

‘To those benign powers who hear
my voice,’ I whispered into the darkness, ‘guide my steps and those who walk
the path with me. Stand at our side and lend us your vigour. Ward us from evil
intent. In the name of He Who Walks Beyond the Stars, let it be so.’

My group and I must work to
protect and strengthen ourselves from this day forward until Reaptide. Now, I must
put all the might at my disposal to the test, draw upon my training, be what a hienama
can ultimately be. The investigations, I felt, were over. Now was the time to
act upon what I knew.

I was wrong. There was still
more to learn.

Chapter Twenty-One

I woke up from a dream of drowning, gasping for
breath, sweating so heavily my body and hair were soaked. There was an echo of
a voice in my head:
Come find me, now...

In the distance, outside, a dull
boom of thunder belched across the sky. A flash of light rippled faintly across
the ceiling of my room. Dream recollections trickled through my mind. In
nightmare, I had relived images of the past, those early days of carrion stink.
The echoes of cries both fierce and pitiful still haunted me. I recalled the
hunger of flames in the night, cold laughter, and the wet glint of sultry eyes
by firelight. Him – some ancient nemesis of mine, his name forgotten, the first
of many eyes that had spoken across a fire, setting a pattern for my harish
life. I remembered that I dreamed of him often, yet the memory rarely survived
into waking life – before being here in Gwyllion. In the dreamscape, I had
slunk by captives – not human, but hara. They’d been bound, mutilated, some
dead, the casual victims of tribal rivalry, territorial dispute, execution. These
buried scenes now blew through my mind like feathers in a storm. I remembered. Everyhar
was to be feared back then... everyhar. We’d been capable of anything.

I sat up in bed, regulated my
breathing. Those days were gone, far gone. Greened over. Forgotten. New lives had
been pasted over them; respectable, thoughtful. We were
hara
now
properly, elevated above the dross of history. This new sleek race, these
angels of light, of freshness and clarity. The demons were buried now, stamped
underfoot, groaning in whatever deep hell we’d squashed them into. Except... in
our hearts...

This is the time. Now.
Find
me...

Dŵr Alarch was quiet, hesitant. I got out of
bed, dressed myself slowly, with purpose. As I went out into the stairwell, the
tower creaked a little, bringing to mind Medoc’s recollections about Meadow
Mynd on the day Wyva entered the world. A wind had started up, a hurrying wind,
shooing the distant storm away. Rinawne and Myv had returned to the Mynd.
Arianne slept, oblivious. I went outside.

In the rustling night, I
whistled to Hercules in his field and, as always, he came to me trustingly. I
put a bridle on him, then vaulted onto his back and urged him to a gallop. We
followed the forest path to Pwll Siôl Lleuad. Around me the land was majestic
and beautiful; trees had never been so tall, shadows never so deep, the sky
never so high, nor encrusted with such vibrant stars. I didn’t want this world
to be an illusion. We
had
made it happen, reclaimed it, set it free. We’d
paid in blood.

I heard through the rushing air
a faint skein of music, a plaintive tune, sometimes so faint I could barely
hear it; this drew me onwards like a light. As I reached the pool, the wind
died down, and the scraps of cloud that had skittered across the sky fled to
the south. Moonlight fell severely into the glade, creating hard angles, not
entirely natural. I dismounted and pressed my cheek briefly against Hercules’
neck. ‘Wait for me,’ I murmured. He at once lowered his head to graze.

I composed myself beside the
pool, brought my heart rate down to its regular beat. Immanence sizzled in the
air around me. Again that voice breathed into me.
Find me now...
And so I
would, beneath these dark waters of the pwll.

I closed my eyes upon the world,
went inward. At the same time, I offered myself to what would come. No holding
back. Completely open.

In my mind, through history, I
could feel hara approaching on all sides. I heard a low melancholy song on the
air, and the muted thump of a hand drum, soft like the swishing of blood in the
ears – that balcony we have over the inner workings of our bodies. In the
distance the mournful tolling of a bell. I was drawn out of myself, sucked
almost, the very essence of me. Into
him
. Peredur. And this is what he told
me.

***

Mossamber held me before him on his horse, his arms so tight about me.
His breath in my ear.
I will always love you, always.
He wanted someone
to pay, but how was that possible? I was just a part of everything the world
had become. I did not like the choice that had been made for me, but I had the
power to refuse it. This was the way it must be.

Mossamber dismounted first and then held out his
arms to me so I could drop into them. He was so strong, like a wiry hound is
strong. I always felt safe in those arms, but they couldn’t save me.

I knew the water was ahead of us, but only because I
could smell it. But... was it just that? Then, it was hard to tell. I had no
eyes, so how could I see? Merely a memory of that place? Yet there was Mossamber’s
face before me, the most beautiful face that ever lived. I
knew
that
love in his eyes, in every cell of his being. I could touch and hear it, smell
it, taste it.

He helped me walk to the edge of the pool, because
walking was more difficult for me than seeing, even though I had the working parts
to move. He waded into the water with me and I stroked his mind with the words,
Don’t think it, Moss. You must go on.

He smiled sadly into my mind:
e kH
I won’t let you die alone
.

And I knew he was strong enough to survive, even if
he stayed with me in the dark until the very end.

This place. This was where it must happen, where
things had often happened so many years ago. This place, where first I’d
discovered the unseen world, where a creature of water had spoken to me and
changed everything. It had warned me though, even as a human child, that one
day I would come here to die.

But what is death?

I heard those words beneath the water as we sank
down to the secret depths, where once I had seen green eyes glowing amid the
waving weeds. They weren’t Mossamber’s thoughts.

He kissed me, sharing breath with me, pouring into
me his strength. Even now – hoping.
I don’t care,
he told me.
I don’t
care about it. Please, Peri, please...

But I care, my lovely one,
I said.
I live
with this ruin, not you.
I pulled away from him gently, touched his face. I
could feel around us a cloud of hair, his dark, mine the colour of light. Water
beings. Holding onto his hands, I drifted, breathed in.

 I knew it wouldn’t be easy, that it would hurt,
that my body would fight. I was prepared for it. Then, the watery voice in my
head.

Yes, that’s it. Slowly... Breathe in... Breathe
out... Let it go...

I could see the bubbles rising, like something from
a swamp, disgusting. I breathed in the sacred water, I breathed out filth. It
did
hurt, but I’d experienced worse. Of course I had. I even laughed then, and a
ribbon of tiny bubbles escaped, filled with blood. A fine moss of bubbles clung
to my bare arms. I could see them shining. I could see...

The pain grew sharper. I felt I must burst.

Mossamber and I were flailing in the water together,
in a maelstrom of silver spheres. The water churned, as if some wild
underground spring had suddenly broken through the rock beneath us.

Now,
said the water spirit.
Now, my son...

***

I came to with a jolt, coughing, spitting out
water. My clothes were wet. I was still sitting on the bank of the pool, but
had I somehow wandered into it during my trance?  My body shuddered and I had
to lean over and vomit into the grass; muddy water, sticks and stones. I heaved
out the contents of my lungs and my stomach for over a minute, then had to sit
with my head in my hands for a further minute or so just to ground myself,
regain my balance. I could still feel Peredur all around me. What he’d shown me
filled me with a sense of apprehension and dread. By the dehara, he was
powerful! I felt as if he’d reached inside me and squeezed my brain with a
long-fingered hand.

I sensed a shadowy presence
creeping around the edge of the glade, a predator, hungry yet cowardly. I knew
for the moment I could let it be, until I’d returned to normal. I took a drink
from the pool, which helped restore me and soothed my grazed throat. The unseen
creature still prowled. When I felt the time was right, I got to my feet and summoned
my strength. I formed a globe of light within me and then exploded it around
me, crying, ‘In the name of the dehar Lunil, master of the west, banisher of
darkness, be gone!’

I heard a snarl, a faint
whimper, then sensed it retreat. Some creature of
hers
, I felt. A
watcher. So: she would
know
. Let her.

Now I would follow the trail: a
faint ribbon through the trees, a scent of cut foliage, a wistful melody so
distant I barely heard it.

My clothes were dry now, perhaps
had never been wet.

Hercules was standing nearby,
his posture alert, yet he was not too discomforted. He
had
waited for me,
and horses aren’t fools. He wouldn’t have stayed if he’d been in danger. I
called and he came to me, pressing his nose against my chest. I remounted him
and turned him toward the river.

The Greyspan glowed in the moonlight. Still
vibrating inside with an echo of Peredur’s despair, I had to dispel the fear
that if I set Hercules upon the bridge, the bricks would turn to mist and we’d
drop into the churning river below. The broken gryphon statues on the Wyvachi
side seemed to me like the bodies of real animals in the half light;
dismembered, wings broken, tawny feathers scattered through the grass. I
extended my senses beyond these shattered sentinels. I could perceive no guards
ahead, other than the wild-eyed equine statues on the Whitemane boundary. There
were no lights visible beyond the river, as if the domain on the other side was
empty, unlived in for a hundred years. But then the foliage of the summer trees
was thick, hiding everything.

‘Well, my friend,’ I said to
Hercules, leaning towards his ears. ‘Here we go, into the heart of it.’

Even without my urging him, he
trotted onto the bridge, ears pricked, steps high, cautious, his hooves echoing
loudly as if there were a high wall around us. Below us, pale sinuous shapes
twisted and rolled in the water.

We passed between the stone
guardians, and their cruel stone hooves did not come to life and strike us.
They were lichen-covered, frozen in the act of lunging forward, their eyes
blind.

Beyond the bridge, a wide gravelled
path led into the gardens, beneath an ornamental arch covered in ancient ivy,
wound with honeysuckle. I rode out onto an immense lawn, neatly kept, and
populated here and there by yews, cedars and oaks. White deer grazed, ghosts in
the moonlight. They shimmered away from me, as if walking on air. A folly
temple glowed shyly white to my right, modestly revealed amid concealing yew
hedges. And still I could hear that faint thread of music, a voice beckoning to
me through the night.

The house was huge, larger than
I imagined, and certainly not in decline. Built of grey stone, it was three
stories high, with four rounded turrets, one at each corner of the domain.
Lights burned dimly in a few windows. I could see a vast complex of
outbuildings behind the main house.

I could perceive now that
another river flowed behind the main building, not so wide as the Moonshawl
flow, but that undoubtedly joined with it near the Greyspan. I rode to this
river’s edge, which came very close to the Domain itself. Here, I dismounted
and tethered Hercules loosely to a birch tree, its trailing summer tresses
rivalling those of the elderly willows that wept into the water along both
banks. I again asked Hercules to wait for me, reinforcing my request with
mental pictures.
If anyhar draws near, find cover...

I followed the river towards the
back of the house, considering it prudent to seek a way inside from there. I
passed what were clearly farm buildings – a dairy, stables, a dove cote,
buildings dedicated to cloth making and dyeing. In a few hours it would be dawn
and hara would be out in these yards, seeing to the business of their day. I
heard, coming from the south, across the Greyspan, an unnatural gulping yelp.
Three times it called, then fell silent. The creature that had come sniffing at
the pool could not cross the water, I thought. More distantly, Mossamber’s
hounds began their song at Ludda’s Farm. After some moments, those cries too
died away.

I edged towards what I took to
be an entrance to the kitchens. Beside a half-paned door, a sneering gargoyle
dry-retched into a water tub, an occasional drip falling from its lips. A boot
scraper stood to the other side of the door. Perhaps Nytethorne had cleaned his
soles there, a brown hand braced upon the old stone of the wall. He was inside
this place.

I tried the door and it was
unlocked. Attempting to fade myself as much as possible, I slipped within. I
must be a ghost in these corridors. I must follow my nose, my ears. The music that
had lured me was stronger now, sounded real; a wistful tune played upon a
piano.

I didn’t yet know precisely
what
led me, other than the sound, but my whole being, from the moment I’d awoken
from my dream, had been a single driven purpose: Pwll Siôl Lleuad, the
Whitemane Domain.

As I passed through the sleeping
passages of Deerlip Hall, I felt as if many eras existed all at once,
overlapping. Here, Arianne had grown up, a girl born into the end of human
days. Before her, people who’d not been her ancestors had lived here, families
going back centuries. Someone had lost it to gambling – that had been common.
Before that, political terror, people in hiding, religious conflict. And then,
way way back, before the first stones were raised, a village had stood on this
spot, and a rough keep house had been home to one of the first lords of this
land. I sensed it all, the lives coming and going, the small details, the
births, the marriages, the deaths. Tears and laughter. Betrayals, the greatest
of loves. All the ancient houses of Alba Sulh have these epic stories,
forgotten and unread, unless you are prepared to open their pages.