The Moonshawl: A Wraeththu Mythos Novel (41 page)

Mossamber led me to the Domain, and I did not –
could not – speak upon that journey. I needed all my will to remain upright on
Hercules’ back. I realised now I could never have taken action against the
ysbryd
drwg
alone, or even with only Arianne, Myv and Rinawne to help me. I’d been
arrogant, proud, unaware of the extent of my capabilities or indeed the strength
of my foe. If Peredur hadn’t drawn me to him, I wince to think what might’ve
happened. Disorientated and shaken though I was, I was grateful Mossamber had
revealed that dreaded spot to me. Truly cursed land.

He did not take me into the
cavernous office I’d imagined he’d have, but into a sunny conservatory at the
back of the house, furnished with chairs of woven branches softened by
embroidered cushions. The room overlooked a lawn leading down to the river, and
just beyond the windows a fountain of stone nymphs sprayed glittering water
into the air. I could see hara everywhere, going about their daily business.
The house felt full and industrious. I’d hoped Nytethorne might be waiting for
us, but he wasn’t. Hara who looked like him, yet were to me nowhere near as
desirable, greeted Mossamber as we passed them and gave me curious glances. The
Wyvachi were right, it seemed – there were a lot of Whitemanes hidden away in
the Domain.

In the conservatory, Mossamber
gestured for me to sit down in one of the cushioned chairs beside a
slate-topped table, and I did so. My mind couldn’t focus, my temples ached, and
I felt faintly sick. All I could do was press the fingers of one hand against
my eyes and try to regain equilibrium. Mossamber allowed me these moments and
did not speak. I heard somehar else enter the room and lowered my hand. Ember
had come to us with a pitcher of cold elderflower cordial.

I drank greedily from the mug he
handed to me. When I had slaked my thirst, I put down the mug on the table and
said, ‘Thank you, Mossamber, for what you showed me.’

Mossamber flicked his fingers at
Ember, indicating he must leave the room. He didn’t speak until the door was
closed. ‘You couldn’t have gone further in your task without experiencing it,’
he said. ‘I’ll not let Peredur near that spot now. He is drawn to it, but I
prevent that.’ He paused. ‘A har died there this week, some poor soul who takes
flowers to one he remembers. No more. He was taken, found white upon the grave,
his eyes open.’

‘One of your hara?’

‘No. A har attached to the
family har Brân – farmers. There have been several accidents, two fatal, over
the past few weeks, of which you won’t have heard. Peripheral players on the
main stage, whose passing will go unnoticed except by those they leave behind.’

‘The Wyvachi know of this?’

Mossamber made a low growling
sound. ‘Of course they do. Wyva is the self-appointed phylarch of this
territory. Nothing escapes his ears.’ He sighed through his nose
contemptuously. ‘This time of year is perilous, as I said. It’s when the
ysbryd
drwg
is at its strongest. There are often deaths, more accidents than is
natural.’

‘Surely the egregore must be
dealt with at its peak, when it reveals itself fully?’

Mossamber nodded. ‘Yes. I’ve
come to this conclusion; it squirms away otherwise. Believe me, I’ve never
stopped trying to destroy it. Your predecessor tried. Over the decades we’ve
attempted many times to rid the land of this curse, but always at different
seasons. To take it on at high summer seemed folly and yet, of course, it is
the only time when, at its most powerful, it is also vulnerable.’

Mossamber sat down opposite me.
‘It’s not always this strong. It ebbs and flows like the tides. Myvyen har
Wyvachi has drawn it out with his scent, that of a har at the cusp of
adulthood. Ultimately, he will have to put away the shawl, stand before it
naked.’

‘Was it this way for Wyva and
his brothers?’

Mossamber shook his head. ‘No,
because Kinnard was alive then, and the fire of his will was enough of a blaze
to create a barrier around his sons.’

I put the fingers of one hand to
my lips, briefly. ‘You know I intend for Myv to be part of any action I...
we... might take?’

He fixed me with a stare, but I
saw no judgement in it. ‘Yes, that’s unavoidable. Peredur likes the harling,
the first blood har of that tribe he has liked since...’

‘I understand.’ It occurred to
me then that Mossamber did not know about Arianne – Peredur had kept that knowledge
even from him. I wondered why, when in all ways they seemed so close.

‘Peri is both strong and weak,’
Mossamber said. ‘Physically he is weakened, because of his past injuries.
Psychically, he is a tidal wave, but both aspects are needed now. Myvyen is the
lightning rod. You must be their strength and take the blows that will come.’

‘Rinawne har Wyvachi will
assist. I assume Peredur told you that.’

‘Yes. He’s a donkey but
admittedly a sturdy one.’

I laughed at that.

‘Well, he is,’ Mossamber said
amiably. ‘Anyhar who can live with Wyva for this long must be.’

‘He has a good heart,’ I said.

‘Let’s hope so,’ Mossamber
replied. ‘So, what are your plans?’

I outlined what I’d discussed
with the others so far.

‘Your ideas are good,’ Mossamber
said, ‘but need refining. Peredur will assist you with that, and of course the
Whitemanes will add their strength to yours from afar.’

I gazed him for some moments. ‘I
feel this alliance has come late in the day, but that it’s come at all is a
blessing. Yet... is it complete?’

Mossamber breathed in through
his nose, then sighed. ‘I know what you’re implying, but the Wyvachi have
always been weak. Kinnard was plain stupid and Medoc a coward. Wyva has
inherited “aspect of mule” from his hostling. Gen is a fop and Cawr a dolt. I
feel fairly certain you can complete your task without them.’

‘Perhaps I can, but would it be
right to do so?’

‘You have Myvyen and the Erini,’
Mossamber said abruptly. ‘You have the Swan. You have enough.’

I stayed at the Domain all morning and took lunch
with Mossamber at his invitation. He told me much of his life and how he’d
built the Domain over the years – the spiritual Domain as opposed to its bricks
and mortar. He told me how Peredur had transformed from little more than a
corpse to this creature of mystery and power – or rather had reclaimed that
part of himself.  I still wondered whether if I’d gone with the harlings across
the bridge, which seemed so long ago, whether this was the Mossamber I’d have
met, rather than the surly antagonist I’d imagined, who’d have been set upon my
humiliation and defeat. Had the
ysbryd drwg
created my fear that day, in
order to prevent such a meeting?

Mossamber explained how
difficult it had been – especially in the early years – to keep Peredur hidden.
‘Right from the start I tried to build walls to protect him,’ he said. ‘I
wanted private roads so he could go outside and meet nohar. That never
happened, because how could I tell Kinnard
why
I wanted that privacy?
Everyhar felt I was simply being awkward, chafing against the fact Kinnard
outranked me. That wasn’t the case. Any fool could see Kinnard was the obvious
choice for leader.’

I could tell that Mossamber
hated the Wyvachi because the arrow Kinnard had shot into Peredur had of course
made his healing all the more gruelling. Mossamber didn’t say so to me, but I
knew he was still angry that Kinnard and Medoc hadn’t even tried to save their
brother. An arrow through the heart had been their answer to the problem, and
in Mossamber’s eyes, only because they were too selfish or stupid to deal with
what Peredur had become. These sentiments smouldered through his words, but all
I could think of was the tragic waste these decades of hatred had been. Nohar
had needed to die. Kinnard and Yvainte would have lived to see their
high-harling. No curse. No
ysbryd drwg
.  Vivi’s voice would have been
too faint to hear if the Whitemanes and the Wyvachi had stood together, mourned
Peredur’s life-changing injuries together. If their scorching, damaging
emotions had been exorcised early on, the future would have been entirely
different for Gwyllion. I thought then: Malakess had left this mess behind. He
hadn’t been the kind of har to understand that growth had to come from more
than rebuilding walls and replanting fields. Hearts had needed mending.
Friendships. Hara had had to come to terms with a complete change of physical
and mental being in the reeking flotsam that conflict and horror had left
behind. The Gelaming, for all their faults, would never have countenanced walking
away from that. Interfering meddlers as they’d been in those early days, (some
will say, still are), their adepts would have picked up on the undercurrents,
and their probable consequences, and made hara deal with them. I wouldn’t even
be here now if that had happened. But the Gelaming had virtually ignored Alba
Sulh, concentrating their attention on Megalithica. And this was not the only
land where that had happened.

I returned to the tower in the early afternoon to
find that Rinawne and Myv were there. When I walked into the kitchen, where all
of them were seated around the table, Rinawne gave me a look of unfathomable
confusion and wonder. In mind touch he sent to me:
Are there any more risen
dead up your sleeves?

I think this is it,
I
sent back, although he didn’t smile and turned away from me, as if Peredur’s
survival was entirely my fault and I’d kept it hidden from him.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Reaptide stole closer to us and while we planned
and trained for it, we had to maintain the illusion our everyday patterns were
the same as ever. While Rinawne and Myv came nearly every night to the tower,
we made sure I still visited the Mynd twice a week to stay for dinner. Wyva was
given the story that Rinawne and I were training Myv for a major role in the
next festival, which required a lot of rehearsal. This was not, in fact, a lie,
although Peredur had more of a hand in his high suri’s education than Rinawne
or I. Often, they worked alone. Rinawne sometimes questioned this, imagining I
must be uncomfortable with it, but even though I knew that Peredur might take
Myv into dark areas of his own mind, give him glimpses of what writhed over the
land, I had no fear for his safety.

Rinawne didn’t share this
conviction. ‘But
you’re
his teacher,’ he once insisted. ‘Peredur is...
well, he’s
damaged
. I don’t like him taking over like this.’

‘Peredur is strange and somewhat
damaged, yes,’ I said, ‘but I trust him with Myv.’

‘That’s my son you’re trusting
him with, not yours,’ Rinawne said darkly.

How else to assuage his fears
and doubts but through aruna? I’d not forgotten its power, how it can be used
to manipulate a har, turn his mind. I’m not proud of that, but it was a tool I
had at my disposal, and I needed to silence Rinawne’s fears. Constantly trying
to use words to reassure him was too exhausting. I remembered, with some shame,
how I’d often used aruna to silence Jassenah too. That was my gift, blithely
misused.

Much as in some ways I agreed
with Mossamber’s scathing opinions of the Wyvachi, it grated not to be honest
and open with Wyva. Mishaps and accidents were occurring with increasing
frequency at Meadow Mynd, although thankfully no more deaths, at least not of
hara. Some of the injuries, however, were life changing. One har lost an arm
that was crushed completely when an old building fell upon him out in the
fields. Others were maimed by falling trees that were centuries old yet seemed
to fall dead on the spot, taking sacrifices with them. Part of Wyva’s sheep
flock ran down a mountainside into a turbulent part of the river and drowned.
Animals gave birth to dead young. Crops developed peculiar blights nohar had
seen before. In the house, crockery fell from shelves and dead birds were found
upon the kitchen table three days in a row. And the air boiled around us,
stifling, making us gasp for breath in the open air in the afternoons.
Verdiferel stirred, the rags of his garments comprised of the strands of the
egregore, the
ysbryd drw
g, shifting and coiling in dark purple light
beneath the soil.

On Aloytsday, five days before Reaptide eve, my
fighting company sat down to put the final touches to our strategy. Rinawne was
due to join us but was late. I’d found that when Peredur made a plan, such as
our conversation beginning at precisely midday, then he’d stick to it
unwaveringly. Ever since he’d asked for my help, he’d assumed a mantle of
leadership, as if my compliance somehow gave him permission or the ability to
take action he should have taken decades ago. So we began our meeting without
Rinawne, which I was content to do, since Rinawne’s role in the proceedings was
simply to do what we thought was appropriate for him. I didn’t think we’d make
any changes that might include him before he arrived.

We aimed to call the
ysbryd
drwg
to us at the Pwll Siôl Lleuad and bind it into the waters. As the
spirit of the pool had a close association with Peredur, this seemed even more
appropriate than before. Peredur was interested in my initial festival ideas
about containing Verdiferel in a pool. This part seemed fairly simple. We were
the bait, Myv especially. There was no reason why the
ysbryd drwg
wouldn’t heed us. The difficult part would be dismantling that entity,
dispersing it, cleansing its energy.

When Rinawne did finally arrive,
he appeared flustered. ‘Wyva is getting suspicious,’ he said as he sat down
with us. ‘He made a point of cornering me in the...’ he flicked a nervous
glance at Peredur, ‘...when I was tacking up Marie, my pony. He asked why I was
spending so much time over here. All I could say that I was helping with Myv’s
training, learning from it even, and that we were planning the Reaptide rite.’

‘Did he accept that?’ I asked.
Really, Wyva was foolish not have become suspicious before.

Rinawne shrugged. ‘He seemed to,
but it’s clear he thinks we’re up to something.’ He sighed. ‘Things are strange
at home. The house is so haunted it’s ridiculous. Most of the family are jumpy,
and so are the staff, yet Wyva continues to waft through the day untouched.’

‘That doesn’t surprise me,’
Peredur said. ‘He’s incapable of accepting reality.’

‘Have you ever met Wyva?’ I had
to ask, knowing full well the answer.

Peredur raised his head to me. ‘Not
in person. I don’t need to.’

‘Clearly not, if you can make
such assumptions.’

I felt Peredur studying me,
which was like being patted by invisible hands. ‘I’m sorry, Ysobi. I understand
what you’re getting at. My assumptions are based on hearsay. Is that what you
want me to say?’

‘It’ll do,’ I said, with the
swift mind-touch,
Remember who’s sitting here with us
.

He sent me a feeling of
contrition and said aloud, ‘Then I’ll make more effort to set my prejudices
aside.’ I wondered whether he was being sarcastic, but he seemed genuine
enough. ‘Anyway, back to our business,’ he said. ‘We’ll enact our own rite,
ahead of the Wyvachi ceremony.’ He grimaced. ‘If we fail, maybe there’ll be no
Wyvachi ceremony.’

I saw Myv’s mouth drop open, and
Arianne reached out to muss his hair. ‘Peri,’ she said warningly.

Rinawne made an agitated sound,
looked at me, wide-eyed.

‘Don’t worry, Myv,’ I said. ‘We
won’t fail.’

Peredur again poured the waters
of gloom into the conversation. ‘Simply trapping it won’t be enough.’

‘What must we do?’ Myv asked, looking
at Peredur.

Peredur was still grimacing.
‘Something’s missing... an important piece.’ He shook his head. ‘It’ll come to
me.’

‘If I can somehow communicate
with the part of this thing that’s Vivi, I’m sure I can reach her,’ Arianne
said.

‘You think so?’ Peredur said
icily. ‘Like you influenced her so much in the past?’

Arianne winced at the
implications. ‘I want to try.’

‘The entity must be dismantled,’
I said, to steer the direction of the conversation away from Peredur’s remark.
‘We have the strength of our will, and we are united. We have more than Kinnard
ever had. And I do think Arianne is right – and that is her part in it all.’

Peredur nodded, his expression
introspective. ‘Yes, I see what you mean. If we can separate Vivi from the
ysbryd
drwg
, that’s our chance. Then we rip it apart.’

But how do you dismantle many
lifetimes of hurt, and blood, and crying in the night, and enmity, and cruelty
and loss? We were a peculiar ensemble to tackle this seemingly impossible task.
Arianne announced she was going to prepare lunch for us, and Rinawne went to
help her. While Myv and Peredur discussed possibilities, their heads close
together, I studied the group, removed from it. There was Peredur across the
table from me, a kind of fairytale miracle, with golden stones for eyes and
hair and skin like a creature of snow.  His hands, however, were strong, a
pianist’s hands.  It was clear that Myv adored him from the start, mainly
because of his high hura’s strangeness; Myv was intrigued by things that were
different, uncanny. To him, Peredur was an elemental made flesh, brought to
life from the waters of a magical pool, who saw with his skin, and through gemstones,
and could taste the colour of the fields.

Myv himself was like a
changeling child, and Arianne was a ghost made flesh. Rinawne and I were the
roots, the grounding of this bizarre team, Rinawne more than me. He caught my
eye at that moment as if catching my thought. He smiled at me sadly, and
without even a mind touch, told me with his gaze that he knew our time together
was all but over. If I’d feared jealous retribution I’d been wrong. All I saw
was resigned sorrow.
But what you see will be brief,
he told me, again
without any means of communication known to Wraeththukind, a simple sureness.
My
grief will be temporary because I won’t add to what’s out there.

Many times over the past couple
of weeks I’d been tempted to ride to The Rooting Boar
at lunchtime to
see Nytethorne, but I’d stopped myself. What is desire but simple greed?
I
want that. I have to taste it. Now.
I couldn’t have such distractions when
I needed to be clear-headed and focused. And yet, I was also aware that all it
would take would be for Peredur to say something like ‘Go to him’ and I’d be
hauling Hercules from his field and galloping to town before he’d finished
chewing his latest mouthful of grass. Thankfully, the last thing on Peredur’s
mind was my relationship with his suri.

And yet, fate has its own say in
such matters.

The following day, Peredur
decided he needed to study the land through the medium of amethysts, which he’d
not brought with him. ‘Will you go to the Domain and fetch them for me?’ he
asked, apparently in all innocence.

‘Will Mossamber mind me doing
that?’

‘I’ll inform him you’re coming,’
Peredur said flatly, turning his attention back to Myv, who was writing some
notes for him.

I stared at Peredur for some
moments, thinking:
Why doesn’t he just ask Mossamber to send them over here?

Peredur raised his head to me.
‘Well, go on. The message is already sent.’ He smiled.

The Domain by day was – as before – overrun with
hara, all of whom stopped whatever they were doing to stare as I passed them.
There were feathers in the air, a faint smell of burning. Clouds above me
looked like dogs racing across the sky. Ember, perhaps instructed by Mossamber,
came sauntering out of the house as I approached the front door. He took hold
of Hercules’s bridle, by the bit. ‘Go in,’ he said, giving me an intrinsically Ember
look of smirky secret amusement. ‘You’re expected.’

I felt strangely
funnelled
,
first by Peredur, now by Ember. I didn’t ask who I was to see or present myself
to. Let what must happen, happen.

I went inside the house, and
then there
he
was on those grand and beautiful stairs that were like a
stage set, in the dim hallway, empty of sun. ‘Mossamber says...’ he began.

‘Yes, the amethysts....’

Nytethorne beckoned me. ‘Come
upstairs. No idea which they are. Looked but there are many purple ones. Purple
is right, yes?’

‘Well yes, normally so, but
won’t Mossamber know?’

‘He’s not here now.’

‘Oh.’

I went up those stairs for the
second time. On this visit I passed several hara, who flicked brief glances at
me, before carrying on with their business.  I saw no ghosts, although there
was a strange film to the air. Nytethorne and I climbed the house in silence.

We reached the upper parts and
the corridor that led to Peredur’s tower. ‘You worked out between you what’s to
be done?’ Nytethorne asked me.

‘More or less.’

‘Haven’t much time now, have
you?’

‘No.’

We’d reached the tower
staircase, and again silence fell between us as we climbed, until we came to
the bedroom door, which Nytethorne opened. ‘Wanted to tell you from the start,’
he said.

‘Yes, that might’ve been better.’

I stepped into the room, made
for the cabinet. Nytethorne remained by the door.  I took out the drawers, one
by one, until I came to the tray containing purple stones. Some were pure
transparent crystal, others milky.

‘Ysobi, I had no choice,’
Nytethorne said.

I turned to glance at him. He’d
folded his arms defensively. Beautiful as the stars.  ‘It’s fine.’ I gestured
at the stones. ‘I’ll take all these, since Peredur didn’t say which ones
exactly.’

‘OK. Get more if he needs them.’

‘I’ve been given the key to the
Domain,’ I said, smiling. ‘I feel privileged.’ I wrapped the stones in one of
the pouches of soft leather that were stacked in a neat pile inside the
cabinet.

Nytethorne took a step into the
room, like a cautious cat. ‘Mossamber told us to wait, so we did. Had to be
sure.’

I put the stones in my satchel. ‘It’s
all right, Nytethorne. I don’t need your excuses. This is hardly an ordinary
situation and I don’t – and didn’t – expect it in any way to be conventional
and logical.’

He shrugged awkwardly.
‘Still...’

‘It’s fine.’ I’d crossed the
room to him now, and my words made it acceptable for me to clutch his shoulder
briefly. He rocked a little as if I’d punched him. ‘I’d better get going. We’ve
a lot to do.’

He followed me down the stairs
and when we reached the hall again, he blurted out, ‘Take me back with you.
Can’t stand this... doing nothing.’

‘Well... I... It’s not just up
to me.’

‘Who, then? Peri? He summoned
you to help. You make the calls, I’d say.’

‘He’s quite emphatic about how
things should be done,’ I said. ‘And he has far more experience of this matter
than me.’

‘You give him strength,’
Nytethorne said, a tremor of anger in his voice. ‘All these years, hidden away,
now this. Out of his tower like a bird in flight.’ He made a sweeping gesture
with one arm. ‘Take me with you.’

Still I hesitated, wanting
dearly to say yes, but mindful of the distraction this would be and how I’d
told myself to steer clear. Also, Peredur had been firm on the matter of nohar
else knowing about Arianne.

‘Don’t mistake me,’ Nytethorne
said. ‘It’s for my hara and this land, not to sidle up to you.’