The Moonshawl: A Wraeththu Mythos Novel (46 page)

When I returned to my companions, Myv jumped up and
said, ‘Where’s Arianne? Where
is
she?’

‘She’s gone now,’ I said.

Strong little Myv. He’d taken on
so much, far more than most adult hara could withstand, without flinching. Now
he simply sank to the ground and wept. ‘She’s dead,’ he said. ‘Really dead.’

I hunkered down beside him,
stroked his hair. ‘No, Myv, no. She’s not
ended
. She’s just somewhere
else. She couldn’t stay here. You know that.’

Peredur clasped Myv tightly,
said nothing. His weeping was contained within.

Myv clung to his hura, still
sobbing, and as I straightened up I caught Wyva’s eye above the harling’s head.

‘I should hate you,’ he said.

‘Yes,’ I replied. ‘Somehar
always has to be the scapegoat.’

Wyva shook his head slowly. ‘The
risk you took... with my
son
...’

‘There was no other way. It
wasn’t your fight, and yet it was everyhar’s fight – including the Whitemanes.
Time for you to move on, Wyva. You can’t deny this.’

Wyva sighed, glanced at Peredur.
‘And
him
?’

‘He spoke the truth,’ Rinawne
said. ‘I’ve come to know this har. He’s who he says he is.’

Wyva gave Rinawne a studied look
and later there would be questions about what he’d said, but for now Wyva
turned his attention back to Peredur and said bitterly: ‘Why?’

Peredur remained silent, his
face resting upon Myv’s hair. I could sense he was seeking words within him,
finding none that could convey his feelings.

‘Just tell me
that
,’ Wyva
insisted. ‘Why this silence, letting us believe...? You could’ve...’ He shook
his head.

‘There’s only one innocent in
this,’ Peredur said at last. ‘Your son.’ He kissed Myv’s hair and guided him to
his hostling’s arms. Then he turned his face to me. ‘I want to go home. Come
with me.’

I was torn then. Shouldn’t I
return to the Mynd with Wyva and his family? Perhaps they didn’t want me to.
Suddenly, I was lost.

‘Ysobi and me go back to Dŵr
Alarch,’ Nytethorne said decisively. ‘Rest of you go where you please. We meet
tomorrow. The Mynd, if you prefer, Wyva har Wyvachi.’

Wyva stared at him for some
moments, then nodded, his mouth tight. Rinawne laid his head on Wyva’s shoulder
for a moment, then stood up. ‘I’ll take Peredur home,’ he said. ‘Go back with
Myv, Wyva. I’ll not be long.’ He gave me a sad look, then smiled. I know it
cost him to do that.

Mossamber would have known the battle was over, but
he did not ride out to bring Peredur home, as I’m sure he wanted to,
desperately. Allowing Rinawne to do this was a gesture of trust. Mossamber had laid
the first brick in the foundation of a new temple.

Nytethorne and I remained in the
field as the others left. We simply stood there, exhausted, looking out over
the river. Nytethorne bent down and picked something up from the scorched
ground. This was a ragged piece of cloth, full of holes, falling to bits. No
shine to it. No pattern. The moonshawl.

He looked at me. I nodded.

Together we went to the river’s
edge, where Nytethorne crumpled the old fabric into a ball. This, he threw into
the water, where it dissolved completely.

Epilogue

The end of one story is also the beginning of many
others, and further stories did begin after that night. First, there had to be
clarity, with Wyva sitting down with his family to discuss matters openly. I
wasn’t part of that. Then there was the matter of the bridge between the
Whitemanes and the Wyvachi, which as well as being a structure of grey stone
was also a har of flesh and blood: Peredur.

I went with him the first time
he visited Meadow Mynd, which was the day after our battle with the
ysbryd
drwg
. As Nytethorne had suggested, a meeting took place that day. Mossamber
attended, but Peredur asked to go with me, before everyhar else. Nytethorne and
Mossamber would arrive later.

Peredur rode before me on Hercules,
as he had on the day I’d taken him out of the Domain. Wyvachi hara stopped to
stare as he passed them, because Peredur will always be strange, somewhat
unearthly, a faerie type of creature. He asked to go to the stableyard and
there Wyva and his brothers were waiting for him, along with Myv and Rinawne.
The silence was absolute as Peredur dismounted from Hercules. He stood
motionless for some moments. His eyes that day were rubies. I half expected him
to weep blood tears from them. But the stableyard, a hundred years on, was only
a yard. Blood had long since washed from the cobbles. Horses had walked over
that spot. Dung had been swept from it. Rain and snow and sun had weathered the
stones. What had happened there was long ago. Nothing of it remained except the
survivor, a har of remarkable strength and certainty, and the love that had
made his survival possible. Mossamber loved Peredur, but so did the land and
its spirits. He could not be the har he’d been destined to be – that job was
now Myv’s. But he could be there for Myv as friend and mentor for as long as he
lived.

That day, before the meeting, I spoke with Wyva. I
couldn’t apologise to him, because I didn’t feel I had anything to be sorry
for. He knew that too, I think, but he’s a proud har, had to remain somewhat
surly for now to make a point. I trusted this would fade, as Wyva isn’t
naturally truculent. He did, though, tell me something of what had impelled him
to act. Over the weeks building up to Reaptide, he’d witnessed death and
destruction throughout his domain. He’d felt helpless to defend his family and
the hara who looked up to him, and depended upon him to keep things running.

‘Had you so little faith in me?’
I asked

He smiled wanly. ‘Ysobi, I felt
only
I
could deal with the curse, end it as Kinnard had tried to do
years before. I was sure I was Myv’s last chance and I was prepared to give
myself to the
ysbryd drwg
to protect him.’

So, alone, without even the
comfort of words, let alone embraces, he had planned his sacrifice. He had
walked around the Mynd, experiencing his home for what he believed would be the
last time. All he could think of, he told me, was the burning of the fields and
that only fire could cleanse the land. When he’d been born, and the curse had
been born, the land had drowned. He’d intended to call the
ysbryd drwg
into himself and burn it. I could see the sense in this grim idea, and I’m now
sure he was always supposed to be part of our small army. When he’d called
Verdiferel to his circle of fire, it had been a necessary part of our purifying
ritual.

I also spoke with Porter that day, when he came
across me alone in the house, while preparations were being made for the
meeting. Rinawne and Myv were showing Peredur around the Mynd, and I didn’t
feel my place was with them. I was in the library, clearing the table, and
Porter passed the door, saw me. I had my back to him, but sensed a living
presence and turned. He hesitated, no doubt considering whether to keep
walking, but then came in. He didn’t say anything, just stared at me
inscrutably.

‘It should be easier for you
now, Porter,’ I said. ‘No divided loyalties.’

He offered me a grim smile. ‘Well,
you certainly shook them up.’

I opened a book I had in my
hands, blinked at it blindly. ‘And I learned the sounds, as you told me to.’

Porter shifted awkwardly. ‘It
was best you knew. Not just the sounds. About what haunted us. Fush was right.’

I realised this was the nearest
I was going to get to an apology, but that incident seemed trivial now, in any
case. ‘Bridges are important,’ I said, putting the book down on the table.
‘There is a bridge of stone, and a bridge of hara. Peredur is part of that, but
so are you.’

‘And my hostling,’ he said,
somewhat defensively.

‘Yes, him too.’ I paused.
‘Perhaps he should be told about what’s happened.’

Porter nodded thoughtfully, then
said, ‘I’m off. Work to do.’

‘Until later, then,’ I replied,
but he’d already left the room.

The meeting, later, in the library of Meadow Mynd,
went as well as could be expected. Mossamber and Wyva were wary of one another,
conversation was stilted. Gen and Cawr slunk like suspicious cats to the table.
Wyva’s stance of authority and disdain was undermined by the fact that Rinawne,
Myv and Peredur already knew each other. Their friendship was deep because of
what they’d jointly experienced, and they talked together freely. It was
difficult for both Mossamber and Wyva to be stiff, formal and distrustful in the
face of their obvious closeness. In fact, to be caustic and confrontational
would merely have made them look stupid, like harlings spoiling for a fight.

The Whitemanes did not stay for
the Wyvachi Reaptide rite, which would have been pushing things too far at this
delicate stage. Wyva fought with wanting to forgive me and wanting to chastise
and punish me. I could see he wavered between the desires to punch and hug me.
Everyhar in Gwyllion knew that something momentous had happened, because the
fallout from it had surged over them like the cloud of dust and smoke after an
explosion. Everyhar had heard the bellow of the
ysbryd drwg
, whether in
dreams or in reality.

The festival necessarily had to
begin later than planned, because of the Wyvachi/Whitemane meeting, and by the
time those of us from the Mynd reached The Crowned Stag, the crowd outside it
was huge. I saw Yoslyn was present with his family, and noticed a clandestine
kind of acknowledgement pass between him and Selyf, merely a gesture. The secret
society of keephara, perhaps!

Wyva stood before the crowd and
told them the truth, much as it must’ve galled him to do so. He explained that
the Wyvachi and the Whitemanes had worked together to banish the
ysbryd drwg
.
What hara might have heard last night was the roar of the entity as it perished.
There was no longer a curse on Gwyllion. Myv, as its hienama, had been most
instrumental in ending it. ‘Was this curse real?’ Wyva said, his voice clear
and strong. He shrugged, gestured. ‘Did we unwittingly create it ourselves,
fear it, feed it, make it real? This we shall never truly know. But what we do
know – and certainly – is that the strength of our combined will was enough to
unmake
it. This is a new era for us, and what more fitting time of year to celebrate
this rebirth?’ He raised a tankard. ‘Astale, Verdiferel! Come to us now in your
true form, a dehar of the season.’ He drank.

Hara cheered. That was enough of
the story for now, although later, no doubt after the Maes Siôl had been
investigated, and hara had interpreted what remained of our fight, tales would
begin to take root and grow. Such is the way of small communities, and it is
also how legends are born. That day, most were simply amazed, and keen to
discuss, the unexpected truce between the Wyvachi and the Whitemanes. But
mainly they were united in praising Myv, which he withstood without showing too
much embarrassment. From now on, they would believe him capable of anything.

There is a story to tell about
the raising of the Gwyllion bell, but that does not belong here and is part of
another story. There is a story to tell of Porter, and how the changes affected
his life and allowed him openly to acknowledge Nytethorne as his father, and to
become a har of note himself. There is a story to tell of Rey and how he came
down from the mountains. But then, stories are ongoing, never-ending. There is
never a point at which the tales just stop.

Wyva – some days after the
festival when he decided I’d been punished enough and ceased being frosty with
me – told me I’d achieved the impossible. Not in that I had single-handedly
freed Gwyllion from its curse, because that wasn’t the case: many of us had had
a part to play. But Wyva insisted I was the true bridge between the feuding
clans, and had smashed, with unwavering determination, that particular part of
the affliction. I wasn’t shy of taking credit for that, because from the start
that had been my aim. The suspicion between the Whitemanes and the Wyvachi
wouldn’t end overnight, with everyhar becoming best friends, but the first
approaches had been made, and I strongly believed the harlings of both families
would be the ones to build upon the foundations. Wyva agreed with this, then
laughed to himself. ‘Will there come a day when we all celebrate the festivals
together here in Gwyllion? Will Mossamber ever sit at my table as a friend?’

I reached out to squeeze Wyva’s
shoulder. ‘Perhaps, if you are content to sit at his.’

Wyva grinned, shook his head.
‘Well, I think we can safely say that stranger things have happened!’

As for Nytethorne and me, we made what might seem a
strange choice. We didn’t trust in convenient happy ever afters and didn’t want
to goad fate, so we decided to travel. Kyme would have other jobs for me, far
shorter than the commission I’d taken and in fact had failed to complete.
Before I left, I would give Myv as much assistance as he needed to finish the
task I’d begun, but really the inventions for the wheel of the year should be
his, as he was hienama now. Peredur and he would enjoy working together on
that, weaving spectacular festivals for the hara of Gwyllion. I made
arrangements with my good friend Huriel in Kyme – who I trusted – to give Myv
distance instruction and visit him in person to perform caste ascensions. Until
I returned.

Nytethorne and I wouldn’t be
gone forever; we knew that. But we needed to roam, to expand ourselves, not simply
settle into a daily routine in Gwyllion. We had our own stories to explore.

Before we began our travels, I
would return to Jesith to finish off my business there and hopefully create a
new kind of relationship with my son. After that, we planned to meet up again
in Kyme, see about work. Nytethorne was keen for us to seek out others who
still suffered blights that derived from the dawn of our kind, whom we could
help. The idea appealed to me too. We could discuss this with Huriel in Kyme. But
we didn’t want to leave Gwyllion immediately. We’d stay till Smoketide.

As this festival approached, a meeting of great
importance was held. Not in the Domain, nor at Meadow Mynd, but at Harrow’s
End.

One bright yet cool Harvestmoon
day, representatives of the Whitemanes and the Wyvachi crossed the county
boundary and rode to Medoc’s hall. Nytethorne and I were with them, as were all
the hara of significance I’d met during my time in Gwyllion, even Peredur. I
can recall the feeling of that day so well, the smell of the air, the sense of
the season turning, Nytethorne riding at my side. In some moments, we truly
understand what it is to be alive, and how we turn as the seasons turn, in
cycles.

The spirits of the land are strong in Alba Sulh,
but so are the spirits of its hara. I had made a new home in Gwyllion, had
found myself there, and while I might be gone for some time I knew this: I
would return. At the cusp of Natalia, when snow silvers the land, or at
Feybraihatide when the land renews, I would ride once more along the ancient
avenues to Meadow Mynd. There would be no wards on every door and lintel, no
fear, no darkness, no secrets. Just the mystery of the natural world, which is
the greatest mystery of all.