Fallowblade (4 page)

Curious about her heritage, Jewel decided to journey to Orielthir and see if she could unlock the secrets of the sorcerer’s mysterious building. She and Arran, the son of the Storm Lord, discovered the sorcerer’s book recording the existence of certain wells, each of which held a few drops of the Water of Eternal Life. On their quest to find these wells they were tracked and thwarted by Fionnbar Aonarán, a boy grown to be a heartless rogue of a man. Through cunning and cruelty Aonarán obtained the first of the three draughts of immortality, which he swallowed. Arran was forced to drink the second, and the third was lost.

Now there was no chance that Jewel could match Arran’s immortality. Visualising a future in which he lived on eternally, without Jewel at his side, Arran was gripped by rage. He swore vengeance on Fionnbar and Fionnbar’s half-sister Fionnuala. After embarking on a hunt, he trapped Fionnbar in a cave in the far north-eastern mountains of Slievmordhu, telling his prisoner that he must dwell there forever, immortal, suffering loneliness and exile. This was the punishment for forcing Arran to drink the draught of immortality while stealing eternal life from his bride, Jewel.

Fionnuala Aonarán hated Arran, blaming him for the death of her lover, Cathal Weaponmonger. She knew she could no longer harm the weathermaster, so decided, in her bitterness, to do harm to the one he loved best. She infiltrated the Marsh and learned the manner of Jarred’s death. Now she understood the nature of Jewel’s bane, and having stalked Jewel, mortally wounded her with an arrow of mistletoe.

At this, Arran was inconsolable. As for Fionnuala, in sudden repentance and shame she hanged herself from the boughs of the Iron Thorn, but at the last minute she was unexpectedly saved. She changed her ways and devoted the rest of her life to making a beautiful garden.

It seemed certain that the story would end unhappily, but the ex-druid Almus Agnellus chanced upon a revelation:

‘Agnellus spoke. “After I left here I had cause to consult my notes and books of lore, and as I was searching amongst my papers I came across a scroll which I could swear I had never seen before. On it were words written in an archaic tongue, but fortunately I am learned in that speech and was able to decipher it. I learned this: that a woman who mothers an immortal child must inevitably be tinged by that immortality. If she is fatally wounded she shall not die, but shall instead fall into a deep and lasting sleep that resembles death.” He drew breath and appended, “Jewel lives.”

And it was true.’

They raised Jewel from her grave. She lived, but appeared to be in a deep slumber, and could not be wakened. The beauteous sleeper was placed on a silken couch on the glass cupola atop the Maelstronnar house. Wild roses entwined their stems about the cupola, framing the eight panes with leaves and their five-petalled rosettes.

Declaring he would seek forever, until he could find a way to bring back his lost bride, Arran abandoned his child, his home and his inheritance, including the golden sword Fallowblade, leaving them all with his father, Avalloc. The grieving weathermage, with the faithful impet Fridayweed in his pocket, disappeared out of men’s knowledge. It was said he wandered far in the Unknown lands north of the northernmost mountains.

By then, Jewel’s young daughter Ast
ă
riel had encountered the very same urisk that used to be attached to her grandmother’s cottage in the Marsh. Towards the end of
The Well of Tears
, the girl had grown used to the wight’s companionship, little guessing that the creature was hiding an extraordinary secret.

Book 3:
Weatherwitch
told of a mysterious burrower digging its way beneath the mountains of the north. The story described, also, the bond of comradeship between Conall Gearnach—Commander-in-Chief of Slievmordhu’s Knights of the Brand—and Prince Halvdan of Grïmnørsland. Halvdan’s sister Solveig was betrothed to Prince Kieran of Slievmordhu, Halvdan’s lifelong friend.

King Uabhar of Slievmordhu had made a secret pact with the Marauders—mutant brigands, huge of stature, who dwelled in outlying caves and preyed on the citizens of the Four Kingdoms of Tir. Uabhar allowed these ‘swarmsmen’ to raid some of his villages so that he could justify the levelling of higher taxes, with which to prepare—clandestinely—for his forthcoming invasion of Narngalis, the first stage of his attempt to seize sovereignty of the whole of Tir. Uabhar was in cahoots with King Chohrab of Ashqalêth, whom he controlled with eloquence, rhetoric and drugged wine.

Asr
ă
thiel (erstwhile Ast
ă
riel), daughter of Jewel and Arran, grandchild of Storm Lord Avalloc Maelstronnar, lived at the stronghold of the weathermasters, her kindred. She had an unlikely confidant—the cynical faêrie creature called an urisk, who appeared only to her, but who caused trouble in the Maelstronnar household.

An ardent advocate of rights for animals, an expert weatherwielder and a skilled swordswoman, Asr
ă
thiel left the stronghold of the weathermasters at Rowan Green and took up a position in the city of King’s Winterbourne, as weathermage to King Warwick of Narngalis. Warwick’s eldest son, William, was in love with Asr
ă
thiel, but, although she was fond of him, she found herself unable to love him in return. She was pleased, however, when the urisk, who later revealed he was called ‘Crowthistle’, appeared at her new lodgings, and their casual meetings continued as before.

Meanwhile, unknown to above-ground dwellers, the mysterious burrower broke through a stony wall into a cavern, only to discover something truly awe-inspiring and terrible.

King Uabhar wanted the weathermasters out of the way so that they could not prevent his bid for power. He paid gossips to put about rumours to malign them, then lured most of them to his royal city, Cathair Rua, where, by means of trickery, he destroyed them in secret. Unbeknownst to him his appalling deed was witnessed by Cat Soup, an itinerant beggar, who hastened away in terror after what he had seen.

Meanwhile, in King’s Winterbourne, Asr
ă
thiel heard reports that in the northern hamlet of Silverton some unknown agency was expertly and ruthlessly slaying the villagers. She and King Warwick’s cavalry were despatched to investigate.

Having destroyed most of the weathermasters by means of trickery, King Uabhar mobilised his troops—as well as those of his ally, King Chohrab—readying them to march north to invade Narngalis. The Four Kingdoms of Tir were on the brink of war.

O
ceans of billowing clouds surged through the frozen peaks of the far north. White vapours seethed, misting the glittering sharpness of ice and precipice. Timeless and serene beyond man’s measure, the mountains themselves stood firm against this tide, their razor crags forever slashing the sky. Below their foundations a terror had lately been unleashed in a burst of silver light; something ancient and lethal, entombed long ago. Now free, it was on the move.

On the other side of the Four Kingdoms of Tir, hundreds of leagues away, a more mundane force was also moving.

Watching from a high turret window, unseen, Queen Saibh observed her four strapping sons, the noble concourse on the palace battlements, the swarming crowds of men and horses below. As she gazed upon the departing battalions she was grieving most bitterly. These days she wept often. Her ladies-in-waiting murmured amongst themselves that her sad and wistful loveliness reminded them of a faded flower drooping beneath a fine rain.

Uabhar had been pleased to view his wife’s red-rimmed, swollen eyes, gleeful at her lamentation, contemptuous at her inability to master her emotions. He thought it was for him.

‘Weep for your husband,’ he had bidden her, greatly encouraging. ‘Weep for me as I charge joyously into battle. You see, madam, if a king laughs at his foes and seems unafraid to confront them, his own subjects will believe the Fates are on his side. That will give the troops greater courage to risk their lives for his cause. I must laugh but you must cry, for soon I will depart to face great danger—perhaps I will not return. Then you will be widowed, and all that I have given you will be taken away: your status as queen, your jewels, your fine palace apartments. You will become nothing. Weep for me, madam, as a wife ought.’ As a parting shot he added, ‘My sons will ride beside me, to glory or death.’

And the fading-flower queen had wept more bitterly than ever, but shed no tear for him; it was for her four brave sons, and also for her servant Fedlamid macDall, who had never returned.

Below Saibh’s window the King of Slievmordhu, Uabhar Ó Maoldúin, looked out from his battlements across the Fairfield of Cathair Rua, whose well-trodden acres teemed with armed men, horses, chariots and ordnance. Chohrab Shechem, King of Ashqalêth, watched from this vantage point too, lying on a cloth-of-gold-draped litter. Uabhar’s favoured ministers were stationed a few paces back, shoulder to shoulder with numerous household officials and courtiers, though no snowy-robed druids gleamed like pale candles amongst this jewelled and embroidered assembly. The courtiers’ raiment blazed with rich dyes; the blood-flame-wine-soaked reds of Slievmordhu mingling with the sun-sand-fired-clay shades of Ashqalêth. All eyes were fixed on the field, where the last of a vast and clamorous display of battle-ready troops was forming into marching order and moving off. Noises resounded; the ground trembled with the stamp of hoofs, the trample of boots, the mutter of heavy iron wheels crushing gravel. The dusty air racketed with the yelling of orders, shrill whistle blasts, whip cracks, drum rattles, trumpet blasts, and shouts of approval from the civilian onlookers amassed around the periphery of the field.