The Moonshawl: A Wraeththu Mythos Novel (21 page)

Nytethorne breathed in deeply
through his nose, looked out of the window, still turning the salt cellar in
his hands. ‘Hara have long memories. Injury is injury, despite the years. The
Wyvachi are weak, always have been. Looked out for themselves, were cunning
with the old tribal leaders. Little honour.’

I leaned forward in my chair. ‘Is
it all about land?’

Nytethorne glanced back at me. ‘Mossamber
doesn’t want land, ‘specially cursed land.’

‘Then he wants the hara around
here, he wants to lead them?’

‘Not that.’

‘Then what
does
he want?’

‘For Wyvachi to be decent, raze
the filthy hive that bred such evil.’

‘What evil? Really, tiahaar, be
more specific. Your words mean little to me.’

Nytethorne made a smothered,
anguished sound, gazed once more out of the window for some moments, then
turned to me, resolved. He placed the salt cellar carefully beside his plate. ‘Will
be truthful with you,
tiahaar
. You’re no enemy of mine. Think you’re
crazed and full of yourself, but see you mean no ill. But this land... here...
is full of ill. Hurts going back more than a century. Little snicks inflicted
here and there over time. Wyvachi always looked down on my kin, even before any
were har. Teeth bared between families. And then, Wraeththu happened. The soil
roils with it all.’ He stood up, clearly impassioned. ‘Hearts were hot all
those years ago, and what came from them fell into the land. Stored there.’

‘And stored still in hearts.’

‘Yes.’

‘But what
did
happen
exactly? How does the har named Peredur figure in this history, and what precipitated
the Wyvachi curse?’

‘Must not answer these things.’

I laughed coldly. ‘You’re a
cliché. Stop pissing in the air. The mystery becomes dull.’

‘You have no respect,’ he said,
almost beneath his breath, but I could see that faint shiver of uncertainty,
the words held inside. Part of him wanted to speak. I could taste it on him.

‘You warned me the other night,’
I said. ‘You care enough to do that. So let’s leave the history and look at
more recent events. Why did Rey leave Gwyllion? Tiahaar, put yourself behind my
eyes, see what I see. Wouldn’t you want answers too?’

Nytethorne closed his eyes.
‘Things
come
to you,’ he said in a voice barely above a whisper. ‘If you
are strong of heart,
let
them come. I can’t be the one. Have no leave to
speak.’ He placed a closed fist against his chest. ‘And
I
fear, tiahaar.
Won’t speak without leave – will be punished. And even here, never alone.’

I glanced around the room and
its cosiness suddenly condensed in a weird kind of way. I felt a presence, as
if Nytethorne had conjured it. ‘I
am
ready,’ I said, not just to the har
before me. A thought came to me. ‘Is this your sanctuary, tiahaar, this little
room?’

He smiled then, with beautiful
warmth. There was a brief transfiguration during which I fancied I could see
the har Nytethorne Whitemane might truly be. ‘Where I think,’ he said. ‘Where I
write.’

‘You write?’ I could see my
surprise nettled him somewhat – his warm smile hardened.

‘Words are soothing to me,’ he
said. ‘Here is nearest to alone.’

‘Tiahaar,’ I ventured carefully,
‘don’t you want this vendetta to end too, for the bad history to be healed?’

He put one hand upon the table,
just the fingertips, and stared down at them. ‘It can’t,’ he said. ‘There’s...
a barrier.’ He stared into my eyes as if trying to convey more than a few
words. ‘Rey tried.’

‘Do you know where he is?’

He nodded. ‘In the mountains.
The air is clean there, and the soil.’

‘Would he speak to me, do you
think?’

He shook his head. ‘No. He spoke
with his feet. Has been granted solitude. Made a bargain, so I think.’

‘And left Porter behind... Was
that the cost?’

‘No. He was asked to... for
other reasons.’

‘Who is Porter’s father?’

Challenge came into Nytethorne’s
eyes. ‘Me,’ he said, without hesitation.

I absorbed this fact for a
moment, and all its implications. ‘You and Rey,’ I said in a monotone.

Nytethorne shrugged.

This conversation was like
pulling thorns from flesh. I felt that Nytethorne wouldn’t volunteer
information but would answer certain questions. If the questions were clever he
might reveal more than he intended. ‘So Porter remains because of you – do you
see him often?’

Nytethorne shook his head. ‘Not
often. Not safe. And I’m not the reason.’

I nodded thoughtfully. ‘He’s
Mossamber’s eyes and ears in the Mynd, isn’t he?’

A pause, then: ‘No point
denying. You’re not stupid.’

‘Does Wyva know you’re Porter’s
father?’

Nytethorne shrugged. ‘Doubt
that. He’d not have Whitemane blood in his house.’

I wasn’t so sure about that. It
occurred to me the eyes and ears arrangement might work both ways. Who knew how
Porter acted to survive, and what Wyva might countenance to help preserve his
domain? ‘So Rey was in a relationship with you, yet working for Wyva?’

‘Not that close,’ Nytethorne
said. ‘He wanted to experience... certain things. Wanted understanding. He was
Wyvachi-called, like you, yet Mossamber let him in. Won’t do that again.’

A realisation came to me. ‘Porter
was made during a rite, wasn’t he?’

Nytethorne nodded. He sat down
again, rubbed his hands over his face. ‘As you guessed.  At a festival. Not
intended. Just happened. Like you, Rey was inquisitive, but in a different way.
You’d not do what he did.’ He raised his eyes to me, gave me a curious look.
‘Don’t tell Porter what you know. Don’t question him. Could be danger for him.’

‘I won’t. Tiahaar, what
is
the
danger? Can you not warn me a little more?’

‘You’ll find out. Know you will.
You finding me here is the start.’

‘Oh no,’ I said, ‘it started way
before this.’

‘Might be meant,’ Nytethorne
said. He drew his full lips into a thin line, looked away from me. ‘Reaching to
you... maybe.’

‘Is there a ghost, Nytethorne?’
I asked, waiting to see how he reacted to my use of his name.

‘Oh yes,
Ysobi
,’ he
answered, turning to me once more. ‘Be sure of that.’

‘Is it Peredur?’

Again, he turned away from me,
as if aware his eyes might give away too much and he could only risk short
contact with my gaze. ‘Enough. Said what I can. Don’t try to trick me.’

‘That sounds much like a “yes”,’
I said.

‘If only that simple...’ He
shook his head. ‘Would you share my lunch?’ He gestured at the table.

I stood up, went to the table,
placed my tankard upon it. I put a hand on his right shoulder. ‘I’ve already
eaten, thanks. And thank you for what you’ve told me. I can see you’re torn
over this.’

He looked at my hand but didn’t
move away. ‘You’re brave yet foolish, strong yet at risk. Be wary, Ysobi. I
can’t come to your aid, should you need it.’

I patted his arm. ‘Until we meet
again, tiahaar.’ With these words I left his room.

I wanted to stay, speak with him
further, but realised cutting my visit short would have more impact and might
draw him closer to me.

What Nytethorne had brought to the fore was that I
might actually be
in danger
, and not just from petty etheric conceits
designed merely to unnerve me. But in danger from what? Mossamber? Vengeful spirits
from the past? As a hienama, I could not of course deny there is much beyond
harish senses that make up the world, and that forces beyond our comprehension
could be considered
hostile
in some circumstances – energies that might
be found in the otherlanes, for example. Years before in Jesith, Gesaril had
experienced a malevolent haunting that had derived from his harlinghood, but as
Jassenah had said since, the frightening forms that had appeared to Gesaril
could easily have been conjured by his own strong thoughts and feelings. We had
no hard proof the manifestations were external. Perhaps the result was the same
as if they had been, but the difference in what a manifestation actually
is
must have bearing on how to deal with it.

Examining what lay before and
around me now, I considered that whatever might be manifesting could be an
externalisation of the original hostility between Wyvachi and Whitemane,
compounded by violent acts in the past. This poisoned energy had been allowed
to thrive, being fed by the continued antagonism between the families. So now
it had a form, and this might be the wraith I’d glimpsed at the Pwll Siôl
Lleuad, and the entity that had taunted me in the forest following the
Whitemane Cuttingtide rite, and the strange stick-like being that had appeared
just that once in my bed. Nothing had actually injured my body, or inflicted
psychological hurts beyond uneasy feelings for a day or so after the event. (I
still thought my disorientation in the forest had been caused by the Whitemanes
in some way. I didn’t believe that derived from an etheric entity.) As with all
malevolent forms I’d ever encountered, their only weapon was fear. And surely
if confronted without fear, they had no power whatsoever.

As I walked to the Pwll Siôl
Lleuad, I considered that the Whitemanes, for some reason rooted in the past,
did not want the Wyvachi on what they considered to be “their” land, despite
the fact that both families had equal rights to occupy it. Meadow Mynd was
regarded – as Nytethorne had put it – as a “hive of evil”. Something truly bad
must’ve happened there in the early days that had wounded the Whitemanes and
had caused the death of Peredur, a Wyvachi har, it seemed, the Whitemanes had
had an interest in. It seemed likely Mossamber had been fond of him. But whatever
had caused the rift, it was so great and so deep it had never been healed.
There
must
be some hara on both sides who thought, if only privately,
the rift was an inconvenience they could do without. Yet it appeared nohar had
ever acted to end it, except perhaps for... Rey. Yes, possibly him. He’d
involved himself somehow, which I now believed had led to his swift departure.
He must’ve been afraid. He’d left his son behind. How I wished I could speak to
that har, hear from his mouth his reasons for leaving and also what he’d
discovered.

From what I’d overheard between
Wyva and Medoc, and all I’d learned since, it appeared true that a dire curse
had been uttered in the distant past, with the suggestion that a dramatic event
– perhaps the cursing itself – had taken place at the moment Wyva had emerged
from his pearl. He had been Kinnard’s first born. The moonshawl, then, was
Wyva’s. This artefact had been created to protect him, and all harlings of the
family thereafter. A curse upon harlings: that indicated sore blood indeed. The
Wyvachi believed in this curse – and who could blame them for being reluctant
to test how effective it might be? As Medoc had mentioned, Kinnard and his
chesnari might have lost their lives because of it. What sane har, however much
his rational mind argued against it, would risk the life of his own harling?

I reached the pool and stared at
its modest glade for some moments. Surely, the start of healing must come with
honesty? The facts set out in order, shorn of sentiment and rhetoric. Of
course, I wasn’t oblivious to the fact that both parties might in some peculiar
way enjoy this continued feud; it had become part of their being. Would it not
have begun to strip the mystery of its power if Wyva had simply said to me
about the moonshawl story: ‘This is what happened in the past. Yes, it was bad,
but we’re not responsible for the actions of our ancestors. Yet nearly a
century of bad feeling is hard to overcome. Please help me overcome it.’?

Well, I was going to try,
whether he’d asked me to outright or not. How could he possibly believe a
hienama could function in this place if he didn’t know the whole truth? Perhaps
Wyva secretly
wanted
me to delve and find out. In the face of his
silence and obstruction, it couldn’t then be said it was his fault if I
stumbled on that truth.

 I composed myself on the moist,
springy grass next to the pool and for some minutes stared into its still
waters to order my mind. I closed down irrelevant thoughts and sought a point
of tranquillity within myself. This I visualised in my heart centre, the realm
of love and compassion, because these were aspects sorely missing from the
problem. No matter what frightening form the manifestation might show me, I
would meet it with sympathy and sincerity. I would not flinch.

Satisfied, I slowly closed my
eyes and focused upon velvet darkness before my mind’s eye.
Come to me
,
I thought, visualising my words drifting out like light, invading every corner
of the landscape.
Come, Peredur, if it is you. I’m here to receive you.

I could see now, in my mind, the
Pwll Siôl Lleuad and its surrounding trees. As I concentrated, I saw the light
change slowly from day to night. A mist, almost white, but tinged with lilac,
seeped through the foliage at ground level, crawling towards me like a living
thing. There was no sound, no smell. After a couple of minutes, I saw a form
taking shape from the mist, at the same time seeming to rise up from it, but
also walk
through
it. As it drew closer to me, I could perceive it was
the har from my first meditation at this site – a har dressed in a white robe,
his hair over his face. This time, he did not stumble or struggle, and his
clothing was untorn. He drifted towards me, and the feeling that flowed from
him was a mixture of curiosity and pity, coupled with a sense of hopelessness.

Why do you come to me, then,
if you have no hope?
I asked, not even asking him to confirm his identity.

The har drew himself tall, and
with both hands, drew the curtains of hair from his face. I’d been prepared for
anything, but what he revealed was refined and delicate features, a straight
nose, a strong chin, thin yet well-shaped lips. His eyes though were completely
white, like moonstones.  I saw in him the traces of Wyvachi. I had no doubt
this was Peredur.