The Moonshawl: A Wraeththu Mythos Novel (24 page)

Breathing deeply and mindfully,
I walked slowly about the room. Everything was still, oddly lifeless, as if I
walked within a painting. In one spot, a flush of heat passed through me. I
felt I was being observed, but in a calculating way. My measure, perhaps, was
being taken. I didn’t feel that whatever lurked there was the shade of Peredur
I’d experienced in my visualisations at the Pwll Siôl Lleuad. This was a cool,
brooding presence, more like an
intelligence
than a representation of
somehar dead. Perhaps, though, it could be an aspect of Peredur as created by
the warring families. I felt it was certainly connected to all I’d experienced.

I went to the window, looked out
over the gardens. Rinawne had once felt something was in the drapes. I touched
the heavy curtains, which perhaps had hung there for hundreds of years. In my
ear, the softest suggestion of a sigh.
Peredur
, I thought,
is this
you?
If it was, he was hiding in the dust and ancient threads, perhaps even
held there by whatever else loomed over the room.

I put my forehead against the
fabric of the drapes, breathed in, projecting feelings of compassion, of
safety. Perhaps I could coax the wisp of Peredur out. Then, something grabbed
my shoulder, and spun me round swiftly. Before I could take in what was happening
to me, I was slapped hard across the face and then, unmistakeably, I heard the
sound of spitting, and cold wetness sprayed across my eyes. For a moment, the
burning pain was intolerable, I was blinded, but it cleared quickly. There was
no other visible being in the room with me. On a sideboard, in the shadows against
the far wall, something fell over heavily. The thick door to the room shuddered
briefly, then became motionless. I staggered back against the window, gasping
for breath, almost paralysed. Rain pattered on the panes, and I could hear
water falling from a drainpipe nearby, outside. The room was utterly still,
while my heart pounded so hard I thought it must burst. Then there was a raw,
scraping scream, the most hideous sound I’d ever heard. Not in that room,
further away, higher up.

The door was flung open and
Rinawne ran into the room. ‘Ys!’ he cried and rushed towards me, took me in his
arms. I collapsed against him, still struggling to breathe.

 ‘Are you all right?’ Rinawne
said, lifting my head to examine my face. ‘That noise! What happened?’

I held onto him, willing
equilibrium to return and, thanks to my training, all feelings of debilitation
flowed out of me. ‘I was slapped, spat at.’

‘I heard all that shouting, but
I couldn’t make out the words.’

‘Shouting?’ I pulled away from
him.

‘Well, yes. That awful voice,
not harish, not even human, but cruel... so cruel.’

‘I didn’t hear that,’ I said.

‘You must’ve...’

‘No. I heard only the softest
sigh, here in the drapes, then I was grabbed by something else, and slapped. I
heard a scream, but not in here. It came from higher in the house. Did you not
hear that?’

‘No. Just shouting in this room.
I could tell it was a voice but couldn’t make out the words.’

‘Well that must mean –
thankfully – the scream wasn’t one of the family or staff being attacked.’

Rinawne closed his eyes briefly.
‘You see how strong it is?’ he said.

‘Yes.’ My voice was grim. ‘I
took it too lightly, didn’t take enough precautions.’ I grasped one of his arms
and led him towards the door. He didn’t resist. ‘We need to go upstairs.’

‘Is that wise? You look really
pale. Perhaps more tea first, some wine even... as a restorative.’ He smiled
uncertainly.

‘No, we must look. Whatever
uttered that scream wasn’t the vindictive force that hit me down here. There
might be residue, a clue, a trail. Lead on, Rin. You know this house.’

There was nohar else around, as if the house was
empty, although when I asked Rinawne about that, he said the staff must be in
the kitchen area, the family elsewhere. This wasn’t uncommon during the day.
The storm had made night of the dark oak staircase that led to the first floor,
but I sensed nothing dangerous there. On the landing above, a corridor stretched
to both wings of the house, again virtually in darkness. The pale ovals of
windows showed at the end of each corridor. ‘It’s not here,’ I said, ‘higher
up.’

There was only one other storey
to the house – the attics – as Meadow Mynd was a low and rambling building. The
stairs to it were a short way to our left. Rinawne said that in the west wing
about half the rooms were furnished and were the living quarters of the staff.
The east wing comprised storerooms, or empty chambers, and had not been used
since the human era – as far as he knew.

‘It will be there,’ I said,
sure. ‘From the earliest times.’

Rinawne continued to lead the
way. I could tell he didn’t feel disturbed at all now, as if whatever had manifested
had passed, but I was still drawn to the top storey, and felt it was important
to go there immediately.

The floorboards in the east
corridor were bare and the ancient light fittings looked as if they didn’t
work, although we didn’t need to try them. The storm was passing, and light was
returning naturally outside. As on the first floor, a large oval window
dominated the wall at the end of the corridor. Many doors led off to rooms on
either side. Some were open, revealing clutter or emptiness. I tried every
door, and even the closed ones weren’t locked. There didn’t appear to be a
secret fastened away up here. Had I been wrong?

Then, with only a couple more
rooms to explore, I knew I’d found what I was looking for. We entered an empty
room, no different to any we’d examined before, but the atmosphere was somehow
wounded.

‘Rin, I need to open myself up
here,’ I said. ‘You can wait outside if you’d prefer to.’

‘No, I’ll not leave you alone
this time,’ Rinawne said in a determined tone.

I sat down on the floor in the
centre of the room, while Rinawne leaned against the windowsill, watching me.
Closing my eyes, I regulated my breathing, shut down sounds from the outside
one by one, until all I could hear was the sigh of my own breath.

At first the images were
fleeting and dim, like gazing down a darkened tunnel with flickering scenes at
the far end. I heard a voice – female – say hurriedly, fearfully, ‘She must not
see this.’ Then a pale, distorted face leapt out of the darkness, inches in
front of me, snarling in fury. I was almost jolted out of my meditation, but
held on.

It was my viewpoint, yet not me
who witnessed what now lay before me. The scene spread out like a bolt of
shining multi-coloured silk being unrolled, fluid at first then sharpening: a figure
– har from the look of him – was restrained against the wall. I saw my own
hands held out in front of me. The har lunged towards me again, as if to
attack, but his bonds would not reach that far.

‘My son,’ I said, in terrible
sadness, ‘my son.’

‘I am
not
your son,’ he
spat. ‘No longer!’

His hair was ragged and matted about
his shoulders, so fair it was almost white. His eyes were a deep gold and
burned with a ferocious light. I could feel the pain of this woman through
whose eyes I saw. She didn’t know this wild creature chained to the wall, and
yet she’d once carried him in her body, birthed him. Her beauteous youngest
son, now taken from her.
Peredur.
Her instinct was to release him, let
this wild creature free to leap from the window, leave this house and never
return. She knew he wasn’t safe here and yet... and yet...

The image faded and in its place
I saw only another face, this one human and female. I knew it wasn’t the woman
whose experience I’d just shared. She appeared older than what I’d sensed the
other woman’s age to be, with dark hair worn in two thick plaits that framed
her face. Her features were strong yet refined, and I could tell that in repose
or when at peace she’d have been handsome, yet now her face was twisted with
hate into a visage that was barely human. She looked right at me with wide,
wholly black eyes, her expression full of contempt and loathing. ‘Get out!’ she
hissed, ‘Get out!’

At once, the open doors to all
the rooms along the attic corridor slammed shut, including the door to the room
we were in. The window shook in its frame. I gasped and opened my eyes, as if
drowning and coming up for air. The room was freezing. I could see my breath,
and also Rinawne’s where he stood, stiff and wide-eyed at the window, glancing
around himself. He noticed I’d come out of my meditation.

‘It was here,’ he murmured,
rubbing his arms, ‘great dehara, it was
with us.
’

I nodded and got to my feet.
‘There’s something I need to do before we leave this room,’ I said.

‘Can I help?’

‘Just be calm.’ I went to each
wall and placed my hands flat against them, called upon the dehar Lunil to
bring peace, to dispel hatred. I put as much will and energy into this task as
I owned. Gradually, the air warmed up again, until the chill had fully
departed. In its final wisps, I heard a soft sigh, a sob. I took my hands from
the wall and stood straight, breathing deeply and steadily to centre myself.

‘What did you see?’ Rinawne
asked, clearly aware my task was done.

‘I think we need to know more about
Wyva’s human ancestors,’ I replied. ‘It begins with them.’

We went down to the library – with me relating what
I’d seen to Rinawne along the way. ‘Well, I think we can assume that Peredur,
after he was har, was confined here by his human family,’ I said.

‘And he was killed because of
that?’ Rinawne suggested. ‘Perhaps because hara were not supposed to let humans
get too close, discover their differences. I know that much.’

‘I think there’s more to it than
that.’

Rinawne thought there might be
records in the library from the human era. It seemed likely, given that Wyva’s
family never threw anything away. There were locked cabinets, of course, where no
doubt any surviving documents were stored, but other clues might linger elsewhere.
We found a few more books on local history I’d missed, which included
information about Meadow Mynd, but were too old to give us details about the
years we were most interested in. ‘Look for a family Bible,’ I said.

‘A what?’

‘It will most likely be a huge
book, a religious text. Families used to record births, deaths and marriages in
them, but whether that survived into the times of the Devastation, I don’t
know. Worth a look, though.’

We found nothing of that kind.
Wyva or his parents had scoured the library of ‘recent’ family history. ‘Does
the Gwyllion Assembly keep any records, do you think?’ I asked.

Rinawne shrugged. ‘Not from that
far back, I wouldn’t think.’

‘Oh, there will be records
somewhere,’ I said. ‘Somehar, somewhere, always writes the history of a place.
It’s just a case of finding it. It need not necessarily be written in a book,
but in letters, documents... all the minutiae of life.’

‘Well, maybe so, but as we’ve no
idea where such documents might be hidden it seems to me the only way to find
anything out is to get Wyva to tell you, or one of his brothers.’

‘I think we know those avenues
are sealed.’

‘Well, the Whitemanes will know,
won’t they?’

I pursed my lips. ‘Hmmm... There’s
another route, and I’ve been working on it slightly. The woman I saw in the
tower.’

Rinawne’s eyes widened. ‘Ah,
yes! Could she be the presence we felt here today?’

‘I think it’s likely she’s the
one through whose eyes I saw, but not the mean-faced one.’ I rubbed my face.
‘But I expect that whatever – if anything – I can get from her will be
fragmented, mere clues to puzzle us further.’

‘That’s the interesting part
about it, though, isn’t it?’ said Rinawne. ‘The piecing together, working out
the mystery?’

‘Interesting when it doesn’t
become threatening,’ I said. ‘I’d prefer to have hard facts now, so we know
what we’re up against.’

‘Well, I can do some sneaking
around here when it’s quiet,’ Rinawne said, ‘try to open the cabinets, see
what’s inside. Between us, we might get enough information.’

‘True, but don’t take
unnecessary risks.’

Rinawne had been looking through
a chest of wide shallow drawers, which were mostly stuffed with Wyva’s
paperwork, but had once presumably held maps. The bottom drawer still did.
‘Look!’ Rinawne said, in a pleased voice. He withdrew a large sheet of thick
paper, which in the human era had been laminated. When Rinawne placed this
artefact reverently on the library table, I could tell it was a copy. The
original had no doubt been sent to a museum and subsequently destroyed during
the Devastation. Still, the copy was good and could be read easily.

‘This is amazing,’ Rinawne said,
running his fingers across the dulled laminate. ‘The field names... most of
them we still use.’

‘Most of them were used
again,
’
I corrected him. ‘It’s common among harish communities to do that. Bizarrely,
although all things human are scorned, their history holds a strange appeal.
It’s like a denial of the modern human era, as if by expunging its labels it
can be eradicated from memory.’

The names on the map weren’t
written in the ancient local language, perhaps because Wyva’s ancestors at that
time didn’t speak it. Landowners often came from across the border.

‘Midden’s Close,’ Rinawne said,
grinning, ‘Poor Lady’s Land. Those aren’t used any more, but I love them.’

‘Moon’s Acre,’ I said, tracing
the spidery name. This wide field lay across the river and beyond it, Deerlip
Hall. ‘Is that...?’

‘That is the Whitemane domain,
yes,’ Rinawne confirmed, his voice hardening.

‘Do they still call it Deerlip
Hall?’

‘They simply call it The Domain,
as far as I know. I’ve not had much social chit chat with them.’