The Moonshawl: A Wraeththu Mythos Novel (29 page)

In the field, Hercules was
standing with flattened ears, wild eyes, and a froth of sweat on his withers.
He seemed petrified. I called to him in a soft voice and he came to me
willingly, apparently relieved to press his long nose against my chest. Reluctantly
– because of the metallic bit – I put the bridle on him, then vaulted onto his
back. Whether this trip was safe or not, I was compelled to get to the Mynd.

We cantered through the trees
along the forest path, and it felt as if the undergrowth was alive around us,
crawling with hidden, mysterious life. There was now continuous low yet echoing
thunder that sounded almost like the tolling of a bell, or perhaps the bell was
sounding alongside it, an alarm from some distant village.

Even before we reached the exit
from the trees where a wider path led to the Wyvachi estate, two hara on
horseback came galloping towards me. One of them was Cawr, the other a har I
recognised by sight but did not know. ‘Thank Aru!’ Cawr exclaimed upon seeing
me, his horse skidding to a halt at Hercules’s side. ‘We were just coming for
you.’

‘What’s happened?’ I snapped
breathlessly, dreading what he might say.

‘I fear you’re too late,’ he
said, ‘but then it would have been too late from the start.’ He saw my
expression of horror and added, ‘The family are safe, it’s one of the stable
hara. Well,
the
stable har. He’s been with us for decades. Come. We must
get back.’

I urged Hercules into a gallop
and followed Cawr and his companion to the house. The lightning played games
with us, striking the path only inches ahead of our straining horses. The
animals were virtually uncontrollable, bolting in panic, but thankfully in a
direction we wished for them to go.

I expected to see smoke or
flames, or both, but upon reaching the Mynd there was no sign of structural
damage to the house or outbuildings. But in the stableyard, the cobbles were
covered in oily soot that was almost like tar, and a terrible reek of burned
flesh hung in the air. I couldn’t prevent myself gagging but fortunately managed
not to vomit.

Cawr led me to the kitchens,
where it seemed only a short time ago we’d been tending Gen’s injury. The har
on the table this time, however, was beyond my help. They’d laid him on a thick
canvas sheet. His right side was burned completely, the limbs merely charred
bent sticks, while his left side was unblemished. He stared at the world
through one remaining eye, which was quite dead. Wyva was in the room, and Gen,
both of whom greeted me gloomily. Myv stood beside the corpse, looking helpless.
I went to him and put my hands upon his shoulders. ‘Lighting strike?’ I asked
him.

He looked up at me, clearly
relieved to see me. ‘Yes. It pierced him in the middle of the stableyard,
cooked him where he stood. We couldn’t do anything.’

I remembered Fush’s words: the
ysbryd
dwrg
. I could visualise it prowling around the house; the lighting was its
death-bringing gaze, the thunder its murderous voice.

‘The
ysbryd
plays with
us!’ Gen suddenly blurted out. ‘Injures me, but lets me live, then makes me
witness this. Am I supposed to feel guilty?’

‘Hush now!’ Wyva said, taking
his brother in his arms. But Gen remained stiff, straining away from Wyva’s
embrace.

‘This is beyond your skill,’ Gen
said, staring at me with wild eyes.

‘It’s an accident,’ Wyva said in
a calm tone. ‘Calm down, Gen, it was just the lightning. Could happen to
anyhar.’

Gen screwed his eyes shut, shook
his head. ‘No, I won’t believe that.’

‘Ysobi...’ Wyva appealed to me.
‘Tell him.’ The meaning in his gaze was clear: Convince him, because they all
need to be convinced of their safety at this time.

I didn’t want to lie to any of
them, but then I didn’t really know what was out there – not yet. ‘It’s a
fierce electrical storm,’ I said carefully. ‘Anyhar out in it is at risk.’

‘But
there,
’ Gen said,
his voice now little more than a sob. ‘In that place. In that
exact place
!’

‘Could happen anywhere,’ Wyva
said, turning to his other brother for support. ‘Isn’t that so, Cawr?’

‘I suppose so,’ Cawr responded,
guardedly.

Gen fought free of Wyva’s hold.
‘Fool yourself if you must, brother,’ he said, ‘but there will be more. Pray to
the dehara it isn’t your son.’ With these words, he left the room, slamming the
door pointedly behind him.

Wyva shrugged at me. ‘He’s
afraid,’ he said. ‘He’s not over his own injury.’

There was an uncomfortable
silence in the room. Myv seemed oblivious to his hura’s comment and his
hostling response, staring only at the dead har. Outside, rain had begun to pat
softly at the windows.

Wyva sent to Gwyllion for the coffin maker and the
corpse was wrapped and placed in an adjoining sub-kitchen until this har came
to fetch it. Mourning friends and relatives filed silently into the tiny room
to keep a vigil with the deceased until he was taken away. Myv stayed with
them, sprinkling dried rosemary and torn rose petals upon the winding sheet.

Wyva ushered me into the main
part of the house. ‘Terrible thing to happen,’ he said.

‘The storm is very... strange,’
I said inadequately. Was now the time to broach the matter of the
ysbryd
dwrg
with Wyva? I could tell his defences were up and felt sure anything I
said would simply bounce off him.

‘Nothing we can’t deal with,’
Wyva said, with appalling heartiness. ‘It’s only a storm.’

I choked back a humourless laugh.
‘What? Wyva... Somehar is
dead
...’

‘I know,’ Wyva snapped, turning
to face me. ‘His name is Briar and he’s lived with this family for over twenty
years. I saw him break from his pearl. You think I don’t care? I do. You think
I’m not afraid? I am. But I can’t afford to show it!’

I stared at him, shocked. ‘I’m
sorry...’

Wyva shook his head. ‘It doesn’t
matter. Leave it, Ysobi. Just leave it.’

He took me to the drawing room
where Rinawne was sitting with Modryn, both of them looking subdued and pale. 
Rinawne gave me a look of naked appeal and I smiled at him, blinked slowly to
indicate there was no bad blood between us.

Dinner was subdued that night,
eaten late at ten. By this time, we’d all drunk rather a lot in the drawing
room, and I don’t think any of us really felt like eating. I didn’t have the
will to bring up the topic of Reaptide. I made excuses to leave early, around
midnight, and Rinawne saw me out to the stableyard. The rain had washed the
soot and smell away. Rinawne took me in his arms. ‘I love you, Ysobi,’ he said,
‘enough to let you be. I just want you in my life, in whatever way.’

‘I’m not going anywhere,’ I
said, and again a needling lance of remembrance shot through me. My own
lightning strike. I’d once said that to Gesaril too.

Chapter Sixteen

On Lunilsday, Myv arrived at the tower alone at noon.
He banged the great knocker on the door several times, no doubt enjoying the portentous
clunk of it. When I answered the door, I laughed and said whoever made a sound
like that must surely be a supernatural creature! I thought it had been the
dehara seeking entrance. Myv smiled at me, pleased. I told him to put his pony
in the field with Hercules and then come up to the kitchen. This he did
obediently. Upstairs, I watched him from the window taking off the pony’s
saddle and bridle, his precise way of moving, the fuss he gave to the pony’s
ears as it pressed its head against his chest. Hercules had wandered over to
investigate – he was always a placid animal – and I saw Myv give him some kind
of treat from his pocket, again rubbing the horse’s ears and laying his face
against the broad neck.
The future,
I thought.
That small being will
grow into a har and the weight of a community will rest upon him, as it does
upon his hostling. May the dehara give me power to ease that way for him.

I decided that for today we
wouldn’t do any work in the nayati upstairs. This would be an introductory
session so we could start to get to know one another. I sat Myv at the kitchen
table and offered him tea and a slice from a cake Rinawne had given me,
fresh-baked from the Mynd kitchens, the day before. Myv accepted these
offerings gravely. I could sense how seriously he took the job ahead – and
could see his hostling in him strongly then. The adherence to duty, the ability
to focus upon it.

I had no idea what Rey might’ve
told him about the hienama’s calling, but first I wanted to establish Myv’s own
spiritual leanings. I asked him what he believed in spiritually, giving him
credit he’d know what I meant.

‘Rey said to me we see and hear
more than humans ever did,’ he replied, ‘mainly because they let that part of
themselves wither and die. But we do more than see and hear better – we have
other senses that allow us to see... beyond normal everyday things.’

I could hear his previous teacher’s
words in his voice. He recalled his lessons well. ‘And do you feel yourself that
this is true?’

‘Yes. There’s so much all around
us, all the time, that we can’t see or hear. I practice sensing. Rey said you
can pretend you’re an animal and
feel
the world how they would feel it.
This makes it easier to strengthen your senses.’

‘Do you know about the dehara?’

‘Yes. Rey said they are like the
statues humans used to make of their gods, things we can put ideas into, a face
for the natural forces around us. He said I should seek the dehara for myself,
because they are something different for every har. He said also that I must be
mindful of this when speaking with other hara. We shouldn’t always think we’re
the ones who are right, because there are lots of versions of right.’

So, it seemed like much of the groundwork
had been done, mainly in that Rey had encouraged Myv to
think
, not just
accept received knowledge and seek no further. Once invited, Myv loved to talk.
He was bursting with ideas and experiences.

‘I saw some harlings from the
other side of the river once,’ he said. ‘They were somehow like I practice to
be, except I want to be as I
am
most of the time. Those harlings are
like animals always.’

‘Did you speak to them?’

‘No, they didn’t want to speak,
and they often want to hurt you. It’s best to stay away from them, like you’d
stay away from an animal who’d hurt you. I know their paths across the land and
they know mine. We don’t meet now.’

This, to me, seemed encouraging.
Harlings from both clans appeared to have a rudimentary mutual respect in terms
of territory. This could perhaps be a foundation upon which to build. Myv
talked of his observations concerning the creatures, plants and trees of the
landscape. He perceived spirit within them and found it no more unusual to
speak to a dandelion than he would to a har. This, he explained, was part of
the hienama’s way. ‘We do the speaking other hara can’t,’ he said.

As I listened to him, I found
more and more that I wished I could meet Rey. I approved of the education he’d
given this harling. I liked his view of the natural world. He was altogether
intriguing. Suddenly some words came out of my mouth that I hadn’t planned to
say. ‘Do you know where Rey went, Myv?’

His gaze slid away from mine.
‘Not...
precisely
,’ he said.

I knew then he’d once made a
promise not to say. I wouldn’t pursue it now. As a hienama, Myv would have to
keep many promises and secrets, and I didn’t want to start bullying him into
betraying them. He already knew when it was important to hold his tongue. I
respected that.

‘You know, Myv,’ I said, ‘most
of becoming hienama will be through experience alone. Rey has taught you a lot
already, I can tell, and I will teach you more, but at the end of it, none of
us can prepare you for what your calling might throw at you – the individual
problems and situations. All we can do is help you prepare the tools of your
trade and tell you of our own experiences. You’ll make mistakes – we all do –
but you’ll learn from them. The trick is not to judge yourself because of
it...’ I paused. One day I’d learn to practice what I preached. I couldn’t help
smiling.

‘What is it, tiahaar Ysobi?’ Myv
asked.

‘I was just thinking what I say
is no more than a basket of words. I judge myself, I still make mistakes. I’m
still learning. I’m sure Rey would say the same. Just be...
kind
, to
yourself and others, but at the same time be firm – even harsh – when you need
to be. Kindness is not always about giving in.’

Myv nodded. ‘Rey once said our
instincts are like a tracker. They already know the way, and can read the
signs, but our everyday selves can talk very loudly and can argue against what
our instincts know. We need to understand the difference. Sometimes, the
everyday self has useful things to say, sometimes it’s just afraid.’

‘I agree with all of that,’ I
said. ‘I wish I could meet Rey. He seems a very interesting har.’

Myv grinned. ‘He’d say you were
a bit stiff.’ He covered his mouth with his hands. ‘Oh, tiahaar, I’m sorry... I
meant...’

I laughed. ‘No offence taken.
He’d be right!’

‘I think he’d like you, though,
after he’d talked with you.’

‘Well, perhaps one day that will
happen.’

Myv said nothing, and again I
didn’t pursue it.

‘We might as well begin your
caste training soon,’ I said. ‘When you reach feybraiha you can take the Ara
initiation.’ Given what Myv already knew, I felt sure it would be best, and
most meaningful, if his first caste ascension took place during this rite of
passage. I was confident that would happen the following year, if not before.
He’d started growing before my eyes in the past few weeks. Perhaps Nature
herself would accelerate his maturing, because he would need to be adult to
fulfil his role properly. There was a vacuum within Gwyllion, and as the
ancient saying goes, Nature abhors a vacuum.

‘Are you going to stay here
until my feybraiha?’ Myv asked, a certain edge in his voice.

‘I intend to,’ I said smoothly.
‘I can’t make promises, because we never know what life might throw at us, but
whatever happens, I’ll make sure you have access to a mentor. High caste hara
can communicate over distance using only their minds and the ethers.’

‘Can you do that?’

‘I’ve not used it for a while,’
I said, ‘but if I had to, I could.’

‘Don’t you speak to your family
that way?’ Myv asked, in all innocence. ‘Your son?’

‘They’re not that highly trained.
I send my son letters,’ I answered glibly, knowing this young har would wonder
afterwards why the son of a hienama
wasn’t
trained in that way. He’d
wonder why we didn’t want to keep in touch with one another all the time, other
than through the lengthy process of written letters.

I considered also that the
instruction of a young hienama was not a short job. Myv would need the support
of a trained har for years, at least until he’d ascended to Acantha. Many
community hienamas didn’t progress beyond that level – and it provided what
they needed to function – but if Myv wanted to train further he’d need the
assistance of others. Even in my own mind, I continued to hedge around how long
I’d stay in Gwyllion. I still didn’t think of myself as a permanent fixture in
this community, and yet here I was embarking upon work to which I really should
commit myself for a long time. It was almost as if I was waiting for something
else, something my inner tracker was already aware of, something that would
lead me away from these hara. I knew now I wouldn’t return to Jesith. One
solution to the problem would be that Myv could visit me wherever I settled a
couple of times a year for caste training and ascensions, but we’d have to see.
There was much to live through first.

Towards mid-afternoon, after so
much talking, I sensed we were ready to conclude our first training session,
such as it was, and told Myv we could continue in two days’ time. Then his
education could begin in earnest and I’d test his capabilities, particularly
concerning healing, since that was most called-for in communities, not least
for hara’s livestock. He had already showed his aptitude for this when he’d
helped with Gen’s injury. Myv asked to use the bathroom before he left. While
he was out of the room, I cleared away the tea things, considering I’d ride
part of the way back with the harling and then leave the path to visit the Pwll
Siôl Lleuad, see if I could pick anything else up. Rinawne would be over for
dinner, but I had plenty of time.

Myv had scampered up the stairs
to the bathroom, but when I heard him returning, his step was slower, heavier.
This alerted me immediately. He came into the room, and for some moments looked
far from adulthood, once more a tiny harling. His face was pinched and white. I
went to him at once, and hugged him. ‘What is it, Myv?’ I asked.

‘There was... a strange har
upstairs,’ he said, and then began to cry, a heart-rending sound of utter
grief.

‘Sssh,’ I murmured, patting his
back. I wasn’t the most expert at dealing with harlings, especially those in
distress. ‘Are you hurt? Did this har speak to you?’

Myv sniffled, and I let him go to
fetch a cloth for him to blow his nose on. Now, he looked embarrassed, clearly
mortified he’d burst into tears in front of me, when he’d spent all afternoon
proving to me how capable and knowledgeable he was.

‘It’s OK,’ I said gently,
handing him the cloth. ‘You know there’s nohar else here with us, Myv, so what
you saw wasn’t a living har. It’s natural to be upset and shaken by that. Come
on, sit down again for a minute. Tell me about it.’

He drew in a shuddering breath
and went back to his seat at the table. ‘He made me feel so sad,’ he said,
‘like I was nothing
but
sadness. His face was a like a picture of
tears.’

‘Tell me what he looked like.’

‘He was dressed in shabby
clothes, just standing there, looking at me. He said “Tell me if it’s still
happening” and every word was like a pin in my heart. I had to turn my back and
get out, slam the door on him. That was wrong, wasn’t it? Shouldn’t I have
stayed and asked questions, found out who he was and why he was so sad? I knew
it wasn’t real, tiahaar, and yet more real than anything.’ He shook his head.
‘I’m sorry.’

‘Hush now, no need for that.’ I
sat down at the table and pulled my chair closer to his. ‘Myv, I think what you
saw was a human woman, not a har. I’ve seen her up there too.’

His eyes opened wider, and now
curiosity began to suppress his fear and sadness. ‘Really? Who is she? A
ghost?’

‘Well first, yes,
really
.
Second, I think she might be an ancestor of yours, from the human era. And
third, I’m not sure she’s exactly a ghost. She’s not alive here and now, but I
think what we see is somehow more than a spirit.’

‘What does she want?’

‘Well, the answer to a question,
don’t you think? Something bad happened here in the past, Myv, and she’s tied
here because of it. My inner tracker says to put clocks in that room. Don’t ask
me why, but I believe this will draw her out. That might be why you saw her today,
so clearly, in daylight.’

Myv smiled in a watery way, his
eyes still wet. ‘I did wonder about the clocks! So you’re helping her.’

‘I hope to.’

‘Can I help with that too?’

I hesitated. ‘Well, we’ll see.’

He looked crestfallen, perhaps
thinking he’d failed a test.

I put a hand on his arm. ‘It
isn’t because I don’t think you’re capable, Myv. It’s just that at the moment I
don’t know what I’m dealing with, and I don’t want to put you in danger. Let me
find some things out for myself first, then perhaps you can help.’

He nodded. ‘All right.’

I realised that Myv – as the
future generation – deserved to be part of what I was doing, but I had spoken
the truth. He should be intrinsic in the cleansing of this community, but must
also be protected. It was a tricky and precarious situation. There was also
another delicate aspect to consider. ‘Myv,’ I said, ‘Please don’t mention what
you saw here at home. I don’t like asking you to keep it secret, but your
hostling is extremely sensitive about past history. We mustn’t worry him yet,
mainly because I don’t know why that woman’s here. Do you understand?’

‘Oh yes,’ Myv said firmly. ‘Rey
told me long ago that some things I see I should never mention to anyhar.’ He
looked at me earnestly. ‘He said it was to protect my family.’

Again, the urge to probe and
question, but I let it lie. ‘Then heed what he said. I’ll not keep you in the
dark for any longer than is necessary, I promise.’