The Moonshawl: A Wraeththu Mythos Novel (5 page)

Rinawne spread out a white linen
cloth upon the grass, and here arranged the refreshments he had brought. I
decided to do some more poking around.

‘So, what’s the story of Porter har
Goudy?’ I asked. ‘Such an intriguing name, I’m sure his history must be
interesting.’

Rinawne bit into a sandwich and
chewed for a while before answering. ‘He’s part of our family. What do you want
to know about him?’

Now I simply felt interfering,
and shrugged uncomfortably. ‘Well, he doesn’t appear to belong to anyhar in particular,
and is clearly second generation, if not third. I was just... curious.’

Rinawne put down his sandwich,
half eaten, and lay back on the grass. ‘Oh, he’s not related in blood, if
that’s what you mean. He’s the son of our previous hienama, Rey har Goudy.’

That took me aback. ‘Oh...
now
tell me there isn’t a story.’ I risked a smile, wondering if Rinawne objected
to my questions.

He exhaled through his nose,
considering for a moment. ‘Let’s just say...’ He turned to me, leaning his head
upon his hand. ‘Rey was –
is
, he’s not
dead
– a singular har. He
was fey, more fey than the Whitemanes. He fell in love with the land so much he
fell right into it. Or maybe it was something to do with who Porter’s father
was. He never told us, but I knew he had liaisons with a lot of hara in
Gwyllion. Secretive about it. Anyway, he decided to leave harish society, walk
his own lone path. So he left Porter with us, and we sought a new hienama from
Kyme.’

‘Seems... heartless. Leaving a
harling behind. That’s leaving more than life, in a way.’

‘He’s his own har,’ Rinawne
said. ‘You’d understand if you’d met him.’

‘Did he perhaps
resent
his
son in some way?’

Rinawne shook his head. ‘Oh no,
nothing like that. He cared for Porter so much he left him with us. It wouldn’t
have been good for the harling to be carted off into the wilderness to live on
sticks and berries. He’ll see his hostling again one day, but for now he loves
his life here. He’s happy with us, part of the family.’

I nodded. ‘I can’t dispute
that.’ I looked Rinawne full in the eye. ‘I am
not
your new hienama from
Kyme.’

‘We know that.’

A thought came to me and I had
to voice it. ‘Rinawne... I’ve been asked to create a spiritual system for this
community, but you had Rey... Surely he had majhahns he used and that hara knew?
Are these to be rejected now? And even before his time here I assume the hara
here celebrated the seasonal festivals in some way. It seems odd that nothing
has been recorded or memorised, or used again.’

Rinawne considered me for a few
moments. ‘Wyva wants something new,’ he said. ‘You see, Rey...’ He screwed up
his nose. ‘Well, he wasn’t a one for fanciful words and all that. His idea of a
ritual was sitting in a wood and thinking about it.’

‘I see. And that’s what hara
did?’

Rinawne made a dismissive
gesture. ‘Oh, it was a bit more than that but not much. We had our little
seasonal thinking session, then a feast, or rather a party. Wyva wants more
than that, such as he’s heard other phyles have. I think secretly he wants hara
in the surrounding counties to be saying to one another, “oh, it’s the Gwyllion
Natalia rite next week. Are you going to it?” Understand what I mean?’

‘He wants theatre?’ I smiled.

‘I suppose you could call it
that. Something more... ceremonial.’

‘I understand.  Such events draw
a community together. I’ll bear in mind what you’ve told me.’

Rinawne sat up. ‘Good! Now let’s
enjoy this elegant repast, which was so meticulously prepared by me, then go
visit the Moonshawl Pool. Perhaps we can find your tallest tree.’

As soon as the glade opened up before us, I could
tell that Moonshawl Pool – or Pwll Siôl Lleuad, as Rinawne told me it was known
in the old language – was an ancient sacred place, and perhaps was still
regarded as such among the local hara and used for rites. The damp grass was
vivid with new growth beneath our feet; Rinawne’s pony was eager to tear at it,
devour it.

Rinawne led me to the edge of
the clear water. I could see that the pool was maintained by a spring and that
a quick stream gulped away from it, perhaps to join with the river. Opposite me
was an immense mossy rock, from which it seemed ideal for harlings to jump into
the water. Sunlight came down in rods through the unfurling leaf canopy above,
but even so the glade was partially in shadow.

‘Eldritch place, isn’t it?’
Rinawne said carelessly. ‘You should drink the water. It’s supposed to be
lucky.’ He knelt down and scooped a handful to his mouth.

I knelt beside him. ‘I’d like to
meditate here for a few minutes, if that’s all right.’

‘Of course. Do your hienemarly
thing.’ Rinawne grinned. ‘There are usually mushrooms in the hedgerow to the
next field. I’ll go gathering while you ponder the mysteries of life.’

Not until Rinawne had left me,
his departure accompanied by a theatrical wave of his hand, did I stoop to
drink the water. It was as cold as winter, and so pure as to be almost without
taste. There was a faint sparkle to it that fizzed in my throat.

‘May the guardians of this site
reveal to me it secrets,’ I said aloud, and then composed myself upon the
grass, sitting cross-legged with my hands upon my thighs, palms uppermost and
open.

I tried to concentrate on the
story Rinawne had told me, visualising the har he had named Grass coming
through the trees to the pool, his harling in his arms. The image wouldn’t
stick in my mind, and on the brief occasions it did, I felt Grass was always
looking behind him, as if pursued. I sensed urgency. But another image wanted
to impose itself across that of Grass, and it was so strong, eventually I let
it have its head.

In the mind picture, I was
unsure whether it was day or night time. I caught brief glimpses of something
pale through the trees, drawing haphazardly closer to the pool. Within the
visualisation I got to my feet, cautiously approached whatever was weaving
towards me. I saw a pale figure, its arms held out in front of it, touching the
trunks of the trees, as if blind, and trying to feel its way forward. It wore a
tattered white robe, and very long white hair fell over its face, obscuring its
features completely, but it was not the white of human old age, more like the
platinum white found rarely in hara. This must be a har. He was stumbling,
disorientated, and now I could hear he was moaning softly, monotonously.

‘Tiahaar,’ I said softly, and
the har paused. Then he began to grope his way in my direction.

‘Help... I need...’ The words
were broken, ragged with the most awful despair, and shook me from my
visualisation.

Opening my eyes, for a moment I
too was utterly disorientated, unsure even of where I was, but then the sound
of breaking undergrowth brought me to my feet. This was no visualisation. A har
dressed in white – a torn robe, filthy to the knees – and with long white hair
hanging over his face was trying to reach me. Pitifully, he patted the trees
around him, turning in a circle, his robe catching on shrub branches, tearing
further. All the while he uttered that relentless, frightened moan.

‘Tiahaar!’ I ran towards him.
‘Stay where you are. I’ll come to you.’

As I reached him, the har fell
heavily into my arms, and I staggered backwards beneath the burden. His hands
clutched my arms, the fingers digging into my flesh, then withdrawing, then
digging in again. He smelled... of
sickness
. ‘Wraeththu,’ he gasped,
‘help me, help me...’

And then... Then there was
nothing in my arms, no sense, no physical memory even, of the weight against
me. Nothing.

‘So this is your secret,’ I
murmured shakily to the glade.

Around me was silence, no birds
singing, no rustle of life in the bushes. Not even the soft gurgle of the water
as it flowed away to brighter realms.

I sat down heavily where I
stood, put my head in my hands, experiencing a strong desire to weep, yet no
tears came. Something horrific had happened here once. There could be no
mistake. It had left its mark, its imprint, and it was so strong it could feel
like the physical weight of a har in my arms.

Ten minutes of deep breathing
restored me almost to normality, yet I could still feel quivering anxiety
within me, the gift of whatever apparition it was I’d seen.

I heard the sound of a har
whistling and guessed this was Rinawne returning to me. For some reason, I knew
I wouldn’t tell him what had happened; it was as if the har of my vision had
begged me to silence.

‘You look like you’ve seen a
ghost,’ Rinawne remarked cheerfully as he emerged from the trees.

I smiled, gestured with both
arms. ‘Well, I went... quite
deep
into the landscape.’

Rinawne rolled his eyes. ‘By
Aru, don’t end up like Rey and not come out again!’ He sat down beside me. ‘No
mushrooms to pick today, sadly. Shall we go back to the Mynd? You can stay for
dinner again if you like. And I can show you the whole house. Would you like
that?’

I sensed he was speaking to me
as if I were... well, perhaps slightly ill. Did I look that bad? I tried to
pull myself together, put aside what I’d experienced.

‘I’d love to see the house. Not
sure about dinner, though. I need to write up some notes, so I don’t forget
things.’

Rinawne slapped my shoulder.
‘Oh, plenty of time for that. You can sit in the library for a while to do your
writing. The day is young. Come on!’ He dragged me to my feet.

Rinawne had some domestic tasks to attend to, so
left me alone in the library of Meadow Mynd. Although I’d intended to write up
some ideas and impressions of the morning, I was instead drawn to explore the
packed shelves around me. There were many dull books that looked as if they’d
never been read and had been put there simply to fill space. But there was
plenty to interest me too – namely a row of titles on folklore and local
mysteries. These were very old books, from the human era. As I examined them, some
well-thumbed and fragile, my mind kept flashing back to my experience by the
pool; who
was
that har? What had happened to him? I could still hear his
horrible moaning, and the hoarse words he’d spoken.
Help me...
But how?
I felt reluctant to talk about the episode with any of the Wyvachi, mostly
because it was likely the har I’d seen was, or had been, connected with them in
some way, and perhaps not in a good way. I wondered, for a moment, whether it
could have been the mysterious, vanished hienama, Rey. But as far as I knew,
Rey was alive, and the har I’d seen had disappeared before me like a ghost.
Would this mystery be a distraction from my work? What I’d experienced during –
and after – my meditation was not in any manner useful for the job I’d been
sent to do. Still, there was the moonshawl to consider. Was this a taboo
subject or not?

As if in answer to my silent
question, Wyva sauntered into the room. I sensed he’d been told I was here and
was looking for me. ‘Ah, you’ve found the treasure trove of the house,’ he
said. ‘Its heart.’

I turned and smiled at him. ‘I
hope you don’t mind me nosing around. Rinawne left me here while he had some
jobs to do.’

Wyva made an expansive gesture
with both arms. ‘You’re welcome to treat our home as your own. You don’t have
to ask to look at the books.’

I considered for a few moments
before asking a question. ‘I’ve heard a local legend about the moonshawl,’ I
said. ‘Is there anything about it in the library?’ Some instinct made me omit
Rinawne’s part in my discovery.

Wyva gave me a strange look;
wary, slightly disapproving. ‘I don’t believe there is. What did you want to
know and why?’

I closed the book I was perusing,
wishing now I hadn’t broached the subject. Wyva was all prickles before me.
‘Well... I wondered whether it could be included somehow in the yearly round –
the pool, the river, the meadow. I was wondering if the tree still stood.’

Wyva continued to stare at me. ‘I’m
not sure that legend is...
appropriate
for what we want,’ he said. ‘It
comes from a difficult time in harish history, surely not one to be enshrined
in spiritual practice.’

I should never have spoken. My
instincts had known it was a sensitive topic because I’d not mentioned Rinawne
had told me the story. Clearly, Rinawne’s mouth ran away with him; he’d
forgotten who he was speaking to when he’d told me the tale. But, in
retrospect, the signs had been there he’d slightly regretted telling it to me.
It was now abundantly plain to me that under no circumstances would Wyva
ever
allow that story to be used in my work. This was a shame, I felt, since hara
already celebrated in the Maes Siôl at Midsummer. ‘I’m just mulling over a lot
of ideas, jotting down notes,’ I said. ‘I don’t know the full story but won’t
use it if you feel it’s not right to do so. There are plenty of other stories I
can adapt.’

‘Yes, that would be best.’ Wyva
softened, gripped my right shoulder briefly. ‘Just tell me what you plan to
use, so I can advise you over what’s appropriate. It might sound silly but some
of the stories from the dawn of Wraeththu are considered almost...
unlucky
by hara around here. You weren’t to know.’

‘Is there anything else I should
avoid?’

‘Not that I can think of, but
please check with me before doing a lot of work with particular legends to save
yourself wasting time. It’s probably best to stick to the older material, and
update that with a harish slant.’

‘I’ll do that.’ I put down the
book I was holding, aware my heart was beating fast and that I felt slightly
angry.

Wyva put his head to one side.
‘I don’t want to make your work difficult. I know how all this must sound.’