The Moonshawl

by Storm Constantine

  Medoc came back into the room. ‘Please sit down, tiahaara. I’ve ordered a late lunch for you. You should have arrived earlier!’ He wreathed this faint criticism with a smile.

  ‘Thank you,’ Rinawne said. He sat down where Medoc indicated, at a small round table near the door, which at present was cluttered with ledgers. I sat beside Rinawne, drawing my chair closer to his, closing ranks.

  Medoc stood at the empty hearth, his back to it. He studied us disturbingly for some moments. ‘You may tell me the purpose of your visit now,’ he said at last.

  Rinawne glanced at me, and I nodded slightly, implying he should be the one to speak. ‘Tiahaar, I seek your advice,’ Rinawne said. ‘As you know, my son Myvyen is training to be hienama of Gwyllion, but I’m afraid for him. Things have... happened at the Mynd. Wyva won’t tell me anything about the past, what instigated the alleged family curse, or even what form it might take. His brothers are also silent on the matter. I have no har else to turn to but you, and as we met at Cuttingtide I risked coming to speak to you. I felt you would at least listen to me.’

  Medoc said nothing, while Rinawne waited in clear discomfort for a response.

  ‘Something is in the house,’ Rinawne said to break the silence, and then, either genuinely or in an attempt to touch Medoc’s heart, Rinawne put a hand against his eyes and quietly wept. He looked lovely as he did so, his hair tumbling around his shoulders.

  Medoc remained stern-faced to this display. ‘Tiahaar, please don’t,’ he said gruffly and then took a breath, softened his voice. ‘I’m not sure what I can do, but if I’m able to help you, I will.’

  Rinawne raised his head. ‘All I want is the truth,’ he said, blinking his wide dark eyes. ‘I’m of Erini blood. Once I know my enemy I will stand against it, but all I face is fog. I need to see through it.’

  ‘What do you want to know?’ Medoc asked.

  ‘The full story,’ Rinawne said. He looked at me. ‘Please, Ysobi... would you tell him what we’ve learned?’

  Without mentioning Arianne, or indeed any source for our information, I related that we knew of the Wyvern history up to the moment when Peredur was maimed. ‘It goes without question the curse is associated with Peredur’s fate,’ I said, ‘and perhaps directed by the Whitemanes, but we don’t know the details. We don’t know exactly what haunts Meadow Mynd.’

  Medoc didn’t respond, watching me carefully, betraying nothing. I went on to tell him what I’d seen at the Pwll Siôl Lleuad and some of what I’d experienced in the tower, and then related the accidents that had occurred at the Mynd, and the various signs of haunting.

  When I’d finished my story, Rinawne took over the narrative and told Medoc about Rey and his disappearance. ‘We believe Rey discovered something, and whatever it was frightened him away, or at least convinced him it was wise to leave.’ He smiled at me. ‘So Wyva brought Ysobi into this position, and he gives me the strength to fight, to learn, to mend. I want to believe it’s possible to mend. I have to, for Myv’s sake.’

  At this point, as if waiting outside for an appropriate pause in the conversation, one of Medoc’s househara knocked briefly on the door and came in with a tray for us. Medoc indicated this should be laid out upon a larger table that stood near the windows, where the summer light fell caressingly into the room. The househar worked swiftly, then left. Medoc indicated we should move from our rather uncomfortable and cramped seats and take our places in the sunlight. He had clearly come to a decision while he’d been listening to us and now came to join us in these friendlier seats. He poured out three tankards of cold ale from a sweating blue stone jug and handed them round. Then he drew in a deep breath.

  ‘Wyva should have told you everything,’ he said simply. ‘I can’t see why he hasn’t.’ He sighed through his nose, somewhat impatiently. ‘My honest opinion is that he should pack up that house and abandon it. He should find another property in the area if he wishes to stay near Gwyllion. But it’s clear he won’t do that. Given what you’ve related, I’m prepared to do his job for him and tell you the rest of the story, sorry tale though it is.’

  And so the second part of the Wyvern history began, which I’ll write as faithfully to what Medoc related as I can recall.

  ‘I remember that when we rode to Meadow Mynd to take our revenge, it was as if the wind itself had taken on a voice, so great was the clamour. We shrieked and howled and sang. News of the undefeated humans had reached the ears of local harish commanders, and they didn’t take the news lightly. From their perspective, if humans came to think they could take a stand against hara and win, it would make Wraeththu’s task to control Alba Sulh more difficult. The Wyverns – my family – therefore had to be contained. The next time hara flung themselves at the Mynd’s protective wall, it wouldn’t be a motley bunch of random, loosely-allied phyles; it would be an organised attack, led by Malakess, the highest-ranking har in the area.’

  I had to interrupt, just to make sure. ‘Malakess? Do you mean the har who became High Codexia of Kyme? He is... was... a friend of mine.’

  Medoc shrugged, clearly irritated his narrative had been interrupted. ‘That I can’t tell you, tiahaar, only that this was the commander’s name.’

  I apologised and indicated he should continue.

  ‘The harish leaders were interested in people like my brothers and me, because we were... well... educated, and sons of a fairly powerful human family.’ He raised his hands, perhaps at Rinawne’s expression of disapproval. ‘I know how that might sound, but trying to establish organisation within the nascent Wraeththu tribes wasn’t easy. Hara were needed as figureheads, hara whom others would be glad to follow. We – and the incepted Mantels – were exactly the kind of hara Malakess and his fellow leaders were looking for, since those who’d been incepted with us had gravitated towards us, probably simply because they knew us. Both the Mantels and the Wyverns had protected people for a long time. Newly-incepted hara couldn’t help but remember that. They trusted us. Kinnard, Peredur and I were the only remaining Wyverns, since our brother Gwyven had not survived inception. The Mantels, perhaps a stronger breed than us, had lost none to the inception knife. Malakess held all of us in high regard. He included us in his plans to subdue the remnants of our human families.’

  ‘And you... just... went along with that?’ Rinawne asked, his eyes wide, further disapproval oozing from him. ‘You just... killed them, even children?’

  ‘You have to bear in mind,’ Medoc said patiently, looking directly at Rinawne rather than at me, ‘that in those days newly-incepted hara were savages. In frenzied euphoria, we had cast off everything about ourselves we considered human, and this included ties to our families. We were young, and believed ourselves to be superhuman, capable of anything. Humanity represented everything that was wrong with the world – we sought to reclaim it. We weren’t wrong, but our methods were. It was destined the world would become ours – we didn’t have to slaughter to get it – but we didn’t know that then.’

  ‘But...’ Rinawne had no idea what the early days had been like. So easy now for him to judge those who’d lived through that madness.

  Medoc sighed. ‘Look, I’m not going to go into excruciating detail about what happened to our human families, because I’m sure you can imagine it. Every single one of them, regardless of age or gender, was killed.’ He looked at me and said bitterly, ‘That is the shame of first generation hara. Is there one of us who wasn’t part of that attempted genocide? No. We were all responsible. Is that not so, Ysobi?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said simply, my mouth dry, forcefully repressing unpleasant memories. ‘Terrible scenes live within the minds of all who created our race.’

  ‘We made a slaughterhouse of Meadow Mynd,’ Medoc said. ‘We left the bodies where they lay. Friends who’d been incepted with us took from Kinnard and me the task of disposing of our blood kin. They did this without being asked, because they felt for us. A cowardly way on our part, because we did not demur. We wouldn’t have the b
lood of our sisters on our hands, but neither would we save them.’

  ‘Did you feel nothing for them?’ Rinawne asked.

  ‘We felt very little,’ Medoc said. ‘Only that eradicating humanity was essential. We were half mad with the way we’d changed, conflicting personalities raging through us and the worst of both genders bursting out. It’s impossible to explain to you really, because I can’t go back inside the head of that har I was. But I suppose we must’ve cared in some ways, otherwise we’d not have flinched from doing the killing ourselves. Vivi was a different matter... I had no care for her then, and don’t now, but the others... my mother...’ He shook his head. ‘We never found her.’

  Rinawne shifted nervously beside me, but I pressed my leg against his, sent an arrow of mind touch. Not now.

  ‘Deerlip Hall had already fallen,’ Medoc continued, ‘but all that consumed us, as we cut our way to the heart of the Mynd, was the dying screams of those who had been under our protection, the inceptees who Vivi and Thorne had stolen and let die. Their pain and terror had reached out to us through the ethers. We could not save them but we were there to avenge them.’ Here, Medoc paused and poured himself more ale. He drank slowly, his eyes on his tankard, while Rinawne and I waited, almost holding our breath, for him to carry on.

  ‘What you really want to know about is Peredur, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘Now I’ll tell you. We knew he was still alive, because we and Bryce Mantel, the erstwhile eldest son of that family, could hear him. Peredur called to our minds, in our dreams, as fragments of sound upon the waking air. This had almost driven Bryce mad, because he loved Peredur. They had come together very soon after inception. Bryce’s only objective that day was to reach his beloved, come what may. If armies of iron had stood in his path, he’d have cut his way through them.

  ‘But Kinnard and I weren’t without our own perception of our brother’s fate. The cries of Peredur’s spirit were a raw shout in our minds; they haunted us constantly. We couldn’t shut him out. We knew he’d been maimed horribly, unspeakably, even if we weren’t sure of the exact details. We knew Peredur wanted to die but still lived on. Kinnard, particularly, couldn’t stand the thought of this. He wanted to get to Peredur as desperately as Bryce did, but not for the same reason.’

  Medoc drew in a shuddering breath. ‘You have to understand that there was no way in a merciful world that Peredur should have survived. You don’t have the full story about what Vivi did to him, but we found out... later, from the unincepted boys we took from the Mynd. She took his eyes the first day, his ouana-lim the second. On the third she... it was a torch of burning tar... So much damage.’ He grimaced. ‘Every day she intended to remove or ruin another part of him.’ Now he paused to swallow, visibly nauseated. ‘When we rode into that courtyard of death, Kinnard did what I would have done if he had not been the one with a bow. He shot Peredur in the chest. He was a good shot, always had been...’

  There was a silence then, although we could still hear the harlings playing outside beside the water. Rinawne reached out to touch one of Medoc’s hands where they were clasped on the table.

  Medoc pulled his hand away before Rinawne could touch him and continued. ‘Bryce... he simply rode through the bodies, the limbs, the chunks of meat on the bloody ground. It was like time had stopped. He cut Peredur’s body from the post and rode away with it. You can understand then why he felt the way he did about us.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Bryce was... is Mossamber Whitemane, isn’t he?’

  ‘He was. There was never a great love between our two families, because the Wyverns had always felt the Mantels were beneath them. Circumstances had made us reluctant allies. But the reason Bryce hated us so much wasn’t just because Kinnard shot the har he loved. It was because of what happened afterwards. Peredur was still alive.’

  ‘He survived all that?’ I asked, shocked.

  Medoc closed his eyes briefly and nodded. ‘For a time, but there were other matters to deal with that drove the Mantels and us even further apart.’

  ‘Ah, the political side,’ I said.

  Medoc nodded. ‘Malakess wanted to organise hara in the Gwyllion area. The idea originally was that Kinnard and I – with the Mantels in high positions within the community – would lead the newly-created phyle, but from the Deerlip domain. Bryce Mantel would hear none of that, and neither would we, in particular concerning our headquarters. We felt strongly we should be allowed to return to Meadow Mynd and establish it as the centre of command in the area. The place had suffered considerable damage, the outer protective walls had been torn down, but we wanted to restore the house, most of which still stood. You have to appreciate that ours was an old family, who had held that land for centuries. We had no intention of letting it go and were prepared to fight for it, even if that meant the risk of offending Malakess. Kinnard insisted that local newly-incepted hara would trust and follow us more than they would the Mantels, and that Meadow Mynd had been the heart of the community for a long time. Wiping away the worst aspects of the past was one thing, but equally important was a sense of foundation, of familiarity, on which to build anew.

  ‘Malakess was eventually swayed by Kinnard’s words, and agreed we could return to the Mynd. Bryce and his hara would be accountable to us, because it was important to establish a hierarchy, a leadership. Malakess insisted that personal feelings must be put aside, for the sake of Wraeththu as a whole. Resentfully, the Mantels agreed to the arrangement, on the understanding they would be able to retain their domain as well.

  ‘Around this time the Mantels began to create their phyle identity, making themselves clearly separate from the Wyverns. We adopted Wyvachi as a tribal name. The Mantels took the name Whitemane and, as was generally the custom, also took new personal names. But we didn’t do that.’

  ‘Why not?’ Rinawne asked.

  ‘Because the names our mother had given us were ancient, mythical. We felt they suited our new being as much as the old, for we were very much drawn to the ancient history of our land. Our choice over names was perhaps – unacknowledged, as it had to be back then – our tribute to our murdered family.’ He took another drink. ‘Anyway, the negotiations had taken a few days, and by the time the future of Meadow Mynd had been established, we wanted to deal with family matters, and Kinnard wasn’t shy of asking Malakess for support. We knew Peredur had survived and was being kept in the Whitemane domain. We found this abominable, because we were aware what state he was in, and no amount of Wraeththu healing could put that right.’

  ‘Did you have no healers?’ Rinawne asked. I could tell he didn’t like hearing about Peredur’s injuries and had asked the question perhaps to delay details he could barely cope with.

  ‘Yes, we did,’ Medoc said. ‘Hara had been forced quickly to learn how to heal back then, although our abilities were primitive, not fully understood. Even those drawn to the healing path were merely exploring their capabilities rather than being masters of them. Peredur was dying, but slowly, kept alive yet not mended by the arts of the Whitemane healers. Nohar knew how long it would take for him to die. Can you imagine how we felt about that? We asked that Peredur be returned to us. Mossamber refused. At this point, Malakess withdrew his support, as he felt the matter was outside his jurisdiction. He told us emphatically that even though Peredur was a blood relative of ours, the ethos of Wraeththu was to discard old human relationships, even when family were incepted together. Everyone was har, one family. Peredur was Mossamber’s chesnari, and it was Mossamber who should have last word on matters concerning him, should Peredur not be in a condition to make his own choices. Human blood ties didn’t count. We were furious about this, and some of us even considered trying to take Peredur by force, but even Kinnard was sensible enough to realise we should push Malakess no further. The truth was, the Wyvachi had come out of the conflict well. Perhaps Peredur was a sacrifice we had to make, horrible though that was to us.’

  Medoc rubbed his hands over his face. ‘So life went on,’ h
e said wearily. ‘We burned the dead, we cleaned the land, we rebuilt, we organised, we created a community. We took in refugees, many damaged in mind and body. But we were always mindful of Peredur, a deep and suppurating wound we could not heal. We felt he should be with us. But Peredur had not asked to come home – we had to suppose he was capable of at least making himself clear about that. And he would not die. The seasons passed, our community grew and then... Then news came to us, not directly from the Whitemanes, but clearly Mossamber wanted us to know...’

  Medoc stared at us for a few moments. ‘I have not spoken of Peredur himself, what he was, how he was. As a child, he’d been fey, somewhat effeminate, yet brimming with life and energy that was infectious. You could not help but love him, in a weirdly helpless way. When we were incepted, he became this... radiant, almost ethereal creature. I can describe it no other way. I saw from the beginning he was made to be har, perhaps had partly already been so, simply waiting for the day of inception. We were all sure he was destined to be a great leader, but in a spiritual sense. What most interested him about his new being was the otherworld. I remember him once saying to me, “Meddy, we’ve become other. We’ve become what I’ve always sensed was out there in the land. Elemental.”

  ‘He always believed, during those early heady days after our inceptions, that Wraeththu would become something marvellous. He said we were still covered with the dirt of our humanity, but that eventually it would fall away from us, revealing new skin, as althaia reveals the new skin of a har. Hara could sense it in him, this connection with the natural world. They called him Silver Swan.’

  ‘The song!’ I said, unable to keep the words in. ‘Somehar sang it to me, about Peredur...’