The Moonshawl

by Storm Constantine

  My group and I must work to protect and strengthen ourselves from this day forward until Reaptide. Now, I must put all the might at my disposal to the test, draw upon my training, be what a hienama can ultimately be. The investigations, I felt, were over. Now was the time to act upon what I knew.

  I was wrong. There was still more to learn.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  I woke up from a dream of drowning, gasping for breath, sweating so heavily my body and hair were soaked. There was an echo of a voice in my head: Come find me, now...

  In the distance, outside, a dull boom of thunder belched across the sky. A flash of light rippled faintly across the ceiling of my room. Dream recollections trickled through my mind. In nightmare, I had relived images of the past, those early days of carrion stink. The echoes of cries both fierce and pitiful still haunted me. I recalled the hunger of flames in the night, cold laughter, and the wet glint of sultry eyes by firelight. Him – some ancient nemesis of mine, his name forgotten, the first of many eyes that had spoken across a fire, setting a pattern for my harish life. I remembered that I dreamed of him often, yet the memory rarely survived into waking life – before being here in Gwyllion. In the dreamscape, I had slunk by captives – not human, but hara. They’d been bound, mutilated, some dead, the casual victims of tribal rivalry, territorial dispute, execution. These buried scenes now blew through my mind like feathers in a storm. I remembered. Everyhar was to be feared back then... everyhar. We’d been capable of anything.

  I sat up in bed, regulated my breathing. Those days were gone, far gone. Greened over. Forgotten. New lives had been pasted over them; respectable, thoughtful. We were hara now properly, elevated above the dross of history. This new sleek race, these angels of light, of freshness and clarity. The demons were buried now, stamped underfoot, groaning in whatever deep hell we’d squashed them into. Except... in our hearts...

  This is the time. Now. Find me...

  Dŵr Alarch was quiet, hesitant. I got out of bed, dressed myself slowly, with purpose. As I went out into the stairwell, the tower creaked a little, bringing to mind Medoc’s recollections about Meadow Mynd on the day Wyva entered the world. A wind had started up, a hurrying wind, shooing the distant storm away. Rinawne and Myv had returned to the Mynd. Arianne slept, oblivious. I went outside.

  In the rustling night, I whistled to Hercules in his field and, as always, he came to me trustingly. I put a bridle on him, then vaulted onto his back and urged him to a gallop. We followed the forest path to Pwll Siôl Lleuad. Around me the land was majestic and beautiful; trees had never been so tall, shadows never so deep, the sky never so high, nor encrusted with such vibrant stars. I didn’t want this world to be an illusion. We had made it happen, reclaimed it, set it free. We’d paid in blood.

  I heard through the rushing air a faint skein of music, a plaintive tune, sometimes so faint I could barely hear it; this drew me onwards like a light. As I reached the pool, the wind died down, and the scraps of cloud that had skittered across the sky fled to the south. Moonlight fell severely into the glade, creating hard angles, not entirely natural. I dismounted and pressed my cheek briefly against Hercules’ neck. ‘Wait for me,’ I murmured. He at once lowered his head to graze.

  I composed myself beside the pool, brought my heart rate down to its regular beat. Immanence sizzled in the air around me. Again that voice breathed into me. Find me now... And so I would, beneath these dark waters of the pwll.

  I closed my eyes upon the world, went inward. At the same time, I offered myself to what would come. No holding back. Completely open.

  In my mind, through history, I could feel hara approaching on all sides. I heard a low melancholy song on the air, and the muted thump of a hand drum, soft like the swishing of blood in the ears – that balcony we have over the inner workings of our bodies. In the distance the mournful tolling of a bell. I was drawn out of myself, sucked almost, the very essence of me. Into him. Peredur. And this is what he told me.

  ***

  Mossamber held me before him on his horse, his arms so tight about me. His breath in my ear. I will always love you, always. He wanted someone to pay, but how was that possible? I was just a part of everything the world had become. I did not like the choice that had been made for me, but I had the power to refuse it. This was the way it must be.

  Mossamber dismounted first and then held out his arms to me so I could drop into them. He was so strong, like a wiry hound is strong. I always felt safe in those arms, but they couldn’t save me.

  I knew the water was ahead of us, but only because I could smell it. But... was it just that? Then, it was hard to tell. I had no eyes, so how could I see? Merely a memory of that place? Yet there was Mossamber’s face before me, the most beautiful face that ever lived. I knew that love in his eyes, in every cell of his being. I could touch and hear it, smell it, taste it.

  He helped me walk to the edge of the pool, because walking was more difficult for me than seeing, even though I had the working parts to move. He waded into the water with me and I stroked his mind with the words, Don’t think it, Moss. You must go on.

  He smiled sadly into my mind: I won’t let you die alone.

  And I knew he was strong enough to survive, even if he stayed with me in the dark until the very end.

  This place. This was where it must happen, where things had often happened so many years ago. This place, where first I’d discovered the unseen world, where a creature of water had spoken to me and changed everything. It had warned me though, even as a human child, that one day I would come here to die.

  But what is death?

  I heard those words beneath the water as we sank down to the secret depths, where once I had seen green eyes glowing amid the waving weeds. They weren’t Mossamber’s thoughts.

  He kissed me, sharing breath with me, pouring into me his strength. Even now – hoping. I don’t care, he told me. I don’t care about it. Please, Peri, please...

  But I care, my lovely one, I said. I live with this ruin, not you. I pulled away from him gently, touched his face. I could feel around us a cloud of hair, his dark, mine the colour of light. Water beings. Holding onto his hands, I drifted, breathed in.

  I knew it wouldn’t be easy, that it would hurt, that my body would fight. I was prepared for it. Then, the watery voice in my head.

  Yes, that’s it. Slowly... Breathe in... Breathe out... Let it go...

  I could see the bubbles rising, like something from a swamp, disgusting. I breathed in the sacred water, I breathed out filth. It did hurt, but I’d experienced worse. Of course I had. I even laughed then, and a ribbon of tiny bubbles escaped, filled with blood. A fine moss of bubbles clung to my bare arms. I could see them shining. I could see...

  The pain grew sharper. I felt I must burst.

  Mossamber and I were flailing in the water together, in a maelstrom of silver spheres. The water churned, as if some wild underground spring had suddenly broken through the rock beneath us.

  Now, said the water spirit. Now, my son...

  ***

  I came to with a jolt, coughing, spitting out water. My clothes were wet. I was still sitting on the bank of the pool, but had I somehow wandered into it during my trance? My body shuddered and I had to lean over and vomit into the grass; muddy water, sticks and stones. I heaved out the contents of my lungs and my stomach for over a minute, then had to sit with my head in my hands for a further minute or so just to ground myself, regain my balance. I could still feel Peredur all around me. What he’d shown me filled me with a sense of apprehension and dread. By the dehara, he was powerful! I felt as if he’d reached inside me and squeezed my brain with a long-fingered hand.

  I sensed a shadowy presence creeping around the edge of the glade, a predator, hungry yet cowardly. I knew for the moment I could let it be, until I’d returned to normal. I took a drink from the pool, which helped restore me and soothed my grazed throat. The unseen creature still prowled. When I felt the time was right, I got to
my feet and summoned my strength. I formed a globe of light within me and then exploded it around me, crying, ‘In the name of the dehar Lunil, master of the west, banisher of darkness, be gone!’

  I heard a snarl, a faint whimper, then sensed it retreat. Some creature of hers, I felt. A watcher. So: she would know. Let her.

  Now I would follow the trail: a faint ribbon through the trees, a scent of cut foliage, a wistful melody so distant I barely heard it.

  My clothes were dry now, perhaps had never been wet.

  Hercules was standing nearby, his posture alert, yet he was not too discomforted. He had waited for me, and horses aren’t fools. He wouldn’t have stayed if he’d been in danger. I called and he came to me, pressing his nose against my chest. I remounted him and turned him toward the river.

  The Greyspan glowed in the moonlight. Still vibrating inside with an echo of Peredur’s despair, I had to dispel the fear that if I set Hercules upon the bridge, the bricks would turn to mist and we’d drop into the churning river below. The broken gryphon statues on the Wyvachi side seemed to me like the bodies of real animals in the half light; dismembered, wings broken, tawny feathers scattered through the grass. I extended my senses beyond these shattered sentinels. I could perceive no guards ahead, other than the wild-eyed equine statues on the Whitemane boundary. There were no lights visible beyond the river, as if the domain on the other side was empty, unlived in for a hundred years. But then the foliage of the summer trees was thick, hiding everything.

  ‘Well, my friend,’ I said to Hercules, leaning towards his ears. ‘Here we go, into the heart of it.’

  Even without my urging him, he trotted onto the bridge, ears pricked, steps high, cautious, his hooves echoing loudly as if there were a high wall around us. Below us, pale sinuous shapes twisted and rolled in the water.

  We passed between the stone guardians, and their cruel stone hooves did not come to life and strike us. They were lichen-covered, frozen in the act of lunging forward, their eyes blind.

  Beyond the bridge, a wide gravelled path led into the gardens, beneath an ornamental arch covered in ancient ivy, wound with honeysuckle. I rode out onto an immense lawn, neatly kept, and populated here and there by yews, cedars and oaks. White deer grazed, ghosts in the moonlight. They shimmered away from me, as if walking on air. A folly temple glowed shyly white to my right, modestly revealed amid concealing yew hedges. And still I could hear that faint thread of music, a voice beckoning to me through the night.

  The house was huge, larger than I imagined, and certainly not in decline. Built of grey stone, it was three stories high, with four rounded turrets, one at each corner of the domain. Lights burned dimly in a few windows. I could see a vast complex of outbuildings behind the main house.

  I could perceive now that another river flowed behind the main building, not so wide as the Moonshawl flow, but that undoubtedly joined with it near the Greyspan. I rode to this river’s edge, which came very close to the Domain itself. Here, I dismounted and tethered Hercules loosely to a birch tree, its trailing summer tresses rivalling those of the elderly willows that wept into the water along both banks. I again asked Hercules to wait for me, reinforcing my request with mental pictures. If anyhar draws near, find cover...

  I followed the river towards the back of the house, considering it prudent to seek a way inside from there. I passed what were clearly farm buildings – a dairy, stables, a dove cote, buildings dedicated to cloth making and dyeing. In a few hours it would be dawn and hara would be out in these yards, seeing to the business of their day. I heard, coming from the south, across the Greyspan, an unnatural gulping yelp. Three times it called, then fell silent. The creature that had come sniffing at the pool could not cross the water, I thought. More distantly, Mossamber’s hounds began their song at Ludda’s Farm. After some moments, those cries too died away.

  I edged towards what I took to be an entrance to the kitchens. Beside a half-paned door, a sneering gargoyle dry-retched into a water tub, an occasional drip falling from its lips. A boot scraper stood to the other side of the door. Perhaps Nytethorne had cleaned his soles there, a brown hand braced upon the old stone of the wall. He was inside this place.

  I tried the door and it was unlocked. Attempting to fade myself as much as possible, I slipped within. I must be a ghost in these corridors. I must follow my nose, my ears. The music that had lured me was stronger now, sounded real; a wistful tune played upon a piano.

  I didn’t yet know precisely what led me, other than the sound, but my whole being, from the moment I’d awoken from my dream, had been a single driven purpose: Pwll Siôl Lleuad, the Whitemane Domain.

  As I passed through the sleeping passages of Deerlip Hall, I felt as if many eras existed all at once, overlapping. Here, Arianne had grown up, a girl born into the end of human days. Before her, people who’d not been her ancestors had lived here, families going back centuries. Someone had lost it to gambling – that had been common. Before that, political terror, people in hiding, religious conflict. And then, way way back, before the first stones were raised, a village had stood on this spot, and a rough keep house had been home to one of the first lords of this land. I sensed it all, the lives coming and going, the small details, the births, the marriages, the deaths. Tears and laughter. Betrayals, the greatest of loves. All the ancient houses of Alba Sulh have these epic stories, forgotten and unread, unless you are prepared to open their pages.

  I passed beyond the domestic areas, out into the main hall of the house. A lamp was lit upon a table by the door, emitting a soft orange glow. Boots were thrown in a heap around the table legs; gloves lay upon its surface like empty hands. I imagined boisterous Whitemanes shedding their outer clothing here, bringing in a scent of rain or snow or new mown hay.

  Nohar stirred. Was this unnatural or simply because the Whitemanes were, amongst themselves, at peace, unconcerned about intrusion?

  And then I was climbing, drawn towards the rear east wing of the house, drawn on by that skein of music. The stairs were grand at first, sweeping up from the ground floor, but then, above the first floor became narrow like the attic stairs of Meadow Mynd. I saw nohar, nohar living, although sometimes ghosts stopped to stare, or perhaps people in other eras who believed they could see a ghost.

  I came to the tower door, and now the music seemed to come from all directions. I knew the tune, yet I’d not heard it before. A heavy scent fingered its way around me, redolent of summer gardens and flowers that bloom by night. I was like the prince in a fairy tale, slipping through an enchanted slumbering palace, up the tight winding stair to a room with a spinning wheel and a sleeping princess.

  Mossamber would be waiting for me, I was sure. This is what I expected. He would live here in his shrine, surrounded by his memories and perhaps – as Rinawne had suggested – Peredur might lie enshrined in a glass tomb. Whatever I found, this was the only place I must be – the ‘next’ I’d known would come.

  The tower was similar to my own except that it comprised only two floors and was smaller in circumference. The music became louder still as I climbed the stair. I had no doubt that it was real. I opened the first door I came to and emerged into a room with bare floorboards, except for a wide faded rug upon which stood the piano. Owl light from the sinking moon flooded the room through tall windows that overlooked the lawn. I couldn’t yet see who was playing the piano, as they were hidden by a large music stand, but the melody flowed effortlessly, like water. I drew closer slowly, taking in further details of the room, the patchy walls, an immense gilt-framed mirror that was dappled with dark silvery blots, a sway-backed sofa draped with fringed shawls before a gigantic cold fireplace. A table between the two windows held a china jug of white lilies, petals fallen on the wood; their voluptuous aroma filled the air.

  The music stopped.

  I sensed the musician pause, aware he was not alone. I sensed trepidation, but also relief. I thought for a brief moment, Nytethorne.

  Then the har at the pian
o rose, up like a pale ghost, hair around him in a moonshawl. He had stones for eyes. It was Peredur.

  For several breathless moments I stared at him and he stared back with those sightless orbs, yet I had no doubt some part of him could see me well enough. Had I known this, suspected it? Yet perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised. Who else would I find in this enchanted room? ‘Don’t be afraid,’ I said softly, ‘I’m not here to hurt you.’

  He came out from behind the piano, moving surely, his slender body erect. ‘I know,’ he said. His voice, of course, was beautiful, as he had been, or perhaps still was. I saw no horror before me, only this ethereal, surreal figure, with that abundant platinum hair, his features somewhat ascetic. He was Wyva viewed through a strange glass. ‘I must say also, don’t be afraid,’ he continued. ‘You’re no shock to me, Ysobi har Jesith. You’re only here because I allow it.’

  ‘Am I the first?’ I asked, needing a point from where to proceed.

  ‘Rey saw me, if that’s what you’re asking,’ he replied. ‘Nohar else, beyond these walls.’

  ‘But why...? Why keep yourself hidden, letting everyhar believe Mossamber killed you? Did you want to perpetuate the idea of a curse?’

  He grimaced. ‘The idea? Have you learned so little, Ysobi?’ He came close to me now and in the meagre light I saw the scars upon his face, very faint. His skin was white, otherwise flawless but for those traces like claw marks, down his eyelids and cheeks. His lips were likewise pale, the same shape as Wyva’s. Those stones that glowed where his eyes should be seemed to gaze right into me. Were they only stones? He wore a loose white shirt that hung off one shoulder, cream linen trousers, no shoes.

  ‘What do you want of me?’ I asked.

  ‘For you to stop being a pest,’ he said. ‘Leave it be. I know you won’t until you’ve ferreted every last morsel off the bone, so here I am. Now, be satisfied, and leave it be.’