by Jane Routley
The beauty of it all did something to lift the darkness off my shoulders.
“This is an old volcano,” said the ghost. “Thousands and thousands of years ago, lava must have spewed down these hills. Probably accounts for your wonderful soil. I wonder if the crystal mine up here is part of that. The land round that other mine looked volcanic, too.”
“I’d like to see a living volcano,” I said, feeling almost chatty with the relief of being so close to safety. “There’s one a few days’ ride from Crystalline, and the nobles often go down to view it.”
“You are on your way,” said the ghost. “Maybe Klea will take you.”
“I’m not sure Klea will be taking us anywhere,” I muttered. Surely she couldn’t have done it just for the money? But why, then? I was still finding it so hard to accept.
“What’s all that white over there?”
“Ladybless, that’s Uncle Batty’s puffball field.”
“Who is this Uncle Batty person I keep hearing about?” asked the ghost.
“Eff’s brother, and the closest thing I ever had to a proper uncle. He was a funny old man. He spent all day doing drawings he never finished, and couldn’t remember to eat half the time. But every summer he’d come up here to live and get himself together enough to make a batch of Holy Wine. That’s fermented puffball juice. Very rough. The peasants use it in religious ceremonies. He sold it to them and bought smokeweed. It’s hard to grow puffballs. You have to clear the tree ferns away—something about them poisons puffballs. But Uncle Batty could be very industrious for the right reason.”
“Was his name really Batty?”
“No. It was Beam. Lord Beam to you and me. The other mages called him Batty because he was slightly mad. And because he used to see bats when he smoked or drank too much. He hated other mages. Always quoted the old poem: They are mired in corruption and full of bitter bile. He stopped talking to Bright once he turned into a mage. Eff and I often wondered if that was why...”
Cats! hissed Katti. Two enormous glowing cat shapes came bounding out of the undergrowth to our right. Mooncats!
“Run!” I shouted, only to find that we were all already doing it.
“Bright!” I screamed as we ran. “Bright! Help!”
The cats were moaning out a low whining hunting yowl that chilled the soul. I didn’t dare look back, lest I fall and be lost. But I was certain they catching up to us.
From further back came a huge roar.
Run, run! cried Katti’s voice in my head.
As if I wasn’t running flat out already. She kept close to my side and didn’t leave me.
A turn in the path and there was Uncle Batty’s house and, Lady’s mercy, the glow of a fire in the chimney.
By now I had no breath left to shout, and the cats’ yowling was so close I thought to feel their claws on my back. The roaring was coming closer.
My lungs screamed for air.
Up ahead came the fence. Shadow had reached it and was scrabbling with the latch through the slats of the gate. No, he was pushing it uselessly, because he hadn’t realised there was a lower latch. I shoved him aside, pulled up the latch and shoved open the gate. The Mooncats came loping towards us with the intent stare of hunters.
We tumbled through the gate and Katti and I fell over each other. I rolled to shut the gate, but Shadow was already there, slamming it back and pushing on it with all his weight. The Mooncats let out a roar that made the trees echo. I scrabbled to the gate and shoved the lower latch down hard and shot the upper bolt. I couldn’t see how the fence and gate would hold under their weight, but they had stopped coming. They were crouched outside, huffing and roaring.
Another cat roared away back among the trees. The Mooncats turned and with a flick of their tails were gone, pale glowing shapes padding quickly away into the shadowy forest as if to investigate the roaring. Or maybe the scent of a mage drove them off.
“Bright,” I called, as I pushed open the door into the old miner’s hut.
Someone was rocking in the rocking chair by the fire. His face was in shadow, but the shape was all wrong.
This wasn’t Bright.
CHAPTER TWENTY
I STOPPED SO quickly that Shadow walked into the back of me.
“What...?”
“Come in, come in. Be welcome,” said the stranger, waving at us but not getting up. I could not see his face in the shadows only his bare feet in the firelight. Bare feet that glittered with crystal dust. My heart froze in my chest.
He smells of cat. Katti crouched and glared at him.
“What are you doing here? Where is my cousin?” I demanded, ignoring the polite greeting. I was still panting from my run from the Mooncats. I put my hand on my knife.
“Ahh! You are one of the gentry. That explains it. Most villagers would run back down the hill when faced with Mooncats,” said the man in a completely unworried tone of voice.
He leaned over and put a taper in the fire and for the first time I saw his face. I didn’t know it, had never seen him before. He was an older man. His forehead was smooth, without crystal or crystal scar—he had never been a mage—but by the light of the fire I could see specks of crystal glittering all over his skin. A rogue. My spine chilled.
As he reached out and lit the candles in a stand on the other side of him, I saw he was wearing a rough brown Blessing robe. He did not seem to be wearing anything underneath it. Graceson’s brother, Dannel, had been dressed the same way the day I had met him in the forest.
Instead of hanging like normal hair, this man’s grey hair hung in matted clumps, though it was tied neatly back from his face by a band very like that of the village shaman.
“Come, come, sit by the fire and warm yourselves. There is warm food here and drink. Be welcome.”
Shadow’s hand gripped my arm.
“Where’s my cousin?” I asked again.
The man put his head to one side and peered up at me as if considering what to say.
“He’s out looking for you,” he said. I wasn’t sure I believed him.
Behind us, we heard the gate click open.
“That may be him,” said the man.
Another figure wearing long Blessing robes appeared in the doorway. Shadow and I sidled away from him, our backs to the wall. Katti sat, her ears back and her tail wrapped tightly round her haunches. One rogue alone would have been too much for the three of us. Two of them...
The new person was panting hard.
Then he spoke, and I knew him.
“These two are under my protection, First One,” panted Dannel.
“Of course, my child,” said the man by the fire. “This is Lord Beam’s niece, is it not? We would never hurt one of his kin. Unless she hurt us first.” He grinned. His teeth gleamed sharp in the firelight. “Your uncle was a great friend to me and my kin.”
That’d be right. Uncle Batty was very easy-going if you left him alone.
“Please sit down, my dear. And introduce me to your pale and interesting companion. I’ve not seen a ghost in person before.”
As Dannel stepped past us to go to his leader’s side, he touched my arm and smiled at me. Probably the smile was meant to be reassuring, but... Shadow’s hand gripped my arm even tighter and I heard a small hiss. He had a silver tube in his hand. He’d been gripping it when we’d been down the pit. I’d meant to ask him what it was, but I’d got distracted. Clearly it was some kind of lucky talisman.
“Where’s my cousin?”
“I left him tidying up after you,” said Dannel. “That was a good shot. Marm Shine shot a mage right though the face,” he said to the First One. “Blood everywhere.”
The other man looked pleased. “Very good. But I assume she did not kill him.”
“No.”
“Even better.” He gave me another of his strange smiles. “We prefer mages not be killed. It tends to bring the whole lot sniffing around. I do wish you’d sit down and have something to eat.”
I wishe
d I could too. The scent of the hot stew was making my stomach grumble about the delay.
“I’ll wait for my cousin,” I said.
“At least sit,” said Dannel. “I promise you can trust us. Come on. You’ve known me all your life.”
“You’re rogues. “
“We’re shapeshifters,” said the First One primly. “It’s quite a different thing. There have always been Mooncats born in this valley. Even before the light bringers came. It’s only the light bringers who call us ‘rogues’ and class us with criminals.”
“I see. Well. Thank you. I’m fine here,” I said, even though my feet were aching. The ghost, Katti and I stood there tensely, watching the two of them sitting by the fire and eating stew until the gate latch clicked again.
The door swung open and Bright came breezing in, with Stefan close on his heels. Stefan was carrying a big basket over his arm.
“Shine—praise the Lady! You’re safe. I’ve been worried sick about you. And now I find you in complete comfort here, eating dinner with the Mooncats as if nothing’s wrong. How typical.”
I loved Bright, but sometimes he was so annoying.
But I forgave him quickly, because when he saw the bruises on my neck, he was furious.
“The dog. If I’d known he tried to strangle you, I’d have left him for the cats to eat.”
Instead Bright had taken the still unconscious Illuminus back to Willow and left him on the front lawn for someone to find.
By then Dannel and the First One had gone and we were sitting by the fire eating stew. Stefan pottered about the cottage behind us as I filled in my side of the long sad tale of the Blessing festival and my attempts to hide the ghost from Illuminus. “It’s been a bad Blessing feast,” I said. “Blazeann tried to throw me over the balcony as well.”
“And now she’s dead. Poor old Blazeann,” said Bright.
Bright knew all about that part of it. When Blazeann was found dead, Hilly had sent a runner up the mountain to tell Bright. He had flown down and lurked around outside the house to see if he was needed. Unfortunately Eff hadn’t known he was there when she sent me off into the forest. By the time she found out and sent Bright after me, it was mid-afternoon and the whole business with Illuminus had played itself out.
Bright was shocked and angry at the way Great Aunt Glisten had spoken to his mother, but he didn’t find it hard to believe that Illuminus was involved in crystal smuggling.
He shook his head and said, “Flara’s get. They’re capable of anything. They should make it their family motto.”
“You shouldn’t have stayed. They might have caught you.”
“It’s lucky I did, though, isn’t it? I’m safe enough up here. No one’s going to take me by surprise. Not with the Mooncats on watch.”
“They chased us.”
“They chase everyone they don’t know. You were supposed to run back down the mountain, not up here.”
I was beginning to get annoyed at the matter-of-fact way people kept telling me that our terror was all for nothing.
“I thought they were rogues. I went for the closest safe place. Who wouldn’t?”
“Most of the peasants wouldn’t. But they know all about Mooncats. Most of them are their friends and relatives.”
“They’re not rogues?
“Not at all. Every now and then someone is born round here who changes into a cat at the full moon. It comes on like all magic, during puberty. If they cover themselves with crystal dust, like a rogue, they can change whenever they want. But they’re not rogues—they protect the villagers, they don’t prey on them. They keep bandits out of the forest, and in return, the villagers leave them offerings. Sometimes they even live among the villagers. But they’re always dangerous at the full moon. That’s when the cat side takes over.”
“That’s why Hilly told us never to go into the forest on the full moon? Does she know about Mooncats? Who else? How did you find out?”
“Stefan told me. Once I saw him with Dannel. All the mundanes hereabout know about the Mooncats. They never tell the gentry, because the mages would hunt them down and they... But Uncle Batty knew about them. Used to have little soirees with them up here, used to let them use his fire to cook on, that sort of thing. They live in the old mine workings. That’s why Mother never worried about him up here by himself.”
“Eff knows? Curse it, does everyone know except me?”
“None of the other gentry know,” said Bright, shooting me a rueful grin.
“That’s hardly a comfort. Surely I’m a bit more trustworthy than that lot.”
Bright shrugged. “Don’t be cross. The peasants trust you. It’s just that no one ever needed to tell you.”
“Does Klea know?”
“About the Mooncats? Of course not.”
“About you still being here?”
“No. Thought it best to keep it among ourselves. She’s a good woman but not... She’s not a local. Did she find what she was looking for?”
“Oh, Bright,” I said. “I’m so shocked about Klea. It’s terrible. I don’t know what to think.”
The ghost looked up from his bowl. “Marm Shine, I’m sure she had her reasons.”
“Maybe she’s like the rest of the family. Maybe it is all about money.”
“What happened?” asked Bright.
I looked at Stefan’s back. We shared most things with him, but this was too awful. “I can’t tell you here,” I said.
“Why don’t we go and look at Uncle Batty’s grave?” said Bright, after a moment of difficult silence.
What with all the corpse lilies he’d planted up here, the little hillock where Uncle Batty had asked to be buried was easy to find even in the darkness of night. I lit a small stub of a candle and put it on the mound and said a couple of prayers for his soul.
Then I sat down and told Bright the whole story of Klea and the letter and the baby.
“Laaady. You have had an exciting Blessing festival, haven’t you? Poor old Klea. What a mess.”
I turned on him in shock. “Klea seems to have given, no, sold her own child for money and you say, ‘Poor Klea.’ Aren’t you… I mean, I don’t think I can speak to her again. It’s too awful.”
“Shine, listen to me.” He took my hand and squeezed it. His mouth was scrunched up unhappily. “Klea had every reason to feel her child would not be safe growing up in the Family House.”
“But money changed hands. That’s… Isn’t that shocking to you?”
“We don’t know the real circumstances of that,” he said. “It may have been a gift, or—”
“Why are you going so easy on her? She’s done a terrible thing.”
“Terrible things were done to her,” he said.
“What things? I ask and ask and no one will tell me. Why is everyone keeping secrets from me?” I cried.
“I didn’t know about it till I went up to live in the Family House. I was there when Klea ran off. Everyone was going round with long faces saying it was just what they expected. So I started poking around and... It’s a horrible story.”
“How?”
He took a deep breath.
“Well, you know how Flara and Radiant were always so big on mages mating with mages to breed pure?”
“Stupid snobbery that leads to sickly children.”
“Well, Flara took it to extremes. She used to encourage Radiant to mate with his nieces. There’s a good chance he sired both of Blazeann and Lumina’s first children.”
“Eww! But he was their uncle. That’s disgusting.”
“Radiant was very attractive. Like Scintillant is now. And the girls were very young. It seems Radiant likes them young. Blazeann and Lumina were both mages grown by then and so they had a choice in the matter. But apparently he was also mating with Klea.”
“What? But she wasn’t even a woman when they were deposed. Why would he mate with a child? That’s horrible.”
“It started when she was nine. They say she used to scream a
nd cry to make him stop, but no one dared to interfere. Flara was so ruthless on the servants and she wouldn’t believe anything bad about Radiant. She wasn’t the first he’d done it to, either. But she was the only member of the family. You remember how we stopped going up to the Family House for Winter Solstice? That’s because Hilly found out from the other servants what was happening. And because Radiant started showing an interest in you.”
“In... me?” I remembered Uncle Radiant. Lovely Uncle Radiant was how I’d always thought of him. Sitting me on his knee and listening to me. He’d made me feel so special. And he’d spent several hours showing me the nicest books in the library, sitting with his arm round my shoulders, stroking my hair and back. The memory turned me cold.
I wasn’t sure how long after that we left, but I do remember we left unexpectedly that year. Bright and I had been so disappointed when Hilly had bundled us onto the public mail coach before the big feast; and so upset that we never went back. Eff had told us that Flara had taken against us, which left Bright and me full of guilty anxiety over what we might have done wrong. Especially when we didn’t go back the next year. That year, Uncle Batty joined us at Willow. He’d been Avunculus up till then. It had been his job to protect Klea.
“And Uncle Batty knew too? Or was he too smoked to care?”
I loved my Uncle Batty, but this was yet another unforgivable thing. And unfortunately I didn’t find it hard to believe.
“Poor stupid old sod. I suppose he doesn’t deserve my sympathy. Klea went to him for help, and I think he may have gone to Flara about it. Stupid man! Anyway, it blew up in his face. Flara accused him of skimming the household money. Batty was stood down as Avunculus. In those days, Granny had a different Premier, a mage, Great Uncle Gleam, who adored Flara. Wouldn’t hear a word against her. It all got pretty ugly. Batty never got over it. You remember what he was like.”