by Andrew Symon
To Maggie, again, and to all those who kept
Otherworld storytelling alive over the years.
Acknowledgements
Ian Black, for all his help and encouragement when writing this book, and to all the people who said they couldn’t wait for the second book to come out – thank you.
Contents
Title Page
Dedication
Acknowledgements
1 My Enemy’s Enemy
2 Fenrig’s Return
3 Oestre
4 Fallout
5 Lessons with Finbogie
6 Challenging the Congress
7 Malevola
8 The Phosphan Curse
9 Secrecy and Trust
10 The Beetler Cap
11 Household Chores
12 The Devil’s Shoestring
13 Return to Cos-Howe
14 The Claville Crew Arrive
15 Shian Football
16 Escape to Dunvik
17 Konan Arbormal
18 Aquine Ride
19 Marco Leo
20 Refugees
21 Trog
22 The Swordfish of Fortune
23 Revelation
24 The Mapa Mundi
25 The Giant’s Bridge
26 The Pit of Torment
27 The Grey
28 We Are Sailing
Epilogue
Copyright
Shian (pronounced Shee-an ):
n, the otherworld; creatures living in or coming from the otherworld. Also called daemons, fey, gentry, daoine matha [good men], portunes, etc. (C. 14; origins debated)
www.shianquest.com
1
My Enemy’s Enemy
The third echo was … silence?
Silence preceded by a hollow emptiness.
Jack had just enough time to be surprised before his eardrums were hammered by a deafening thunderclap. Jumping in alarm, he clasped his hands over his ears.
Screaming, Lizzie tried to do the same – but too late. A trickle of blood emerged from her right ear, and she cooried into her grandfather.
Jack stared in disbelief as the Blue Hag swayed alarmingly on the small hill she had just climbed. Three times he had watched the old woman as she had shuffled up an incline to perform the ancient Shian ritual for clearing the snows at winter’s end. Three times on reaching the top she had drawn her long staff upright and thudded it into the ground. Reverberations in the surrounding hills had melted the snow for fifty yards around her. Or at least they had done so twice. But the third time – nothing.
The staff had hit the ground, just like before. But this time, there was no sound – until the thunderclap. The Blue Hag steadied herself and peered round, perplexed. Her gaze passed over Jack, Lizzie and their grandfather, and came to rest on a much higher hill to Jack’s left. He followed her eyes. There, standing at the very summit some two hundred yards away, he could just make out three figures. One of them waved something – a sceptre perhaps? – above his head; and then came the sound of distant cheering. The sky above the figures darkened, there was a crack of thunder, and a single lightning strike scorched a solitary tree on the hillside. Howling curses in their direction, the Blue Hag retreated quickly down the hillside.
“Who in Tua’s name are they?” exclaimed Jack. The taste of treachery fouled his throat, like the time he’d realised Rowan had sold out the Congress four months earlier.
Grandpa Sandy had withdrawn his own sceptre from his cloak. Fingering it agitatedly, his stern look was fixed upon the distant figures. Jack saw him clench his jaw.
Lizzie rubbed her right ear and squeaked in alarm as she saw the blood. Cowering behind her grandfather’s cloak, she peered fearfully at the distant figures as one of them rose from the ground and did a graceful pirouette in the air. The manoeuvre had lasted fully ten seconds. Grandpa’s face relaxed and he lowered his sceptre.
“Kildashie,” he said simply, emphasising the second syllable. “I’d almost forgotten what they were like.”
Jack looked again at the distant figures, but could make little out. Then he saw the one with the sceptre wave it in an arc above his head. There was another loud peal of thunder, and it began to rain. Not just ordinary raindrops: huge smudges of water that drenched within seconds.
“Why’d he do that?” complained Lizzie, trying to pull her coat over her head. “I’m all wet. And my ear hurts.”
As more thunderclaps resounded around the hills, Grandpa Sandy waved at the figures, beckoning them over. After a short consultation, they began to glide from their hilltop, their cloaks flapping in the wind.
“Are they flying?” asked Jack. They reminded him of the two hags who had flown at the back of the Brashats at Dunvik.
“No, they can’t fly.” Grandpa kept his sceptre in his hand. “They live on islands far out into the ocean. They use their cloaks to glide.”
The three men landed and made their way with effortless haste up towards them. Jack could see that they were all tall, with long, straggly hair that swept about their faces. The one bearing the sceptre was in front, taking huge strides. Within seconds they had reached Jack and the others.
“Shian of Kildashie,” said Grandpa Sandy slowly and evenly, “I have not seen you for many years. What brings you so far from your islands?”
Their leader stood, his long sceptre planted firmly on the ground. He gazed long and hard at Grandpa Sandy before replying.
“I am Tig, from Hilta. These are Boreus and Donar. We have come to renew old acquaintances, now the Brashat are vanquished.”
“I well remember your dealings with the Brashat.” Grandpa Sandy paused, considering how best to phrase things. “But you should know better than to interrupt the Blue Hag. She will be hard to placate now, and that will prolong our winter.”
“What is that to us?” sneered Boreus. “Your sheltered winters are like spring.”
Jack squinted up at the rain-sodden sky. Dark clouds swept across the heavens, and the wind howled around them.
“But these are not your islands.” Grandpa Sandy pressed his point home. “Here we mark the new spring with this custom. You have disturbed the rhythm of the snow’s end.”
Boreus growled under his breath and aimed his sceptre at a tree a little way down the slope. There was a flash, and the tree burst into flames. He moved forward menacingly, but was instantly halted by Tig’s raised right forearm. Tig turned and muttered to his colleague, who retreated, scowling.
“I apologise if we have over-stepped the bounds of hospitality,” said Tig, with an ingratiating smile. “We hope to be able to join you in the celebration of your spring.” He looked up at the sky, his brow furrowed briefly, then he waved his sceptre expansively over his head. The skies lightened appreciably. The rain dwindled to little more than a drizzle, and the wind dropped.
Lizzie, impressed, stepped out confidently from behind her grandfather. The ringing in her ears had stopped.
“How did you stop the echo?”
Tig looked sternly at her, and she quickly averted her gaze.
“My granddaughter is eager to learn,” said Grandpa Sandy, putting his arm protectively around Lizzie’s shoulder.
“There are times for lessons, and times to watch in wonder,” said Tig evenly. “We will leave you now. But there is much we need to discuss with your Congress. Tell Atholmor that we wish to see him soon.”
Without further word, the three Kildashie turned and strode off. Jack had remained silent since their arrival. As the Kildashie reached the edge of the wood he turned to his grandfather.
“Grandpa, I don’t trust them. Stopping the Blue Hag’s infama, isn’t it?”
“Infama? You mean agains
t nature?” asked Lizzie.
“You may be right, Jack,” said Grandpa. “They’re wild, I’ll grant you that.”
“I got the same feeling as I got with Konan last year.” Jack thought back to his first encounter with Konan the Brashat in Edinburgh’s High Street in Edinburgh, and their subsequent clash at Dunvik just before the battle.
“They are rather uncivilised,” his grandfather conceded. “I’d heard rumours that they’d destroyed a lot of trees on their islands; and they don’t seem to mind being out in the winter weather, like we do.”
“Then they could attack us in the wintertime, when we’re all sheltering.”
“Well, that’s possible; but I think we can manage them. There’s only a handful of them. They’re also sworn enemies of the Brashat, so you’ve something in common there.”
“Our enemy’s enemy?” asked Lizzie.
“How come you’ve never mentioned them before?” demanded Jack. “And where are these islands?”
“Let’s find the Blue Hag first, shall we?” said his grandfather. “We should see if we can’t get her on the hills again.”
“She went down that way,” said Lizzie. “D’you think she’ll come back?”
Grandpa led the two youngsters down the hill, but away from the woods into which the Kildashie had vanished. A few minutes later they came upon the Blue Hag. Wrapped in her cloak, she was huddled down, muttering to herself, and fingering a small wooden wheel. Grandpa held up his hand to stop Jack and Lizzie. Slowly he edged forward.
“Cailleach,” he began, at which she raised her head. “We have seen your power in putting the snows of winter to flight. The Kildashie lack the understanding of your ways, but they have left. Will you continue now?”
The old woman looked at Grandpa Sandy for a moment, then snorted derisively and turned her face away. Grandpa Sandy returned to Jack and Lizzie, and ushered them quickly away.
“We can stay in the bothy tonight. By tomorrow she may have forgotten the Kildashie.”
He led the youngsters along the edge of the trees to a small wooden hut.
“Grandpa, d’you really trust the Kildashie?” asked Jack as Grandpa kindled a fire. “I got a bad feeling about them.”
“I want to know how they stopped the echo,” said Lizzie.
“It must be to do with the wind,” said Grandpa. “They live with it.”
“I got a funny feeling, like I was empty inside.”
“It made my ear bleed,” moaned Lizzie.
“The Kildashie are strange; their islands are far out into the western ocean. Living in such a bleak place has made them … shall we say uncivilised? By reputation, all they fear is another Norse invasion.”
“You mean like at Dunvik last year?”
“That’s right, Lizzie. And you saw how fierce those warriors could be. But they only came because of the Chalice.”
“Do the Kildashie mix with the humans, Grandpa?” queried Jack.
“The humans left the islands many years ago. The living got too tough for them – or maybe the Kildashie did. The Kildashie were forced onto the islands by the Brashat. There’s no love lost between them.”
Jack thought that he ought to feel more kindly towards the Kildashie, but he didn’t.
“There’s something about them I don’t trust. Controlling sound could be dangerous. And interrupting the Blue Hag, that’s wrong, isn’t it?”
“What they did was quite impressive. But you’re right: breaking the spring rite was infama. They should have had more respect.”
Jack scowled. The way Boreus had moved towards him had definitely been threatening. Grandpa, however, would hear no more about it, and instead turned to the stories about the Blue Hag.
“Tell us how she becomes young again,” pressed Lizzie.
Grandpa smiled at her. “When the last of the snows have gone, the Blue Hag raises her staff aloft and sings out a long note that carries from one hill to the next. When the sound dies away, she is transformed and walks off the hill a beautiful young woman. Then spring has returned. It’s the turning of the year – the season wheel has moved on.” He paused. “We’ll catch up with her tomorrow.”
*
The next morning was dismal and damp, which set the pattern for the day. The Blue Hag showed no sign of coming out, and reluctantly Grandpa suggested that they would be as well to return to Edinburgh. Packing their things, they headed back for the low road.
2
Fenrig’s Return
Edinburgh Castle lay under a thin blanket of snow.
Life in the Shian square was too quiet. Many inhabitants were away, ushering in the new season with family and friends elsewhere. Jack, after an hour of idly kicking stones, put on his coat and went for a walk along the castle ramparts. Trebling up to human size as he passed through the square’s side gate, he emerged next to St Margaret’s Chapel. From there he walked around to the ramparts. Few human visitors disturbed the peace of the castle at this time of year; Edinburgh is not at its best in late February.
Jack’s frustration at the slow end to winter grew. With Petros and Rana away in Rangie with their parents, it was just Lizzie, Grandpa and himself in the house. Little had happened since the great Hallows’ Day battle at Dunvik nearly four months earlier.
Great battle, thought Jack. It had certainly become much grander in the telling and retelling since. The snows had arrived not long after, and most Shian, according to custom, had retreated indoors for the winter.
Jack liked the firelight parties, the songs and the stories, but he had longed too to get out into the open. When his grandfather had suggested the youngsters accompany him to see the Blue Hag’s great spring rite, he had jumped at the chance. Rana had pestered her parents to take them to Rangie for a few days, and Petros had been obliged to go too, for, as Uncle Doonya had put it, there was no way he was being left on his own in the house.
While Petros had decided that Rangie was less likely to be snow-covered than the hills north of Keldy (“a totally uncivilised place,” he had said), Lizzie had consented to go with Jack. So it was that their grandfather had taken them north to watch the great spring ritual.
A snowball hit Jack on the side of the face. He spun round angrily, only to find Petros and Rana standing ten yards away, laughing heartily.
“The look on your face!” exclaimed Rana gleefully.
The snow dripped down the inside of Jack’s collar. Swiftly, he stooped down and scooped up a handful of snow. Within seconds, the air was thick with snowballs and shouts, and before long all three were both thoroughly warm and covered in melting snow. Flushed with the exertion, Rana called a halt.
“I thought the Blue Hag was going to make the snow disappear,” said Petros.
Jack brought them up to date with the story of the Kildashie, and how the Blue Hag was sulking.
“So we didn’t miss much,” stated Rana.
“Seeing the Kildashie gliding was cool. But they’re Unseelie. And they’ve got some kind of control over sound. I wouldn’t trust them; Grandpa says they used to fight against the Brashat.”
“Unseelie fighting each other doesn’t bother me. In fact, any enemy of the Brashat is probably all right,” pointed out Petros. “We’re well rid of them.”
“Not all of them,” whispered Rana, pointing to the side wall of the chapel, where Fenrig stood scowling, his sister Morrigan by his side. Jack, Petros and Rana got to their feet, and for a few moments there was a silent stand-off. Finally, Morrigan spoke.
“C’mon, bro. We’ll leave these peasants alone.” Quickly she and Fenrig passed through the gate to the square below.
“What’re they doing here?” demanded Jack. He’d thought Fenrig and his sister were being kept out of the way while their father, Briannan, was suspended.
“Mum told me,” said Rana. “They’re going to stay under the castle. Their dad’s … well, you know. And they haven’t got a mother. All the rest of their family got suspended, so there was no one to look after
them.”
“Fenrig hasn’t got a mother?” said Jack. “I just thought she was somewhere else.”
“Huh, boys,” snorted Rana. “You wouldn’t take the trouble to find out.”
“Grandpa said she wasn’t around, but I thought that just meant …” Jack’s voice tailed off. He realised he knew very little about Fenrig. They had started their apprenticeship together the previous summer, but Fenrig had made it clear from the outset that he wanted nothing to do with the other apprentices.
Jack could see that Petros was unsettled by Morrigan’s appearance. Quite apart from her deliberate insult, the knowledge that she could transform into a crow (and that, in this guise, she had nearly eaten him when he had used the beetler disguise at Dunvik) gave Petros the shivers.
“You mean they’re going to be under the castle with us?” he groaned. “I knew it was too good to last.”
“How come you know about it?” Jack accosted Rana.
“Well, Mum said something about them being orphans and having nowhere to stay.”
“So who’s been looking after them since Dunvik?” challenged Jack.
“Some of the Elle-folk took them, up to Iceland, I think. But they can’t stay there forever. I can’t see them fitting in.”
“It’s not like they fit in here either,” pointed out Petros.
“There you are.” Their grandfather’s voice carried out to them from along the castle ramparts. “I see you’ve been enjoying what’s left of the snow.”
“Grandpa, why are Fenrig and his sister here?” asked Jack. “That’s asking for trouble.”
Grandpa Sandy stopped. He looked down at the three youngsters thoughtfully.
“Petros,” he said after a few moments, “your mother would like you and Rana to go and unpack your bags. Would you go and help, please?”
Petros threw Jack a quizzical look, but decided against arguing.
“I need to get out of these wet clothes anyway. Come on, Rana.”
“Jack, we can have a little chat, just ourselves. I’ll get you dried when we get to the Stone Room.”