The Shifu Cloth (The Chronicles of Eirie 4)

by Prue Batten

  You good-for-nothing mortal. Why did you bother to come? You’ve doomed us both.

  He looked up at the sky and could see the moon had slipped well past the zenith.

  So little time.

  He shook Poli hard so the man’s teeth rattled together as he groaned, his eyes opened, unfocused and fluttering. Nico grabbed his hand, feeling the toughened scars of a lifetime of boatbuilding and sailing and squeezed as hard as he could, as if he might crush the bones to dust.

  ‘Ow!’ The voice was weak but the meaning was clear. ‘Let go, you bastard, what are you trying to do?’

  Nicholas pointed to the sky and raised his shoulders, fraught with anger and frustration. Poli coughed and spat and dragged himself to sit up.

  ‘Time’s short?’ Poli retched. ‘Well let’s get on then.’ He levered himself to stand and Nico shoved an arm under his shoulders as his legs folded. ‘Aine, what happened? I feel quite at odds.’ He pushed Nico away. ‘What happened?’

  Nico shook his head as if to say, ‘Not now. I will tell you later.’ In truth he wondered what next? But as he turned away, a moonbeam lit a small path into a clearing and with no further idea of what he must do, he led off, pushing into the copse whose trees sparkled silver in the night light. Two figures stood at the far side, substantial and yet not, ethereal and yet not and he knew at once that he had met those he had come to seek. Poli stood behind him – he heard a breath suck in and he turned to see his companion’s face as pale as ivory.

  ‘Ye gods!’ Poli whispered and then coughed, holding his side. ‘Well, man, go on, this is what you came for. I think I’ll just wait here.’

  He shoved Nico in the back.

  Nicholas looked at his father and mother, ageless the two of them, younger than Poli, older than Nicholas. His mother walked forward, her long shawl dragging across the ground, tiny crystals on the hem darting cold fire across the glade. A hand reached to touch him and when Nicholas looked from the hand to the woman who held it out, he saw traces of tears.

  ‘Nicholas, my son,’ she said.

  He could say nothing in return.

  Not a solitary word.

  *

  ‘I know you have hated us and been hurt that we left you.’ Her hand rested on his forearm. ‘But I trusted one day you would understand we had no choice but to bring the Cantrips here. When you were born, we did not want you to grow up cursed with the shadow that is this place. What life would that have been for you? It is why we gave you up to Phelim.’

  Nicholas gave what passed for a laugh in the hope they would understand the irony and sadness.

  ‘But he’s cursed anyway,’ Poli walked to his side.

  Nicholas’s father, Finnian, stared at Poli.

  ‘And who are you that you speak so readily for my son?’

  Poli answered, apparently undeterred by the scrutiny.

  ‘My name is Poli and I am a friend of Phelim’s. But I know you, Sir Finnian. Do you remember me?’

  Nicholas would swear his father was caught off-guard.

  ‘Poli…Poli? The cabin-boy? No…surely.’ His voice dropped to an almost-whisper. ‘They said there would be a friend, someone to guard my son’s back, but they did not…’ He seemed overwhelmed as he stared at the former cabin boy, almost frozen.

  ‘Later. Now is not the time.’ Poli’s voice was hoarse and tired. ‘But I shall tell you this, sir. Here is your son and you have not yet touched him. He has felt the loss of his real father all his life. And you Madame, what do you think your son makes of it all as you speak to him? Do you not think you owe him more than mere words. He has suffered much with his displacement.’

  Nicholas wondered at the unerring intuition of Poli because the pain of seeing his parents had indeed cut him to the marrow. How he wished he could speak because for sure he would rant. He stared at his mother.

  She’s so beautiful…

  She was barely older than Nicholas, her beauty preserved by the Afterlife. Her eyes were an odd hazelnut with green depths and it was that more than anything that made him recognise her as his mother; the woman who had bequeathed the strange eye colour to an unborn child.

  Finnian moved to stand directly in front of Nico. His height and breadth were gifts that he had passed on and Nicholas gazed frankly, almost rudely at him.

  I am as tall as you, Father! You see – I am a man and you have not been a part of one year of my life!

  ‘I hear you, Nicholas, and I am saddened,’ his father said.

  Nicholas raised his eyebrows.

  ‘I am, don’t look so,’ said Finnian, his voice rising.

  His expression begged understanding and yet Nicholas wanted to make him suffer the pain he had felt through the years.

  ‘Your mother and I know what you have endured. You believe we ended our time as if there were nothing of meaning left for us in the living world.’ He grasped Nico’s upper arm, an impassioned tone ringing round the clearing. ‘I had just fallen in love with your mother. I would have moved heaven and earth to spend a living life with her and with you but the Cantrips had to be destroyed. I trusted Jasper to tell you there was no other choice and I thought he had.’ He swiped a hand through evernight black hair, striding away and then returning. ‘Can you imagine? I had just discovered your mother carried my child. Neither of us wanted to come to the Isle of the Dead. But I repeat, there was no choice because all that we cherished, everything and everyone, would have been damned if the Cantrips were ever found again. You, Isabella, Phelim, Adelina, Ebba – everyone.’

  His hand tightened on Nico’s arm and Nicholas allowed himself to be drawn into a firm clasp. But a corner of his traitorous mind wondered if he should kick his father away, tell him his words and touch meant nothing.

  Would I be lying?

  His mother spoke again, her voice clear, the Raji accent melodic.

  ‘What we did was for the best, my dearest Nicholas. It was the only way.’ She grasped his hands. ‘You must know that we too have felt our own pain, as your father has said. It was as though we had lost our souls.’ Her voice cracked. ‘But we trusted Phelim and Adelina to love you as their own and I know they have. Look at you! They have reared you well. Please talk to us, Nico. Mindspeak. I want to know what you think.’

  Again he gave what passed for a laugh.

  ‘Talk to you? You jest, of course. How can I cram a lifetime’s talk into a moment? How do you know about my life, about me? Tell me!’

  She smiled an almost-smile.

  ‘This is the Afterlife. There are seers here, even one such as Jasper. Yes, Jasper,’ she said, acknowledging Nicholas’s gasp. ‘And he has told us much of the past, present and future. Enough for us to be afraid and concerned.’ Her voice wavered. ‘Oh Nicholas, it would have been bearable for you, wouldn’t it…life? If Isabella hadn’t gone missing and your voice disappearing at the same time?’

  He nodded.

  ‘And that is why you are here. Come, sit.’

  The four moved to carved benches that encircled the glade like a lacy frill. The most extraordinary feeling settled on Nicholas, as sure as he could be that he floated partway between a gentle dream and a nightmare. He glanced at Poli who apart from coughing, seemed to be taking it all in his stride, as though the Afterlife were just another place he visited oft-times. He wondered at the man and found that he could view him with less animosity and not undue curiosity. Almost as much curiosity, dare he admit it, as he had for his parents.

  ‘Time passes rapidly and we have much to impart.’ Finnian leaned forward, clasping his hands between his knees, enervation sparking across the space in front of Nicholas and Poli. ‘The moon begins to sink,’ he continued, ‘and all this will be for nought if you don’t return across the moonbridge before light. I must speak and you must hear me out, yes?’ Finnian barely waited for assent. ‘Isolde, my grandmother, cursed you as she died at your mother’s hand. She said, I curse your son with a half-life…his life shall be filled with silence. And the silence itself sha
ll be overflowing with pain, a silent scream that cuts a soul in half. And the pain shall be flooded with guilt and his guilt shall be borne because his father feels none. Her curse lay sleeping until Isabella went missing and then your life filled with all that Isolde wished upon you, not least because you truly are a half-time mortal. Isabella was the key that unlocked the curse. Silence, pain, guilt and grief have indeed almost split you in two.’ Finnian looked to the sky in the east where a faint light tinge drifted up from the horizon. ‘But there was something that always worried me, something I’ve thought on every day of every year since that moment before her death.’ He swung around on his seat to face Nicholas directly. ‘I think in her cruel way, she was going to remind me that the curse would be inviolable, never able to be broken, maybe that it was another manifestation of the horror our family seems to have suffered through the generations. I suspect she was going to tell me that nothing changes. That year after year and with each succeeding child, our family would go on being damaged and denied.’

  Nicholas mindspoke, aware that he was excluding Poli in the doing. Momentarily he felt awkward, as if the man were entitled to understand every word that passed.

  ‘What? Do you mean that I may never find Isabella, or that I may never speak again? I am unclear.’

  His father sighed.

  ‘It is such an uncertain thing. It may be that just as Isabella’s absence was the unlocking of the curse, so by finding her it will effectively be the counter-curse and all will be well forever.’ Finnian stood and began to pace. ‘But I doubt it because Isolde never worked like that. Something is missing and till you find out what it is, the whole extended family will go on being hurt. Maybe forever.’

  ‘How bloody ambiguous!’ Poli snapped. ‘Tell him what should he do, don’t just give him conundrums. He can’t sit hoping against hope that Isabella may turn up or that answers will miraculously fall from the Heavens. Are you at all aware that he and Phelim, even the Hob, have been searching for a year with no result? Not a sighting! Just more pain and more.’

  ‘Of course we are.’ Finnian glared at his son’s companion. ‘It would have been better if they’d come here sooner.’

  ‘And you didn’t think to go to them? That would have eased some heartache.’

  ‘It is not that simple, Poli. This is the Afterlife and we are spirits whose reach is to the shore of the lake, a little further if we are lucky. He had to come to us.’

  ‘Well if it hadn’t been for the swan-maid, he probably wouldn’t.’

  ‘The swan-maid?’ Finnian’s mouth turned down as he thought on Poli’s revelation. ‘Then she was wise beyond knowing. I suspect it was not that she thought the Afterlife may have the answers, but rather the eldritch location of Jasper’s house might help. Phelim extended that idea by bringing you to the lake. My brother is nothing if not prescient.’

  A white owl flew overhead, crying out as it swooped, alerting them all to time passing. Nicholas mindspoke, not caring if he seemed rude.

  ‘So far you have given me nothing! We came here for answers, so what do I do? Tell me, else it will be meaningless.’

  Lalita reached over and stroked his knee and he shivered as he was reminded of a ghost passing over his grave.

  ‘Go back to Jasper’s. You must ready yourself to go searching again, Nico. If Isabella’s disappearance is the key to your curse, we must trust that something about her being found will be the key that will unlock everything else. Of this much we are sure.’

  ‘Nothing about this is obvious,’ muttered Poli. Then louder, ‘Aine, you heap more upon him than is fair. What is even worse is that Phelim has had to magick Adelina to sleep, a sleep that will be eternal in a month. That is how desperate everyone is here, sir and madame, so desperate they place fatal mesmers on those they love to try and protect them.’

  ‘We know of Adelina and we feel for Phelim, but there is nothing more we can do except to say that we believe Isabella is the key. And I say to you as well, Nicholas will only bear what he can. It is the way of it.’

  Nicholas heard a disparaging grunt from Poli.

  ‘In what way?’ he mindspoke.

  ‘I can’t tell you,’ Finnian sighed. ‘Just that you will only ever be asked to do what you can and to the best of your abilities. Nothing more, nothing less. This at least we have faith in, as we have faith in you. You are our son after all, and have inherited the strong nature of your mother if nothing else. And look at what she did when she had to.’

  Nicholas made a sound like a husky groan and walked to the other side of the glade. Turning around he mindspoke.

  ‘I feel no wiser, in fact I feel more constrained than ever. If I hadn’t come here, I would be on my way now and Isabella would be that much closer to us. I feel as if I have wasted time.’

  Lalita gave a whispered cry.

  ‘That was uncalled for, Nicholas,’ Finnian growled. ‘Your mother’s heart has broken every time she thought of you, but courageous as she is, she has put it back together and got on, thinking, examining, trying to find a way forward for you. Tonight has been what she never asked for, never dreamed – to see you and touch you and you dare to say it is a waste of time?’

  ‘I am sorry and I appreciate what my mother feels but you have told me nothing new. Isabella has always been the key in my mind. I could have left a week since and been on my way instead of coming here.’

  ‘But searching where, my son?’ Lalita asked. ‘Evidence of Isabella’s existence must be revealed and that at least we think we can tell you.’

  ‘Then apart from actually seeing his parents, that’s the first thing you’ve said that makes this strange journey worthwhile.’ Poli’s tone hardened with impatience and Nicholas thanked the stars. For sure he himself would have liked to rant.

  ‘Well?’ he questioned his mother.

  ‘Go back to Jasper’s,’ she said. ‘The answer awaits.’

  ‘And that’s it?’

  He bent and swiped a branch from the ground, flinging it across the glade in anger and then grabbing Lalita’s wrists in his hands. He could feel her pulse under his fingers, felt the form of a woman’s hands.

  ‘How? Tell me.’

  ‘Nico,’ she spoke gently. ‘We have told you all we are able and we hurt for what you must do. The answer will be waiting when you return to Jasper’s. Trust me. Now go, or you and Poli will pass away. Please.’

  ‘Go to the manor,’ Finnian walked forward and took Nicolas in a firm grip, slipping something into his pocket. ‘And you must take Poli with you on this journey, as you and he are linked by a destiny.’

  The affection in the grip disarmed Nico. He looked at his parents and went to mindspeak, to tell them he wanted to love them but that he was inept and unable, but in seconds they had dissolved to oblivion leaving an empty glade and a fluttering white feather from the owl that perched in one of the trees.

  *

  Far off over the lake, so far it might only have been a memory, a blackbird trilled.

  Poli muttered.

  ‘Damn it to Hell and back, there’s the beginning of the dawn chorus. Come on man, we have to run!’

  He jerked Nicholas’s arm and that and his shout was enough to pierce the fearsome emptiness that curled around Nico’s feet.

  He sprinted after Poli, leaping onto the moonbridge, running over the top of the ghostly waterwyrms as they dipped and glided beneath. The sky had lightened to the blush of dawn and as the moon sank far to the west and the sun rose in a blaze of gold in the east, the two men jumped off the strange bridge and landed in a tangled heap, their collapse not even noticed by the Hob and Phelim who still slept the sleep of the enchanted.

  Poli and Nicholas looked at each other and then at the sleepers and something of relief and headiness filled them and they began to laugh until the laugh became a hysterical roar.

  A single voiced roar to be sure, thought Nicholas, but a step has been taken.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Isabella
r />   What’s the next step?

  She paced restlessly around her chamber, touching the quaint black lacquered bed on the raised dais at one end and the silk paintings at the other.

  I can’t think. Fox Lady, where are you? Tell me what I must do.

  She was Lady Ibo now. Entry to the Imperial House had been won. More particularly, the freedom associated with being Lady Ibo was the key to her escape.

  But how? What do I do next?

  A hard rap sounded at her door. No longer did she have paper screens that slid open. Her chamber was entered through double doors carved with peonies, lotus flowers and a heron and the handles were bronzed and heavy.

  ‘Yes?’ she called and they swung wide, pushed by guards.

  A small woman entered and collapsed to the floor in one of the contemptible kowtows, holding up one hand with a scroll in it and speaking Han, the name Ibo reaching Isabella’s ears. She asked the woman to stand but the servant remained resolutely prone and so she thought back to Madame Koi’s example. With the same action but with less force, she lifted her toe under the woman’s elbow to encourage her to stand, the finely groomed head with its slick grey bun bowed, hands tucked in the cuffs of a silk robe. Satisfied, Isabella opened the scroll and read.

  Knowing that you will not understand when you are spoken to in the Han tongue, I am taking the liberty of writing in Pymm to ask you to attend me as soon as you are changed from your travelling clothes. The lady who carries the message is to help you dress and will then lead you to my apartments.

  There followed a seal with a dragonfly, obviously the Son’s insignia.

  Isabella re-rolled the scroll and placed it on a camphorwood table by the side of her bed. The woman gestured, indicating the partitioned closet covered with fine paper screens that were painted in glorious scenes of tree covered rocks falling into gorges.

  She walked to the doors, slid the screens open and pulled out a tunic and trousers of alizarin silk, running her hands reverently over the fine fabric. Isabella stepped out of the aquamarine garment which pooled on the floor and oddly, she was sad that it should be consigned to the edge of the closet away from more splendid wear. For as long as the colour had been near, she was reminded of home, of water, of the islands. The crimson of the imperial garments served to raise memories of stone blocks with bloodstains and danger. She stepped into the new attire, placing her feet into a pair of silk slippers embroidered with a Mirradon beetle on each toe. The weight of the silk and the quality of the embroidery all attested to the fact that Isabella was indeed the Lady Ibo now, whatever that might mean to her imminent future.