The Snowmelt River

by Frank P. Ryan

  It made her remember the many times Grimstone had locked her in the dark cellar at home.

  The first time she had been only three years old, and she had searched for a box to stand on so she could look for the light in the low ceiling. The bulb socket had been empty and her finger had gone up into it, throwing her through the air with an electric shock. At the memory, gooseflesh erupted over her skin. And such a wave of terror came over her that she closed her eyes tightly and dared not open them after that. This time it wasn’t just a night in the cellar.

  Why is this happening? What have I done to deserve it?

  Mo recalled what had happened on the deck of the ship. How Mark had frightened her and Kate during the storm on the river. From the first moment of seeing him come out of the door, with his white face and tormented eyes, she had felt such an ominous feeling. In the past, when Grimstone had made her afraid, she had found strength inside her. Now she recalled what Alan had done to Siam at the ice-bound lake. He had awakened the soul spirit of the grizzly bear in Siam. She wondered if the part of her she had sometimes sensed, like a source of strength inside her, was her own soul spirit. Right there, on the lurching and heaving deck, she had sensed the wrongness of what was about to happen in that part of her – she had sensed it so strongly, so awesomely, that it was very hard to imagine that the dark would ever go away, as it always had in the past … that things would ever be all right again.

  Make me strong! she begged the soul spirit inside her.

  Tell me what to do!

  But even her soul spirit had no answer to her terror. No help came. There was only silence.

  It felt like ages since the soldiers had put her down here in the pit, and all that time she had been unable to move. Her hands were tied behind her back with leather strips which dug painfully into her skin, and her ankles were tied together in much the same way. But most terrifying of all was the leather noose the thin man had pulled tight around her neck and attached to an iron ring above her head. That was the cruellest trick the thin man could imagine. He had forced her to balance on a narrow pole that crossed the pit below her feet, so that if she slipped off the pole the noose would choke her. Even when she was down in the pit Mo had heard his rasping murmur up above her, as he was praying to his Master – a horrible kind of prayer – just to make doubly sure that nobody in the world would ever know she was trapped down here. Only then had the soldiers put the stone on top so she was left balancing on the pole in utter darkness.

  Her feet were already so swollen and sore that they could hardly bear her weight, and her muscles were jerking and shivering in the effort to balance on the pole. And now her feet were cramping and hurting and her muscles were tired from having to stand all the time. And yet, if she slipped an inch …

  ‘Oh Muh-Muh-Muh – Mark!’

  Tears came to her eyes as she called out to her brother. She had seen how lost and frightened he had looked on the deck and, in spite of her terror, she wanted to reassure him that, whatever happened, she would die still loving him. But Mark couldn’t hear her any more than Alan could. Nobody could hear her. Mark had changed since they had come into this strange and frightening world. Why had Mark changed like that? Why had he frightened her and Kate? Why, when she went to help Kate, had he pushed her away?

  In her mind, she screamed all over again with fright when she remembered that bat creature, that wasn’t really a bat but a … a kind of demon with wings, that had swooped out of the storm and caught her by the hair.

  Alan – why can’t you hear me?

  She projected her thoughts in another wild, desperate search for the triangle in his brow, repeating his name over and over for what seemed a very long time, weeping his name with her imploring mind.

  The cramping pain in her feet was becoming unbearable, and dizziness was filling her head in debilitating waves. Her legs began to judder and shake. Soon, she knew, she would lose her balance. In final desperation she thought of the only person in this terrifying world who had ever seemed to care about her. She thought of Granny Dew. She called out her name inside her mind. In her soul spirit she wept and implored it, even as a new wave of dizziness invaded her head. Terror overcame her efforts at self-control, and she suddenly felt herself toppling. Then, just as everything seemed hopeless, she heard a growl, from way back, from so very far away, and she hoped it wasn’t just the wishful thinking of her panicking mind.

  Mo spoke, ‘Is thuh-thuh-thuh-that you, Guh-Guh-Granny Duh-Duh … ?’

  I am here, Little One.

  From so far away, but coming closer – she found the will to hold on for just a few moments longer.

  ‘Is it ruh-ruh-ruh-really yuh-yuh-you? I’m fuh-fuh-fuh-frightened it muh-muh-muh-might buh-be my i-muh-magination.’

  Granny Dew knows where you are, precious one. Hold on, just a little longer.

  ‘I duh-duh-duh-don’t know if I cuh-cuh-can hold on. I’m nuh-nuh-nuh-not buh-brave enough.’

  The bravest always doubt themselves.

  Mo clenched her teeth. She clenched shut her eyes. She clenched tight every muscle in her neck, her back, her legs, but still she couldn’t stop the wobbling of her whole body from her head to her feet. She knew she was about to fall off the pole. She was about to slip, and the noose would choke her.

  ‘I cuh-cuh-cuh-cuh-can’t …’

  The wobbling became a shaking and jerking in her thighs. She couldn’t stop it.

  Hold on, little one!

  Her legs no longer belonged to her. Her knees were giving way.

  ‘Cuh-cuh-cuh-cuh …’

  A moment longer …

  She felt a movement through her hair, as if cobwebby fingers were stroking her brow. Then, suddenly, there was a scratching in the wall of the pit, close to her face, and she smelled as much as heard something small and furtive come out of the dirt – something, she imagined, that must look very much like a rat or a mole. She no longer felt alone.

  ‘Whu-whu-whu-what …?’

  A small mind that will gladly do my bidding. But first we must take care of your dizziness. Your breathing is poor and that’s what is making you dizzy. There now – take a deep breath.

  Mo took several deep breaths, one after another. Tears were pouring through her clenched eyelids and over her cheeks. She felt the little creature lick at her tears. Then it began to nibble and tear at the leather that bound her wrists. It seemed to take several fraught minutes before her hands broke free.

  ‘Thuh-thuh-thuh-thank you!’ She coughed to clear the tears that had run down her nose and into her mouth. ‘Oh, thuh-thuh-thank you so muh-muh-muh-much!’ She blinked her wet eyes open, but the darkness was still complete. ‘I cuh-cuh-cuh-can’t fuh-fuh-feel my feet.’

  Patience, child.

  Mo felt the little creature pulling at the thongs around her ankles, but the focus on her ankles made her wobble horribly and she nearly slipped. And the thong around her neck was too tight for her shaking hands to free.

  Hah! We must think again. The Preceptor is wily – the nature of what confronts us is tricky indeed. Fate, it would appear, has set us a riddle.

  ‘A ruh-ruh-ruh-ruh – ruh-riddle?’

  What else? The Preceptor sensed that he dare not kill you directly. So he set you a trap in which a mistake on your part would result in your death. But he has warded the trap with danger. We must discover a subtle solution. Yet not too subtle for you, I imagine?

  ‘Whuh-whuh-whuh – whuh-what sort of ruh-ruh-ruh-riddle?’

  Perhaps we should make a game of it? Do you like to play games?

  ‘Yuh–yuh-yuh-yes. I duh-do!’

  Well now. Riddle-me-ree! But what is the answer, hmm?

  In my case three into one will go

  But have a care if you test me so

  Need not greed should come to mind

  Or fate might choose to be unkind

  A cackle in the voice of Granny Dew: What am I, child?

  Mo so loved riddles and had often played with them in her d
aydreams. She knew the answer straight away. ‘Thuh-thuh-thuh … thuh-three wuh-wuh-wuh-wishes.’

  Three wishes it is. But think carefully now! First wish?

  Mo felt so pleased with herself that she nearly lost her balance again and she had to stop everything, even her thoughts, just to breathe in and out very slowly and regain her composure. She closed her eyes again, to concentrate with all of her might.

  ‘I wuh-wuh-wuh-wish to get out of this puh-puh-puh … puh-puh-pit.’

  This, sadly, I cannot grant. It is the nature of the ward the thin man has set for you. You must choose another.

  Mo’s heart, which had so rapidly risen, fell back into despair.

  Think, child – as I know you capable!

  ‘I wuh-wuh-wuh-wuh-wish to wuh-wuh-weigh … to wuh-weigh no muh-muh-muh-more than … than muh-muh-muh-my eyebrows.’

  Then as eyebrows you are!

  Mo felt herself float up off the pole so she was dangling from the noose around the neck, floating up and down, like a yo-yo. She felt so light that her feet no longer hurt at all and the tight noose became looser so she floated just an inch or two above the pole. With her freed hands, she loosened the noose and, after a struggle lasting a minute or so, slipped it off her neck. Immediately, she felt for the bog-oak talisman and breathed a sigh of relief to find it still dangling around her neck. She clutched it, fiercely, instinctively.

  ‘Oh, thuh-thuh-thuh-thank you – a muh-muh-muh … a muh-million times, Guh-Guh-Granny Dew. Yuh-yuh-yuh … you’re my fuh-fuh …’

  Fairy godmother, I am not. A creature of the earth am I, and the earth of me.

  ‘Thuh-thuh-thuh-then you ruh-ruh-ruh … ruh-ruh-really are the Earth Muh-Muh-Muh …?’

  Not questions – only wishes. Two more wishes you are granted. But you must discover wisdom beyond your years. Dannngggerrrr beckons!

  ‘I’ve stuh-stuh-stuh-stammered all muh-muh-my life. I duh-duh-don’t want to stuh-stuh-stuh-stammer any muh-more.’

  So, let it be!

  Mo’s heart leaped in her chest. Her mouth was so dry she had to moisten her lips with her tongue to speak. ‘Whuh-whuh-when?’

  When you discover your true name!

  ‘Buh-buh-buh-buh-buh …’

  Precious to you is the name your birth mother gave you, on a silver chain around your neck when you were abandoned.

  ‘Muh-muh-muh-my real muh-muh-muh …?’

  They hid your true name from you.

  Outrage flared in Mo’s mind. She forgot her desperate situation, so powerful was her need to know more about her real Australian mother. Was she dead? Did she really hate her baby daughter so much that she gave her to Grimstone and Bethal without a backwards glance?

  ‘Whuh-whuh-whuh … whuh-why?’

  Little one, there are reasons for secrets. Your real name has searched for you, and now it has found you. Mira is the name your real mother gave you. In her eyes your name ever brought a smile.

  In spite of the terror that surrounded her, Mo smiled too, and it seemed that in that same moment the shy, stammering Mo was gone. Her fingers rose and touched her lips.

  ‘Mira? My name is Mira?’ Mo’s heart leaped in her chest as she realised that she really had lost her stammer. ‘I want to know so much. I want to know about my mother – and my father too. I want to know about my real parents.’

  No questions for now! Such answers will find you in time. The truth, for the present, is dangerous.

  ‘Oh, please?’

  Your mother was herself a lost and bewildered soul. She died of sorrow when you were not yet one year old.

  Mo’s head dropped. ‘My mother died?’

  Yet still she loved you. You sensed it, child, even as you lay curled within her, how you were the fulcrum of her world – as one day, if fate is just, you will become the fulcrum of another.

  ‘I don’t understand you, Granny Dew. Only that you say that my mother is dead. Oh – I didn’t want to hear that.’

  Truth is pain.

  ‘I knew she loved me. I always knew.’

  Hush now. And remember this. Mira must not speak of this, not to a soul. A time will come when it is right to tell, and Mira will know it when that time comes. But not until the time is right can you speak your name. You will promise Granny Dew?

  ‘Oh! Must I?’

  The whisper became a guttural roar: Dannngggerrr – child!

  Mo’s head fell. ‘Then, yes, I promise.’

  All depends on your keeping that secret. Yet there is one more wish, and you must think very hard and make it the cleverest wish of all.

  Above the pit Mo heard a scuffling noise. Somebody – or something – was scratching and scraping over the slab of stone.

  ‘My third wish is that you care for me – that you never leave me. So I shall never be alone again.’

  So be it!

  Immediately, there was a rush of cold air and Mo looked up at the towering figure that was faintly outlined against the moonlight. Her heart faltered as she recognised that cunning and vicious face.

  ‘Trust the guile of old Snakoil Kawkaw to know the tricks of those back-stabbing Storm Wolves! Eh! What say you, brat?’

  The Sister Child

  A fire of brushwood flickered by the head of the dying Valéra, as Ainé and Muîrne sat cross-legged on either side of their wounded companion, under a rough bower of pine branches. The remaining Shee had withdrawn to the forest, leaving these two to tend her through the night. The only concession to the presence of Milish was the acceptance of healwell from her hands, yet even this Muîrne insisted on administering herself in the privacy of the bower.

  It had been snowing gently all night, and dawn of the following day broke with a leaden sky, heavy with foreboding.

  During the intervals when Muîrne left the sickbed to fetch more brushwood, Alan caught glimpses of Ainé, her cloak covering her sagging shoulders, her great frame rocking slowly with the litany of her night-long lament.

  His Olhyiu surcoat and fur-lined boots had been recovered from the main encampment of the Storm Wolves and the Aides, which, as Alan had discovered, was pronounced Ay-des, and was the same term for one or many. He had dried these over a fire and resealed the leather with a rubbing of tallow and a thin, pine-scented oil, ready for wear. He was glad to have them back, since the cold, even several hours after dawn, was still extreme. The boy they had rescued slept more soundly than any of them, thanks to herbs administered by Milish, who came to join Alan by the fireside for a breakfast of bread and salted meat. She asked about his aching joints but, given Valéra’s condition, he was in no mood to grumble about his own aches and pains. Then Milish made a signal, to hush any further discussion, before leading him away from the scene of tragedy.

  ‘I still don’t understand.’ Alan shook his head at her as they were walking into the pine woods. ‘Other Shee have died and there was less grieving over them. And Valéra’s condition, surely you could do more to help her? You’ve got herbs, and I guess you also have knowledge too that might help her.’

  ‘There is a deeper injury to Valéra than a mortal wound, even from the blade of a Preceptor.’ The eyes of the Ambassador caught Alan’s and he glimpsed there some special grief he didn’t understand.

  Alan couldn’t help thinking about Mo, and the fact that they had been unable to find her. He couldn’t bear to think of what those sadistic soldiers might have done to her. For all he knew, she might be dead by now. Milish had to shake his shoulder, to bring him back to full attention. They walked over the snow-dappled forest floor for another thirty yards or so, a time in which Alan studied Milish more closely.

  Her hair was a lustrous blue-black, the long straight strands parted centrally over her forehead, swept down in careful arcs over her temples, with folds that hid the upper third of her big-lobed, fleshy ears, then swept back to be brought together and lifted above her head in a plume of silver filigree at least nine inches high. The plume was kept in place by a heavy clasp of that same antique silver.
It was a beautiful creation, encircled at the base by bottle-green and copper-blue enamelwork of intertwined foliage and blossoms that extended halfway up the plume.

  He spoke softly, reflectively. ‘I can’t see how you knew my name. You talked as if you were expecting me.’

  ‘Mage Lord – all of Monisle has been expecting you and your companions for a generation.’

  ‘Then maybe you can tell me why we’re here. Why us? How come my friends and I were brought here?’

  ‘Is it possible that you know nothing of the sacred honour that was entrusted to you? Are you not the chosen ones of the last High Architect of Ossierel, Ussha De Danaan – falsely scorned as the Great Blasphemer?’

  Alan sighed with irritation. All he ever seemed to get in answer to his questions was more riddles. ‘I don’t understand anything of what you’re telling me.’

  Then, suddenly, Milish was embracing his head with passion. Her eyes roamed his features in what appeared to be wonderment.

  ‘Oh, believe it, Alan Duval! There can be no mistaking the Oraculum of the First Power of the Holy Trídédana! The force of the land – of the very elements! It is true! You bear it on your brow. You, and the companions you speak of, are the hope of an entire world!’

  He just shook his head in disbelief. There were so many questions he would have liked to ask Milish. But she escorted him onward, leading them further away from the scene of lamentation to emerge from the trees into the smaller battle arena, where the bodies of seven or eight Storm Wolves still lay in the scatter of their deaths, their spilled blood frozen to the snowy ground.

  Only now did Alan remember to look for Kawkaw. He scanned the ground for his body but there was no sign of it. He did find the leather thongs that had bound the traitor but they were neatly cut, manoeuvred against the edge of one of many fallen swords. How likely was it that the hateful man, exhausted and maimed, would have survived the night in this bitter landscape?