by Terry Madden
Dish watched her confusion grow deeper.
“You crossed over, Elowen. To the land of the dead.”
She slumped to the ground beside him, defeated, yet she glowed with the vivid energy of that other world.
“So it seems, my lord.”
“But you’re not dead. You brought your body with you. How? Tell me how.” He gave up trying to quell the desperation in his voice. “Maybe it’s just some… dream. You and me dreaming at the same time.”
“I did not dream this,” she said. Her hand went to her neck and found the ligature. “I felt what it was to drown, to lie at the bottom of a bog pool and watch for days through water. And then… he touched me.”
“Who?”
“The most beautiful man in two worlds.” Her eyes glazed over and she glanced around frantically. “Then he was gone.”
“The most beautiful man?”
“He touched me, and I could move. And then I was drowning again, so I sat myself up, and–”
“And what?”
“I kissed him.”
“You kissed Connor?”
“His name is Connor?”
“Where has he gone? This man you kissed?”
She ran back to the brook, waded in and frantically searched the bottom. “Gone.” She touched her lips, deep in thought. “Angharad’s little moth.”
“Angharad?”
“Your daughter, my lord.”
**
It required complex instructions to direct Elowen to the wheelbarrow stored in the shed behind Merryn’s cottage. The rain had begun to fall in earnest while Dish waited for her to return with it.
Had this exchange been part of the blood magic Connor had worked? Lyleth always said that shaping the energy of creation always came with a cost to the caster. Was this the price Connor would pay for sending Merryn across? But what about Elowen?
She had explained the little she knew of her trip between worlds, how Talan had strangled her and dropped her in the water. She had felt the cord cut her throat, felt the water in her lungs, and then looked up at a dawn sky through clear water. There was something about a moth that the child Angharad had deposited in her mouth. When she kissed Connor, the moth went to his mouth. But Dish wasn’t sure what made her kiss him in the first place. And why was Talan strangling young women and throwing them into the Red Bog?
She finally returned through the pasture pushing the red muck cart.
“Now tip it up so it stands vertically,” he instructed, pointing at the wheelbarrow. There was something satisfying about speaking the tongue of the Five Quarters again. It must be what foreigners feel when they meet a countryman. “No, right behind my back.”
He gripped the rusting metal sides of the bucket and hoisted his rear into it.
“You’ve no druada here to see to this ‘paralysis?’” Elowen said.
“I’ve seen plenty. There’s no healing this. Now tip it back up and let’s see if you can move me.”
She tipped the wheelbarrow slowly, and he tried not to shift too much and throw her off balance. He slid back until he was lying in the cart, staring into the falling rain and the dung that clung to the walls. Sheep dung was the least of Dish’s worries now. They had six years of information to share, but it would have to wait. Connor was… gone, most certainly crossed over.
The radiant fire of Elowen’s face eclipsed the gray sky as she peered down at him. Like an icon of a saint, a rippling halo tried to contain her brightness. A few blonde curls had escaped the wet braids and turned golden. She had grown up indeed these six years.
“A child was brought to Lyleth at the hive with this ‘paralysis,’” she was saying. “She worked on him daily for a year.”
“Did he walk?”
“In a manner of speaking, with sticks.” She set to pushing the wheelbarrow. “I’m not sure I can move ye, my lord.”
“What happened to ‘dead man’? That’s what you used to call me. And it seems more fitting now than it ever did. Try pulling it.”
She returned his smile, and turned around and attempted to pull the wheelbarrow like a cart.
At last, she got it moving. The air-filled single tire made the going a bit easier, but Dish wasn’t light.
“Tell me about Angharad.” He couldn’t wait for this. He had to know.
“She’s a different child, she is.”
“Angharad,” he said again. “‘One who is much loved.’ I’m certain she is just that.” He should know his daughter’s name; Lyleth must have whispered it to him in his dreams.
The wheelbarrow stopped. Out of breath, with hands on her hips, Elowen looked down at him and said, “Your daughter is like none we’ve ever known. She has hair the color of a smithy’s forge fire, and eyes as wild as Lyl’s. But at six summers she’s like an acolyte what’s finished her studies. She’s—”
“Death’s Child,” Dish finished for her. “And if I hear what you tell me, Talan has taken her as his ward, and he’s left you to drown in a bog pool.”
“Not just his ward. His solás.”
The trek began again.
“His solás?”
Dish could see nothing but sky and the golden fall of Elowen’s braids down her back. Was this exchange between worlds planned or accidental? Had Angharad sent Elowen for some purpose or was she looking for Connor? Fishing with Elowen? Or did she merely mean to save Elowen from drowning with thoughts to retrieve her later? They had nearly reached the upper pasture gate when he heard a car at the bottom of the long drive.
“Bloody hell.”
It was Peavey, certainly, here to look after the flock. Lies were never Dish’s area of expertise, and it seemed he had done nothing but lie today.
“Stars and stones!” Elowen cried. “What in the name of the green gods is that thing?!”
She was hunched down on the ground behind the cart.
“It’s all right. It’s this world’s version of a wagon. No horses needed. Now, you need to get inside that cottage there while I speak to the man inside that wagon.”
Elowen worked the latch on the gate and wheeled Dish through the stile and onto the gravel drive just as Peavey’s old Subaru completed the winding way from the road. She dropped the handles of the cart and ran for the house.
He heard the door of the cottage slam shut just as Peavey’s car pulled up beside the wheelbarrow.
With a view of nothing but sky, Dish listened to Peavey open and shut his creaking car door, his footsteps crunching gravel as he approached. Then his square, grizzled face was peering down at Dish.
“What are you doing in the muck cart, Mr. Cavendish?”
“My wheelchair broke down. Connor’s gone into town to find a part to repair it.”
“Oh, I’ll have a look at it for ye—”
“Not necessary, really. It’s but a small part. Connor will have it fixed up in a jiff.”
“I thought I saw a young lady go into the house?”
“My niece. Yes. She arrived last night. I have some rough news, Mr. Peavey. Merryn passed early this morning.”
The old man turned away and muttered, “Stars and stones.”
“What was that?” Dish was sure of what he’d heard. ‘Stars and stones’ was a common euphemism in the Five Quarters, but he’d never heard it uttered here.
“A blessing and a curse at once,” Peavey turned back. But there were questions in his old gray eyes. “And Connor was with her, eh?”
“Yes. Connor arrived in time.”
“And lucky your niece was here as well. I thought your sister had only boys,” Peavey pointed out.
“She’s the daughter of a close friend. As much a niece to me as she can be, really.”
“Oh, aye. And your sister? She was here for the passing?” Peavey pushed his cap back, and beads of rainwater fell on Dish.
Oh Christ, Bronwyn. Dish hadn’t called her immediately. How could he explain that? “She’s on her way,” he told Peavey.
“I see.” Peavey pulled his
cap lower over his forehead, his eyes fogged with tears as he gazed out over the flock. “Can I roll ye somewhere more comfortable, sir?”
“No, no. Elowen will be back for me presently.”
“But you’re sittin’ in the rain, sir.”
“Yes. I’m fine.”
“So ‘tis. Sir, with your aunt Merryn gone, there are some words I must have with ye.”
“I understand if you can’t stay on—”
“That’s not it, sir. Can we talk?”
“Can we talk later? I really must see to Bronwyn who will be here any moment. But we shall. Perhaps tonight.”
“Certainly, sir.” He tipped his cap.
“Thank you, Mr. Peavey.”
Gripping the edges of the wheelbarrow, Dish hoisted himself so he could just see out. He glanced toward the cottage and saw Elowen’s face flash from behind the lace curtains like a dog waiting for its owner to return. Dish waved Elowen to him.
When she reached him, she needed no instruction. She picked up the cart handles and headed for the cottage, threatening to tip the wheelbarrow in her haste. Dish pulled his hands in from the edge of the bucket as she rolled him up the plywood ramp that covered the front steps and slowly eased him through the door jamb, scraping both sides as she did.
Once inside, she slammed the door. Her face crossed his field of view as she paced, a vibrant glow set against the dingy ceiling. She was raving about the Sunless, about the Crooked One who was imprisoned in the cromm cruach.
“Can you get me out of this thing?” he begged her.
Dish had come to know the true meaning of helplessness, but when Elowen poured him out onto the sofa in a fall of wet dung, he thought he’d reached a new low.
He tried to explain what had happened here, how Lyleth and Merryn were druada of the Old Blood, how Connor had been conscripted to help Merryn cross over by planting the tree, all while Elowen cleaned up the mess of sheep dung. Then he called Bronwyn, formulating another lie about why it had taken him so long to do so.
In the short space of time before Bronwyn arrived, Elowen filled in the blanks. She recounted everything that had happened from the day Talan had arrived at the Isle of Glass until he strangled her in the Red Bog. As she talked, she wandered the small cottage, flipping the light switches on and off in every room, standing in front of the fridge and staring inside. But she withheld her questions, clearly knowing that relating her story was more important than exploring the magic of the dead.
She summarized her story with finality, looking Dish right in the eye. “Talan is trying to set the Crooked One free.”
Dish knew the stories as well as anyone from the Five Quarters. The Crooked One was a fairytale monster, a bogeyman, part of the folklore of the land, nothing more. But it appeared the thing that distressed Elowen most was that Angharad was helping him. The child had stood by placidly while he’d strangled Elowen.
“But she put the moth in your mouth,” Dish reminded her. “So she did do something.”
When Bronwyn’s car pulled into the drive, he sent Elowen to hide in the bedroom closet.
Bronwyn burst into the cottage and encased Dish in a weepy hug, oblivious to the fact that he was soaking wet and smelled of sheep dung.
“My god, Hugh, why didn’t you call me?”
“I’m sorry, Wyn. I—I needed to take care of the body, and the inspector was here, and it was awful, just awful.”
In that moment, he came close to telling Bronwyn everything. She deserved the truth. But he realized the truth he knew was nothing more than a glimpse of what was really going on. Blood magic and sacrifice and Angharad’s little moth. How could he explain something he didn’t understand himself? And if Elowen was right, and Talan was trying to awaken the Crooked One, Connor might find himself right in the thick of it.
“Why are you soaking wet, Hugh?” Bronwyn was staring at him, waiting for a response to a question she must have repeated. “And you smell like you’ve been in with the sheep.”
“Huh? Oh. I was caught out in the rain. Connor took me for a walk, I needed the air.”
He pushed his wheelchair to the sofa where Bronwyn sat. He took her hands in his as she rambled on about funeral arrangements. But Dish could only think of how he might find a way to conjure such a moth again. If Connor could cross, Dish could cross. Someone needed to stop Talan.
“Where is Connor?”
The lies were coming too easily now, and that distressed him. “I sent him on an errand. He’ll be back soon.”
Chapter 10
Dusk was deepening, the threshold passing, that moment when day and night, living and dead, meet and touch. Lyleth dropped her bow and drew her knife. An arrow might miss him or hit Angharad, but not a knife. Talan was on his knees beside the pool surrounding the cromm cruach, and Angharad’s hand rested reassuringly on his shoulder. She could reach him if she ran. He’d be dead before his guards knew what happened. She had taken one step when Nesta dragged her back behind the standing stone, a hand clamped over Lyleth’s mouth.
“It’ll do no good to get caught now,” Nesta whispered. “We must go from this place.”
Lyleth gave her a forceful shove back toward the bog. “Go, then,” Lyleth told her. “Just go!”
“So be it. But if you die, what will become of your child?” With a long look over her shoulder, the Brehon waded back into the cattails and was gone.
Lyleth strained through the gathering darkness to see Talan and Angharad at the center of the island. Elowen was gone, vanished beneath the pool, and Angharad stood silently by while Talan waded in. He swam across the pool to the cromm cruach, and reached his arms around the bulbous stone in a pathetic embrace. He stroked it, chanting something in what sounded like the tongue of the Old Blood. Then she caught a few words as he circled. The words of waking stone. The same words Lyleth had used to raise Nechtan.
Talan had sacrificed Elowen, hoping to free the god with the words of waking stone. But he had failed. He swam three circles widdershins round it, then paused, his arms spread wide as if in total surrender. Then he loosed a cry that resounded across the bog, scattering birds from their evening roost and echoing between the twelve Knights of Stone. He beat on it with his fists, cursed it, cajoled it and wept great sobs.
“None but he can set me free,” he cried. “Set me free, damn you!”
Dylan had roused and cried out from where he lay in the mud, “Murderer! Bloody bastard! I’ll kill you myself!”
Talan climbed from the pool and strode over to where Dylan lay and kicked him in the face. Taking a sword from a soldier, he raised it up, uttering again the words of waking stone, the madness in his eyes visible from where Lyleth hid. Talan buried the blade in Dylan’s back, then yanked it free and headed back to the pool of the cromm cruach.
Lyleth bit the back of her hand, stifling her own cries.
Once across the water, Talan hammered the pommel of the sword against the stone as if he could break it open. He wept and wailed and cursed and pleaded.
And all the while, Angharad stood at the water’s edge, her hands clasped, silent as a tree. She’d watched him murder Elowen, and made no cry of protest when he stabbed Dylan. Would he kill her next? Hot tears blurred Lyleth’s view. The instinct to cross the ground to Angharad, scoop her up, and run was all she could think of. Until Angharad looked over her shoulder and cast a look that rooted her in place.
Angharad knew she was there.
**
Lyleth sat with her back pressed to the stone, peering out intermittently to keep her eye on the guard that circled the island on his watch. Talan, still raving, had yet to climb out of the pool. Nesta was right. Even if she had a clear shot at him, the guards would kill her before she could flee. What would become of Angharad then?
If she was lucky, she thought, he would drown in the pool. Then she could make her move.
Several of the guards had fallen asleep, their backs to one another or leaning against a standing stone. Lyleth slid into
the cattails every time the guard came around, and now she shivered with the wet cold. A crescent moon was rising when Talan finally stumbled from the pool. He roused the guards, and they prepared to cross the bog in the darkness. Lyleth watched as Angharad climbed on Talan’s back like a child taking a ride from her father, then he waded into the bog, and they were gone.
Lyleth’s heart threatened to burst with pain.
She wanted to follow, but not without seeing to Dylan. How many men had she carried from the battlefield and healed from such wounds?
Once she was certain Talan and his companions were far from the island, she crept from behind the stone and made her way to where Dylan lay, several paces from the Crooked One’s pool.
Moonlight glanced from the rippling surface of the water, yet there was no wind. It was as if Talan still moved it with his thrashing. But that wasn’t it. Something moved beneath it. The stone itself was wet and glistened in the silvery light. It moved, too. The surface of stone wriggled. She forced herself to move closer until she stood at the water’s edge. It wasn’t water on the stone, but pale worms. The stone was extruding wriggling creatures. Worms, insects that shook water from their wings and took flight—dragonflies, grasshoppers, blowflies, all crawling from the stone, taking wing, or dropping into the water.
She backed away, and when she looked at her feet, snakes slithered past, all moving outward from the pool of the Crooked One. Their skin was translucent as larvae as they headed for the bog. She would see to Dylan and leave this place as quickly as possible.
She found a faint pulse fluttering in Dylan and set to work cutting his tunic away. She hated herself for the overwhelming desire to flee this haunted place. She would do everything she could for him and hope that Talan’s tracks were easy to follow in the morning. The king and his companions had crossed the bog to the south. This could only mean they had no intention of returning to Caer Ys, at least not yet. South and west of here lay Caer Emlyn, Fiach’s fortress. What could Talan want with Fiach?
Even though it was night, black flies converged on Dylan’s exposed skin, forcing her to cover him with her cloak while she probed the wound. She could see little by moonlight, and the rushlights in her rucksack were completely soaked. From what she could tell, Talan’s blade had slid between the ribs, likely puncturing his right lung. If it had pierced his liver, there may be nothing she could do. It was hard to say how much blood he’d lost inside, let alone how much had mixed with the muddy turf beneath him. His nose was broken, and one side of his face was dark with a bruise.