by Terry Madden
“Will you come in, Mr. Peavey?” Dish asked.
The man hesitated, his eyes flitting from Iris to Dish. He removed his cap and clutched it before him. As he did, his look subtly changed. He wasn’t a different man, but he was a different version of the man. And Dish thought he saw the flash of gold in his eyes. Dish had never met the man called Ned so he would not recognize him. But Iris certainly would. And if Peavey was a guardian, then the location of the well must be known to him.
Peavey stepped into the foyer.
“I know what Merryn had planned for me,” Dish said to him. “I know the child was the goal of the trap you laid with the well on the beach. Jolly good, you caught me. But my child is alive in that world, carrying out whatever the gods have planned for her, and I am now a helpless bystander. I can’t blame you for being loyal to Merryn—”
“What child?” Bronwyn called from the drawing room. “And what book?”
“Mr. Peavey…” Dish began.
“Call me Ned. The girl’s right. And I expect you have some questions.”
Mr. Peavey, Ned, accepted a cup of tea and took a chair in the drawing room. Dish didn’t want this to turn into an interrogation.
Iris didn’t sit. She paced, as if she would stop Peavey from bolting if he tried. And Bronwyn poured herself another glass of whisky.
Dish didn’t know where to start. But the questions poured forth, and if body language was the same for guardians as humans, Ned was being fairly honest in his replies. He confirmed Dish’s suspicions that Merryn wasn’t out to open the well, but to hide it.
“It’s what I been trying to tell ye,” he said. “’Twas her sacred duty, for if the Sunless cross, they’ll take the land from both the Ildana and the Old Blood. They wield strong blood magic, like we never seen before. They’ve become more powerful than even the druada of the Old Blood,” Peavey explained. “And when Angharad opens the well, the third epoch will begin.”
Third epoch? Dish had never heard of such a term. “Then why did you and Merryn set this in motion? Why did you send me back to engender this child if you knew what would come?”
“Because she wanted to—to shape it,” Peavey said, searching for words. “She knew when the time was right, when the right people were where they should be, when destiny was ready to be served.” He used the Ildana word for destiny, tyngeda, which carried a meaning unknown in English. But the word resonated in the shared mind of Dish and Nechtan. It meant the cumulative experiences of a soul’s many incarnations leading to a single moment in time.
“I wanted to tell you,” Ned continued. “I wanted to let you know about the people coming to the stream. They know it’s coming.”
“What’s coming?” Bronwyn asked, slurring her words.
“The opening of the well,” Ned said to Bronwyn. “See, the Old Blood are not all sweetness and light, as your Aunt Merryn would have you believe. There are those who practice a dark magic and follow their twisted king, the Crooked One—”
“The Sunless,” Dish said. He pulled the book from under his bum and held it up. “They were after the book because it shows the location of the well. So you took it from Connor to be sure they wouldn’t get their hands on it. Because you and Merryn have always known where the well is. It’s right here on Merryn’s farm.”
“And now they know too. It’s why they’ve been snooping around here.”
Just then, the front door opened. Elowen stepped inside, clutching a large handbag to her chest. Her cheeks were pink as if from exertion, and there were leaves in her hair.
“They’re gone?” she asked.
“And she’s come at last,” Peavey said in Ildana, standing and showing his palms in reverence to Elowen. “And so we know the time is soon. Very soon.”
“Who’s come?” Dish asked.
Ned pointed at the wriggling handbag. “The guardian of the third well.”
“I thought you were the well guardian,” Dish said.
“Not of that well. Hell, that’s a job no one would want. It’s why Merryn trapped her in a jar for all these years. To keep her safe, away from the Sunless, until the time came.”
“And the time has come,” Dish stated.
“Sure as hell looks that way.”
“Whatever is about to happen,” Bronwyn stated, “I think I need more whisky.”
**
Bronwyn had found an unopened bottle of Merryn’s favorite, Two Blind Dogs Scotch Whisky, stashed in the closet not far from the salamander. She poured everyone a glass, and they sat around the small table by the sofa like conspirators. Dish drew the curtains, uncertain if any of the Sunless would try to see what was happening in the cottage.
“She’s calmed down somewhat now,” Elowen smiled. She had been hiding down by the brook as the police searched the house and barn. Now, she set the handbag on the table, and the creature peeked out. Just its head showed.
Bronwyn clutched her glass and got up from the sofa. “I’ll be in the bedroom if you need me.”
Elowen said, “She’s not Ceinwen. Her stars are different.”
“Who’s Ceinwen?” Ned asked.
“The salamander Angharad found in Caer Ys. She found it in a jar, not unlike the one this one was trapped in. It was on a shelf in the room that once belonged to the soulstalker. The one who…” Elowen’s eyes found Dish. He saw they were filled with tears. “The one who killed my king. Nechtan.”
“The guardian’s sister,” Ned declared with undisguised joy. “And the child has the salamander with her?”
“Aye,” Elowen said.
Dish, or Nechtan, remembered Irjan’s room well, though he purposely never went in. It reeked of death, of countless beings, all ground between pestle and mortar into dust. Dish translated for Iris as best he could. She had taken Bronwyn’s seat on the sofa and now stared at the creature with furrowed brow.
“Ceinwen’s stars are not the same,” Elowen stated.
“Stars?” Dish asked.
“The pattern there on her back,” Elowen said. “They make designs that match up to the shapes of the stars in the sky. Ceinwen’s stars were shaped like the Seven Sisters, and that’s why Angharad called her Ceinwen, but this one here, I’d say this must be a shape from this world’s sky. From the land of the dead.”
Peavey reached a reverential hand out to the salamander and whispered words in a language Dish did not understand. Certainly, words spoken between the guardians. The creature seemed to calm down and stepped out of the handbag and onto the glass table.
Peavey said in English, “The stars mark the rising of the night sky as it will be when she opens the well.”
“Then we just need to interpret them using a star map,” Dish said.
“Two salamanders,” Iris said, “one on either side. Both in jars on shelves.”
The size of a small cat, the creature climbed into Elowen’s lap and then up to her shoulder. It clung to her tee shirt with claws that looked like long fingers, terminating in razor sharp talons. As Dish leaned closer, it hissed at him. It snapped its mouth shut into an amphibian smile.
He opened his phone and snapped a photo of the constellation of golden spots on its back. He’d have to do some research on this.
“I think she’s hungry,” Elowen said. “I’ll go find her some slugs.”
**
Peavey offered to keep watch over the salamander, but Dish had no intention of trusting Peavey, or anyone else for that matter. The creature trusted Elowen, and that was enough for Dish. He rigged up a leash of sorts from some clothesline he found in Merryn’s kitchen. Elowen became tied to the thing.
Bronwyn had passed out in the bedroom and Dish had sent Peavey home, wherever that was for a well guardian, with the admonition to watch for the Sunless and alert him to any strangers on the land.
No one was to go near the salamander until he was certain of what was to happen next. It seemed that Ned was the guardian of some standard-issue life well, of which there were hundreds all over Brita
in. A small-time player who got promoted somewhere along the way, or maybe enslaved, by Merryn. Her task of keeping the third well of the sea hidden from the Sunless had been her duty from the start. And now that duty had fallen to Dish, if he had put the pieces together correctly.
Iris made sandwiches.
She bit into hers, saying, “Ned took Connor across to the other side and just left him there.” She washed it down with whisky. “He’s an evil fuck.”
“I don’t think he’s lying about the Sunless.”
“He could be one of them himself,” Iris said.
Merryn had left the book here in her house for Dish to find. Or Connor. After all, she left all her books to Connor. If she’d wanted to keep it from Connor, she’d have put it elsewhere, or given it to Ned to keep elsewhere. No, Merryn wanted Dish or Connor to find the stone, for it marked the well in space, if not time.
Iris scooped a fall of black hair behind her heavily studded ear and poured another glass of whisky for Dish. “On the other hand,” she said, “Have you ever considered that Merryn might be one of these ‘Sunless’?”
He laughed. “Not for a moment.” How could that be true? Then he replayed the scenario of her death, Connor’s task of bleeding her and using her blood to send her back. Clearly blood magic. There was no denying it. But it didn’t mean she was Sunless, just that she had used their magic for her own ends.
“If that were so,” Dish said, “why would Merryn leave this for me to find?” He waved the book again.
“I don’t know,” Iris said.
Dish took a swallow. “If the way between the worlds is opened,” he said, “and the Old Blood return to their land… there will be war. Unless…”
“Unless what?”
“Unless the king of the Ildana welcomes them. Makes peace.” As he said it, the possibility became real. Maybe Lyl was going through the same thought process, working out all possible outcomes.
“What are you thinking?” Iris pressed.
“Talan is Sunless. He’s taken Angharad as his solás because he knows she will be the one to call the Old Blood home. The Ildana won’t stand a chance when they come through.”
His mind reeled. He tried to think the way Lyl would think. She would do everything in her power to take Talan down. If she was successful, Angharad would be the only blood of Nechtan’s left alive. She would sit on his throne. But could she prevent a war? Dish was afraid to consider the options available to Lyl, especially with Angharad at Talan’s side; his leverage could not be stronger.
Just then, another knock came at the front door.
“Oh, bloody hell,” Dish whispered. “Celeste.”
“What?”
He took a deep breath and started for the door. “We have a date.”
Chapter 22
The moon had reached zenith while Lyleth and Connor gazed into the darkness of their souls. As the vision passed, Connor had to force himself to breathe again, to return to the weakened body he had left beside a fire in the woods. The darkness he had seen in that soothblade hid in every part of his being.
How could he not have known who he was?
The horror of a single lifetime weighed him down with grief, and he wanted nothing more than to die, to be cradled in the great oblivion of the Void.
He felt Lyleth’s eyes on him, and could not meet them. He threw his soothblade into the dying fire and tried to get to his feet. He wanted to run as far from Lyleth as he could. He got to his knees and then staggered to his feet, but his failing body gave way and collapsed.
Lyleth gazed down at him, the black snake of her braid touching his cheek. “I don’t know whether to pity you, or kill you.”
She placed the tip of her soothblade to Connor’s throat. “I choose the later.”
The blade dug deeper into his throat, but Dylan knocked it from her hand.
“In the name of stars and stones!” he cried, “What are you doing?”
“Let her be,” Connor demanded.
Lyleth took Connor by the hair, yanked his head back and exposed his neck. He made no move to fight her.
“If I cut you,” Lyleth raved, “will worms fall from your throat like Talan’s?”
“Do it,” Connor begged her, “and you’ll know the answer.”
“What’s going on?!” Dylan demanded.
“Leave us,” Lyleth told him.
“Not for a second. Some kind of madness has seeped into your brains. From those – those blades of yours. Connor’s done you no wrong, Lyl.”
“Hasn’t he now? Not in this life, maybe.”
“Stay out of this, Dylan,” Connor said.
But he took hold of Lyleth and forcefully dragged her away from Connor.
She shook him off, saying, “The soothblade you thought was Merryn’s is yours, just as this one,” Lyleth waved her blade before him, “is mine. Merryn knew we would end up here, you and me, exposing our pasts like buried bones. And what did she think would happen next? That I would let the blood scribe of Tiernmas live?”
“What?” Dylan cried. “Blood scribe?”
Connor drew his knees to his chest and hung his head between them. “Just do it. Please.”
“I picked up green stones in the river and walked through a hundred lives… but there was one that changed the fate of an entire people. In that one life, I was a druí of the Old Blood,” Lyleth said. “I honored the green gods and led the revolt against the Crooked One and his blood scribe, the shaper of sap and serum, sinew and bone. I lost that battle. Against you.”
She paced around the dying fire, saying, “Yet Merryn let you live. Merryn wanted this moment to come.”
“She thought I had changed,” he said, remembering another lifetime spent with Merryn, learning to temper his skills into something akin to healing, more like a defiance of death. “She thought she had redeemed me.”
“And did she?”
“Nothing can lift the darkness from my soul. Not even Merryn.”
He felt Dylan’s cold blade at his neck, his brotherly concern replaced with fear, no doubt. Who would let the blood scribe of Tiernmas live?
Dylan said, “Give me the word, Lyl.” But his hand was quaking. Connor could feel it through the blade.
He closed his eyes and waited for the blow, but felt only warm breath on his face. He opened his eyes as Brixia’s velvety muzzle touched his cheek.
Lyleth must believe as Connor did that Brixia was the messenger of the gods. But whose gods? In all the stones he drew from the river, Connor never saw Brixia with him.
“He’ll bleed to death soon enough,” Lyleth decided. “Sheathe your sword, Dylan.”
“You have to end this!” Connor clutched at Lyleth’s hand. “Let me forget, let me start over again.”
“And not find out what you’re here for? Merryn has some grand plan. I have a grand plan, one that I am wary of, in truth. But I’ve no other path to follow now but hers. And mine.”
Frantically, Connor began to tear the bandage from his arm to let the blood flow freely. Bleeding to death was easy. He’d inflicted it enough times. But he didn’t deserve to die so peacefully.
Lyleth put her hand on his, struggling to calm her voice. “You’ll just find yourself again, you know.”
“I can’t go back there!” Connor felt panic welling in his breast. She was going to take him to the bog.
She went on in that falsely placid voice, “The truth is, the well will open with or without you.” She began roughly rewrapping the bandage on his arm. “You’re here for a reason. What that might be, I couldn’t say. But Angharad brought you here. Brixia protects you. I intend to find out why.”
“I can’t face him when he wakes,” Connor pleaded. “I’ll never serve him again. Never.”
Connor had sculpted a king from the malformed body of a ruthless, grasping man. He had shaped the life force of a thousand sacrificed children, had made Tiernmas into more than a king, he’d made a demon-god. And when Talan awakened him… Connor could not
be there.
“You made him,” Lyleth demanded. “You can unmake him.”
“Some things cannot be unmade.”
“Yet the river of time can be diverted before returning to its course to the sea,” she said.
Lyleth, of all people, would know that to be true. She’d brought Nechtan back from the dead; she had found her way back to the Five Quarters so that she could bring forth the child who would set the Old Blood free.
“Without you beside him,” she said, “the Crooked One will not prevail.”
He gave a hopeless laugh and wiped at his tears.
She sat down beside him, saying, “You are a different man now. Your allegiance is to a different king.”
**
As the first light of dawn warmed the east, Connor stared into the darkness of the trees while Lyleth slept. Brixia lay on the soft ground beside him, curled up like a dog. With Brixia’s help, Connor had once floated between the worlds on an eddy of green magic. He wanted to be there again. There he understood what he’d known all along, that every atom, every molecule in the universe vibrated in unison with sound and light. There was only one forest, one sky, one sea, one great living beast. Once he had known how to gather it up, reshape it from the inside, not like the crude machines in the land of the dead that manipulate rigid principles of physics. Connor knew how to harvest the resonant hum of existence, amplify and direct it, to reorder atoms and molecules, to sculpt with the hands of will.
The universe sings with blood and bone, star and stone, and its song was all he could hear anymore.
He recalled with painful accuracy that day from a thousand years ago as if it happened yesterday, the smell of the damp bog air, of rotting moss soaked with blood. He was a captive of Black Brac. The battle that had been waged for three days left the plain covered with the dead and the sky black with crows. The deal had been struck. The king of the Ildana used a silver axe to sever Tiernmas’ head with a single stroke. And though it kept talking, he packed the head with cedar oil and wrapped it in the hide of a white mare. He placed it in a box carved from yew wood. His druada worked the spell, Lyleth among them. She was a druí of the Old Blood who chose to share her knowledge with the Ildana in an attempt to defeat the Sunless. A traitor of sorts. But they had not defeated Tiernmas, they’d only delayed him.