Out into the road went Jewel, over the stile in the hawthorn hedge and across the field toward the stand of leafless liquidambars on the borders of the orchard. Underfoot, the frozen grass rustled like crisp silk with every step. Small herbs amongst the grasses stuck out as stiff as crystallized angelica, each with its ice-powder sprinkling, each meticulously outlined in polar fur.
From down in the hedge to her left came the burble of tiny voices. Slowing her pace, she crept quietly up to the source. There, beneath an arched gap at the roots of the hawthorns, two dozen small figures were skating and sliding on a frozen puddle. Jewel was careful to emit no sound, although she could not stifle a smile. The siofra were cloaked in ragged furs, perhaps the hides of rats and voles. These were pinned at the shoulders with cockroach brooches. It appeared their other clothes were chiefly made of moss and shrew-skins. Their strange assortment of hats was adorned with wrens’ feathers, and for scarves they twisted wisps of dirty sheep’s wool about their necks. The mortal watcher could not guess how they had constructed the skates bound to their little snakeskin boots. Perhaps they had found and honed some blades of bronze, since they could not endure the touch of iron.
Beside the frozen puddle, now etched with a tracery of whorls, a siofran picnic was set out in various vessels. It looked indigestible, to say the least. Lush piles of insect eggs and dead flies were heaped in nut-shell bowls. Dried seedpods were filled with larvae, withered berries, and objects that appeared to be the unctuous dewlaps of snails. To Jewel, the only palatable items were contained in the brimming acorn cups: clear dew, and droplets of honey.
Wisely, she did not study this curious gathering for long. Danger was always present; if they caught her spying they would be angry. Noiselessly she drew back from the eldritch hedge-party, and continued on her way.
High above the plateau hung the storths, tall snowy peaks in the sky, cloud-wreathed. As the sun ascended, its clear light stretched across the field. Ice glittered on rain-pools. Deep among the liquidambars one pool glimmered differently.
It was dappled silver, giving off iridescent greens and blues.
Approaching this strange puddle, filled with awe and astonishment, Jewel experienced the abrupt awareness that she was being watched. She looked up, and jumped backward. Beneath the trees, a melange of gray dew and cobwebs had caught her eye.
“Oh!” she exclaimed, adding unnecessarily, “You startled me!”
The urisk made no reply. It was standing amongst the trees with its arms folded across its chest, watching her, as one of its kind had done before.
She did not know how to tell one urisk apart from another. They all possessed similar features: the pointed ears, the snub nose, the slanted eyes with vertical slits of pupils. They were all short in stature, with hairy goats’ legs, and they all seemed more closely related to the mysteries of wood and water than to the mankind they resembled from the waist up.
There was no way of knowing if this was indeed the same urisk she had erstwhile met, but suddenly great hope sprang in her, and she said eagerly, “Prithee, do not go away too soon. Have you ever been to the Great Marsh of Slievmordhu?”
“Once I dwelled there,” said the wight in a voice like the sound of low flutes.
Jewel fancied she heard a tinge of contempt in its tone, but she took a step toward it and said, clasping her hands together, “Were you ever acquainted with the families of Heronswood or Mosswell?”
The wight was silent for a time, while its interrogator watched it pleadingly. At length it said, “The house of your mother was not unknown to me.”
The girl gave a cry of delight. She felt tears start beneath her lids. “You knew my parents. . . .” Her throat clenched on her words and she could no longer speak.
This must surely be the urisk of the marsh. Her mother and father had often told the story of how the wight had helped them, leading Jarred to the place where Lilith lay alone and defenseless with an injured ankle. Grandfather Earnán used to say, “The wight was surly and shiftless, but at the crunch it proved worthy.”
“This garment,” said the creature, offhandedly indicating the shimmering rain-pool, “is yours.”
And it was then that Jewel realized the glimmer of iridescent greens and blues in the frosty grass was no pool of fractured ice, but a cool slither of shimmering scales, like the mail of opalescent fishes. Amazed, she bent down and gathered it into her hands, marveling at the smoothness of the texture, the pearly loveliness.
“The fishmail shirt!” she exclaimed in a low voice. “I remember this extraordinary thing. How could I not, even though I was so young? It used to hang on the cottage wall. My mother said she gave it to you, and you took it away when I was but three Winters old. Why are you presenting it to me?”
“I have no use for such a frippery.”
“How do you know who I am?” Jewel asked.
The wight merely gave a snort of derision. Of course, Jewel reminded herself, wights were able to find out many of the secrets of humankind. They could often pass unnoticed amongst mortal beings, and they had their own methods of seeing and hearing things.
Due to its past connection with her family, to Jewel the urisk seemed like a link to the old times. Fervently, she wished she might form some kind of bond with it. The creature radiated the impression that it was constantly on the point of departing, and even as she watched it she was swept by an ineffable sense of loss, as if it had already gone.
“Prithee, stay with me, sir,” she begged, as politely as she could. “Won’t you tell me some stories of the marsh? Won’t you come to live at the mill?”
Sourly, it gave reply. “I am no nursemaid, to tell stories to children. And are there no brownies hereabouts who will do your work for you?”
It was moving away, leaving again.
“Sir, I am sorry if I have caused offense!” cried Jewel in alarm. She cast about for some way of drawing it back, of entwining it with her so that this final, tenuous nexus with her childhood should not be destroyed. What might lure the wight—something beautiful and precious, perhaps? Something she did not value half as much as she valued the chance to converse with one who had known her parents and the marsh?
“Wait! I have a gift for you!” Carefully replacing the fishmail shirt on the ground, the damsel fumbled behind her neck, under her hood and scarf. Having unfastened the chain, she drew forth the sparkling gem her father had given her. “This!” she said, holding it up so that it trapped the sun’s rays, breaking and scattering them as if a light-smith or a pixy jeweler worked with his hammers within.
The eyes of the urisk, black chips of jet, stared coldly from the curdled shadows of the grove.
“Prithee, take it,” said Jewel, hanging the chain on a jutting twig and letting the jewel swing there. She backed away. “I will not come near you, if you wish it so. But prithee, do not depart.”
Without looking at the incredible bijou on its delicate links, the urisk grasped it with one hand. Then the wight was gone.
It left behind both desolation and relief.
Seizing the fishmail shirt, the girl ran away. For some reason she could not explain, she was weeping.
In the light of the rising sun the white ground winked and sparkled. Frost lay thickest in the long, blue shadows of the trees and hedges. As Jewel neared the arched gap in the hawthorn hedge, her sobs alerted the eldritch beings who disported themselves beneath. Out from amongst the roots they came skipping, and this time they seemed to be dressed in splendid arctic pelts and garments of richest velvet, stitched with gems. The diminutive fellows and dames beckoned to Jewel, turning up their teensy faces to her, bright as field-daisies. She understood they were inviting her to their festivities. Dashing away her tears with the heel of her hand, she followed them to the frozen puddle under the hedge and crouched there. The feast of the wights now looked delicious and enticing beyond measure. Ripe fruits, no bigger than dew-drops, glistened on golden dishes. White bread and creamy yellow cheeses were displayed b
eside goblets filled with wine. Had she not seen these victuals in their native state, before the siofra had put their glamour on the feast, Jewel might almost have been gulled.
So as not to offend them, she extended her index finger and thumb, and made to take up one of the little goblets, which she knew was really filled with water or honey. The wights waved their arms and gabbled at her in their high, shrill voices. Guessing they wanted her to donate something in return for their so-called hospitality, she withdrew her hand. Shaking her head, she shrugged.
“I carry no food,” she said. “Forgive me.”
They jabbered some more, then, suddenly ignoring her, began busily to pack away the picnic things at a rapid rate. Jewel stood up. It came to her that the siofra had only invited her so that she might provide them with food such as mankind thrived on. She had none to share; therefore she was no longer of interest. They were removing themselves, now that a human being had stumbled upon their merrymaking and proved useless. Already most of them had disappeared into the workings of the hedge. Only two remained, pulling off their skates before scurrying after their comrades.
Uttering a “Hmph!” of disparagement, the girl walked off and left the harmless hedge-lurkers to their own devices.
When she reached home, Jewel moodily folded the shirt of scales and stowed it in the small wooden box Herebeorht had made for her. It was difficult to thrust the morning’s encounter with the urisk from her mind, but the busy round of daily activities eventually dispelled her gloom. She was grateful for the tumultuous life at the mill.
That evening as she retired wearily to her couch, recollections of the strange meeting returned with force. For, there on her pillow lay the white jewel, chain and all. Why the urisk had returned it, and how the creature had slipped in and out of the mill unseen, she could not fathom. It was impossible for wights to enter the households of humankind without invitation. Perhaps there had been such an invitation decades ago, issued by some previous mill-holder. Or perhaps the creature had thrown the jewel in through the open window. It was a puzzle. The utter alienness of eldritch immortals was incomprehensible. As Grandfather Earnán would have said, “Unaccountable are the ways of wights.”
She went to sleep clutching the jewel.
That was not the last she saw of the goat-legged wight. Sometimes, when roaming the orchards of the plateau or the timbered slopes of the storths, she would catch a glimpse of it loitering by an untame stream, or a lonely forest pool; but if she tried to approach, it would simply dissolve into its surroundings, like a wild deer, or a trick of the light. And if she called out, it would no longer be there. Nobody else at High Darioneth ever witnessed the wight, or if they did, they never mentioned the sighting.
Jewel cherished the letter from Earnán, frequently taking it from the wooden box to re-read. In her mind, Earnán was the most dependable, enduring pillar of the familiar past, and she longed to hear his voice, to see his weathered face, to talk for hours with him about her parents, and Eoin, and Eolacha. To be with him again would be to relive the childhood memories that must come flooding back, triggered by the fish-and-vinegar smell of his clothes.
Yet he had stipulated that she must not return to the marsh.
Thwarted, the marsh-daughter brooded. As a dog worries at a bone, she dwelled on the notion of a reunion with her step-grandfather, until at length she formulated a plan. In his letter, Earnán had written: “My Bones are gettynge old and there is always Work to be done.” Doubtless, he still made the regular seasonal voyage up the Rushy Water to the Fairfield of Cathair Rua. It might be possible to meet with him there, if not at the Winter Fair, then in Spring.
Allusion to the fair evoked memories of childhood trips to market with her parents. In those days she had made the journey several times, for there had been no need to hide herself from public gaze. King Maolmórdha had had no idea that Janus Jaravhor had sired any living heirs. How sweet and secure life had been, back then! On this occasion it would be very different; she must go in secrecy.
Shortly after the commencement of the new year, to Avalloc Stormbringer she took herself, meeting with him this time in the Tower of the Winds, which abutted the Moot Hall on Rowan Green. The building was several stories high, and octagonal in shape, with the names and personifications of the eight winds displayed as sculpted friezes on each wall. A water-clock on a pedestal graced the center of the ground floor, and a few chairs stood beneath the windows. Here Jewel informed the Storm Lord of her decision to make a journey to the royal city of Slievmordhu.
“How do you propose to travel, hmm?” he quizzed, directing a quick but intense look in her direction.
“I shall walk,” she said, with as much dignity as she could muster, feeling somewhat foolish all of a sudden.
He did not smile. “It is a long way, my dear child, and not without peril.”
“That I know, sir,” said she. “Nonetheless”—and her dignity gave way to an expression of such naive vulnerability that the sternest heart must have been moved—“nonetheless, I must see my dear grandfather again.”
The Storm Lord deliberated, then gave a quick nod. He rose from his seat and walked to one of the windows. With his back toward Jewel, he gazed out over Rowan Green. She kept silent until he should speak.
“As Master of the Seat and guardian of all who dwell in High Darioneth,” he said, “I cannot sanction such a venture.”
The girl sprang to her feet with a cry of protest, but he held up his palm in an admonitory gesture. “Do not try my patience, Jewel,” he warned. “I have given you my counsel. It is for you to decide how to conduct yourself. I shall not hinder you, but neither shall I indulge in argument. Now pray depart, for I have much business to attend to.”
Subdued, Jewel bowed and quietly took her leave. In her heart she stubbornly determined to make the journey whether or not Avalloc gave his approval, and she began to formulate plans.
On the following day he unexpectedly summoned her to his presence again.
“Jewel, I have given further thought to the matter of your proposed expedition to Cathair Rua,” he said. “You seem determined to go, and perhaps it is best that you do; otherwise you will be forever restless and dissatisfied. To journey alone and on foot would be foolhardy to the point of absurdity, however, so I suggest that you travel by air. You may make the voyage in one of our sky-balloons.”
Jewel gasped at the enormity of this offer. She was dumbfounded—never had she expected such a response.
“Let me elaborate,” the Storm Lord went on calmly. “You must be patient, and wait until the next message comes from Cathair Rua with a request for the services of a weathermaster. Then you may accompany whomsoever we send on the mission.”
“Gramercie! Gramercie, sir!” cried the marsh-daughter, much astonished and grateful. Then a thought struck her. “But I must go in this month of Jenever, while the Winter Fair is being held, or I shall be forced to wait until Spring. How long will it be until such a request arrives?” she asked, endeavoring to keep the disappointment from her tone.
“Soon,” he said. “Soon. Be patient!”
She went to him, and looked up into his face pleadingly. “How can you know it will be soon?”
“I sense weather systems from great distances. I can tell you, my dear Jewel, there are violent windstorms approaching Slievmordhu even as we speak.”
At his words, Jewel felt she had been jolted roughly from one dimension into another. She had never guessed the extent and magnitude of a weathermage’s empathy with climatic phenomena. What must it be like, to sense the approach of storms—like a dark premonition, perhaps? An inner vision of long walls of cloud rolling across the firmament, their boiling interiors intermittently lit by flashes of lightning? Or like a gentle, thrilling touch that makes the skin turn to gooseflesh? What must it be like, to know the rain as intimately as one’s own tears, the wind as certainly as breath, the frost and snow as exquisitely as pain?
As her imagination soared, she w
as awe-struck. Reading her amazement, the Storm Lord smiled. “Good gracious, child, ’tis no hardship to bear,” he said, turning away from the window. “On the contrary, to be deprived of the weathersense would be worse than being blindfolded, or made deaf. Besides, not all among weathermasters can reach as far as I.”
“I cannot fathom it, sir, this gift you have,” said Jewel.
“But will you do as I bid?” His tone was stern, now.
“Even so.” She hung her head. “I will wait.”
Placing his finger beneath her chin, he tilted up her head so that she must look into his jade-green eyes, profound behind their hooded lids. “That is well,” he said gently. “Be blithe, for the nonce.” There was merriment behind his wry smile, and she could not help but match it with a grin.
“It will be necessary, for your own security and for my peace of mind, for me to advise your eventual flight-commander and crew of the truth behind your escape from the south. I must inform them you are the invulnerable scion of Strang. Be assured, all our flight-commanders and crew-folk are trustworthy and will not betray you. Is this acceptable to you?”
“Of course!”
“Now off you go,” Avalloc added, drawing away, “for I have tasks to accomplish. And you must tell the Millers what is afoot. Word will be sent to you at the appropriate time. Be prepared!”
Homing pigeons, white as day-old lambs, flew in and out of their lofts on Rowan Green, and circled the skies over High Darioneth. Sometimes carts or coaches or other vehicles would depart along the East Road, heading for distant lands, carrying wicker cages of birds.
The Well of Tears: Book Two of The Crowthistle Chronicles Page 16