He drew back on the wheel, rising higher. But the ranks of hills continued, partially masking each other, and at this altitude the music became harder to distinguish. Why was he so anxious, he asked himself, to track down a local, unimportant phenomenon in Virtu? But something about it called to him, perhaps striking an ancestral chord, making it feel special.
He continued his search, circling, rising. Finally, he was rewarded with the view of a man in a small valley, standing atop a boulder, wearing a set of pipes. He dropped lower, advanced slowly, moving until the man and his stone were in the area of the Great Stage.
He walked forward then and halted a score of paces away, regarding the man’s dapper form and neat beard, the dagger at his ankle, the claymore at his side.
Standing, listening there, he became aware that the terrain was shifting slowly about him, hills sinking into valleys, other hills rising. It struck him then that somehow they obeyed the music. It was as if the area had grown plastic and were dancing to the skirls and wailings, overriding, somehow, the will of its genius loci.
The piping went on, and on, as did the changes. After a time, he noticed a sudden drooping in the midst of a nearby patch of heather. Then a tiny piece of blackness raised itself above it and moved to one nearer at hand. The heather began to fade, to wither.
“Hi,” came a small voice. “Music’s a great thing, isn’t it?”
He stared and saw that the black patch was a butterfly.
“He won’t stop for awhile yet,” it said. “That’s ‘Band of the Titans’ he’s playing. It goes on some.”
“Who is he?” Donnerjack asked.
The butterfly flitted to his shoulder, the better to be heard above the piping.
“Wolfer Martin D’Ambry,” came the reply, “who piped the phantom regiment of Skyga to many victories in the days of Creation. He is a lost soul of sorts, the Phantom Piper.”
“Phantom Piper? Why is he called that?”
“Because he is of no world, and he wanders like a ghost, looking for his lost regiment.”
“I’m afraid I’ve never heard the story.”
“In the early days the realms suddenly pulled upon one another and bled through more easily, when the union of systems produced Virtu at large.”
“Yes.”
“When all was cut loose there was a period of chaos, a great flux, as the aions sought to maintain their domains against the pressures from all sides. A world had been born and sent upon its way, but its unmooring was somewhat catastrophic, though it might not have seemed so on the outside. It may have been a matter of moments there, though it ran for eons within.”
“I know of this, and it was actually quite brief in real time.”
There followed a musical chuckle.
“I assure you,” it answered, “that the time in Virtu was real to those of sentience.”
“It was just an observation, not an attempt to belittle any who suffered. Were you present? A butterfly seems such a—fragile thing—in times such as that.”
Again, that laugh.
“If you ever have access to chronicles of those times, check out the name ‘Alioth.’ “
Donnerjack glanced at the piper.
“We have digressed somewhat,” he said.
“True. There was a company of deadly fighters Skyga had imagined. He brought them into being whenever he needed their services in battle.”
The piper skirled on and a hiss began to fall as Donnerjack shook his head.
“‘Imagined,’ you say?”
“Yes. As was customary with gods at the time of the Great Flux, he created what he needed by an act of strong imagination. They don’t go in for that much anymore. Too strenuous. But what he needed then was a deadly strike force.”
“He just imagined them and there they were?”
“Oh, no. Even a god requires some preparation. He had to imagine each one individually in advance, form and feature, fighting characteristics. He had to see them all as clearly as we see each other. Only then could he combine the imagining with his will to bring them into being on a battlefield.”
“Of course. And I suppose he could draw back the injured and send them forth again whole.”
“Yes, he could be a field hospital all by himself. They were magnificent, and the bright flame was their piper, D’Ambry. He did see action, too, of course, and he fought as well as the rest. Better, perhaps.”
“So what happened?”
“As events settled and the call to arms was heard with less frequency, their services were required less and less. Then, following one of the great final battles, Skyga called his troops home to sleep again in his memory. And they all went back in the blink of an eye, save for a lone piper on a hilltop.”
“Why not him?”
“One of life’s little mysteries. My guess is that he had something the others didn’t: his music. I think it gave him that extra measure of being that made him an individual rather than just a member of a company.”
“And so?”
“And so the company was summoned several times again, and it always appeared without its piper. It is said that for a time Skyga sought him unsuccessfully, but after a while the battles ended and he never called for them again. And the piper wanders now, looking for his lost legion. He pipes all over Virtu, calling to them.”
“Pity he cannot forget and find a new life for himself.”
“Who knows? Perhaps one day—”
Abruptly, the piping ceased. Donnerjack looked up to see the piper disappearing beyond the far side of his stony perch. He moved forward. The memories that man must have locked in his head! It would be a full education in the epistemology of Virtu to get him to talking.
Donnerjack rounded the stony outcrop, but the piper was nowhere in sight. He circled it again.
“Wolfer!” he called. “Wolfer Martin D’Ambry! I have to talk to you. Where are you?”
But there was no response.
When he returned to the place where he had been standing the black butterfly was no longer in sight either.
“Alioth?” he asked. “Are you still here?”
Again, he received no answer.
He backed away. Then, on an impulse, he activated his controls and soared. No sign of the piper, but he was impressed by the subtle changes in the terrain apparently in response to the music. Soft rises had grown steeper, steep ones craggier. The land about his perch had taken on a rawer look, as of earlier, rougher times.
Donnerjack descended and released his controls, restoring the normal drift program which permitted the landscape of Virtu to shift through the Great Stage. He could hard-holo or leave soft anything that came by. He left it at soft. Turning then, he departed into his own world.
* * *
Ayradyss could easily see the swell of her belly by the day that she finally met the banshee. For some time now, she and John had been in full-time residence at the castle, rarely leaving their Scottish island. Their privacy was a lover’s delight, but she knew it also served the practical purpose of keeping difficult questions about the origin of Donnerjack’s new wife to a minimum.
Ayradyss was in complete accord with John’s desire to keep her Virtu origin a secret. The masquerade would not need to be maintained forever. He had shown her his campaign for inserting data about her into Verite’s records—many of which were kept in Virtu. However, between drawing up the plans for Death’s palace and the occasional business of the Donnerjack Institute, he had put off actually beginning his campaign. She did not mind. Her experiences in Deep Fields, although poorly remembered, still haunted her. The isolated castle with its many ghosts and robots was society enough.
Still, sometimes she left the castle proper to walk near the ocean on a particular isolated, pebbly strand. The fisherfolk never came near this spot—the waves hid far too many rocks and the villagers lived far too intimately with wet and cold and the uneven temper of the sea to find the wild prospect at all enticing or romantic.
Ayradyss, however, enjoyed it and, as her pregnancy drew on, more and more often she took her exercise on the strand, well enough bundled to still the worried nagging of both the robots and ghosts. So it was that one foggy morning she met the banshee.
Ayradyss’s first impression was that one of the girls from the village had come to do her wash, but she dismissed that idea as ridiculous even before it fully formed. Who would do laundry in cold salt water when there were gas-powered washers and dryers aplenty in the village? Curious, she hurried closer, her shifting balance making her just a little clumsy on the round pebbled beach. Drawing alongside, she saw clearly that her initial, fantastical impression was apparently correct—the girl was indeed dipping bits of clothing in the salt waters of the inlet.
“Miss?” Ayradyss called out, wishing she had learned more of the local idiom—although she suspected what the ghosts could teach her would be centuries out of date. “Miss? Have you lost something? Can I help you?”
At the sound of Ayradyss’s voice the girl—no, woman—rose from where she had crouched by the water, and as she rose the clothing she had been washing vanished away, but not before Ayradyss caught a glimpse of what she was certain was a swatch of the Donnerjack tartan. When the woman turned to face her, Ayradyss could see why she had initially mistaken her for a girl, for she was terribly slender—a mere slip of a thing—yet there was strength in her and a strange intensity in her green-grey eyes.
Those green-grey eyes so drew her attention that Ayradyss had closed to easy speaking distance before she registered that the woman was very beautiful. Her straight silky hair, which fell nearly to her feet, was precisely the shade of moonbeams. Although her gown was simple, hardly more than a shift with a ribbon at the throat and a sash beneath her small, round breasts, the woman’s bearing was aristocratic, and aristocratic, too, were the fine, sharp bones of her face. Her hands showed no sign of the scrub maid’s work she had been about but were as long and slim as the rest of her, with shapely, perfect nails.
“You aren’t a woman of the village,” Ayradyss said, trying not to curtsy (after all, wasn’t she the lady of this land? wasn’t her husband laird of the castle?). “Pray, tell me, who are you?”
“I am the caoineag of this land, of the old lairds who built the first keeps of old upon whose dust your husband built a castle to be your home.”
Her voice was as genteel as her form, but there was something about her cultured tones that made Ayradyss’s flesh creep and sent her hand to rest protectively on her belly.
“The caoineag? What is that?”
“The wailing woman,” said the other. “The crusader ghost calls me the banshee in the Irish fashion, his mother having been Irish, though he does not recall that.”
“Do you know his name?”
“I do, but he does not want it. When he does, he will know it for himself for all the good that it will do him.” The caoineag turned her green-grey gaze on Ayradyss. “Are you going to ask me what I am doing here?”
“‘No, I thought that you belonged here, as the ghosts do to the castle.”
“You should wonder more.” The caoineags expression was not kind, but it was not precisely unkind. “Do you know what my function is?”
“The crusader ghost said your wail has something to do with portents—portents of death,” Ayradyss said hesitantly, one hand now firmly on her belly, the other plucking at her cloak as if the weight of wool could protect her unborn child. “He said that you wail for me—for me and for my baby and for John.”
“That I do. Do you wonder why?”
“I do.”
“Death took you for a purpose, returned you for that same purpose. Your John took the bait he offered—though to be fair to Donnerjack, his way was quite different than what the Lord of Deep Fields expected.”
“Death? Expected? What do you mean?”
“Why should I tell you? What do you have to offer me? Who are you, phantom of Virtu, to order about one of noble blood?”
“Noble blood?”
“Aye, lass, the caoineag is of the house of Donnerjack, of a house older than that of Donnerjack, of the clan that gave birth to the lairds of this land that your husband has usurped with the rights of law and some claim of blood.”
“Yet… yet you say you are of the house of Donnerjack.”
“Aye, he is laird here and I am the wailing woman of this land, so I am of his house—of your house, too, phantom of Virtu.”
“Help me, then, for the sake of that house, for the sake of the ancient clan that gave you birth. Are the proud scions of this land to be used as pawns in a game—even if one of the players is Death himself?”
The caoineag smiled, a cold, thin-lipped thing. “This is all you offer me, Lady of Virtu? A chance to defend the pride of people long gone to dust for the sake of those who will soon go to dust? Why should this be enough?”
Ayradyss hid her sense of excitement—the caoineag could have vanished in a puff of indignation and a wail. In her talks with the crusader ghost, the Lady of the Gallery, and others of those who haunted Castle Donnerjack, this had happened often enough. She had something the wailing woman wanted. If only she could find it…
“What price is my knowledge worth to you, Lady of Virtu, Lady of the Castle?” the caoineag asked.
Ayradyss almost said, “Anything,” but memory of John’s bargain, well-meant but unconsidered (although without that bargain the child would not have been born at all, so… ) halted her. She shook her head to clear it of an unwelcome maze of thoughts, complexity after complexity. But the caoineag was waiting.
“I will not barter my life nor that of my man nor my child nor indeed of any living person, for lives are not to be given and traded away. Any other thing, within reason, I will give to you.”
“Careful, so careful,” the caoineag’s tone was mocking, “but you have more reason than most to know the value of care. Very well, here is my price. I was made the wailing woman against my will. As penalty for failing to warn my father of the plot that took his life, in death I must warn those who dwell in the castle of the coming of their deaths. Take my place—Lady of the Castle—and I will tell you what I know.”
“Take your place?”
“Aye, after your own death, however so long away as it may be. I do not ask for your life, only for your afterlife.”
“Afterlife…”
Ayradyss wrinkled her brow, trying to force into her memory the substance of her time in Deep Fields. It had been… It had not been… It had not been precisely… She could not remember what it had been or what it had not been, except that she had been. There had not been a cessation of herselfness.
“I agree,” she said, before she could think further. “On my death, whenever that shall be, I shall take your place as the caoineag.”
“It is done,” said the wailing woman, and with those words Ayradyss knew that it had been; some silken tether had looped itself around her, anchoring her to her fate as securely as the crusader ghost was anchored to his chain.
“Now, tell me what you know of Death’s plans. Tell me why you wailed for me and for my menfolks.”
“You are cold,” the caoineag said, and Ayradyss realized that she was. “After you have done so much to preserve your son, you should not risk him before his birth. Go inside, eat and drink. When you are alone, I will come to speak with you.”
“But…”
“Away…” The word was shouted shrilly, on a rising note. The wailing woman vanished, leaving only the echo of her voice against the cliff.
“Ghosts,” Ayradyss said to no one in particular, “always get the last word. I suppose there is some comfort in that.”
“Won’t you have some more stew, darling?” John asked, serving ladle poised over the tureen.
Ayradyss laughed. “I have had two helpings already, John, two helpings of stew, fresh black bread, soft cheddar cheese. I am pregnant, not being fattened for the fair!”
Setting the ladle down, John joi
ned in her laughter. He scooted his chair around the table so that he could sit next to her and put his arm around her shoulders.
“I fuss, I know,” he said, “but I worry about you. This is hardly a typical pregnancy. I want the best for you.”
“Thank you, John. I know you do.”
“And I’m not certain that wandering around in the cold is the best thing for you or for the baby. If you need outside views isn’t the Great Stage sufficient?”
“No, it isn’t—I don’t feel safe in Virtu, John. I don’t know what the Lord of Deep Fields did when he returned me, but I fear that he will undo it. Best I do not bring myself too often to his notice.”
“The Great Stage is more like Verite than Virtu, Ayradyss. It is the appearance of Virtu without the projection of the self into the programming. It is a setting you can still enjoy without becoming a character— nothing more than elaborate wallpaper.”
“I know, John, I know. Still, the awareness of the Lord of Deep Fields extends into all of Virtu, even when we do not make the crossover. No, I prefer to avoid Virtu unless you are with me—and perhaps even then.”
“Whatever you say, dear.”
John’s tone was level, but Ayradyss could tell he was humoring her as he might have if she suddenly acquired a taste for pickles or mango ice cream.
“So, Ayra, if I can’t expect you to stay in out of the cold, would you like to relocate to a warmer climate? I could visit you regularly. I would move as well, but I need the equipment that I’ve set up in the castle.”
“No, John. I don’t want to leave you. I see you little enough as it is. At least let me have you warm beside me at night.”
“Have I been leaving you too much alone, Ayra?”
“No, love. I have found things to occupy me. Still, they would lose some of their zest if I could not anticipate your company of an evening.”
“Ayra, I do love you. I may not always be the best at showing it, but I do… more than I know how to say.”
Her answer was not verbal, but it was pleasant and John returned to his office over an hour later than he had intended, smiling, the memory of her laughter warm inside him.
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