“Even the stones might have been removed by now,” said Avalloc.
“People do not go there to steal building materials, because they are afraid that the blocks might have malign spells on them, some lingering curse,” said the damsel.
“You have never published your claim to the estate, my dear. Then again, why would you wish to do so, hmm? As you say, it is worthless.” The Maelstronnar appended, “Your mother ended up hating the place. There were all those skeletons and what-have-you concealed in the walls.” He waved a hand airily.
“But Grandfather, who knows? There might still be some precious secrets hidden at the site, perhaps buried underground.”
“Uabhar’s servants dug and pried for years, until the cellars and foundations resembled a rabbit warren. They were meticulous in their search, but they found nothing of value, which is why they abandoned it to the weeds.”
“The king’s servants are stupid. Besides, they don’t have the brí flowing in their blood. If secrets are hidden there, it will be weathermasters who find them, not Uabhar’s henchmen. I shall publicly claim the ruins of the Dome as my own, by the laws of inheritance.”
The light of good humor disappeared from Avalloc’s eyes. “I do not understand your attraction to that place,” he said sternly. “It was the same with your mother. She seemed drawn to it, yet in the end, it gave her only pain and trouble.”
“The Dome was the key to my father’s immortality,” said Asrthiel.
“Aye, but he never asked for that. And was it boon or bane to him, my dear, hmm? ”
A shadow flitted across the damsel’s face. Meditatively she looked down at her hands, resting in her lap. What was boon or bane for her father also applied to her. She did not like to contemplate her immortality; it set her apart. At times the natural desire to belong made her agonize over being thus isolated, in a state neither eldritch nor fully human, but somewhere between.
Her unique condition was kept secret from the wider world. The Councillors of Ellenhall were privy to it, of course, and the carlin; also some members of the royal family at King’s Winterbourne, whose discretion could be depended upon. Were the public to be apprised of it they might respond with any combination of fear, jealousy, awe or resentment. Almost certainly they would not greet the revelations with liking or acceptance. The mere mention of her situation—no matter how obliquely, no matter that she was in the company of a trusted confidant—made Asrthiel feel uneasy. Were it to become common knowledge that she could not die, some madman might conceivably take it into his head to put her invulnerability to the test, making her the target of assassination attempts. Even though such attempts must fail, they could endanger those who surrounded her, and cause untold havoc in her life. Conversely, if she ever found herself in some extremity, deliverance might depend upon her deathlessness being unrecognized by the enemy. Keeping it secret was like concealing an ace in her sleeve while playing at the card-game of life.
“I do not know,” Asrthiel replied to her grandfather’s question in soft tones. Looking up, she continued impulsively, “All the same, the Dome is mine and my mother’s, and I intend to make public our claim. Nobody else wants it, after all.”
“And what shall you do with it?”
“Explore!”
“When will you have time to do so?”
“Even if I am too busy with my studies and my work, I am certain some of the prentices and journeyman will be ardent to see what they can find. I shall let them make their excavations, if they so desire.”
“Are you bent on this enterprise?”
“I am.”
“Then I suppose you had better do it,” the weathermage said mildly, “for I know full well I will not be able to dissuade you.”
“What harm can come of it?”
“Who knows?”
“I have no fear of any lingering spells left by the dead Sorcerer of Strang,” said Asrthiel. “Throughout the whole of his infamous lifetime he managed to execute only two momentous deeds—the laying of the curse on the descendants of Tierney A’Connacht, and the benison of invulnerability on his own blood-heirs. Most of his other so-called spells were mere trickery.”
“He had also managed to keep himself alive far beyond the normal span of years.”
“True, yet in the end that feat brought him no reward. He was really not as powerful as he would have had people believe—even his apparently everburning flames were fueled by gas piped from underground, which eventually caused an explosion.” Before Avalloc could make reply, a movement from outside the window caught Asrthiel’s eye. “Look, Grandfather! The arms are moving!”
Within the semaphore station, signalmen had descried changes in the angles of the movable wooden limbs on a distant tower. Pulling on a couple of handles, they were sending the “message received” symbol.
Avalloc shaded his eyes against the sun. “I believe you are right, dear child. I wonder whether our sharp-eyed lads have received notification about the approach of sky-balloons. Perhaps Dristan is returning with his fleet!”
Eagerly Asrthiel and her grandfather hastened to the launching and landing place of the sky-balloons. At the northern edge of the shelf it lay, overlooking the stupendous torrent of the waterfall; an apron carpeted with small-leaved creeping mint. In recent times the weathermasters had acquired more sky-balloons. For many years they had owned a maximum of four of the great aerostats. These days there were twelve, and two more were being constructed as fast as the spidersilk farms could supply materials for the envelopes. The increase was due to demand. Across the four kingdoms of Tir the weather had grown more violent during the last decade. Weather-masters freely used their skills to prevent damage to life and property; however, they too must earn a living. The wealthy and influential, who were the least inclined to tolerate the vagaries of the atmosphere, traditionally sponsored them; gigantic spidersilk balloons were costly in the extreme.
The air-filled balloons, lifted by the heat of sun-crystals and guided by wrinds summoned by their pilots, could carry weather mages swiftly to wher-ever their skills were required to calm the atmosphere, invoke rain during drought, or stem flood-causing deluges.
Avalloc’s guess had been correct. In the distant skies three moonlike spheres could be seen approaching. A small crowd had assembled at the landing place. The return of sky-balloons was a commonplace occurrence, but Dristan Maelstronnar and his crew had been absent for several days, and their friends and family were eager to greet them. On hearing about the semaphore signal, Albiona had fetched the children and run to the balloon-port to meet her husband.
Soapbubble, Silverpenny and Dragonfly landed with precision, one by one, on the wide apron of mint. There was much welcoming and embracing of the new arrivals; it was always a relief when crews returned safely from a mission. Asrthiel kissed her uncle and greeted him with “Sain thee!” She smiled to see him hoist both his children onto his back, so that they squealed and protested in delight at being thus squashed like a stack of pancakes, but as she turned away to accompany them home she caught sight of the last deflating balloon, and was arrested in her tracks.
That familiar feeling of restlessness overcame her yet again; an unbearable desire to be on the move, to leap into a balloon-gondola and release heat from the sun-crystal so that the envelope swelled tight; to rise above the ground and leave it all behind; floating into the sky and summoning a wind, a southerly wind, to sweep her away.
After a final glance at the balloon Asrthiel returned to the house of Maelstronnar and climbed the spiral stair to the rooftop cupola. The small room, walled with glass, was bright and warm. To the west, a sweeping vista of the plateau showed through the intricate weavings of rose-stems that framed the panes. In this pleasant bower two women sat serenely, their hands busy with fancy needlework. They greeted Asrthiel as she entered. She returned their salutation and crossed the floor to the great, canopied couch that dominated the chamber. There, upon shimmering draperies and cushions of rubicund fabric
s, lay a porcelain doll, or else the effigy of a beautiful woman. Yet it was no effigy but a living being who slumbered there as if lifeless; Jewel, the mother of Asrthiel.
Her skin was smooth and pale as ivory, her cheeks and lips tinged with a faint flush. It was as if twin petals of jacaranda blossom had drifted down to rest on her eyelids, whereupon they had thinned to translucency. Against the pillows, her black hair spread out in delicately vaned fans.
The young weathermaster stroked her mother’s hair, kissed her brow, and looked upon her with utmost tenderness. As always she wondered whether her absent father would ever discover a way to waken his wife from her enchanted sleep. But her father was immortal; he would seek forever; until the end of time, if necessary. He would search, and he would not return home until he found an answer. The damsel stood, unspeaking, by the canopied bed for some while, then turned away. After a polite nod and a word to the two women who kept vigil, she returned downstairs.
The unquiet mood would not leave her. Later that morning she took herself on a solitary walk, climbing the precipitous path to the weathermasters’ cemetery on Wychwood Storth. The road mounted pine-clothed slopes, crossing bridges over gullies and rocky gorges, ultimately leading her to the small and tranquil dale that cradled the graveyard. There she halted a silent while beside a black headstone. A honeysuckle-like plant was growing on this grave, twining its slim stems between the miniature wildflowers that quilted the plot with rainbow stitchery. Tinkling twitters chimed up and down the brittle air; the call of Blue Honeyeaters. A single feather lay in the center of the grave. It shimmered with every shade of blue: lapis lazuli, sapphire, cornflower, antique ice, oceans, skies, sorrow, tranquillity.
Once her mother had lain in this grave. That was before the scholar Almus Agnellus had discovered, from some mysterious source, that she lived yet, caught in an enchanted sleep; whereupon with the greatest haste she had been raised from the loam and taken to the cupola.
After a while Asrthiel moved on. Instead of continuing to climb to the boulder above the cemetery, one of her favourite lookouts for surveying the countryside, she turned downhill and went amongst the trees.
Sudden rushes in the undergrowth indicated shy creatures of the wild fleeing from her approach. The chirping of insects counterpointed the long-drawn sigh of fern-hidden streams flowing over rocks. Her booted feet trod upon the twigs that strewed the ground, and mosses, and scatterings of small stones. Sometimes she came upon fine strands of brilliance strung across her path: the gossamer threads of spiders glinting in limpid daylight. It felt good to stride out, with a long, easy walking pace along those dappled trails.
Clouds blew across the face of the sun, and the day darkened. Asrthiel had paused to stand beside a fast-flowing stream when she looked up and saw the urisk watching her.
This reclusive member of an innocuous species had been part of Asrthiel’s life since childhood. Sometimes she glimpsed it here and there, near water, or in high places on cloudy days, or in shadowy forests. Other times it would not be seen for months. Its appearance did not alarm her. She was accustomed to eldritch wights. Indeed, a domestic brownie was attached to the House of Maelstronnar; at nights it emerged to clean up the domicile and efficiently set everything to rights. All that the brownie received in return for its labor was a dish of cream and a small loaf, but that was the traditional habit of its breed. If anyone tried to offer them greater rewards for their pains, they would invariably, inexplicably, depart. Furthermore, when Asrthiel had been very young, her father—before he went away—had adopted, or been adopted by, a small impet by the name of Fridayweed. The presence of seelie wights such as the impet, the brownie and the urisk did not disquiet the damsel.
Other folk seldom caught sight of the urisk. It was a secretive entity, generally shunning human company and behaving unlike the rest of its kind. Common wisdom held that urisks were a type of wild brownie, bringing luck to any house to which they attached themselves. Farmers, in particular, considered themselves fortunate if an urisk should come to dwell on their land, for the wights were skilled at herding cattle and performing general farm labor. According to lore, when not working, urisks preferred to haunt desolate pools, but occasionally they desired the company of human beings, and had been known to tag along behind folk who traveled by night. If the travelers halted, so it was said, the typical urisk would shyly approach in the hope of striking up a conversation. If not, the wight would continue its optimistic pursuit all through the night, inadvertently terrifying the wayfarers who, blinded by the darkness, presumed they were being hunted by some unseelie monster.
An urisk’s appearance, however, was not monstrous. Above the waist they resembled somewhat uncomely little fellows whose ears ended in pointed tufts, whose nose turned up at the tip, and whose eyes slanted in a way that gave the features an elfin aura. Two small horns jutted from their curly manes. As usual this particular urisk was wearing a decaying jacket and ragged waistcoat. Frayed breeches covered the shaggy goats’ legs, but there were no shoes on the cloven hoofs.
When Asrthiel encountered the wight she would attempt conversation with it. Whether any speech passed between them depended, apparently, on its mood. At times it exhibited a fair degree of sullenness and morosity. On other occasions it could be so merry and lighthearted that the damsel would wonder whether this was, in fact, the same urisk. Eldritch wights were incapable of lying, however; therefore if ever she was unsure of its identity she only had to ask: “Are you that same urisk who was acquainted with my mother and my grandmother?” And if it condescended to respond at all, it would reply, “Indeed, I knew them both.” If any doubt remained in her mind she would persist, “Are you the one to whom my grandmother proffered the fishmail shirt?” “I am,” the wight would reply—impatiently and acerbically, for it had made it plain that it detested the dullness of human beings who could not tell one wight from another, and that her distrust was an affront and her barrage of questions irksome.
The entity’s surliness failed to bother Asrthiel. She considered the urisk to be a precious link with her family history on the maternal side, for it had known her mother and her mother’s mother long ago, when they had dwelled in the Great Marsh of Slievmordhu, and, in fact, her grandmother’s mother and any number of other forebears. Lilith, Asrthiel’s grandmother, had once given the urisk a shirt made of fish-scales, which was reputed to have been fashioned by a mermaid. The urisk had eventually returned the artifact to Jewel, Asrthiel’s mother, and the shirt had remained in her keeping, an heirloom to be passed on to succeeding generations.
On this morning in Mai, as she stood on the banks of the stream, Asrthiel was about to speak to the urisk when it spoke first to her.
“Weatherwitch,” it said, “how farest thou?”
“I fare well enough,” she said, seating herself on a fallen log and propping her elbows on her knees. “I have not seen you of late. Where have you been?”
“I journey about.”
“Where?”
“Far and wide.”
“How wide?”
“Very. Also very far.” When the damsel looked dubious the wight added, “Typically you misconceive how swiftly my kind can pass across the countryside.”
“Doing what? How do you occupy yourself on your travels? You do not help anyone, I daresay.”
“I avoid your tedious kindred. To keep myself amused I scare a few frighteners.”
Asrthiel stared skeptically at the wight’s puny frame. “How do you scare them?”
“Creep up and say ‘boo.’ ”
The weathermage burst out laughing. “To be sure!” Chaffingly she added, “Why, perhaps I have underestimated you, urisk! You make it easy for me to forget you possess a sense of humor.” Laughter had relieved her melancholy mood, and for this she was grateful. Sometimes the urisk could be good company. It occurred to the damsel that she knew very little about this peripatetic creature who could amuse or annoy or astonish her without notice. “In sooth, you are a bi
g perplexity for such a little thing. I have scant knowledge of you. What do you eat? You do not help humankind, so you are not rewarded with our food. How do you survive?”
“I am immortal, fizzwit, or have you forgotten? Lack of victuals will not kill me.” The wight stared straight at Asrthiel with its disconcertingly numinous eyes. “I am like you. You know what you are, although you insist on trying to pretend otherwise.”
Discomfited, Asrthiel looked away. Why did the vexing creature have to spoil everything by referring to a subject that she assiduously tried to avoid? That it was aware of her immortality was no surprise; it had been hanging around long enough to have ferreted out all the family secrets; besides, eldritch wights had their own arcane ways of discovering things. Worse than alluding to her immortality, how could the urisk possibly compare itself with her? An ill-humored, goat-legged wight that was of no use to anyone, insinuating that she and it had something in common! Its presumption would have been laughable if not so irksome.
She deflected the topic. “Oh, so I presume it was not you who thieved a cooling dish of gooseberry fool from the kitchen windowsill last Salt’s Day se’nnight.”
“Of course ‘twas I. I take what I want.”
“And give nothing in return?”
“Why should I?”
“Because it would be mannerly to do so.”
“Spare me the lessons in etiquette, Weatherwitch. You are in peril of becoming as tiresome as the rest of your kind.”
Asrthiel shrugged. “If I weary you, seek other company,” she said, rising to her feet and brushing scraps of damp moss from her skirts.
“Be certain I will. For the present, you have failed to weary me.”
“I shall be forced to try harder.”
“Come now! You are too disconsolate. Instead of remaining with your family to celebrate your uncle’s homecoming, you wander abroad, alone, as if something bites you.” The wight began to saunter away, along the forest path beside the stream. Asrthiel followed, keeping within earshot.
Weatherwitch: Book Three of The Crowthistle Chronicles Page 9