The Shadow Isle

by Katharine Kerr

  “Huh! Do you think that’s the truth?”

  “I don’t know.” Angmar smiled at her. “We’ll have to wait and see.”

  Berwynna dressed, then went downstairs to the great hall. Angmar had saved her a bowl of porridge and a thick slice of bread and butter. Although the great hall was otherwise empty when Berwynna sat down to eat, Enj and Mic came strolling in not long after and joined her and Angmar at table.

  “Ah, it’s good to be home!” Enj said in Dwarvish.

  “And it’s truly good to see you here,” Angmar said. “I’ve been vexing myself for many a long year now, wondering if you fared well.”

  “Well enough, I suppose. Soon I’ll have to leave, though. I made Rori a promise on the night that the island disappeared, that I’d come find him and tell him if it should return when he was elsewhere. ”

  “Was that before he became a dragon?” Berwynna put in.

  “It was.” Enj glanced at Angmar. “He was heartbroken, Mam, and truly, he still is. I was thinking of leaving on the morrow.”

  “What?” Angmar snapped. “How can you leave so soon? I’ve barely gotten a chance to talk with you.”

  “Well, Mam, I’m not rejoicing at leaving the isle, either,” Enj said. “But I thought I should, for your sake.”

  “To find Rhodry for my sake, you mean?” Angmar leaned back in her chair and rested her head against it. Berwynna feared that her mother would weep, but Angmar merely sighed.

  “Would you rather I stayed a while?” Enj asked.

  “I would,” Angmar said. “Who knows where the silver wyrm’s flown to?”

  Enj got up and stood beside her chair. He caught her hands in his with a gentle squeeze. “Mam, I’ll stay till you give me leave to go.”

  “My thanks.” Angmar spoke so softly that Berwynna had to lean forward to hear her. “It won’t be long, I promise you. But some few days, mayhap.”

  Good! Berwynna thought. That gives me time to plan my escape. What if she were the one to find her father? What would her mother think of her then? The thought filled her with a secret delight.

  “I’ll be leaving with you,” Mic said, “I’ve promised Uncle Otho that I’ll take him home to Lin Serr. I’ve got kin in the city, too, that I’m longing to see. Ye gods, they must have given me up for dead years ago.”

  “Well, yes,” Enj said. “You did vanish in the middle of a war, so it was an easy enough mistake to make.”

  “I can’t argue,” Mic said, “I just hope they’ll be glad to see me again.”

  “Do you truly think they wouldn’t?” Enj laughed at him.

  “Um, perhaps I’m being a bit dense,” Mic said. “I’ll hire Dougie again to come with us, since the poor lad’s stuck here. He was my bodyguard in Alban, when I went to trade. Uncle Otho taught me the jeweler’s craft, you see.”

  “With what?”

  “He always carries his tools, or did, I should say. They’re mine now. Your mother had some silver coins, and we had those gems we’d brought as the price of your assuming Otho’s debts, and that gave us our start.”

  “Very good, and very clever!” Enj nodded his approval. “So, we’ll need a couple of boats. Do you think the island will part with its coracles?”

  “You’ll have to ask Marnmara about that,” Angmar said. “I’m not sure where she is.”

  “I’ll look for her, Mam.” Berwynna rose and curtsied to her mother. “I need to get myself out to the kitchen, anyway. Lonna will have the next batch of bread ready for the oven by now.”

  “Please do, child, and my thanks.”

  Berwynna walked to the door and saw Marnmara come hurrying up the path. Berwynna stepped outside to speak with her.

  “I gather Mam wants to see me,” Marnmara said. “Well, doesn’t she?”

  “Uh, yes, but how did—”

  “I had one of my special moments. They seem to come more often here.” Marnmara smirked at her, then hurried past to go inside.

  There were times when Berwynna wondered if she hated her sister, and this was one of them. She stuck out her tongue at Marnmara’s retreating back, then stalked off to the kitchen hut to start her day’s work.

  Lonna had warmed to Dougie ever since he’d started helping them in the kitchen. Berwynna was shaping loaves when he came in to rake the embers out of the stone oven. Lonna mumbled something about well water and ambled outside to leave them alone.

  “Dougie,” Berwynna said. “I’m going to go with Enj when he leaves. I want to find my father.”

  “Then I’d best go with you, hadn’t I?” Dougie glanced at her over his shoulder and smiled. “With the way the landscape flies around these days, I’m not letting you out of my sight.”

  “I was hoping you’d say that.”

  They shared a laugh. Berwynna slapped two loaves onto the big wooden paddle. He opened the door to let her slide them into the hot oven, then closed the door while she got two more loaves onto the paddle. Once they were in, he shut the door tight to keep in the heat. Since the oven would only hold four loaves, she punched down the rest of the dough. It would rise while waiting its turn.

  They walked outside to the cooler air away from the hot stones. Berwynna wiped the sweat from her face.

  “The thing is,” she said, “we’ll have to plan my escape. Uncle Mic wants you to come along, but I’ll have to sneak away.”

  “I doubt if your mam would let you go.” Dougie looked suddenly troubled. “Mayhap you should just stay here. I’d hate to add to Angmar’s heartache—”

  “Oh, and why would she miss me, except in the kitchen? It’s Mara this and Mara that, never me, and I’m sick of it, Dougie! If I can find my father, maybe then Mam will think of me as somewhat more than a servant.”

  “Here, I’m sure she does just that already.”

  “I’m not.” Berwynna felt tears gather in her throat and choked them down. “I’ll wager she doesn’t even realize I’m gone at first.”

  “Oh, come now! Of course she will. And how will she feel when she realizes you’re gone? She won’t even know where you are.”

  “Yes, she will. Avain will tell her.”

  “You’re going to tell Avain before you go?”

  “I’ll make sure she knows where I am.” Berwynna consoled herself with the thought that she wasn’t precisely lying, since Avain would doubtless be able to see her and Enj both in the water of her silver scrying basin. “And she’ll tell Mam everything.”

  Dougie raised a skeptical eyebrow, but she ignored his doubts.

  When the bread had finished baking, Dougie stoked up the fire again. While the oven heated in readiness for the next four loaves, Berwynna went inside the manse to ask her mother about serving the leftover beef for dinner. Angmar and Enj were sitting together at a window on the far side of the great hall. Laz and Mara were studying the book together at the table. As she passed, Laz was just pointing out a word. Berwynna lingered to listen.

  “It finally dawned on me,” he was saying, “that this name, Eh-vay -an-dare-ree, must be Evandar, or Vandar, as my people call him. Dougie knows the name, and I heard him mention it.”

  “What does the ‘ree’ at the end mean?” Mara said.

  “It means he did somewhat or other. An agentive, it’s called. I wish I’d learned more of the Ancients’ language.”

  “So do I.” Mara suddenly turned round in her chair. “Wynni, don’t eavesdrop! It’s so rude.”

  “Here, here!” Laz said. “There’s no harm in her listening. I think me this book concerns everyone on the island.” He lowered his voice. “And someone off it, too, mayhap. One word I do know is that for ‘dragon,’ and another is ‘dweomer,’ and both are repeated all through the book. It may have somewhat to do with your father and how he got to be the way he is.”

  “Do you think it might tell how to turn him back?” Berwynna said.

  “Hush!” Laz held up one hand. “Since I can’t really read the cursed thing, I don’t know that or anything else for certain.
I don’t want to give your mother false hopes. Understand?”

  “Of course! I shan’t say a word to her.” Berwynna glanced toward the window, but her mother was safely engrossed in conversation with her long-lost son.

  Over the next pair of days, Berwynna spent her time cooking flatbread, cutting and wrapping cheese, and smoking dried meat, provisions that were ostensibly for the men when they left. She included extra for herself. In among the packed gear and provisions, she secreted the things she’d need for the journey.

  On a sunny morning, when the wind had dropped and the lake stretched out clear as glass around the island, the boatmen brought the coracles out and tied them to the pier. Berwynna and Dougie loaded them while Enj and Mic discussed the route ahead. As usual, Berwynna told Dougie what they were saying.

  “We need to get to the river mouth,” Enj said, pointing south. “The problem is the beasts in the lake.”

  “Lon gave me a spare gong,” Mic said, “but he only has one.”

  “I can yell a battle cry.” Dougie took a deep breath and let out a howl that made Berwynna’s ears ring. “I’ll follow you in the second boat safely enough.”

  “No doubt.” Enj shook his head as if clearing the last of the war cry out of his ears. “On a hot day like this, they’ll be sluggish anyway.”

  As Berwynna was leaving the manse with the last pack of supplies, she noticed that the apple trees, rather than being thick with blossoms, showed little buds and the beginnings of green leaves. She stood staring at them until she heard someone walking up the graveled path: Marnmara, followed by a pair of brindled cats.

  “What’s this?” Berwynna pointed at the blossoms. “I never knew that time could run backward.”

  “It can’t.” Mara glanced at the buds, then shook her head in amazement. “I suppose in some ways this is a different island, that’s all.”

  “That’s all, you say?”

  “Wynni, if I knew more I’d tell you more! Haen Marn turns out to be a stranger place than we ever realized back in Alban.”

  “What? But you’re the Lady of the Isle. Aren’t you supposed to know every little thing about it?”

  “Oh, don’t be so nasty!”

  Marnmara jutted her chin into the air and stalked into the manse. With a stamp of her foot, Berwynna turned and hurried toward the boathouse.

  On the way she passed a little bench among the trees where Mara and Laz often sat. Apparently they’d been studying the book there, because it lay open on top of its oiled leather wrappings. How odd of them to just leave it! she thought. Normally Mara guarded it like a dragon with its hoard. Berwynna knew that she should take it back to the manse, but the coracles would be leaving, and she refused to get left behind just because Mara had been so careless. It would serve her right if I just took it. It seemed to her that she heard this thought as someone else’s voice.

  Berwynna glanced around—no sign of Laz or Mara. If that book did contain the spell to restore her father, and if she found him, and if the mysterious Westfolk could work the spell—she could imagine how happy her mother would be, how glad that she had two daughters, not merely one.

  The impulse hit her too hard to resist. She put down the slab of flatbread she’d been carrying, then wrapped the book carefully in its coverings. When she put the other packet on top of it, no one could have seen the difference twixt the two. She trotted off to the pier, where the coracles were waiting.

  With Mic and Otho as passengers, Enj shoved off first in the lead, larger coracle. The sound of the gong and their shouts drifted back across the water. Berwynna handed Dougie the last packet of food, then sat down on the edge of the pier. She leaned over and gave Dougie a kiss, as if saying farewell.

  “The boatmen are all watching Enj,” Dougie whispered. “Now!”

  Berwynna slid off the pier. He caught her by the waist. Without a rock of the boat his strong arms lowered her into the coracle, then he grabbed the paddle and shoved off from the piling. Her heart was pounding, and she bent over low in the hopes of blending unseen with the bundles and blankets. She hid the book safely among the bedding. Yelling his war cry at the top of his lungs, Dougie began paddling fast, heading after Enj and Mic. No one called out in alarm. The sun was hot on her back, and bending over was beginning to make her muscles ache. Berwynna risked a cautious glance back at the island, disappearing fast across the lake.

  Behind them something broke water, a narrow head, a long neck, a pair of black greedy little eyes. Berwynna sat up and screamed out a curse, kept screaming and cursing while Dougie yelled and howled at the top of his lungs. The gong in the first boat sounded louder—Enj had turned back to help drive the creature off. The beast hesitated, then turned slowly away. For a few yards it paddled on the surface, then dove with a swell of ripples that bobbed the coracle. Both boats swung round and headed for the river mouth as fast as their passengers could paddle. With a jerk and a pull the current caught them and swept them onto the river and safety.

  “That was close!” Dougie called out.

  “Too close, truly!” Berwynna said.

  Ahead of them Mic looked back, then began yelling and pointing. Berwynna glanced back, saw nothing following them, and realized that Mic was pointing at her. With a laugh she waved to him. Her adventure had begun, and with the river carrying them fast along, no one could send her back now.

  "I’ve been thinking,” Laz said. "Do you remember what I told you about the Wildfolk’s true existence?” "Of course.” Mara gave him one of her small, secretive smiles. “That they be in truth but patterns of force on the inner planes.”

  “Exactly. Now, when the Wildfolk appear here, they have weight and definite form, they can hold items, they leave tracks when they run, and the like. To do this, they borrow substance from the world around them—dust, earth, leaves, whatever lies at hand. You’ve doubtless heard the songs that the common folk sing about them. That’s why they always describe the Wildfolk as wearing clothes made of flower petals and the like.”

  She nodded, considering this.

  “But notice how the apple trees went backward, as it were, with their blooming.” Laz gestured at the branches of the tree under which they were sitting. “It should be impossible.”

  “That does puzzle me, too.”

  “So, this morning I thought, well, the time’s not ripe here in this world for the trees to be blooming, so they’ve taken the form appropriate to their location. Which led me to another thought—what if Haen Marn shares the same nature as the Wildfolk?”

  “I think I do understand that, in a way.” Mara was frowning. “Laz, you be the scholar among us. What—”

  “Perpend!” He grinned at her. “I’m suggesting that this island and everything on it, the manse, the trees, the boat, are physical manifestations of a pattern woven up on the astral plane. However, and here’s a crucial point, it’s an artificial creation, this island, not a natural part of life like the Wildfolk.”

  Marnmara gasped and looked away, her eyes wide as she seemed to see vast possibilities. “It were taking a powerful dweomer indeed, ” she said at last, “to build this island out of the hidden forces.”

  “Immensely powerful, but I wager someone did just that. Several someones, it would have to be, working over a long period of years.” Laz paused for effect. “The Ancients, Mara. It would have to have been worked by the Ancients. Many of the peoples in Annwn have dweomer of a sort, but only the Ancients have—or I should say, had—dweomer of that magnitude.”

  “From what you and my mam have told me, I do see what you mean, but then, what about us? Those of us who do live on Haen Marn, I mean? Be we naught but force taking form?”

  “Very unlikely, partly because I’m here, too. I traveled with the island, and the gods all know that I’m made of real meat.” He held up his maimed right hand in illustration. “Besides, your mother had children in the usual way.”

  Marnmara smiled in relief and nodded.

  “I suspect,” Laz went on, “th
at real physical persons exist here the way we’d ride in a cart. We can climb in and out of a cart. It moves, we go along with it, but it’s made of different stuff than we are.”

  “That does ring true to me.”

  “Good. On the other hand, I do wonder about some of the boatmen. Lon and his mother are most definitely actual Mountain Folk, and quite probably so is one of rowers, but the others seem to appear and disappear like Wildfolk. I think the one real rower is the pattern, like, for the others. I certainly can’t tell them apart.”

  “No more can I. Laz, this all be—”

  A voice began calling, loudly and insistently, old Lonna’s voice, “Wynni! WYNNI! Where be you?” The voice came closer and closer, and eventually Lonna came walking through the apple trees to stop in front of the bench where they sat.

  “Mara?” she said. “Where be your sister?”

  “Oh, how would I know?” Mara said. “We were discussing somewhat of grave importance.”

  “Here now.” Laz got up and smiled at Lonna. “I’ll help you look, if you’d like.” He glanced back at his sulky pupil. “Lonna’s a bit elderly to go running all over the island.”

  Mara blushed. She forced out a smile and got up with a pleasant nod Lonna’s way. “My apologies,” she said. “Lonna, I’ll be looking upstairs for you. Doubtless, Her Laziness has gone back to bed.” She glanced at Laz. “I want to fetch the Ancients’ book, too. I do get impressions from it, and mayhap it will add to our discussion.”

  While Mara went back to the manse, Laz searched the island, but he found no trace of Berwynna. He returned to the great hall to see a worried-looking Angmar talking with Mara by the staircase while Lonna listened, hands on hips, and a scowl on her face.

  “Laz!” Angmar called out. “Found you Wynni?”

  “I didn’t,” Laz said. “I take it Mara didn’t, either.”

  “I didn’t.” Mara sounded close to tears. “And the dragon book is gone.”

  “What?”

  “I did lock it in the chest by my window, and it be not there now. I’ll wager that wretched Wynni stole it!”