by Terry Madden
“Talan! Send her to me, and I will leave you this blood scribe. He will be worth much to Tiernmas, you know as well as I—”
“We shall let Tiernmas decide what he’s worth, Lyleth.”
“You see,” Connor moaned. “He wins. Cut me and be done with it, Lyl.”
But Lyleth released him to fall to the muddy ground. She took another step toward Angharad, but Dylan wrapped his arms around her.
“Let me go!” she cried.
“He’ll not touch your child,” Dylan whispered in her ear. “Look.” He pointed to Nesta who had cast off her cloak and now stood in the pool. She was naked but for the string of claws that hung around her neck.
“The sacrifice,” Lyleth said. “Is not Angharad.” A surge of relief weakened her knees. She crumbled to the wet turf beside Connor.
Across the water to the south, a carnyx sounded.
The shield wall. Fiach’s horsemen had launched their attack against it. But the archers had not fired yet. As she thought it, cries rang out from the detachment of Talan’s men on the northern shore of the island. Fiach’s archers had released the first volley.
Lyleth looked to Angharad, standing beside Talan. She smiled and waved her pudgy little hand then she pointed at the standing stones.
Lyleth turned to look at the stone directly behind her. The height of two men, the gray rock suggested a human form very roughly. Lichen colored it here and there, and the shadows played in strange patterns. It might have been a trick of the dim light of predawn, but she thought she saw the stone move.
Chapter 27
Celeste had forced a stinking draught of something down Dish’s throat. He slept. Dreamless. When he awoke, the position of the sun blazing through the tent fabric indicated it was about midday, and he was still a prisoner of the Order of the Green. He couldn’t shake the gag out of his mouth, and everything was spinning. He tried to move his hands to his face but found them tied to a stake. Celeste must have figured out that even though he was paralyzed, he could still crawl.
He took some comfort in believing that Iris and Elowen might be looking for him. Yet again, they might have figured that he’d spent the night with Celeste. But that was ridiculous for far too many reasons; especially since the well’s opening was imminent. No, they would be missing him, he told himself.
Sweat stung his eyes, and a shoddy bandage around his wrist was crusted with dried blood. The wound was a dull ache that pounded with his heart.
Mixed with the buzzing of flies, he heard singing and laughing, barkers selling oatcakes and corn dollies. Drums and whistles and jingling bells. From the sound of it, the numbers of the Sunless had grown, all prepared to make the crossing and reclaim the Five Quarters. But if Merryn was telling the truth, their counterparts, the Old Blood, would cross too. Where were they?
He was impossibly thirsty and more confused than ever.
If Merryn was one of the Sunless, as Celeste implied, why had she hidden the photo of the well stone from them? But even without it, the Sunless had figured things out, for here they were, on the day when the stars of the water horse would rise. Maybe Merryn had told them everything. They had Dish’s blood, and it appeared they needed one more piece of the puzzle—the salamander. In all likelihood, they had that now as well. And Dish would be left in this tent while the crowd outside found their way back to the land he yearned for.
Celeste was probably at Merryn’s cottage now, striking a bargain with the girls, trading Dish for the salamander. The odds of Elowen and Iris turning the creature over to Celeste were disturbingly high. And what if they did? How did he think he could possibly stop the Sunless?
The tent flap slipped open and let in a bright shard of sunlight, and a person.
When Dish’s sight returned, he looked into his sister’s face. Bronwyn’s mascara was smeared under her eyes, and her hair was knotted in a jumble at the nape of her neck. She must have a terrible headache, he thought, remembering the quantity of whisky she had consumed.
She grinned at him. “Your date went smashingly, I see.”
“How did you find me?”
“I’ve been peeking in every tent since morning. Had to buy a few trinkets to look natural.” She pointed at a necklace of sea shells strung on black leather.
“Then Celeste has been to visit? Does she have the salamander?”
“She called on us early this morning in fact. Said she’d kill you if we didn’t give up that—that thing.”
“And so you did.” His dejection was complete.
“Not exactly, no. Elowen indicated you’d be dreadfully angry if we did.”
“So, what did you do?”
“Threatened to call the police the moment she walked out the door with the creature. I told her I’d tell Trewin that it was she who murdered Connor and was about to do the same to you.”
He had to laugh. “Brilliant. But she might have killed all of you for the salamander.”
“Not with Connor’s pistol aimed at her head. But we best get you out of here, eh?” She began fumbling with the rope around his wrists, but found the soaked bandage. “Bloody hell.” Her eyes met his.
“I’m all right,” he assured her. “Let’s just get out of here, Wyn.”
She untied his wrists, then took her phone from her pocket, saying, “The police will shut this bloody thing down entirely and arrest Celeste.”
“No,” he begged her, “not yet. If you call the police, it will disrupt the opening. It’s a time, and a place. And the place is near the brook and the time is nightfall. Tonight.”
“Why let these people work their magic? You said yourself they’re evil fucks.”
“Celeste—”
“Is an evil fuck.”
He must have looked crestfallen, for she added, “Your pride’s hurt. But I never knew you to be the prideful sort, Hugh.” She gave him a smile. “You’ll find the one you lost. The one you left on the other side. But tell me this, if you intend to cross with these bastards, how do you think they’ll let you live on the other side?”
“I haven’t the slightest idea.” He gripped her shoulders and forced her to look at him. “But nothing must stop the opening. The only chance they have on the other side is for the Old Blood to return.”
“Where are these Old Blood?”
He had no answer for that either. It was looking like only the Sunless would cross. That might be worse than no one crossing at all.
“Where is Celeste?” he asked her.
“She’s playing grand master of the affair, overseeing some poetry reading.”
“She knows you’re here?”
She tugged at the hood of a cloak she was wearing. “I’m a druid like the rest of them.”
The tent flap opened again, and Peavey appeared. He pushed his cap back on his head, saying, “Your chariot awaits, sir.” He held the tent flap aside so Dish could see the muck cart in which he’d ridden far too many times in recent days.
Dish bumped away from the encampment under a blanket in a dung cart. Either Celeste had no need for him any longer, or Peavey was a clever man, or guardian. He was inclined to believe the former was true. Celeste had his blood; she needed nothing else but the salamander.
**
The girls had taken a stand on the bank of the brook dividing Merryn’s farm from Trevaylor Wood. Elowen had taken the book with the photo and the salamander on its leash and set out to find the exact location of the well stone. Iris had set up a base camp of sorts at the back side of the cairn, hidden from the eyes on the other side of the brook. She brandished the pistol from time to time to remind them that she was armed.
“I told them if they crossed the water, I’d shoot,” she said.
Peavey deposited Dish beside her in the trampled remains of a daffodil bed.
“You have bullets for that thing?” he asked her.
“Just what’s in it, I think. I looked through Connor’s bag for more but didn’t see any.”
“Is it loaded?”
“You know how to shoot it?”
“Nope.”
The afternoon was waning.
Dish crawled through the brush to the edge of the cairn to look across at the gathering Sunless. They clustered like sheep waiting for the opening of a gate to their feed trough. That’s all they needed to do now, really, wait for Dish to open it. But he reminded himself that he was not the one in control here. It was Angharad, on the other side who would initiate the opening. And what if she could not? What if someone prevented it?
Celeste saw Dish and called out, “You want this well open as much as we do. You must feed the salamander your blood, Nechtan.”
Dish scrambled back to the others.
“Peavey,” he asked the guardian. “The Sunless are here, where are the Old Blood?”
“Oh, they’re here all right.”
“Where?”
“You’ll see them soon enough.” Peavey gazed to the west where the sun turned the sky a rich magenta. “Ye should feed that salamander, sir,” he said. “’Tis time.”
Elowen appeared before him with the salamander in tow. The creature ran in circles about the woman like an eager puppy, tying up the makeshift leash until she had to unwind it. She said, “What will it do to her?”
“What will it do to any of us?” he asked, and set to work unwrapping the bandage from his arm.
“Let me,” Bronwyn said. She took his arm and gently peeled away the wrapping that had adhered to the wound with dried blood. “I can’t bear to see you go, Hugh.”
“Let’s not get morose until we have something worthy of it, Wyn. We may be calling the police after all.”
“Which I shall, as soon as that ground opens up, or whatever you said will happen, happens.”
“Fair enough.” He placed his hand over hers saying, “I’m sorry for causing you so much grief.”
“I’m sorry for thinking you were crazy all these years.” There were tears in her eyes.
“But you were right.”
They both laughed. He gathered her into his arms and held her for a long time. “If I go, know that we’ll meet again. On one side of the well or the other. You’ll take care of Merryn’s farm, eh?”
She wiped her nose and nodded, and finished unwrapping his wrist.
“She kept returning to one spot,” Elowen was saying. “And if you look at the picture, the countryside matches somewhat, though there’s more trees now.” She held the book up again and pointed at the west side of the cairn, saying, “The barrow, that strange building far in the distance… and the stone should be just below the dirt there.”
As she pointed to the spot, Bronwyn peeled away the last of the bandage and the wound began bleeding afresh.
“Here,” Dish said, “catch this.”
Bronwyn had always been squeamish. She turned white and moved away while Iris brandished a used teacup. She handed off her pistol to Bronwyn and knelt beside Dish.
“You had tea down here?”
“We’ve been here all day, Dish.”
He flexed his arm and forced more blood from the gash until the cup was half full. “More blood magic,” he said. “Peavey, tell me what’s going on here. Merryn might have lived long enough to see the well opened, to cross beside me.”
Peavey wore a sad smile. “The well would not have opened while she lived. She was the sacrifice, my lord, her blood spilled at the hands of the blood scribe.”
“Blood scribe?”
“Your friend. Connor Quinn.”
Dish cast about the trees along the bank of the stream not a stone’s throw away. Lyla’s tree waved branches in the evening breeze, heavy with leaves, and the soft ground where Connor had dug a hole to plant Merryn’s seed showed the palest green sprout unfolding its head.
“But she’ll live again, on the other side.”
“Of course,” said Peavey, “for she’ll no longer be in exile.”
Peavey reached into a bush, and when he drew back his hand, a natterjack toad was clinging to him. “The Old Blood are here, and they are waiting, my lord.”
“Frogs?”
“You’ll see them soon enough.”
The sound of frog-song assaulted Dish, as a chorus started in the trees and the undergrowth.
“There now,” Peavey said to the frog, and placed it on Dish’s shoulder. “Meet your king, little one.”
It became clear in Dish’s mind, as if the frog had imparted the hopes of an entire people to him with a single look. Merryn’s blood had set everything in motion. She had waited until all the players were in position before the well would be opened. Dish was one of those players, no less than Angharad, Lyleth and Merryn, even Celeste. And when this well opened, he would embrace the duty demanded of him by the green gods, and bring peace.
Peavey took the teacup from Iris and went to Elowen and the salamander. It was trying to dig into the base of the cairn. Bronwyn worked beside it with a stick. When Peavey placed the cup of blood before it, the thing buried its snout in the sticky stuff and lapped at it, smacking its jaws to expose razor sharp teeth.
As they looked on, the salamander’s skin split open and fell away. A small woman emerged. She unfolded her limbs from inside the body of the salamander. Her nut-brown skin shimmered more than Elowen’s, and the pattern of stars that had been on the salamander glowed from her naked back with blinding radiance. One in particular was a star the color of sea glass that shone from her forehead as she turned to look at Dish with eyes that blazed copper.
Peavey was prostrate on the ground before her, muttering in the tongue of the guardians, his palms stretched out to her.
But the salamander woman strode past him until she stood before Dish. She looked into his eyes and said in the tongue of the Ildana, “The well stone lies here. We must dig. For your child prepares to pierce the Void with her touch, to rejoin the living and the dead.”
Dish glanced toward the west. The sun was lingering over the cliffs west of Penzance. The long twilight of summer. “The threshold of day.”
The salamander woman touched the blazing star on her forehead, saying, “The star rises soon.”
Chapter 28
Connor could feel nothing from his shoulder to his fingers. Dylan had tied a tourniquet around his bicep, and the feeling that his consciousness was streaming out his fingertips had slowed. His arm, which had been gray, was now turning black as the cells that thought they were alive realized they’d been dead all along.
Dawn blushed in the east.
He sat in the churned turf in the middle of the island known to him as the navel of the world. Horses screamed, and men shouted, for Fiach’s horsemen had pierced the shield wall and now met Talan’s foot soldiers on the southern end of the large island. If Fiach was successful, the fighting would soon close in on them from all sides.
The bellow of a carnyx signaled for Fiach’s archers to cross the water. The northern push had begun.
Dylan gathered Connor up like a sack of grain. He tried to resist, but his muscles were mush. He wanted to run, to put as much distance between himself and this place as possible, but Dylan dragged him closer. Brixia trotted circles around them as if she could protect them, or warn them.
“To the cromm,” Lyleth said, leading the way.
Connor could see the small gathering on the central island. Talan, Nesta, and Angharad. And with them, the High Brehon and three armed warriors.
“Into the water,” Lyleth cried as she and Dylan dragged Connor between them.
It took his breath away. He closed his eyes and felt for Brixia. She followed. He felt her hooves churning the water, felt her warm, moist breath blowing hard. He knew she was as helpless as he was here, in the belly of the old gods. The two of them dangled at the end of a thread held between the fingers of Angharad. She had but to drop them.
Lyleth and Dylan reached the muddy edge of the inner island and dragged Connor ashore. The guards were waiting for them. Dylan caught the first man’s attack
with his rusty sword as Lyleth pressed her blade against Connor’s throat.
“Call them off, Talan!” she cried. “Or I’ll kill him!”
Angharad’s angelic face peered from behind the bulbous cromm. She wore a worried look and shook her head as if to stay Lyleth’s hand.
But Talan nodded, and his guards withdrew. “Stay then,” he said to Lyleth. “But we must be quick before Fiach reaches the island. I see your lover still does your bidding, Lyleth.”
“He knows what you’re here for. And he’s here to stop you.”
“He’ll be too late.”
He took Nesta’s hand and led her to the low round stone, the cromm. He kissed her most tenderly, tragically. Then she caressed the twisting serpent design that covered the stone. It had weathered into a vague pattern of labyrinthine swirls and chevrons, runes of binding. She draped herself over it as an offering, raising her chin to expose her neck to Talan.
Angharad stepped backward, slowly, until her feet were in the water. For a moment, Connor thought she would try to get away, but knew that wasn’t what she’d come for.
Talan was quick. With his fingers knotted in Nesta’s hair, he dragged his knife blade across her throat. The sacrifice was made.
Angharad did not flinch, did not look away, but stood stolidly at the water’s edge. Her reaction confirmed what Connor had known in his heart all along. Angharad was no child.
He smelled the blood instantly, felt it flow over the stone, into the runnels carved there by the druada of the Ildana. The green flow of Nesta’s life would root its way between the particles of stone, breaking the chains that held Tiernmas’s soul.
Connor’s heart leapt.
Tiernmas had been a man once. One Connor had admired. One Connor had pledged to serve. A man who worshiped the might of human reason, of the sovereignty of every person over the landscape of his own soul. And then… and then Connor had made him king.
A battle raged on the other side of the pool. Talan’s men had cut down the bulk of Fiach’s horsemen as they mired in the soft ground. But a volley of arrows slapped the water all around them. They glanced off the cromm, buried in Nesta’s cooling body as well as Talan’s, who simply pulled the arrows from his chest like toys.