The Moonshawl: A Wraeththu Mythos Novel Read online

  While all this was going on, the har upon the horse, who I realised must be Mossamber Whitemane, was turning his mount in a cavorting circle. When Nytethorne had been lifted and they’d begun to carry him away, Mossamber looked right at me, and it took all my will not to fall to my knees. His thick black hair was wild, as were his eyes. His dark-skinned face was that of a dehar, but a savage one. I could see he despised me. Dress yourself up in expensive clothes, emulate the ancient ways of men, but this... this is what birthed you, what lies in the deepest corners of your heart.

  He did not speak the words aloud, of course, and neither were they a mind touch, but I knew them. Then, he dismissed me from his attention and urged his horse to leap forward. He overtook the lunging, baying crowd of hara and his white hounds tumbled after him like breaking waves.

  Within seconds, as the wild sounds retreated, all was quiet, the forest lawn empty, as if nothing had happened. Nothing at all.

  I sat down where I stood, because I had no fear the Whitemanes would return. Nausea still pulsed uncomfortably within me and my chest hurt. There had seemed so many of them. They couldn’t all be Whitemanes, surely? They must have had village and farming hara with them, perhaps some of the same hara who would attend the Wyvachi rite tomorrow. As I strained to control my breathing, I heard the tolling of a bell again: loud, strong, clear. It held within its sonorous notes a voice of mourning, yet at the same time was sublimely uplifting. My breathing was synchronised with the chimes, which helped calm it to its normal rhythm.

  I didn’t feel restored enough to stand up for at least a couple of minutes. All I wanted to do was get back to the tower, shut myself in. Well, I’d certainly experienced a Cuttingtide rite, although not one I’d have chosen. I was aghast the Whitemanes were so powerful they could affect me like this. And how exactly had they done it? I’d been given no strange philtre, had entered no otherworld, and yet I felt as if I’d lost time and my head was not my own. It was like being drunk. I was weakened, barely capable of controlling my limbs.

  Slowly, I began my homeward journey, passing from tree to tree, holding on to them, feeling their breathing warmth. I sensed they observed me scornfully. I saw faces in the foliage all around me. Echoes of memories cavorted across my mind.

  Howling. Galloping horses. Smoke. Fire. Gutted buildings. Plumes of blood. Hoarse screams. A severed arm pointing from the earth. Then eyes. Frightened eyes. Not caring. Less than animal.

  I didn’t ever think of my early days of hardom. I didn’t want to, and yet what I had witnessed that night had conjured back those times: our relentless driving urge to conquer, never ceasing our forward advance, like terrible sentient locusts armed with blades. Devouring, destroying everything in our path. No matter how I sought to suppress these recollections, they refused to be banished. How could I have been influenced and incapacitated like this?

  Presently, I became aware of dancing, purplish shadows among the trees, and then saw a streak of magenta fire that trailed ribbons of deep pink smoke. The sight of it stalled the parade of hideous images in my head and in that way cleared it a little. The peculiar werelight fizzed round me, sometimes crossing my path some yards ahead, other times flickering through the trees. I felt it had intelligence, was observing me, teasing me. This, I felt sure, was a manifestation – or hallucination – of the ysbryd drwg that Fush had mentioned. I was mesmerised by its strange beauty, but knew I must escape it. Yet wherever I turned it overtook me.

  Eventually, I gave up trying to get away. ‘State your purpose or begone!’ I said, mustering a voice of command. The apparition hung before me on the path, only feet away from me. For a few brief moments it adopted a vaguely harish shape: a mass of hair floating on the air, but no face. There were trailing arms like long thin fins, a robe of purple-black billows that faded to nothing above the dirt of the track. I heard a sound like the crackle of lightning, which might have been laughter. Then it was gone and the blackness was absolute, the landscape around me utterly silent, holding its breath.

  I was so relieved to see the tower on its hill, I almost wept. By this time, my limbs had stiffened and my head was aching badly. Hara are rarely ill, but I was reminded of my human childhood, of the diseases of infancy that confined you to bed in a hushed room, of time ticking by, and the sweats of sickness, the boiling eyes, the soreness of throat and limb. I pressed my flaming face against the wood of the tower door, fumbling with the latch. Then I was inside, and it was as if loving arms reached for me, helped me up the stairs. I didn’t pause at the kitchen, but went directly to my bedroom, where I flung myself on the bed, fully dressed. The Whitemanes had somehow done something to me, but what? I could barely move, afire with fever and pain.

  I must have drifted into sleep, for I awoke not long before midnight, feeling perfectly fine. Whatever spasm had gripped me, or made me believe I’d been gripped, had vanished. The ancient memories had settled, become dim, and could be ignored. I went down to the kitchen and prepared myself some tea as well as three thick rounds of toast, for now I was ravenous. As I ate, I wrote up everything I’d experienced. Had Ember Whitemane managed to blow some hallucinogenic powder onto me? Had the lights on the ground been laced with some kind of drug that I inhaled? While it would be easy to imagine harm had been done to me on purpose, perhaps what I’d gone through was merely a component of the Whitemane ritual. All of them had been addled in the same way, running through the trees, amid the squirming hounds, carrying an injured har between them.

  ‘Crazy hara,’ I said aloud, shaking my head, and reaching for the comfort of hot tea. Only the dehara knew what had happened once that bacchanal band had reached the Whitemane domain. I imagined savage lust, fiery eyes, and the warm brown of Whitemane flesh. But there was no arousal in these thoughts; I was glad to be home.

  Around an hour later, I went back to my bed, feeling comfortably drowsy and ready for wholesome sleep. The night was so calm, especially as Mossamber’s hounds were absent from the farm. The eerie rise and fall of their spontaneous nocturnal chorus was not there to unnerve me and delay my slumber.

  I remember I dropped off fairly quickly, for often I’m prone to lying awake for a long time before sleep comes to me. But then there was the dream.

  As in the most disturbing of lucid dreams, I was convinced I was awake. I heard a noise on the stairs that woke me, and I sat up in bed. Clear azure starlight illumined the room. I saw the door swing open slowly, revealing an intense darkness beyond. I didn’t feel afraid, only curious, but also sure of who would be standing there at my threshold. As I’d known, it was Ember Whitemane who stepped from the darkness. He didn’t speak but came to me directly, half dressed in what might have been torn cloth or leaves. His hair drooped in matted rags over his breast and his eyes seemed wholly black. His stare reached right into me – wild, hungry, challenging – and inflamed me instantly and fully.

  Again, a memory of the distant past, when aruna had been a mind-bending and potent drug, hara hungry for it continually. The power in it. I saw a pair of dark eyes gleaming, eyes across a fire.

  Ember tore back my quilt and in a moment was upon me. I met him with equal hunger. We clawed at one another, snarling. What he gave me was gritty, part of the forest, scoring my insides, painful as much as pleasurable. I pulled his hair, trying to drag his face to mine, but he resisted. There would be no sharing of breath between us. This was some base, proto-pagan act, the culmination of whatever his bizarre hara had done that night, with nothing of finer feeling about it. It was as if he pulled from deep within my spirit some primal, savage entity. The ecstasy of this fierce coupling was so great, I was barely conscious. As waves of delirious arunic energy began to course through my flesh, I uttered a cry, a word. A name. But it was not Ember’s. He took this from me, perhaps had visited me to seek it. I could not silence it, make him forget it, or pretend it wasn’t the most potent of spells.

  ‘Gesaril!’

  Only once.

  Enough.

  When I woke
the next day I wasn’t as disturbed by the dream as I thought I should be, even though I could remember every detail. I knew it was a dream, that Ember had not visited me in reality. There were no leaves, or sticks or soil within my bed. My soume-lam wasn’t torn. I wasn’t bruised or scratched. But at the same time I was convinced Ember and his kin had created the dream. I was now sure the experience I’d had in the bedroom days before, of imagining that sticklike creature against me, had somehow presaged Ember’s visit. His night raid of my sleeping mind, which I took to be mischievous rather than malevolent, didn’t anger me or make me afraid, only left me somewhat dazed. I can’t deny I’d enjoyed it, in an appalled kind of way. But what did unnerve me was that I’d spoken that name; my secret. I wasn’t happy the Whitemanes had this name, but then, thinking rationally, how could they use it against me? My history with Gesaril – at least I was able to acknowledge his name now, as if a heavy stone had been lifted from me – was hardly likely to offend the Wyvachi should they discover it, because it was history, a sorry story of two individuals who’d acted impulsively. There is no record to say I was cruel.

  After breakfast, I began to move clocks into the bathroom. One from the kitchen wall, one from the bedroom, another from the living-room mantelpiece. Why I was driven to do this, I couldn’t then explain, but it felt right, as if the tower was speaking to me. I’d had a brief impression of the bathroom being used for ritual purposes when I’d first come here, and of clocks being somehow a part of that. I needed to bring these measurers of earthly time into that room, because it would initiate something. I had no idea what.

  Chapter Ten

  The celebrations for the Wyvachi Cuttingtide rite would begin in the early evening. I went over to Meadow Mynd in the afternoon to help with the preparations. In the garden, Rinawne came to me almost immediately as I wandered among the trestle tables and busy hara on the main lawn. He took my hand and said, ‘Ys, are you all right?’

  I pantomimed a double take, raised my brows. ‘A strange greeting! Of course I’m all right. Why?’

  Rinawne regarded me with suspicious eyes. ‘I don’t know. It’s just when I first saw you across the lawn, you seemed...’ He shook his head. ‘There, I have no words to describe it! I suppose “out of sorts” will have to do.’

  I squeezed his hand and let go of it. ‘I’m fine. Just a little tired. Sat up far too late last night and there was wine in my store to help bring in the change of season.’

  This was something Rinawne could understand and empathise with. ‘Your own fault, then!’

  I smiled. ‘Yes. But never mind my self-inflicted hurts. There are so many tables here. Are you feeding several villages tonight?’

  Rinawne laughed. ‘We might well do. Word has spread. Hara are curious.’

  ‘This means, of course, you and Wyva were publicising the event last night on your excursions.’

  He shrugged a little. ‘Well, maybe.’ There was an excitement about him; he had some news. But I knew enough of Rinawne by now not to push him for it. He liked to choose his moments to astound. And from the look of him, the news could not be bad.

  ‘How would you and Wyva feel about Myv leading the procession tonight?’ I asked. ‘I was thinking last night it might be a good idea to announce his intentions concerning the hienama role.’

  ‘Sounds fine to me,’ Rinawne said. ‘I know Wyva would think the same. Word’s got out already a bit. I think Myv must’ve mentioned it at the school, or to one of the househara who care for him.’

  ‘Oh, what’s the reaction been to the news?’

  ‘Hara like the idea, or seem to. Why would they not? They’ve been gasping for a hienama for long enough, and...’ He squeezed my arm, ‘...they have you to teach him.’

  ‘Well...’

  ‘All right, all right, we won’t talk about that now. Anyway, I have to sort things out. Some of these tables are a mess. Keep me company, though.’

  We roamed the lawn of Meadow Mynd, Rinawne inspecting tablecloths and other such trivia. While he talked with his staff about details, I mulled over the festival to come. I had decided that Myv should lead the procession crowned with early summer flowers and carrying a torch. I was glad rumours had spread among the local hara, and that there appeared to be no unhappy reaction to them. But then why should there be? Wyva and his kin were loved and respected. This could only be marvellous news to the hara of Gwyllion.

  I wondered, though, what the Whitemanes might think about it. Could this announcement even put Myv in danger? I uttered a small sound aloud to dismiss the thought. I mustn’t bring such ill-omened ideas into reality. A brief flash of Ember Whitemane’s sly yet lovely countenance skittered across my mind. I had been determined not to think of the Whitemanes today, and must push images of them away sternly. The celebration tonight would be one of joy and gratitude for life itself, with no dark elements. The Wyvachi must be the future of hara in this area, not the Whitemanes. I was sure of that after what I’d witnessed the previous evening. The thought of Myv sticking Wyva with a few arrows, then his hurakin running off mad-eyed with the unconscious body, was in fact ludicrous. I was almost tempted to share what I’d experienced with Rinawne, but perhaps that was for another time. Today should not be tainted.

  ‘What is it?’ Rinawne asked. He was studying me and I’d not noticed.

  ‘Nothing, why?’

  ‘You made a strange sound.’

  ‘Oh, just running over plans in my head. There are some words I wished I’d used for the main rite, but it’s too late to change now.’

  ‘Never too late to change,’ Rinawne said, grinning. ‘You should know that. Oh, this might fascinate you...’

  ‘What?’ Here it came.

  ‘Well, on our travels last night, Wyva was in an extremely good mood, and in such moods might miracles occur! We passed the boundary into the next county and there are relatives of his in that place. He suggested we call on them.’

  Rinawne’s face was alight with pleasure, or perhaps just curiosity and love of drama, but I felt a strange twist of anxiety at the news. ‘I didn’t think the Wyvachi had any contact with other relatives.’

  ‘Little,’ Rinawne said. ‘But it was in Wyva’s blood to see them, so off we went. The domain is called Harrow’s End, a beautiful old place, which was – I understand – a wreck when they first occupied it. Not so now, and a thriving community around it. They were celebrating their Cuttingtide last night. There were bonfires everywhere, sparks going up into the sky. We heard the singing long before we reached the house. We saw hara lurching and dancing all over the fields and gardens. Much wine and ale had flowed and everyhar was in generous spirit. The Wyverns were surprised to see us, of course, but embraces were exchanged, exclamations of delight. You can imagine. Some of them will be coming here tonight, because Wyva has told them the past is cleansed. I never realised what an expert liar he is.’

  I frowned. ‘Rin, isn’t this... isn’t this all rather important? Perhaps a public festival isn’t the right time or place for this family reunion.’

  ‘Whyever not? Surely hara will be on their best behaviour if there’s an audience.’

  I shook my head. ‘Because... something happened in the past to divide the family, severely divide it. Now you say it’s all happiness and cheer again? Is that even... right without some sober and private discussion?’

  Rinawne had assumed a slightly irritated expression, and had folded his arms. ‘Only if we assume they fell out for a good reason, which I doubt.’

  ‘Why assume it was a falling out at all? Maybe it was more to do with the situation here.’

  Again Rinawne shrugged. ‘I don’t care. I’m impatient with it all, Ys. The secrecy, the melodrama. What reason is there for it now? Let them all get back together and see what a stupid thing the division was in the first place.’

  ‘Well, let’s hope that’s the outcome,’ I said.

  I couldn’t help but think of the Whitemanes again: the gleam of watchful eyes among the tre
es; swift, covert movement; the glint of an arrow. I was compelled to glance over my shoulder, at the dark mass of the thick shrubbery around the lawn. For a moment I sensed somehar there, watching me, the faintest tickle of a thought against my mind. Then it withdrew, the feeling passed. But after that, I had the clear and certain feeling that the problems of the Wyvachi were intrinsically enmeshed with the Whitemanes, more so than in mere history. Why this idea should come to me at that moment and so strongly, I had no idea, but I felt it was right. ‘So who exactly is coming?’ I said, trying to lighten the atmosphere. ‘Prepare me so I can politely know names.’

  Rinawne was looking at me in a slightly puzzled way, no doubt wondering why I’d looked behind us like a frightened cat. ‘OK, well I’ve already told you that Wyva’s parents are dead. As you might expect, details of this are scant and surrounded by much silent woe and hand-wringing. Maybe they were murdered, who knows? Certainly not me. The surviving hurakin are led by Wyva’s hura, Medoc har Wyvern – that branch never lost the original family name. His tribe is vast and prosperous.’

  ‘Yet in one respect like the Wyvachi, clinging to the past,’ I said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘The family name.’

  ‘Perhaps, although you don’t get that feeling so much from them. Anyway, Medoc will come this evening, along with a half dozen or so relatives. Don’t ask me to remember their names.’