by Shean Pao
Chapter Three
The Willow Woman
Barbarus wandered among the townsfolk of Ethcabar while they gathered on the evening after the tournament. He felt his master’s eyes upon him, always scrutinizing, aware of his every deed. It was an ominous, haunting presence, and it left Barbarus in a state of continuous anxiety. He rubbed his broken horn, fretting over this task.
Years before, when he had first become a suarachán, or slave, to the Nepha Lord, Barbarus had been given a simple chore which he had not completed swiftly enough. His master, Rash’na’Kul, had brutally severed one of his horns, leaving him with a splintered nub—a humiliating reminder of his failings.
The stump now throbbed in ghostly pain.
Rubbing the remnant of his horn when he was upset had become a habit, though it reminded him of his failure.
This hunt was the worst he had undertaken. His inability to lock on to the Willow Woman’s Thread terrified him.
Barbarus hitched his hood up farther, focusing his weary thoughts, then whispered words of power between cracked lips.
The suarachán lifted long fingers in a pattern of movement. He slit his eyes as he parted the Veil of Seeing and peered into the Void for the unique Strand that belonged to her alone.
Barbarus was an Eastóscán, cursed with the ability to find things. It was this skill that had kept Barbarus alive through seven years of bending to Rash’na’Kul’s will when others had failed and been slain. He possessed an exceptional gift for extracting information from the Void, the place where all objects were linked by vibrating Strands.
His abilities, honed to perfection by his master, let him travel upon those Strands, inhaling knowledge like whiffs of incense. But this woman’s Strand remained elusive, nearly nonexistent. His mind caught glimpses, but they evaded him like flickering lights glinting off a spiderweb while it twisted in the wind.
Barbarus’s shoulders dropped with his faltering confidence. His concentration tangled in a mire of weariness, words refusing to form in his throat. A panic started in his head, sounding much like the high-pitched whining of the Uaighe blade his master had used to cleave his horn.
It was no use. He could find no trace of the Willow Woman. And yet, once more, a different type of Strand revealed itself. The whispers of others speaking her name resonated on the Threads of the Void.
He followed them.
The best tales were spun at the docks on the poorer side of town, where weathered wooden piers creaked and water slapped against the paint-peeled sides of fishing boats.
Ancient legends were exchanged within waterfront pubs, passed between tarnished old sailors sucking on mugs of frothy ale.
They murmured of “the Willow Woman” while gathered around bonfires along the beach. Strange shadows scuttled over the sand and quiet waves, hushing their voices. The stench of sweat mingled with the smoke of burning driftwood.
“The Woman of the White Tower,” they intoned in soft murmurs to children huddled on logs, sipping warmed cups of watered-down mead. A few even spoke of the Tuatha Dé Danann, but barely above a whisper. No one remembered how long she had lived among them, but the Elders were versed in her stories.
Barbarus found one such Elder in a pub where the sail- and net-menders gathered. Elder Mattie Daen knew all the old tales. When she spoke, her blue eyes gleamed, nearly white-blind, then flashed with a glint from the fires. Wisps of hair escaped her widow’s bonnet like a spray of lamb’s wool, framing her apple-shriveled face.
Barbarus had taken a seat in a darkened corner. It proved difficult, so close to others, to stay completely hidden. He kept his features concealed beneath his hooded cloak and used a little magic to avert the eyes of the more curious.
“Speak to her polite of tone if ye must speak at all,” Elder Daen cautioned folks sagely while firelight played over her wrinkled cheeks. “Be truthful, for she be knowin’ if you say a falsehood. Take her a worthy offerin’ when you ask for her blessing. Bring no coinage of the realm. She prizes rare gifts, or ones yer sorely parted with. The Willow Woman cares not for money.”
Years before, she told them, William Faraday had braved a visit to the Willow Woman. “Blessin’ came upon his farmlands, and his crops were doubled throughout his life.”
Then she cautioned, “A gréasaí from Salf set off on a fair morn with a strut in his gait to seek his fortune with the Willow Woman. He returned, face blighted with a red mark, and his cobblin’ skills gone. He became a vagrant, beggin’ for coins at the city gate.”
“Did she kill the knight at the joust?” Barbarus called from beneath his hood, saying aloud what he knew the rest of them feared to put to words.
The room stilled. No sound was heard but for the snap of the wood in the fire.
Elder Daen turned her fearsome, near-blind gaze toward Barbarus. He caught a breath in horror. She has the Sight! He strengthened the Threads around him in a spell of Scattering, reconstructing light and shadow to avert her piercing vision, forcing it to glance off his figure.
Her hand lifted, skin so translucent that the movement of bones and protruding, purple veins shone through. The old woman pointed a sticklike finger at him, holding for a hair’s breadth longer than he liked, then moved on to sweep the room. She finally lowered it. “His token was not worthy.” Then she whispered, “Never cross the Tuatha Dé Danann.”
Elder Daen’s tone threatened a curse, and around the pub, fingers brushed across palms to ward off evil. But her strange, wise smile drew the men closer to the fire, hinting at other tales she knew but did not speak of.
Barbarus learned that over the years many townsfolk had taken the journey up the shore to search for the Willow Woman, but none had ever found her. Old Mattie Daen said to travel by foot five leagues north to the Listener’s Place, where the ancient willow tree stood sentinel on the cliffs. The land broke at the edge of the ocean there, and massive jags of rock dropped into the sea.
Twin shards jutted from the water, fifty feet in height, formed in the shape of two arms that touched at the wrists. They ended in the semblance of fingers, cupped as if to hold.
“Quest on a day when the moon rests in their palms,” Mattie Daen advised. “Yer sure to see her tower, risin’ out of the crashin’ surf in the distance.”
* * *
On the afternoon following the tournament, the moon shone pale and distant between the Hands, and a strange mist swirled over the sea.
Anarra passed her palm over the waters in her bowl, hoping for another vision of the Feather. Instead, she saw a woman remove her shoes and wade, ankle deep, toward the tower. By the time she arrived at the structure, her calico skirts clung to her calves, though she hiked them high and tucked them into her girdle.
Behind her trailed a boy, perhaps no older than eight. Anarra sent her senses along the Threads, becoming aware of an affliction upon him. The boy was mostly deaf. She shifted her sight to the woman—a recent widow. Widow Morgan.
Anarra watched as the Widow Morgan reached the steps that rose from the gleaming black rocks at the base of the tower and gazed up. The pearl-white surface, tinged golden from the midday light, extended twenty stories high, unbroken by window or turret. Only a single stone entrance waited at the top of thirteen steps. The door stood open, and Widow Morgan put on her shoes, took her child’s hand, and went in.
She climbed stairs that spiraled upward for a quarter of an hour. Twice she turned to admonish her sluggard son, and finally grabbed the boy to give him a shake. “Keep up, or the Siabhra take ye!”
Anarra left the view of them in her Moon Well and descended the steps of her tower. She entered her painting room and tied on a spotless white apron over her rose-colored gown. A beaded snood caught and held her pale hair.
Light suffused the chamber, coming from the surrounding starflurry lamps set in arched crevasses cut into the walls. Canvases leaned against the stone, some blank, most not. A gentle ocean breeze ruffled sheer yellow curtains flanking a large window.
&nbs
p; On her easel, its back facing the entrance, sat the finished painting of the knight from the fair. Beside it stood a small table cluttered with bowls of colored liquid.
Anarra stared at the scene, then smeared a cloud in the sky with the edge of her hand and dabbed white paint on the rim of his visor.
She had awakened that morning trailing the unhappy memory of that event like a shroud. She repeatedly pushed the image of his shocked expression out of her mind only to have it return, ghosting over the surface of her thoughts. She felt haunted.
So she had set to work, using charcoal to sketch the scene. As the hours wore on, she had added shades that reproduced the exact moment of his torment, set forever upon the surface of the canvas.
When she had finished, every detail of his death lay exposed before her.
Now she mixed different colors—muted hues of gray, rose, and blue. She started from the center and artlessly blotted him out, coating over his picture to hide the memories from herself. She murmured toneless words, securing their power through the pigments.
Anarra was still working when the widow found her. The woman stopped beneath the arched entrance to the room, her breath strained from the arduous climb. Then she entered with the boy.
Anarra leaned around the easel to gaze at the woman. A cursory glance, as if she had expected someone else, before she returned to her painting.
The boy tried to grasp his mother’s hand, making a small noise, but she shook him off. “Be still,” the widow whispered.
Her high-pitched voice disturbed the silence of the room. She tugged the damp cloth of her skirts away from her calves. A thick braid of ebony hair fell over her shoulder, carefully threaded with an ivory ribbon.
Anarra fixed her eyes on her painting. “What have you brought me?” she asked, her tone hinting at annoyance.
The musical notes of her voice filled the air like chimes and the whisper of the sea. Disappointment soured her mood; she sensed the widow’s token was nothing special.
She wondered why she had let this woman in her tower. Why had the Moon Well revealed her? What Thread connected them?
Her displeasure in the unseen gift caused her interest in those questions to wane.
Widow Morgan bristled, straightening her back. She lifted a blue velvet bag.
Anarra shot a glance at her. She knew the pouch contained a cosmetic pot of expensive perfumed oils and that it galled the widow to part with such a prize.
Anarra almost turned away, but something in the widow’s expression piqued her interest anew. Fear hovered in her eyes—an emotion Anarra was accustomed to seeing. But she saw more: anger, indignation, and retribution. Widow Morgan believed that the Willow Woman owed her. Oh, yes, owed her dearly.
Anarra extended her hand, and the widow grudgingly deposited her offering. A tingling whisper passed across Anarra’s palm as the woman’s Thread linked to hers.
Anarra took a few steps, set the bag on a shelf, and returned to her easel. Her gaze rested on the canvas while her mind probed along the Strand, studying the widow.
Fragments of forgotten memories rose to the surface of her mind like bubbles rising in a pond. The pale echoes of a child’s laughter, the lingering refrain from a violin. She heard the sounds of a wild wind and shutters banging closed. A man’s voice echoed, deeply annoyed. The widow’s late husband.
Anarra recognized that voice—knew his stance and the shape of his shoulders. She was staring at his face, half obliterated on her canvas. This was the knight’s widow. The very man Anarra had killed. The irony did not elude her.
“What do you seek of me?” Anarra set down her brush and regarded the widow with a bored gaze. She did not open the bag to inspect Widow Morgan’s gift or even glance in its direction.
The woman took a step forward, her expression brazen. She stood taller than Anarra by half a foot, her body slender and strong. Beauty graced her still, though time had begun to etch at her features.
“I wish to look young once more and be cared for in my older years.” Her eyes flashed defiance.
Anarra studied the widow for a moment, then shifted her gaze away, letting it fall on the child. He looked much like the knight—same auburn hair and blue eyes. His father’s son. She remained silent while she contemplated the boy, traveling the Threads, observing his pain. In a few seconds she had gleaned more from him than his mother ever had. Children always laid open their hearts like a sacrifice, wanting affection in return. She jerked in surprise when the boy, William, offered a very rare, tentative smile.
How do children know to give such gifts?
Unsettled, Anarra set her mind along the widow’s Thread. She considered her mute son a curse from his father, who now lay dead and rotting for all his filthy schemes, whoring, and witchery. The widow planned to send her son to a distant cousin to be housed. Let the afflicted child work for his board and meals. With her beauty restored and her child elsewhere, she hoped to catch a wealthy husband.
“’Tis myself who’s come with an offerin’, not the boy,” the widow said in a flat, bitter tone that broke Anarra’s concentration.
Anarra picked up a rag to wipe her hands. “Yet the boy’s smile is a better token than you have brought.”
The widow’s eyes flashed, and her lips trembled. “I shouldn’t have brought anything! Ye took the man who gave us both livelihood. Ye killed his father!” She pressed her hand against her mouth. Tears ran down her cheeks.
The Willow Woman’s gaze shifted to Widow Morgan with cold regard. “Yet still I question whether I should bless you for the child’s sake or curse you for your own.”
Widow Morgan sagged against the wall and sobbed into her hands.
Again Anarra regarded the child, who stared pensively at his mother’s tears. His anxious gaze flittered between the women. Compassion moved Anarra, and she sighed. She faced the woman. “So be it.”
She approached a shelf that held three small silver bowls, one marked with a red rune, the second marked with a white, the third blank. She took a runestone from the red-marked bowl, crushed the soft material into powder between her hands, and rubbed them together while she returned to the widow.
“Look here, woman, at the gift I will bestow: a glimpse into your son’s future.”
Anarra drew from the power of the Moon Well while her dark, rune-stained palms lifted up and away, as if to part a veil. While she drew her hands apart, the shimmering image of a knight appeared before the widow. He stood tall and wore the tabard of their house over gleaming armor. The lad was as broad-shouldered and striking as his father, yet his eyes held a tenderness that touched Widow Morgan. His hand reached toward her while he spoke.
“Mother, do not weep. I’ll look after you always.”
The image faded. Anarra turned and gestured to the boy, who appeared confused but stepped forward boldly. “Good lad,” she said. Laying her hands over his ears, she drew upon the Threads and wove them into the powder, healing his deafness. Then she drew a line of rune-dust across his throat. Where her touch passed, a faint whisper of blue light trailed.
“Take your child home, Lady Morgan. The Willow Woman has blessed you this day.”
The Widow drew her son close, pressing his head to her breast, and kissed the top of his hair. When she had gathered herself, she curtsied to Anarra, still trembling, and spoke her thanks.
As they turned to leave, the child offered Anarra a practiced bow, gave her a smile to rival all others, and then left with his mother.
Anarra returned to her work. Once the horse and crowds were obscured, she no longer recalled what she had been painting over. The guilt of her deed had vanished.
Chapter Four
The Dragon’s Hoard
Barbarus sat on the shoreline above the beach, leaning against a large piece of driftwood. Clumps of tall marram grass lay scattered around him, pulled from the sand in fits of frustration, their black roots withering in the salty air.
Dark clouds crouched overhead, illuminated by a vio
let glow, their underbellies filled with the promise of rain.
The previous day, the suarachán had witnessed a woman and her son wade into the sea, vanish into a mist, and then reappear an hour later. But when Barbarus had strode into the waves, he’d found only floating kelp and brown froth. All night he had waited in the cold ocean, hunting with his Eastóscán powers, and had found nothing.
He rubbed his horn, anxious to solve this dilemma. Gripping a grass clod by the hairy roots, he pounded it against the log. A burst of sand sprayed over him, caught up by the wind. Drops of rain pattered the earth, turning the sandy ground dark.
Barbarus shot to his feet when a mist gathered, spreading over the sea. It churned while lifting high above the waves, then parted to reveal the dome of a tower. He scurried down the bank and across the sand, gnawing on a question.
Why can I find you now when I could not before? What has changed?
Apprehension coursed through him as he studied the thrust of the structure into the sky. Profound power resided within this tower, yet the Willow Woman possessed the ability to hide it from his Eastóscán Sight. Before now, Barbarus had believed nothing could be hidden from him. For the first time, he wondered if there were other things in the world he knew nothing about.
Barbarus paced along the shore. His senses thrummed with alarm. A mental picture of the knight’s trampled body curled his lip.
She is terribly dangerous.
Images of Rash’na’Kul gazing into emerald flames at the Willow Woman’s form flooded Barbarus’s thoughts, haunting him once more. The pupils of his master’s ice-blue eyes dilated when he performed a spell of seeking. But lately their shape had changed, leaking like a pinprick in a tiny egg yolk.
They terrified him.
Barbarus plunged into the water. He entered the mists, waded through the frigid surf, and reached the base of the rocks. Trembling, he fixed his gaze on the span of the tower stretching overhead. He was fearful of this place, of what lay within it—but his master terrified him more.
Climbing from the waves, Barbarus stood at the foot of the stairs. A plain door rested at the top of weathered steps. His skin crawled with worry, but he proceeded with his master’s business. He couldn’t afford the luxury of fear.
