by Gail Merritt
‘It’s a witch!’ one screamed and they moved towards me. Deni and Sandor rose from their hiding place to protect me, but it was time to show them the true power of a Mantle. At my request, the grass and bindweed sent out tendrils to ensnare and fasten hasty feet. The earth opened and swallowed two of the standing stones but even this did not deter the boldest of the gathering who were ready to lay hold on me. At the same time, Deni must have caught sight of the missing child and raced forward to grab him.
From out of the darkness came an eerie sound of trumpets and down from the knoll came the spirit army of the dead king. When they saw the soldiers, the believers dropped to their knees, certain that their prayers had been answered. But when the army reached the standing stones, they faded and disappeared into dust. I might have wondered where these wraiths had come from, had I not been occupied by avoiding the leader of the gathering who had reacted quickly when the army disappeared. He had seen Deni snatch Vinny Cable and now needed a new sacrifice. I was his preferred choice, but the force of the wind drove him back, away from me.
As Deni and the child hurried down the hill, a new horror was about to assail the panicking worshippers. A shower of glowing brands, cascading from a fiery orb, sent everyone for shelter among the standing stones. My attacker threw himself to the ground beside me, as the ground about the stones exploded in flame. From everywhere , a deep gravelly voice commanded us to leave that sacred place and to return to our homes and beds. Most of the assembly did not need a second telling. They streamed down the hillside. Their leader glared at me but another flash of light close to his ears encouraged him to obey. Unsure what power had created this display, I crept cautiously on my hands and knees to the edge of the stones, intent on following the others. I could see Sandor hovering on the slopes below, waiting and unhappy about leaving me.
‘There is danger for you here,’ raged the voice, now in my head. ‘Take those who will follow you and leave this town.’ I staggered to my feet, feeling the glow of power gather about me like a cloak.
‘I thought you couldn’t leave the cave.’ I took a deep, long breath.
‘I came to save you, child.’ was the reply. ‘Your power is great, but you have much to learn. When you have smelt the ocean and known the mysteries of that land, return to me. I have been too long alone. I will share my knowledge with you in exchange for your company. Go now.’
‘What will become of those who came to this place?’
‘The gift of forgetfulness is one that I can bestow with ease. All who came here tonight, except for you and the young knight who guided you to me will have no memory of this night. This will be a secret shared between you.’
‘He’s not a young knight, he’s a gypsy.’
‘He will become more than he is today. It is a gift once given to his family. Now go or I shall change my mind and keep you in my cave for company.’
I left. I ran down the hill as the fire and lights continued to flood the knoll. Sandor took up my race, slipping easily beside me and as we slowed, I explained that we must leave the field at once. Deni was eager to be gone but thought that some of the Rom would be hard to persuade. Good camps were hard to find. I did not argue. Within an hour, the red wagon was packed, and we were guiding it slowly by torchlight, picking our way along the road, away from Wyke. Deni’s wagon followed, with the Cables behind. As Deni predicted, the others were fearful of travelling in the night, but the alternative appeared worse, so they vowed to leave at first light. By morning the hills of Wyke and Camlan were far behind and with them went the memories of the night before. Everyone had vague recollections of a need to leave quickly but little Vinny’s terror was forgotten. Only Sandor could recall everything and would have spoken up had I not explained that it was his friend, in the cave, who had saved us and taken their memories of the event from them.
‘I knew I was right to take you there,’ he said, switching a stick as we walked beside the horses. I wondered exactly whose idea it had been in the first place for Sandor to show me the cave. Had he been manipulated by the Old One who could have sensed my presence long before we arrived in Wyke? Perhaps ‘he’, as I now thought of the ancient, had been seeking a Mantle mind for a long time. Before I returned to him, I would speak with Black Mantle, nevertheless the invitation was one that I had every intention of accepting, no matter what Black Mantle’s counsel was.
6. - Coast
The journey between Wyke and the marshlands was pleasant and uneventful. It gave me time to think more about the night of Vinnie Cable’s rescue. It was only as I recalled the events that I began to feel uneasy. I had summoned the unnaturally high winds. I knew the Old One had sent fire to disperse the mob. I remembered casting my thoughts over the knoll, trying to call up the dead army, but the ancient spell that bound them held fast, their bones could not rise. The creatures that bore down on the men of Wyke were conjured from the air. Someone had fashioned a powerful illusion that had frightened us all. I wondered if it was the same mind that had manipulated the horse auction. More than once during those few calm days, I sent my mind out to seek this other but there was silence. They did not wish to be found. Clearly they were aware of me but were keeping hidden. What was even more disturbing was how they flaunted their powers in ways that my Mantle oath prohibited. This was a dangerous creature, whether friend or foe. For the first time I began to understand and appreciate the Souran’s strict rules about the use of magic.
It took three days to reach the noisy rapids where the River Erba joins the Listi and, by the time we began to feel the damper air of the coastal marshes, Llewid’s horse Deric and Sandor had become inseparable. There were no towns at the mouth of the Listi. Some distance from the shore the swollen river floods the land, dividing into a number of channels, spreading as far as the eyes can see in a maze of pools, low slow-shifting dunes and treacherous quick sands. It is a place of reed beds, tussock grass and pelicans, scattered, wind-bent shrubs and seabird colonies. These are the coastal marshes.
On the northern edge of the marshes, a few fishermen’s cottages huddle round a tavern called ‘The Green Sail’. This is where the family’s two cottages stood, side by side, sturdy stone resisting the ocean gales During earlier times there had been a village further along the shore but now the buildings were deserted, crumbling ruins, and no one ventured there. People whispered about ghosts, and the superstitious fisher-folk kept away from what was left of the village of Ransom.
‘They say that all the people living there were kidnapped from the Green Islands.’ Sandor shaded his eyes from the glare of sunlight on the surf. We had ridden to the edge of the sand dunes near The Green Sail and could see the dark silhouettes of Ransom further north, on the coast. ‘The King promised he would return them if the Lords of the Sea paid a ransom. Nothing ever came from the Green Islands, so they stayed here and called their village Ransom. When the first war started between Dereculd and Magra, the people suddenly disappeared. No one knows where they went.’
‘Perhaps they sailed back home.’ As far as I knew, no one left alive knew the way to the Green Islands. They were probably a myth that belongs to the time of the kings of Camlan when regular trade between what is now known as the Five Kingdoms, and the Green Islands, was supposed to have been common place. One of the Camlan kings even married a daughter of the Lords of the Sea, but they are just stories told to children.
‘There’s an old fisherman whose family used to live in Ransom.’ Sandor eased himself out of Deric’s saddle and went to sit on the tussock grass. ‘He said they did remember the way home but other fishmen all tell you that there’s no mystery, the villagers all died of the plague. That’s why no one will go there.
‘We could go.’ I joined him on the grass.
‘That is one adventure you would have without me.’ He shook his head. ‘You forget that I’m Rom, Megwin. We have more superstitions than is good for us and a healthy regard for spirits, real or not. A dead village is no place for either of us.’ He stretche
d and stood, looking across the dunes. ‘Not when there is such an exciting place as the marshes to explore. There are mysteries and monsters enough for us here.’
He was right. All the fisher-folk had tales of monsters and magic. The marshes claimed victims whose bodies disappeared forever. Strange apparitions rose up from the swamps, and witches lived in the hulls of discarded boats. I had heard many of these tales when I last travelled beside the Erba for a few days. Then, my mind was full of Llewid and the war. I had lingered just long enough to find information about the movement of the Dereculd army and navy, spending my evenings in comfort beside the fire at small taverns along the way. Now, back in the cottage at dusk, watching Matt lighting Mari’s fire, I wondered what it would be like to sleep in my own makeshift tent while the howling winds off the sea shook it. While I still loved the red wagon, watching the rising wind from the window of the cottage that had once belonged to Sandor’s grandparents I appreciated the protection of four stone walls. Gilbert told me that the horses felt the same in their barn and as for Ralph, he had found a very pleasant nook in the barn roof.
I lay awake that first night, listening to the wind and later the battering of rain against the discoloured glass. It would be satisfying, considering the nature of such wild weather in that unfamiliar place to recall some strange and eerie event but nothing more sinister than the weather disturbed my sleep. I awoke to the sounds of someone stoking a fire and Matt calling us down for a fresh brew. While Mari cooked a hearty breakfast, I rode along the beach with Sandor.
‘Down there, beyond the long spit of sand, the marshes stretch for miles, right into Dereculd.’ He had to yell against the wind that whipped up the dry sand and pelted our faces. It was an icy, salt-laden wind that made the skin tingle and tears well up in half-closed eyes. It woke every sense. We left the horses in the lea of a tall dune, cropping what vegetation they could while we walked, watching the gulls playing dart games against the tide and, further out, beyond the breakers, ocean birds plummeted into the sea, to rise once more, fish in their beaks.
‘There’s no break except The Point,’ he went on. I had heard about The Point, a long finger of limestone, sometimes called The Giant’s Thumb. It marked the old border between Dereculd and Magra. A forest of dwarf trees grew on its sides and where it met the sea was a fortress of great age. Once, designed to repel invasions from the Green Islands and warn settlements further up the Listi through a series of beacons, but there had been no garrison there for years. Now a minor religious group called the Sisterhood of Hope occupied it. I wondered what hope came from such a desolate place.
‘Come to me!’ a voice whispered close to my ear and I turned suddenly, almost toppling Sandor, who stumbled to regain his balance.
‘Did you hear that voice?’ My eyes searched the deserted beach but of course there was no one except we two.
‘It’s the birds you hear,’ Sandor dusted sand from himself. ‘The wind plays tricks with the sound.’
‘Come to me! Come soon!’ It came again, this time quite clearly in my head.
‘Where are you? I don’t see you! What do you want of me?’ I spun about but only the screams of the gulls answered me. The voice was gone.
Sandor offered his hand to guide me down the steep dune, towards the horses, his face full of concern. ‘Was that the Old One talking in your head?’
‘No but someone spoke to me, in my mind, as a Mantle would. They know the ways of a Mantle, but it isn’t one, I’m sure of that. I think it’s the same one who helped me before, at the auction and in Wyke, but I don’t know who they are or why they want me to go to them.’
‘Well, Matt would tell you not to trust someone who can’t stand before you in the sun.’ He eased himself back into Deric’s saddle, Gilbert came to me expecting he was required.
‘I want to stay here a little longer, go back with Sandor, Gilbert. Whoever it was might speak again.’ Sandor reluctantly turned the horses heads southwards and I watched them disappear below the dunes, then I walked along the shoreline. The spray dampened my robes, but I scarcely noticed. I was concentrating too hard on listening for the voice to return but all I heard was the cry of the gulls and the roar of the surf. It was only when I started back along the beach that I noticed two sets of footprints. One was familiar, my battered but comfortable sandals. The other prints could have been made by many kinds of shoes and the size gave little hint of the wearer’s identity. They had bigger feet than my own but not large. The whispered message could have been spoken by a man with a soft voice or a woman with a strong voice. I stopped. The tracks had not returned with me, so I raced back to where I had turned. The tracks ended there, going nowhere. In frustration, I waved my arms in all directions, hoping that my invisible companion was still there, and that I might touch them, but there was nothing but air. The gulls regarded my actions with mirth. Fortunately, most Green Mantles were considered a little eccentric by both their human acquaintances and the very creatures they protected.
I made my way back to the cottage. When we arrived, I had been offered the best bedroom, Mary and Matt’s landward-facing room, but I chose the tiny attic which looked out across the bay. Sandor had a tiny room on the side of the house, halfway up the stairs, filled with objects he had gathered on their travels and smelling distinctly of socks and decaying driftwood. That night, I listened to the old timbers creak in the wind and the ocean pounding on the shore somewhere beyond my window, but under the covers of my bed I felt safe and warm and soon fell asleep, waiting for another summons from my invisible companion but none came.
As the days passed, the weather grew mild and even the constant wind mellowed to a comfortable breeze. The fishermen seized their opportunity and boats left the small jetty early in the morning. Deni and Matt went with them, but Sandor preferred to fish from the shore. The sons of the fishermen showed us how to swing rods to make the line cut a wide arc through the air before landing in deeper water, away from the breaking surf. I was impressed by Sandor’s skill and one of the boys confided that Sandor might be a traveler, but he had the heart of a sailor, handling boats far better than some who had been born to it. I tried casting a few times, but I could not bring myself to either catch a fish or eat their catch when it was landed.
A few nights later, the wind returned, bringing with it heavy rain that beat upon the small casement window of my attic. Matt had found an oil lamp for me and Mari transformed some old material into pleasing curtains. I pulled the blankets up under my chin and listened to the howling gale.
‘I am waiting,’ the voice said. This time it was from within the room and not inside my head. I sat up in fright. The flame shivered in the lamp glass.
‘Show yourself!’ I demanded. ‘Show yourself. I am Green Mantle, member of the Souran and Keeper of the Ancient Mysteries. Show yourself!’
There was laughter. I did not hear it, I felt it. ‘Such airs she gives herself, my Lady Mantle. Must I quake at the mention of the Souran?’
‘I know you are here. You speak outside my head. Show yourself. I will not harm you.’ I curled my knees under my chin, feeling the chill of the night outside.
More laughter. ‘I don’t doubt that, child.’
‘Then why do you hide yourself?’
‘Come to me and you shall see.’ The window flew open and the rain blew in. I raced across the room to close it and as I did, the oil lamp spluttered and went out. I cursed as I caught my toe on the leg of the bed. In the dark, I could detect no one in the room except for myself. The presence was gone and yet I was shivering with fear. This creature had no regard for the Mantles or the Souran. I looked out the window but could see nothing save the black of night and the raindrops racing down my reflection in the glass.
7. - Ransom
Matt woke me the following morning, his concerned face peering in as he apologised for his intrusion. Llewid’s horse was missing. The wind had blown the barn door open and, when Gilbert woke, Deric was gone. Sandor and I followed his tracks t
o the bridge near The Green Sail but lost him in the sludgy, well-trafficked mud outside the inn. The landlord was sitting on his porch sharpening knives on a pedal-driven whetstone. It was a bargain he had with the local fishermen, he kept their knives sharp and they kept him stocked with fish. He told us that he had heard a horse gallop past during the night.
‘I thought to myself, that’s mighty strange,’ he confided. ‘Whoever was on that horse was either a madman or a fool, but now you say there was no rider, so that explains it.’ He went on grinding, occasionally checking the sharpness with his thumb.
‘Explain what?’ Sandor was impatient.
‘Explains why it was going towards Ransom.’ He stopped and regarded Sandor with a mixture of pity and amusement. ‘It might come home.’
We thanked him and walked down the open road to where it ran on the landward side of the dunes towards Ransom. We looked at the dark shapes of the ruins but said nothing. We both knew that we must go after Deric but the rumours surrounding the deserted village made us pause.
‘Why are we waiting?’ Gilbert stamped impatiently. He had insisted that he help in the search. ‘The old fellow will be terrified, and I doubt he’ll ever be able to find his own way back. Come on!’ He set off ahead of us and we raced after him. When he paused to wait for us, I explained why we were reluctant to venture into Ransom. Gilbert’s jaw wobbled. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘Because you were being a hero and you didn’t give me time, and it doesn’t matter, anyway. You’re right, you know we have to find him.’ I did not hesitate to reply to Gilbert in my normal voice. Sandor had been with me long enough to realise that some of my conversations were with animals.
