The Iron Tree: Book One of The Crowthistle Chronicles

by Cecilia Dart-Thornton

  That thing of dark which lays siege to my blood.

  Rivers of song, cascades of bloom and bud,

  Deluge these terrors! Drown them in the flood!”

  Even as she ended the verse, the hairs prickled at the base of Liadán’s neck. With a soft, clandestine tread, something was traveling through her skull. Again she sensed she was being followed through the grasses, pursued inexorably by unfeet that brushed against the blades as they passed.

  No longer did she sing. Instead, she listened with every nerve of her being. Her body tensed like metal strands overtightened; her scalp felt as if beetles swarmed thereon; her shoulders ached with the effort of not turning to look back. She understood too well that if she turned around she would see nothing.

  A pigeon flew up from under her feet; Liadán uttered a cut-off scream and darted to one side. She heard the footsteps halt, and paused for a moment, not daring to breathe. Then with a sigh she put out one trembling foot and advanced. The rhythmic step resumed, matching hers pace for pace. Liadán shuddered, violent spasms coursing through her slight frame. A sob welled up from the depths of her. Suddenly she felt exposed, vulnerable. She longed for shelter.

  Closing her eyes, she began again to run down the slope.

  Through grasses, wildflowers, and weeds she fled, heedless that her skirts were snagging and tearing on twigs and thorns.

  She ran with almost supernatural speed, goaded by mortal terror, wild eyed, gasping, her hair flying, her limbs flailing as if she clawed at the air. Whither she was bound she neither knew nor cared. All that mattered was getting away, and the only thing that ripped across the darkness of her mind was a bright, raw scream.

  Far north of Lizardback Ridge, curlews and currawongs were trilling their evening chorus among the green-mist foliage of birch woods. Upon a carpet of fallen leaves a campfire writhed and hissed with serpents of flame. Nine travelers sat resting within its globe of radiance, engaging in desultory conversation. Later they rolled themselves in their blankets and slept beneath the stars.

  The world aged a little more.

  Reflections of those very stars were beginning to plumb the waters of the Great Marsh of Slievmordhu. A zephyr ruffled the meres; ducks paddled into the shelter of the willows. From an island grove of antique alders, a masked owl uttered its drawn-out, rasping screech. Deep down, eldritch shadows stirred in their drowned halls of green glass.

  The household of Earnán Mosswell sat down to dinner. One stool remained empty.

  “She will come soon,” said Earnán, staring anxiously from the window, “I am certain of it. She will come soon.”

  “I will not be eating yet,” Lilith said to her stepfather. “I will wait for her. But the rest of you must dine—a day’s work makes for large appetites.”

  “It does,” said Eoin, reaching for a wedge of cheese pie to dunk into his fish soup.

  Lilith’s stepfather picked listlessly at the food in his porringer. Restlessly he rose to his feet to peer through the window again. Water gurgled and gossiped beneath the floorboards.

  The marsh upial, which had been sitting on the roof, clawed its way down the outer walls and landed on the windowsill. With a yowl that pierced the eardrums like broken glass, it sprang, landing in the lap of Eolacha. It jarred the edge of the table; the wooden porringers danced.

  The carlin sat motionless, her hands resting on the creature’s bristly back. Presently she drew breath and exhaled a deep sigh.

  “What’s afoot?” asked Lilith anxiously. The crone’s wrinkled countenance was harrowed, like the face of one who looks upon tragedy.

  “The knowledge is not at me,” Eolacha replied in a low voice. “Only, I am feeling that some terrible event has just now befallen us.”

  Then from beyond the walls of the cot, beyond even the walls of human knowledge, a cry came sliding through the evening like the icy sword of a long-dead warrior. It was a wail of heartrending anguish, the sobbing of a woman in despair who wept tears of her own heart’s blood. Yet it was no natural woman who mourned; the marshfolk knew that well enough. The terrible keening was a sign, the eldritch proclamation of a weeper.

  Its bristles standing on end, the marsh upial jumped down and fled. Twice more the harbinger uttered her lament.

  “Sain us!” breathed Eoin, his cheese pie poised halfway to his lips. “’Tis the weeper! Someone will die, or already has—”

  Earnán grabbed his jacket and his hat from their hook. “Too long have I waited,” he said fiercely. “I should not have hesitated. I go to find her.” He flung himself out the door.

  Lilith ran after him, followed by Eolacha and Eoin. “Where will you seek her?” she shouted after her stepfather.

  “The Ridge,” he called back. He knew she went there sometimes, when the heavy mood was on her.

  A flickering Jacky Lanthorn bobbed in the reeds, and away to the left a goat bell chinked. A muted clatter began through the reeds of the backwaters as a concealed horde of shoemaker frogs started up their clack-clack-clacking. The Mosswell household avoided the shortcut by the shadowy Drowning Pool. They stepped nimbly on promenades of tremulous planks bordered by fishbone ferns, darted along slender embankments between the albino blossoms of water hawthorn. Twilight pools transiently captured their hastening images as they passed.

  Beyond Marsh’s Edge Earnán went, and among the sighing grasses that covered the slope. No form of woman, man, or beast could he see silhouetted there, and Earnán ran to the ridgetop, his heart jumping like a cricket in his mouth. Fearing he would behold some tragic sight, he peered over the edge—but he saw only jutting rocks and the three stunted ash trees leaning from the precipice, the wind’s quivering fingers combing ash leaves and mistletoe. And far beyond, the vertiginous, empty sky.

  Turning, he ran down the slope again to meet Lilith and Eoin, who had caught up with him.

  “She is not here,” panted Earnán, pearls of icy sweat forming on his brow. “Mayhap she abides at the cruinniú, or the house of Stillwater.”

  Back down the incline they hastened in the gloaming. They took the same path by which they had come. Before the Drowning Pool it branched three ways; the course farthest right led to the meeting lake. As they reached this triple fork, they spied a figure moving amidst the tall, hollowstemmed grasses on the middle path, a rank and overgrown track—the shortcut by the Drowning Pool.

  “Lia!” yelled Earnán hoarsely. He shouldered his way through the high reeds. “Lia!”

  Yet as he came close, he saw it was not his wife but his mother who moved there.

  “What are you doing, máthair?” he cried harshly, angered by disappointment. “Why do you linger on the perilous way?”

  Eolacha turned her gaze upon her son. Like a fallen moon, her pale face seemed to hover in the umbrageous airs. She could not speak. Every word she needed to tell him was written in her look.

  An unintelligible sound erupted from the throat of Earnán. Pushing past his mother, he ran toward the Drowning Pool.

  Marsh lights had gathered at the edges of that black mere. Their phosphorescence illuminated the pool with a virescent glow while the stars and the rising moon delineated all things with soft edgings of electrum. White willows slanted from the shores, netting the stars in their upper branches.

  In the water, Lilith’s mother floated. She was borne up by the opalescent bubbles collected by water spiders for their hatchlings. The bubbles, loosened from their submerged anchorages at the roots of eelgrass growing in the mud, had drifted up, joining to form a buoyant bed. Liadán seemed to sleep upon this ethereal bed, her hair fanning out around her head like skeins of silk, her garments spread out as if she were the center of a giant flower and they the petals. And flowers there were too. A wreath of weeds and untamed blossoms crowned the quiescent form; a bouquet rested upon her breast; a chain of daisies clasped her neck. The roseate blooms of marshmallow drifted, dispersing over the water.

  Liadán’s eyes were lightly closed, sealed as though wings torn f
rom a hawkmoon moth lay upon them, somber mauve. Her face might have been carved of wax, or alabaster.

  A gusty draft stirred the willows suddenly. A flock of ducks had taken to the air, terrified by Earnán’s scream of pain and desolation.

  The eel-fisher reached out as if to fold his wife in his arms, but she floated in the middle of the pool, where she could not be touched. He stripped off his coat and made to dive in, but Eolacha, who had come up with him, gripped him by the elbow.

  “Beware!” she snapped in warning.

  From the water on the other side of the mere, a shape emerged to the waist, dripping, and it was like the shape of a human damsel. Her skin was moonlight on milk; her long hair streamed over her nakedness in glistening strands as green as naivete. Like bleached and polished driftwood were her thin limbs. Comely was her face, though fragile, finely boned and narrow. Under slanting brows her two unripe almonds of eyes titled up slightly toward the outer corners. Her mouth was smudged with blue as though she were cold. Cold she was indeed, this water wight: an iciness ran through her veins.

  By now Lilith and Eoin had joined Earnán and Eolacha at the water’s edge. Fear of this murderous unseelie entity dealt variously with them: Earnán, in a ferment, was beyond caring; Eolacha was too wise to be frightened; Lilith too dazed. Only Eoin received the full blast as icy terror impaled his living heart. “Show no fear, show no fear,” he muttered to himself, but his scalp tingled and the hairs stood erect along his forearms. He felt himself pierced and strung up on a thrumming wire of horror.

  The face of Earnán contorted as he recklessly roared at the water wight, “Wicked abomination! You lured her hence! You were after tricking her into your domain, cruel slaughterer!”

  The drowner drew back her lips. Suddenly her pretty head was slashed across with two rows of slime-green teeth as sharp as honed stakes. A shock of mortal panic shook Eoin to his boots. Petrified, he could only emit a low and desperate sigh while the unseelie thing denied the accusation in a voice as cool as lettuce.

  “Fleeing from some adversary, desperate for sanctuary, she neglected to be wary. In her fear, the madman’s daughter slipped and fell into the water. So she fell, and so I caught her.”

  “What then?” shouted Earnán, distraught and rash. “You caught her—what then?”

  And the water witch replied, “Drew her down among the shadows of the waving water meadows to the haunts of eels and minnows where the water weeds entangle, bind and keep and slowly strangle. Then, with glint and gleam and spangle, bubbles from her mouth came flying—shining pearls, the gems of dying, new birthed from her final sighing.”

  “’Tis the way of it!” exclaimed Earnán wildly. “You drowned her, all right! Doubt not, I will wreak revenge! Now give her to me, I command you.”

  The green-haired immortal did not respond with anger or ironic laughter. She failed to react in any human manner, for she was far from human. She showed no emotion but merely lifted her pallid, skinny arm and smacked it sharply on the water. A fine spray of droplets went up like the wing of a crystal bird, and the bubble-raft rocked.

  “Peace she sought,” said the drowner, “and peace I gave her—nothing else could ever save her. But within this pleasant grave her bones I’ll not be guarding, keeping with the others who lie sleeping in the dreamy, dusky deeping, nibbled clean by fangs of fishes down between the roots of rushes where the shifting current washes.” As she spoke, the wight began to push Liadán’s raft toward the shore where Earnán stood. Her green tresses flowed out behind her narrow shoulders, a curling smoke on the water’s surface. “On her brow a doom is written, clear to see. Harsh fate has smitten her. By madness she’s been bitten. So I gathered orbs of air to raise her to your tender care. Do take her now—I’ll not ensnare you.”

  The raft bumped against the pool’s brink.

  Numbed, stricken dumb by grief, Lilith looked on. Eolacha too watched with her button eyes. Earnán kneeled and gently lifted his wife in his arms. He bore her away without a backward glance, but when Eoin, shuddering, looked for the eldritch damsel, she was no longer to be seen, and not even a ripple on the black water betrayed her seamless submergence.

  The tap-tap-clacket of the shoemaker frogs hammered down the lid of the night.

  As they returned to the cottage in single file, Lilith tilted her head toward the sky. If stars glittered there, she did not see them. For her, all beauty had departed from the world now that her mother was gone. She thought she would never smile again, and the sun could never rise.

  But rise it did.

  The next morning it shone upon the nine travelers from Ashqalêth, who were to be found trotting along a track through a dark pine wood. The sky had cleared; hot javelins of sunlight pierced the canopy of needles, and the air was pungent, filling the lungs with an invigorating draft. The horses’ hooves rattled against fallen pinecones as they passed.

  Jarred, who had remained uncommunicative for some while, spoke Yaadosh’s nickname. “Caracal, I’ll wager I can hit that bird with a stone, from horseback, without even slowing my steed.”

  Yaadosh, riding at his side, squinted up at the sky to follow his friend’s gaze. A hawk hovered high overhead, a tiny mote in the welkin. Almost motionless it hung, suspended on fountains of warm air. Almost motionless, but not quite—and very distant. It was poised to strike as soon as its prey strayed from cover. At any moment it must fold its wings and stoop to the kill, hurtling groundward like a feathered fragment of a falling star.

  “Ha!” snorted Yaadosh. “With luck you might hit it with an arrow, but never with a stone. You’ve a strong arm, my friend, but no sling could fire a missile that high.”

  “Will you bet on that?”

  Yaadosh regarded his companion with a lopsided, quizzical look, then broke into a grin. “Ha!” he barked again. “You’re on!”

  Leaning sideways, Jarred extended his hand. Yaadosh clapped his own big paw around it and shook it vigorously. “You braggart,” he laughed. “Love has addled your wits!”

  “Choose your penance,” said Jarred. “What drudgery are you willing to perform if I win?”

  “If you win the wager,” smirked Yaadosh, “I will prepare all of our meals for a sevennight. For if there is any task I loathe, it is cooking.”

  “Not that!” called out Tsafrir good-naturedly. “I’d rather starve! Have you ever tasted vittles prepared by Yaadosh? It is a crime against decent fare.”

  “There is no chance of his ever tasting ’em,” returned the big man. “He’ll never hit the bird!”

  “And if I do not,” said Jarred, “then I too must pay some forfeit.”

  In the Great Marsh of Slievmordhu, six women, including Lilith, and guided by Eolacha, performed the ritual bathing of Liadán’s corpse. They washed the body—a marble statue—in scented water sprinkled with herbs harvested from the carlin’s living Wand. Then they anointed Liadán, dressed her in the traditional ankle-length garment of black linen, and laid her in a coffin. On her head they placed one of the ceremonial crowns dedicated to this solemn purpose, and they adorned her with flowers. The coffin was placed upon a funeral couch, where it remained on view for two days. The face of Liadán, crowned and surrounded with blossoms, was a picture of tranquillity and serenity: an alabaster idol brushed twice with the color of sad music.

  Dressed in dark hues, mourners visited the Mosswell cottage, bringing wreaths and candles and other gifts to place in and around the coffin. It was customary for the dead of the marsh to be cremated along with items such as pottery, stone vases, mirrors, and other personal belongings. Some mourners brought gifts of fruit; those closest to Liadán offered locks of their own hair. Friends symbolically sprinkled water over her right hand, that she might receive the element of purity and life.

  Each night, neighbors gathered to keep the vigil, singing the traditional laments or weeping. In keeping with custom, the women stood over the corpse at the head of the couch, while men gathered at the foot of the coffin and raised thei
r right hands with their palms extended upward in a gesture of respect and farewell to the dead.

  Liadán’s body was taken from the house after midnight on the third day after her death and borne along a processional path strewn with fresh green leaves. The pallbearers who carried the coffin on their shoulders, thereby performing their last service for the deceased, were Earnán and Eoin Mosswell, Captain Willowfoil, Lieutenant Goosecroft, Muireadach Stillwater, and Odhrán Rushford. The flesh of Earnán’s face seemed to have shrunk in tightly against the bones; his shoulders were hunched, and he walked the leafy path like one who wades through deep water. Lilith’s features were set in a mask of desolation, so that those who looked upon her were moved to deeper anguish.

  Marsh-Chieftain Maghnus Stillwater, carrying a white banner on a pole, led the procession to Charnel Mere. He was followed by six of the elders carrying flowers in silver bowls, then by Eolacha, who walked ahead of the coffin holding a wide ribbon, which was attached to a sash at the waist of Liadán.

  Officially, the sorrowful segment of the rite was over. During the procession every effort was made to expel grief and dejection by means of minstrelsy and comradeship. Torches blazed cheerfully in the predawn darkness, illuminating the folk who danced and sang along the way.

  During the final ceremony at Charnel Mere, the elders and Eolacha, along with Earnán, Eoin, and Lilith, sat facing the coffin, which was draped in a muted spectrum of fabrics. After the ritual chanting, five boats were launched, while the coffin was placed on a raft piled high with burning brushwood. People approached the raft with lighted torches or candles, incense, and fragrant wood, and tossed them beneath the coffin. As the flames rose, the raft was towed out to the center of the mere and abandoned there to burn like a single fiery star. The mourners sang,

  “Now you must voyage on the lake,

  While we are left upon the shore.

  Though we are joyful for your sake,