Shadowfell

by Juliet Marillier

  I made good progress along the shore, and before dusk I saw, framed by beeches, the settlement of Silverwater down the hill below me. There was the cluster of cottages, there the long wall, there the chieftain’s house with its modest tower. And in the yard, between barns and outbuildings and stock pens, something out of place. I halted in the shadow of the trees.

  A small crowd was gathered in that open space: men, women and children, the chieftain’s whole household, and perhaps the villagers as well. They stood in complete silence, faces ashen. Stationed around them were Enforcers with weapons drawn. No running. No screaming. No burning. But where a lovely oak grew in the very centre of the open ground, an oak I remembered well from my brief stay here, for its shade had been enjoyed by chickens and dogs and children alike, a dark matter was unfolding. A glance showed me the rope hanging from a strong bough, and Dunchan of Silverwater standing very still below it, balanced on a stool. A masked Enforcer stood behind him. As I watched, cold to the bone, the Enforcer slipped the noose over Dunchan’s head and drew the knot tight.

  ‘No,’ I muttered. ‘Oh, no.’ Dunchan’s wife was in that silent crowd, his children, his loyal servants and men-at-arms, a whole household of good people. I imagined folk hushing their little ones, fearful that a cry at the wrong time would bring down the same fate on them.

  I wanted to shut my eyes. I wanted to turn away. Part of me protested: This is not my story, these are not my folk. I’ll just turn my back and walk on. I’ll pretend I didn’t see this. But I kept my eyes open, and I stood witness to the hanging of a good chieftain. When it was done, the Enforcers backed off and Dunchan’s friends cut him down. His wife knelt over him and closed his eyes. The Enforcers were keeping their distance; it seemed this one execution was all the punishment they had come to deliver. Already some of them were riding out through the gates, though five or six remained.

  Silence would have saved Dunchan’s wife. She chose another path. She did not collapse on her husband’s body, weeping. She stood up, head high, and hurled defiant words at his killers. With my heart in my mouth I watched her do it, and I saw an old man fighting to keep a child – the chieftain’s little son, I guessed – from running forward as she spoke.

  She was killed with a single expert stroke of the sword. Her head rolled away, coming close to the feet of the frozen onlookers. The killer gave his weapon a desultory wipe on a tuft of grass, sheathed it and spoke a few words to the crowd. The old man had his hand clapped over the child’s mouth; I saw a woman edge in front of them to shield them. No more, I willed the Enforcer. Let there be no more evil done here.

  The executioner turned away, mounted his horse and headed for the gate of the settlement. He was the last of them. As he rode off down the track and out of sight, the preternatural stillness of the crowd broke. The old man released the boy. The lad did not go to his mother where she lay in her blood. He did not go to his father’s lifeless corpse. Instead, screaming out a great cry of rage and defiance, he pelted after the Enforcers, as if one boy alone could prevail against them all. Three or four men ran after him, arresting his wild progress. He fought them at first. At length he wept, and the old man, perhaps his grandfather, held him as the storm raged. Others moved to gather up the sad remains of the chieftain’s wife, to blanket Dunchan with a cloak, to tend to little ones who had seen what no child should ever see.

  Time for me to move on. There was nothing I could do here, save grieve for the woeful place Alban had become. What would happen to all those folk now their lord and lady were gone? I had heard that Keldec liked to put his own favoured men in as local leaders, never mind the tradition of families and clans. Someone had to keep the smallholdings going; someone had to provide leadership in times of trouble. I wondered what Dunchan had done to earn Keldec’s disapproval: harboured a fugitive, expressed doubt about the king’s rule, used magic? This had been a good chieftain, well loved by his people. Two days’ stay had been sufficient for me to see that. As I walked on I imagined the open space within the encircling wall, empty save for the lovely bare-limbed tree. In my picture, a great patch of red stained the hard earth. A dog slunk past, giving the stain a wide berth. From within the dwellings there came the sound of weeping. And from the top of the little tower a new banner flew: the proud stag of Keldec, King of Alban.

  I walked as far as I could along the loch shore before darkness forced a halt. I did not make fire. With Enforcers so close, I could not take that risk. I spent a chilly night in the meagre shelter of a rock shelf and moved on before dawn. I had learned a lesson. There would be no seeking a bed in any habitation of men.

  By the next night I had reached the waterfall the Good Folk had called the Maiden’s Tears. It was as they had described it: a splashing, exuberant beck cascading over mossy rocks. White-bellied fish swam in the darkness of the still pool above, and when I lowered my line into the water, the faint moonlight seemed to draw them to the hook. I muttered thanks to the gods for this bounty, killed the fish quickly, and enjoyed my best supper since Flint’s lumpy porridge. There was neither sight nor sound of the urisk, of whom the Good Folk had spoken such a dire warning. I had heard of such beings before; Grandmother had said they were the loneliest creatures in all Alban, and always lived beneath waterfalls.

  I wrapped myself in Flint’s cloak, pulling the folds up over my ears, and fell asleep with the coals of my cooking fire glowing warm red-gold in the soft shadows and the wash of the water soothing me.

  In the darkness of midnight a piercing cry sliced through my head, jolting me wide awake. Against every instinct, I made myself hold still. The wailing went on and on, setting my teeth on edge and chilling my blood. There were no words in it, but I felt the creature’s grief, its profound loneliness, its longing for a hand of friendship.

  Do not speak to him, for if you do he will follow you on your journey. He will never let go. There had been no need for the Good Folk to warn me. I had known this wisdom since I was a child of three. Farral and I used to play a game of urisk, taking turns to emerge from hiding, wailing and reaching out clinging hands, while whoever was the victim tried to stay still and silent. Now, with the real creature crying within a few paces of my camp site, I trembled as I lay huddled in the cloak. I must not move; I could not speak the words of comfort I longed to offer. It’s all right. When I pass this way, I will visit you. I will stay a little while and talk to you. It would have been so easy to help, so simple a thing, but I could not. Give an urisk any encouragement at all, and it would be with you every moment until the day you died, clinging, twining, hanging about your shoulders, slipping into bed next to you, a chilly, vaporous, constant companion. If I tried to help the being, it would follow me. And any creature that followed me would not only put me at greater risk from the Enforcers, but would be at risk itself.

  Humankind and Good Folk were forbidden, under king’s law, to speak together, to be in the same place together, even to set eyes on each other. This law had long puzzled me. My brother had told me Keldec feared magic; but that couldn’t be true, for the only place where magic was allowed was at his court, among his inner circle.

  I slept no more, but lay silent with the urisk’s voice, now shrunk to a pitiful weeping, filling my mind with sad memories, a parade of loss and grief, from the small sorrows of a child – a favourite toy lost, a hurtful remark by a friend – to the deaths of all my dear ones, each in turn. I thought of that good chieftain Dunchan of Silverwater and his brave wife. I thought of the folk who had died under the harsh blows of the Cull, in Darkwater and in hundreds of other settlements like it. For a little, as the crying went on, I felt something close to despair. It was a long journey. I did not really know if the place Farral had spoken of existed. I would have to cross the mountains, and the leaves were already turning to red and gold. I was, in truth, only a wee lassie, as the Good Folk had said. This was foolish. It was impossible . . .

  A tear welled in my eye, falling to lose itself in the wool of Flint’s cloak, and I cau
ght myself up sharply. Just hold on until dawn, I told myself. For in the tales, when the sun rose, the urisk faded. Hold still, I ordered myself. Keep silent. And, remembering the terrible night when the Enforcers came to Grandmother’s cottage, I thought, You know how good you are at that. Breathing into a fold of the cloak, I made myself think of Flint, my unlikely saviour. What his true motives had been, I had no idea. But he was proof that here and there in Alban, kindness still existed.

  The lamp of that good memory lit my way through the lonely hours of night. With the rising sun, the urisk fell silent. When I rose I found a circle of wet footprints all around me. Each was as long as a man’s but narrow, with the marks of webs between its three toes.

  From the Maiden’s Tears, it was two days’ walking to the eastern end of Silverwater. Here the terrain opened up to grazing land. Beyond those fields lay a line of barren hills, with a track running up to the lonely tarn named Hiddenwater, a place of dark memories. There had been a battle there once, chieftain against chieftain, clan against clan, son of Alban against son of Alban. Many had fallen. When Father and I had passed through that place, coming the other way, the air had been full of voices, as if a whole troop of dead warriors lingered in the loch’s stony basin, the echoes of their dying cries sounding from the rocks all around. I did not want to go there again, but there was no other way.

  I waited under the last fringe of trees until dusk fell, studying the terrain ahead and fixing in my mind the places of hiding. When I judged it to be dark enough, I moved. I went like a shadow, darting from one place of concealment to the next, every part of me alert to danger. A group of rocks, a dry-stone wall. A midden heap, a stack of turf drying under a makeshift shelter. There were strips of walled pasture, outbuildings in which sleepy hens clucked or restless cows shuffled in their straw, and a farmhouse with light glowing from behind closed shutters. A foot set wrong might bring dogs out to the attack, or worse. I thought of eggs, of barley bread, of fresh milk and butter. I moved on. When I was clear of the last farm, the last warm lamplight, the last sleepily bleating ewe, and the rocky hillside loomed before me, I scrambled into the shelter of a shallow cave and curled up to rest. Somewhere nearby I could hear water flowing. If I remembered rightly, that was the stream known as the Churn, and the path to Hiddenwater lay beside it. I would move on before dawn.

  The ground was hard. I couldn’t sleep. Cold pierced through to my marrow; even Flint’s thick cloak could not keep it out. I couldn’t make fire. That would be like lighting a beacon to show that I was here. My body was all aches and pains. Worse, my mind was playing tricks on me. I had seen nothing of the Good Folk since the night they had argued about the seven of whatever it was, though sometimes, coming along Silverwater, I had sensed a soft footfall behind me and, turning, had peered into the forest to see nothing more than shifting shadows. Here on this inhospitable hillside I could not escape the sensation that I was being watched. Once or twice, as the long night wore on, I thought the gurgle of the stream held voices, a flow of words in which the only one I recognised was Neryn. An owl flew overhead, hooting strangely. Such sorrow was in its cry that tears sprang to my eyes.

  Stop it, I told myself sternly as my teeth chattered with cold. There’s nobody out there, and if there is, you’re not going to let them know you know. Now sleep, or you’ll be too tired to go on in the morning. But sleep would not come.

  After what seemed an endless night, I rose to the first lightening of the sullen, cloud-veiled sky, and set off along the track to Hiddenwater. As if it had only been waiting for me to emerge from my bolthole, the wind got up, and by the time I came over the crest of the hill and headed down the steep path to the loch shore, the water before me was whipped to a turmoil of angry grey. Hiddenwater was a small loch. It lay in a steep stone bowl, with a narrow track hugging the water’s edge. I must walk halfway around it to reach my path onward.

  The spray hit me as I came down the track, drenching my clothing. The water was on my right, a sheer rock face on my left. Where ravines split the stone, their surfaces were a nightmare of treacherous gravel. Not a scrap of vegetation could be seen; it was as if no plant dared set root in this benighted place. The water lay in deep shadow. The stark slopes were brooding presences, hanging over the loch. The only path was the one that ran along the shore. I must hope that on such an inclement day, and so early, nobody else would be abroad.

  Rain had begun to fall, shrouding the grim grey landscape in shifting sheets of moisture. Whatever spirits were condemned to haunt this desolate place, they surely led a wretched, forlorn existence. It seemed a corner of Alban deserted by all good powers.

  ‘If you’re there,’ I murmured, ‘ancient ghosts or whatever you are, please know that I mean no disrespect when I walk through this scene of your loss. I honour your memory. I ask you to let me pass unmolested.’

  I could barely keep my feet against the gale. It tore at me, making my nose and eyes stream. I hugged the cloak around me, pulling the hood down over my face. I had not thought I could be any colder, but this wind cut deep. There were voices in it, not lifted in forlorn wailing like the urisk’s, but screaming of loss and futility, of old wrongs that could never be put right. Hear us! they howled. Hear our call! Our lifeblood stains the water! Our bones lie shattered on the rocks! Our spirits cry out for justice! They were all around me.

  I breathed deep. My feet in their mended shoes went forward. But I heard my grandmother’s voice, soft and strong, whispering in my ear. No matter how bad things are, you always have something to give. Never forget that, Neryn.

  Gods aid me. What could I give in a place tenanted by sad ghosts? I could hardly offer them food. Besides, my supplies were dwindling. I shrank from the screaming presences. All I wanted to do was run forward, get away, find a hiding place, somewhere I could not hear them.

  Likely every traveller who passed this way did that: rushed on by with fingers in ears. But I need not do it. I need not be every traveller. Now that Father was gone, my path was my own to make. Where it led me depended on how much courage I could find within myself. You will face tests and trials, the little woman of the Good Folk had said. If I was afraid now, with eldritch voices howling in my ears, perhaps I should see it as a test: the first of many.

  I stopped walking, bracing myself against the force of the wind. ‘I hear you,’ I said. ‘What do you want from me?’

  Through the veils of wind-whipped rain they appeared all around me, warrior-shades clad in the garb of long ago, their hair shaggy and wild, their faces bone white, their bodies sliced and hacked with the wounds of the battle in which they had fallen. The shouting had died down to be replaced by a steady muttering. It came from every side, the same words over and over. ‘The song . . . Sing the song of truth . . .’

  I stood frozen, unable to speak, let alone sing. I knew it. Of course I knew the song, but . . .

  Somewhere between the howling of the gale and the ragged voices, a fragment of melody came to my ears, a thready whistle squeezed out between lips that had long forgotten how to savour a goblet of mead, how to kiss a sweetheart, how to say Well done or Farewell, friend.

  I knew the tune as I knew my own heartbeat. Everyone did. But nobody sang the song of truth aloud, not any more. The king had forbidden it. I’d heard of a woman who was put to death after someone overheard her humming the melody as she worked in her kitchen. It hadn’t always been so. In older times folk had sung the song proudly at village festivals, at gatherings of clans, at burial rites of elder or warrior or infant taken in harsh season. The men and women of Alban had worn this tune as close as their own skins. Its beloved measures had been lodged deep in every heart.

  The fragile sound faltered, as if the whistler could not quite remember how the tune went. It seemed to me that if this was forgotten, this precious last fragment of what had once made us strong, we were all doomed. Softly, I began to sing: ‘I am a child of Alban’s earth . . .’

  In an instant they were still, their shadowy
eyes fixed on me, and the song swelled and rose and grew to thunder as twenty, fifty, a hundred ghostly voices took up the strain. My voice became a clarion call, borne on that warrior chorus. The words our king had forbidden, the words I loved with all my heart, burst from me with the force of a flame catching dry timber:

  ‘I am a child of Alban’s earth

  Her ancient bones brought me to birth

  Her crags and islands built me strong

  My heart beats to her deep wild song.

  I am the wife with bairn on knee

  I am the fisherman at sea

  I am the piper on the strand

  I am the warrior, sword in hand.

  White Lady shield me with your fire

  Lord of the North my heart inspire

  Hag of the Isles my secrets keep

  Master of Shadows guard my sleep.

  I am the mountain, I am the sky

  I am the song that will not die

  I am the heather, I am the sea

  My spirit is forever free.’

  The song came to an end, and silence fell. The air was full of anticipation.