Then the stately flower-towers, dripping with clusters of hyacinthine bells, shuddered. They swished aside, and a thick-set, bearded fellow stood looking down at Jewel. She kept her wits and did not cry out, even when a yellowish grin split the beard and he bent to seize her.
Something came flying out of the sky, landed on his shoulders, and knocked the man over. Jewel rolled aside with well-timed presence of mind—he came crashing down on his face, into her nest, with Eoin riding atop him. The marsh-man grabbed the brigand in a stranglehold, so that he had no breath to summon his comrades—but the bearded fellow was no weakling. After a manic struggle he managed to throw off his attacker and twist around to confront him. Eoin jumped to his feet, fists at the ready. The rustling of windblown leaf-showers drowned out the noise of combat, and the swarmsman gasped for air, too short of breath to cry out to his distant comrades, who by then had passed out of earshot. He lumbered upright and lunged forward. The two men locked together in deadly combat while Jewel frantically cast about for a stick or stone with which she might assail their enemy. It was obvious Eoin was no match for this thick-thewed ruffian.
Laying hands on her blackthorn stick, the child thwacked the Marauder mightily across his back. Emitting a grunt of astonishment, he turned his head to see what harassed him, and at the fulcrum of his distraction, Eoin gave a sudden, hard shove. Off balance, the brigand stepped backward. His boot-heel slipped on a small rock overgrown with grasses and he toppled for a second time, dragging his opponent with him. Yet when he hit the ground his arms loosened and fell by his sides, flaccid as rope. He ceased to move. A scarlet worm crawled from the hollow of his left temple, where his lopsided skull had made contact with the mossy boulder whose crevices harbored wild orchids.
Staggering, gasping, Eoin stood up. The staff dropped from Jewel’s fingers. She glanced from her step-uncle to the prone man, and back again. Her vivid eyes seemed huge and luminous in her pearl of a face. Underneath, they were smeared with bruised arcs, like the juice of nightshade berries. A tremor ran through her lower lip.
Eoin grasped her by the hand. “We must depart with all haste,” he rasped, his voice cracking with exertion, “before they discover this man is missing, and come seeking him.”
He grabbed their packs and away they sped, to the north as ever; far from the Marauders’ westward path, far from King Maolmórdha’s soldiers, far from the scene of Eoin’s treachery, though he was never able to outrun his guilt.
A strewing of birds shivered across the sky, flashing from dark to light with every beat of their wings. Leaves, detached from their stems by the cool touch of the season, spooned down cascades of air, like tiny boats.
The wayfarers went on at a cracking pace, without their usual brief halts for respite. Jewel had made no complaint, but it was obvious to Eoin that she was exhausted. When the deepening twilight began to pool in the valleys, they finally made camp in a grove of lime trees on the eastern slope of a hill. Radiance poured, green and gold, through the foliage. Amongst the million upon zillion floating points of light and color that were the leaves, the intertwining trunks and branches could be glimpsed, standing out starkly, as if drawn with charcoal strokes.
The marshman left the tinderbox in the leather pack and did not light a fire, in case Marauders lingered in the vicinity. A column of smoke, no matter how ethereal, would surely attract their attention. Neither he nor Jewel had much appetite for the fragmented remnants of dry foodstuffs that remained.
“This night I shall catch a coney or two,” said Eoin without enthusiasm, breaking a long silence between them. “We are far from the haunts of the Brown Man.”
The child nodded.
“Do you think he died, that fellow with the knives?” she said, after a while.
“He did not,” answered Eoin. “He was breathing. I saw his chest rise and fall. The senses were knocked out of him, and with luck he’ll remember naught of what happened, but he lived, and maybe lives still.”
“I am glad.”
“You should not be. He saw you—”
“Why does that matter?” she asked.
He pondered, then shook his head. “I am all a-muddle,” he said wearily, rubbing his eyes. “It matters not, after all. The people of the marsh would never betray you. They will swear Jarred had no child.”
Listlessly, Jewel picked at the ripening seeds of panicum grass growing within her reach. “I do not understand,” she said.
“What is it you do not understand?”
“My father—”the girl paused, drew a long breath, and continued—“my father explained to me why I had to leave the marsh. But it all happened so quickly and there was no time to ask questions. And then he was gone—” Again, she broke off. Her knuckles bleached as she clenched her small hands. “I do not properly understand why the marsh-folk must not tell Outsiders that my father had a daughter. And why would King Maolmórdha send his soldiers to capture me, if he found out I exist? And if these soldiers took me, what would happen to me?”
She reached beneath the front of her gown and extracted two pendants. One, like a creamy coin, hung around her neck on a fine silver chain; the other, an extraordinary jewel, depended from links of whitegold. Reflected rays shot from the jewel. Fire-of-snow, it twinkled, fascinating, brilliant.
“Is it something to do with this?” asked the child, holding up the precious stone. “Where did it come from? How did my father obtain such a marvel? To whom does it belong?”
“That pretty rock belongs to you and no other. Your father managed to take it out of the boughs of the Iron Thorn that grows in Cathair Rua. It belonged to him by right of birth. His father’s father was Janus Jaravhor, the Sorcerer of Strang, who cast the bauble into the tree, where it could only be retrieved by one of his descendants.”
Jewel fingered the other pendant strung about her neck. It was an amulet, an unpretentious disc of bone engraved with two interlocking runes. “My father gave me this amulet. He used to tell me it would keep its wearer from hurt. But I know that after all, ’tis not the amulet that protects me. ’Tis the blood of that sorcerer, flowing in my veins.”
“What?”
“In faith. My father revealed the truth to me the last time I saw him, before he went searching for my mother. Naught in the entire world could harm me, or him.” The child’s face darkened. “Save only for one thing, as has now been discovered.”
She was referring to the fact that just before Jewel and Eoin had fled from the marsh, Cuiva, the White Carlin, had told them how she had discovered Lilith lying dead on a narrow ledge that jutted below the edge of the precipice. Jarred, having tried to reach his wife, was lethally impaled upon an upthrusting, jagged branch of mistletoe an arm’s length away, his fingertips lightly brushing Lilith’s face.
Slowly, Eoin assimilated Jewel’s astounding revelation about the disc of bone.
So, he thought, that is why Jarred remained unscathed after our scrimmage. That is why he never took harm from the marsh-wights. I believed it was all due to the amulet. Ardently I wanted to possess that talisman, until he bestowed it on the child. And as it turns out, the power was never in it after all!
It was curious, the way Jarred had met his fate, curious, terrible, and unbearably sad. A branch of mistletoe, sharp as a spear, must have been the only material in the world capable of causing harm to a near-invulnerable descendant of Janus Jaravhor. Since then the child, as far as anyone knew, was the sole heir of the malign Sorcerer of Strang. Anew, remorse struck through Eoin like a bolt of pure ice.
Jewel is armored by her ancestry, the marshman ruminated to himself, and on hearing that news I am now blithe! Yet she must beware . . .
“Aye,” he said softly, “and because of that same heritage of the blood, you alone possess the ability to unseal the Dome of Strang, and reveal all its hidden treasures. That is why King Maolmórdha would seize you, if he knew of you. You must not tell anyone who you are.”
But Jewel was scarcely heeding his words. Deli
berately, she was staring at the amulet of bone. She pulled the silver chain over her head and threw it away. “I do not want that thing!” she cried. “It is a counterfeit. My father lied when he gave it to me. I wish he had not lied.”
“Peace, little one,” soothed Eoin. “If he told you an untruth, it was for your benefit. That cannot be doubted. Be certain, moreover, that in all other ways he was honest with you. Jarred was a good man.”
Having uttered these words, he suddenly averted his face. Violently, his shoulders began to shake. As he sobbed achingly beneath the lime trees, Jewel fetched the amulet from where it had fallen. She crept close to her step-uncle and dropped it in his lap.
“Here,” she said softly. “You wear it. Perchance it contains some effectiveness, despite all.”
“Nay,” he replied in muffled tones, “I own an amulet, a good druid-sained one from the Sanctorum.” He groped for the talisman he usually wore beneath his tunic, but it was no longer there. His fingertips traced across the nape of his neck, detecting a long weal, and it came to him that during the skirmish with the Marauder he had felt the chain bite into his flesh. It had snapped apart as his enemy ripped it off in an effort to garrote him.
“Well,” he said, “it seems I do not have an amulet, after all.”
Jewel looped the silver chain over his head and carefully cleared his bedraggled locks from his collar. “Now you will be safe from unseelie wights.”
The child’s kindness came near to undoing the man. “Gramercie,” he whispered.
“Do not catch coneys this night, Uncle. Let us rest.” She drew a corner of her traveling-cloak over both of them and, placing her head upon his shoulder, closed her eyes. Her lashes were fringes of sable silk against her creamy skin. Eoin dared not glance her way—she resembled Lilith so closely that if he looked upon her for more than an instant his heart began to decay like moldering stone, and his anguished spirit screamed its fury at the horror of his loss. Instead, he stared down at the amulet of bone. Another irony—thirteen years ago he would have given almost anything to possess this object. He surmised, now, it was a purely decorative trinket with no life-warding properties, no efficacy at all against malignant wights, but he did not care.
I am as good as dead already, he thought to himself, remembering the portent he had seen, the prediction of his own imminent death within the twelve-month.
He had been walking through the streets of Cathair Rua in the evening, leading his horse.
The street running alongside the Sanctorum was deserted save for a man in rags, picking about in a gutter. Spying a traveler with a horse, this beggar made ready to ask for money. As he approached Eoin, the deep, solemn pealing of a bell boomed out from a lofty belfry within the Sanctorum.
Forgetting his purpose, the beggar quickly looked up and made a sign to ward off evil. He grabbed Eoin’s arm. “By the bones of Ádh,” he said fearfully, “ ’tis the passing-bell! I have never heard it ring at such a late hour! It’s the bell they ring when someone dies. But there is no light in the belfry!” shrieked the beggar, gibbering with fear as he rounded a corner and disappeared from view.
The brass tongue in the bell’s mouth made its voice say doom, doom, doom. Eoin counted the strokes. They ceased at thirty-seven. As the terminal vibrations thrummed away out over the city, Eoin realized the bell had numbered the years of his life. . . .
When Eoin drew near a side-gate it sprang open and a strange child-size funeral procession emerged. On their shoulders they bore a small coffin, the lid of which was askew. “Ach, I’ve seen such wights aforetimes,” the reappeared beggar spluttered startlingly in Eoin’s ear. “Fear not. They’re seelie enough if no man meddles with them.”
“But this is impossible,” muttered Eoin. “Wights are immortal. They do not truly die—yet this looks to be a funeral!”
The inquisitive beggar tapped the side of his nose knowledgeably. “It’ll be one of their mockeries.”
“Why do they do it?”
“ ’Tis a death portent.”
Nausea billowed through Eoin’s belly.
“I want to see what lies in that coffin,” he said impulsively. “Hold my horse for me and the job’ll earn you sixpence.”
“Give me the halter,” mumbled the beggar. “But I warn you—those of their kind take offense if mortal folk try to speak to them. They might hurt you if you do.”
Without reply Eoin threw him the rope halter and strode after the procession. As he came up with it he peered into the coffin. A shock bolted through him.
The figure lying there wore his own face.
The enormity of the portent sank in.
Heedless of the beggar’s warning, he spoke to the coffin bearers in sick and quavering tones, saying, “When shall I die?”
They answered him not.
He overtook the leader, but when he reached forth his hand to touch him the entire procession immediately disappeared and a violent wind came barreling down the street.
The beggar dropped the halter and made off without his sixpence.
Under the lime trees, lying protectively beside Jewel in the wilderness, Eoin thought, I can only hope I will live long enough to see her safe to shelter.
“Where are we going?” Jewel asked next morning. After making a rudimentary breakfast they had refilled their water flasks at a freshet that tumbled from a crevice in the hillside, beneath the knotted roots of an overhanging linden tree. Now they set off downhill again, their boots rustling through sparse layers of leaves that lay like fragile seashells cast in copper, bronze, and red-gold.
The child had not asked that question before. In the last day or three she had begun to speak more frequently, but she never referred to the loss of her parents. Eoin understood she was still too stunned by the enormity of the disaster, too numbed to fully comprehend either the past or the possible future.
“Far from Slievmordhu,” he replied, “to King’s Winterbourne, the chiefest city of Narngalis. Warwick Wyverstone, sovereign of the north-kingdom, is a wise and just ruler, by all accounts. As you know, the foremost amongst his noble warriors, the famous Companions of the Cup, are as chivalrous and honorable as they are valorous. There is little or no love between Warwick Wyverstone of Narngalis and our King Maolmórdha Ó Maoldúin. We will keep your identity secret, but even if it were discovered, ’tis unlikely Narngalis would hand you over to Slievmordhu. King’s Winterbourne is a most prosperous city. We shall find a place to stay, and I shall seek employment.”
“I want to go back to the marsh,” said Jewel. “Perhaps in a twelve-month or two it will be safe, and we can go then.”
Eoin grunted noncommittally. He knew that as long as King Maolmórdha required a descendant of Jaravhor to unlock the Dome she could never return, yet he could not bring himself to shatter her hopes.
Farther away, through the spindly stems of larches, motes of snow seemed to be drifting. It was a flock of sulphur-crested cockatoos, so frostily pure-white they seemed unreal, as though shavings of highly polished platinum had been cast in handfuls on the wind. Above the heads of the wayfarers the woodland canopy hovered, shimmering in the breeze like an explosion of butterflies, jade and saffron.
“I have been thinking,” said Jewel, marching along. “Is it possible the sparkly stone is the key to this precious Dome of Strang, rather than the sorcerer’s only blood-relative?”
Eoin shrugged.
“If it is,” she went on, “I would gladly give it to King Maolmórdha in exchange for the freedom to go home.”
“Little one,” said Eoin earnestly, “you are young and not yet learned in the ways of the world. Hearken. Maolmórdha is a weak man, despite that he rules over one of the Four Kingdoms of Tir. He dances to the tweakings of his druids, like a puppet on cords. The druids jealously guard their authority, their status and power. Do you think they would blithely allow a scion of Jaravhor to dwell freely in Slievmordhu? Janus Jaravhor was a mighty sorcerer, the most potent of his time, if the stories are true. W
hen he died, the druids rejoiced. When no successor appeared, they were relieved. You are a child, but if they knew of your existence, I’ve no doubt they would wish to confine you—”
“But they cannot harm me!” argued Jewel. “I am close to invulnerable. My father told me so!”
“Let me finish! Although you are impervious to hurt, they might imprison you for life, in some forgotten dungeon. They would yearn to be rid of you before you reach maturity and come into your full strength, whatever that may be. Key or no key, ’tis you they would want.”
“What full strength?” cried Jewel angrily. “My father wielded no gramarye! He was immune to injury, that is all. As I am, too, so it seems. But I have no special powers.” She leveled her forefinger at a tall larch. “Fall!” she shouted. The tree stood unaffected, a bottle-green cone pointing up against the sky. Jewel stabbed her finger at a boulder, lichen-mottled, peeping from a filigree of wild sage. “Split!” she commanded. “Fly apart!” The rock remained unmoved, as it had for seven hundred and thirty-five years. “There, you see?” she declared, pouting. “I’d be no threat at all to the druids. They might as well leave me alone.”
“Ah, but they would not. Their suspicious minds could never be certain of your innocuousness. And they are ruthless.”
“Then I say, cursed be the druids,” Jewel said with vehemence. “Here, Uncle,” she added impulsively, “you take the stone.” Having drawn the necklace over her head, she held it out to him. In her palm it glistened, as though she had torn a piece of radiance out of the sun. “I do not want it anymore.”
Eoin pushed her hand away. “What are you saying?” he muttered incredulously. “It was your father’s gift.”
“Aye, but ’tis of no use to me. You, on the other hand—you have forsaken your house, your friends, your living, all just to go traipsing across the countryside looking after me. I owe you something in return.”
The Well of Tears: Book Two of The Crowthistle Chronicles Page 3
