Shadows and Light ta-2

by Anne Bishop

  Ashk stared at nothing, said nothing.

  “What happened?” Neall asked, his tone sharp. “Why were you out riding on your own?”

  “I—I wanted to get a couple of things from the manor house,” Evan stammered. “It was daylight, and the Black Coats were gone, so I— We weren’t going far, and we’ve gone by ourselves lots of times before. But Caitlin asked if she could ride my horse, and I said she could ride it a little, so we stopped here, just for a minute. But the horse kept acting strange once Caitlin got on his back. Kept trying to pull away and head for your cottage. Then Owen said he thought he saw something in the trees. Told me to hold his horse while he went to take a look. He didn’t go very far into the trees before he screamed and ran out and those ... things ... were on him. And the horse ran away with Caitlin, and I couldn’t hold the other two and Owen was on the ground with those things all over him, and I tried to run but I turned my ankle and fell and ... Mother, I’m sorry.”

  “It wasn’t your fault,” Ashk said in an empty voice. “You were wrong to leave the Clan house without permission, wrong to think you knew more than those of us who had warned you there was a new danger in the woods. Those mistakes are yours, and you must answer for them. But what happened here to Owen and—” She pressed her lips together.

  Morag watched Ashk fight some inner battle for control.

  “What happened here wasn’t your fault,” Ashk said, finally looking down at her son. “The first person who rode this way would have been attacked.”

  Evan’s lips quivered as tears ran down his face. “But it wouldn’t have been Owen ... or him.”

  Him? Morag wondered, then realized Evan meant the stag.

  “Whether you were here or not, he would have been,” Ashk said. “He would have sensed their presence in the woods, would have searched for that dark festering until he found its source.” She took a deep breath. Let it out slowly. “Neall, it would be a kindness if you’d take Evan back to the cottage with you and keep him and Caitlin tonight. There’s something I need to do.”

  “I can track the stag,” Neall said gently. “I’ll find him and—”

  “No. I know where he’s gone. Just... look after my children, if you will.”

  Ashk walked back to her horse, picked up her bow, and mounted.

  “Go with her,” Neall said, looking at Morag. He slipped the arrow into the quiver on his back, then held out a hand to Evan. “Up you go, laddy-boy. Let’s see if you can hobble over to Shadow, or if he has to come to you.”

  Leaving them, Morag hurried to her dark horse. She slung the quiver over one shoulder and stifled a curse when strands of hair tangled in the straps and pulled. Now she understood why Ashk had started braiding her long hair and wrapping the braids around her head.

  She caught up to Ashk easily enough and almost pointed out that this wasn’t the direction the stag had headed—and she doubted he would get very far.

  But he wasn’t always a stag. That had slipped past her in that frozen moment because his leap into the swarm had seemed so terrible and so right.

  No, he wasn’t always a stag, and when they finally reached a meadow, Morag saw that she’d underestimated him. He was there, moving slowly, painfully toward the center of the meadow where wildflowers danced and there were no shadows. When he reached the spot, he stood there, his legs spread and shaking, his head down as if he could no longer hold up the great rack of antlers.

  Ashk rode out partway to meet him. She dismounted, then waited for Morag to do the same.

  Morag looked at the stag. Blood dripped on the grass beneath him. In the stillness, she could hear his harsh effort to breathe.

  Ashk held out a hand.

  Morag slipped the quiver off her shoulder and offered it.

  Ashk took one arrow, nocked it loosely in the bow.

  “Who is he?” Morag asked softly.

  Ashk kept her eyes on her bow. “Kernos. He was the Green Lord, the Hunter. He’s still the old Lord of the Woods. And he’s my grandfather.”

  “But... another took his place as the Hunter years ago.”

  “Another became the Hunter years ago, but there’s no one who could take his place, no one who could be what he was.” Ashk looked up at the stag. Her eyes were clear of tears ... and full of a terrible grief.

  Morag placed a hand on Ashk’s arm. “You don’t have to do this.”

  “In his own way, he chose a warrior’s death. He chose to leave this world as the old Lord of the Woods. So I’ll honor him by taking him while he still stands.”

  Morag’s hand tightened on Ashk’s arm. “You don’t have to do this,” she said again—and saw the moment when Ashk understood what she was saying. She could gather his spirit, take it from that dying body without Ashk doing anything.

  Ashk stepped aside, pulling away from Morag’s hand. “Yes, I do.”

  She walked out into the meadow until she stood a few yards away from the stag. She took aim, drew back the bowstring, and waited.

  The stag slowly, painfully raised his head until he stood straight and tall for the last time, his dark eyes watching Ashk.

  “Good-bye, Grandfather. We’ll meet again in the Summerland.”

  The arrow sang Death’s song. Pierced the chest. Found the heart.

  The stag fell.

  Morag closed her eyes. You could have asked me, Ashk. I would have spared you that pain. When she opened her eyes, she saw the ghost of an old man, limping slightly, moving toward her. He stopped when he came abreast of Ashk—and he smiled.

  “Ashk?” Morag said. “Would you like me to ride back to the Clan house with you?”

  Ashk shook her head, her eyes still focused on the stag. “You have your own journey to make now. I’ll stay with him and keep watch. But I’d consider it a kindness if you would stop by the Clan house and let them now I’m here—and also ask if someone will go to Ari’s cottage. If she’s willing, and feels strong enough, I’d like her to turn the earth for him. I’d like him to return to the Great Mother in the spot where he chose to fall.”

  Morag looped the quiver’s strap over the horn of Ashk’s saddle. She mounted her dark horse, waited until Kernos’s ghost floated up behind her. Then she rode away from the meadow, following a wide forest trail that she was certain led to the Clan house. She hadn’t gone far when she met up with several Fae males, who were scouting that trail for signs of nighthunters, and delivered her messages.

  She rode on until she found another small clearing, bright with daylight. She could open the road that led to the Shadowed Veil from anywhere she was, but she didn’t want to come back down that road and touch the world again among the shadows of the woods.

  Once she opened it, the dark horse cantered up the road to the Shadowed Veil. When they reached the Veil, she released Owen’s spirit, saw his ghost form a few feet in front of her. He bowed to her—or, perhaps, it was to the ghost who rode behind her—then turned and walked through the Shadowed Veil to follow the path to the Summerland.

  Kernos floated down to stand beside the dark horse. “Gatherer, is it permissible for you to give a message from the dead to the living?”

  “It’s permissible.”

  “Then tell her I am proud of her courage. I am proud of her heart.”

  Morag swallowed the lump in her throat. “I’ll tell her.”

  Kernos studied her for a moment. “You’re of a kind, you and Ashk. It’s glad I am to know she has such a friend in this season of her life. Blessings of the day to you, Gatherer.”

  “Blessings of the day to you, Kernos.”

  He walked up to the Shadowed Veil, and through it, without looking back.

  Morag stared at the Veil for a long time before she turned the dark horse and went back down the road to the living world.

  It was late that evening before Morag tapped on Ashk’s door. She didn’t wait for an answer before going in, wasn’t sure she would get one.

  After returning from the Shadowed Veil, she’d come back to
the Clan house to wait for Ashk and Ari. When they’d finished giving Kernos’s body back to the Great Mother, Ari had stayed at the Clan house long enough to have a bite to eat, then had gone home, her pony cart surrounded by armed Fae.

  Ashk had said little, had eaten little. She had simply sat at the big outdoor table, her silent grief a wall none of the Fae could breach.

  Now that everyone had retired for the night, except those who were standing guard, it was time to see if she could reach the woman behind that wall of grief.

  Ashk sat on the bed. She’d put on a nightgown and had taken her hair down so that it flowed in waves down her back. But her eyes still stared at nothing—or at something only she could see.

  Morag sat on the bed, close but not touching.

  “The meadow was our favorite place,” Ashk said softly. “He’d take me there to play, to learn, to talk. He taught me everything I know about the woods, taught me how to use the knife and the bow, taught me about the shadows and the light. And he ... accepted me when the rest of my family couldn’t. Even in the west, many of the Fae are not... easy ... about being around a Fae whose other form is a shadow hound.”

  “It’s a rare form to have,” Morag said, keeping her voice as soft and low as Ashk’s. And a dangerous one.

  “I loved him.” Ashk’s voice broke. The first tear slipped down her cheek. “He had a laugh that— When you heard it, you knew it was the Green Lord, laughing with joy and delight. And after I’d met Padrick... after the night of the Summer Moon when I realized I was carrying Padrick’s child and he wanted me to wed him in the human way ... We sat in the meadow, and when I told Grandfather I carried a child, he laughed that laugh. He said my womb had ripened for a fine man, and I should take the man as well as the seed. He said it was the green season of my life and I should honor it, that the other seasons would come soon enough. So I married Padrick in the human way, and the Green Lord stood beside me while I did it.”

  “Your grandfather sounds like a fine man.”

  “He taught me. He taught Padrick how to shift to his other form. Padrick had been raised human, and his Fae heritage had been slow to ripen.”

  Like Neall? Morag wondered.

  Tears flowed down Ashk’s cheeks. “He taught me everything I know, but it’s not enough. It’s still not enough. And now h-he’s gone.”

  Morag wrapped her arms around Ashk as the wall finally broke and the grief flowed with the tears.

  “He’ll be remembered, Ashk,” Morag said, rocking the woman in an attempt to give comfort. “He’ll be remembered.”

  “How? He’s from the west, and the B-Bard has never troubled himself to come here. Who will remember him for all that he was?”

  You will, Morag thought. And, somehow, I’ll find a way to reach Aiden and convince him to come here and listen to the stories about Kernos, the Green Lord, the Hunter, the old Lord of the Woods.

  But she didn’t say that, having heard the underlying bitterness in Ashk’s voice. Now that she thought of it, it was true there weren’t many songs about the Hunter, and the only one she could vaguely recall was the one about a young Lord of the Woods ascending to become the new Hunter and sparing the life of the old Lord.

  Kernos. The old Lord had been Kernos, who had been given a reprieve from Death’s arrow years ago and had had those years to watch his beloved granddaughter marry and become a mother, to play with his great-grandchildren—and to save one by offering himself.

  But she didn’t mention that, or make any promises about finding the Bard. Instead, she waited until Ashk had cried herself out for the time being; then she gave her Kernos’s message.

  “Thank you,” Ashk said in a rough whisper. “That means a great deal to me.”

  There was a quick tap, then Morphia eased the door open.

  Morag looked at her sister.

  Nodding, Morphia slipped into the room. She brushed her hand lightly over Ashk’s head.

  “You need to rest now, Ashk,” Morag said as she tucked Ashk into bed and arranged the light summer covers. “You need to sleep.”

  “No,” Ashk said, her voice slurred. “I’ll see him again. I’ll see him leap.”

  Morphia leaned over, kissed Ashk’s forehead, and whispered, “No dreams but gentle ones.”

  Ashk slept.

  Before Morag could move, Morphia turned and kissed her, too. “No dreams but gentle ones,” she whispered again. Linking her arm through Morag’s, she led them from the room.

  Morag’s legs got heavy. Her eyelids drooped. If Morphia wasn’t leading her to her room, she would have stopped where she was, curled up, and gone to sleep.

  “You could have waited until we got to my room,” Morag complained sleepily.

  “But then you would have realized what I wanted to do, and you would have argued about it.”

  “Wouldn’t have.”

  Morphia laughed softly. “No, of course not, Morag. You don’t argue about anything.”

  “Iz not nice to laugh at your sister when you’ve put her to sleep,” Morag grumbled as they reached her room and she just tumbled into the bed. “You get the last word.”

  “At least until morning,” Morphia agreed.

  Ashk shifted in her sleep.

  It was the meadow, and yet the sunlight touched it differently, softly.

  She saw him walking through the grass and flowers, and felt a pang that, even here, he limped a little. He didn’t seem to notice. His attention was caught by something else. He began to move faster—and he laughed the laugh that had taught her more about the joy of life than anything else ever had.

  She saw him flow from his human form into the shape of the stag. Now he bounded across the meadow, and her eyes could follow him as he headed for the woods.

  An old woods. A very old woods. A place where favorite spots would always be found. A place where there would always be a new path to explore. A place where he could wander the trails in the form he’d loved best. A place where there was peace, even in the shadows.

  Then he went into the trees where her eyes couldn’t follow, but she’d find him again one day, in that old woods.

  Ashk shifted in the bed.

  One tear trickled from beneath her closed eyelids, but her lips curved in a soft smile.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  It was a Clan house. In an Old Place. At first, despite the feel of power rising up from the land, Lyrra hadn’t understood what she was seeing because they’d come into the Old Place from a branch of the main road leading west and had ridden past large fields surrounded by stone fences—fields filled with the green of crops. Those fields were interspersed with groves of trees and pastureland that had herds of cows, horses, and sheep grazing in them— which didn’t quite fit the way humans farmed, but it seemed too big. too much for a family of witches.

  Then they rode through another stretch of trees.

  The Clan house sprawled over several acres, looking more like a small village that flowed around and with the land. Some of the buildings were connected through the use of courtyards and gardens, but other buildings were separated from the rest by large stretches of mown grass. It was similar enough to the Clan houses in Tir Alainn to make her certain that was what she was looking at, and yet it felt... different.

  “Do you suppose something happened to the witches here and the Clan had to come down and live in the human world in order to hold the shining road to Tir Alainn?” Lyrra asked quietly. They’d been noticed—had, no doubt, been noticed long before now—and the Fae men moving toward the road to meet them didn’t have any warmth in their eyes.

  “They’ve been here a long time,” Aiden said just as quietly. “These buildings are old.” As they rode closer to the men now standing between them and the Clan house, he raised a hand in greeting. “A good day to you.”

  Blessings of the day to you. Lyrra didn’t think anyone else had caught the slight hesitation before Aiden spoke, but she knew he’d changed what he’d been about to say. A year ago, tha
t phrase had seemed strange, Other. Something said only by witches. Now that greeting felt so natural, it took conscious thought not to say it.

  “What’s your business here?” one of the men asked.

  Lyrra tensed when she noticed the archers who quietly joined the other men, positioning themselves on either side of the road. This wasn’t the way the Fae usually greeted each other. Then again, they were in the west now, and everyone who had encountered them said the Fae in the west weren’t like the rest of the Fae in Sylvalan.

  “I am Lord Aiden, the Bard. This is Lady Lyrra, the Muse. If it’s not inconvenient, we’d like to rest and water the horses, and also speak to the minstrel or bard if there’s one in your Clan.”

  “We’ve both,” the man replied. “The minstrel is in Tir Alainn at the moment, but the bard is here.” He studied Aiden, studied Minstrel just a bit longer, then said, “Come this way.”

  They rode the rest of the way to the Clan house between a line of men, the archers falling in last.

  To block the way out, Lyrra thought nervously. She glanced at Aiden. His expression held the confident arrogance of a Fae Lord, which was both a relief and a worry. His attitude said plainly enough that he was used to being treated respectfully by the Clans, but that didn’t mean these Fae would respond in the same way. And, in truth, ever since Aiden began opposing the Lightbringer’s attitude about witches, he hadn’t received much respect from the Clans in the rest of Sylvalan.

  And she had the odd feeling that Aiden riding a dark horse meant more to the Fae here than his being the Bard.

  Her nerves danced a little when they dismounted at the Clan house and she watched some of the men lead the horses away. Then she heard children laughing somewhere nearby, and some of the tension inside her eased. Surely she and Aiden could come to no harm if there were children close by.

  They followed one of the Fae men through an arch that led to a large, sunny courtyard. The building that surrounded it had several doors on each side. Probably suites of rooms, Lyrra decided. Privacy and yet community. Flowers grew in raised beds of stone, and she saw a couple of birds fly down to drink from a large, shallow stone basin of water.