The Moonshawl: A Wraeththu Mythos Novel

by Storm Constantine

  ‘“We should make a stand,” they said, “show Mossamber what we’re made of. Instead of waiting here while he throws haunts at us, we should ride to his domain, fight back.”’

  Medoc rubbed a hand over his face, sighed through his nose. ‘Part of me sympathised with them, of course, and yet I couldn’t agree with their suggestion. I said that we couldn’t invade the Whitemane domain on a whim, because we had no true evidence that the Whitemanes wished us ill.

  ‘But my cousins insisted they had plenty. They reminded me of all the slights and insults the Wyvachi had endured over the years. For example, if any of our hara should come across a Whitemane in the business of his day, the Whitemane would jeer and laugh at him, make crude insulting gestures. Whitemanes openly spat on the path before a Wyvachi. Gradually, over the past couple of years, all commerce between us had ceased, where once there had been precarious trade. Lower ranking hara of both clans, who had still maintained a show of friendly relations – being once brothers in arms – now turned away from one another. If this wasn’t evidence, what was?

  ‘Meilyr was our cousins’ spokeshar. He was of the hienama type, if not officially so. He suggested that rather than assaulting the Whitemane domain, the bridge between the two estates should be shattered, since it was, after all, a symbol, a connection between the families. Mossamber might be using its symbolism to further his aims on an etheric level. But I didn’t think antagonising Mossamber at that time – in any way – would be helpful.’

  ‘But I’ve seen the statues on the Wyvachi side of the bridge,’ I said, ‘well, what’s left of them. Did Mossamber have them toppled?’

  ‘Oh, that,’ Medoc said caustically. ‘He did that on the day he took Peredur home. With his own hands, or so we heard.’

  I imagined then a grief-stricken har, his strength engorged with anger, smashing those gryphons to pieces. After he’d done that, had he fallen to his knees upon the bridge, roared his grief to the sky? This image seemed real to me. ‘So, how did you appease the cousins?’

  Medoc smiled sadly. ‘I remember Meilyr saying to me once, “Don’t become like the old cat who dozes by the fire, cousin. Remember the dog can leap on his back and break his spine.”

  ‘And I replied, “A cat is not a dog. He uses stealth rather than brute force. That is his natural way. He might appear to be asleep by the fire, but he is watching.”

  ‘But while I was proud of these words, Meilyr wasn’t impressed. He insisted that Mossamber didn’t want Kinnard to have a son and said to me, “If you refuse to believe this, you’re a fool. He wants all of us to suffer as he does, as Peredur did. And don’t question me, Medoc, I know this, as strongly as if Mossamber had told me himself.”’

  Medoc gestured with both hands resignedly. ‘He was fired up, but then he’d always been of the fiery kind. I couldn’t ignore him, because all our hara respected his power and his honesty. So, I offered a compromise. I asked hara with the strongest psychic talents to observe what they could of the Whitemanes. I wanted to find more evidence.’

  ‘And was this plan successful?’ I asked.

  Medoc shook his head. ‘Not really. My spies picked up shivers of energy that felt vaguely threatening, but obtained nothing definite. The Domain had strong wards around it, blocking intrusion on any level. Perhaps the fact they’d installed these defences was evidence enough of bad intention, but I couldn’t be sure. As the days went on, and nothing happened that was worse than peculiar sounds and vague feelings of threat, I dared to think that perhaps all Mossamber was capable of was a grumbling sky, the symbol of his displeasure.’ Medoc fell silent.

  ‘That wasn’t true though, was it?’ I said, to encourage him.

  He stared at me for some moments. ‘Ysobi, to this day, I can’t say for sure who or what was behind what happened. I can only relay what I experienced. On the day that Kinnard’s harling began to break from his pearl, the sun reappeared. Everyhar took this as auspicious. I wanted to as well, but couldn’t feel reassured. If anything, I felt worse than before: utterly unsafe, unable to relax.’

  A stillness came into that room, then, and I too could feel how Medoc had felt, all those years ago.

  ‘The house creaked,’ he murmured. ‘There were crackings in the timber all around us. Perhaps the ancient wood was simply drying out from the constant downpours, but it didn’t feel that way. The Mynd shuddered. There were smells, as of burning, but also fires that had been dampened and the smoke gone sour.’ Medoc shivered. ‘The light inside the house went green, although the sun shone strongly outside. I can remember feeling at one point as if the whole building was under water, and had taken us with it. It was so hard to breathe it was like gulping dark water. I wondered if we were still alive. Can you imagine that?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said softly, and in my mind, a minnow of thought: Mossamber drowned him. That’s how Peredur died.

  Medoc now lay back in his seat, blinking at the ceiling, his hands resting on the chair arms. ‘As evening came on we were drawn like ghosts ourselves to the upper room, the bedroom where the pearl lay. Kinnard, Yvainte, our hienama Arynne, all the cousins... They gathered around the pearl. They sang to it. Within each of them was the single, focused desire to shower this emerging child with their love, with their fierce drive to protect it. I never reached them to add my voice and will to theirs.’

  ‘Why not?’ I asked, when I sensed him pausing again.

  He frowned, tapping the tips of his fingers together, spoke slowly. ‘I remember climbing the stairs, or trying to, but my limbs ached and it was difficult to take the steps. Around me, the Mynd groaned and rasped like the timbers of a ship. The stairs seemed to rock beneath my feet as if we were at sea. I kept thinking if only the pearl would break, it would be over. The harling would be safely in the world, and the shining power of this new, purely-created being must surely eclipse all shadows of the past.

  ‘But before I reached the room, the din started up.

  ‘Out in the yard, the dogs started to bark and howl. I could hear the horses screaming, as if on fire, kicking at their stalls. I heard all the chickens squawking desperately. Later, hara told me they had tried frantically to fly, feathers falling from them in a cloud. They told me cats had streaked hissing from the house and run to the forest.’ Medoc paused again, and I could feel his deep reluctance to relive these moments. He looked me in the eye. ‘And beneath the terror of the animals, there was another sound: a moan, rising in timbre that sounded neither human nor harish, nor from any natural creature. I had heard nothing like it – ever.

  ‘For some moments, I was paralysed. I clung to the banister, which shook beneath my hands, as if an earthquake convulsed the land. I could hear this loathsome voice, in my head, rather than my ears. There were no clear words exactly, just a series of terrible sounds like... like out of tune musical instruments and fragile things smashing. I can describe it no other way, yet even that doesn’t really convey what I heard. But the sentiment within those sounds had the clarity of polished glass.

  ‘This is what it told me: We would never thrive in Meadow Mynd and our offspring would perish. We were traitors, becoming fat on the suffering of others. If we wished to save ourselves, we must leave the house, burn it down, so its timbers would join with the ashes of those who had been cremated in its fields. It would never belong to us, nor to anyhar. If we defied this curse, we’d bring death upon our hara, starting with he who had just been born.’

  Medoc shuddered. ‘Oh, it was more, far more, than that, every atom of hatred and cruelty you could imagine. That terrible wordless voice screamed at me, and I knew the essence of it meant simply, “Get out ! Get out!” I hung half dead upon the banister, the only sure thing in my existence for those moments. Blackness closed in around me until I could no longer see. It was like no blackness you can imagine, for even with your eyes closed there are spots of colour or movement before the mind’s eye. This was total, dense blackness. Dead. I thought then that was my curse – I had been blinded as
Peredur had been. I couldn’t even save myself, run out of that house, because I didn’t know where to turn and the stairs were writhing beneath my knees.’

  Medoc rested his head upon his hands for a moment.

  ‘You can take a rest,’ I said gently. ‘Medoc... please...’

  He looked up at me, and his eyes were bloodshot. Now that he’d started I could see he was unable to stop. ‘I didn’t see what manifested in that upper room, but heard about it from Yvainte later. He said that as the pearl broke, the light in the room became dim, almost purple in colour. This happened quickly, yet seemed to take a century. A shadowy shape gradually formed, so immense it had to crouch with its shoulders pressed against the ceiling, and its arms spread out to the corners of the room like the branches of a dead tree. It was a terrifying spectre, thin and gaunt, writhing within the space too small for it.’

  Now Medoc pulled back his lips in a snarl. ‘Think about it, Ysobi. That vision, that horror, was the first thing that Wyva har Wyvachi saw in this world. The first sound he heard was that foul cacophony. And yet, even with that memory, which I don’t believe has ever left him, he chooses to remain at Meadow Mynd. And why? Because of his hostling. Because Kinnard drummed into him from day one that he must fight.’

  ‘What happened in that room?’ I asked, unnerved by the ferocity of Medoc’s expression. ‘How did it end?’

  Medoc sighed raggedly, and the fierce glow faded from his eyes. ‘Yvainte told me that all he’d been able to do was fall to the floor and huddle into a ball. He’d covered his head with his arms. The hienama – Arynne – had been thrown against the wall and lay slumped against it. The cousins had been similarly tossed aside, and were barely conscious. Yvainte heard them whimpering. But Kinnard?’ Medoc closed his eyes for a moment. ‘Oh my brother, my brother... After laying eyes on that thing, Yvainte and everyhar else in that room – but for Kinnard and the harling – had been blinded as I had been. But Kinnard... he roared his fury, picked up the harling, and ran from the room with it. He must’ve passed me on the stairs, but I didn’t see him. I couldn’t see anything.’

  ‘How long... how long did it last?’ I asked.

  Medoc drew in a breath. ‘I believe we were held in that blindness for perhaps two or three minutes, but it felt like an eternity. Without light. When Yvainte could see again, the apparition had vanished. But odd shadows remained.’

  For me too, listening to his ghastly tale, the room around me had become weirdly shadowed. I found it hard to draw breath, felt disorientated. ‘Medoc,’ I said, with difficulty, ‘what they saw in that room... was it Peredur?’

  Medoc grimaced. ‘That was the first thing I asked Yvainte,’ he said. ‘But he couldn’t say for sure. It did have holes for eyes, but then its mouth was also a gaping black maw. The rest was shadow.’

  ‘Do you believe it was Peredur?’ I asked.

  Medoc shrugged. ‘It was partly him, I think. But more than that. She was in it.’

  ‘She?’

  ‘Vivi,’ he snarled. ‘I could smell her. She had never left us. If Mossamber hated and resented the Wyvachi, she detested us and craved vengeance.’

  I sat up straight. ‘So, what’s happening now... you think it’s her too?

  Medoc shook his head. ‘Not exactly. I think the spectre of Meadow Mynd is Peredur, Vivi, and perhaps all the others combined. A maelstrom of pain that has survived like a wasp’s nest in the eaves of that house.’

  ‘Including your mother?’ I asked carefully.

  Medoc glanced at me. ‘No, not her. She wouldn’t. Neither would Vere. Dehara bless them – they were gone. And I’m glad of it.’

  ‘So Kinnard ran with Wyva and sought aid from the ethers,’ I said. ‘And that’s how the moonshawl came to be.’

  ‘Yes. It was Kinnard’s belief, his will, that protected Wyva. I’m not so sure about the shawl itself – that was merely a symbol of Kinnard’s potency.’

  ‘Yet it protects the Wyvachi harlings to this day,’ I said, ‘and Kinnard is long gone.’

  ‘Such is the power of faith,’ Medoc said. ‘But now...? I think it’s too old and has lost its power. The thirst for revenge is gaining strength. I could feel it when I visited. The years have not diminished its craving.’

  I hated to keep asking questions, because of Medoc’s obvious pain, but knew I must. ‘The shawl... I assume Kinnard had it made, that it wasn’t just given to him by a spirit?’

  Medoc nodded. ‘Yes. The next day he visited somehar in the town who had a gift for such things. He demanded that har work day and night to create the shawl as quickly as possible. But... as I said, that was just his symbol. The real shawl was his ferocious will.’ He stared at me. ‘If your friend Rinawne has any sense at all, he’ll take his son and leave that blighted place, because it’s clear that Wyva won’t do so. You must tell him this. Don’t take any risks with a young life.’

  I nodded slowly. ‘I’ll tell him all you said.’

  ‘That answer isn’t as clever as you think,’ Medoc said harshly. ‘You think you can fight it, don’t you?’

  I held his gaze. ‘Yes, I do.’

  ‘That delusion might be deadly.’

  ‘Medoc, I’m no proud fool. I know my limits, but I really don’t think this is beyond them. I’m not taking it lightly, believe me, and I’m aware of the strength of... whatever’s there... but that land has to be cleansed. You must know that.’ I paused. ‘Would you prefer to stop here, or can you tell me what happened to Kinnard and Yvainte?’

  Medoc drew in his breath. ‘If I’m to relive this, I’d rather get it all out of the way tonight. I’ll tell you. The truth is, though, I didn’t witness their fates firsthand. This was because before morning I fled the Mynd, taking my hara with me – our cousins and others who decided to heed the warning. As we left, Kinnard told us not to come back. He would fight alone. Only a lunatic would have stayed, in my opinion, but Kinnard was always stubborn. He saw the curse as a challenge to his authority.’

  Medoc sighed, ran his hands through his hair. ‘Over the years, and once we’d established ourselves here at Harrow’s, we sought reunion with Kinnard, but it never came to anything. However, whatever he’d done had been effective: Wyva lived and thrived. Kinnard had driven that malevolent force underground again and undoubtedly thought I was a coward to have run from it. He had fought and won, while I had abandoned him.’

  ‘And yet... he died,’ I said. ‘How did it happen?’

  Medoc pulled a sour face. ‘Well, you have to appreciate that, even though our domains weren’t that far apart, those of us at Harrow’s never heard the full story about anything. We did learn that after a couple of years Kinnard tried to mend things with the Whitemanes, simply because the hostility was an inconvenience at times. Neither did he want the local hara to feel torn. You see, Kinnard and I had both felt very strongly we should be fair leaders – not tyrants, not some grasping throwback to human history. We were Wraeththu – above all that. I know Mossamber shared that ideal and most likely still does. But he couldn’t bring himself to mend the hurt, no doubt because of his own pain. He didn’t murder Kinnard and Yvainte, if that’s what you’re thinking.’

  ‘I’ve never thought that,’ I said.

  Medoc groaned, rubbed his face. ‘Now, I wish I’d done more to keep in contact with Kinnard, but after several rebukes I stopped trying. Yvainte died first – poisoned. Yes, you heard that right: a har – poisoned. They said it was something picked up from the land, as if the Wyvachi lived in an area where humans might once have hidden or used weapons that could kill like that. They didn’t.’

  ‘Were there no suspects? Did nohar look towards the Whitemanes?’

  Medoc made a gesture with both hands. ‘Yvainte cut himself on an old iron nail in the stables at the Mynd. That’s what we heard, and I’ve heard nothing different since. It was hidden beneath the hay. Anyhar could have scraped against it, or they might not. Could have simply seen it, removed it, and not been hurt. Yvainte’s wound became
infected and his body couldn’t fight it. The hienamas couldn’t cure him. He died. And it happened very quickly, unnaturally.’

  ‘What about Kinnard?’

  Medoc stood up, turned his back on me wandered to the window. ‘Well, he killed himself. Or that’s the story.’

  ‘Yvainte was dead, perhaps that...’

  Medoc turned once more to face me. ‘Nohar knew Kinnard better than I. He would never have taken his own life. I’m not saying he didn’t love Yvainte or his family, but to Kinnard the tribe always came first. He believed wholeheartedly in his destiny to rule it justly. Also, it happened years after Yvainte’s death.’

  ‘So... what happened?’

  Medoc came to sit opposite me once more. ‘It appeared he rode his horse off a cliff and fell to the gorge below. Is it possible to make a horse do that? Unless... unless it was galloping in terror?’

  ‘Pursuit does seem the mostly likely explanation, since there are far easier ways to kill yourself.’ I paused. ‘The death must’ve been investigated. Why was suicide the conclusion?’

  ‘He left a note,’ Medoc said bitterly. ‘The note said, “This will be the end of it, for all time.” I don’t believe he was talking about his own life exactly. Perhaps he feared he might perish during what he intended to do. But his hara...’ He gestured widely. ‘They interpreted it as a suicide note and who of the Wyvachi would listen to me? I lived miles away, had run from home. But I’m convinced that Kinnard tried to take on that malevolent power, end the curse once and for all, and he failed. He was vanquished.’

  ‘How old would Wyva have been when this happened?’

  Medoc shrugged. ‘Around sixteen or so, I think. Well past feybraiha, in any case.’

  ‘I wonder how much Kinnard told him.’

  ‘Well, some of it, obviously,’ Medoc said. ‘I talked with Wyva at Cuttingtide and it was clear he knew the basic story.’

  I shook my head. ‘He’s a puzzle. He saw both his parents die under very suspicious circumstances. He knows the full story, yet like Kinnard refuses to budge.’