by Terry Madden
And then there was the problem of Elowen. She was crossing the hall now with a cup of tea which she handed to Dish, then tried to dissolve into the wall behind him.
He’d made sure she’d changed out of the homespun woolen gown that made her look like a serving wench from a Medieval Times banquet. They’d found an old tea dress of Merryn’s, probably circa 1964, with bright psychedelic flowers all over it. Not exactly the color of mourning, but it would have to do. Covering the luminous glow of her skin was a bigger problem. Some terribly old cosmetics at the bottom of Merryn’s bureau had provided enough coverage to dull the radiance of the Otherworld. She looked a bit like a teenager covering up a bad case of acne.
“May I introduce my niece, or rightly, the daughter of one of my best friends,” he told Trewin. “She’s come in his stead. Both very fond of my aunt. Elowen Chambers.”
“Pleased,” Trewin offered Elowen a little bow.
“She’s deaf-mute.
“Ah, such a pity.”
Hiding Elowen at the cottage would lead to trouble sooner or later, so Dish had decided to let her be a family friend, come for the funeral, and that would lessen the burden of his lies. At least, he hoped so.
Dish and Elowen had arrived late to the service, as planned, forestalling Bronwyn’s meeting of Elowen for as long as possible. Bronwyn had eyed the girl from the moment they entered the church, and now she strode across the hall with a plate of petit fours in hand. He hoped she wouldn't recognize the dress Elowen was wearing as one of Merryn’s.
“What kind of research is your young friend involved in?” Trewin asked.
“Pictish carved stones.”
“I see. So he’s a school boy? University?”
“Ah, here’s my sister. Bronwyn, do you know Inspector Trewin?”
“I don’t believe we’ve met.” Bronwyn was swathed in a flowing black dress. Even her beads were black. She extended her gloved hand, then offered Trewin a petit fours. “Nor have I met your young friend, Hugh.” Her eyes moved to Elowen.
“The daughter of my good friend Duncan Chambers, you remember him, Wyn?” Dish said. “We were mates at Oxford.”
“I don’t believe I recall a Duncan.”
“Well, this is his daughter, Elowen.”
At the sound of her name, Elowen extended her hand as Dish had practiced with her. Elowen smiled.
“Poor child can’t speak,” Trewin interjected.
“Deaf as well,” Dish added.
“Oh, dear.”
“Ms. Cavendish,” Trewin said to Bronwyn, “if you have any information to add regarding your aunt’s death, I look forward to hearing it.” He slipped her a card and then excused himself.
“Of course.” When he had stepped away, Bronwyn said, “How peculiar. An investigation? Into Merryn’s death?”
“Standard procedure I would say,” Dish replied, “under the circumstances.”
Bronwyn squeezed Elowen’s waiting fingers, and then extended the plate of pastries. Elowen smiled, nodded, and proceeded to gather up all half dozen of them as if she hadn’t eaten in weeks.
“With Connor off on his research trek, Elowen has stepped in to help me out.”
“Well, you needn’t have help for long, surely.” Bronwyn held the empty plate and watched Elowen sniff the fondant before popping one in her mouth. “I should expect you’ll be off to California soon.”
“There are some matters to attend to,” said Dish, “and I do have all summer.”
“Ah, yes, the will.” Bronwyn smiled and set the empty plate aside.
It was the way she said it that bothered him, as if his only intention in coming here was to wait in line for a share in Merryn’s meager estate. He had a sudden vision of Bronwyn showing up at Merryn’s cottage, ready to sort and price everything for an estate sale. Merryn had journals filled with her notes on the Old Blood, memories she undoubtedly planned to hide for her future self to find if she had to be reborn here again. There were surely other things that would cause questions, like the soothblade. Where was it? Dish was assaulted with a distinct image of Connor tucking it into his pocket just after their scuffle.
“Hugh, are you all right?” Bronwyn asked. “You look peaked.”
“Fine. I’m feeling exhausted is all. It’s been a rough few days.”
“I offered to help with things—”
“I know. It’s just me, Wyn,” he said, feeling a pang of love for this sister who had grown so distant over the years. But it wasn’t Bronwyn who had retreated, it was Dish, and now he wished he could explain it all to her. But he wouldn’t even know where to start.
A woman appeared at Bronwyn’s side. She wore a suit more appropriate for a business meeting than a funeral. She smiled, revealing dimples and a slight, endearing overbite. Her blond hair was done up, and she wore simple pearls.
“Come now, Bronwyn,” she said, “I’ve wanted to meet your brother for ages.”
The lovely woman extended her hand before Bronwyn could reply. “I’m Celeste Arundell. Your aunt was too charming for words. She’ll be greatly missed.”
“So she will,” Dish replied, taking her hand. “I’m Hugh.”
“Of course you are. Merryn spoke of you often and with great fondness.”
“How did you know Merryn?”
“A weekly game of cribbage, Bronwyn and I trading off sides, and Merryn beat us both every time. A pity to lose her. She was an angel of a woman with a wealth of knowledge.”
She still held Dish’s hand, and now her other hand closed over it. It would be poor manners to draw his away, and hers were incredibly warm and incredibly soft. No gloves.
There was no mistaking the look she gave Elowen. The entire village was surely stirring up rumors about this girl and Dish.
“We’ll be stopping by the cottage this afternoon,” Bronwyn said. “I’m certain you’re as interested as I in being done with this.”
“We?”
“Celeste is Merryn’s attorney,” Bronwyn said. “She was left specific instructions regarding the handling of Merryn’s estate.”
“If it’s inconvenient,” Celeste said, “we can make it another time.”
The state of the cottage and its contents were just as it was the day Merryn died. Dish did a quick inventory in his head. Postponing might look suspicious. “No, no, this afternoon is fine.”
“I suspect it will be a straightforward discussion,” she said, and finally released his hand. “We’ll get things moving forward. This afternoon then?”
“Teatime would be splendid,” he said, fearing they would arrive earlier. “And do bring the ‘instructions’ Merryn left you.”
His hand continued to tingle even after she’d walked away.
**
Dish had resisted behaving like a criminal but realized he had no choice.
On the way back from the funeral, he and Elowen had stopped at the hostel where Connor was staying. After a lengthy argument with the proprietor, he had convinced the man that Connor had left town in a rush. Dish had successfully collected Connor’s things. It certainly wouldn’t do to have it discovered that he’d left on this research trip without his clothes.
Elowen struggled to carry an oversized duffle bag from the car to the cottage. She dropped it on the floor.
“We’ll store it in the shed,” he told her.
“I just want to look,” she said and unzipped the top flap to peer inside. She reached in, pulled out a tee shirt, which she smelled as if it were covered in perfume. She reached in again and drew out a revolver.
“Bloody hell!” Dish cried.
Elowen was waving it around, looking down the barrel.
“Give that to me!”
He took it from her, deciding that the best place to keep it was with Connor’s things. The last thing he needed in Merryn’s cottage was a gun.
“It’s dangerous. A weapon.” He shoved it back into the rucksack, wondering why in the world Connor thought it necessary to arm himself. “We’l
l hide it well in the shed.”
Elowen held out a well-used sketch book with dog-eared pages that she’d taken from the sack, the one Connor had said he’d used to record stone carvings. “What about this?”
Dish took it and flipped through page after page of sketches. Pictish stones with their strange geometric designs were mixed with drawings of ruins and gravestones and landscapes. Straight lines were drawn from mountain peak to stone, intersecting like the ley lines so popular with the New Age crazies.
One drawing in particular resembled an inkblot. Drawn in color, mirror images of a mountain range and valley were lit by a bright sun on one half of the page, and on the other, the same mountains were bathed in moonlight beneath a sky spattered with stars. Two trees grew, one in each valley, each beside a pool of water. Their roots met between the worlds and joined in a tangle of Celtic knots that became serpents.
Dish felt Elowen’s warm breath on his cheek as she looked over his shoulder.
“He’s a talent, that one,” she said, still holding one of Connor’s tee shirts. “The two worlds.” She ran her fingers over the picture with reverence. “And the well that joins them, here. And there—” She pointed to the tree. “Merryn’s tree.”
“Or Lyleth’s.”
“What’s this bit here?” He pointed at what looked like an abstract sketch of a creature. Its long body weaved in and out of the tree roots. A wyrm, they would have called it in the old days.
“Don’t know, my lord.” She put Connor’s tee shirt on over her dress. It had a faded Metallica logo on the front. “But there, it looks like runes.” She ran her finger along a spiral that grew from the tree.
“Maybe you can find something in Connor’s drawings that can help us bring him back.”
“Aye, my lord.”
“Put the rest of his things out in the shed with his clothes. I’ll keep this.”
He refused to indulge the hope that he would be able to trade places with Connor the way Elowen had. But to find him, they had to look.
For the past two days, Dish had grilled Elowen for every detail of Lyleth’s life since he had left her. She had graciously humored him, even telling him that Lyleth chose to birth their daughter in a small grove of trees rather than her bed. For those who will be great are met and greeted by the green gods with their first breath. From Elowen’s story, it appeared Lyl had made some amends with her gods, for Angharad was as much a gift to Lyl as she was the price the green gods would demand.
“Does she know?” he asked Elowen.
“Know what, my lord?”
He had wondered for six years if Lyleth had ever found out the truth. That it wasn’t ice-born who had killed him on that battlefield, it was Talan. He had protected his nephew, hoping he would become the king Nechtan never could. It would do no good to tell Elowen now.
He said, “Does Lyleth know that Talan tried to kill you?”
“We left Lyleth at the hive, on the isle.”
“That doesn’t mean she doesn’t know.”
“Aye. I suppose not.”
“Angharad is but a child,” he said. “But can she take care of herself?”
“She’s a child, aye, but like none other, my lord. Who else could have saved me by putting the moth in my mouth? Connor’s protected by her magic as well. I feel it must be so.”
His daughter was in the service of a monster. And he was helpless to do anything about it.
He flipped to another page of Connor’s sketchbook. A youthful Merryn stared back at him, a perfect portrait of her as a young woman. He’d even captured that impish sparkle in her eye.
A knock came at the door.
“Put this in the closet.”
The knocking was insistent. When he heard Elowen close the closet, he rolled his wheelchair to the front door and opened it.
“Pardon me for the wait—”
The woman who stood at the door was neither Bronwyn nor Celeste. Her backpack was almost as big as she was and the jewels of her many piercings glinted in the afternoon sun. Even though her once platinum blonde hair was now dyed black, Dish knew her immediately.
“I’m sorry about Aunt Merryn,” said Iris McCreary. “Can I come in?”
Chapter 14
Lyleth hadn’t slept in two days, yet as she lay beside the fire, sleep refused to come. They were unprotected out here on the plain, and though Connor had offered to watch while she slept, she feared he might vanish as quickly as he’d come, blown away by a wind from the other side. And what of Dylan? She turned over and placed her hand on his chest. His breathing was even now, but what if it stopped? She stared past him to the fire. What could she do if he did stop breathing?
Brixia would not leave Connor’s side, but what that meant, Lyleth could not guess. The pony was a conjuring of the gods, but whose gods? Her mind was churning with the information Connor had brought her, truths certainly, for he’d known Angharad’s name, and told Lyleth things that only Nechtan would know.
Lyleth was Old Blood, he’d said. She’d cheated the curse of exile and found her way back to the land of the living through the roots of a tree. She considered it madness at first. But it explained far too many things to be untrue.
All these years, she had convinced herself that she was a pawn in the green gods’ game, but if Connor was right, she was the game master. She was acting out a part written by her deep mind. Maybe she wasn’t the only one. Maybe all people follow a path set before them by their eternal selves, that part of them that moves back and forth across the Void from one world to the next, that part that remembers everything and knows how much pain one can endure before change finally comes. The gods don’t goad one onward. People do that themselves.
The idea both empowered her and made her feel terribly selfish. She had used Nechtan. Maybe she’d made herself believe that she loved him, too. After all, what was love but the decision to open your soul completely to another? It was just that… a decision.
She drew the soothblade from her belt and watched the particles of firelight ignite the realm inside the clear, green stone. She imagined gentle valleys and jagged peaks, villages and fortresses and rivers threading through them. A world frozen in stone. How many lifetimes were locked inside? And who did they belong to?
It didn’t really matter. Connor had said the only way to retrieve the memories stored in these blades would be to wait until a full moon rose. That wouldn’t be for another ten days. She needed answers now.
Lyleth looked past the fire. Connor sat on a rock, staring out into the darkness with Brixia by his side. He must be as weary as she. He’d been dragging Dylan on that contraption for leagues.
She spoke softly, trying not to wake Dylan, “There was a reason the Ildana sealed the well.”
Connor turned, and the pony turned with him. He said, “They feared the Old Blood?” His accent was often hard to understand, but she was surprised he could speak Ildana at all.
Lyleth sat up and inserted the green blade into the fire, letting the flames lick the stone. Perhaps the view inside would change, reveal itself.
“Aye,” she said. “A fear so great they made certain an entire people would be lost to the land of the dead. The king of the Old Blood was a follower of the Sunless, and the battle fought on this plain was like none seen before.”
“What do you mean?” Connor asked. He came around the fire and sat down beside her, his copper eyes eager for a story.
“The Ildana wielded steel, while the Old Blood used weapons of stone and horn and bone. The battle should have been swift and easily won.” She held the soothblade to the sky, and let the waxing moonlight pass through it to her eye. Nothing but the same green landscape. She went on, “The Ildana attacked on horseback and chariot with shields and swords. They had archers skilled enough to kill from across a river. Tiernmas, king of the Old Blood, relied on his blood priests, magicians who disregarded the balance of existence and redirected the flow of life to change destiny. Like changing the course of a river.�
�
“But the river still finds its way to the sea,” Connor said.
“Aye. It just takes a different course.”
The thought came to her that she had done no less when she brought Nechtan back. She had diverted his path.
She went on, “The Sunless reshaped the essence of animals, trees, and men into weapons, and met the Ildana’s steel in battle. Had Black Brac not captured Tiernmas, few would have been left alive on either side. But with their king taken, the Old Blood, those who placed no faith in the dark workings of the blood priests, they made peace with Black Brac. They even accepted their exile, knowing the Ildana would never abide the Sunless in their land.”
“So the Old Blood were divided?”
“Aye, there were the Sunless, and there were those who opposed them and held true to the green gods of their people.”
“And if the well opens,” Connor said, “both will return?”
Lyleth nodded and turned the soothblade over in her hands, still warm from the fire. “But the Ildana turned the blood magic of the Sunless against them. They executed Tiernmas, and their own druada bound his soul to the well stone—the cromm cruach, the head of the Crooked One. They set twelve knights to guard him, warriors of the Ildana. Some say it’s their blood that made the pool on the island, for they were sacrificed, and their souls bound to the place no less than Tiernmas. As long as his soul is locked in that stone, the well will remain sealed. Your friend Merryn never told you that part of the tale, did she?”
“No,” he said, seeming lost in thought. His fingers were laced together, and he worried at his knuckles. “What will happen if Talan succeeds in freeing the Crooked One?”
“Tiernmas will need flesh to reclaim the Five Quarters. What better flesh to take than that of the Ildana king?”
“Maybe you’re wrong about Angharad,” Connor said. “Maybe she’s trying to stop him, not help him.”
“We’ll find out soon enough. The tracks of Talan’s horses lead to Caer Emlyn. If I can get to Angharad…”
“You should sleep.” Connor looked like a bog monster himself. His gray skin absorbed the firelight, and his eyes radiated his soul. “Brixia and I will watch.”
