The Shadow Isle

Together Val and Dallandra trod down a rough circle in the grass. After the proper invocations Val evened up its perimeter into a proper circle by marking the damp sod with the point of the sword. As the sun rose, she greeted the powers who stand behind this visible symbol of warmth and light. To them she consecrated the ceremony.

‘Are you ready, sentinel?’ Val said.

‘I am.’ Dallandra raised her own sword. ‘Let the ritual begin.’ She brought the sword down sharply.

Valandario stood in the centre of the circle, lifted her arms over her head, and vibrated the words from the scroll, drawing breath from deep within herself, breaking each word into syllables as Aderyn had taught her, all those years before.

‘Ol-duh um-duh non-ci do a doh-oh-ah-een day Iah-ee-da, O gah day poh-ah-mal ca a no-tay-hay-oh-a ah av-ah-bay-hay. Ha-na-ma-rah ha-na-ma-rah! Ah-ca-ray, ca, od zah-meh-rah-nah, la-pay ol zee-air-do noo-coh ol-pay-ee-air-tay de ol-pay-ee-air-tay.’

For a moment nothing whatever happened. Valandario took another deep breath – and flew, or so it seemed to her, darted up through the air and the brightening sunlight, up ever upward, until she stood on an island, a perfect circle in the midst of hyacinth-coloured seas. All around it purple waves rose stiffly, then subsided without a trace of foam. A greenish sunlight shimmered on the sea and glinted from the island’s glass-smooth surface. In the island’s centre a circular dimple formed. Out of it rose a silver pillar, a mere stump at first, then growing higher and higher, until at last Val stood before a translucent tower.

‘Ah-ca-ray, oh servant of the Light!’ Valandario said.

Within the pillar a point of violet light bloomed, grew larger, stretched into a vertical line. The line thickened, swirled, and formed at last into the tenuous shape of a woman.

‘Why do you call upon me?’ the spirit said. ‘What do you wish to know?’

‘I wish to know about Haen Marn, the island in the planes of form that’s a shadow of this island.’

‘Not of this island, but of another. I know not where that lies.’

‘If you do not know, how may I find out?’

‘I know not that, either. You must ask the Lady of the Black Stone Isle, she who dwells on the plane of matter and death.’

‘How may I find her?’

‘Go to the island.’ A trace of annoyance crept into the spirit’s voice. ‘Even a fleshly creature such as you should know this. Go to the island and ask her.’

‘The island has fled. I don’t know where it lies.’

‘Then summon it.’

‘I don’t know how to summon it.’

‘The island has its own summons. You need not ask me. Mospleh, mospleh, mospleh.’

‘I don’t know what mospleh means.’

Inside her pillar, the spirit frowned. ‘Look to the metal of the moon and to the moon herself at her first waxing.’

‘What –’

But the spirit was growing thin, fading, turning back into a strand of violet light, gleaming against silver. The pillar swirled once, then sank slowly back into the island. Valandario felt herself take flight, swooped down, circled round, saw below her the ritual sword, gleaming in the rising sun. She let herself drop, then settled feet first onto the hard metal.

The vision disappeared. She was back, slipping a little on the wet grass as she stepped off the sword blade. She stamped thrice on the ground, then picked up the sword and cut through the circle.

‘May any Wildfolk bound by this ceremony go free! It is over!’ Val called out and stamped again for good measure. With a sigh she wiped the mud on the point of her sword off on the side of her boots.

‘I gather the evocation called something forth,’ Dallandra said. ‘I could hear your questions. Did the spirit ever answer?’

‘Oh yes, but we’re not much farther along than we were before. You know, there are times when I get really tired of spirits and their blasted riddles.’

‘So do I,’ Dallandra paused and glanced back to the spot where the camp had stood. ‘It looks like the alar’s ready to ride out. Tell me what you saw while we walk back, will you? I can’t bear to wait till we make camp again.’

Branna had seen Valandario and Dallandra leave camp for a dweomer working. During that day’s ride she burned with curiosity, but she knew that she had no right to pry. She could only hope that Dallandra would choose to tell her at the evening meal.

As dweomer apprentices, Branna and Neb generally ate with their masters rather than cooking for themselves. The various members of the royal alar took turns feeding the Wise Ones – a good thing, since Branna had never cooked a meal in her life. Calonderiel usually joined them as well. While Branna was expecting Neb as usual that evening, he never arrived.

‘I don’t know where he went,’ she told Dallandra. ‘Do you?’

‘I don’t.’ Dallandra glanced at Calonderiel. ‘Have you seen him?’

His mouth full of herbed greens, Cal nodded and hastily swallowed. ‘I did,’ the banadar said. ‘He told me he was fasting, but he didn’t say why. I assumed you’d set him some practice.’

‘Naught of the sort!’ Dallandra briefly looked sour. ‘Mayhap he doesn’t feel well or suchlike.’

‘Starve a cold, feed a fever,’ Cal said. ‘Or is it the other way round?’

Dallandra mugged disgust, then handed him a piece of soda bread, which he took with a grin.

For the rest of the meal, Dallandra said little. Branna went back to her own tent with her curiosity still burning. Neb returned much later in the evening. Under a pale dweomer light Branna was laying out their blankets when he strode into the tent.

‘You’ve been talking to Dallandra about me, haven’t you?’ Neb said.

‘I haven’t.’ Branna looked up in some surprise. ‘What –’

‘Well, someone told her I was fasting.’

‘It was Calonderiel, not me. It happened at dinner tonight.’

‘Oh.’

‘Did she tell you not to?’

‘She did. I was only trying to sharpen my second sight, but she told me it was dangerous at my stage of development.’

Branna made a noncommittal noise.

‘And another thing.’ Neb folded his arms tightly across his chest and glared at her. ‘If it wasn’t you, why did she bring up Nevyn, then?’

‘When?’ Branna rose to face him.

‘Yesterday afternoon. And then tonight she mentioned somewhat again. It must have come from you.’

‘I don’t even know what she said to you.’

‘Yesterday she mentioned Rhegor.’

‘I – who?’

Neb’s expression suddenly changed to something slack and exhausted. The silver light directly above him filled the hollows of his face with dark shadows. He turned away and shoved his hands in the pockets of his brigga. ‘I don’t suppose you would remember him,’ Neb said. ‘My apologies.’

‘Neb, I don’t understand what you’re going on about.’

He gave her one brief look, then turned and ducked out of the tent. It was some while before he returned, and by then Branna had given up waiting for him and gone to bed. For a few moments he stumbled around in the dark tent.

‘You could make a light,’ she said. ‘Or I could.’

He spoke not a word, merely sat down on the edge of their blankets and began to pull off his boots. The smell of mead hung around him. If he’d been drinking with the other men, she knew, conversation would prove frustrating and little more. Branna turned over and pretended to sleep. Eventually he managed to undress and slip into the blankets beside her, only to fall asleep with a loud snore.

Branna lay awake, wondering if she was sorry she’d married him. She found herself missing Aunt Galla and Cousin Adranna with a real longing to see them again, to sit down and ask them what they would have done, married to a man like Neb. I can never tell them, she reminded herself, not without mentioning dweomer.

With the morning Neb became perfectly pleasant again, charming, even. When he went out to help with the horses, he was whistling. Still, the farther north that the alar travelled, the more thoughts of her kinsfolk came to Branna’s mind. When by Prince Dar’s reckoning they reached the border of Pyrdon, she found herself wondering how the winter had treated them.

‘I’ve been doing those exercises on farseeing that you gave me,’ Branna told Grallezar. ‘Do you think I could practice by trying to see the Red Wolf dun? I do worry about my aunt, up there in the snow for months, and the army took so much food away, too.’

‘That would be a good practice, I do think,’ Grallezar said. ‘You be very familiar with the place, and your worry does lend strength to the seeing. But spend only a short while at each attempt, and bring yourself back to the earth plane when you be finished.’ Grallezar glanced around the tent. ‘In that wood box there on the floor, below the red bag, there be a time glass. Take it. You may practice for as long as it takes the sand to run half out of the upper glass.’

Branna found the box and opened it, then took the glass out with great care. She’d never seen anything as fine as the pale green glass cones in their polished wood stand, about six inches high overall. She turned it over and watched the sand drip from one cone to the other at a slow, steady pace. Her gnome stared at it open-mouthed.

‘Take the box, too,’ Grallezar said, ‘to keep it safe, like.’

‘I will, then, and my thanks!’

During her first few practices, Branna saw nothing but her memories of the Red Wolf dun. Yet finally, early one morning when Neb was off studying with Dallandra, she received a very brief, very misty impression of the great hall. Aunt Galla was just coming down the stairs, and she looked well and happy, if somewhat thinner. Branna’s pleasure at seeing this vision broke it. It was another four practices before at last she saw the dun again and the fields roundabout, all muddy from spring rain. From then on, Branna managed to catch regular glimpses of the dun, although she couldn’t control which part of it she was seeing.

‘Everyone looks well,’ she told Grallezar. ‘It gladdens my heart to see them. I wonder, though, about Solla. I told you about her, didn’t I? Gerran’s wife? I have this feeling that she’s with child, but I can’t really be sure. It’s too bad you can’t smell things when you scry.’

Grallezar laughed aloud at that. ‘From what the prince do say,’ Grallezar said, ‘we should be there in some while. And then we’ll know if she be so or not.’

Up north in the Red Wolf dun, its women had been worrying about Branna as much as she’d been worrying about them. Not an evening meal went by, Gerran noticed, without the dun’s lady, Galla, or the widowed Lady Adranna mentioning her.

‘Out there with the Westfolk!’ Galla would say. ‘I just can’t believe it sometimes, that a niece of mine would be off with the Westfolk!’

‘Well, Mama,’ Adranna generally answered, ‘I can believe it of Branna. She always had a wild streak, and look at the way she spoke to that dragon, as bold as brass!’

Gerran would glance his wife’s way and see her trying not to smile. Only he and Solla knew exactly how deep Branna’s wildness ran.

As the days slipped by, each a little longer than the last, the spring air became warm enough for the womenfolk to carry their sewing outside to take the sun. Servants put chairs out in the dun’s kitchen garden and carried the ladies’ sewing. Gerran escorted them and saw his wife settled in a chair near the dun’s lady. The sunlight caught auburn highlights in Solla’s brown hair, and her hazel eyes had turned a beautiful green.

‘Shall I bring you a cushion?’ Gerran said. ‘Or a footstool?’

‘I’m fine like this, my love,’ Solla said.

‘Are you sure? Do you need a shawl?’

‘Gerro!’ Lady Galla leaned forward in her chair and laughed. ‘She’s with child, not ill!’

‘Lady Galla’s right.’ Solla laid a soft hand on his arm. ‘We northern lasses are a tough lot.’

Gerran smiled; she’d been repeating that sentiment often in the last few months. ‘Still,’ he said, ‘I’ll send one of the pages out to sit here with you. If you need somewhat, he’ll fetch it.’

‘Penna’s right here.’ Solla sounded puzzled.

Gerran had simply not noticed her young maid, who sat on the ground right beside her mistress’s chair. Penna looked up at him with wide dark eyes that revealed no trace of any emotion under their plumed brown brows. She was a peculiar lass in his opinion, a skinny little thing with slick brown hair that she wore as short as a lad’s. Solla had given her a place in the dun, but the lady took as much care of the maid as the maid did of the lady.

‘It’s the pages’ duty to run messages,’ Gerran said. ‘Penna’s duty is to sew.’

‘Whatever you say, my love.’ Solla rolled her eyes heavenward at this precision.

Penna managed a brief smile.

Gerran went off to hunt for pages. Eventually he found Ynedd, the youngest of the three, leaning against the wall of the stable. His hands were in his pockets, and he seemed to be studying the ground between his feet. Dirt and bits of straw clung to his blond hair, cropped off but curly.

‘What’s wrong?’ Gerran said. ‘Have Clae and Coryn been tormenting you again?’

Ynedd looked up with red-rimmed eyes. A fresh purple bruise mottled his cheek.

‘I see,’ Gerran said. ‘They won’t stop until you fight back.’

‘I tried to, my lord,’ Ynedd said, ‘but there’s two of them.’

‘What? They both jumped you at once, did they?’

Ynedd mumbled something so softly that Gerran could barely hear him. He took it to mean ‘I’m not supposed to tell.’

‘Where are they, do you know?’

‘I don’t, my lord.’

‘Well, I’ll find them sooner or later, and I’ll have a bit of a chat with them. Two against one? Not among the lads I’m training!’

Ynedd managed to smile at that, a little smirk of anticipated revenge. ‘Are you going to beat them?’

‘I’m not. The grooms need help mucking out the stables, and Clae and Coryn can provide it. As for you, go join the women out in the garden. My lady might need to send me a message.’

‘Well and good, my lord.’ Ynedd grinned at him. ‘My thanks.’

The boy peeled himself from the wall and hurried off, so pleased with the order that Gerran followed for some yards, then stood watching as the womenfolk exclaimed over Ynedd’s bruise and sat him down among them. Lady Galla even gave him some sort of sweetmeat. What’s next? Gerran thought sourly. Will they be teaching him how to sew? Since he couldn’t argue with her ladyship, he turned back and went inside the broch to the great hall.

The warband had gathered around one table and was wagering furiously on a game of carnoic between Daumyr, one of the tieryn’s riders, and Salamander, the gerthddyn who’d spent the winter at the tieryn’s table. Gerran dipped himself a tankard of ale from an open barrel near the honour hearth and wandered over to watch. He was planning on sitting in his usual chair at the head of the table nearest the servants’ hearth, but he found it already occupied by Lord Mirryn.

‘And what are you doing here?’ Gerran said.

‘I could ask the same of you, my lord.’ Mirryn paused for a grin in his general direction. ‘You’ve got a higher rank than me now, married as you are, and here your wife’s with child already. I figure that from now on, I’m the captain of my father’s warband and little more.’

‘If Solla has a son, I’ll gloat then and not before.’ Gerran felt his usual pang of cold fear at the mention of Solla’s pregnancy. What if she dies? He shoved the thought away with a toss of his head. ‘But anyway, it doesn’t matter if you or I or the Lord of Hell call you the captain. What counts is what your father thinks of the matter.’

Not long after they learned exactly that, when Cadryc strode into the great hall. He pulled off his yellow and red plaid cloak, tossed it over the back of his chair at the head of the honour table, then stood looking around him with a puzzled frown. When he spotted Mirryn he walked across to join them. Mirryn got up and turned to face his father. The men gathered around the carnoic game fell silent; those who’d been standing hurriedly knelt. Cadryc waved his hand in their direction to allow them to stand up again, then turned his attention to his son.

‘Well, Mirro,’ Cadryc said, ‘what are you doing over here?’

‘The Falcon’s going to have a dun of his own soon enough,’ Mirryn said. ‘So I’m the captain of your warband now.’

‘Ah.’ Cadryc paused for a long moment. ‘So you are. Carry on with your game, men.’ He turned and walked away, leaving Mirryn open-mouthed but speechless behind him.

The men of the warband looked as stunned as their new captain. They said nothing, but they kept glancing at one another. And what will they think of him? Gerran wondered. He’s never ridden to war. Their carefully arranged faces revealed nothing. Mirryn sat down to a profound silence.

‘That was easy enough,’ Gerran said.

Mirryn nodded and picked up his tankard from the table. The conversation and the wagering resumed, slowly at first, then erupted into cheers from Daumyr’s supporters when his next move won the game.

‘Ai!’ Salamander said. ‘I am vanquished, well and truly conquered, routed, and driven from the field!’

‘I take it that means you don’t want another game,’ Daumyr said.

‘Quite right. You’ve beaten me thrice, and my vanity won’t take another blow.’ Salamander got up with a grin. ‘I think I’ll drown my sorrows in some of our lord’s ale.’

Daumyr turned on the bench and made a sketchy bob that might have signified a bow to the two lords.

‘Here, captain,’ Daumyr said to Mirryn, ‘care to give me a game, my lord?’

‘I do indeed,’ Mirryn said. ‘Bring the board up here, will you?’

Good man, Daumyr! Gerran thought. He decided that he didn’t dare risk acting as if he thought Mirryn needed his backing on his new authority. He went to the honour table and sat down at Cadryc’s left. The tieryn was obviously trying to suppress a grin at the effect he’d just had on his son. Gerran waited until a servant lass had brought Cadryc ale and left again. Carrying his own tankard, Salamander joined them.

‘I don’t know if you want my opinion, your grace,’ Gerran said, ‘but you made the right choice for your new captain.’

‘Good. It gladdens my heart that you agree.’ Cadryc frowned into his tankard. ‘No doubt the lad will have plenty of chances to prove himself, with the cursed Horsekin prowling around.’ He reached into the tankard and pulled out a bit of straw, which he tossed onto the floor before continuing. ‘I just hope it’s not too soon.’

The tieryn and the gerthddyn exchanged a significant glance.

‘Um, well, your grace,’ Gerran said, puzzled, ‘the sooner he gets a chance to draw his first blood, the better.’

‘I know that. Wasn’t what I meant.’ Cadryc glared at his ale again, as if suspecting it of harbouring dark secrets.

‘If there’s more straw in that, we should send one of the lasses to tell Cook.’

‘Um? Oh, true spoken, but it should be all right.’ Cadryc took a long swallow. ‘Naught wrong with it now.’

‘If you don’t mind me shoving an oar in,’ Salamander said, ‘Mirryn needs to marry, and soon.’

‘True spoken,’ Cadryc said. ‘And I hope to the gods he sires more sons that I did!’

‘Does Lady Galla have a match in mind?’ Salamander asked.

‘She’s doing her best to find one. That’s the trouble with being out here on the wretched border, with the noble-born so thin on the ground. I don’t particularly want him marrying a common-born lass, but who else is there, eh?’

‘Admittedly the choice is limited.’ Salamander glanced at Gerran, as if inviting him to comment.

Gerran shrugged. He had no ideas on the subject.

‘Might as well leave all that to the womenfolk,’ the tieryn said. ‘Now, Gerro, I’ve been meaning to talk with you about the Falcon clan’s new dun. Cursed if I know who’s going to pay for it. You can’t just throw a few stones together like a farmer, eh? You’ll need a proper master mason from Trev Hael to plan the thing.’

‘Well,’ Gerran said, ‘my wife tells me that her brother owes her a fair amount of hard coin – an inheritance from an uncle, I think she said – but I’d hate to use that.’

‘You may have to. We don’t live in the best of times, lad.’ Cadryc paused for a long swallow of his ale. ‘We’ve got to get men and defences out into the Melyn Valley as soon as we can. I doubt me if the Horsekin will have the stomach for raiding this summer, but sooner or later, they’ll come back. I’ve been thinking about our new overlord. The coin should come from him.’

‘Do you think he has it?’

It was Cadryc’s turn for the shrug. Salamander heaved a mournful sigh.

‘Do we even know where he is?’ Gerran went on. ‘I swore to Prince Dar gladly, but ye gods, the Westfolk could be anywhere out in the grasslands. All I’ve ever heard is that they ride north every summer.’

‘That will have to do, then, eh? Sooner or later he’s bound to ask us for dues and taxes, and we’ll find out then.’

Gerran looked at Salamander and raised an eyebrow, but the gerthddyn merely buried his nose in his tankard. Since they couldn’t speak openly of dweomer in front of the tieryn, Gerran let the matter drop.

Cadryc and Gerran weren’t the only men wondering where Prince Daralanteriel of the Westlands might be. A few days later messengers turned up at Cadryc’s gates, two road-dusty men riding matched greys and leading two more mounts behind them. The extra horses identified them as speeded couriers, and their tabards sported the royal gold wyvern of Dun Deverry.

One-armed Tarro, who’d been watching the gates that afternoon, showed them directly into the great hall. When Gerran realized who they were, he sent a page off to find his wife, one of the only two people in the dun who could read. The messengers knelt at Tieryn Cadryc’s side. One of them proffered a silver tube, sealed at both ends with gold-coloured wax.

‘From Prince Voran of Dun Deverry, your grace,’ he said. ‘Humbly requesting a favour should your grace be willing.’

‘Very well.’ Cadryc took the message tube from him. ‘Go sit with my men. A lass will bring you ale, and tell her if you’d like a meal to go with it.’

‘Our humble thanks, your grace.’

Both men rose and strode away to the far side of the hall. Cadryc scowled at the messages in his hand.

‘You know, Gerro,’ he said, ‘there was somewhat about the way that fellow spoke to me, so carefully, like, that troubled my heart. I was cursed glad to get out from under Gwerbret Ridvar’s overlordship last autumn. It was leave or rebel, truly. I know you agreed. It was good of Prince Dar to take us on. But –’ He hesitated, groping for words. ‘Ah, by the black hairy arse of the Lord of Hell! I don’t know what I mean.’

‘I think I do,’ Gerran said. ‘We live outside of Deverry now, don’t we? We’re not vassals of the high king and the princes any more, so Voran has to ask, not demand. We might as well be Westfolk ourselves.’

‘That’s it!’ Cadryc grinned, then let the grin fade. ‘I knew that, of course, when we swore to Dar. But somehow I hadn’t quite grasped it. I have now.’

‘I still wonder what got the gwerbret to let us go. You’d think the royal line would want as many vassals as it can hold.’

‘Ah, that’s the issue, lad! As they can hold, but they can’t hold a blasted one of us if we can’t hold our land for them. The Melyn Valley’s too far west. I’ll wager the high king knows it’d just be a wound on the kingdom, bleeding coin and men.’

‘So he’ll let Prince Dar do the bleeding instead.’

‘Just that.’ Cadryc saluted him with his tankard. ‘But with all those archers he has, the wound won’t be a big one.’

When Solla arrived at the table of honour, Cadryc broke the seals on the tube and pulled out the letter inside, then handed it to her. She sat down in the chair to his right and unrolled the parchment to look it over.

‘Just read it out,’ Cadryc snapped, then ducked his head in apology. ‘Well, if you would, my lady.’