The Well of Tears: Book Two of The Crowthistle Chronicles Read online

  “My breath and blood!” exclaimed Eoin, his features collapsing in mortification. “Oh, by my troth! Never say that, Jewel. Never say it. ’Tis I who am indebted to you. But do not ask me why, for I cannot endure to tell you.”

  Slowly she retracted her hand, yet she did not replace the chain about her neck.

  “Anyway,” said Eoin hastily, evading her inquisitive stare and hoping to put her mind at ease, “I own riches enough.”

  “All your coin and possessions remain back at the marsh.”

  “You are mistaken. I carry my good fortune with me.”

  “I cannot believe it.”

  “In sooth! Several years ago I did a good turn for some wights, and they rewarded me with luck in all my enterprises.”

  She was entranced. “Is it so? How did it come to pass?”

  They forded a pebbly brook and started uphill again. As they plodded through the wiry grasses, Eoin told the tale of that night in the marsh when he had crossed an island, through groves of trees whose starlit boles were slender, silver dancers, shadow-haired. When he walked out upon a grassy, open space, a sense of strangeness had overtaken him.

  An alarming racket had arisen on all sides. He knew he was amongst eldritch wights, although he could not see them, and he was afraid. Some were laughing; others were weeping. One of the wailing voices suddenly said, “A bairn is born and there’s nowt to put on it!”

  At this, Eoin jumped backward and sideways, for the voice had seemed to come from almost under his feet.

  “A bairn is born and there’s nowt to put on it!” squeaked the woeful voice a second time.

  In the name of all good sense, what am I doing here? Eoin thought, in growing apprehension, out here alone with no one nigh for miles to hear my screams should any ill befall me. . . .

  “A bairn is born and there’s nowt to put on it!” shrilled the melancholy voice again, but Eoin saw nothing except the gem-encrusted night sky, the dark grasses bending in the breeze, and the glint of starlight on black water. Swiftly unfastening two bronze shoulder-brooches, he doffed his cloak and cast it to the ground.

  “Take this!” he croaked, his mouth dry with terror.

  Instantly, the cloak was seized by an invisible hand. The howlings died away, but the sounds of mirth and celebration intensified. Hoping his action would content the wights, Eoin took his chance and fled.

  “My action did indeed content them,” he said, concluding his tale to Jewel. “From that night forward, I had great luck in gambling and trade.”

  “Why, that explains many things! How wonderful!” With that, the child slipped the chain of the white gem around her neck once again, and concealed it beneath her gown. “But—oh!” Abruptly, she halted.

  Eoin stopped beside her.

  “Won’t your good luck cease now you’ve told of it?” Jewel said, frowning up at him, “That is the way with wights. It is astonishing you are not aware of it! Their gifts only remain as long as their source is not disclosed!” Her voice sank to a whisper and she darted furtive glances over her shoulders.

  The marshman, however, knew exactly what he had done. Deliberately, perhaps as a kind of self-punishment, he had made known the origin of his luck and thereby surrendered it forever. In their mysterious way the wights would know what he had done, and instantly withdraw their endowment. Time past, the knowledge would have troubled him, but now it made him perversely glad. In his own view, he deserved to pay for his transgressions.

  “Aye,” he affirmed, giving a wry smile. He patted the child on the shoulder. “It never did me any good, being prosperous. I care naught if the eldritch gift is taken away.”

  “But you should not have told me your secret!” she protested, with irritation. “I hope no wights of eldritch overheard.” Disconsolately she kicked out at a clump of red-capped toadstools sprouting near her toes. Her companion fancied he heard a burst of chatter, as of shrill voices, but he could not be sure. Perhaps it had been the twittering of small birds. . . .

  “Somehow, they will know,” he said. “They always do.”

  Distraught, the child began to rail at him, but he soothed her, saying, “Hush, little one. Give a man leave to choose his own direction. Now, we must continue on our way if we are to reach shelter before our supplies run out.”

  Sulkily, she complied.

  As they went on together he began to sing to her, to calm her. It was a song he had first invented when she was an infant, and he used to rock her in his arms:

  “I’ll make you a bonnet of a bluebell, silver shells for your shoon,

  And me and baby will go dancing all by the light of the moon.

  I’ll make you a carriage of a pumpkin, white mice for the team,

  And me and baby will go driving down by Watermill Stream.

  I’ll make you a song of pretty rose-buds, white and pink and gold,

  And me and baby will be singing until the day is old.

  I’ll make you a necklace of bright raindrops falling one by one,

  And me and baby will be laughing until the day is done.

  I’ll make you a cradle of a walnut, lined with down so light,

  And little baby will lie sleeping, peaceful through the night.”

  Late in the afternoon a rain-shower blew away into the east and the sun, slipping through a gap in the clouds, flooded the western hillsides with amber radiance. Eoin and Jewel emerged from a straggling copse of linden trees. They had reached the other side of the Border Hills. At their feet, the ground sloped gently down. The trees opened out and they looked out over a vast windswept land striated with overlapping belts of trees, dark green, tinged with a dusting of topaz at the leaf-tips. Great draughts of fresh air swept up the rise, so intoxicating they took the breath away.

  This was Canterbury Grasswood, an undulating region reaching from the Border Hills to Canterbury Water, the great river whose sources sprang amongst the mountain ranges of the east. Its rounded shoulders were lavishly clothed in grassland, scattered with open woodland. In places, the trees clustered closely together, forming dense patches of forest. Copper-beech proliferated here, and horse-chestnut, maple, elm, and elder. The northern horizon was veiled by a low band of mist rising from the distant river. Above the mist reared a line of peaks, the southernmost of the mountain ring that encircled and buttressed the distant High Plateau.

  The wayfarers descended the final incline. It was a lonely spot, far from human habitation or the routes of Marauders, so Eoin decided to risk lighting a short-lived cook-fire. That evening he snared a rabbit, which they roasted for supper over the orange flames.

  Seven days after leaving the Border Hills they were trudging, bound by their customary silence, along a footpath sunk between high banks of thyme, and overhung by elder trees gaudy with scarlet berries. The sky was overcast, and the wind had swung around, bringing a bitter chill down from the north. Instinctively, Jewel tugged her hood over her ears and pulled her fur-lined cloak more closely around her slight form.

  “How do you know the way to King’s Winterbourne?” she asked. “Have you been there?”

  “I have not. Nonetheless, I know enough about Tir to be sure that if we head north we shall eventually arrive at the Canterbury Water, and if we veer somewhat east as we travel we shall find the bridge where the Mountain Road crosses the river. That bridge cannot be crossed without paying a toll to the watchmen of Narngalis.”

  “What if the watchmen suspect us?”

  “We’ll confront that predicament when we come to it.”

  “Can we not cross the river elsewhere, and avoid predicaments?”

  “I know of no other way across the Canterbury Water, unless one journeys far upstream, or finds a ferryman, or goes far downstream to the bridges over the border in Grïmnørsland.”

  The sunken path dipped and ran rapidly downhill. At the bottom of a flowery dell a little wooden bridge spanned a stream. It was a rotting, rickety construction built on piles of moldering stone, the patched-up remnants of
a more robust structure that had once spanned the watercourse. When they had reached the opposite bank the trail led them into a stand of maples and copper-beeches. Here Autumn flamed in its glory, splashing color far and near in vibrant shades of red, yellow, and orange.

  “By all that’s uncanny—what’s that ahead?” Eoin said sharply. He thrust out his arm to bar the progress of Jewel, who was following behind him. They both halted, peering into the dappled shade that hung across the trail like a richly embroidered curtain. Something moved between the trees, then gathered shape to itself from contrast and dimness, from hue and saturated luminosity.

  “It looks like a coach-horse,” muttered Eoin.

  “Which signifies it probably isn’t one,” Jewel hissed back.

  A loud whinny emanated from the vicinity of the creature. It switched its ivory cascade of a tail back and forth, then trotted off up the path. As its palely glimmering form disappeared around a bend it nickered, rudely and brazenly.

  Without thinking, Eoin clutched the amulet at his throat. “Sain us,” he said. “Methinks ’tis a waterhorse! Who knows what kind it might be—a cabyllushtey, a shoopiltee, or a kelpie; an aughiski, maybe.”

  “Aye, but we are far from the marsh, and farther from the sea,” said Jewel reasonably. “In which case ’tis unlikely to be any of those types.”

  “We crossed over a stream back there,” Eoin reminded her. “ ’Tis some sort of horse-wight, there’s no denying, but whether ’tis seelie or not I cannot tell.”

  “We must go forward unafraid,” Jewel decided. “Wights get power over mortals if we show fear. Besides, if it is a malevolent waterhorse, ’tis easy to avoid their clutches. All we must do is refuse to get on its back if it invites us.”

  “And be able to run very fast when it waxes wrathful at our refusal,” Eoin murmured under his breath.

  “Your blackthorn staff will help to ward it off,” said Jewel optimistically. “What’s more, you have knives of cold iron, and I picked a bunch of bright red elderberries this morning. We have your amulet of bone, and my gemstone for added protection. We can turn our clothes inside out, and we can whistle. If all else fails we can turn back and make for that stream. Once we cross running water we’ll be safe for certain!”

  “Very well.” Eoin began to shrug off his pack.

  “Oh,” said Jewel, “but I shall be safe anyway. I forgot. Sometimes I overlook my own invulnerability.”

  “We shall both be safe,” said Eoin, endeavoring to sound sincere.

  They removed their outer garments, turned them seam-side-out, and put them on again. Whistling, they began to walk on, so filled with apprehension that they were unaware they were whistling two different tunes, that wove together in eerie discord.

  Every time they rounded a twist in the narrow woodland path they would see the horse-thing again, poised as if waiting for them, whereupon it would flounce off as before, uttering clamorous and prolonged horse-noises. After they had gone on in this fashion for more than a hundred paces, the woods thinned, and when they came out into the open, the wight had vanished.

  “I wonder what happened to the calf with the kerchief at its neck,” said Jewel.

  “Did you see that, too?” Eoin exclaimed. “I thought my eyes were playing tricks. First a coach-horse, next a calf with a horse’s tail.” Suddenly he turned around and slapped his thigh in a revelatory manner. “I wist I know what that wight was!” he said. “ ’Twas a brag!”

  “Are brags seelie?” Jewel wanted to know as they recommenced their journey at a somewhat swifter pace.

  “Indeed,” her step-uncle advised, “yet ’tis mischievous they are, as well. They are shape-shifters whose usual form is a horse, but not a horse associated with water. Like their cousins the phoukas, they are practical jokers who sport with humans for their own wayward delight.”

  “What is their custom?”

  “Oh, the usual thing. They entice folk onto their backs and give them wild rides to bruise their seats and bemuse their wits, before flinging them into some duck pond or muddy puddle and galloping off, guffawing with laughter. Unlike the true waterhorses, they do not devour their victims. Brags can take certain other shapes, too. They may appear as a bushy-tailed calf with a white handkerchief tied around its neck, or as a naked, headless man. Once it appeared as four men holding up a white sheet. . .”

  “Yes?” prompted Jewel.

  “. . . but that was when myself and three other fellows were trying to make fools of some of the marsh Watchmen,” Eoin confessed.

  “Did the trick work?”

  “Not exactly.”

  Jewel smiled. At this rare sight, Eoin felt his heart must break.

  “Do you know anything else about brags?” she inquired.

  “A traveler’s gest tells of a man who had a tailor make a set of garments for him, all in white. The first time he wore them, he met a brag, and ever since then whenever he wore the white clothes some ill-chance happened upon him.”

  “Then he was a fool to keep putting them on,” remarked Jewel.

  “That is the way of most folk,” said Eoin, “ever hopeful that their luck will change. Moreover, he must have been a fearless man. It is told that he met the same brag a second time. All dressed in his white, he was returning from the naming ceremony of a nobleman’s child. When he saw the brag in its horse-shape, he was undaunted. Probably longing for revenge, he leaped on the wight’s back. They jogged on all right for a while, and he thought he’d get a good ride home, but when they came to the crossroads by the village green, the brag began to leap and arch its back so mightily that the fellow had all he could do to cling on. You may guess the outcome.”

  “It bucked him off into the middle of the duck pond and frolicked away, laughing like any mortal man?”

  “Even so!”

  Jewel smiled again, but it was a wan smile, and the dark smudges arcing beneath her eyes made her appear, to her step-uncle, like some waif.

  By sunset, the wayfarers had not yet found a suitable place to make camp. They plodded on through the accumulating twilight, before settling at last at the margin of a thicket of elms, in the lee of a low embankment. There had been no sign of Marauders for many a mile, so it seemed safe to risk lighting a fire. Kindling was easily found. They had a good blaze crackling away when Eoin announced, “I’m off to catch something for supper.” After a nod of acknowledgment from Jewel, who was busy reversing her cloak and hood to seam-side-in, he took the coils of snare-wire and fishing-line and slipped away into the dusk.

  The wind had dropped. The evening was so still that the fulvous elm-leaves hung static. Hardly a one floated down to become part of the sumptuous mosaic on the woodland floor. Eoin backtracked until he reached a shallow ravine, whose steep walls he and the child had negotiated shortly before sunset. Roughly fifteen feet deep, it had been gouged from the sandy soil of the hillside by a bubbling beck that flowed along its nadir. To the marshman’s eye, this had looked like a trout-stream. As he approached, the tinsel gurglings of moving water intensified. He had just let himself down the fern-decorated cliff-face when an awareness grew in him that the water’s merry song was mingled with another sound. It was a soft, protracted cry, and the voice that made it was clear and melodious beyond human ability. Through the gloaming he discerned the silhouette of a woman. He stepped closer. When he saw her face, he felt a sky-bolt smite him. She was beautiful, but pallid as a marble tomb. A smoke of charcoal-hued hair tumbled down over her shoulders, and her eyes were two melts of the most vivid, concentrated blue he had ever seen in his life.

  Lilith.

  She made as if to speak to him, but gave voice merely to her weird wailing. Then, beckoning him to accompany her, she turned away. Eagerly he followed, until without warning, he was following nothing. Only moonlight stood in sky-high columns at the ends of the ravine, pleached with the first tendrils of a slowly elevating mist.

  Tormented, he hurried back to the place where he had originally spied this vision, b
ut there was no clue to her whereabouts. Forgetting the object of his excursion, he began to run wildly up and down the shores of the stream, calling the name that pounded through his head.

  “Lilith!”

  Much later, spent and gray-faced, he made his way back to the campsite empty-handed.

  “What’s amiss?” Jewel asked at once.

  Having just witnessed a vision of the love of his life, whose death he had brought about, Eoin was shaken to the foundations of his being, shocked and utterly unmanned. “Naught,” was all he would say, and he lay down as if to sleep, without taking so much as a bite of their meager fare.

  The lightless hours crept onward, and far off in the elm-wood a masked owl gave a drawn-out, rasping screech. Jewel roused from a shallow doze to discover she was alone in the moonlight, beside the ruddy embers of the fire. Eoin’s pack lay nearby. It was thoroughly uncharacteristic of him to abandon her in the night, so she sat up, alarmed, looking about. He was not to be found.

  Immediately she concluded he had gone back to seek whatever it was that had been troubling him since his unsuccessful fishing trip. After quickly stamping out the glowing coals as a precaution against wildfires, she picked up her dilapidated skirts and hastened in the direction she supposed he had taken. Along the leafy trail she ran, leaping over gnarled roots that sprawled athwart her path, dodging a sleepy hedgehog, paying scant heed to the occasional eldritch squawks erupting from deep in the undergrowth.

  Near the ravine, she found him. By now a dense mist had built up in the cleft and was spilling out in diaphanous waves across the ground. Half-hidden by serpentine vapors, Eoin was roaming eccentrically about. He seemed to be remonstrating with a being Jewel could not see, pleading with it to return.

  Screaming, Jewel sprang toward him and gripped him by the arm. “Come away! Come away!” she shrieked, “ ’Tis some spell on you. Come away!”

  He regarded her with a clouded gaze. His drooping eyes seemed to be swimming with dreams and she thought he stared straight through her.