From bc5e773388f6ee0455b76f0ef52cd7c1048139f6 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Martin Donnelly Date: Thu, 16 Jul 2015 15:41:36 +0100 Subject: [PATCH] New chapters for Mythlands --- build/mythlands/OEBPS/ch07.xhtml | 800 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ build/mythlands/OEBPS/ch08.xhtml | 111 +++++ build/mythlands/OEBPS/ch09.xhtml | 314 ++++++++++++ build/mythlands/OEBPS/ch10.xhtml | 539 +++++++++++++++++++++ build/mythlands/OEBPS/ch11.xhtml | 536 +++++++++++++++++++++ build/mythlands/OEBPS/ch12.xhtml | 0 6 files changed, 2300 insertions(+) create mode 100644 build/mythlands/OEBPS/ch07.xhtml create mode 100644 build/mythlands/OEBPS/ch08.xhtml create mode 100644 build/mythlands/OEBPS/ch09.xhtml create mode 100644 build/mythlands/OEBPS/ch10.xhtml create mode 100644 build/mythlands/OEBPS/ch11.xhtml create mode 100644 build/mythlands/OEBPS/ch12.xhtml diff --git a/build/mythlands/OEBPS/ch07.xhtml b/build/mythlands/OEBPS/ch07.xhtml new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d6765ea --- /dev/null +++ b/build/mythlands/OEBPS/ch07.xhtml @@ -0,0 +1,800 @@ + + + + + Mythlands - Chapter 7 + + + + +
+
+

7

+

+ They were out beyond the shingle now and into thin mud that sucked at every step, to knee level and thigh level until they were out into deeper water on a + sharply sloping bed. Kerry began to thrash and gasp as the water came up to his neck and then he had no footing at all. +

+

+ "Don't you let me drown!" +

+

+ Jack pushed at him, strength-sapped, but managed to get the backpack off. The waterproof canvas bobbed in the water and he forced Kerry's hands around it. +

+

+ Behind them came hoarse cries and thudding footsteps and that feral howling. +

+

+ Corriwen Redthorn was ahead of them, swimming freely now, through lily leaves an arm-span wide. Underwater roots snagged at their feet, but Jack kept + going, dragging breath into burning lungs. It all seemed to happen with the clarity of slow motion in the moonlight. +

+

+ A big glistening frog with orange eyes noted their passing with a blank stare. Small slick things wriggled around their legs. A dragonfly buzzed over their + heads in an iridescent flash of moonlight. +

+

+ A slow current carried them downstream as they fought against it, struggling to get distance behind them and the pursuit. Corriwen reached the shingle bank + fifty yards out from where they'd floundered into the river and hauled out on hands and knees, gasping and shedding water in silvered droplets. She turned + as she got to her feet, waded back into the flow and grasped Kerry's arm as he reached the shallows. Together she and Jack hauled him out onto the bank + just as the pursuers and their beasts came crashing down the steep slope in a ferocious avalanche. +

+

+ Without stopping, the first of the Scree-people lumbered down the bank. Here a slick of duckweed and algae covered the surface and it must have seemed like + solid ground, for the thing didn't stop. It ran straight towards them with a spiked club raised high. +

+

+ Then he simply disappeared under the surface without a sound. +

+

+ The rest of the harriers skidded to a stop, animals straining and gruntine at the end of their leashes. One massive boar swung its head and gouged the + ground with its tusks. The Scree stood there in a tight group, black eyes fixed on the water where the first one had gone in. Some bubbles broke through + the slick surface, but there was no sign of movement down there. +

+

+ "They do sink," Corriwen said, breathless. "The water can't bear them. We're safer here." +

+

+ The words were barely out of her mouth when the first arrow went singing past Jack's ear, so close it whined like an angry wasp. A second one snatched at + the hem of his jerkin. +

+

+ "We're too close," Kerry blurted, ducking to his haunches. "We're sitting ducks here." A third arrow hit the shingle and shattered into shards. Jack pulled + Corriwen down. +

+

+ "Over there," He pointed upstream where a tumble of boulders and dry big logs met the oncoming current. Together they scrambled, keeping low, while a + flight of arrows whipped past them into the water or onto the pebbles. The rocks were only twenty yards away, but it felt like a mile, every step exposed + to the barbs that came whistling in. They threw themselves down in the lee as the arrows thudded into the logs, making them bristle like the hog's back. + Across at the far bank, the Scree bawled guttural cries of anger and frustration. +

+

+ "Great idea Jack man," Kerry said, stifling a laugh. "Into the river and nearly drown me and now the ugly bugs are trying to make an Irish kebab out of me. + If you've any more bright ideas, now's the time." +

+

+ "You could have stayed there," Corriwen said. "Rather the water than the wolves and bristlebacks." +

+

+ Another arrow thunked into the log where Kerry crouched. Its point was thin stone and razor-sharp. Kerry grinned. It was pure bravado. +

+

+ "Only kiddin'," he said. "I could be heavin' greasy fish boxes instead of enjoying myself." +

+

+ Jack put a hand over his mouth to prevent a sudden laugh bursting out. It was too painful to laugh and he wasn't quite sure it wouldn't sound more like + hysterics. +

+

+ Kerry fumbled with the zip on the backpack. Corriwen watched in puzzled amazement as it opened. He delved inside and brought out a clear polythene bag, + pulled out the crumpled pack of cigarettes and lit one with a small plastic lighter. She looked on, completely fascinated. Kerry drew in hard and then blew + out a blue plume. +

+

+ "It's just for my nerves," he said, coughing hoarsely. "I'll be giving up any day now, swear to God I will." +

+

+ Corriwen picked up the plastic bag and held it close to her face. +

+

+ "Is it a bladder?" she wondered. "Or fine skin?" +

+

+ "Neither one," Kerry said. "This is the wonder of shopping." +

+

+ She gave him such a puzzled look that Jack burst into a fit of the giggles that left him gasping and aching on the shingle behind the log. +

+

+ The pursuers on the bank fell silent, though the tethered animals grunted and snarled, still on the scent of quarry. The river flowed around the shingle + island where they huddled, reflecting the moon on turbulent waters and on the arrowheads spiked into the logs. +

+

+ "We must get beyond bowshot," Corriwen said, just loud enough to hear over the flow. She pointed across the deeper water where a dark shadow loomed. "I + think there is an island where we can shelter. The Scree can't follow us there." +

+

+ "They'll send those big mongrels," Kerry shot back. "The pug-uglies might sink, but there's no stopping those beasts." +

+

+ "They can send them here," she agreed. "We can fight the boats and wolfhounds, but not with their arrows keeping us low." +

+

+ "We're safe enough here," Kerry insisted. +

+

+ "No, were not," Jack said slowly. His chest was tightening, and the ache came with every beat of his heart. A cloud passed over the moon and everything + went very dark. There was a pulse in his ears, a slow, muffled thud. Underneath it he could hear something else, a whispering sound that sent a shiver down + his spine. "We have to get to the island." +

+

+ "I don't want to get back in the water," Kerry muttered. +

+

+ Jack shook his head, trying to clear it, dampen down the odd sound. "You go out on fishing boats." +

+

+ "They've got bloody great engines," Kerry countered. "And lifejackets." +

+

+ Over on the bank, one of the animals howled. +

+

+ "You better hold my hand," Jack said softly. "Pull one of these logs to the edge and hang on." +

+

+ He didn't know if he had the strength to keep himself afloat, but he promised Kerry they'd get to the island. In the dark, they waded into the water. In + three strides they were swimming against the flow, both of them holding Kerry up while he clung to the log and floundered. +

+

+ The crossing was only a hundred yards, but seemed to take hours and by the time they reached the cover of trees on the island, Jack was almost completely + spent. He sprawled on the shale bank, heaving for air, and by sheer will alone, kept the darkness from sweeping over and through him. The whispering sound + in his ears was louder now, like far off voices coming closer. There were no words, but he knew he had heard it before, in the freezing darkness that had + flowed through Billy Robbins and into the Major's house. +

+

+ He wondered if that black touch had infected his mind. +

+

+ On the far bank, the troop of Scree had lit a fire, content to wait for light. The smell of something that could have been meat drifted on the night air. + Kerry's mouth began to water. +

+

+ "One of us will have to stay awake," Corriwen said. +

+

+ "They know we're here," Kerry said, more cheerful now he was back on land. "So I'm lighting a fire." +

+

+ By the time the moon came out from behind the clouds, he had a good blaze going stripped down to his boxer shorts to let his clothes dry in the heat, and + set about warming their last tin of beans. He helped Jack ease painfully out of his jerkin and hung the plaid up on a branch by the fire. +

+

+ "It'll smell like kippers in the morning," he said, "But you need to keep dry." +

+

+ Corriwen wolfed the small heap of beans, watched fascinated again as Kerry lit another cigarette and then she tried and failed to get the lighter to work. + The moon went into hiding again and Kerry dozed off. +

+
+

+ "Let me see your hurt," Corriwen whispered after a while. She eased Jack's shirt back and gasped. +

+

+ Black weals laced across his skin from the dark mass above his heart. In the faint light of the fire, they seemed to pulse and swell. She touched a finger + to one of the inky tendrils. Jack moaned and she drew in another breath. +

+

+ "It's cold, but you're burning up." she said. "I think you have a poison. In the blood. What caused this?" +

+

+ "I don't know what it was," he confessed. "It was a dark thing. The Major called it the banshee. It..it..touched me." +

+

+ She placed a small hand on his brow, felt the clammy heat on it, so hot compared to the icy cold on the skin of his ribs. "I have heard of this. It's an + evil thing." +

+

+ "It hurts like all hell," Jack grated, drawing a hard and tight breath as she softly touched the puckered skin. +

+

+ "Wait," she said, getting to her feet. Her hair was like copper in the firelight. Her eyes flashed green as she smiled at him, the first time she had + smiled since they met, then disappeared into the shadows of the willows. He dozed off, feeling the darkness draw him down into its depths, with those + distant voices whispering insistently inside his head. The next he knew she was gently shaking him. +

+

+ "Our mediciner would help," she said. "But he is dead, along with my brother and many good men. But I watched him tend the wounded and the spellbound." +

+

+ The hood of her cloak was bunched full of leaves and roots and when she brought them together he smelt green sap and bitterness mixed with the honey scent + of alyssum. She rinsed the empty beans tin at the water's edge, examining it with brows raised, then used two river-smooth stones to mash all the herbs + together into a paste. She heated them over the glowing embers then came on all fours to Jack, put her hands to his shoulders and made him lie back. +

+

+ "The Banshee bane," she said. "It has put the cold in you. I can feel it. I don't know of a cure for it, but this may help you for a while. You need time." +

+

+ "What is it. This bane?" +

+

+ "It's the dark cold, so they say. The dark of the dead lands beyond Tir Nan Og. Those the banshee touches take the dark into themselves." +

+

+ She began to lay the stuff on his chest and he hissed at the pressure, but in a few minutes, the deep hurt began to recede, just enough so he could get a + hold of it. He lay back, blinking back the tears that smarted in his eyes. +

+

+ "You saved my life," he said when he found his voice. Kerry was snoring softly, curled in his rabbit-skin beside the fire. +

+

+ She bent in closely, green eyes searching his. +

+

+ "No," she said, almost whispering. "This will not save you. It just eases the pain." She touched him with gentle fingers. "I don't know what will save you. + Maybe you will fight it off yourself." +

+

+ "No," Jack said. "Not this." The lessening of the pain was like a warm balm. It had waned to a size that he could get a hold and wrestle with and the + buzzing whisper in his head diminished to a faint hiss. "Today in the forest, when those things came. You saved me." +

+

+ He closed his eyes and saw the scene again, when the Scree had swung the axe at him, but instead of replaying the scene where the other attacker had walked + too close and toppled like a log when its leg came off clean below the knee, he saw the axe swing down in a whooshing curve towards his neck. He closed his + eyes at the image. +

+

+ "It would have killed me, but you risked your life for me." +

+

+ She laughed for the first time. "The Redthorns were taught to fight. The Scree are vile, but they are slow thinkers." +

+

+ Corriwen paused and held his eyes with hers and his fingers in her hands. +

+

+ "But you have a good heart, Jack Flint. A heart worth saving. I saw it the first time I looked in your eyes. You wear your soul on your face. I think + perhaps we were destined to meet. In the forest, or some other place and time, but I felt it. I feel it now." +

+

+ He didn't know what to say to that. +

+

+ Across the water the Scree troop's campfire flared and they started chanting in low, ragged voices. He couldn't make out any words. It sounded like stones + sliding down a rocky slope. She turned to look over the wide river. +

+

+ "They have hunted me a long time," she said. "I'm tired of running and hiding." +

+

+ Jack had heard that before, on the night Billy Robbins had come at them in the lane, before the darkness flowed into him. It seemed like a long time ago + rather than just a day and a night. +

+

+ "Why are they hunting you?" +

+

+ "Because I am the Redthorn. Mandrake's hordes have murdered my brother and all his men. The people are slaves under the Fomorian Scree. He fears that a + Redthorn could unite them." She laughed again, softly, but he heard the bitterness in it. "But I am alone now, with no one to help me." +

+

+ "We will help you," Jack said. "If we can." +

+

+ She looked him up and down and he was very aware then that he was not quite sixteen years old. +

+

+ "We make a great army, the three of us, not full grown." She paused, her face sad. "Yet if I can find the Redthorn Sword, there would be some hope. It has + led the Dalriada ever since we came here. It could free them and lead them again." +

+

+ The Dalriada. Jack had heard that name before. It was in the old legend books, the people of the West who lived before even the ancient Celts. +

+

+ "And this sword, where is it?" +

+

+ "Mandrake stole it when my father died. He took it and when he came back, he was rich." Her mouth turned down. "But he was mad. He was always a bad man, + but when he came back, there was something else in him. I can't say what, it was as if he was possessed by something awful." +

+

+ "Sounds like a real bundle of laughs," Jack said. He was holding the pain at bay now. +

+

+ "He dabbled in old magic, and I think he searched for something and found it. I don't know what, but it's in him now. All the old scripts in Creggan Keep, + he would pore over. My father trusted him, but my brother said Mandrake found something in the old scripts, something that turned him and poisoned him. Now + he has brought his madness to Temair and I don't think anything can shake his grip." +

+

+ "It's all very hard for me to take this in," Jack admitted. She sat while he explained how they had got here, through the ring of standing stones and he + was surprised when she took it all in without question. Compared to what she had told him, it didn't seem too fanciful now. +

+

+ "What I don't understand is that I have heard of the Dalriada before. And Temair. And the Fomorians. But where I come from, they are just legends. Things + that happened long ago." +

+

+ "Who can explain that?" she asked with a simple shrug. "What exists exists. There's magic in standing stones. Everybody knows that. Maybe you were + magicked here." +

+

+ "Well, we have to magic ourselves out again," Jack said. "Tomorrow we get off this island." +

+

+ "The far river side is no escape," she said. "The whole of Easter Dalria is Scree country now. And I don't know the lay of the land here in the east." +

+

+ Jack pointed back across the river where the troop were still chanting their tuneless dirge. +

+

+ "They can't swim," he said. "That's good for us. But there's plenty of wood here. We can build a raft and get downstream if we start before it gets light. + What's down from here?" +

+

+ She shrugged. "I don't know. I have never been this far on the marches before. The river goes to the ocean, like all rivers do. Between here and the sea, I + don't know what waits." +

+

+ "We're stuck here," Jack said. "These things can wait us out. Better the devil we don't know." +

+

+ She looked at him oddly. "I never heard that before, but it sounds fit. The Scree are devils sure enough. Like Kerree says, they hit every branch on the + ugly tree." +

+

+ Jack managed a smile. Kerry continued snoring. He'd had a hard enough life, and he was used to spending his nights poaching on the Brander water. In sleep, + he looked as if he didn't have a care in the world. +

+

+ "We can build a raft and let the current carry us down," Jack said, pleased that the hurt had receded enough to let him think clearly. "If we stay in the + middle, they can't shoot us, and we can outrun them. After that, it's anybody's guess, but we can't stay here." +

+

+ Corriwen clasped his fingers tight, then let go. Jack laid back against the mossy bank and closed his eyes. Whatever she had pasted onto his hurt skin, it + kept the pain far enough away to let him doze. He woke at dawn, and Kerry was grilling fish in the smoke from a fresh fire. +

+
+

+ Jack started up, winced, groaned, lay down. It was already light but the pain was back with him again, and that sick feeling deep inside him. The sparkle + of the rising sun on the tumbling water hurt his eyes and he blinked against it. +

+

+ "We're too late," he started to say. Kerry eased him down with a hand. +

+

+ "Take it easy Jackie-boy. They're gone." +

+

+ Across the river there was no sign of the Scree or their beasts. +

+

+ "But they'll be back," Corriwen said. They will get word back to Mandrake that they have us trapped." +

+

+ "That's what they think," Jack said. +

+

+ Kerry came across with big trout steaming on sticks. "This river's full of them. They're jumping out into your hands." +

+

+ They ate quickly and Jack eased up on shaky legs, screwing his eyes up against the glare. He wanted to be in shadow, but he fought against it, trying to + clear his mind. +

+

+ "We have to build a raft. We can use the rope." +

+

+ They started hauling the dry boughs and logs that had washed onto the island's upstream edge and worked on the shingle, lashing the logs when something + caught Jack's attention. He shaded his eyes against the reflection from the water. Smoke was rising into the sky, black smoke in a column way upriver. +

+

+ "Is that a dam up there?" Kerry and Corriwen stood beside him, following the direction he was pointing. +

+

+ A broad shape, too even to be natural was almost hidden by morning mist, ten, maybe fifteen miles up the broad valley, +

+

+ "It is a dam." Corriwen said. "Mandrake's Scree have the people working there, men women and children. Who knows what's in his mind, but he urges them on + with whips and clubs. He plans to raise the river. I watched from a distance and my heart broke, for there was nothing I could do. He has them digging a + channel from the high mountains of the Marches." +

+

+ "What's the point of that?" Kerry asked. Corriwen shrugged. +

+

+ "Sounds like a real loony right enough," Kerry said. "Maybe it's for a generator or something." +

+

+ She looked at him, all questions. Kerry didn't explain. +

+

+ "Nobody knows," she said. "Mandrake has his own madness. He answers to himself. He has taken everything from us." +

+

+ It was almost noon when the raft was big enough to take their weight, lashed together with the rope they would have used to climb the wall into Cromwath + Blackwood, and Jack insisted they build a wicket of woven hazel wands on either side. Out on the water, it would give them some protection from bowshots. + Kerry cooked the last of the trout in big river leaves and they sat around the remains of the fire, stoking up for the journey. +

+

+ Jack opened the old satchel and drew out the book. He opened it at the first page and the image of the two standing stones stood out starkly enough to make + his eyes water.. He showed it to Corriwen. +

+

+ "I have seen these stones," she said. "Not far from where my brother fell." +

+

+ "That's the gateway," Jack said. "Can you read the words?" +

+

+ She shook her head. "I don't know any gateway. Where is it from?" +

+

+ "Scotland." +

+

+ Corriwen looked blank. "Is it far away?" +

+

+ "Further than you'd think," Kerry said, edging closer, sucking the last from a fish-bone. He took an edge of the book, turned the page over and just as he + did so an image began to condense slowly onto the page. +

+

+ Corriwen drew in a breath. "You have magic?" +

+

+ "A couple of card tricks," Kerry said. "But this is the real McCoy." +

+

+ The image became clearer, grey lines darkening until they could see it was a picture of the river. Below it, letter by letter, the script began to roll out + by itself. Kerry drew a finger along them, mouthing the words slowly. +

+

+ Flee the quake of rainless thunder +

+

+ Flee a forest torn asunder +

+

+ Flee the beast and fight the foe +

+

+ Flee to east and river flow +

+

+ Storm behind and storm before +

+

+ Ever harried, hunted sore +

+

+ Ware the eye of roak and raven +

+

+ Brave the thunder, find a haven. +

+

+ "More gibberish," Kerry decided.. +

+

+ "No," Jack said. "I don't understand it all, but I get some of it. The thunder. We thought it was thunder last night, but it was those animals running. And + they trampled half the forest." +

+

+ "Okay," Kerry said. "What's the good of a book that tells you where you've been? We want something to tell us where we're going." +

+

+ "We'll work it out," Jack said, even though the same thought had crossed his mind. +

+

+ They loaded up the raft and punted out into the current which quickly caught them in its flow and began to carry them downstream, far out from the thickly + forested banks on either side. +

+

+ "What's this river?" Kerry asked. "And where does it go?" +

+

+ "I think it's the Clydda," Corriwen said. "If so, it flows westwards, to the sea." +

+

+ "That's good," Jack said, easing back on the logs. The pulse was behind his eyes, darkening his vision, and the whispering deep inside could be heard over + the flow of the river. "That's we're going. It says to follow the setting sun, so we head west." +

+

+ He turned to her. "Have you ever heard of the Homeward Gate?" +

+

+ She shook her head. +

+

+ They were afloat for barely an hour when they spotted the first of the Scree, grouped on a bank of shingle that jutted out in to the river. Kerry saw them + first and roused Jack. He sat up slowly and shielded his eyes against the glare. His heart sank. +

+

+ "They must have worked out that we'd float down.," he said wearily. The guttural cries and the grunting of animals could be heard clearly over the rippling + water. He knelt up, biting back against the pain, trying to gauge the distance between the middle current and the end of the bank. +

+

+ "They can reach us from there," he said slowly. +

+

+ "An' we can reach them," Kerry replied. He had piled some round stones, fist-size and smooth on the front of the raft. He untied the sling from round his + waist, slid his right hand through the loop and tightened it on his wrist. He fitted a good stone into the woven basket and braced his feet. In the rabbit + skin tunic, he could have been the boy David. +

+

+ The arrows came flying thick before they even reached the shingle and Jack pulled him down behind the wicket. Barbs thunked into the hazel weave and came + right through, six inches and more, but their force was deadened by the barricade. The three of them huddled, letting the current take them past and Jack + prayed that the unguided raft wouldn't spin and expose them. Another volley came, six or seven arrows that hit altogether in a rip of sound and then Kerry + was on his feet. He swung the sling twice, like a hammer-thrower and sent the rock flying. +

+

+ It caught one of the reloading Scree on the temple and it fell like a sack. +

+

+ "Scotland one," Kerry bawled, "plug-uglies nil!" He ducked back down before the next volley came thudding into wood. Out on the shingle bank the Scree + roared as the river carried them past, and drew them out of range through the turbulence and into deeper water. Kerry raised his head over the wicket and + motioned to Jack to look for himself. +

+

+ One of the hunters unleashed a great shaggy animal, more wolf than dog, that hauled and gnashed against its chain. It howled when the choke came off and + leapt straight into the water. A hail of arrows flew over its head, but only one of them reached the speeding raft. The rest fell just yards shot. The + beast powered into the current and came in a diagonal towards them, gaining speed as the water carried it downstream. +

+

+ "Look at the teeth on that," Kerry said. They were sharp and yellow as it panted for breath and still came on fast. "Can you shoot it?" +

+

+ Jack unshipped the bow and nocked an arrow, kneeling up in the stern. He raised it up, grunting against a sharp spike of pain, but when he tried to draw + the string, his arm had no strength. His fingers felt numb. The beast paddled straight towards them, head above the water, teeth like daggers. +

+

+ Kerry slipped a stone into the sling and stood up, holding the barrier edge. He let his arm fall back and snapped it forward overhand and the stone went + whirring out. It cracked hard against the side of the dog's muzzle, close to the eye. A gout of blood spurted. +

+

+ "What a shot," Kerry bawled. "I wish I'd had one of these before." +

+

+ The animal snarled, took a mouthful of water. Blood blinded its eye and frothed in its nose. Kerry slung another stone that splashed only inches in front + of it, but didn't deter it in any way. He turned, gripped the handle of the sword he'd stabbed into one of the logs, raised it aloft. +

+

+ "Come on then," he bawled. The three of them watched the animal get closer and closer, its one good eye blazing with feral anger. +

+

+ Something pale flickered under the surface. Jack only got a glimpse of a shape, wavering in the ripple-water and the beast stopped dead. Its big paws came + up from the surface, pedalled for purchase in the air. Under it the pale shape rolled and the dog howled, not in anger but in sudden panic. It arched its + back, tried to snap and its teeth came together like trap-jaws. The shape, two shapes now, rolled together under the water and the dog suddenly + disappeared. A froth of bubbles pocked the surface. +

+

+ "Did you see that?" Kerry stood with the sword in both hands, eyes wide and astonished. "You see those things? They just grabbed it down." +

+

+ "I saw something," Jack said. It had been like looking through rippled glass. "I never got a proper look." +

+

+ "It was big enough to take a wolf," Kerry said. "And you wanted me to swim in this? You must be freakin' crazy." He spiked the sword into the wood + while Jack watched the river. Of the pale shapes and the big hound, there was no sign in the shadowy depths. When he drew his eyes back, Kerry had the + backpack open and was blowing into one of the plastic bags. +

+

+ "What are you doing?" +

+

+ "I'm making water wings," Kerry told him. "Nothing's dragging me down into that." +

+

+ The shingle bank was well behind them now as the current where the river narrowed speeded them past. Behind them, the Scree were bawling in their grating + bass voices, but they were too far away to be any danger for now. Jack leant back against the wicket and closed his eyes. His chest felt encased in ice and + under the skin, the muscle weak and useless. He opened his jacket just a little and breathed out slowly. The blackness had spread upwards towards his neck. + He could feel it sapping the heat from him, pulsing under the skin. He closed his eyes and when he opened them again, Corriwen was beside him. She had + saved the beans tin and again applied some of the mess she had made on the fire, fingers working gently, but no matter how light the touch, it sent daggers + of hurt the way through him. A cold sweat broke out on Jack's brow and the world wavered in and out, like the shapes under water. +

+

+ She talked softly to him, as he drifted away and the miles past while he slept. Dry lightning flickered in the sky and ahead of them clouds were piling up, + dark and brooding as Kerry steered the raft with the pole, scanning the water all the time in case any of the things that could drag a wolf under the water + reappeared. +

+

+ _____ +

+

+ The roaks came from the towering cloud, black wings spread wide to vector down from a glowering sky. They heard them first, a raucous croaking that rasped + on the ears. Kerry pointed upwards. +

+

+ "That's the things we saw on the hill," he said. "They were eating the…." He stopped, turned and looked at Corriwen, face reddening. +

+

+ "Slaughter-pickers," she said softly. "They fed well." +

+

+ The huge birds came spiralling down, the way Kerry had seen vultures on the nature programmes, until the black curved beaks were clearly visible. The raft + kept on down with the flow as the birds came lower, brushing the tops of the crowding trees, then levelling off to veer over the river towards them. +

+

+ "Watch them," Kerry told her. "They go for the eyes." +

+

+ The lead bird swung ahead of them, turned in the air and came at them. Its beak darted at Kerry's head. He raised the pole and swatted at it, sending a few + black feathers tumbling on the air. Another one, much larger than the first, came beating in over the surface and Kerry jerked back. It had no eyes, just a + pair of dripping craters where eyes would have been, but it came in unerringly, straight for his face. Jack was slumped on the logs, too numb to move now. + Corriwen leapt up, hauled the sword and swing it in a tight arc. It missed the bird by a scant inch. It pulled back, croaking as deep as the Scree. +

+

+ In mere seconds they were surrounded by the great birds, all of them screeching, stabbing at them, going for eyes with lunges of scimitar beaks. Kerry + swung the pole and caught one in mid-flight and sent it splashing helpless in the water. The others wheeled away towards the bank and turned, like a flock + of monstrous starlings and came winging over the surface bunched together. Kerry shoved Corriwen down behind the barrier and got ready to take as many of + them as he could. +

+

+ Something pale flicked from the water, so fast it was just a blur. The lead crow, big as a buzzard, simply disappeared. There was a splash of water and it + was gone without a sound. Something else flickered upwards and Kerry couldn't tell whether it was a tentacle or a fish. Another movement flicked in + peripheral vision. Two roaks vanished and a puff of feathers helicoptered down into the water. +

+

+ Kerry stood open mouthed, unable to comprehend just what he'd seen. +

+

+ The flock swerved away, trying to gain height, rasping their fear, and in another blink, three more of them were down. One fluttered on the surface for a + bare second and was gone. The rest of them whirled away back towards the trees, panicked. +

+

+ "What was that?" Kerry finally said. Corriwen crouched beside him. "Did you see it?" +

+

+ She nodded. "I don't know, but…." +

+

+ A flash of lightning cut off her words. It forked across the towering crowd and down towards the tall trees. Ozone came thick on the air and somewhere in + the forest on the far bank, something big crashed to the ground. +

+

+ "I don't like the look of this," Kerry said. He hadn't like the looks of anything here since they'd stumbled between the standing stones. "I think we + should shelter." +

+

+ "We don't know what's in the forest," she said. Jack tried to haul himself up, let out a gasp and slid back again. +

+

+ Lightning flickered again and in a few seconds, a distant grumble of thunder came rolling up to them from downstream. +

+

+ "It's like the book said," Jack managed. "The Roaks and ravens. It said watch the thunder. We have to get off the river." +

+

+ The rumble continued, louder than before. +

+

+ "It's the lightning that worries me," Kerry said. "We shouldn't be out in the middle." +

+

+ "Pull in," Jack told him. "See if you can work towards the trees." He wasn't sure if they'd be safer there than on the water. He tried to remember what was + best, but his mind was fuzzy and dull. At least there would be shelter under the branches. +

+

+ The rumbling increased as Kerry poled in, fighting the current. The sound impinged on Jack's mind as he lay on the raft. It was getting louder all the + time, but he hadn't seen a flash of lightning for some time. The impending danger struck him like a blow. +

+

+ With a huge effort, he forced himself up, trying not to groan aloud. +

+

+ "Move," he managed to get out from a dry throat. "It's not thunder." +

+

+ Kerry turned at the prow. "What?" +

+

+ "No lightning. It's not thunder. We have to get off." +

+

+ "Well what is it?" He had the pole out of the water. The raft lurched and almost threw him out. In a matter of seconds they had drifted down to where the + river narrowed between high rocky banks and the water was suddenly faster as they were whipped round a curve. +

+

+ Ahead of them the rumbling became a roar. Boulders jutted out from the flow, water-smooth. +

+

+ "Not thunder," Jack said. "It's rapids". +

+

+ "Oh shit!" +

+

+ Kerry dug the pole in and tried to force them towards the bank, but already it was too late. The current had them now. White water splashed up from the + rocks and the raft spun in a lazy circle. Kerry grabbed the rucksack and the water-wings then cursed again when he saw the rip in the polythene bag which + fluttered uselessly in his hand. +

+

+ The raft spun dizzily, tilted where the current went past a huge rock, almost flipping them out. The roaring ahead was now so loud they could hear nothing + else. Jack managed to his knees. Down there in the dark of the gorge, he could see a mist over the river. +

+

+ "Oh Kerry," he gasped. "It's not rapids at all." +

+

+ "Great," Kerry grinned. "You had me scared for a minute." +

+

+ "It's a waterfall." +

+

+ "We can hold on," Kerry shot back. +

+

+ "But look." +

+

+ Jack pointed ahead. The turbulent water rolled past huge boulders and crashed against the banks. But beyond that a misty cloud blocked the entire gorge. +

+

+ "What is that?" Kerry asked. "Smoke?" +

+

+ The raft spun again and they hung on, and with every yard the thunder got louder until it filled the world. The canyon walls shivered and the vibration + loosened stones that tumbled and rolled to crash into the river. +

+

+ Jack grabbed Kerry's shoulder. He had to shout right into his ear to be heard. +

+

+ "It's spray." +

+

+ Kerry looked back at him, not understanding. The spray climbed into the sky, rolling like steam. +

+

+ "It's not just a waterfall…." +

+

+ The current flicked them round between two great rocks and they could see it. Ahead of them the river widened and the great falls came into view. Half a + mile downstream, the river simply disappeared into a vast emptiness, so deep that beyond the whitewater edge of it, they could see nothing at all. +

+

+ It was as if the very world ended here. +

+

+ The blood drained out of Kerry's face and he swore a third time, with great and honest sincerity. He rummaged in the bag and got out the length of thick + line he used for poaching salmon. A big weight and a treble hook were whipped to one end. Very quickly he unravelled the line, looped one end around a log + and used all his strength to cast in out towards the nearest bank. The hook and weight sailed in an arc towards where the trees dipped gnarled roots down + the bank. +

+

+ The weight jerked in mid-air as if it had hit a glass wall. The line was too short. +

+

+ "I think we're in a bit of trouble," was all Kerry said, though his words were lost in the roar. He braced himself on the logs as the raft swung like a + pendulum in the roiling flow, both hands round the haft of the sword, knuckles tight and white. +

+

+ "Jack," he bawled. Jack could only see his lips move, but he recognised the words. "Don't you let me drown!" +

+

+ Then the water had them and there was nothing they could do. The raft whirled like a dry leaf and suddenly the mist was all around them and the water + roared like real thunder, so loud the sound vibrated through them. The pounding of the falls seemed to shake the whole world. Jack saw Corriwen's face pale + under her red hair. +

+

+ "I won't let you drown," he murmured uselessly, They were in the boil now, bouncing up on the flow and over great smooth rocks, twisting and turning + helplessly in the river's grip. +

+

+ The edge came closer and closer. Jack tried to swallow, gripped Kerry by the shoulder. The sound was impossible. It was huge. It was apocalyptic. +

+

+ Then suddenly they were flying. +

+

+ Jack saw a flash of sunlight stab the mist and a sparkling rainbow curved in front of him, so bright and clear it shone like jewels. The raft hit a rock. + Something splintered and Jack was thrown upwards. He saw Corriwen catapult into the air, flex like a gymnast and straighten out, flying like a swallow + through that rainbow in a slow arc. Kerry was tumbling head over heels. Jack was flipped behind him up and then there was a lurch in his stomach as he + began to fall, down through the mist towards the waiting rocks. +

+ +
+
+ + diff --git a/build/mythlands/OEBPS/ch08.xhtml b/build/mythlands/OEBPS/ch08.xhtml new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ba0edfd --- /dev/null +++ b/build/mythlands/OEBPS/ch08.xhtml @@ -0,0 +1,111 @@ + + + + + Mythlands - Chapter 8 + + + + +
+
+

8

+

+ He saw Corriwen arc through the rainbow, body straight as an arrow, arms spread like wings. The colours coruscated around her in dazzling shards and then + she was gone. A dim part of Jack's mind was aware that her graceful slow curve through the colours was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. +

+

+ Then Jack fell. +

+

+ He was tumbling head over heels inside the deafening roar, pummelled by the falls, gasping for a breath when there was no breath to be had. He closed his + eyes in sheer fright at the certainty of great jagged rocks below him, saw himself broken and bloodied in the backwash of the flow. He tried to twist + against the force of falling water, prepare himself for the end. His eyes opened involuntarily and he saw Kerry roll past him, mouth agape in a soundless + cry. The sword in his hand flickered iridescence. +

+

+ "Drop it…" Jack blurted the warning but the river foamed into his mouth and snatched the words away. Kerry flipped from view and was gone. Jack fell + and it seemed he fell forever. +

+

+ He hit with such force that pure white light exploded behind his eyes before everything went dark, completely dark and he felt nothing at all. He knew he + was dead. There was no sound, no cold, no heat and no light. There was no pain. +

+

+ For a long time, it seemed, he floated in that limbo of nothingness. +

+

+ Then, as abruptly as if a light had been switched on, he was aware again. He was rolling in the water and the force of it punched him downwards, down into + swirling depths. He gasped for air but there was no air here and he coughed the last from his lungs, feeling huge pressure on his chest and in his ears. +

+

+ The force of the great falls held him under, shoving him downwards with a pummelling weight. He felt rock and gravel under his feet and knew he was on the + riverbed in a world of grey-green. A billion galaxies of bubbles swirled and spun in front of his eyes and a pain tore him from shoulder to hip. +

+

+ The water held him in its turbulence, flipping him over and over like a cork and then, all of a sudden, he was out of its grip, rolling through the + undertow towards darkness. +

+

+ He saw Kerry then. He saw the sword first, a glimmering line of brightness in the deep and then he saw Kerry's legs wavering slowly just above them. +

+

+ Don't you let me + drown. +

+

+ He had promised Kerry, but now he was here on the bottom, with shards of sunlight like silver pillars lancing down on him, unable to haul a breath, choking + for air and with awesome pain screaming across his body. +

+

+ Don't you let me drown. +

+

+ He had promised. +

+

+ Drop it, he tried to say again, tried to will Kerry to loosen his grip on the sword and water went into his throat and up his nose and that jerked him out + from the stunned paralysis. The sword was dragging Kerry down like a weight on a line, like an anchor, pinning him to the riverbed. Jack pushed against the + rocks, feet slip-sliding on the smooth surface before he got purchase on a jutting stone and heaved upwards, lungs bursting, muscles screeching in their + own little world of hurt as a pain as if a corkscrew dug cruelly between each his ribs. +

+

+ And all the time, over the deep pulsing thunder of the river's falls, in his panicked mind he could hear Kerry's voice pleading with him not to let him + drown. +

+

+ He fought the grip of the water that tried to suck him back in underneath the pummelling falls, pushed with every last ounce of strength and managed to get + clear of the frothing turbulence. For a moment he lost sight of Kerry and twisted around searching in the swirling mass of bubbles. A cry of pain and + desperation sent the last of his air bubbling upwards and then he saw the shape in the water, waving like a rag caught on a snag. +

+

+ He reached and grabbed, missed, tried again and found a handful of hair. His fingers clenched on it and hauled upwards, kicking both feet as his vision + wavered in and out. +

+

+ They rolled out of the frothy undertow and into a deep blue. Far above them the sunlight heliographed rods of light all around them. Jack kept hauling + desperately, gripping Kerry's hair, trying to reach the surface as the world spun from dark blue to deeper dark and just complete exhaustion and lack of + oxygen began to overtake him, he saw a pale shape ripple towards him. +

+

+ His heart was pounding so hard in his chest it could have punched through his shrieking ribs, but he was too exhausted to feel any more fear. The pale + shape swung closer, turning over smoothly with the flow and he saw a face, wavering turquoise in the shards of light. Long hair waved like deep river weed + in a halo around the face. +

+

+ It's a body, his mind told him. A dead body. +

+

+ The shape turned, and great green eyes swum up close to him as arms reached towards him. He held Kerry's hair in a death grip as the eyes fixed on his. The + hands that touched his face were as cold as the river themselves as they brought his head closer to the pallid, deathly face, up until the cold lips + touched his and the eyes opened wider until they sucked him into their depths and the whole strange world, the river, the waterfall, Kerry and everything + wavered away into their translucence and he was gone. +

+ +
+
+ + diff --git a/build/mythlands/OEBPS/ch09.xhtml b/build/mythlands/OEBPS/ch09.xhtml new file mode 100644 index 0000000..090e01a --- /dev/null +++ b/build/mythlands/OEBPS/ch09.xhtml @@ -0,0 +1,314 @@ + + + + + Mythlands - Chapter 9 + + + + +
+
+

9

+

+ He sat gaunt and brooding in Midthorn Keep on the high wooden chair that had long served as the Chief's seat. The Redthorn seat. +

+

+ The man who was once Cadwil and was now known as Mandrake had one bony elbow on a polished wooden arm where gargoyles and snakes intertwined in a polished + tangle. His eyes, black as coal in a greying face, were hooded and his mouth was turned down, carving deep fissures on either side. He was shaking with a + fine rage, trembling like a harp string wound tight. The black bearskin robe around his shoulders shivered in a dark-spiked harmony. +

+

+ The dark stone walls threw his anger back into the hall as if it had weight of its own, making the air feel suddenly tense and solid. Around the walls, + staying close to the shadows, eyes watched, but no-one spoke. All heads were down or turned away. Catastrophe was in the air. +

+

+ Mandrake tried to speak, but for a moment his throat was locked by his fury and all that came out was a click and a little gasp. He drew in a breath and + when he spoke again, his voice was like shards of glass. +

+

+ "You lost them." The words echoed back from the stone. "You lost her!" +

+

+ Two Scree troopers stood in front of him, heads bent, grey faces thick and tense. One of them shifted his weight from foot to foot, dumbly nervous. In this + light his rough skin looked like dried fish scales. +

+

+ "They took down to the River," the captain said, voice like shingle on a tide-washed beach. "We flushed her out in the forest. Herself and two pups that + was with her. Human boys they was. But they fought." +

+

+ Mandrake's brows came down, like black ledges shadowing those dark eyes. The two furrows deepened on either side of his mouth. Even in the corners the + watchers could hear his teeth grind. +

+

+ "Oh, they fought you." Sarcasm oozed like poison from a sting. "See if I have this correct." +

+

+ He reached out a bony finger. The nail on it was long and horny. +

+

+ "And correct me if I'm wrong," he said, voice even quieter and loaded with menace. Everybody there knew he meant if you dare. +

+

+ "So. Brave soldiers. Here was a troop of you, fully armed, and with your hounds and bristlebacks. Am I right?" +

+

+ The Captain nodded slowly, narrow head bobbing. +

+

+ "So you heroic warriors meet a girl and two boys in the forest, and they fought you." +

+

+ Another nod. The Scree captain scratched his ridged brow with a thick horny hand. He did not recognise sarcasm. +

+

+ "That's the way it were, sir." +

+

+ "And these children, tell me, did they fight well? Did they fight like soldiers?" +

+

+ The Scree scratched again, as if he could hook the memory out from the front of his brain with a horny nail. +

+

+ "They killed a tusker," he growled. "Bowed it dead. An' two troopers. It was dark and they had the vantage on us." +

+

+ "Of + course, brave Captain. I imagine they did," Mandrake said, very softly. Out along the walls, behind the thick pillars that stretched up into the darkness + above, the figures crowded closer together, each trying to stay out of sight. They had heard Mandrake's voice take on that silky quality before. It was + like the stillness in the air before the lightning strikes. And Mandrake could strike like a viper. His voice was low and almost kindly now. But they all + knew it would begin to rise with his anger until the walls started to shiver,. +

+

+ "A girl…." he said. "and two boys. That would have been a big advantage." +

+

+ "We never 'spected them to fight, Sir Lord. Just cubs like them." +

+

+ "Just cubs, lost in the forest and then you lost them. You lost her. Three months you've been scouring moor and hill and when you find her," he + raised his hand, waggled his fingers. "…. you let her slip away." +

+

+ "They reached the river, Lord Mandrake." The Scree captain was slow, his voice like grinding rock. A big black sword stuck like a cross above his head, + jammed in a shoulder scabbard. His arms were like beech-tree roots, grey and gnarled. The black eyes under his narrow forehead flickered left and right, + wilting under Mandrake's anger. "They reached the river and one trooper drownded. He went in an' never came up agin." +

+

+ "Good enough for him," Mandrake said. "You should all have drowned if you knew what was right." +

+

+ He drew himself up and walked round the back of the high chair. The walls here were festooned with spears and lances and shields and swords, spoils of old + battles from times past. On the stone behind the chair, the new flag was stretched from side to side, red on black, a red dragon with the man's skull. The + mark of Mandrake. +

+

+ "So, tallowfingers. You let them slip. And what happened next? Tell me. Tell me."" +

+

+ "They reached an islet in the river. It was too deep to cross." +

+

+Mandrake froze. He took a slow breath. When he spoke his voice was even slower. "Did you try? Did you cut a tree and build a bridge? A raft perhaps?" +

+

+ The captain gulped. It hadn't crossed his mind. The Scree avoided water, except for the melt that came down from the snows high on the Scree Crags. +

+

+ "The flow were too strong Lord Mandrake. But we sent a wolfhoun' after them. And a fish came up and ate it down. Up from the water and ate it all down so + it did." +

+

+ "So, I'm getting the picture here. Despite your precise orders, you let her go because of a bit of water and a…a… fish? You expect me + to believe that?" +

+

+ The Fomorian shrugged his brawny shoulders, making the chain mail rattle on the scabbard. He dithered on his feet, one foot to another, visibly withering. + Beside him, his second in command growled. +

+

+ "They lashed logs and floated away." +

+

+ "Of course they lashed logs and floated away." Mandrake's voice was rising now. The blade was sharpening. "Of course they did. Because + they thought about it. The idea occurred to them. They used their brains. +

+

+ "And you?" He rounded on the second man. "What have you got inside that ugly Scree skull of yours? Maggots? Faggots? Sawdust and sand?" +

+

+ "I can't swim," the Scree grunted. +

+

+ Mandrake looked as if he would strangle in his own blood. His pale face suddenly went beetroot red and all the veins in his temples stood out like snakes. + He leant against the wall, both hands gripping the stone as if he wanted to tear it down. His finger found the lip of one of the old shields and he + snatched it down in a fury. +

+

+ "I would have drownded," the Scree said, and everything in the hall went very quiet. Mandrake shuddered, visibly, like a volcano set to erupt. With one + violent wrench the shield ripped off the wall and he spun with it in both hands. It came down like a hammer on the head of the Scree trooper. The boss + caught him square on the forehead with a sound like a gong. It reverberated from all the high walls. +

+

+ The Scree blinked, staggered back a couple of steps, raised a slow hand to its forehead where a gash suddenly appeared to fill with dull blood. Mandrake + raised the shield again, jumped both feet off the floor and brought it down again with such force the Scree's knees buckled. The black eyes widened so far + they looked like they would pop out and roll on the rough cheekbones. Beside it, the leader's hand darted automatically to the big sword on his back.. +

+

+ A low groan went up from the observers around the walls. Bodies drew back into the shadows behind the pillars. +

+

+ Mandrake dropped the shield with a clang and the Scree trooper sank slowly to his knees and then, in slow motion tumbled forward to hit the flagstones with + his forehead with the sound of a hammerblow. +

+

+ Mandrake turned away, almost casually, reached the wall again, raised one hand and gripped the pommel of a broadsword. He was grinding his teeth, trembling + with utter rage. The observers shrank deeper into shadows. Mandrake turned, whirled like a ballerina and caught the Scree captain between shoulder and chin + with such ferocity that the grey simply head flipped off and thumped to the floor, bounced and rolled under a table. +

+

+ The Scree lifted its hands up to where its face should have been. +

+

+ Mandrake watched, eyebrows raised, his colour fading now after the exertion, but he was still shaking as if a little earthquake was running through him. +

+

+ The Scree's calloused hands and thick fingers dabbed at where the face once was. Blood was flowing in freshets down its squat chest. Under the table, the + mouth on the head opened and closed noiselessly, the eyes fixed on Mandrake, who cocked his head, as if caught now by something of passing interest. +

+

+ Very slowly, the Scree's knees buckled. It fell forward and the hands shot forward to hit the ground. More blood spilled out of the pulsing hole between + its shoulders. Under the table the head groaned loudly. +

+

+ The headless Captain crawled a few feet on the flagstones, leaving bloody trails with its hands and knees, then flopped forward to the floor, feet + twitching. Under the table, the head grunted, but no words came out, and its eyes closed with a little snap. +

+

+ Up above, where small windows drew light in across the rafters, there was a scrabbling sound, then a faint swish of wings. A big black bird circled down + from on high, fluttering in the beam. +

+

+ "Oh my," Mandrake finally said. He touched the head with the toe of his shoe. It wobbled on its ear. "As I thought, no brains at all, but they do take a + lot of killing, what you think?" +

+

+ No-one responded to the question. Nobody dared speak. +

+

+ The roak flapped down and alighted on the carved back of the high chair, opened its beak, turned its head from side to side. Its eye sockets were gaping + and glistened with liquid. It fixed a sightless gaze on Mandrake. +

+

+ He cocked his head, much in the way that he'd looked with fascination at the headless Scree, and then he twitched. He turned slowly and the watchers in the + shadow of the pillars saw the colour of his eyes begin to change from black to red. His skin took on a greyer hue, as if shadows were rolling underneath + the surface and the fissures on either side of his thin lips deepened into dark crevasses. His eyes seemed to shrink back under the eaves of his brows + until they could not even be seen.. +

+

+ "Lost them." +

+

+ The voice that came out of his mouth was not Mandrake's own. The watchers edged back further. He was changing again, and when he did that, it was a fearful + thing. He twitched spasmodically, as if touched with disease or pain. The blind roak's claws scuttered on the high chair. The light from the high window + faded and a darkness swelled in the air, as if night were suddenly fallen. +

+

+ "Lost them." Mandrake's voice was just a rasping croak. He swung his head, mouth twisting into a grimace. +

+

+ "Lost them. Lost them." He was muttering to himself in his strange new voice, one that was old and dusty and cracked. "Fools. Fools!" He + twitched as if a fly had buzzed his ear. +

+

+ "Lost the girl and lost him!" +

+

+ The roak hunched silent and black and motionless now. +

+

+ His face rippled and twisted, became Mandrake again. "I've hunted her for months." +

+

+ "She has eluded us for months," the grating scrape of voice came again. His face contorted and ran like wax, mirroring the alteration in timbre + and tone. "Us and those creatures I harnessed. +

+

+ Another ripple moved across his skin. "We will catch her." +

+

+ "You catch her," he scraped. "You catch him. He's the one that we want. He carries a thing I need. Bring him." +

+

+ "He's but a boy. What's his worth to us? Who is he?" +

+

+ "An old enemy," the cackling voice said. " + + Old, but we remember him and his kind. Now is our day for revenge. My roak eyes followed them down the river, but they fought. Children. A litter of + mongrel pups and they fought your Scree and my roaks. Fought and killed them. And they had help + + ." +

+

+ "Help," Mandrake asked himself. "Who helps them? +

+

+"That we cannot see," he replied. "But they will suffer. Send your Scree. Like locusts. Burn every bush, every tree. Turn every stone. Smell them out, sniff them out. Burn them out. Smoke them out. Spell them out. But take them and bring him!" +

+

+ Mandrake cocked his head again. "What do we want him for? A boy, my Scree say. Two worthless boys." +

+

+"Two boys and a girl," the hag voice came back. " Bound together for what we don't know, but he carries a key and I will have it. I will lay his kind waste and rule all worlds." +

+

+ There was a long pause. "And you will have your spoils." +

+

+ "The girl," Mandrake said. "I must have the girl." +

+

+ " + + She is nothing to us save that she stands between you and the seat, so long as she walks. But she is bound to them now. I can feel it. I feel a + foretelling come to pass + + ." +

+

+ Mandrake turned, as if to an invisible listener, his face contorting, changing colour. "I never heard of any prophesy on boys." +

+

+His shoulders narrowed, became hunched. Shadows swelled in his face. " Trust me man-draco. I have given you riches. I have given you power. I will give you more, and you will rule this Temair and all its lands. +

+

+"But bring me that pup. I smell a fate here. At the crossing of two roads. He has wandered across me and I feel his touch. I will have him." +

+

+ The hag voice rose, sharp and brittle as glass underfoot. "Muster the Scree. We send the roaks flying tonight. They will show us where." +

+

+ Mandrake straightened and the shadows that had filled the room with gloom began to lift. His twisted features began to ease out and swell back to what they + had been like before. His hunched form elongated until he stood beside the high seat, one arm on the carved backrest. The roak cawed once and took off in a + whirr of black, circled up and out of the high window and the shadow that had entered to room with the bird slowly evaporated. +

+

+ Mandrake leant on the seat, breathing hard. +

+

+ The waiting people slowly came from behind the pillars, saying nothing, watching only as Mandrake's face untwisted like wax and went back to his normal + sallow leer. His eyes were closed, but when he opened them again, the red light in them was gone. +

+

+ "Get me the Captain of the Marches," he bawled. "Get him to me now!" +

+
+
+ + diff --git a/build/mythlands/OEBPS/ch10.xhtml b/build/mythlands/OEBPS/ch10.xhtml new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9d447c2 --- /dev/null +++ b/build/mythlands/OEBPS/ch10.xhtml @@ -0,0 +1,539 @@ + + + + + Mythlands - Chapter 10 + + + + +
+
+

10

+

+ Jack was lost in a darkness deeper than night. It swirled around him and through him and he felt his whole being fragment into a million pieces. +

+

+ And in the dark, the guttering candle of his mind brought images looming in from far off to appear briefly before they fuzzed out into nothingness. +

+

+ Pale faces swam up close to him, eyes green as deep sea and hands as cold as death, smooth as marble caressed him and clung to him, taking him down even + further to a place where shadows were. +

+

+ He saw Kerry flipping up from the makeshift raft in the thunder of the falls, spinning in the air as the sword spangled shards of light. +

+

+ He saw him sink down through a turmoil of frothing water, unable to loosen his grip on the sword, bubbles wavering up from his open mouth. He saw Kerry + drown there, sinking out of his reach. +

+

+ The cold hands surrounded him, encoiled him, drew him down into the deepest black. +

+

+ A huge pressure bore own on him like an iron grip squeezing the life out of him as he faded away. +

+

+ And he dreamed dreadful dreams. +

+

+ In the dark he saw the ring of standing stones on a bleak and barren moor. On each one a great black bird and the monstrosity with craters where its eyes + should be, yet somehow able to see right through him into his soul and he knew he was watched by something so hellish the sight of it could freeze him to + stone. +

+

+ Across the scarred moorland he saw the ogres marching, grey things, squat and ugly in leather armour and scaly skin, bearing clubs and spears and jagged + swords, the tramp of their feet so deep and pervasive it was like the booming of a monstrous heart. +

+

+ The marched on and on, row upon row, growling and chanting as they walked, sounding like rocks sliding down the face of a mountain. +

+

+ He flew above them, soaring with the huge ravens, as an awful cold speared through him and froze his heart, up in the frigid air above the fields of + slaughter and the cascade of bones of men and beasts where the spell of rot wafted up in noisome clouds. +

+

+ From the height he could see in the distance a great wooden dam across a river, backing its flow, where men and women toiled and strove under the lash and + clubs of the grey ogres. In the distance beyond the crude dam, the waters were already pooling into a shallow lake that reached to stony hills where a + chasm was cut like a scar into bare rock on the edge of a sere and arid desert. +

+

+ The freezing wind and the beat of black wings carried him onwards over this desert, flat and barren and featureless but for the salt that was patterned + like rippling waves on a shore, devoid of all life. +

+

+ He flew forever, it seemed, surrounded by the carrion birds who led him on, until he came to the low black hill in the centre of this salt desert. +

+

+ It sat squat and brooding, like a boil on sick white skin, like a tumour on the very land. +

+

+ He tried to stop now, will himself away from this place, but he was carried on remorselessly towards the black tor. +

+

+ In his dream he saw a shadow growing and spreading like the touch of poison on his own skin, like the dark that had oozed from the white-eyed Billy Robbins + and flowed against gravity up the wall of the Major's house. +

+

+ The dark spread out, inexplicably evil, palpable with threat, cracking the salt flats into great fissures from which night-things crawled and scuttered and + great grey bats flew on clouds and worms and maggots pulsed as they emerged to trail slime. +

+

+ The presence called to him, dragging him with the force of its baneful will and he tried to fight against it. +

+

+ But there was no fighting it. +

+

+ Come to me + . +

+

+ A crumbling hole appeared in the side of the mound, yawning like a black mouth, sucking him inside. +

+

+ In the dark, he could sense a shadow within a shadow, reaching for him. +

+

+ Bring me the key + . +

+

+ He tried to cry out, but still had no breath. +

+

+ Images flickered inside his head, unbidden, unwanted. +

+

+ He saw a golden sword spiked deep into a stone so black it was like a hole into nothingness. On its surface he saw the plucked eyes of a great bird and the + ragged nerves frayed on its surface. +

+

+ And in the blackness he thought he saw a motion inside the block of stone, a nightmare ripple that caused him to recoil in horror. +

+

+ The voice scraped on the inside of his head, claws and he jerked back, willing himself away. +

+

+ And another voice called his name. +

+

+ It came from far away in the gloom, but he held on to the sound. +

+

+ Jack….Jack… +

+

+ He thought he knew the voice, remembered it from long ago. +

+

+ Jack! +

+

+ The call was distant, but clear. It was deep and resonant. Jack felt its pull, turning him away from what waited in the dark. +

+

+ Ahead of him was bright light, and a tall silhouette framed in its glare. He could see no features, just the shape of a man, one arm raised. +

+

+ "Come back to the light," the man called. +

+

+The hateful web snaring his mind began to loosen and the hideous touch faded as he felt drawn towards the man. He still couldn't see the face, but he knew who called him. It had to be his father. +

+

+ Jack ran towards him. +

+

+ *** +

+

+ "Jack man. Oh Jack. I thought you were a goner there." +

+

+ Kerry's voice was high and agitated. +

+

+ His vision cleared completely and he turned his head just a little. The blue eyes held him and for a moment he was completely confused. +

+

+ "Ah, so you've decided to join us." +

+

+ The voice was soft, a man's voice.. +

+

+ He shook his head and his vision wavered in and out of focus, the way it had done when the green pale shapes had come skimming up to him from the depths. + He tried to speak and a warm hand came down on his brow, lightly, like the touch of a feather. +

+

+ "Lay a bit son," the man said. His beard was white, like his thickly braided hair. +

+

+ "You're out of the water," the old man said, "but you've a way to go before you're out of the woods. +

+

+ The hand skimmed his hair back, cupped the back of his head and lifted it up slowly. Pain cascaded all through him and he bit back on it, trying not to + yell out, choking back a scream. +

+

+ "Not in great shape, are we?" The voice had age to it, and an accent that reminded him of the way the Major spoke, and it was gentle. +

+

+ "I lost him," Jack managed to gasp. There was water still in his lungs; he could feel it crackle deep inside. "He said don't let him drown." +

+

+ He tried to sit up, failed and the shape in front of him faded into darkness for a moment. +

+

+ "And I lost her," he muttered. "She went over and Kerry went down." Tears sprung again to his eyes and simply flowed down his cheeks. +

+

+ "Easy, young fellow. You've been down in the dark a while. And don't you worry." +

+

+ He felt another touch, hot and shaky on his shoulder and when the tears blinked away he saw Kerry's face coalesce from the grey. Beside him was Corriwen + Redthorn's green eyes, all full of concern and misery battling relief and joy. +

+

+ "Jack man." Kerry said. "We really thought you were a goner." +

+

+ "You were down in the water," he started to say. "How…?" +

+

+ "Nearly scalped me, ye beggar," Kerry said, grinning through his own tears. "I'm lucky I've any hair left." +

+

+ "How did you get out? How did we…?" He coughed and the last of the water came out, though the spasm cost him a sear of hurt from his neck to his + waist.. +

+

+ "Ah," the stranger said. "That would be my friends, the Undine. Clever girls they are. You got them in good humour today and I was expecting company. They + can lift you up or take you down. And if they do, you never get back up again." +

+

+ "Remember the wolf?" Kerry said. "I thought it was a fish that took it." +

+

+ "No trespassers in this water," the old man said. "They don't like those Scree, nor their beasts." +

+

+ He began to turn away to where a fire glowed in the corner. "Let's get some soup in you, take the chill out." +

+

+ Jack looked from Kerry to Corriwen, eyes all questions. +

+

+ "He says they're water spirits," Kerry explained. "I swallowed half the river and never saw them. When they shoved you out, you still had me by the hair. I + had to get a stick to loosen the grip." +

+

+ "I saw them," Corriwen said. "They were green. And beautiful. And fast. I heard of Undines, but I never thought they were real." +

+

+ "Oh, they're real all right," the bearded man said. "Them and the kelpies of the seashore, though you want to keep away from them. They're hungry all the + time, and they'll take man and horse both, given the chance." +

+

+ He brought over a bowl of something that steamed lazily and he held Jack's head up again. Jack sipped the broth and tasted some kind of spicy meat. It + brought some heat back into bones that felt like ice. +

+

+ "Just take a piece at a time, 'til you get your breath." The man sat on the edge of the bench where Jack lay under a coarse blanket. They were in a house + of some kind. The walls were bare stone, with stone ledges for shelves that were crammed with bottles and bags and stone jars. +

+

+ "You did a good job of work, holding your friend in the water. His head's going to ache a day or two, but it could have been a whole lot worse. +

+

+ "He wouldn't let go," Jack said between mouthfuls. "The sword. It dragged him down." +

+

+ "Yeah," Kerry said, unable to keep the grin from his face. He had wiped the tears away with his knuckles, but his eyes were still red. "I never even knew I + was still holding on. For all the difference it would make. I swim like a brick." +

+

+ Corriwen was still holding Jack's hand, warm and close. Some of her heat moved into him, and he snuggled it. Her green eyes searched his and he could see + she had been crying too. +

+

+ "I didn't want to lose you," she whispered. +

+

+ The old man came back. He had a sheepskin jerkin on, with the fleece inside, and a sort of leather cap and a long cloak that looked to be stitched together + expertly from small animal pelts. +

+

+ "Your friends tell me you're hurt." +

+

+ Jack nodded, swallowed drily. +

+

+ "I can smell it on you, and it's not good. So we'd best take a look-see. Maybe we have something here that can help." +

+

+ "Oh, and by the by," the stranger said, "You can call me Finbar. There's a few other names to go alongside it, that were given to me a while back but + you'll never get your tongue around them." +

+

+ "You live here?" +

+

+ "Sure I do. The old fellow smiled. His cheeks were rosy and pink and cheerful. "I'm the bard of Undine Haven. And don't worry about those foul things that + were hunting you. This here's a hidden place. There's a geas on our haven." +

+

+ He smiled again. "Know what a geas is?" +

+

+ "Some sort of spell, isn't it?" +

+

+ "Right." +

+

+ Brave the thunder, find a haven. + The book hadn't warned of an impending storm. It had predicted the apocalyptic cataract that had flipped them up and cast them down and down. And they + hadn't so much braved them as just fallen over. It was a miracle they weren't dead. Avoiding death seemed to have taken a few miracles in the past day. +

+

+ "Those things and whatever has unleashed them can't see here," the Bard said. "But those flying spies of hers, those roaks and ravens, they're scouring + hill and moor. I knew they were looking for something, so I presume it must be you." +

+

+ "The Mandrake wants me," Corriwen said. +

+

+ "That I believe, young Corriwen Redthorn." +

+

+ "You know my name?" +

+

+ "Of course I know your name. Sure, wasn't I there at Redthorn Keep on the night you were born? Can't have a birthing without a Bard. Not a Redthorn birth + anyways." +

+

+ "But how…?" she began. +

+

+ "There's a story long in the telling. I know about your uncle and his mad ways, and it's almost time to do something about it. The Bards have been waiting + for a sign, and I reckon you and these two lads, you're it." +

+

+ She looked up at him, eyes wide and puzzled. +

+

+ "All's not lost, girl. Not when there's a Redthorn left and a sword to be found. We know the old foretellings, us Bards do, and they do come true, sooner + or later, and better late than never at all, eh? But I tell you, you'll have a fight on your hands, and I hope you're up to it." +

+

+ "I have to do something," she said resolutely. "I am sick of running and hiding. My brother is dead on the field, and somebody will pay. Mandrake will + pay." +

+

+ He looked her in the eyes. She was such a slight form compared to the big old man. Jack watched the two of them and he saw the resolute set of her jaw. + Just what she had been through, he couldn't imagine, but she had been hunted and harried for months in the forest and she had survived alone. Despite the + pain and sickness in him, his heart swelled with pride and admiration at her courage. +

+

+ The patted her shoulder lightly. "Time for plans and explanations later, young lady," he said. "This here lad's squirming. Let me sort his trouble first, + then we'll sit and gnaw the bone." He was bending over Jack now, pulling back the pelted coverlet, easing away the leather Jerkin. Jack closed his eyes and + winced. +

+

+ "Oh my," Finbar said in a soft voice when he finally pulled the shirt aside. Even the touch of the air felt like acid on Jack's skin. +

+

+ "Jeez," Kerry whispered, aghast. Corriwen said nothing. The dark mass on Jack's chest had expanded, like veins of tar under his skin, reaching up to his + neck and over his shoulder. It pulsed with a malignant beat of its own. Jack's breath came ragged and shallow. The cold was draining him. +

+

+ "How on Temair did this happen to you?" Finbar asked. Jack tried to speak, but exhaustion and cold had worn him down. He heard Kerry speak up, and he told + the story, beginning from the moment they saw the shadow flow out from Billy Robbins and ooze up the walls of the Major's house. Kerry told it simple and + straight. For once his Irish habit of embellishing stories failed him. Jack listened until Kerry's voice seemed to fade away in the telling and he felt as + if he was slowly falling backwards into a deep tunnel. +

+

+ He woke again under the Bard's warm hand on his brow, struggling up from the cold and the dark, feeling as if his very body belonged to someone else. In + his ear he could hear strange whisperings, like echoes in a chasm. He shook his head to clear it and the world spun. +

+

+ "The Banshee touch," the Bard said. "The darkness of the damned and the lost. Grows in you like fungus roots. Sucks the good out, brings the bad in. You're + a tough young feller to have come this far, tough and lucky. And from what your Kerry tells me, you've come a long ways from here." +

+

+ "What is it?" Kerry asked. +

+

+ "It's the hate and the poison from the dark world. Beyond Tir-nan-Og, the Land of the Fair. It's the terrible place. And that touch, it's been put there + for a reason, no doubt. I'll have to give that some thinking time when we're done." +

+

+ Done? + Jack was too exhausted to wonder. +

+

+ The old man turned away and spent some time at the hearth. Kerry tracked him with his eyes, but Jack couldn't move his head. Finbar came back again and + bent over him. +

+

+ "This won't be a mayday frolic, young traveller," he said. "I'm telling you now. But we must get that dark out of you before it swallows you up and takes + you down to a place you'll never leave." +

+

+ Jack had no idea what he was talking about. He nodded weakly. +

+

+ "Here," The Bard beckoned to Kerry and Corriwen. "You be friends to him now. Each take a wrist in both hands and hold it tight." +

+

+ They did as they were told. Kerry felt the cold seep from Jack's skin into his own. Corriwen's face was set. The Bard took a length of hide and wrapped it + around Jack's knees and looped it to the hard boards of the bench. He brought a thick piece of leather, thick as the heel of a shoe and jammed it between + Jack's teeth. Bite down boy. Cut it in half if you must." +

+

+ "Is this some kind of trick?" Kerry wanted to know. +

+

+ "Something like that." Finbar turned away to the fire and when he came back he held a flat slab of obsidian stone between two metal hooks. It was dark, + almost black, but translucent to a degree, like a black jewel. Heat came off it in waves, +

+

+ "Fireglass," he said. "Made in the heat of the ground below. Now you pair hold tight and be a friend to him. Don't you let him go." +

+

+ Without another word, he placed the stone right on the centre of the spreading black pulsation on Jack's chest. +

+

+ Jack screamed. +

+

+ As soon as the hot slab touched his skin a pain lanced through him in a river of fire, unlike anything he had ever experienced before. His back arched in a + spasm against the thongs around his knees and his teeth bit down so hard on the leather that his jaw almost broke. +

+

+ "Jeez man," Kerry bawled. "What are you doing to him? " Kerry could smell burning flesh and heard the sizzle as the hot stone seared Jack's white + chest. +

+

+ "Hold him boy," Finbar's voice was calm, but firm. "Hold him tight." +

+

+ Jack screamed again. His whole body quivering like a tight wire. Sweat beaded on his forehead and dripped down past his ears. The sound of that scream made + the walls rattle and the things on the shelf quiver in sympathy. +

+

+ Kerry burst into sudden tears, but he held on as Jack bucked and writhed on the table. Corriwen wailed in distress, but her grip never slackened. +

+

+ "Fireglass," the Bard said. "Faerie tears. It swallows the light or the dark. Takes the heat or the cold. Sucks the bad from the good. Let it do its work." +

+

+ Jack screamed once again, high and pitiful. His back arched until it seemed his spine would break, then he shuddered and fell back in a dead faint. A + bubble of blood swelled from his nose and burst wetly. His friends hung on as if their lives depended on it. They took the Bard's word that Jacks life + certainly did. +

+

+ "He's had enough," Kerry sobbed. "You'll kill him." +

+

+ "Kill or cure," the Bard said, under his breath. "Without a cure that dark poison will take him down to itself." +

+

+ Steam was rising up now. Jack's lifeless body was still vibrating like a tuning fork and his eyes were turned up so far all he could see was white. They + held on and held on and Kerry expected to see the hot black stone burn its way through flesh and bone, but despite that he did not lose his grip. All he + could feel was the shiver as if jolts of electricity were surging through his friend. +

+

+ It seemed to last for hours, though it couldn't have been more than agonising minutes. After a while, the Bard took a thick hank of material that might + have been linen, soaked it in a bucket of water and then used it to lift the stone away. Steam hissed and billowed in clouds around him. He put the slab + down on a stool, soaked the cloth again, and put it on Jack's forehead. Where the obsidian block had sat, the skin was bubbled and blistered. But even as + Kerry watched, the blistering began to subside. +

+

+ "With a bit of luck, we've brought him back," Finbar said. "How he managed to keep going so long's a mystery to me. He's got a big heart." +

+

+ "His name is Jack Flint." +

+

+ "Well named, young feller. Tough as a rock is your travelling man." +

+

+ He had hardly finished the sentence when Jack moaned, squirmed on the table. He pulled on their hands and the Bard motioned them to let him up. He slumped + over the edge of the table and retched a stream of grey black bile. +

+

+ "He'll clear himself out now," Finbar said. "The fireglass burned the sick out of him." +

+

+ He wiped Jack's mouth and eased him up to a sitting position. +

+

+ "You have to do this part yourself," he said. Jack blinked back the sting of tears, breathing hard, feeling weak as a kitten. +

+

+ "You've had the pain, my friend, now you have to finish the job. " +

+

+ "What do I do?" His skin was sizzling, so it felt, but that dread dark ache deep inside him was gone. +

+

+ "Take the stone and come out to the river." +

+

+ Jack staggered on shuddery legs to the stool and used the last of his strength to heft the obsidian slab. It felt smooth and somehow alive in his hands. + The Bard steadied him as he walked through under the narrow doorway, across the short sward to the bank and followed the man as he waded in over a shallow + shingle bank. Upstream the monumental falls thundered, cascading from an immense height down through a mist that tumbled and rolled in the air, so high up + that he couldn't make out the top. How he had survived that plunge he could not imagine. +

+

+ "Walk on now," Finbar said. "The heat's taken the cold. Now you have to cleanse you and the fireglass." +

+

+ The water was cool around his legs. It soon reached his waist. The shingle gave way to fronds of river weed and Jack remembered the underwater vision of a + pallid face with huge eyes and flowing hair and a touch as cold as death. The water was up past the puckered skin on his chest now, but he kept walking, + took a breath and then he was under, in the coolest clear water. He felt the weakness wash out of him. Felt the strange vibration of the obsidian stone as + it gave up whatever it had taken to the sparkling river. +

+

+ He knew when it was over. How he knew was just another mystery in this world of mysteries. Shapes swam un the water, came up to him, caressed his arms and + shoulders, soft cool hair brushed him and he said a silent thanks to these strange creatures who had taken him from the depths. +

+

+ He turned and walked back until his head broke the surface. He carried the stone up the shingle incline, as if the river was giving birth to a new child. + The bard reached and took it from his hands. +

+

+ "Jeez Jack," Kerry breathed. "Look at that." +

+

+ Jack looked down at himself. The puckered and blistered skin was smooth now, washed by whatever magic was in stone and river. Where the vicious black + shapes had been, spreading up to his neck and down his arms, the skin was white and clean again. +

+

+ Except for the red hand print right over his heart. +

+

+ And above it, five dots in a semi circle, matching the position where claws might have pierced the skin in that one savage swipe. +

+

+ "It's the red hand," Kerry said. "From the myth." +

+

+ "It's much more than that," the Bard said softly. "Much more." +

+

+ "Come in and set yourselves down a while. We've got some things to talk about." +

+ +
+
+ + diff --git a/build/mythlands/OEBPS/ch11.xhtml b/build/mythlands/OEBPS/ch11.xhtml new file mode 100644 index 0000000..56f6b3e --- /dev/null +++ b/build/mythlands/OEBPS/ch11.xhtml @@ -0,0 +1,536 @@ + + + + + Mythlands - Chapter 11 + + + + +
+
+

11

+

+ "There are thirteen standing stones in Old Caledon." +

+

+ Finbar the Bard had sat them down at the low table, fed them grainy bread and wild honey. He had pulled his cloak around Jack's shoulders and brought him + to the bench nearest the fire, although he wasn't cold now. +

+

+ All of his senses were back again, no whispering in his ears, echoes in his mind. No ache and burning in his eyes. He looked into the fire and watched the + flames flicker and dance. He could smell the air, still feel the touch of the clear water on his skin. It was as if he had come completely and fully awake. + Of a sudden, he felt alive again. +

+

+ In a burnished copper pan hanging by the fire, he saw himself reflected, golden in this light, warm and whole again. +

+

+ And that clear red handprint stood out like a coat of arms across his heart. +

+

+ "Thirteen stones where the Ley Lines meet," the Bard continued. "Where the Way Lines meet. It's the place where all the worlds touch, where the + skin between them is thinnest." +

+

+ "I'm not with you," Jack began to say. "All the worlds?" +

+

+ "You're not the first journeymen to step through," Finbar said, ignoring the question for the moment. "And when men come from Old Caledon, it's a + sign." +

+

+ He held up a hand before Jack could speak. "Thirteen stones and a capstone in the centre. Twelve spaces between the stones, and an infinity of + ways. They built on Old Caledon after the ice, on land that would not shift nor quake, and they did it to bar the ways to worlds." +

+

+ "Why did they do that?" Corriwen asked. +

+

+ "There's power in all worlds. For good and evil, just like there's magic in some worlds, more in some, where magic is young, and less in Caledon, which + made it the place to join the leys and bar the ways. There's always a power that would break through, use the Waystones to invade. The + keepers and journeymen have always kept them out. So far. +

+

+ "In Caledon, they set the MacBeatha, the Sons of Life, to guard the ways, all down the generations." +

+

+ "The MacBeatha?" Jack interrupted. "You mean Major MacBeth?" +

+

+ "From what Kerry told me, that'll be the man. The Keeper of Ways. How you came to be here, I don't know. But there's always a reason." +

+

+ "Everybody says he was a major, like in the army," Kerry said. +

+

+ "Oh, he'll be a soldier, sure enough." +

+

+ Jack just sat, listening intently. Maybe this explained the Major's mysterious disappearances - and his equally surprising arrivals. And perhaps his + collection of ancient things in the old house. The man who had raised him had kept his secrets to himself, and things had happened too suddenly on Samhain + night for him to share any of them with Jack. +

+

+ He scratched at his beard. "The last journeyman to come through the Farward Gate was Cullian, and he brought the sword to face the Morrigan when she was + rampaging through Temair. A strong man he was, strong enough to fight the hag and bring her down. The sword he brought became the Redthorn Sword, and it + has guarded Temair since." +

+

+ He paused again, had another scratch. "We need the sword, and we need another Cullian, because the Morrigan wakes again from a long dark slumber. It's a + long story to tell, and I don't know where to begin." +

+

+ "Might as well start at the start, Mr Finbar," Kerry said lightly. "For we haven't a clue where we are or what we're doing." +

+

+ "Now there's a thing that's easy said, Kerry boy." Finbar flashed him a jovial grin. "You've the gift of the gab. +

+

+ "It's the Irish in me," Kerry threw back. He always got the last word, even when it brought trouble. "Sure, didn't I kiss the Blarney stone?" +

+

+ "Whatever that is," the Bard said. "I'll have to believe you. And none of this Mister stuff. We're friends here. You can call me Finn." +

+

+ He drew out a long stem pipe and packed it with something that smelt thick and aromatic when he lit it with an ember. +

+

+ "Now, what you have to remember is, the start is a long way back." He blew out a plume of haze. "Longer than you might think. Yet the circle has turned and + the past comes round to greet the present. Now we have the last of the Redthorns hunted high and low, and some dark and bad things happening in this old + Temair of ours." +

+

+ He turned to Corriwen. "He'll hunt you down, you know. He can't have you alive while he clings to the high seat. And he's not working alone." +

+

+ "I don't understand you," Corriwen looked genuinely puzzled. +

+

+ "Your uncle Mandrake. He's mad of course. Raving mad, but we always knew he was a bit cracked. Your father should never have let him delve into the old + magic. Should have sent him out to the marches to keep the Scree in their place. Now look what's happened. He's brought them down from the Scree mountains + and put the people under a hard hand. Bad times all round." +

+

+ "I don't get it," Kerry said. "I don't get any of this place at all. I keep thinking I'm going to wake up and find I've been eating mouldy cheese and + dreamt the lot." +

+

+ Jack said nothing. He just wanted to savour the comfort of being himself again. And he wanted to hear what the Bard had to say. +

+

+ "Ah, it's a nightmare sure enough," Finn said. "And the sooner people wake to it, the better. He's not finished yet, old Mandrake. And the shadow that's + pulling his strings, she's not even started, believe me." +

+

+ "Now you're just talking riddles," Kerry countered. +

+

+ "Riddles and conundrums," Finn grinned again and sucked on the pipe for a while. "They're the secrets that turn the world. There's magic in riddles and + conundrums young Irish. To every riddle there's a key, and I have a feeling you three are the key to this one." +

+

+ "I still don't understand," Corriwen spoke up again. Jack remained silent, concentrating on the old man's words. +

+

+ "You thought your uncle was just jealous, and maybe you can't blame him for that. Ten minutes is all it took for him to be beaten to the high seat and the + lordship of Temair. Can't have been a summer dance growing up with that. But Mandrake has always been touched, and the dark finds its own cracks to seep + into. Like ice. It wedges the cracks apart and makes its own space." +

+

+ He puffed on the long pipe again, flooded the room with fragrance. +

+

+ "Mandrake spent too much time studying the old lore, when there were those that thought it was all just myth and riddle. Always remember, there's a key in + every riddle and a truth in every myth, and what Mandrake wanted was power. Now he has it and he'll do what it takes to keep it. What he doesn't know is + that he'd just a glove puppet with a dark hand inside him, working his every move." +

+

+ "That's the part I don't understand," Corriwen said. +

+

+ "Well, Corrie Redthorn," Finbar said, kindly, "you sit still, have some broth, and I'll tell you all a story. Some of it you've heard before, but there's + new chapters written all the time." +

+

+ She looked up at him, tears springing to her eyes. +

+

+ "That's the name my brother called me." +

+

+ "He was a good man, strong and clever and brave as a boarhound. But he had not the slightest clue what he was fighting, that's the truth of it. And that's + something you're going to have to learn." +

+

+ "Me?" She blinked back the tears, then wiped her eyes with the heel of her hand. "What can I do? I'm an outlaw in my own land. Hunted all over the place." +

+

+ "That's true enough. But never say die until they put stones on your eyes. And you're a long way from crossing to Tir Nan Og." +

+

+ He turned to the boys, Jack still swathed in the pelt cloak, Kerry in his drying rabbit-skin tunic. "And you two travelling men, you're both a long step + from home." +

+

+ "Well, we have to get back," Jack said. "The Major is in trouble." +

+

+ "Was in trouble," Kerry said. "He'd never have made it out of there. Look what it did to you with just a touch." +

+

+ "Save that for later," Finn said. "First, we have to go back a long way, in the telling and the seeing." +

+

+ He moved to the bench by the small shuttered window on the bare stone wall and busied himself with an array of old leather pouches of different colours and + ages, each tied at the neck with a thong. When he turned back, he held a stone bowl, filled to the brim with what looked like crushed herbs. +

+

+ "Sometimes you need help to see back," he said, bending over the glowing hearth. "Now it's all going to seem a bit strange to the three of you, but just + remember, I'm the latest in a long line of my people." He touched his forehead with a finger. +

+

+ "And what they know and what they were, are all in here. So just sit and listen and watch, and we'll see what's to be seen." +

+

+ He placed the stone bowl right on the embers in the hearth and they watched as it began to glow in the heat. Very soon a pungent aroma of herbs and spice + drifted out of the fireplace. The old man sat on a stool, hands flat on the rough table bench. He began to talk, very softly, as if to himself, as the + roasting herbs sent drifts of white smoke out into the room. The scent was both sweet and acrid, carried on the smoke that spread like a mist. Jack watched + the old man, listening to the chant in low words that he could almost, but not quite make sense of. +

+

+ The Bard's face wavered in the smoke and shadows rippled across it. +

+

+ Jack kept his eyes fixed on him as he breathed in the heady fumes. +

+

+ In the billowing haze, he saw the old man's features waver in and out of focus. At first he thought it was a trick of the light. But then, he jerked to + attention. +

+

+ It wasn't the light, or the smoke. He stared, nailed to the spot, as the man's face changed. His expressions flowed like wax, contorting and + morphing from one face to another. His hair colour darkened, then lightened. His beard slowly vanished, became dark and braided, then turned to red, long + and bristled. +

+

+ Finbar the Bard began to speak, very softly at first, barely more than a whisper. Jack could hardly make out the words at first. +

+

+ The heat from the fire reached out and enveloped all four of them and the white smoke and the strange smell thickened perceptibly, and as the Bard spoke, + Jack saw shapes in the hearth, faint at first. +

+

+ "It was when the Fomorians," Finn said, voice low, "when the Fomorians were exiled to the Scree mountains. It was in the days of darkness and She + ravaged the land." +

+

+ Jack couldn't move. He breathed in slowly and for a second the room spun and the images in the hearth coalesced, developing like the pictures in the old + book. +

+

+ "The Shee. The Bane-Shee. The Morrigan herself was awake and hungry, out of the dead lands beyond Tir Nan Og." +

+

+ Jack could feel the presence of something cold and dark and cruel and for an instant he was back in the dream. +

+

+ "The witch of the Banshee. The Morrigan."" +

+

+ Jack saw a shadow flow across a fair land. He felt a pain behind his eyes as the shadow came swooping out of high hills, like nightfall on a sunny-day. +

+

+ "She was ever the bane of all life," Finbar said. "The bane of all men." +

+

+ Jack saw ranks of soldiers, moving out from keeps and stone castles, marching northwards to meet the shadow. And he saw, like pictures flickering in front + of his eyes, hordes of the grey creatures, the Scree, cascading like an avalanche of stone out of barren mountains to meet the warriors. +

+

+ He saw them clash, a tide of grey breaking upon the mass of men and the darkness covered the sky. Lightning flashed and stabbed down amongst the men, + searing them where it touched. Thunder boomed so loudly the rocks split open. +

+

+ The battleground was awash with blood and filled with the cries of dying and the awesome, awful laughter of the thing inside the darkness. +

+

+ The Scree poured down in their thousands, their hordes, to where the men took their last and desperate stand. Amongst the warriors, he saw swords flash and + flicker and heard metal grind and spark against metal and in the midst of it all, a bright shimmering sword held aloft. +

+

+ "A Redthorn. A Redthorn!" A deep voice boomed through the cacophony. "Hold and rally to the Red Hand." +

+

+ The shapeless thing inside the flowing darkness shrieked and raved and the earth split and things that should never breathe air or be seen by men crawled + and loped and slithered and flew. +

+

+ Then, in the height of it, in the death of it, when the men were pushed backwards pace by bloody pace by the irresistible force of the grey Scree, came + another sound in the dark. +

+

+ It was a sound like Jack had never heard before. The sound of five voices in the closest harmony, and the music of it swelled across the + slaughterfield… +

+

+ He saw five men in fur cloaks, each of them standing on top of the low hills that surrounded the battlefield on the plain, each with arms raised against + the bruised and roiling sky that hid the sun. From their outstretched hands, he saw silvery pulses of light, arcing in blinding flashes from hill to hill, + from Bard to Bard. +

+

+ Jack heard the power of that song. He could feel it sizzle in his veins and jitter on his nerves and pulse with the beat of his own heart. +

+

+ The sound had a force all of its own. It was a physical thing. It was in the mind and the heart and in the earth and sky. It swelled, growing stronger to + overwhelm the ravings of the half-seen baleful thing in the darkness over the slaughterfield. It swamped the cries of men and beasts and the clash of sword + against club. The light from their hands wove pure silver in arcs and flickering ropes of energy, joining together. +

+

+ The voice on the battlefield came again, more powerful now. +

+

+ "A Redthorn! Lift your hearts." +

+

+ The sword raised again, pure as ice, catching the strange tangling luminescence, drawing it in to itself like an earthing wire. +

+

+ The Bards on the hills chanted in harmony, mingling song with light and the thing in the shadow shrieked rage and defiance and pure hate, blasting men and + ogre alike with its own awesome power. +

+

+ But the light and the song held it. +

+

+ The hand in the melee held the great sword above the blood slaughter and the light and sound entangled the dreadful force in skeins of blistering power, + cutting off its shrieking rage and its dark badness. +

+

+ The Scree people fell and covered their eyes, howling in pain and bewilderment and fear. +

+

+ The dark cloud pulsed and shivered. +

+

+ But it shrank as Jack watched, shrank and sank, slowly diminishing and falling as the Scree turned, screaming and roaring in flight, their power cut off, + and men rolled out after them, slipping and stumbling across the bodies of their own dead, pursuing the misshapen things across the plain into the + mountains. +

+

+ The song swelled triumphant, and the skeins of light snared the shrinking, twisting dark, drawing it down to the ground between the five low hills, down to + where the glittering sword blade pointed to the now-brightening sky. Light cascaded from the blade and the things that had squirmed out of the fissured + ground shrivelled and withered and crumbled to dust. +

+

+ A Redthorn….A Redthorn…the light returns to Temair. +

+

+ Jack saw the stone now, a great slab of pure obsidian, black as night, polished to a liquid ink, as the sword held steady, binding the five ropes of light + into a braid of energy. +

+

+ The shrieking faded, and a writhing mass of black that seemed to be all claw and tooth was forced ever downwards, onto the stone. +

+

+ And then the dark welded with the obsidian rock, melded into it and sunk deep inside the pure stone. +

+

+ Jack saw the sword now, stabbed to the hilt deep into the burnished rock. +

+

+ The wielder held it there, athwart the great slab, one hand raised in the air, a red gauntlet clear and bright. A red hand. +

+

+ A tall man in old plain leather clothes and a wide brimmed hat. There was something about him that tugged at Jack. He saw new sunlight glint in blue eyes + under the brim. +

+

+ The tall man raised himself up and drew the sword out, soundlessly and clean and held it up for the living to see. +

+

+ The five bards raised their hands and then their song, still in the closest, clearest harmony, trailed away until nothing could be heard but the soughing + of the wind. +

+

+ Somewhere off a bird sang, and Jack Flint thought it was the sweetest sound he had ever heard as the white mist flowed over the battlefield and hid it from + view. +

+

+ He was sitting there in the diminishing smoke, heart thudding, muscles jumping with excitement and horror and wonder. Very slowly, the hearth in Finbar's + stone house became visible, and Jack was aware of the voice, talking low. +

+

+ "They snared her in a song of power and the light of true day." +

+

+ Finbar the Bard was himself again. His features were set, his beard white, and the braids of his hair tied together at the back of his neck. +

+

+ "The Morrigan. They snared her and trapped her spirit in the Fireglass rock." +

+

+ He opened his eyes now. "They built a hill around the stone, and put a geas on it, a curse and a prophecy, because no deed is forever, no victory + complete, no matter how folk might wish it. It was long ago, in the beginning of Men in this place, when the Dalriada fought the Morrigan and her Fomorian + hordes and sent them out of the land to the bare mountains to become the Scree." +

+

+ Finbar nodded, almost to himself. "As ever, it was between dark and light. Between the good and the bad. Between real men and those goblin Scree. +

+

+ "The curse!" Jack found his voice. He had seen only some of this in his dream. He had felt her touch. It was like sickness and poison inside his + mind. The curse, the geas, it was breaking down. Of that he was suddenly and completely certain. +

+

+ "They trapped her in the high salt barrens, where nothing grows in land poisoned by Fomorian blood and the wrath of the Morrigan. It's a cursed place now, + you can imagine. They trapped her in the stone and heaped earth to form a Barrow on it, and buried twelve heroes who died on that day to guard her spirit." +

+

+ "But what was the curse?" Jack insisted. +

+

+ Finbar closed his eyes, as if searching back, way back to an age long ago, yet still clear in his mind. +

+

+ Until the Cullian sword returns +

+

+ 'til heroes fail their lien +

+

+ 'til waters drown the fireglass stone +

+

+ This holds the Baneshee Queen. +

+

+ A blade to wake from deadly sleep +

+

+ A flood to free in fathoms deep +

+

+ For in the ebb the foul takes form +

+

+ To ride the night, on wings of storm. +

+

+ "So something's happened," Jack said. +

+

+ "Yes," Finbar said. "Something has happened." +

+

+ "This thing," Jack insisted. "Whatever she is. She's out." +

+

+ "Not yet," Finbar replied after a while. "But she's working on it." +

+

+ "And what will she do?" +

+

+ "She's the Hag. The Morrigan. She'll lay waste to everything she touches, all she sees. But there's more than that. She wants more than Temair." +

+
+

+ It was dark now and Jack sat with Kerry outside the small stone house, each on a smooth stone not far from the river, but far enough from the falls to be + able to hear each other over the roar of tumbling water. Finbar the Bard had drawn Corriwen aside while he cooked fresh fish over the coals of an open + fire. The two of them were talking, heads close, the girl's face angled up attentively while the old man spoke. +

+

+ "So what do you think of Obi-Wan?" +

+

+ Jack started out of the memory of the man with the sword and the red gauntlet on the stone. +

+

+ "Who?" +

+

+ "Obi Wan Kenobi," Kerry said. "He's a dead ringer. All that stuff about the dark and the light. It's straight out of Star Wars." +

+

+ He rummaged about in his bag and brought out the crumpled pack of cigarettes, lit one up and grinned. "Go with the force Luke." +

+

+ He laughed aloud and the Bard looked up from the embers. +

+

+ "He's probably never seen it anyway," Kerry whispered. +

+

+ The moon was rising, hard and silver, haloed in the high cold air, and bigger than Jack ever remembered it before. Stars crowded a purpling sky, so many of + them that they blazed down on the two boys and pooled shadows behind them. Moonlight glistened on night dew. +

+

+ "And that stuff he burned?" Kerry blew out and made a slow smoke-ring. "You reckon that's legal here?" +

+

+ Jack found it hard to concentrate. There was something in the smoke-dream, the haze vision, whatever it was, that was important to remember. He didn't know + why. He closed his eyes and breathed in the cold, clean air, feeling his strength return with every breath, and the first pangs of hunger begin to stir. +

+

+ "I think we're in trouble," he finally said. He rubbed a hand on the skin of his chest underneath the jerkin. It tingled a little, not painfully, but with + inner heat. That was so much better than the sucking cold and the sick sensation of invasion. +

+

+ "You just beginning to get the picture?" +

+

+ "No. It's just…." Jack paused, getting his thoughts together. "We're stuck here. I need to get us back home again." +

+

+ "Easy said. I thought it was a dream, but listen Jack, this place is for real." +

+

+ "And that's why we have to find the way home. Finn seems to think I'm supposed to be here for some reason. But I don't want to be here. It's weird and it's + dangerous, but that's not it. I have to get back to see if the Major's all right. He said something to me just before we…before we fell into this + place, wherever it is. Whenever it is." +

+

+ "I was too busy getting my backside out of there," Kerry admitted. "So what did he say?" +

+

+ Jack fumbled in his pocket and took out the heart-shaped stone on its chain. He looped it around his neck. +

+

+ "He told me to keep this safe, because it used to belong to my father. He knew my dad. I need to find out." +

+

+ Kerry eyes followed dragon-flies dancing in the moonlight over the silvered water. +

+

+ "Dads aren't all they're cracked up to be. Look at mine!" He turned to his friend. "And anyway, I thought you were an orphan." +

+

+ "I suppose I am. But I don't know who I am. I never got the chance to find out." +

+

+ "You're Jack Flint," Kerry said sagely. "What else is there to know? Me? I'm Kerry Malone, the thick Irish bogtrotter and proud of it." He punched Jack on + the shoulder. "And we're both stuck here in fancy dress. Can it get any better?" +

+

+ Jack managed a wan smile. "I wish it was so simple. But we have to do what the book says. We keep going west until we find the way home. The Major said + curiosity would get me in trouble some day, and he was right enough. But now I know I wasn't curious about the right things, and I'm going to do my best to + find out." +

+

+ "Okay," Kerry said. "I suppose I should come along and keep you out of trouble." +

+

+ He took a last pull on his cigarette. "But you know, if you ignore the great freaking hounds, and those crazy pigs. And them ugly-bug loonies. And green + women under the water. And an old feller that thinks he's a Jedi knight and makes us smoke weird stuff. +

+

+ "If you ignore that lot, this place could be a whole lot worse." +

+ +
+
+ + diff --git a/build/mythlands/OEBPS/ch12.xhtml b/build/mythlands/OEBPS/ch12.xhtml new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e69de29