The Bitterbynde Trilogy (67 page)

‘Much of faerie/wightish behaviour is inexplicable in human terms, except by saying it is the stuff of dreams and nightmare. Why should a thing called a “Shock”, resembling a donkey's head with a smooth velvet hide, suddenly be found hanging on a gate? And why, when a man tries to grab it, should it turn around, snap at his hand and vanish? The Shock's purpose seems mystifying, but the event has a rightness to it; as if we know, deep down, by something akin to racial memory, or some kind of shared consciousness, or memories of childhood fancies, that a Shock is a thing we might have glimpsed before, and that this is the kind of thing a Shock would do. At the same time we feel a thrill of fear and fascination. The story of the Shock illustrates how inexplicable the world is, and hints at how many weird, unpredictable creatures infest it.

‘When weaving the old tales into my own narrative I go to great lengths to preserve this sense of weirdness and unpredictability. I also want to convey the feeling that faerie creatures are permeating the landscape; that my alternative world is rife with them; that they are, as one reviewer has so succinctly put it, “part of the ecology”. Indeed they are, in a way, part of the ecology, being invariably attached to some element of nature such as water, subterranean caverns, flora and fauna.'

As for finishing a story—for me that is the hardest part. Finishing means losing the potential for change, forgoing the possibility of striving for perfection. This is when I have to discipline my natural inclination to go on forever, by reminding myself that a story is not written until the last word is down on paper.

And even then—as you will see in the next title of the Bitterbynde series, the Special Edition of
The Battle of Evernight
—sometimes it just keeps going …

Cecilia Dart-Thornton

Part of the original, handwritten manuscript of The Bitterbynde.

Some original Bitterbynde notes and calculations, written on the back of yet more notes.

THE STORY SO FAR

This is the second book in The Bitterbynde Trilogy.

Book 1,
The Ill-Made Mute
, told of a mute, scarred amnesiac who led a life of drudgery in Isse Tower, a House of the Stormriders. Stormriders, otherwise known as Relayers, are messengers of high status. They ‘ride sky' on winged steeds called eotaurs, and their many towers are strewn across the empire of Erith, in the world called Aia.

Sildron, the most valuable of metals in this empire, has the property of repelling the ground, thus providing any object with lift. This material is used to make the shoes of the Skyhorses and in the building of Windships to sail the skies. Only andalum, another metal, can nullify the effect of sildron.

Erith is randomly visited by a strange phenomenon known as ‘the shang', or ‘the unstorm'; a shadowy, charged wind that brings a dim ringing of bells and a sudden springing of tiny points of coloured light. When this anomaly sweeps over the land, humans have to cover their heads with their taltries—hoods lined with a mesh of a third metal, talium. Talium prevents human passions from spilling out through the skull. At times of the unstorm, this is important, because the shang has the ability to catch and replay human dramas. Its presence engenders ‘tableaux', which are ghostly impressions of past moments of intense passion, played over repeatedly until, over centuries, they fade.

The world outside Isse Tower is populated not only by mortals but also by immortal creatures called eldritch wights—incarnations wielding the power of gramarye. Some are seelie, benevolent towards mankind, while others are unseelie and dangerous.

The drudge escaped from the Tower and set out to seek a name, a past and a cure for the facial deformities. Befriended by an Ertish adventurer named Sianadh, who named her ‘Imrhien', she learned that her yellow hair indicated she came of the blood of the Talith people, a once-great race that had dwindled to the brink of extinction. Together, the pair sought and found a treasure trove in a cave under a remote place called ‘Waterstair'. Taking some of the money and valuables with them, they journeyed to the city of Gilvaris Tarv. There they were sheltered by Sianadh's sister, the carlin Ethlinn, who had three children; Diarmid, Liam and Muirne. A city wizard, Korguth, tried unsuccessfully to heal Imrhien's deformities. To Sianadh's rage, the wizard's incompetent meddling left her worse off than before. Later, in the marketplace, Imrhien bought freedom for a seelie waterhorse. Her golden hair was accidentally revealed for an instant, attracting a disturbing glance from a suspicious-looking passer-by.

After Sianadh departed from the city, bent on retrieving more riches from Waterstair, Imrhien and Muirne were taken prisoner by a band of villains led by a man named Scalzo. Upon their rescue they learned of the deaths of Liam and Sianadh. Scalzo and his henchmen were to blame.

Imrhien promised Ethlinn she would reveal the location of Waterstair's treasure only to the King-Emperor. With this intention, she joined Muirne and Diarmid, and travelled to distant Caermelor, the royal city. Along their way through a wilderness of peril and beauty, Imrhien and Diarmid accidentally became separated from their fellow travellers, and also Muirne. Fortunately they met Thorn, a handsome ranger of the Dainnan knighthood whose courage and skill were matchless, and Imrhien fell victim to love.

After many adventures, followed by a sojourn in Rosedale with Silken Janet and her father, these three wanderers rediscovered Muirne, safe and well. Muirne departed with her brother Diarmid to join the King-Emperor's armed forces. Recruits were in demand, because rebel barbarians and unseelie wights were mustering in the northern land of Namarre, and it seemed that war was brewing in Erith.

Imrhien's goal was to visit the one-eyed carlin, Maeve, to seek a cure, before continuing on to Caermelor. At her final parting from Thom she was distraught. To her amazement, he kissed her at the last moment.

At last, in the village of White Down Rory, Imrhien's facial disfigurements were healed. With the cure, she regained the power of speech.

Two of her goals had been achieved. She now had a name and a face, but still, no memory of her past.

1

WHITE DOWN RORY

Mask and Mirror

Cold day, misty gray, when cloud enshrouds the hill
.

Black trees, icy freeze, deep water, dark and still
,

Cold sun. Ancient One of middle Wintertide
,

Old wight, erudite, season personified
.

Sunset silhouette; antlers branching wide
—

Shy deer eschew fear while walking at her side
.

Windblown, blue-faced crone, the wild ones never flee
.

Strange eyes, eldritch, wise—the Coillach Gairm is she
.

S
ONG OF THE
W
INTER
H
AG

It was Nethilmis, the Cloudmonth. Shang storms came and went close on each other's heels, and then the wild winds of Winter began to close in.

They buffeted the landscape with fitful gusts, rattling drearily among boughs almost bare, snatching the last leaves and hunting them with whimsical savagery.

The girl who sheltered with the carlin at White Down Rory felt reborn. All seemed so new and so strange now, she had to keep reminding herself over and over that the miraculous healing of her face and voice had indeed happened; to keep staring into the looking-glass, touching those pristine features whose skin was still tender, and saying over and over, until her throat rasped:

‘Speech is mine. Speech is
mine
.'

But she would discover her hands moving as she spoke.

Surrounding the unfamiliar face, the hair fell thick and heavy, the colour of gold. Lamplight struck red highlights in the silken tresses. As to whether all this was beauty or not, she was unsure; it was all too much to take in at once. For certain, she was no longer ugly—and that, it seemed for the moment, was all that mattered. Yet there was no rejoicing, for she lived in fear, every minute, that it would all be taken away, or that it was some illusion of Maeve's looking-glass—but the same image repeated itself in placid water and polished bronze, and it was possible, if not to accept the new visage, at least to think of it as a presentable mask that covered the old, ugly one—her true countenance.

‘I kenned you were mute as soon as you fell through my door,' said the carlin, Maeve One-Eye. ‘Don't underestimate me, colleen. Your hands were struggling to shape some signs—without effect. And it was obvious what you were after, so I lost no time—no point in dilly-dallying when there's a job to be done. But
'tis
curious that the spell on your voice was lifted off with the sloughed tissue of your face. If I am not mistaken you were made voiceless by something eldritch, while the paradox poisoning is from a
lorraly
plant. Very odd. I must look into it. Meanwhile, do not let sunlight strike your face for a few days. That new tissue will have to harden up a bit first, 'tis still soft and easily damaged. Tom Coppins looks after me, don't you, Tom?'

The quick, cinnamon-haired boy, who was often in and out of the cottage, nodded.

‘And he will look after you as well, my colleen. Now, start using your voice bit by bit, not too much, and when 'tis strong you can tell me everything; past, present, and future. No, the glass is not eldritch. Come away from it—there is too much sunlight bleeding in through the windowpanes. And there's shang on the way—the Coillach knows what
that
would do to your skin!'

Not a day, not an hour, not a moment passed without thoughts of Thorn. Passion tormented the transformee. She whispered his name over and over at night as sleep crept upon her, hoping to dream of him, but hoping in vain. It seemed to her that he was fused with her blood, within her very marrow. Ever and anon her thought was distracted by images of his countenance, and conjecture as to his whereabouts and wellbeing. Longing gnawed relentlessly, like a rat within, but as time passed and she became accustomed to the pain, its acuteness subsided to a constant, dull anguish.

Late in the evening of the third day, the howling airs of Nethilmis stilled. Maeve dozed in her rocking-chair by the fire with a large, armour-plated lizard sleeping on her lap. Imrhien was gazing at her own reflection by candlelight, twin flames flickering in her eyes. Tom Coppins lay curled up in a small heap on his mattress in a corner. All was still, when came a sound of rushing wind and a whirring of great wings overhead, and a sad, lonely call.

Quickly, Maeve roused and looked up. She muttered something.

Not long afterward, a soft sound could be heard outside the cottage, like a rustling of plumage. Maeve lifted the lizard down to the hearthrug and went to open the door. A girl slipped in silently and remained in the shadows with the carlin. Her face glimmered pale, her gown and the long fall of hair were jet black. She wore a cloak of inky feathers, white-scalloped down the front. A long red jewel shone, bright as fresh blood, on her brow. Maeve spoke with her, in low tones that could not be overheard, then began to busy herself with preparations, laying out bandages and pots on the table.