A witch with the power to change the very fabric of a being.
All the energy the changelings are siphoning away.
Might he be made anew, solid and real and entire?
What if?
***
It’s very late when I send them all off to bed and set about banking the fire in the sitting room. We’ve made plans forwhat Rhea and Fenna and Tieve will do tomorrow while I’m making my way towards Night’s Barrow. Selecting and packing foodstuffs that won’t spoil on a long journey, ensuring the warmest and toughest clothing they can find in the chests and cupboards is in good repair, sewing gems and jewellery into hems and between linings in coats and cloaks because that will act as coin if our purses become empty, and checking the saddles and tack and that the horses are all fit for a long journey. Where? I don’t quite know yet; perhaps Adestan’s Harbour or St Mortimer’s Landing or Windermere’s Break or Tredwine’s Haven. Perhaps none of them.
Rhea’s loitering, her fingers tightly clasped in front of her skirts. I understand – how to sleep when your child is…
‘Mehrab?’ she says quietly. ‘I… I haven’t even named her. I was too afraid and now, please let me—’
‘Iwillbring her home. Have a name ready for her and it’ll be the first thing she hears upon her return.’ I reach out, cover her hands with my own. ‘But I need you to remain here while I go. Protect Fenna and Tieve, this place – if by any chance something gets in, your fire will be the only thing standing between them and the grave. And I must go alone because I can’t be distracted. Once I leave the safety of the holding, I can only look after myself. I don’t have a power that can be used from a distance. Wait for me. Trust in me.’ I don’t tell her to leave without me if I don’t return by tomorrow night because that won’t instil any confidence.
She nods, hearteningly quickly, dauntingly quickly.
That night, I dream of women as cauldrons, of them remaking the world.
35
Rosie rolls her eyes as soon as she sees me the next morning, which is never a good sign from either man or beast. I apologise as I handfeed her a small apple before saddling her. I check the contents of my satchel, hook the bow and quiver (the arrows dipped in the same mix I use to lay the wards, since it’s been so effective against him) over the horn, tighten the laces in my boots and check the knife tucked into the right one, pat the knife on my belt, and make sure said belt is firmly cinched in the loops of my trews. I’ve chosen a coat in place of a cloak today for ease of movement, less likely to get caught on twigs and other inconvenient obstructions.
At last, I lead Rosie out to three mournful faces. I’ve reminded them yet again that they’ve promised to stay here, and manage not to say ‘If you follow me, you’re on your own’ because those are less than reassuring last words, hardly a rousing battle cry. No one cries, although Tieve indulges in some suspicious sniffling and I call her over.
‘Tieve, I’ve made a very large assumption that you want to go with us, but you don’t have to – you can return to the villageand your family or stay here, make the cottage your home. You’re certainly not being kidnapped. The choice is yours.’
She says, ‘I’ll come with you. If you’ll have me,’ and sneaks a look at Rhea, all hurt and yearning and guilt.
Rhea catches the glance and, to her credit, she nods. Touches Tieve’s shoulder, very quickly like a butterfly’s flit, and says, ‘You are welcome.’
The child bursts into tears, Rhea follows suit and even Fenna.
Wonderful. Time for me to go.
***
I pass out through the veil and don’t look back. I cross the ward-line and urge Rosie towards the path we followed not many days since, towards the clearing where the earth-carved trap lies, towards Night’s Barrow and all that waits there. Nervous as a cat, I keep a sharp lookout, but I’m also trying to piece together my solution, assess my chances of success, and my worst-case scenario if I don’t succeed. What I will do if I can’t find a way to pin down a miasmic thing of mist and smoke and darkness. I refuse to consider what to do if anything’s happened to the baby. Refuse to consider what I might say to Rhea after all my certainty and promises.
I wonder what might happen if the huntsman were to be caught out of his barrow by daylight. What might that do to him? Something final? An eldritch burning? Is there some way to bring the barrow down on him? Some way to force an opening in the roof? Even if there was, he doesn’t sleep in the chamber on the first level – but, I assume, below, in the places I did not venture. I think of the green woman’s tale, that it hidin the darkness for years, pulling itself or what remained of it back together into some semblance of a man-shape. It didn’t do that in the light. So, it has limitations, weaknesses.
I think of it attacking Berhta’s Forge last night when it’s stayed away until now. Why? A whim? Or was something – some limitation – removed? If so, what? Wait. Anselm died three nights before. Was that also the huntsman? If yes, why then? Again: a whim or the lifting of a limitation? What changed?
The iron knife broke its trap, left a mark on the earth itself.
It doesn’t like water according to the mari-morgan, and I witnessed that myself.
A broken thing, a part of something else. Something snapped off a god of the hunt – perhaps all the drive to pursue and consume? Might that be what keeps horse and wish-hounds, man and god, running other living creatures to ground? Something beyond the need to eat, a greater hunger, a different hunger, for fear and fright? A cruel desire to dominate?
The breaking of a god, such a shattering that unseen things, non-physical things, could be shaken loose. Fractured.
I think about an interesting snippet I found last night before sleep, leafing through one of Yrse’s books: that once upon a time, the god, when whole, might sometime leave game on the doorsteps of homes where there was want. Where cupboards were bare, and babes cried. An interesting dichotomy for a thing that reputedly hunted children when the whim took. Then again, different locations, different gods. And, I suppose, those circumstances were different – teaching lessons to the arrogant as opposed to providing for the deprived. Capricious things, gods.
Interesting, too, that the shadow half never sought out its other part.
Or did it?
