Of all the promises Hirí had spoken, this one was most alluring of all.
“But you must open yourself to the possibility. If one enters as stone, they will leave as stone. If one enters as coal they could emerge a diamond.”
“So, I should give myself over to this curiosity?” he said, a shiver tiptoeing beneath his skin.
Finally, her smile returned. “What have you better to do?”
The question had long lingered in his mind as to why the dreams came to him in the night.
“Could I truly find some meaning…? This place… would it answer me?”
“But of course,” said Hirí. “If you listen.”
The word made him shudder.
Listen.
He had always been different and never found reason, but the fact remained—it was his truth. Since long ago, on that day in the grove, when he had chosen a reed pipewhistle.
Chapter twenty
The Augeri
The convoy made its way along serpentine roads towards the eastern weald. Mist clung to the underbrush, curling about the fetlocks of their horses. The path wound like a river through the green hush and if one didn’t mind the tread, might have veered off and been lost amongst the fog.
They had journeyed far beyond the lands of hearth-fires and song, into a realm of secret and whisper.
A cathedral of beech and yew arced overhead and beneath their verdant watch, the day stretched and bent unnaturally. Until at last, the trees parted, and the druid saw it: a vast spectral temple risen from the earth. Its spires were pale and its stone bones were wreathed in ivy and moss. The last of evening’s sunlight spilled into the glade, gilding the high, lancet windows. And at the temple’s feet lay a still black mere; its shadowy surface unbroken but for the drifting scatter of waterlilies.
The druid felt it in his heart. This was no temple. It was a threshold; a place where the world of men ended, and something more powerful began.
They disembarked the carrach and their escort swiftly departed, fearful in the shadow of the moon. The druid had been told it was not permitted for men to enter—only Nytherí and those who wished to join their ranks. He was neither; an exception to all their rules.
An exception… or a splintering.
Hirí was to act as guide for, as she explained, there were designated Speakers amongst the Nytherim, and otherwise he would find only silence. And, indeed, when they entered, there was an overwhelming calm. It was not peace, but peculiarity.
His footsteps were noiseless in rooms empty of echoes. The druid remembered what Hirí had told him.Listen. But there was nothing to hear.
It was as if they stood in the throat of a long-delved mountain. The interior chambers were grand and carved from glittering indigo stone. The flecks of silver mimicking a velvet battlefield of stars.
The moon priestesses moved about their midnight halls in melancholy, shrouded and soundless. They seemed not of that world, their bodies threaded along as their minds waded in boundless aether. The air was thick with incense and the druid could not disregard the sensation that some lingering force stirred beyond an unseen veil.
“I will go and speak with the High Nytherí,” said Hirí.
He wondered if the Oracle knew of his coming—as these women oft did—before he had ever made a move. “Can I not come before her myself?”
“Perhaps, but not now. Let me go to her first. In the meantime,” she grinned, “make yourself comfortable.”
Could even a corpse call such a frigid place comfortable?
The priestess left the druid to his devices. He had not expected to roam freely there, but these silent women were far from the bombastic menaces of Rhyd-hal. In fact, they took no note of him at all. His dáihe had always told him that mankind walked with spirits, but he never felt it more true than now. He was but a single breathing soul in a sea of ghosts.
One passed near his shoulder. She was young, perhaps seventeen, with grey hair and eyes like ice. The druid thought that if he reached out his hand to touch her, his fingers might glide right through.
How many of these girls were there? All of them with the same odd hue. All of them the same as him. And yet, there was still warmth in his fingers; a comfort he wished to keep.
He wandered about the temple, growing familiar, but no less disturbed by its cavernous halls. Towering pillars watched his passage like silent governesses. Unlike the maze of Rhyd-hal, the Augeri was a hollow behemoth whose breath breathed cold. It tiptoed up the back of the neck, forcing glances over the shoulder.
