Chapter Eleven
It was a smoother journey than anyone could have expected in our world. The surface of the river looked choppy, with little foam-capped torrents racing downstream, but the boat glided through it as smoothly and easily as a kestrel rising on a hot wind, the oars slicing easily through the clear water.
The noise of the river and the warm breeze ruffling their hair and filling their ears made conversation impossible, and Susan gazed over the side of the boat. The water was utterly clear, and she could see far below her to the stony river bed. Things scuttled on the bottom, although she could not make out their shapes, and once a shoal of large, blue-and-silver fish glided beneath them, the smallest perhaps as long as Susan herself. They did not seem interested in the boat, but were playing some game of their own, diving and nudging one another, joyfully rolling over and over in the clear water, and Susan watched them until they disappeared from her view.
She leaned back against the prow of the boat, cradling her arm and watching her companion's unhurried movements, and tried to think.
It felt that her thoughts had become unspeakably tangled. Images from her recent past, of Daniel, of the cottage and the deserted London house, of the quiet graveyard where her family now lay, seemed to be fading, and the harder she tried to reach them, the further they skipped out of her reach. Instead…instead…
She was no longer sure what she was remembering, whether the pictures that now filled her thoughts were real, or simply echoes left behind by a childish imagination.
She closed her eyes to try and shut them out, to push them back into the shrouding black mist, but they persisted. Her brothers' faces swam before her, as vivid as the childhood days when they had waited together on the station for the trains that would haul them off to their separate boarding schools, the boys to chilly dormitories and the ever-present threat of beatings, she and her sister to Miss MacLennan and Sunday morning silences, straight backs and order marks. Susan had never been given an order mark, but her sister had had two, once for disobeying Miss MacLennan when she decreed that the stray cats that lurked in the school grounds must not be encouraged by being fed on scraps, and once for laughing in Chapel. Order marks had meant a letter home to parents, and the disgrace of standing on the platform in front of the whole school in assembly, and yet her sister had not seemed to mind, although Susan's soul had burned with shame on her behalf.
She thrust the images of her sister away from her and gazed out over the prow of the boat.
They had travelled quickly. The island was close at hand now, and she could see a wide roadway leading away from a small cluster of stone houses on the shore.
The houses were built of the reddish-gold stone she had seen from the ridge at the end of the wood. They were single storey, yet they seemed disproportionately tall, with high, wide doorways and windows, making the birds that perched on their eaves seem tiny, like dolls' house replicas.
The boat bumped on the white shingle, and her companion leaped overboard to tug it clear of the water. Susan shuddered and bit back a cry as the jolt vibrated through her arm. He called out, and immediately the door to one of the houses was flung open, and Susan understood why the houses seemed so large. These were a tall people.
The enormous man who emerged was as tall as her companion, and smiled broadly at them. The two men exchanged a few words, and then the newcomer steadied the boat whilst her companion bent to lift Susan out.
"Do you mind?" he asked, as he scooped her up in his arms. "It will be faster this way. Findel will take care of the boat. We should try and do something for your arm first."
Susan nodded, holding her swollen wrist protectively against her chest as the man loped easily up the long slope and along the roadway. Houses, all rather like the ones at the shore, were dotted along it, each one set in the centre of a broad, green garden, and here and there people, all the size of her tall companion, turned to stare at them as they passed.
"Where is this?" she asked, and her voice sounded faint and exhausted even to her own ears. "Where are we?"
"This is Eyja. It's where I live," the man explained, and Susan felt his voice rumbling in his chest as she leaned against him. "We've come a long way, but you needn't worry, we'll get you back home again. First we need to stop the pain. I don't know much about broken bones but I think your wrist will need resetting back into place. As soon as it's done, and you're feeling a bit better, we can talk about it. Lefay has taken the rings, and we're going to need to think about what to do, but that's a problem for later."
Susan did not ask any more questions. She had reached the stage of injury where she could think of nothing other than the longing for the pain to stop. She closed her eyes and allowed herself to relax again into the soothing, child-like rhythm of being carried.
She opened them again a little while later, when she began to notice an overwhelmingly fresh, sweet scent wafting gently towards them on the air. The scent became more and more intense, and yet unlike other perfumes she had known, it did not fade after a few moments, and she looked around herself in surprise.
They had reached a wall, several feet taller even than her companion, built of the red-gold stone and covered with dark green ivy, crawling over its top from the far side. Above the wall she could see the high branches of trees drooping towards them, laden with creamy-coloured blossom. The scent was almost overwhelming, filling her nose with almost dizzying intensity, and she breathed deeply, with pleasure this time, as if the scent was cleaning and refreshing her sprit as well as her lungs.
The roadway ran along the side of the wall, and they followed it around a long curve before turning to pass beneath a wide arch. The tall man's bare feet padded along a smooth, tiled path, shaded by the overhanging branches, and patterned along its length with colourful mosaic swirls and edged with a riot of bright flowers.
Eventually the path circled around and opened on to a wide glade, sheltered and shaded by the blossoming trees hanging protectively over its edges. A red-gold stone building, with low, arched windows and a tall, steeply sloping roof, crouched beside it, and more than a dozen blue and gold awnings had been strung between the trees. Susan could see the slow, almost stately movements of people beneath them. Despite the birdsong, a profound quiet seemed to hang in the air.
Her companion paused and looked about him, as if he were waiting for something. A few moments later, a lean, shaven-headed figure on the far side of the glade glanced across and seemed to recognise him. Unhurriedly, he set down the pile of very white linen that he carried, and crossed the soft mossy glade to greet them.
He was barefooted, as tall as her companion, wearing the same tightly-woven trousers, cut off at the knee, and loose shirt, bound at his waist with a wide blue sash. His face was set and angular, with a narrow nose and long, pointed chin. His blue eyes fixed sharply on them as he approached, as if he were considering some decision, but by the time he reached them he had rearranged his features into a milder expression, and he seemed, if not exactly friendly, at least interested and tolerant.
Like a cat, Susan thought, like a great leopard deciding whether or not it might pounce.
"Evander, what have you got there?" he asked, softly, although Susan thought there was no hint of surprise in his voice. "Have you been hunting dwarves?"
"I'm sorry to intrude," Susan's companion said, apologetically. "We need help. My friend is hurt."
The man glanced at Susan and nodded.
"In more ways than one, I think. Come with me."
He led the way across the lawn and through a broad, open doorway into the low building, their bare feet pattering on the cool marble floor. He indicated a wide table, and turned away to wash his hands in a green, enamelled basin which stood under the window.
Susan's companion set her down on the table as gently as if she were a child or a puppy, her legs dangling over the edge. He patted her shoulder comfortingly.
"It will be all right now. Alwen is my brother. My twin. Let him look at it. He won't hurt you."
Alwen turned back to them, wiping his hands.
"What did you do? Goodness, you're small. I thought you were a child at first, but I can see you're not. Is she one of the First People, Evander, where did you find her?"
"I think I should take her to Vanir," Evander explained. "She had the sacred ashes. She didn't know what they were. They've been forged into rings, and they've been stolen. She was injured trying to protect them."
Alwen raised his eyebrows.
"I see. That is a story I would like to hear. Later, perhaps. Give me your hand, little one. Let me look."
Numbly, Susan proffered her arm, still swathed in its makeshift sling. Alwen made a small, impatient sound, and Evander reached forward apologetically to tug the sleeves loose from around her neck.
"And have you come far like this?" Alwen asked, carefully unwrapping the wrist and running his pale fingers over it. "Goodness, that must be hurting. No wonder your little face is so white." He turned to his brother "You made her travel in this distress?"
"I couldn't help her," Evander said. "I didn't want to hurt her, and I don't know enough about bones to be certain that I wouldn't."
"And so you never will," said his brother, dismissively. "Listen to me, little one. I am going to straighten the bones in your poor hand. There will be no more pain today. Then you will sleep, and when you wake, we will talk about the other pains that you carry."
Susan looked up.
"It's stopped hurting already," she said. "When you touched it. I mean, I can still feel it, but it was - pounding - and now it isn't."
"Good. Then you will be the easiest of patients," Alwen said, with a small smile. "Evander, you must take the greatest of care. She is wide open."
Evander nodded, and his brother turned back to Susan.
"I am going to mend your wrist, Susan Hamilton," he said, softly. "There will be no more pain now."
Susan gasped in surprise. She opened her mouth to speak, but the warmth of his unexpected smile startled her so much that she smiled instead. His eyes were beautiful, she thought, a brilliant blue with flecks of gold, and as they gazed into hers she felt a gentle calm creep over her. She sighed peacefully, and yawned.
"I think - I think I might go to sleep now," she murmured. "Thank you."
She felt Evander's comforting arm close around her shoulders, and leaned against him. The voices became no more than a distant hum, and she slipped away into silence.
*
When she awoke it was to find herself deliciously warm and comfortable, and for a few moments she imagined herself back in the single bed of her childhood, but when she opened her eyes she saw the blue-and-gold of an awning overhead, and breathed the intoxicating, creamy scent of the blossom.
She glanced about her, feeling somehow certain that someone had been standing beside her whilst she slept, but there was nobody close by. She was lying on a long, wide pallet bed, underneath an enormous pale blue quilt, her head and shoulders lifted by huge, soft feather pillows. She gazed around her, and realised that the glade was edged by more than a dozen similar beds, shaded by the awnings, each one filled with a large, sleeping occupant. Most of them looked old to Susan, grey haired and frail, despite their size, with clawed hands resting on sunken chests. Tall figures moved between them, and at the farthest end a smiling old lady, with a long plait of very white hair, was being gently lifted on to an empty bed by two shaven-headed young men.
A three-legged table had been placed at her side, and a glass of water stood on it. Susan drank, thirstily, and when she set it down she felt that that the world had become sharper, as if her vision had been washed clean.
Her wrist had been wrapped in a narrow bandage, and she looked at it curiously, but there was no pain. She flexed it and bent her fingers, which moved freely, and with a sigh of pleasure, she laid it to rest on the top of the quilt, and closed her eyes again.
When she awoke for a second time it had grown dark, and flickering lanterns had been lit around the edge of the glade. Fireflies danced above each one, their bright sparkle making the light appear as if it were sprinkling, a tiny cascade of glittering specks. The evening air was cool, but not cold, and Susan pulled herself to sit upright.
A folded shawl had been placed on the table beside her, and she picked it up and pulled it around her shoulders. It enveloped her, as if she had been a child wrapping herself in her mother's evening wear, before leaning back against her pillows, content to sit and watch as the people around her slept or paced steadily across the open glade.
A young man saw her watching and padded softly across to her.
"Do you have everything you need?" he asked.
"Yes, thank you," Susan replied. "I feel much better now."
"Alwen asked if I would call him when you woke," the young man said, "Would you like to speak with him, or do you wish to sleep a little longer?"
"I'm awake now," Susan said. "Should I go and find him?"
The young man held out a hand towards her, as if to stop her trying to climb out of the bed.
"No, no," he said, smiling. "He will come to you. I think you are not completely recovered just yet. Please wait. I will call him."
He set off back across the glade, his pace as measured and unhurried as Alwen's had been, only to return a few minutes later, bearing a steaming dish which he set down beside her on the table.
"Alwen felt you might first be hungry," he explained. "The dish is a little large for a person of your size, perhaps, but it is the smallest we have. Eat first, and Alwen will bring wine afterwards."
He bowed slightly, and withdrew.
Susan had not realised that she was hungry, but the food smelled so tempting that she fell upon it with relief.
It was fried fish, pink and glistening, so well-cooked that it flaked into pieces as she cut it. Beside it lay some small, yellowish tubers, sweet to the taste. They were unfamiliar to Susan, and she thought perhaps they might have been a type of beet. The whole meal had been laid appetisingly on a dish of crisp green leaves, flavoured with some peppery spice, and served with a roll of soft, buttery bread, and was so remarkably satisfying that when she set aside her empty plate, she could almost have closed her eyes again. She was just leaning back comfortably against her pillows, when she saw Evander, followed at a slower pace by Alwen, who was carrying a tray with a jug and three painted cups, crossing the glade towards her.
Chapter Twelve
Evander had washed. He had brushed his hair, and he was wearing a clean shirt. His face lit up with a broad smile when he saw Susan watching him, and he bounded the last few steps towards her.
He pulled a stool out from underneath her bed and sat on it, taking her bandaged hand between his to examine it.
"Is it all right now? It looked terribly sore," he said, sympathetically. "I'm so sorry I couldn't mend it. Alwen had all sorts of ideas for things I could have done to help, but I hadn't thought of any of them. I'm so sorry."
"It isn't in the least sore," Susan said. "Thank you."
"It is still damaged," Alwen said, setting the tray on her table and beginning to fill the cups. "I can banish the pain, and I can make you well, but to set bone takes a little time. Far less time here, I think, than in any other realm, but still time. You will need to rest and take care of it for a few days at least. The bandage will remind you to treat it gently, and will hold it steady whilst it is weak. It will grow stronger soon."
He passed the cups to each of them. They were heavier than Susan was used to, and she struggled to grasp hers with her unbandaged hand. Alwen drew out a second stool, sitting straight-backed and upright beside her.
"It's very kind of you, Susan said, gratefully. "I don't really know how I did it. I suppose I must have fallen."
Alwen shook his head.
"I think you have become very good at not remembering unhappy things," he said. "It is time for that to stop. Forgetting has become your shield and your sword against fear and pain, and it is a weapon that will turn on you in the end. This is the time to set it down."
Susan felt a hot whisper of anxiety begin to rise in her throat.
"I - I don't know what you mean," she said, taking a sip of her wine to hide her confusion. The wine was hot, and sweet, and the taste reassured her a little. She looked down at her hands.
"You do know," Alwen persisted. "You have allowed your thoughts to become a torment to you, little one, and you have smothered and silenced them. Tell me now how you hurt your wrist, and how you have come here."
Susan was silent. Images swam through her mind, and she closed her eyes as if she could shut them out. She took another mouthful of wine.
"I - I don't know," she began. "I - I fell."
"You do know," repeated Alwen. "Every time you say that you don't, you are telling a lie to yourself. Tell me about the fall. Tell me that you know what happened to you."
Susan looked up and met his gaze. She swallowed. For a moment she hesitated, and then took a deep breath.
"I do know," she agreed, slowly. "I was in my kitchen. In the cottage. The professor's cottage. Mr. Lefay wanted me to tell him about something - something - I don't really know what it was. I felt as though he was looking at me, as if he could see me - really see me, I mean. As if I was bare. As if every dreadful thing I'd ever done was laid out in front of him, and he was - contemptuous. He was laughing. I wanted to die. I wanted to run away and hide, but there wasn't anywhere to hide, and he kept seeing more and more, and laughing. I can still hear it now."
Her voice broke, and she stopped. Evander and Alwen exchanged glances.
"Go on," said Alwen, gently. Susan took another mouthful of the hot wine, and felt it soothe her a little.
"I thought he was going to - to beat me. I tried to get away, and I fell," she said. "That was when I hurt my wrist. Then he - he took hold of it and twisted it. He made me take him upstairs. He wanted my brother's rings."
"I told you about Lefay," Evander said to Alwen. "He's a dangerous man. A kvalara has him completely in its grip." He turned back to Susan. "Was that the first time he hurt you?" he asked. "Did he do anything else?"
Susan nodded.
"I'd forgotten. He only talked to me at first, but when I couldn't answer he held my hand. This hand, the - the broken one. While he talked - he hurt me. I don't know how. He just touched my hand, and it hurt, all the way through my wrist and my arm. It hurt terribly."
"Which is why your wrist snapped a few moments later," Alwen said, grimacing. He looked at his brother. "And where, exactly, were you when this was happening?"
"Locked outside," Evander replied, grimly. "He closed the door. I couldn't get in. Then someone must have opened the kitchen window, and I went straight up the stairs after them."
"Why did he want the rings?" Susan asked. "He said they were his, but I can't see how they could have been. They were with my brother's things. When he - when he -"
She broke off.
"Finish," said Alwen, simply. "If something is too terrible to speak, it stays inside your soul and becomes a poison. It grows more terrible still. Tell me."
"They were with my brothers' things after the train crashed and killed them," Susan said, and it felt as though the words had released her tongue. The words came faster now, tumbling over one another in their haste to be out. "I don't know why they had them, or what they were, or even if they were really theirs. We hadn't spoken.
"Tell me, was this the first time Lefay had tried to reach into your thoughts? Have there been other times?"
"I - I don't know," Susan said slowly.
"You do know."
"There was one other time," Susan admitted. "The fire went out, and I had no matches. He came in to light it for me. I didn't want him there."
"He wasn't able to enter the house unless its owner invited him," Evander put in. "It was guarded. Even her husband couldn't have admitted him. The cottage is Susan's, and only she could say who came and went. Nobody could pass the threshold unless she wished it."
"Except you?" Alwen asked.
"Not even me," Evander said. "By great good fortune she'd invited me. She tried to get me to come in half a dozen times, and I thought I might save the invitations until I needed them."
"Where was your husband?" Alwen asked. "How could Lefay find you alone and not fear for his return?"
"He's away," Susan said, dully. She did not want to think about Daniel. "There was a job. Miles away in London. It was too important to be missed. He doesn't want to be at the cottage."
Alwen looked at Evander again.
"Was this real, or some contrivance of Lefay's doing?" he asked. Evander shook his head.
"I don't know. Lefay had his fingers on it, I think. I saw him talking to Hamilton outside the cottage more than once. I wasn't close enough to hear, but it was more than just talk. I think he was probing him."
"I really don't understand what you are talking about," Susan said, glancing from one to the other anxiously. "Please tell me what has happened? Why did Mr. Lefay want the rings?"
Alwen sighed. Then he turned to Susan and took her good hand in his large one.
"We are talking of a determined and forceful theft," he said. "This Lefay has contrived to circumvent all of your protections, both physical and magical. He may have conspired to create an opportunity whereby your husband could safely be removed from your home. He made his way past the guardians who sheltered your house. In consequence, he now has the rings, and is gone. On his way, I don't doubt, to the Syon mountains to share his triumph."
Susan shook her head.
"What is important about the rings?" she asked. "They were my brother's. What mattered so much?"
"They were not your brother's," Alwen said, "although it could be that he knew of their purpose, maybe even meant to use them for himself. We know that for many years they haven't moved. They were buried, hidden underground somewhere. Then somebody, maybe your brother, dug them up and carried them away."
"That was when we were warned about it," added Evander. "Then the accident happened, and they were left alone again, probably at the hospital. Nobody touched them for almost a year. Then a man came and brought them to your cottage. "
"Daniel," said Susan. "I didn't want to see their things. You say my brother might have meant to use them, but surely not. What for? Why would he have wanted them?"
Alwen sighed again. He turned to the table and refilled their cups from the jug. He took a mouthful from his and set it down.
"We don't know that," he said. "Evander thought, at first, that you might know, and that you might be meaning to use them now they had become yours, but after he had watched you for a while of course he could see that you weren't, that you didn't know anything about them at all. They're very old. Not the rings themselves. The stuff that they're made from. It is ancient, and sacred, and powerful."
Chapter Thirteen
Susan looked curiously from one to the other. Alwen watched her for a moment, and seemed to reach a decision.
"I will tell you about them," he said. "You can drink your wine and listen, and be spared any more explanation and difficult memories for a little while. The rings your brother carried were made of a sacred ash, of burned branches from the Living Tree. You will have stories of it even in your world, although it goes by many names. It is called Yggdrasil, the Sidra al-Muntaha, the Tree of Life. It doesn't matter what you call it, it stretches between the realms, and almost all peoples have seen at least a glimpse of it."
"Once, years ago, our ancestors lived in your world," Evander explained, "in the days when it was young. The veorldura weren't in the heavens then. They had real, solid bodies as well, a bit like ours, and some of them took wives from among people, human people. Obviously that sort of thing couldn't happen now, it must have been very different then."
"What is - what is a Veorldura?" asked Susan.
"A veorldur," Alwen corrected her. "Veorldura are the servants of the Great One. The Guardians, the Mighty Ones. They guard and protect the realms. They move only in the heavens now, they do not take shape and form the way we do."
"The children born to them were human," Evander added, "but more than human as well. They were taller, and beautiful, but they also had a little of the power the Great One gave to the veorldura. They could see one another's thoughts and understand one another without words."
"How frightening," Susan said, thinking of Mr. Lefay. Alwen shook his head.
"It is a gift both wonderful and terrible," he said, "and still it is more precious than any other in the hearts of all people. We want nothing more than to be seen and understood, and when there is no-one to see into our hearts, we are desolate. It is the greatest gift of all."
"Well, those were our people, the half-veorldura" Evander added. "We were a great island nation in your world. Until we came here."
"What happened?" Susan asked. "How did they manage to come here?"
Evander glanced at Alwen.
"It's only a legend really," he said. "It might not be true for all I know, and it was at least two hundred years ago, by our time, and the time in your world is different again. The story is that their country was a beacon of light for the world, beautiful and prosperous and fair and just, blessed by the Great One in everything, the way things are in stories. Then one day the Kvalar turned his gaze towards them. He began to whisper to them, and they listened. Instead of paying attention to the words of the Great One, they started doing dreadful things. I don't really know what they were. I suppose slavery and punishments and torture and cruelties, that sort of thing. Injustices. Unfairness. They saw other countries, where people were just ordinary people, not veorldur-born, and they thought they were primitive and stupid and decided to conquer them. Of course conquering was easy, because they had the power to read thoughts. They could see fear and lies and betrayal whilst they were just ideas in a man's soul."
"Eventually they became servants of the Kvalar," Alwen continued. "He promised they could rule over all the other people, and they began to raise an army,"
His voice became sonorous as he intoned what Susan saw was a familiar story.
"They invaded other lands and dragged hundreds of people back in chains to slave in their mines and kitchens and farms. Eventually they would have conquered them all, until there was nobody left but them and their slaves, but the Great One saw, and moved to stop them. He called to a good man called Knoh-Ur, whose family had always been gentle and honest and fair, and warned him that he was going to send a great flood to destroy the whole nation. He told Knoh-Ur that he and his kindred would be spared, and anybody else who was faithful and true, as long as they would listen and obey him.
"Then he took Knoh-Ur to the very foot of the Living Tree, Yggdrasil, whose branches stretched through all of the nine realms. Knoh-Ur knelt there for a year and a day, beseeching the Living Tree to hear him, until in the end the Tree took pity on him, and it cast down two burning branches. Knoh-Ur waited until the branches had all burned away, and then gathered the ash."
"There were two sorts of ash," Evander explained, "from two different realms, One sort was a branch from this realm, right at the foot, the tree's own realm, and the other from one at the very top. He had to keep them separate, because each sort of ash would take a man into its own realm when it touched his skin."
"Then how did he collect the ash without getting taken somewhere else?" Susan wanted to know.
"I don't know, he wore gloves, I suppose," Evander said, absently. "The story doesn't mention that. Anyway, Knoh-Ur took the ash back to the city and warned the people that The Great One was going to destroy them, but that he would spare anyone who was sorry for their wickedness and wanted to begin again. They were going to sail off on a huge boat - I don't know where he got it from, they take an awful long time to build, so I don't suppose he built it, since he'd just spent the last year kneeling underneath the Tree - and take a chance in a new world, where they could live freely. Obviously hardly anybody did."
"Why not? asked Susan, surprised.
"Oh, for the same reasons probably people wouldn't now," Evander said. "It isn't easy to leave everything behind - your home and everything that matters to you - and go off and start again. Especially just on the word of some chap who's telling you that he's heard it from the Divine Being. You probably wouldn't."
"Couldn't they - couldn't they see it in his thoughts?" asked Susan, curiously. "Surely they must have seen it there and believed him."
"They could see that he believed it," Evander said. "They knew he wasn't telling lies. That isn't the same as being right. Anyway, lots of people had lots of wealth, and power, and slaves, and all sorts of things, there in Atlantis, and didn't want to leave."
"Atlantis," Susan said, wonderingly. "I've heard of that."
"It was a part of your world, once," Alwyn said.
"Knoh-Ur gathered all of the people who wanted to come with him," Evander continued, "and gave them all a small handful of Yggdrasil's ashes to keep safe and hidden. He told them not to touch them until he gave the word. Then there was a huge fight because Knoh-Ur wanted to free the slaves, so that they wouldn't be trapped in the flood. That turned pretty nasty. Some slaves were killed, some were freed but wouldn't go on the boat and escaped on small boats on their own. Some even preferred to stay with their masters. Lots of the Atlanteans were killed, although it was a fairer fight than they'd had in the countries they'd invaded, because they were fighting their own kind.
"Anyway, in the end they all - the ones who survived - got on the great ship and sailed away. Then The Great One gave the word, and they all put their hands on the grains of ash and vanished. Apparently the ship just drifted back to Atlantis, completely empty, and everybody left on Atlantis started to panic, wondering what had happened to them. They all got scared then, and started to fight one another."
"How horrible," Susan said.
"The men and women who had been on the ship found themselves in Yggdrasil's country, in the woods," Alwen continued, as his brother took a mouthful of wine, "and then they could not agree what to do. They knew there were two sorts of ash, the sort from the roots of the tree, which just brought you to the Foot of Yggdrasil, where you arrived today. The rest was from the topmost branches and wanted to fly away, to reach for the sky, to go further and further upwards and outwards. Well, everybody wanted to do something different. Some wanted to try the other sort of ash and travel onwards. Others wanted to explore the woods and see what was beyond them.
"Anyway, they could not agree, and so in the end they separated. Some took the other ashes and disappeared, through the pools I think, and nobody alive now knows what happened to them. The others walked on and on until they came to the great river. Then some built boats and set sail, and yet others followed the shoreline towards the West, in the direction of the Mountains. Our people - us - are descendants of the ones who sailed. They landed here on this island and built the city."
Susan considered.
"I still don't understand how this involves Mr. Lefay," she said. "I can see the rings must have been made of the ashes somehow, but I don't see how they can possibly have got to us. To England, all this time later."
"I don't suppose we'll ever know," Alwen said. "Our people had left your world behind. There are stories, but they're tales for children, not history."
"I always loved the stories of your world, Evander said wistfully. "It seemed such an exciting place, with real battles to be fought against a real enemy. Nothing so thrilling ever happens here. My father told us that in the final battle an Atlantean who should have sailed was run through with a sword. He knew the sacred ash could take him to safety but he didn't understand how. As he lay dying he gave his little box of ashes to a slave girl and told her to flee in any way that she could. She took the box - sometimes Father said that she stole it - and she escaped in one of the small boats, which stopped at some of the smaller islands and eventually landed up on the mainland. Some ashes were spilled in a cave, he used to say, which also became a gateway for a while and there's a whole book full of stories about people coming and going through it at times - but the box with the rest was taken further and further inland until the slaves either got back to their original homelands or just started a new settlement of their own."
"In the story where she stole the box, she drowned not long afterwards," Evander said. "My mother used to tell us that one so we would understand that stealing things never leads to anything good. Especially sacred things, I should think. Perhaps when she drowned somebody else took it. Even Lefay knew that. He didn't want to steal the rings. He wanted Susan to give them to him, although he stole them anyway when she wouldn't."
"Perhaps," Alwen agreed. "The important thing is the slaves escaped back to the mainlands of your world, and with them a box of sacred ashes that could carry a man between the realms. They didn't go back to live among your people. Atlantis had changed them. Some of them were half-Atlantean themselves, and some of the women had half-Atlantean babies. They were a race apart for a long time. The ordinary people were afraid of them. They called them elves, or faery, or even thought they were Gods, and hid from them."
"In the end the half-Atlanteans probably learned to hide what they were," Evander said. They must have found husbands and wives among your people, and in the end they went back to living the way their ancestors had. Some kept their Atlantean ways, though, and there are legends about families where the Atlantean strain ran true for many generations, and they met terrible ends when people worked out what they were. They thought they were witches, and hunted them down. Some they burned alive."
"I expect Lefay is of that sort of heritage," Alwen said. "His family has kept the story alive when the rest of the world has forgotten."
"It isn't quite forgotten," Susan said. "I had heard of Atlantis, although I didn't know what happened there."
"The Great One destroyed it," Alwen said. "It was cast beneath the sea, never to rise again."
Chapter Fourteen
Susan sat still for a moment, imagining a home being slowly filled by cold, relentless waters whilst its inhabitants shrieked and tried to flee. She shuddered. Alwen put his hand gently on hers.
"It was long ago," he said, "and we must trust that none perished who had not themselves been guilty of far greater cruelties."
He rose to his feet.
"It is enough story-telling for one night. We will talk more tomorrow. You should sleep. Nothing heals broken bones and hearts like sleep."
"I can't stay here tomorrow. I have to speak to Vanir," Evander said. "Still, I hope I shall be back by evening. Perhaps we could eat together after sunset."
Alwen nodded.
"Then we shall. I will want to hear what Vanir has to say." He reached his hand out and touched Susan's forehead with the tips of his fingers. "May you have a peaceful night, little one."
He returned the three cups and Susan's plate to his tray, and the two brothers walked slowly away across the dark glade. Susan watched them go, suddenly feeling both grateful and affectionate towards them, and biting back a wish to disturb the silence by calling out her thanks.
She did not sleep immediately. Instead she lay in blissful comfort and watched the dark shapes that slowly paced around the edges of the glade, stopping here and there at a bedside, at peace in the cool evening air. She yawned, but the feeling of contentment was so profound that she could hardly bear to allow herself to slip away into sleep. Eventually, almost despite herself, her eyes closed, and as she began to drift away, she became aware of a gentle music, lilting harmoniously between the trees, so soft as to be almost beyond hearing. Maybe a harp, she thought, settling into her pillows and closing her eyes.
She awoke with a jump a little while later, feeling certain that somebody had been calling her name. She sat up and stared about her, but nobody was to be seen. The lamps had burned very low, and it was too dark to make out anything other than the humped shapes of the other occupants of the glade, sleeping on their pallet beds. Nobody moved.
She sighed, and settled back against her pillows, but had barely closed her eyes when she heard the murmur of her name again.
She caught her breath and sat upright, staring wildly around her, for the voice had almost seemed familiar.
"Who is it?" she whispered, afraid to wake her neighbours. "Who's there?"
A soft touch on her shoulder frightened her so much she almost screamed. Catching her breath before the cry escaped her, she turned sharply, searching the darkness for the invisible speaker.
"Do not make any sound," a voice murmured, and it seemed to Susan that the speaker must be right beside her ear, but there was nobody there. She stared into the shadowy night, her heart beating wildly.
"Sit very still," the voice advised softly. "I am beside you. You cannot see me."
"Who are you?" Susan gasped. "Come out where I can see you."
She shivered. Even as she spoke the words, a shape had begun to form in the gloom, as if an oily mist had begun to draw itself together to form a shape even blacker than the dense shadows which surrounded it. It brought with it an icy chill that made her shrink away from it, and a faint, sickly odour. She blinked and stared, her eyes widening as she tried to make it out, but without success. Then slowly it began to shape itself into a man-shaped silhouette, so close that it was almost touching her.
"You see me now," the voice breathed. "I am with you. Do not make a sound. They must not know I am here. Lean back as if you are sleeping, and I will speak to you."
Susan hesitated for a moment before she obeyed, unfolding herself reluctantly back against her pillows without taking her eyes off the dark figure. Try as she might, she could not make out its features. She rubbed her eyes.
"Who are you?" she asked again. "What do you want?"
There was a small sigh, and she felt the figure shift, although the movement might have been no more than the swirling of fog on a winter night.
"I am from your own home," the voice murmured. "I am come to guard and guide you until we can bring you safe back again. Listen to my words, and trust me."
"From home? From England?" Susan asked, forgetting to whisper in her surprise. "But how can you be? How did you get here? Did you come with the rings?"
"Hush!" the figure hissed, and it seemed that the mist quivered, sharply, at the sound of its voice. "I was carried here by your serving-man, when you travelled through the pools. I have come to warn you that you must be wary of the giants. They are renegades, traitors and betrayers, whose forefathers first enslaved your people with terrible cruelties, and then abandoned them to certain death when they fled. Do not trust them."
"What do you mean?" Susan asked, feeling her heart beginning to thud. "Mr. Lefay isn't my serving man. And everyone here is being kind to me. I don't think you need to - "
"Indeed, and so they will be, whilst they must," the voice agreed softly. "But they are deceiving you. They are leading you towards terrible peril, for you and for all of your race. You must not follow them."
"I don't believe you," said Susan, stoutly. "You must be wrong. I can't imagine they would do that."
The voice sighed again, a tiny exhalation of breath, as a weary teacher confronted by an ignorant child.
"Already they have lied to you, and more than once," it said. "Remember the giant - who first pretended to be a cat in order to spy on you even in the most secret places of your own home - hid his great size from you for as long as he could. Even when he could no longer disguise himself in the unwilling body of a helpless creature, he prevented you from seeing his true shape. And do you know if even now you are seeing their true forms? Do not trust them. Beneath a fair face anything might lurk."
Susan stared into the darkness, unable to contradict this.
The voice continued.
"You must be on your guard," it insisted, quietly. "The giants are planning to seize the rings for their own use. The rings will enable them to travel between all the realms, to our own realm, Susan Hamilton, once again to enslave and conquer. Their people yearn for the mastery they once had, and the rings will give it to them. They will not stop even at your murder if they believe it will bring them closer to their ends."
Susan peered into the darkness.
"Who are you?" she asked, trying to keep her voice from betraying her fear. "Why have you come here? Everything you are saying sounds - possible, I suppose, but I - it doesn't feel right. I don't believe it. I don't know anything about you. Tell me what you are doing here."
There was a quiet sigh from beside her, and the voice began to speak.
"I think you know me well, Susan Hamilton," it said. "I am of your own world. I am the faithful servant of the One Master, he who guards and guides our world, and who has always known you. He was there when your brothers and sister closed you away from their love. He was there when you sobbed in the silence of your bedroom at school. He was there when your mother left you weeping and alone in the night. In all those times He taught you to know Him. He saw your pain, and He knew the heat of the anger that still burns in your chest. One day together we will fan it into a flame, and all of your sorrows will be avenged."
In the dark the shade shifted restlessly and its voice took on a more distant quality. "Know that He has been there always, since before the dawn of time. I will be always at the side of my Master, for once - once - He was the Morning Star, and shall be so again."
Susan listened to the soft, murmuring voice, and bit her lip uncomfortably. Her breath felt tight in her chest.
"I don't understand," she whispered. "I don't understand - and I think perhaps you might be a dream. If your master was the Morning Star once, who is he now?"
"Himself," the shadow replied, and Susan shivered.
"I don't believe a word of it," she said, suddenly, grasping her courage. "What you're saying may be true but I - I don't trust you. It doesn't feel right. I don't know what you're doing here, but I'm quite sure you shouldn't be here at all, and I think - "
In the dark, the shape reached towards her, and Susan felt an icy grip clench around her injured wrist. It was cold and hard, without the yielding flesh of fingers, as if her hand had been encircled in stone, and she caught her breath as a shock of pain pulsed along her arm.
"They cannot heal you, Susan Hamilton," the voice breathed. "You have been hypnotised by their lies. They have lulled you into trusting them, so they might command your willing obedience, but your injuries are real, and beyond their reach. See, my gift to you -" and she thought the voice held an edge of laughter - "I give you the power to see past their enchantments and to feel it once more. Your pain will stop you drifting into their control, it will keep you awake and alert to their lies. Obey my commands and it will fade. Disobey and it will be an unbearable agony. Hear me - " the voice took on an insistent quality - "They must not gain the rings, or all will be lost. My master does not want these giants invading our realm - our home, Susan Hamilton, the place where we have always been safe since they were banished here. They will come, I tell you, and they will grind your people into the dust beneath their boots. Do not aid them. Do not help them to crush our world to their will. The rings must stay with our faithful servant, who is fleeing beyond their reach to the mountains even as we speak, where he will raise an army of our warriors to overcome them."
It paused for a moment, as if savouring the thought.
"You must not allow yourself to be taken to their false god Vanir. He loathes and fears all creatures not of his own realm. Once they have the rings they will have no more need of you, and then -" the voice took on an almost loving, lascivious note, enunciating the words with a drooling satisfaction - "he will have the giants strip you and bind you on his altar, where you will be sacrificed to feed his hunger for blood and the tearing of human flesh. This is his way, and so it has been since the earliest days. Fear him. There is a bloody knife in your future, Susan Hamilton. "
Susan shuddered, trying to wrench her hand free from the crushing grip. She glanced down at it, and with a cold drench of fear, realised that nothing was touching it. She gulped.
"Please. Please let go of me," she began, in a small, wavering voice, but a hiss from the voice cut her short.
"You are unwise, and easily led," it said, in a gentler tone. "Listen to those with greater understanding. Give me your word that you will obey my commands when I come to you. Pledge your faith and you will have nothing to fear."
Susan shook her head.
"I can't promise that. I don't know what to think. I - " she was beginning to say, when a jolt of white-hot pain tore through her arm, an agony that almost jerked her off the bed. She would have screamed, but her voice seemed to have dried away, and no sound escaped her parted lips, merely a long exhalation of breath as her body twitched and twisted in a futile attempt to escape.
After a long, long moment, the pain slowly began to fade, leaving her whimpering and nursing her arm. She stared into the shadows in horror.
"Perhaps you will now recall that you and your people are my master's to command," the voice continued, silkily, as if it were caressing the words. "I will be with you long after you have returned to my master's own realms, where He is lord of all, and you will be at His mercy, his to do with as He pleases. Think, foolish girl. Do you think He will be quick to forgive if you have failed Him? You are His, His for all of time, like all of your race, and you will not forget to obey."
Susan clutched her arm to her chest. It felt heavy, and numb, as if the cold stone grip that had enclosed it was there still. She stared at it for a moment, and tried to twist her fingers. The movement sent pain lancing down her arm. She stared into the darkness.
"Think also on this," the voice added, and even though Susan could see nothing of the speaker, she knew that it was smiling. "Already you are deeply in His debt. Your husband owes his success to my master's gift. Do you think such a conceited fool could have been chosen for success by his own merit? It was a gift from my master, and at your disobedience it will slip away from him like the dew at morning. He will be disgraced, his pride shattered at his feet. His heart will be broken, by the undutiful hand of one who cared nothing for preserving his dignity, his honour, his strength and courage. He will pay a heavy price."
Susan ached to put her hands over her ears, but the the pain in her wrist prevented her.
"I don't want to listen!" she whispered, feeling tears begin to spill down her cheeks. "I don't want to hear - and I don't - I don't believe you. That is - I do believe you, but I don't care. Go away! I tell you to go away. You have no place here. Leave me alone."
There was a silence.
Several minutes passed before Susan opened her eyes and realised that she was alone. She felt light headed, and rather dizzy, as if she had been spun around and flung outwards, only to find herself landing safely in her bed. She blinked confusedly into the dark, straining her eyes for any movement in the silent shadows, but there was none. The odour, and the dreadful chill, if she had not imagined them, had faded away into the night, and she was alone.
Her wrist throbbed painfully. Her first impulse was to shout for help, to call Alwen and ask if he could ease it a little, but she hesitated. To make a fuss would only disturb people, as if she were trying to draw attention to herself in the middle of the night, waking everybody up for - for what?
She stopped and considered. Perhaps in any case it would be better to keep silent. She did not believe for a moment that either Alwen or Evander planned to do her harm, but they might not have any great say in the matter. She was alien here, otherworldly and uninvited. What if there was some terrifying priestly clan lurking in the shadows, truly ready to carry her away and offer her to some savage local deity.
She thought about it, and shook herself. Surely it could not be true that this place, this beautiful, gentle place, could be secretly hiding terror and blood-sacrifice savagery. It could not be.
Then another thought occurred to her. Probably - very probably - she had been given drugs to ease the pain in her arm, and perhaps they had been the cause of evil dreams. Perhaps she had imagined the whole encounter.
She looked around for a moment, trying to gather her thoughts. A fresh stab of pain burst through her wrist, and she bit her lip.
It was a dream, she told herself. A nightmare. The drugs wore off and now my wrist hurts. Of course that is what it would be. It would be inconsiderate to wake everybody up over - over a ridiculous fuss. I need to go back to sleep. Perhaps I should think about it again in the morning.
She closed her eyes, but for a long time sleep evaded her. The shadow, and its malevolent whisperings seemed to have soiled her somehow, and the pain in her wrist pulsed incessantly. She thought of Daniel, and home, and wanted to weep.
"It won't matter if he does lose his job," she thought, suddenly feeling fierce. "I'd help him not to mind. He'd find something else. He's clever and - and good at what he does."
Is he? a treacherous part of her wondered. Resolutely she closed her mind to the thought, Daniel was a good man, she told herself, and a sensible one. He would be all right. He would. They would manage, between them, whatever happened. She had enough money. He would learn not to mind.
It was the last thing she remembered. When she opened her eyes again it was to the warmth of the sunshine, dappling across the open glade.