A Bright and Terrible Sword Read online

  Maggie was imprisoned in Galtryf, without our son.

  I inhabited a moor cur …

  Would Jago and Leo and the others realize what had happened? I thought not. They didn’t know – no one knew – that the arts of the web women and those of the hisafs were not so far apart as either group, in their arrogance, imagined. I didn’t think Jago would realize that I had crossed into the moor cur. More likely, they would assume that I had found some unfathomable way to penetrate the barrier that was Galtryf Keep and had crossed over as Roger, as myself. Not in body but in essence, as hisafs used to do. Perhaps they would try the same thing. Perhaps they would keep my body alive in the hopes that it might yield some clue about what I had done, and how. I could hope.

  But if a hisaf walking in the Country of the Dead caught even a glimpse of a silver-backed moor cur, the Brotherhood might deduce the truth. I could not stay here, not this close to Galtryf. In fact, I could not stay at all in the Country of the Dead. The grey dogs were here, and they might scent me. I had to cross back over to the land of the living. Besides, my belly rumbled with hunger.

  But first, there was something I must do.

  Raising my head, standing erect on my four legs, I sniffed the wind. No scent of man. How did I know that? I don’t know, but I knew it. The senses of the moor cur body were freely available to me, as were its limbs and jaws and ears that caught every sound. But of its mind, there was no trace. I could not feel it. For that, I was grateful. If I were to survive this most extreme strangeness, I needed all my wits, without distraction.

  The body moved easily under my command. Every sense alert, I trotted back towards Galtryf, the centre of all strangeness.

  On this side of the grave, it was not a castle at all. Instead of a ruined pile of stone, there loomed a … a darkness. Denser than fog, the darkness seemed solid, and yet it shifted subtly as I watched from a safe distance – or what I hoped was a safe distance. Flecks of silver seemed to appear and then disappear in the blackness. My hackles rose. The thing reminded me powerfully of Queen Caroline’s eyes: black with submerged flecks of silver, like the shifting of stones under dark water.

  No longer did it seem so bizarre to me that a hisaf could not cross over from Galtryf Keep into this structure of darkness. The thing looked impenetrable. Solid yet shifting, neither alive nor dead, neither grave nor landscape … I did not know what it was. Nor did I want to know. I wanted only to be away from it.

  My moor cur’s body ran so easily! I covered a few miles in a random direction, until the empty plain gave way to a copse of stunted trees. I lay, panting, in the shade. My hunger had worsened. But in the Country of the Dead there was nothing to eat, for neither man nor beast.

  I crossed back over.

  The same woods, although not the same tree. Now I lay under a stunted pine, bent by the wind from the sea, which seemed closer here. The coastline must be altered. My moor cur’s ears pricked at the sound of distant waves. Salt wind blew in sharp gusts. A storm was blowing in from the sea.

  A rabbit hopped across the moor beyond, stopped to nibble at some green shoots.

  Nothing in me felt moved to follow it. But for the first time, I realized what eating would mean to me now. I, Roger, had none of the moor cur’s desires, or its tastes. Yet unless I wanted to starve, I must chase game, must kill it with my mouth, must devour it raw …

  I could not do it. I was not a moor cur, I was a man! I could not hunt like an animal, feel a helpless living creature’s blood fill my mouth, tear it apart.

  Yet I had done so with my sister Katharine.

  Something did not fit. I could remember killing her, but it was as if the deed had been done by someone else. And so it had. At that moment in the pit I had not been Roger Kilbourne but rather the moor cur. Just as in the moment I saw the female cur shot, I had been Roger, and so felt no mourning for the moor cur’s mate. Evidently I could shift back and forth.

  Again my belly ached with hunger.

  Cautiously I ventured from under the pine tree. The rabbit still nibbled on its shoots. It had not scented me; the wind blew in the other direction. I felt for the moor cur’s mind beside mine, but could not find it. Instead I willed my own to recede, using the same well image that had brought me here. But I must not crouch all the way back inside the well or I would be back in my limp, tranced body in Galtryf. Picture Roger glancing back towards the well, thinking of climbing back in, of abandoning this brain to the beast that it had originally—

  I found myself in the Country of the Dead.

  It took several more tries to get it right, while the wind blew harder and dark clouds raced in from the sea. Eventually I could control the crossings between the land of the living, the Country of the Dead, and the mind of the moor cur. By that time the rabbit had long gone, but I glimpsed a grouse seeking the cover of its nest in the bracken. I shifted my mind – for such it felt – to the back of the moor cur’s brain.

  The moor cur shot forward in pursuit of the bird, and caught it. With greed and satisfaction it tore the grouse apart and ate. I was there, too, but at a great distance, as if I were witnessing any bestial killing that had nothing to do with me. And when the moor cur had finished eating, I once again took command of it.

  Strangeness indeed. The bloody feathers blowing across the moor now sickened me. But there was no time for squeamishness; the storm began. Rain pelted me hard, mixed with hail. I ran back towards the little wood, until another sound froze me to taut stillness.

  Someone cried out.

  The growl deep in my throat was involuntary; perhaps I was not as in command of the moor cur as I thought! But I, Roger, realized this was not the cry of a hunter, nor even of a man. My ears swivelled to find the woman over the keening of the wind and the smashing waves below the cliffs.

  It was scent that eventually found her, not sound. And it was not a woman. She lay crumpled on the moor, soaked through, curled into a mewling ball that looked even more frightened when I appeared above her. It was Rawnie.

  17

  Terrified though she was, she would not have been Rawnie if she had not tried to attack. As I loomed above her, she pulled a carving knife, considerably more substantial than the one she had brought to my cell, and thrust it at me. A moor cur is much quicker than a child. I danced away.

  ‘I’ll kill you, I will!’ she screamed over the wind. ‘Go away!’

  I smelled bread, cheese, terror. How does a moor cur tell a child that he is not a moor cur? Rawnie had no soul arts to guide her to the truth – she had, after all, carried around a web woman guised as mouse for months and had never known it. Now she backed away from me, waving the knife feebly, sodden and screaming curses. Hail pelted her. When she tried to stand, she toppled over in a faint.

  Carefully I took the neckline of her gown in my teeth and tugged. The cloth was tightly woven and substantial; Rawnie’s pack had included but two dresses and Charlotte had sewn them to endure. I dragged Rawnie across the short stretch of moor to the relative shelter of the stunted trees. Then I went back for her little bundle. The faint had turned seamlessly into deep sleep. I lay atop her to keep her warm with my animal heat. There was no more I could do. If her bundle contained the means to build a fire, I could not use them.

  After a short time she woke, screamed, and shoved at me. I had had time to plan. I leaped off her, picked up her pack, and laid it at her feet. Still screaming, Rawnie groped frantically for her knife, taking a full minute to realize that a moor cur does not ordinarily bring belongings to a shrieking child.

  Rawnie stopped shrieking. The wild burst of rain had also stopped. In the sudden silence under the dripping pines, we looked at each other. I touched my front paw to the ground once, stopped. Twice, stopped. Three times, stopped.

  Her eyes grew enormous. She shivered, with either fear or cold. But neither could stay her tongue for long. She whispered, ‘Are you a witch?’

  I moved my head from side to side: No. The motion felt stiff and odd in this moor
cur’s body.

  ‘Are you a dog hisaf?’

  No.

  ‘Then what the by damn piss-pots are you?’

  There was no way to tell her, or at least no way I could think of. And her fertile mind had darted on. ‘Where is my knife?’

  I trotted out of the copse and onto the moor, found the knife, and mouthed it gently by the handle. When I dropped it at her feet, she seized my neck and looked deeply into my eyes.

  ‘You’re a person, aren’t you? I heard Mama talking once with Papa, they thought I was upstairs asleep, they said that some witches can change to … I didn’t believe them. Daddy likes to tease, to tell me things that aren’t true to see if I can figure them out, but … are you a witch?’

  No.

  ‘You’re not lying to me?’

  No.

  ‘I better not discover you’re lying to me!’

  No. My neck was getting tired of shaking side to side.

  ‘But there is a person in there, yes? You’re really a person?’

  Yes!

  ‘Are you Papa?’

  No.

  ‘Leo?’ She scowled. ‘Because if you’re Leo, I’m going to slice you into little pieces!’

  No.

  ‘Lord Jago?’

  No.

  ‘Well, I know you’re not Joan ’cause she can’t leave Galtryf or she’ll die. She told me. She was here way too long, years and years, and if you stay that long you can’t leave. She set me free, though, so that she “does not lose yet another child to evil”. That’s what she said, but I don’t know what it means. So you’re not Joan?’

  No. If there is anything odder than playing Trumpet-The-Name with a shivering child while trapped in the body of a moor cur, I hope I never encounter it in this life or the next.

  Rawnie frowned. ‘I must make a fire, I’m so cold, damn there’s no dry wood anywhere … go fetch, boy! Find some dry wood!’

  I was not a dog. Rage filled me that she, my little half-sister whom I had just rescued from freezing, should try to use me as one. That she considered a fire more important than my identity. That this damp and helpless child should be my only ally in impossible circumstances. My lips pulled back over my teeth, a low snarl escaped the back of my throat, and remorse for both of these made me lie down and whimper.

  Rawnie said, ‘Roger?’

  There is apparently more than one way to trumpet one’s name.

  By evening we had made camp. I had led Rawnie across the moor to the shelter of a shallow crevice in the side of a tor, beside a stream. With dry gorse twigs she laboriously built a fire. Never once did she stop talking.

  ‘I’m so cold, how much farther, Roger, it’s so weird to call you “Roger” when you’re a moor cur, I wish you could tell me how you got that way, do you think Mama misses me? I thought Papa would rescue us at Galtryf but I never even saw him so I guess he wasn’t there although Leo said he was but Leo lied a lot, I’m so cold! Oh, dry twigs, well it’s not all dry, is that the best you can manage? It’s a little wet where you slobbered on it, I suppose it’s hard carrying things only with your mouth, Roger how did you get to be a moor cur? The bad hisafs can only become dogs and then only on the other side. I’m not supposed to know that. I used to tease Papa to take me to the other side but he never would, I wasn’t even supposed to know about it but of course I do, and anyway Straik took me that one time, they treat me like a small child, I’m almost twelve already, by damn I’m cold! Oh, there goes the kindling, it’s caught now, you may have to bring more wood, only don’t slobber on it this time, all right? The fire feels so good, are you afraid of fire now that you’re a moor cur? No, I guess not, there you are lying beside it, Roger are you going to stay a moor cur for ever? Are you?’

  I lay close to the fire and willed her to shut up. It did not work.

  ‘When my clothes are dry I’ll fill the waterbag from the stream, Joan gave it to me along with the knife and those other things, she was crying when she helped me escape from Galtryf. I said I wouldn’t go without Mama but Joan said that Mama would want me to escape and I guess that’s true. Joan said three times that she would not lose another child to evil, I wish I knew what she meant, but once she called me “Cecilia”. Roger, do you know who Cecilia was?’

  For the first time, I was glad I could not speak.

  ‘I guess not, after all none of us ever met Joan before and you were in your cell, they brought your wife to you, didn’t they, or is she just your lover? She’s not as pretty as Mama. I saw her ride in on a wagon, even though by then Leo had me locked upstairs in this smelly stone room, that’s where Joan let me out of while everyone was somewhere else in the keep, I think something was happening but Leo said I should not see it. I wish you could tell me what I missed! Joan said my best chance was to walk south across the moor and hide if I heard anyone, until I reached the Unclaimed Lands and could find someone to help me rescue Mama. But something wasn’t right, Roger. I know you can’t just stroll into a stranger’s house and organize a rescue. Joan said that only so I would be willing to leave Mama and save my own life, because Jago did not intend to let any of us live long. He had the death-look on him – not his death, but the kind of man who loves death for other people. So I left, and I left Mama, and … oh Roger, should I not have? Did I desert her? Am I coward?’

  She burst into tears.

  It had not occurred to me that this spoiled, loquacious child could have her own doubts besetting her. Like most of the world, I had underestimated Rawnie. All I could do now was lay my head in her lap. She clutched my dirty fur and sobbed until she was cried out, then turned brisk and practical. All at once she reminded me of Maggie.

  ‘Well, crying doesn’t help, does it? We need to go on. The bread Joan gave me is all wet and ruined, but the cheese is still good. Do you want some? Do moor curs eat cheese?’

  No. I left her gnawing on a large chunk of yellow cheese and made my way back to the moor. There I shifted into the cur, caught and killed a fawn, and ate until my belly felt like a hard taut drum. No scent of man came to me on the wind. When I returned, Rawnie was asleep by the fire. I lay beside her, sleepy myself from exertion and food, but also filled with anxiety for Maggie. What would Jago do with her now that I had gone?

  Eventually I slept, and the dream that had deserted me in Galtryf came again. The same blurry swirl of colours, although not so blurry as before. Stephanie, too, seemed clearer, her thin little face pinched and drawn, although her gown was merely a shifting swatch of purple. ‘Roger,’ the princess said, ‘where do they go?’

  ‘Where do who go?’ I tried to say, but no words came.

  Stephanie looked puzzled. ‘Roger?’

  Then someone else was there, someone more solid, a source of comfort and food – how could that be? Mother Chilton had never fed me, not even once. How could she, I was only a moor cur – it was not Mother Chilton but rather someone else and—

  Then I was awake, lying close to Rawnie in order to warm her, and the stars had come out to shine through a small break in the trees. It was not yet dawn. I did not know what the dream meant. Where did who go? But the dream had nonetheless served a purpose. It decided me where I must go, which was to Mother Chilton, in the palace at Glory. She was the only other person who might recognize me for what I was. She knew my whole history. She knew where my son was. She was my only possible help in rescuing Maggie.

  Rawnie slept on. I sat beside her, scratched my haunch with my hind leg, sniffed the wind.

  ‘Everything has a cost, Roger Kilbourne – when will you learn that?’ But no cost was too great to get Maggie out of Galtryf. My last sight of her had been of her held above the pit, forced to watch me die, her sweet body bruised with her effort to save me. Maggie, my love and my life. I would do anything, risk anything. Galtryf was a fortress, but a ruined one; the Brotherhood was an army, but a scattered one. And within Galtryf no hisaf could exercise his gift. Inside the keep, the Brotherhood were merely men. Therefore, Galtryf could be taken
by a relatively small army of soldiers.

  Where was I going to get even a relatively small army?

  There was only one possible place: Glory. Mother Chilton was in the capital, teaching Princess Stephanie, and with her was that whole shadowy web of women who practised the soul arts. She had always helped me. She would help me now.

  She must.

  ‘No,’ Rawnie said.

  She had woken cold and cross. As she ate Joan’s provisions, offering me none, she appeared on the edge of tears. I gazed at her helplessly. Even as a man, I would not have known how to handle Rawnie. She was a child, with a child’s need for bed, dinner, warmth, safety. And I was a moor cur.

  ‘I won’t go anyplace with you until you tell me where it is! I have to rescue Mama. I can’t just leave her there with Leo and Lord Jago!’

  I barked at her.

  ‘Oh, stop that stupid noise! I can’t understand you, Roger. Where do you want to go? Here, draw it in the dirt – you can at least do that, can’t you?’

  With a half-consumed stick from the remains of the fire she scraped the forest floor clear of leaves. I put out a tentative paw, tilted so that only one of my claws touched the dirt, and drew … what? A wobbly tower with a triangle-shaped flag on top of it.

  ‘A boat? You want us to find a boat? With you like that?’

  I scratched a lopsided ring around the tower: the wall around the island of Glory.

  ‘A boat in a little pond? What good will that do?’

  A snarl of frustration burst from my furry throat.

  ‘Well, don’t growl at me, it’s not my fault you’re a stupid moor cur! Try again. And clearer!’

  I scratched a crude crown, and Rawnie caught her breath.

  ‘A crown! You want to go to court!’ And then, ‘But why?’

  It was far beyond my powers to draw an army.

  ‘No, wait, I can guess! You were at court once, weren’t you? Mama told me, although she wouldn’t tell me what you did there, only that you lost your hand in a fight. I was so jealous, Roger, I never got to go anywhere! So you must have been a soldier at court, yes? And you have soldier friends who will help us get Mama! All right, that makes sense. Except for one thing … I really have no finery to wear at court. This dress will not do.’