Home From the Sea: An Elemental Masters Novel Page 20

  Mari swallowed. “Things?”

  “Both of us, have, actually,” Sarah put in, and made a face. “I was just unwary enough to say something about it, when one jumped up in my face and tried to frighten me.”

  “Little wretch,” Nan grumbled. “Nasty little thing, like a wizened old man made out of a gorse-stump. Jumped right at her and then ran away laughing. Poor Sarah went over backwards and said something and then had to pretend that the sun had made her faint. And even so, that was enough for father to decide we needed to have some time at the seaside, and our friend Lord Alderscroft said he’d pay for it.” She hesitated. “And truth to tell, since no one else ever saw them… we were rather beginning to doubt if we were in our right minds.”

  “People already thought we were a bit odd because of the birds, and my blurting out about that gnome just made it worse. But that’s why we were watching you,” Sarah continued. “Because we happened to see you out on one of our walks, and we saw some of the same sort of creatures with you.”

  “And since you were talking to them, obviously they weren’t something we were seeing out of our own heads, and we weren’t actually going mad.” Nan let out a huge sigh of relief, although it was because Mari had suddenly relaxed, rather than a bit of acting. “So we’ve been watching you, just to be sure, you know, and when we were sure we decided to come down here and see if we could talk to you.” She held out her hand. “I’m Nan Lyon-White,” she said. “This is my sister Sarah.”

  Mari leaned over the cloth, and took it, shaking it firmly. “Mari Prothero,” she replied. “But that’s an English name, and you speak Welsh as good as anyone.”

  “We’re from over near the border, as you can probably tell from our horrid accents,” Sarah said, also shaking Mari’s hand.

  Mari looked from one to the other of them and back. The girl was, as Nan now knew, as typical a specimen of a Welsh female as could be; she was tiny, dark, with dark hair and eyes, and wearing the usual working-day outfit of scarlet flannel petticoat (just showing under her skirt), brown flannel gown, woolen skirt striped in black and brown, apron, woolen shawl, and a handkerchief folded and tucked into the top of her gown. She wasn’t wearing the frilly cap or the stovepipe hat that you saw in prints and photographs of Welsh women, though, nor the jacket that would have matched the skirt, and her feet were bare. But Nan and Sarah had found that there were not too many of those odd hats to be seen on ordinary days, only on Sundays, and then most often by much older women. So they had decided that since they were supposed to be from near the border, their own simple walking gowns would pass muster without going out and drawing attention to themselves by trying to buy Welsh dress.

  “Well then,” Mari said, as Sarah passed her ham and bread and butter. “I can tell you that you’re not mad, at least.”

  “But what are they?” Nan persisted. “We just started seeing them the last year or so, and there’s no one to ask!”

  Mari rolled her eyes. “There’s as many names for them as there are kinds,” she said. “Some are the Tylwyth Teg, and some are something called Elementals, and I haven’t sorted them all out myself. Some are good and some are bad, and some just like to make as much trouble for a body as they can, like that gnome.” She tilted her head to the side. “But for some reason, you’ve got a mark on you that says to leave you be, and it’s the mark of one of the High Ones of the Tylwyth Teg, and perhaps you can be telling how you got that?”

  Nan and Sarah exchanged a look, and Nan turned back to Mari to shrug. “It might be that boy we did a kindness for, right after we started seeing them,” she said, with hesitation in her voice. “I can’t think of any other reason.”

  “It was the strangest thing,” Sarah continued. “We found him standing in the middle of a meadow, acting like he wanted to leave and couldn’t. He didn’t speak to us—I don’t think he knew we could see him—but he was acting as if he was getting frantic. I thought—I thought I saw something like a line, a circle in the turf, all around him. Glowing. And I don’t know why I did this, but I knew I had to break it, so I scuffed my shoes in it until I kicked up some sort of powder under the grass, and that did it.”

  “I told him, ‘Try leaving now,’” Nan put in, “And that was when he realized we could see him, and he jumped over the break in the line as quick as quick. And then he said ‘My mark on you as thanks, pretty maids,’ and he just disappeared.”

  Mari’s eyes were big and round at this point. “Well! You made the right choice!” she said. “They don’t like to be beholden to anyone, and him wanting to discharge the debt right straight away probably made him give you that mark instead of something smaller, which he’d have bargained for if he hadn’t been in such a hurry.” She nodded. “Aye, I reckon that’s the case. And I think you two had better start studying the tales so you can watch for the things that would harm you but for that mark—because one day, one of them might decide to try anyway.”

  They both shivered, and it wasn’t feigned, because they knew very well that there were plenty of things out there that were deadly dangerous. They still didn’t know what it was that had haunted that abandoned house in Berkeley Square; it might have been the most powerful ghost they had ever encountered, or an inimical Elemental, or something old as Puck but wicked beyond belief. All they knew for certain was that it had tried to kill them and Memsa’b, and Sahib and Karamjit and Selim, and it had very nearly managed. “Sarah sees and talks to ghosts,” Nan said, after a moment. “She’s always been able to do that, but they—the ghosts—warned her not to talk about it a long time ago. Sometimes I can see them too. We wondered if being able to see ghosts was making us go mad and see things, or that maybe the ghosts were doing it to us so no one would ever believe us.”

  “Really?” Mari looked impressed. “I can’t do that.” Her face darkened. “I wouldn’t be surprised, though, if one of them decided to make you see the Elementals and all, just to get you out of the way. Idwal says that ghosts are rarely nice. Most of them want to hurt people.”

  Sarah nodded solemnly. “I haven’t seen very many that wanted to stay because they needed to help someone or they need to do something. Most of them either stay because they don’t know how to go on, or they are angry or bitter or vindictive. I don’t mind the ones that don’t know how to go on, because I can help with that. But the others…” She shuddered “The others are horrid.”

  “I’m glad I don’t see them,” Mari said decidedly. And suddenly, she smiled. “Thank you for the lunch. Would you like to stay? Idwal should be here soon, and he can probably help you more than I can.”

  “Oh could we?” Sarah said, gratefully. “That would be wonderful! We don’t know anyone here, and I miss my friends.”

  Grey chose that moment to climb down off Sarah’s shoulder and walk ponderously over to Mari. She looked Mari in the face, and said, imperiously, “Up!”

  “She wants you to pick her up,” Sarah explained, as Mari looked startled. With a wary look, Mari offered her hand.

  Grey stepped up onto it. “Shoulder!” she ordered. Hesitantly, and with a care for that beak, Mari let the bird transfer to her shoulder.

  Grey leaned down and began whispering in Mari’s ear. Mari’s eyes grew big.

  “Lord love you!” she exclaimed, looking at Grey. “I never!” She turned to look at Sarah. “You didn’t teach this bird to say all that, did you?”

  Sarah shook her head. “Grey is… special,” she said, finally. “Whatever she told you is in her own head. She’s helped protect me from ghosts, and other things, before. Neville is special too.”

  Mari turned again to look at the parrot. “Lord love you!” she said again.

  Grey just laughed in Sarah’s voice. “Down!” she ordered, and Mari transferred her to Sarah’s outstretched hand.

  Mari looked over at Neville, who was preening himself industriously. “I don’t suppose you have any advice,” she said, in tones that indicated she half expected that he did.

  Ne
ville looked at her and yawned. “Lovey stuff and nonsense is for girls,” he said dismissively.

  Mari stuck her tongue out at him. “Just wait till you decide you want a mate, boyo,” she told him. “Then it won’t all be for girls.”

  Neville went back to preening. Clearly he had his own opinion on the subject.

  When the four Water creatures arrived, Mari introduced them as Rhodri, Trefor, Niarl and Idwal, her teacher. All of them were surprised to see strangers with her, and shocked when she introduced them openly as Selch. Not that Nan and Sarah had any idea what a Selch was until Grey and Neville whispered the information in their ears.

  Only Idwal was close enough to have heard that at the time, and it was clear immediately that this was precisely what had happened, because he gave both birds a shocked look—then peered at them closely and nodded.

  After that, his attitude toward Nan and Sarah was not that different than his attitude toward his pupil.

  The other three, however, huddled up together, and did a lot of whispering and arguing among themselves while Mari related to Idwal the story that they had told her. Nan held her breath, hoping he did not have some magical way of telling that they had not told the entire truth.

  Evidently he didn’t. He listened and nodded, gave them a sharpish look when Mari spoke about Puck, and then nodded some more.

  “I can see the mark of the Land-Ward on you, truly,” he said at last. “And though our lord is the Sea-Ward, and he is often more prone to rage than the Land-Ward, none of the Great Warders is evil, nor inclined to evil—nor are they inclined to war with the other Wardens. Therefore, I take that mark to be the sign that your intentions here are good.”

  Nan let out her breath in a sigh of relief.

  “I also see no sign on you that you have the gift for magic,” he continued. “It is unusual that you can see the Elemental creatures. But perhaps this is merely that your ability to see spirits is so broad that it extends to the Elementals.”

  “That might be,” said Sarah, and shrugged a little. “It’s enough to know we aren’t going mad, actually.”

  He grinned a bit. “I can well understand this. Well, Mari has made you welcome. So, welcome you are. But if you will forgive us, it is time for her lessoning.”

  That wasn’t a hint, it was almost an order, and they hastily bid farewell to Mari and Idwal, while the other Selch continued to huddle and mutter—and as they walked back up the beach, stared after them. Nan could feel her neck prickle from the force of their stares.

  They didn’t talk freely until they were back in their cottage—and were sure there weren’t any Elemental creatures about.

  “That was a bit of a narrow escape,” Nan said, feeling as if she had just had a lesson in knife-dueling with Selim, one of the school’s guards.

  “I felt sure he would know we were… stretching the truth,” Sarah agreed, plopping gracelessly down into a chair and fanning herself.

  “Stretching it? Great Harry’s ghost, we deformed it so badly it hardly looked like its former shape!” Nan exclaimed. “Do you think maybe he actually knew that, and elected not to expose us to Mari? After all, we do have Puck’s mark on us.”

  “You could ask Robin yourself,” said Puck, poking his head in at an open window. “Especially if you still have some clotted cream about.”

  “Well,” Mari said, when the lesson was over, since she and Idwal were alone. “Do you think those two girls were telling the truth?”

  The other three Selch, who had gotten bored watching her learn to scry in a water bowl, had wandered off and not yet returned. It seemed a good time to ask such things.

  “I think…” Idwal pondered the question for a moment. “I think that if they are not, it is not because they intend any harm. In fact, I think they intend only good, and the Land-Ward’s mark upon them proves that.” He pondered more. Mari kept silent, as she was used to him thinking long on a question before he finished answering it. “I think the Land-Ward knows the truth, whatever it is, and is satisfied by it. Earth and Water are allies; he would never anger Llyr.”

  Mari nodded. “All right then. I got the feeling that some of what they told us was made right up, but it didn’t seem like they meant anything other than to have a reason to talk to us. And I like them, Idwal. I’d like to be friends.” Then she added, wistfully, “I haven’t got any friends but you and Da, not in the way that the girls in the village like Braith have friends. I know people, and they do think friendly toward us, but they aren’t actually friends.”

  Idwal smiled sympathetically. “’Tis hard for the mage—more hard in these days, I think, since you dare not be a mage where anyone can see and you dare not speak of it. My teacher’s teacher’s teacher said it was easier on the landfolk in the days long ago, when the mage was honored and sought out for her wisdom. And of course, it was easier for the Protheros, in the days when everyone knew of the Selch, and thought no harm that Selch brides came to the Prothero cottage.”

  “I suppose you’d know all about that,” she said, “Being immortal and all.”

  But to her surprise, Idwal threw back his head and howled with laughter. “Immortal? Don’t you remember what I told you? Do you forget it and now you take us Selch for the Tylwyth Teg, who do not die unless they are slain?”

  She blinked at him in confusion. “You aren’t immortal?” Yes, he had told her… but now that she knew him, and knew the power in him, it seemed strange that he wasn’t immortal.

  He shook his head. “As mortal as you—and never mind that Gethin spits that word at you as if it were a curse. We number the same years as we did when our kind walked on the land, neither more nor less than you. It is only that we can change, and are as much at home in the Water-realm as we are here in the Middle Earth.”

  Well that certainly answered any number of questions! “That’s why you need us? Land-people that is.” she hazarded. “That’s why you’ve been keeping the Bargain going even though it’s getting harder.” He nodded.

  “The Selch are not as fertile as we need,” he said. “We must replace our numbers, and that is easiest done with land-spouses. For we grow old and die, even as you do, and there are hazards in the sea as there are hazards on land. The orcas, the sharks… the great storms sometimes catch us unawares… and hunters, not knowing we are not seals.” He pondered again. “It is said that if we withdrew to the Water-realm entirely, taking ourselves from this place where there is iron that interferes with our magic, and there are strange machines now that we do not understand, and you land-folk use the sea to dispose of poison… it is said we would become more fertile on our own again.” He shrugged. “I do not know. It may be that one day it will no longer be an option, but a necessity. Many of the Tylwyth Teg began such a withdrawal centuries ago. It is why you no longer see the very Great Ones except for the Land-Ward; if you must see them, you must go to them.”

  “I—am not sure I understand you,” she replied, a more than a little confused.

  “I speak of those creatures that once walked among us,” he elaborated. “The ones often taken for gods. Those who are said to dwell beneath the hills and the waves. They walk among us only rarely now.”

  She thought about that. “Like the Wild Hunt?”

  He nodded. “When have you ever met anyone who has seen that fearful thing himself?”

  “Never,” she said firmly. Which was true. Nan and Sarah had heard it, when it came to take a thoroughly wicked and murderous ghost, but they hadn’t seen it.

  “Which is, perhaps, just as well,” he told her, with a kind of resignation. “Many of the Great Ones were not gentle with mortals.” He waved his hand, dismissively. “But these girls, you wish them to be your friends, then?”

  “Shouldn’t I?” she asked. “Is it wrong?”

  “On the contrary; there is something about them, and it is not just the Mark of the Land-Ward, that makes me feel we can trust them. That is a good thing.” He beamed at her. “One can never have too many allies.
”

  “Good,” she said, and looked to the sea to spot the dark shapes coming back to land. “Now all we have to do is convince your kin.”

  11

  A KNOCK at the cottage door startled both girls as they were packing up a hamper to go down to the cottage.

  Up until that moment it had been another beautiful and serene morning, full of flower-scent and lark-song, and things were going swimmingly. They had been daily visitors with Mari Prothero now for the better part of two weeks, and had been sending letters on their progress to Lord Alderscroft every other day. In the last week, they had been getting letters back—short ones, basically telling them he had read what they had written, gone over it carefully with one of his Water Masters, he was pleased with their progress, and they were to go on doing what they were doing. The latest letter, which had arrived yesterday, had added that since both they and Puck (Lord A had referred to him as the Wild Boy) felt Mari’s teacher was a sound one, although it was unusual, and he was not aware of any other case of an Elemental creature schooling the Master who could potentially command it, he would not interfere. After all, he had written, someone had to teach the first Masters. There is no reason why it was not the Elementals themselves.

  But he cautioned them to keep their guards up, and Nan entirely agreed with him. Mari had not been quite as forthcoming about her situation as Nan would have liked. She suspected there was more going on with the three young Selch who were courting Mari than just the tradition of Selch and the bargain they had with the Protheros. And at some point she was going to try and tease Idwal’s motives for teaching Mari out of him.

  One thing only they had not told Lord Alderscroft about, because they were both in agreement that he would probably not approve. That was, in fact, the presence of the other three Selch—and the reason for it. Mari had confided that to them only two days ago, and they both agreed that since “being courted” by preternatural creatures had nothing whatsoever to do with Mari’s magical education, it was none of Lord Alderscroft’s business. Nan was not entirely sure that she approved of Mari being the unwitting bargaining-piece in an agreement that her ancestors had made hundreds of years ago. But that wasn’t her business, either.