‘No,’ said Terascouros. ‘It hunts for us, Leona. It hunts for us, and it finds us.’
Thewson laid Jaer down and went to gather wood, moving wearily, woodenly, his feet dragging. ‘Fire once more,’ he said, ‘to hold the ghost warriors here while we go on.’
Terascouros stopped him. ‘No, Thewson. You may have the strength to go on. I do not. We must rest, and if the ghosts will gather around us again, then they must gather.’ She stared around them, thinking that they must be within short miles of the Sisterhood. A line of mountains looked familiar, the shape of a cliff, but she could not remember more than that. It had been years since she and Sybil had parted, one to stay and rule the Sisterhood with iron mind and will of adamant, one to go out into the world in pursuit of a legend. Terascouros sighed. She could be within yards of the refuge and not know it. They stood, a ragged, weary line, watching the approach of the fog which advanced ominously down the hills, flowing among the trees, unstoppable.
Jasmine began to cry.
From behind them a voice came from the trees. ‘Well, Sister. I had not thought to see you again in this life.’
Terascouros turned, astonished to hear a voice she had once resolved never to hear again.
‘Sybil?’ she cried. ‘Is that you?’
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
THE SISTERHOOD
Year 1169-Winter
Weary as they were, it seemed to the travellers that Sybil greeted them with a kind of contemptuous amusement, though whether this appearance was put on for Terascouros’s benefit or was Sybil’s usual pattern, they were too tired to care. She dealt with their needs efficiently enough. Four strong, quiet men brought a litter onto which Thewson laid Jaer with tenderness and relief. They followed the litter-bearers a short way among rocks, around barriers, behind a lacy fall of water into wide, sand-strewn corridors which led upward into the hills. Deep clefts in the rock had been glazed to let in the light, and from these they could look back and down to the meadow they had left. There the mists gathered, circling, swirling in a slow spiral of searching movement.
Smooth-walled side caverns were carpeted with rugs of creamy wool, patterned in green, amber, and brown. Men and women dressed in these colours stood talking among themselves as they passed or scurried away at Sybil’s curt instructions. She left them in a cavern furnished with cots and a steaming pool, saying that others would attend to them. As she left, she lifted the robes which concealed Jaer’s mutilated form and said some casual words about the man appearing uninjured, going out before they could answer.
Jasmine drew the robe away and stared in disbelief. For a moment she thought that Jaer’s body had been stolen, taken away by the litter-bearers, that another had been substituted. This figure was not wounded, not bloodied, but whole. She exclaimed, only to have Terascouros grip her shoulder, signalling silence.
Voices chattered in the doorway, and a dozen green-clad women entered with flagons and pitchers of steaming water. As one of them drew the robes away from the litter, an agonized moan came from the figure there. ‘They seek me. They seek Jaer. Let me be someone else. Let me be – anyone. Send me away before they find me …’
Medlo fell to his knees beside the litter, running dirty fingers through his hair in frantic thought. He began to talk to Rhees, of meadows and lawns, of long tunnels of willow over wandering canals, of the smell of hay and the sound of high summer, of anything and everything away from the place where they were in the forests of Ban Morrish at the foot of Gerenhodh.
‘It is Jaer. Is it?’ Jasmine wondered.
‘Shush,’ said Terascouros. ‘Let them wash your hands and face.’ The women were clucking over them, undressing them. At Leona’s side, two women raised their voices in dismay at the long lines of new pink flesh which filled the ugly lacerations along her sides. Leona herself was staring at them incredulously.
‘What is this?’ she whispered. ‘I had thought almost to die of these.’ She turned to Terascouros pleadingly. ‘I do not understand.’
‘Shush, shush,’ begged Terascouros. ‘When we have had time to rest a little, Leona. Wait, please. Jasmine, please …’ She spoke to the women. ‘Sisters. Ask Sybil to grant us a few moments. There is a warning we should give.’
The women assented, sent one of their number with the message while the rest went on with the cleaning and binding up and pouring of bowls of broth and wine. Soon they departed in a flurry, leaving the travellers clean, warmed, fed and exhausted. Moments later, Sybil returned to them.
‘Well, Teras?’ Her voice was cold and uninterested. ‘Is there something not to your liking?’
‘All is as the Sisterhood would have it, Sybil. I have no complaint, only a warning. We may be endangering you all. It would be best to keep those seeking mists away from the Hill, to hide from what hides in them, or guides them.’
‘A little fog? Not even unseasonable?’
‘Truly, Sybil, I think it is not fog.’
The woman laughed, scanned them all with a cold, arrogant eye. ‘You have not changed, Teras. Still determined upon your own way, your vivid imagination, your own interpretation of things. Still believing in your own strange convictions and persuasions. Well, if you wish to talk of it, you may speak to the Council. I would have had you come before Council in any case. Whatever the “danger” I’m sure it can wait until then.’ She smiled, a brief, chilly smile, and was gone.
Terascouros shook her head, tears brimming above her lower lids, biting her lip in vexation. ‘She has not changed. Hard. Sharp. No comfort in her. Well, it will be the Council then, and until then, rest. Thewson, if your strength will bear you further, stay here with Medlo. When he tires of telling stories into Jaer’s ears,
