They rode through the morning without any trouble.
Now and again, they crested small rises, and were able to see up the valley. Ahead, the narrow rift of the valley opened and filled with sunlight. They could see a place where the stream seemed to erupt out of the side of a wide, flat-topped prominence that stood between them and the distant foothills of the Great Grey Mountain. Because the stream was running towards them, they had a good view of foam and water falling down the slope. Beyond the broad hill, the stream became visible again, but only in the far distance, coming down the flank of the mountain in sun-caught cascades.
The boy thought it odd that the stream seemed to be appearing and disappearing into and out of the earth.
“Is the stream going through caves?” he asked.
“There are a lot of caves neath this land,” said Caewen. “A lot of the waters flow underground for a while, then burble up and go back into a limestone hole, over and over. As long as there’s a path for us, it doesn’t matter. We’ll follow the way as long as it is useful. We can cut away from road and river alike once we’re closer to the house of the seeress.”
As Caewen was talking Dapplegrim stopped short. It was enough to throw the boy forward a bit, so that he had to catch himself against Dapplegrim’s enormous neck.
“What are you–” started Caewen.
“No. Quiet. Listen.” Dapplegrim twitched his ears about. “They’re here! They’ve found us!” He took off at a run. There was just time enough to look around and see something deathly white pass swiftly behind the trees off to their right.
“I thought ghaists don’t come out in the daytime,” he yelled above the noise of them galloping.
Caewen was looking behind her. “Shades of great power come out whenever they please. These are no ordinary flitting spirits. There’s a deep, cold magic to them. Run, Dapplegrim! Make for the ridge.”
“Am doing,” he panted.
The boy risked enough of a glance to see that there were four white spectral shapes emerging from wooded shadows. They seemed to be crossing ground very quickly, and though Dapplegrim was straining at a speed beyond any natural-born horse, the white things were gaining on them with that weird, unnatural movement of theirs.
They soon reached the slope of the broad prominence.
At the point where the stream boiled out of a hole, some old stone steps were carved into the natural rock. Dapplegrim leapt up these much faster than was safe. At the top of the hill, he skidded to a halt. Pebbles and dirt flew everywhere. They had nearly collided with a small standing stone.
They looked around, startled. There was a depression inside the hill. The ridge had hidden this strange valley beyond from view: it was wide, bowl-like and spotted with gorse and heather. Small, broken stones marked the edge of the valley all around, and at the very middle of the expanse was a huge, grey standing stone. Clustered around the stone was spread a jumble of what looked to be ruined buildings, all grey and white and jagged-edged. The boy squinted. There was a whiteness gathered about the feet of the walls, as if blown up against it. “Is that snow? There’s no other snow, not anywhere except for the peaks.”
“Snow or not, we need to keep on,” said Caewen.
Dapplegrim snorted. “Yes.” He sniffed the nearest stone. “These mark a threshold. There is a boundary here.”
“Will it stop the ghosts?” Asked Caewen.
“I don’t know.”
The boy asked, more tentatively. “Are the stones meant to keep things out, or keep something in?”
Dapplegrim shook his head.
Behind them, the white shades were nearing the foot of the hill. They seemed to dislike the flowing water, and were taking a wide circle around it. Nonetheless, the ghosts would be upon them soon. Their dresses and long maiden’s hair streamed behind them as they came.
Caewen’s voice was quiet and musing. “We must go on. I’m not even sure we could fight those things. A sword might pass right through.”
“Agreed,” said Dapple.
They tore down into the valley sending up great chunks of sod behind them. The boy scrunched his eyes shut. It was too much for him. Too terrifying. But Caewen must have been looking over her shoulder because she yelled, “Stop! Stop! Look!”
Dapplegrim slowed to a walk and wheeled around. Daring to open his eyes, the boy blinked and looked: up on the ridge, the four white women were gathered together. They were keening softly, like mourners at a funeral, but they weren’t coming any closer. Their voices rose and fell with an eerie musical softness.
He wondered what was holding them back, whether it was the stones or something else. “They’re not passing the rocks?”
“That’s good, I suppose,” said Caewen looking about. “But why? Is there some magic encircling this place, or are they afraid of something?”
“Both could be true,” said Dapplegrim, with a helpful smile.
Caewen dug around in her pockets, and drew out a strange little object: a sort of circle made of strung river stones, with a gap in the middle. She held it to her face, and looked at the singing ghosts through the gap.
“Anything useful?” Asked Dapplemgrim.
“Nothing we don’t already know.” With a frown and sigh, she put the amulet-object away.
“If the white warths are bad and unkind, maybe the valley is kindly?” ventured the boy.
Caewen hummed under her breath. “Maybe.”
Dapplegrim shook his mane and hung his head. He was breathing hard. “If you don’t mind getting off and walking for a bit I need to catch my breath.”
They climbed down and together they walked straight across the valley. The way would take them past the great middle standing stone and its surrounding ruins, but it was the quickest way forward, and quick seemed best.
“And besides”, Caewen suggested, “we might find something out from the stone. Could be this is a place where an old presence of the earth dwells, and such powers are not always unfriendly to mortal-kind.”
“But won’t the ghaists just find us on the other side of the valley?” asked the boy.
“Maybe. Perhaps I can work a spell so that we can slip past them.”
Dapple gave her a cool look. “No more magic. Hurm.”
“We mightn’t have much choice, Dapple.”
He looked back at the ridge line, behind. The pale ghostly things had retreated out of sight. They could be anywhere now.
They trudged on, and the sun grew quite hot. The boy had to take off the woollen scarf. He tucked it carefully into his bag of possessions, now tied to Dapplegrim’s saddle.
As they neared the ruins, it became clear that the whiteness they’d seen from a distance was not snow. It was bones. They moved close enough to see that all sorts of bones were heaped up around the ruined walls: big skulls and bones of deer and mountain sheep, a big muskoxen skull, fox bones and badger bones and even the small tiny bones of voles, rats, ravens and owls. There were no human bones as far as they could find, though anything might have been hidden in the heaps.
Caewen squinted up at the earth where it sloped upwards and away from them in all directions. “The bones might have been washed here. If there were a heavy enough rain, then anything on the hillsides would wash down here.”
Dapplegrim shot her an unimpressed look. “Whenever I find a pile of bones heaped up around ruins and standing stones in the midst of nowhere my mind also goes to the most natural explanation possible. Come on. Let’s get out of here. This place makes my skin crawl and I’m half a forest-demon. There is something dwelling here and I’d wager a pound of prime blood sausage that it will not much like you or me.”
They walked through the valley, but didn’t hurry, as there still didn’t seem to be anything clearly dangerous. It seemed better to be cautious.
As they walked, Caewen said, “All ghaists have trouble crossing running water and weak shades can’t cross it at all. Those spirits seemed to especially dislike the water for some reason. If we could find a way to get over the stream with the warths on one side, and us on the other, that might gain us some time.”
“That’s all it will do. These aren’t weak shades or wisps that will tatter apart in a strong breeze or daylight. It might hurt them badly, but they’ll cross running water if they need to.” Dapplegrim considered. “Still, it’s the best idea we have so far, and we are thin on good ideas.”
“Why do ghaists have trouble with water?” asked the boy. He’d heard folk-advice along those lines: get across a bridge or a stream if a shade is after you in the night, but he had no idea why such a thing would work.
Caewen only shrugged. “Maybe a necromancer skilled in the magic of the dead would know for certain? I’m not sure. Some magicians seems to think it’s because the first kingdoms, hundreds and hundreds of years ago, were mostly bounded by rivers, and ghosts can still see the old borders. Some people think ghosts are afraid of the spirits and small gods of life and water that live in streams or deep in ponds. Some people think that rivers are the lifeblood of the earth–veins carrying life–and the dead cannot easily cross a stream of such living power. All might be true, or none. But regardless, shades do not like running water. That much is true.”
“So, have you got away from dead things before by crossing rivers?”
She nodded. “Now and then.”
But Dapplegrim said, “Hur. But never anything as powerful as these things. I can’t recall a dead soul ever chasing us in broad daylight, for one.”
“That’s true,” ceded Caewen. “These white warths seem to have a power in them. Something is giving them will and urgency. Who or what? I don’t know.”
Dapplegrim paused, looked around. “I smell something. It’s nearby.” He sniffed. “A strange smell.”
They were passing among the walls of the ruins now. As they picked a path among the tumbled masonry, the boy looked up at the passing arches and crumbled pillars. It seemed so grand, even in decay. A truly magnificent people must have once lived here. He wondered why they built the place around the standing stone and what had happened to them.
As they wended deeper, heaps of moss began to appear caked on the walls, growing along the cracks and forming lumps of vibrant green. A few strange white flowers speckled the moss. He stopped to look at a flower. It was minute and beautiful. Was it growing out of the moss? Mosses didn’t have flowers, did they? Maybe this wasn’t a moss at all, or it was some manner of weird-thing. “Caewen?” he said. “These flowers are strange. They’re… sort of… I just want to keep staring at it. Isn’t it beautiful? Caewen?” There was no reply. “Caewen?” Dapple? Where are you?”
He looked around. The space between the walls was empty. A wind chased up the gap causing the strands of dried grasses poking from between rocks to bend and rustle.
“Hello?” he tried again. Where did they go? He could not have been looking at the flower for more than a few seconds. How did Caewen and Dapplegrim simply vanish?