The Lady of the Sorrows

1
WHITE DOWN RORY
Mask and Mirror

It was Nethilmis, the Cloudmonth.

Shang storms came and went close on each other's heels, and then the wild winds of Winter began to close in. They buffeted the landscape with fitful gusts, rattling drearily among boughs almost bare, snatching the last leaves and hunting them with whimsical savagery.

The girl who sheltered with the carlin at White Down Rory felt reborn. All seemed so new and so strange now, she had to keep reminding herself over and over that the miraculous healing of her face and voice had indeed happened; to keep staring into the looking-glass, touching those pristine features whose skin was still tender, and saying over and over, until her throat rasped:

"Speech is mine. Speech is mine."

But she would discover her hands moving, as she spoke.

Surrounding the unfamiliar face, the hair fell thick and heavy, the color of gold. Lamplight struck red highlights in the silken tresses. As to whether all this was beauty or not, she was unsure; it was all too much to take in at once. For certain, she was no longer ugly—and that, it seemed for the moment, was all that mattered. Yet there was no rejoicing, for she lived in fear, every minute, that it would all be taken away, or that it was some illusion of Maeve's looking-glass—but the same image repeated itself in placid water and polished bronze, and it was possible, if not to accept the new visage, at least to think of it as a presentable mask that covered the old, ugly one—her true countenance.

"I kenned you were mute as soon as you fell through my door," said the carlin, Maeve One-Eye. "Don't underestimate me, colleen. Your hands were struggling to shape some signs—without effect. And it was obvious what you were after, so I lost no time—no point in dilly-dallying when there's a job to be done. But 'tis curious that the spell on your voice was lifted off with the sloughed tissue of your face. If I am not mistaken you were made voiceless by something eldritch, while the paradox poisoning is from a lorraly plant. Very odd. I must look into it. Meanwhile, do not let sunlight strike your face for a few days. That new tissue will have to harden up a bit first, 'tis still soft and easily damaged.

"Tom Coppins looks after me, don't you, Tom?"

The quick, cinnamon-haired boy, who was often in and out of the cottage, nodded.

"And he will look after you as well, my colleen. Now, start using your voice bit by bit, not too much, and when 'tis strong you can tell me everything: past, present, and future. No, the glass is not eldritch. Come away from it—there is too much sunlight bleeding in through the windowpanes. And there's shang on the way—the Coillach knows what that would do to your skin!"

Not a day, not an hour, not a moment passed without thoughts of Thorn. Passion tormented the transformee. She whispered his name over and over at night as sleep crept upon her, hoping to dream of him, but hoping in vain. It seemed to her that he was fused with her blood, within her very marrow. Ever and anon her thought was distracted by images of his countenance, and conjecture as to his whereabouts and well-being. Longing gnawed relentlessly, like a rat within, but as time passed and she became accustomed to the pain, its acuteness subsided to a constant dull anguish.