Nightchild

by James Barclay

  “Who?”

  “Witch Hunters,” said Ren'erei. “Black Wings.”

  The strength went from Erienne's legs and she sagged down, clutching at the rail. With astonishing swiftness, Ren'erei moved across the deck and caught her. Erienne couldn't find the words to thank her. Her pulse was pounding in her throat, the blood roaring in her ears, her mind releasing the memories she'd buried so carefully years before.

  She saw it all again. Tasted the atmosphere of the Black Wings’ castle, the stench of fear in her twin boys’ room, the hideous torture of separation from the sons she loved and the sneer of Captain Travers, the leader of the Witch Hunters. Again and again she saw the blood from their slit throats spattered over the bed clothes, their faces and the walls. Her boys. Her beautiful boys. Slaughtered for a risk they didn't pose, by men who were terrified of magic because they could not understand it. Again, she felt their loss, just like it was yesterday, just like every day.

  And the Black Wings hadn't been destroyed despite everything she and The Raven had done. They hadn't been destroyed and now they hunted that which was most pure. Lyanna.

  “No, no, no,” she whispered. “Not again.”

  “I am a fool and I'm sorry,” said Ren'erei, wiping a tear from Erienne's face while she clutched the elf's forearm. “It was wrong to tell you that. We know what you lost to them and we have grieved. But you have to know so that you can understand that you will be safe with us where you weren't before, not even inside the walls of your College. Tryuun has suffered at their hands. You have seen his face. He escaped their torture but not without cost. But one day we will finish the Black Wings. Finish what The Raven began.”

  “But they are finished,” mumbled Erienne, searching her eyes for the lie. “We destroyed their castle.”

  Ren'erei shook her head. “No. One escaped the castle and others have joined him to raise the banner again in the wake of the Wesmen withdrawal. Selik.”

  “Selik is dead,” said Erienne. She pushed away from Ren'erei, moving to sit on a crate lashed to the deck, nausea sweeping her stomach. “I killed him myself.” Ren'erei stood.

  “Tell that to Tryuun,” she said solemnly. “Selik is disfigured, almost unrecognisable to look at, but his manner is all too easy to recall. The left-hand side of his face is cold and dead and his eye droops toward it, blind forever. His hair was scorched in the flame and he bears the scars of many burns, but his strength of arm remains. He is a dangerous adversary and he knows a great deal about us. More than any man living.”

  “So kill him.” Erienne's voice reflected the cold dread she felt inside though the night was warm. “He can't be hard to spot.”

  “But we have to find him first. Tryuun escaped him ten weeks ago and we haven't heard of him since. But we will and this time there will be more of us, I promise.” She crouched in front of Erienne who looked into those ocean-deep green eyes. Her smile had returned. “He can't follow us here. No one can. You are safe, Erienne. You and Lyanna. No one can harm you on Herendeneth.”

  She knew Ren'erei was right but the shock of her words kept Erienne from sleep that night. Irrational fears drifted across her tired mind, snapping her to heart-thumping wakefulness whenever she drifted close to its embrace.

  Denser was still in Balaia, heedless of the danger that lurked somewhere in its borders. Dear Ilkar too. Both had borne torture at the hands of Black Wings once. That some had survived and would repeat the horror sickened her. Perhaps Selik's disappearance meant they had somehow infiltrated the crew on board. Perhaps when they reached Herendeneth, all that would greet them would be death. Black Wings were everywhere in her imagination and each one had a dagger with which to slit a helpless child's throat…

  The Ornouth Archipelago appeared out of the haze of the setting sun the next day, a string of islands that looked almost as one so far as the eye could see in either direction. Through a thin bank of cloud, the sun cast red light across the archipelago, bathing land and sea in a warm radiance.

  Erienne and Lyanna stood at the prow of the Ocean Elm, drinking in the splendour as the islands became gradually more distinct, with what they thought at first sight to be mountains on one island, resolving themselves as belonging to entirely another.

  From tiny rock atolls, jutting from the sea like fists grabbing at the air, to great swathes of white sand, miles long, the Ornouth swept west to east, a tail off the northern coast of Calaius, beautiful but treacherous. Riddled with hidden reefs, beneath even the calmest waters, the power lurked to rip the bottom from any ship and Erienne could feel tension begin to grow among the sailors as they neared the outlying islands.

  It was small wonder the archipelago hadn't been mapped. The journey to the island closest to the southern mainland couldn't be risked in anything smaller than an ocean-going vessel, and with shallow-draught boats the only way to be confident of charting the myriad central islands, it would truly be a labour of love. Unsurprisingly, much of what lay deep inside Ornouth was uncharted and, to a large extent, untouched.

  The Ocean Elm cut confidently across the sea toward the outer islands but as they approached close enough to make out individual trees bordering the beaches, and boulders on the shingle, the tension reached a new level.

  From the wheel deck, the first mate rattled out a series of orders that had elves scurrying to the sheets and up into the masts. Much of the sail was furled, leaving only the jib and forward mast topsail to drive the ship. And all those not engaged in rig work leant over the sides or swung plumb lines to measure the fast-varying depth. The skipper steered a course between two islands, keeping very close to the one where a shelf led to deep water just off shore.

  With the passengers ignored, the crew waited, tensed, reacting immediately to every quarter turn of the wheel, every order to trim or loose the sails, while a constant stream of calls echoed back from the prow as sailors scoured the water in front of them or measured the depth again and again.

  The ship crawled along the channel. Erienne noticed long poles stowed beneath the gunwales and it didn't take much imagination to understand what they were for. She never wanted to see them wielded. Not a word was spoken that wasn't directly relevant to the task at hand and the taut expression on the face of every sailor told its own story about their proximity to disaster, despite their obvious experience.

  It was an hour of careful travel before they rounded the port-side island and hove to in a wide channel from where the horizon in every direction was studded with islands. The crew stood down, the light failing quickly, and soon the smells of cooking filled Erienne's nose while somewhere, a flute was playing softly. Hardly daring to move, Erienne and Lyanna shifted where they sat on the netted and tied crates, not part of the relief the crew shared. Ren'erei came over to them, carrying mugs of tea for them both.

  “We're stopped for the night. Only a madman would risk the channels to Herendeneth in darkness. We're hidden from the ocean and few could follow us even this far. You have no wish to know how close our hull came to the reef and it will be no better at first light.”

  Erienne accepted the tea and watched a while as Lyanna cupped her hands around her mug, breathing in the fresh herb fragrance.

  “But surely you've sailed this stretch before?” she asked eventually.

  Ren'erei nodded. “But sand shifts and reefs grow. Eventually the course of channels change. You can't be too careful and there must always be passage. Our charts change almost with every voyage. Never by much, but enough to keep us alert.”

  “Will we make land tomorrow?” asked Erienne.

  “I want to walk on the sand!” announced Lyanna abruptly, taking a sip of her tea. The young elf smiled and shook her head.

  “No sand where we are going, my princess,” she said. “Not tomorrow. But one day, I'll take you to the sand, I promise.”

  Erienne saw the warmth in Ren'erei’s eyes.

  “Do you have children?” Erienne smoothed Lyanna's hair. The child pulled away slightly, concentrating
on her drink. It was easy to forget the depth to which her mind already ran and the power that was harboured there.

  “No,” said Ren'erei. “Though I'd love to. My duties take me away from the attentions of males, but it won't be forever.”

  “You'll make a fine parent,” said Erienne.

  “For now I can only hope so,” said the elf. “But thank you.”

  The night passed quietly, the crew savouring whatever rest they could get, acutely aware of the rigours dawn would bring. The Ocean Elm set sail again in the cool of early sunrise and Erienne had woken to the feel of the ship underway, albeit slowly, and the curious quiet that held sway as they moved through the narrow channel that led inexorably to Herendeneth and the voices that had urged them to their journey.

  Washing and dressing quickly in a pair of pale brown breeches, a wool shirt and leather jerkin supplied by Ren'erei, Erienne had taken to the deck, pausing to frown at her daughter's slumbering form. Normally a bundle of energy that rose with the dawn, Lyanna had slept more and more every day of their voyage and Erienne couldn't help but feel that it was sleep not entirely under her control. But on the other hand, she was refreshed and bright when she awoke, and her calm acceptance of the uprooting of everything she had known was pure blessing.

  Up on deck, Erienne returned to her position of yesterday, soaking up a watery sun that shone through a thickening cloud bank. The wind was brisk but even and the Ocean Elm made slow and steady progress through the archipelago.

  Throughout an anxious day, they crawled between islands. An idyllic lagoon setting would give way to a scatter of lifeless rock fists or a sweeping volcanic atoll, its ridges obscured by cloud. Up in the rigging, the crew stood waiting as they had yesterday, ready to reef or unfurl sail on barked command, and the jib was slackened any time the wind picked up pace.

  The threat beneath the waves removed the romance of this final leg of the voyage, and though Erienne never ceased to marvel at the sheer scale and beauty of Ornouth, she couldn't help but feel they were somehow unwelcome. A paradise of tranquillity it might be but, lurking close by, a sense of malevolence. The Ocean Elm was here under sufferance and failure to show respect would be met with the dread sound of reef ripping through timber.

  In the middle of the afternoon, with the cloud blowing away to leave a blanket of blue sky, the temperature rose as the wind dropped. Lyanna, who had joined Erienne late in the morning, scrambled to her feet, using Erienne's back to steady her as she peered forward intently.

  “What is it, sweet?” asked Erienne.

  “We're here,” said Lyanna, her voice soft and almost inaudible above the creaking of spars and the gentle bow wave that ran past the ship. Erienne looked too. The captain had been holding the Ocean Elm on a starboard tack, taking the ship past a sweeping sandy beach at the back of which cliffs soared hundreds of feet into the air, giving a home to thousands of sea birds whose calls surrounded them.

  Skirting the edge of the island, the ship turned slowly to run down a channel barely more than three ship's widths across. Bleaker cliffs towered above them on both sides now, closing in above their heads, the shrill cries of gulls echoing down to them from where they circled high above or sat on precariously sited nests.

  But it was at the end of the channel that Lyanna stared, because closing with every passing heartbeat was Herendeneth. Like the cliffs by which they passed, the island was dominated by a sheer rock face that scaled many hundreds of feet into the afternoon sky. And slowly revealed was a shore from which spears of stone protruded and cliffs tumbled down to the sea, the scattering of huge boulders evidence of ancient tumultuous movement.

  Moving steadily down the widening channel, the Ocean Elm was silent once more. Herendeneth reached out with an aura that demanded reverence and quiet contemplation. Any sailor not tending sails or wheel, dropped briefly to one knee with bowed head, touching the centre of his forehead with his right index finger.

  “You are here, Lyanna,” said Ren'erei. Erienne started; she hadn't heard the elf approach. “Soon you will be standing with the Al-Drechar.”

  The name sent shivers down Erienne's spine. Al-Drechar was a name written in legend and ancient texts. They were the holders of the faith, the guardians of true magic. They were the Keepers of the One. There had never been any doubt that a substantial sect had survived the Sundering, the cataclysmic battles that had seen four Colleges emerge from the ruins of the one that had previously dominated Balaian magic. But that had been over two thousand years before and they were assumed to have died out as time passed and peace returned to Balaia. All that was heard were rumours, explained away by the clashing of charged mana or the unpredictability of nature.

  Yet the idea that descendants of the One had survived had never been conclusively disproved and through the centuries, enough mages had been strong enough to state their beliefs and perpetuate what had appeared at best a myth.

  Now, Erienne knew different. She knew. And in a while, she would physically meet with those who many dreamed still lived, but more prayed were dead.

  “How many are there?” she asked.

  “Only four remain,” replied Ren'erei. “Your daughter truly represents the last hope for furtherance of our cause.” She placed a hand on Lyanna's head who looked up and smiled, though a frown chased it quickly away.

  “Are they dying then?” Erienne asked.

  “They are very old,” replied the elf. “And they've been waiting for you a long time. They couldn't have waited too much longer.”

  Erienne noticed tears standing in Ren'erei’s eyes.

  “What will we find there?” she mused, not really expecting an answer.

  “Peace, goodness, purity. Age.” She looked into Erienne's eyes and the mage saw desperation burning in those of the elf. “They can't be allowed to fade uselessly. I and the Guild, we've watched them grow steadily weaker over the years. She must be the one.”

  “She is,” said Erienne, Ren'erei’s fervour unsettling her. Lyanna felt it too and had leant against her mother. She was gazing again at the island that would be her home for the Gods only knew how long.

  “Tell me, Ren'erei, how many of you serve them? The Al-Drechar, that is.”

  “We are few. Forty-three in all, but our sons and daughters will carry on the work until we are not needed any more, one way or another. We've served them for generations, ever since the Sundering, but the honour is undiminished.” She stood tall, pride on her face. “We are the Guild of Drech and we will not falter until our service is fulfilled. All else is secondary.” She turned from Erienne and looked toward Herendeneth, touching index finger to forehead as she bowed.

  The ship dropped anchor about a quarter of a mile off the bleak northern coast of the island. Only the most tenacious of vegetation clung to the towering rock wall ahead of them and waves raced into crash against hard stone. In the sky, a few birds circled, their calls lost in the breeze.

  Immediately they were stationary, the crew began unlashing the three long boats and lowering them into the water. Scrambling nets and ladders followed, and a brief flurry of activity saw luggage and supplies passed swiftly down to be securely fastened to two of the craft. Each boat took four oarsmen and a skipper. Erienne was invited to climb down a ladder while Lyanna sat on Tryuun's broad shoulders, very quiet and pale, as the elf descended swiftly to the boat that would carry them ashore.

  The crews pulled away strongly, heading for a shore apparently barren of landing sites. But rounding a spit hidden from shipboard view, they beached on a narrow stretch of shingle, away from which a path climbed up and disappeared through a cleft in the rocks. Ren'erei helped Erienne and Lyanna out of the boat, smiling as they skipped through the cold shallows to escape the water and joining them as they stared down, wet above their knees.

  “Not far now,” she said. “Just one last climb. The crew will bring up all your things.”

  The path was well kept, its steps long, carefully carved and shallow in the rise, and it wo
und up in a deliberately gentle incline overlooked by birch trees.

  Looking back down the stairway, Erienne could see the scope of the illusion. This was no harsh rock island. True, the landing points were difficult and crowded with reefs, but the height of any cliff had been hugely exaggerated. And beyond the shore line, the island rolled gracefully up to a low pinnacle through tumbledown rock and rich green forest under which the heat of the day was captured. Away from the sea breeze, the air was humid and Erienne felt sweat beading and running all over her body.

  Beside her, Lyanna trotted along, clutching her doll in one hand, humming to herself, her face intent.

  “Are you all right, darling?” Erienne trailed a hand across Lyanna's head.

  “Yes,” she affirmed. “Will you do the walking song again?”

  Erienne smiled. “If you like.” She held out her hand and Lyanna gripped it tightly. “Here we go,” Erienne said, changing to a shorter stride.

  “I step with my right foot,

  And the left follows on.

  If I do it once again,

  Then the journey soon is done.

  If I don't move my left foot,

  Then the right one gets away.

  If I don't move my right foot,

  Then just here is where we'll stay.”

  Repeating the words over and over while they stepped and double-stepped, Erienne couldn't help but blush as she caught Ren'erei and Tryuun watching her over their shoulders. Both elves were smiling and as they turned back, Ren'erei mimicked the double steps the song demanded.

  “One day, it'll be your turn,” said Erienne, joining in their laughter.

  Lyanna skipped up to the elf and took her hand.

  “You're not doing it right. Mummy, sing it again.”

  “Just once more, then,” said Erienne. “Pay attention, Ren'erei.” And while she sang, she watched her daughter, carefree, giggling at Ren'erei’s attempts to mimic the steps, and wished fervently that Lyanna had been born without the burden she carried. And with that, came guilt. Because Erienne had planned it to be this way. And though it was a great thing they were trying to do, before they achieved their goal, there was so much hardship to come. And Lyanna, of course, had no choice in the matter. Erienne already grieved for the childhood she was to lose.