Nightchild

by James Barclay

  “If you'll recall, the Triverne Inlet was like a pond compared to this,” said Ilkar. “And your steering still made it feel like rough seas. I can't believe we're letting you helm again.”

  “I didn't see any other volunteers,” said Denser. He looked across at Erienne. She was looking toward Herendeneth, her arms about her stomach, her shoulders tensed.

  “We'll be there soon, love,” said Denser.

  “I know,” said Erienne, half turning to look at him. “I've missed her so much but…” She broke off and swallowed.

  “There's always hope,” said Denser, though he felt none.

  “No there isn't,” said Erienne. “Just get us there safely. And quickly.”

  Hirad pushed them from the side of the ship and, with a wave and shouts of thanks for the watching crew, they steered away, The Unknown hauling up the sail which filled and drove them after the Protectors.

  The skipper of the Ocean Elm had seen them well before the shout went up. He walked aft across the wheel deck and leaned over to see a Dordovan mage peering into the gloom of late morning. Selik was hurrying along the walkway.

  “Damn,” muttered the skipper. He walked back to the helmsman and stood by him. “Leave the deck. If Selik's mage has seen them, he'll be up here to kill me. You know what to do.”

  “Aye, Captain.”

  “Remember, the One must survive and the Al-Drechar are important above all other feelings. We've done everything we can.”

  The skipper hurried him to the ladder, took the wheel himself and looked determinedly forward. Below him, the helmsman scurried across the deck to talk to the bo'sun and first mate. The pair looked up at him, nodded slightly and set about their tasks.

  The skipper heard the sound of running feet. His heart rate increased and he gripped the wheel. Hands slapped on the ladder and Selik's head appeared, the look on his face giving the skipper the answer to his question. Behind him, two mages and a henchman. Selik strode across and grabbed the skipper by the throat, marching him backward, a dagger in his free hand, his ruined face contorted in rage.

  “Tell me now,” he said. He looked over his shoulder. “You, take the wheel, just keep it where it is. For now.” Selik brought his dagger up, its point scant inches from the skipper's right eye. “Talk.”

  “You didn't even bother to really question me, did you?” said the skipper. “In your arrogance, you thought I'd simply roll over and let you plunder the most sacred things in my life. Well, my work is done now. You have lost Erienne and I have led those most able to stop you to the correct path, while we sail in an entirely different direction. And all the time, the world turns a little further and your hopes of murder recede.”

  Selik looked at him, his mouth hanging open, a line of spittle dripping from the slack, nerveless left-hand side. He even stepped away a little, though the dagger point remained steady.

  “But the forces of right must not be denied,” he whispered, a fervour creeping into his eyes. “You have betrayed every living thing in Balaia.”

  The skipper could see the hate beginning to grow, could feel the tightening of the hand at his throat and the wobble of the dagger in front of him, its unfocused point shimmering. He knew he didn't have long.

  “You're too late, Selik. Erienne will be united with her child and together they will destroy you and everything you stand for. If that is what I am betraying, then I will die content. So push home your dagger, Black Wing, you cannot threaten or hurt me any more.”

  Selik looked over his shoulder. Under full sail and in calm waters sheltered from the storms, the Elm drove on at exhilarating speed. To where, the skipper didn't know and cared less. Eventually, the sea bed would rise to meet the keel of the ship but the skipper knew he wouldn't live to see it.

  The dagger point came closer still. The skipper didn't flinch.

  “And of course, if I do kill you, your crew will refuse to sail. I am not such a fool as you believe,” said Selik.

  The skipper laughed. “Look behind you, Selik. They have refused already. You have lost and I have won.”

  Selik swung the skipper around so that he could look along the line of the ship. The elven crew were still there in the rigging and near the lines and stays. Even mops and buckets still rested on the deck and plumb lines lay in coils. But the crew were motionless. All of them. Waiting.

  “Turn this bastard ship around!” roared Selik. “Or your beloved captain dies.” Not one of them moved.

  “Your man has the wheel,” said the skipper smoothly.

  Selik sneered. “Yes. He does. Turn us into the centre of this channel.”

  “But—”

  “Do it now! How hard can it be. Turn the wheel.” The skipper watched as the Black Wing soldier turned the wheel. The Ocean Elm began to come about, jibing across the wind, sails snapping briefly into a run before starting to pick up the new tack. They needed trimming to make the most of the direction. He didn't have to turn to know what his crew were doing now. Every one of them was moving from his post to come to stand below the wheel deck, or as near as their captors would allow.

  “Get back to your work!” shouted Selik.

  “No one may turn this vessel without the permission of the captain,” said the skipper quietly. “They will not lift a finger to your order.”

  But Selik was looking at the sails filling as the ship turned further and the sneer returned. “But it doesn't look like I need you anyway, does it, dear captain? And I'm sure your crew won't let themselves drown because of some obscure rule of the sea, will they? You, of course, will not get the chance to find out.”

  And as the dagger punched upward and his head roared with brief pain before the end, the skipper knew Selik would soon be joining him, embraced by the Gods of the Sea.

  They would make their own judgement and exact their retribution.

  The going was occasionally tricky but never particularly dangerous. While the Protectors drove on, oars biting into the choppy waters, a picture of precision synchronisation, The Raven, sail full, skimmed quickly down the channel, soon leaving the long boats in their wake.

  With soaring cliffs to the left, lost in the low cloud, and a jagged series of smaller rock islands to the right, the wind whistled across the skiff, forcing The Raven to sit to starboard to balance the pull of the sail.

  One hand on the main sheet, the other gripping the tiller, Denser sailed under the watchful but approving eye of The Unknown who still stood, hand on mast or mainstay.

  Denser's heart raced, his mind a fog of excitement and sorrow. Their speed was a joy, rushing them toward Lyanna, the daughter he hadn't seen in too long but who would cost him the life of Erienne. He looked at her. She sat on his right, one hand clasping the gunwale, the other on his shoulder. She was staring at him from under the hood of her cloak.

  He smiled at her and her hand gripped his shoulder a little more firmly, massaging it through his heavy cloak. He nodded, unable to say anything. They'd been inseparable these last few days and had known a closeness, a oneness, that they had never experienced before.

  It had been born partly of desperation of course but there was far more to it than that. The sense that what they had to do was right and that though they would be parted forever, the love they knew would live on in Lyanna. Denser was sure already, though, that he would never get over losing Erienne.

  But they were cried out now. What could or should have been was unimportant. Dreams and plans could not be made. Now, there was reality to deal with, and Denser had to focus on saving his daughter so that his wife could die for her.

  He looked away again, adjusting the tiller slightly and edging out the main sheet as the latest gust grew stronger. Not far now.

  The Raven had their initial view of Herendeneth as the afternoon began to drift toward dusk. It looked at first sight a blank wall of unapproachable rock, but all over its grey face, green poked out as if through part-open doors, fronds cut off unnaturally though the remnants waved in the wind.

/>   Erienne drew sharp breath. “The illusion's breaking up everywhere. They'll be able to see the house from above, I'm certain of it.”

  “We need to know the situation,” said The Unknown.

  “Why don't you fly up there and take a look round now, love?” suggested Denser. “Let them know we're coming, spend a little time with Lyanna before we have to get busy.”

  Erienne beamed. “What a lovely idea.”

  “I am known for them occasionally,” said Denser.

  Erienne half stood and flung her arms around the Xeteskian, kissing him passionately.

  “Disgusting display,” said Hirad, mouth wide in a grin.

  “Certainly is,” said Denser, disengaging himself and pulling the tiller back toward him from where Erienne had pushed it with her body.

  She steadied herself, prepared the spell and took to the air, hovering behind and above Denser, and leaning down to kiss the top of his head.

  “Don't be too long,” she said.

  He reached up and cupped her face in one hand. “I'll see what I can do.”

  She flew away south, keeping low and out of the worst of the wind that blew hard above the cliff line, soon becoming a small dot in the dull sky. Denser watched her go, jealous that anyone should have the benefit of her love bar him. Even his daughter.

  “Tell you what,” said The Unknown, looking down on an increasingly green Ilkar. “Fancy a look behind us, Ilkar? We need to know if there's anyone coming after us and how far they are away.”

  Ilkar nodded. “Anything to get off this rickety assortment of bobbing logs.”

  “Don't get too close,” said Hirad.

  “Don't worry,” said Ilkar pointing at his eyes. “These are very good.”

  Jevin sailed down the right of the channel as Ren had advised. His lookouts kept watch fore and aft and when the shout came and the sign was relayed from the crow's nest, he wasn't surprised. But the sight saddened him.

  There she came, emerging from the periphery of his vision in the lowering dark afternoon, the Ocean Elm slewing from side to side like some giant drunkard. At her helm, someone with no notion of the rudder in relation to the wheel, the strength or direction of the wind or the inertia of the beautiful vessel. It was no elf that steered and in that moment he and his crew mourned the dead on their sister ship.

  Jevin acknowledged their passing and led a prayer to the Gods of the Seas and the winds to keep their souls safe in the bosom of the ocean. And then he watched and waited for the inevitable.

  He shook his head time and again as he observed the Elm’s progress. Saw her wander this way and that under full sail. No one stood ready in the rigging, no one swung lines. Not one of them would be ready and in that he would take some satisfaction. Perhaps most of them would drown and spend eternity in a twilight of pain, just too far from the surface to draw breath. He wished for it.

  He briefly feared collision but in truth, the fools on the Elm could not steer well enough to orchestrate any such thing. He wondered whether they had paused to question why he travelled under such little sail, content to amble while his crew took soundings from every part of his ship. He wondered whether they had even seen him at all.

  So he watched, and when it happened he heaved a sigh. Beauty destroyed. The sight came to him before the sound. Perhaps only a mile distant, the Elm slowed suddenly as if the hand of a God had grabbed her prow. She rose up, still driving forward, then toppled sideways, still coming, the holes in her hull awful and mortal. It was a horrible sight.

  The sound came a heartbeat later, a rending, tearing, grinding sound. The death wail of a helpless ship. He imagined…he hoped, he could hear the screams of those onboard as they pitched into the merciless sea or were dashed against rock and timber. The water around her boiled as she foundered, sinking quickly.

  “Bows ready!” he ordered.

  A dozen crewmen lined the port quarter, arrows nocked, ready to draw and fire.

  They came like he knew they would. Coward too scared for their own skins even to attempt the launch of a boat. And while their surviving ship-bound companions made desperate attempts to save themselves, the mages flew. He tracked them, his gaze skipping across the sky, one carrying another like Denser had done Hirad.

  “Don't let them close,” warned Jevin. “None of them will touch my deck while they still breathe.”

  Strings were drawn, longbows bent, arms strained. Jevin waited while they approached, aiming to fly along the channel, presumably in the hope of finding their Dordovan friends. Jevin found that, although they presented no danger to his ship, he couldn't let them fly free from what they had done to the Elm or her crew.

  “Shoot them down.”

  The volley of a dozen arrows flashed away into the sky. Five dropped screaming, their magical wings gone, the sea closing over their thrashing limbs, the gods helping them to hell. Three remained, including the carrier, wheeling away. More arrows nocked, the thrum of bow strings again, the sight of the black shafts whipping out after their prey.

  Another mage fell and the carried man cried out. Jevin couldn't quite make out where the arrow had struck. He trusted the wound would bring him a slow death. Perhaps a lung. He nodded.

  “Stow the weapons!” he called. “Lookouts to port. Let's see if any elves survived.”

  But the looks on the faces of his crew told him that they felt what he knew already.

  Ilkar flew back toward the skiff which carried The Raven. He'd seen all he needed to see. He let the wind blow full into his face and felt the first drops of new rain start to fall. At least he'd soon be on solid ground.

  Although he hadn't actually been seasick after the first couple of days on the Calaian Sun, knowing he could avoid vomiting didn't make him any happier about sailing and he had no intention of landing on the boat.

  He came alongside, matching speed and flying next to The Unknown just as the intensity of the rain increased and began to sting in the blustery wind.

  “How's it looking?” asked The Unknown.

  “Well, there are three Dordovan ships still coming,” said Ilkar. “They won't make it all the way down this channel by nightfall, they're going too slowly, but they'll make it to where we left our ship.”

  “Hmm.” The Unknown stared back, gauging distances. “We can expect attack after dark, then,” he said at length. “They can sail skiffs down here in darkness, particularly if there are any elves in the crews. They can also send mages in by air. Pity we can't shut off that bloody beacon.”

  “We don't know we can't,” said Ilkar.

  “No indeed,” replied The Unknown. “Well, seeing as you're clearly not about to get back in with us, why don't you go and see what you can do?”

  “The thought had more than crossed my mind,” said Ilkar. “I'd take one of you with me but I think I'd better conserve stamina.”

  “See you in a couple of hours, then,” said The Unknown.

  “Any sign of the Kaan?” asked Hirad.

  Ilkar shook his head. “No. Nor Jevin, nor the Elm. Not from where I was, anyway. Sorry.”

  Glad to be heading for cover, Ilkar shot away toward Herendeneth.

  Erienne's pulse was thudding in her throat by the time she neared Herendeneth. She had been away for less than fifteen days but so much had changed. So much had been damaged.

  The Raven's long view of the cliffs was more shocking close to. The illusion was decaying almost before her eyes. It swirled, fragmented and reformed indistinctly, almost mosaic-like at the weakest but still existing points. Elsewhere, it had gone altogether as the extraordinarily complex mana structure unravelled and destabilised. There would come a critical point where it collapsed completely but that hardly mattered now.

  The fact was that to anyone the carefully laid illusory mask of angry-looking rock was compromised; and what lay behind it, beyond the harsh reality of the nestling reefs, was an eminently habitable island with a canopy of trees, partly covering verdant steppes up to a central dormant volcanic
peak.

  From above, it was yet more obvious. Erienne flew in at a height of around a hundred feet and could make out the house, gardens and graves immediately. Coming in closer, the damage to the house made her gasp.

  The whole west wing was gone; so much rubble and splintered wood collapsed into a tear in the ground that ran away up the slope behind eating into the beauty and sanctity of the steppes, scarring them forever.

  The gentle streams, pools and falls had become fast-flowing rivers, and where they had burst their banks water rushed up to and surely into the house at four points she could see at a glance. Holes speckled the roof in too many places to count and littering the ground was the debris of storms. Glass, wood, slate and stone. All carelessly smashed.

  But what dominated the house was the beacon of visible mana light that Lyanna, it had to be Lyanna, had created. It stood silent and stunning, shot through with the colours of the four Colleges, a deep calm brown and flares of black, a gentle swirl in its make up that spiralled faster as it rose.

  High above her, the cloud mass spun about it, rolling with thunder and crackling with lightning. There was a pale mist clinging to the underside of the cloud and around the column, spreading out across the island and beyond, coating everything beneath it in a cool, fine rain.

  Erienne took a brief pass around the light, which came from the centre of the orchard, and as she flew down to land, saw a sight that gladdened her pounding, nervous heart. A little girl had run from the ruins of the main doors and was staring up at her, eyes hooded with one hand, waving vaguely with the other.

  Lyanna.

  Erienne called out and curved in steeply, a strong backward beat of her wings stalling her so she could step off the air. She dismissed the spell as she crouched, pulling Lyanna to her in an embrace she had thought she would never enjoy again. She held it for a long while, the little girl clinging back, one of Erienne's hands moving up to stroke the hair at the back of her head.

  “Lyanna, Lyanna,” she whispered, the lump in her throat threatening to break her voice, the tears falling down her face. She sniffed. “Oh my darling, how good it is to be with you again. Tell me everything. Have you missed Mummy? I've missed you, my sweet. What have you been doing? Do you remember very much? Mmm?”