The Gray Isles

by F. T. McKinstry

  Hemlock rose to his feet. Then he told Eadred his tale—and what a tale it was—as the tide ebbed and the rain fell harder. In the back of his mind, he noted that the man didn’t bother to ask him inside. As he finished, Hemlock turned to the murky sea stippled with whitecaps as if he might witness the serpent then and there with the telling.

  As he turned back, something exploded across his face with a splintering shock that spun his head around and caused him to lose his balance. He stumbled down the stairs, just catching himself on the edge to avoid plummeting to the water below. As he looked up, the salt air hit the bleeding wound on his cheekbone where the wizard’s ring had cut into it.

  “You dare speak of such things!” the wizard called down, his voice cracking. “The Mistress is not a fanciful tale!”

  Hemlock didn’t wait around for further developments. His face throbbing with pain and rainwater dripping into his eyes, he fled down the tower steps and made for home, feeling an intense need for a fire to soothe away the sensation that he had just been vomited up by something cold and slimy.

  *

  Hemlock opened his eyes with a breath. He rolled over and looked out the window of his room in the servants’ quarters of the Urd Conservatory. Beyond the wild rose and rhododendron hedge, the black sea moved restlessly against the rocky shore. Farther out, in the invisible depths, he imagined the shining coils of his secret moving the waters. But the moon hadn’t reached her cycle yet.

  He craned up his neck to see the sky, where the constellation of Seolin twinkled an hour past the high circle of midnight. Master Eadred would’ve retired by now, his all-seeing eyes closed for the scant few hours he rested each night.

  Time to go.

  Hemlock rose from his bed, fully dressed, and banked the fire. He took up two sacks of food and supplies he had stealthily gathered from the refectory over the last fortnight, and Aengus’s bow and quiver. Donning a heavy brown cloak, he slipped through the door, taking great care to close it quietly behind him. He had told no one about his plan: not Aengus and certainly not Maeve. After his disappearance, they would be questioned—by wizards—and he wouldn’t risk implicating them with knowledge of his whereabouts.

  Under the cover of mundane activity, he had procured the things he needed for his journey. One advantage of being a servant, so unimportant in the greater scale of things, was that no one had noticed his small, furtive deeds. It had been easy to gather the things he needed for his escape in the sheds, closets, trunks and cabinets of his everyday tasks.

  He padded down the narrow hall, hesitating near the end. Forlsc, the Beastmaster’s wolfhound, sprawled on the path that led from the servants’ quarters. Hemlock hadn’t been sure how much sleeping draught to pour on the deer haunch he had thrown to the hound earlier that night, but it seemed to be working: the great, brindled beast slept still, twitching with hunter’s dreams. As he tiptoed past the animal, Hemlock felt a stab of remorse. He liked Forlsc.

  Unfortunately, the beasts of Urd were not as they seemed. They had the eyes of sleeping wizards, the hearts of scrying crystals, and the instincts of the wild in service to the powerful. Wizards didn’t have many enemies, not the sort that might come in the night in raiding boats anyway, but history lived on here, watching the shores, protecting the innocent. So they said. Hemlock had long wondered if generations of virtual isolation had made the Masters of Urd a wee bit paranoid—unless their furred and feathered watchers had another purpose, such as keeping disgruntled servants from escaping the isle.

  He pulled his hood over his face as he stepped out into a brisk, northeast wind. Good. He hurried down the shallow steps beneath a sickle moon. The lyrical clamor of gulls called to the night from the White Drop north of the caves. He moved over the ragged coastline towards Westgyr Cove, where the wizards kept smaller vessels used for fishing or short journeys. The cove offered shelter from the conservatory above, so he wouldn’t be seen.

  Since the day Eadred had struck him from the Watchtower, Hemlock saw the loerfalos twice more, once on the eve of the full Eggtide moon and again on the last quarter. He no longer questioned it—but he was alone in that. When he had confided in Aengus, the wizard only gaped at him and said, with a laugh, An immortal wouldn’t trouble itself with a mortal for any good reason.

  The cryptic comment caused Hemlock to consider the extent of his ignorance. He had only been able to sneak a look at so many books, over the years. His knowledge of wizardry amounted to no more than a leaf floating on the sea as compared to the sea itself. His father’s overindulgent tales and poems served only to amplify his ignorance, crashing cold and cruel against the ever-strengthening reality of his situation.

  He touched the scar on his cheek. Eadred could’ve blasted him without laying a finger on him, and yet he had hit him with the full force of a man’s strength, like a common thug in a shipyard tavern. As if Hemlock had made it up, by trying to salvage his lowly origins with a tale designed to impress, to make the wizards think he was special, as his father had claimed, when in fact he was just a seaport waif with some impossible ideas.

  Hemlock’s father had once told him about Wychmouth, home of the Beryl Waeltower. He said the wizards there were kind and maintained balance in the fabric of earth and sea. The child took note when the old man pointed his thick, tanned finger at the aquamarine tower shining on the southwestern horizon. That is home to the Master of Wychmouth, the Guardian of the Gray Isles, he said. The Master once studied in the Urd Conservatory, as did every Raven ruling Wychmouth for eighty generations.

  Hemlock had no unrealistic expectations about his status in the world; a fisherman’s son, he had taken his hooks and knocks and wouldn’t have thought himself illused for being punished for bad respect. But he was no liar. He knew something, and after giving up the better part of his life to drudgery at the expense of his dreams, he had to take a chance by discovering for himself the extent of the Master of Wychmouth’s benevolence.

  He approached a granite archway carved with the Urd coat of arms, a hexagrammatic pattern of interwoven sea oats and rosemary leaves with the Watchtower standing in the center beneath a crescent moon. The Eye stared out from the top of the spire. Hemlock threw a sour look at the carved stone tower as he passed into a short tunnel, taking care to step over the sleeping cat. The stench of fish remains—drugged with the last of Hemlock’s sleeping potion—filled the passage. At the far end, stone steps wound down through the rocks to the cove. Small, shadowy boats rested quietly in the waters of a high tide.

  A cresset cast flickering light on the dark water. Hemlock felt a twinge of panic, as he hadn’t expected anyone to be down here. As he reached the landing to the docks, he stopped abruptly. In the deeper shadows of the crags above the pier stood a man in a yellow-gold cloak of the Order of Hawk.

  “What are you doing?” Aengus said, pushing the hood from his face. The shock of his red hair flashed in the light. He rarely wore his Keeper’s habit in casual company—let alone at this hour—and his usual good nature had parted to the coldness of a wizard displeased. Hemlock didn’t see this side of him often.

  “Did Eadred send you?” Hemlock asked.

  “Don’t tell me this is about him. Is that my bow?”

  Hemlock looked down and shrugged. “You want it back?”

  “No, I want you to get out of here and go back to bed.”

  “How did you know I was coming? Did you use wizardry?” He looked his friend up and down accusingly.

  The wizard shook his head. “No magic is more powerful than the senses of a woman. Maeve came to me earlier this afternoon, told me you’d been acting weird and that she feared you were about to do something daft.”

  “I told her nothing about this.”

  Aengus rolled his eyes. “You think that matters? Women know things. She asked me to look into it. So I went to your chambers late this evening. You weren’t there, but I saw your packs and cloak all ready to go. After that, all I had to do was follow the Beastmaster’s missing
venison. He gets that from the kitchens, you know.”

  Hemlock released a breath in irritation. “So you sat out there in the dark and watched me leave?”

  “I didn’t have to. Forlsc doesn’t get venison for his supper but once a fortnight—and the Beastmaster doesn’t feed it to him on the steps of the servants’ hall.” He leaned past Hemlock and threw a finger at the stairs that climbed the hill. “And that cat up there wouldn’t have a nap during his hunting hours, right in the path. I knew you were coming.” He stepped closer, his eyes glittering. “Don’t be a fool, Hemlock. Tell me what you’re about.”

  “I can’t stay here.” He grabbed a torch from a bin and lit it from the cresset, then strode towards the far end of the pier. Aengus followed him.

  A boat floated in the damp gloom beyond the nimbus of the torchlight. Hemlock had spotted this craft two weeks ago, when Maeve’s mother had asked him to fetch a lobster trap. He didn’t know to whom the boat belonged; the name on the prow was in the wizard’s tongue. The hull was deep and strong, and formed at the bow into the neck and head of a sea serpent. Its half-open mouth held the rigging for the foresail, and the leeboards were carved with web-like patterns, giving them the resemblance of fins. At the top of the mast hung a bright emerald telltale in the shape of a fish.

  He slid the torch into a sconce on the end of the pier. He pointed to the boat’s name before jumping into the cockpit. “What does that mean?”

  “Dark Mistress—and Hemlock you are not taking that! It belongs to Master Eadred.”

  A loerfalos. Amused by the breathtaking irony of this, Hemlock began to rig the docklines for a quick exit. Aengus stood there and watched him with an expression of disbelief. When he had finished, Hemlock flung open the cabin hatch and went down. Torchlight beamed through the small round windows. As he put down his packs, something thumped on the deck.

  Aengus peeked through the hatch. “You’re stealing the property of a Master of the Eye. Where do you think you’ll take her?”

  “I’ll bring her back. He won’t miss her. I’ve never seen him down here—or on the water.” He opened a cabinet and rummaged around to make sure he had enough food, water and woolens. “Aengus, you don’t believe me, but I saw a loerfalos. I saw her two more times after Eadred struck me, once on the full moon and again on last quarter, both times in different places on the isle, as if the thing knew where I was.”

  “You shouldn’t have gone to him.”

  “You’re right. But I know what I saw. And what’s worse, I think he believed me. He watches me all the time, now. I feel his presence everywhere.”

  “I think you might be imagining that. But if he was watching you, do you really think putting the animals to sleep would protect you?”

  “Ah, that,” Hemlock said with a smile he didn’t feel. “Well, his presence is so strong; in a short time I noticed its absence each night, some hours after midnight. Whatever he does, he still needs sleep. But the animals roam. I wouldn’t put it past him to—”

  “You’re making a big mistake. Eadred isn’t one to cross or meddle with.”

  Hemlock emerged, wiping his palms on his cloak. “We’ll see what the Master of Wychmouth says. I’m going to tell him about this.”

  Aengus snorted in astonishment. “Are you, now? Even if you get away with this, do you think you’ll walk up to the gates of Wychmouth and tell them you saw a loerfalos? Three times?”

  “Four.” He began to unfurl the mainsail.

  Aengus tossed his head in exasperation. “Eadred is Order of Raven.”

  Hemlock hoisted the sail. Raven. The highest order of the Eye. Unsurprising.

  Aengus continued, “If he tells Master Farous, they’ll project an apparition to Mimir before you see the sun rise. They’ll hang you for theft, for a start.” He stepped close and clutched Hemlock by the shoulders, searching his eyes. His voice dropped. “Hemlock, listen to me. I’m not sure how true this is, but they say Eadred was blackringed. It’s a spell cast by the Aenmos—Ealiron himself, mind you—that damps a Raven’s powers so he can’t focus energy in certain ways. Then they banished him here.”

  “So they sent him here to teach wizards? What was he blackringed for?”

  Aengus released him. “He doesn’t teach. He just lives here. I don’t know what he did, I’m not even sure it’s true. But he’s dreadful, even so. Capable of anything.”

  “I know how dreadful he is.” He lifted his chin. “All the more reason for me to do this.” He moved forward and unfurled the foresail, attached and hoisted it. He checked the sails to ensure they were intact and that the lines were clear. Then he motioned Aengus out of the boat.

  The wizard didn’t move. For a moment, they stood there, their gazes locked in challenge. Hemlock gritted his teeth and glanced pointedly at the black sea moving beyond the mouth of the cove. “If Eadred awakes and sees me here, he’ll gut us both.”

  “I can stop you.”

  “By doing what?” Hemlock shot back. “Will you put a fog on me? Call the others with”—he wiggled his fingers near his head—“mindspeak?”

  Aengus’s dark expression didn’t change. “This isn’t a game, Hemlock. What you’re about to do is very serious. As a Keeper of the Eye, I cannot stand by and let you do it.”

  Hemlock stepped towards him. “What if I’m right? What would you have me do, stay here under Eadred’s surveillance?”

  “You could’ve brought it to one of the other Masters. If you do this, they’ll not be able to defend you.”

  “I kept it hidden because I believe Eadred knows. If I had brought this elsewhere, he’d have denounced me. For all I know, he’s already spoken to them.”

  Aengus climbed out of the boat. “Assumptions. Not facts.”

  Hemlock gazed up at his friend with a sickness in his gut. As if to defend himself from illusion, he recalled the expression on Eadred’s face as he had first looked into the wizard’s eyes. “Aengus, when I went to him, he was startled by something about me—I think it was the only reason he even let me speak. Tell me, once you said that I have ‘the eyes of the sea’. What did you mean by that?”

  Aengus took a few angry steps and whirled around. “It didn’t mean anything, Hemlock. You’re born to nothing but a fishing net. I’m sorry, but I can’t believe these tales you tell. Not anymore.”

  The words struck Hemlock in the chest like a knife. “Oh, nice. So you’ve just been humoring me all this time?”

  Aengus’s expression softened. “You’re my friend and I don’t want you to come to harm.”

  Hemlock’s heart thumped with shame as he began unloosing and drawing the docklines into the boat. “Let me tell you something about being a thrall, Aengus.” He untied several more, letting the bow swing out. “You take for granted the security you have under that cloak you wear. You know who you are, what you want. It comes easily to you. Well, I don’t have that to lose, do I?” He unloosed another. “You tell me Eadred is wayward but you won’t stop to question why, or what this means. So much easier to put it off to my ignorance.”

  He reached up to his neck and unfastened the leather strip holding his turtle charm. He tossed it at Aengus’s feet. “Please give that to Maeve.”

  “Hemlock, I’m sorry. Don’t do this.”

  “Don’t call yourself my friend unless you’re willing to let me follow my path, though it doesn’t fit into your Keepers’ tenets.”

  “Those tenets exist for a reason.”

  Hemlock cast off the last line, then took in the foresail to catch enough wind to draw him from the cove.

  “Your path leads to a dark moon!” Aengus called out behind him. “At sea!”

  As the serpent craft cleared the enclosure, Hemlock turned around. Aengus stood there, clutching his cloak against the wind. After a moment, he reached down and picked up the charm, then strode quickly away.

  Steeling his heart against grief and uncertainty, Hemlock grabbed the tiller to direct the craft carefully ahead to avoid the rocks lurkin
g in the tidal currents. Once he had come away from the shore, he rounded up to the stiff wind and trimmed the mainsail. As he adjusted the sails and picked up speed, he tied everything off and dropped the leeward board.

  He closed his eyes for a moment, and then looked up at the sky. He had lingered too long in the cove; predawn bled faint light over the sea. Southwest of Seolin, the Maiden shone low and unwavering on the horizon. He would follow that, for now.

  He opened the cabin hatch, went below, and grabbed his food sack. He brought it up and returned to the tiller. The cold wind at his back stole the strength from his limbs, but he had to get well-underway before he could lash the tiller and sleep a bit.

  He looked behind him. Tumbled crags loomed up beyond the cove, darker shapes upon the sky. Shrouded in the night, the beach, stones and water looked like a lidded eye watching him leave. He breathed deeply and returned his gaze to the south—then paused as he heard a high-pitched, breaking cry. He turned as a pale blur swooped down and settled on the water swirling in his wake.

  A seagull. It was the size of a goose, with pure white feathers. It seemed to glow.

  Hemlock picked a piece of crust from his pie and flicked it out into the water. “Tell your master to go back to sleep,” he muttered as the gull gulped down its prize.

  The Raven of Ostarin

  Shade of Illusion: The sun casts shadows.

  The great black mainsail of the Oak Leaf strained under the wind, driving the ship through the choppy waves. From the center of the sail gazed the Eye, surrounded by an elegant symmetrical pattern of leafy oak boughs, a shining sun and moon, and a hexagram. Sailors moved over the decks and ladders like otters, talking, bantering and holding the Keepers’ craft on course to the Isle of Urd.

  Lorth of Ostarin, a Master of the Eye, paced the deck in his black cloak like a cat wanting out of a close space. The standard of Raven on the mainsail shadowed him with importance. He leaned against the beam and studied the cold, windblown sea. His wizard’s mind perceived nothing but the rhythmic swells reaching to the springtide sun; but his darker mind, the one that favored Maern, felt something else.