by Edith Pattou
"It matters not. You could have killed one when his back was turned, but you chose not to, risking your own life. It is a brave thing you did, Biri."
Brie looked into Lom's face and knew he spoke the truth—his truth, at any rate. For herself, it was not so clear, but some of the pain had seeped away with the words she had spoken. Soon she slept.
***
Dawn was just breaking when Ferg, who was on watch, let out a cry. The tone of his voice jerked Brie awake and to her feet. The boy was pointing at the water. Brie left Lom, who stirred but remained deep in slumber, and went to the side of the Storm Petrel. She peered down.
There was a dark shadow passing under the boat. It spread out over the sea a good distance.
As Brie stared, her eye caught a movement. Something detached itself from the dark mass and came closer to the surface. Brie got a glimpse of the long undulating form and protruding round eyes rimmed with a line of shining orange. "Sumog!" she cried out. Fara, at Brie's legs, let out a hiss. Then the creature dipped down into the thick swathe of darkness.
Lom had awakened, as had Henle and Stulw, and they joined Brie at the side.
"Did you see?" Brie said, her voice urgent. The fishermen said they had not. Jacan had seen only the darkness from his place at the helm.
They watched the dark band until it was far out to sea and they could no longer see it. Brie's throat was dry. To make up that wide band of darkness there would have had to have been hundreds and hundreds of sumog.
"Are you sure it was sumog?", asked Lom.
"Yes. And look." Floating on the surface were fish bones, tails, fins, and bits of flesh. The Storm Petrel sailed over the grisly trail as they made their way back to Ardara.
Too tired to hike up to Farmer Garmon's barn, Brie stayed the night in a small shed behind Jacan's house, as she had done a handful of times before.
Brie dreamed of Collun again. It began as a peaceful scene, Collun bent over his mother's garden, staking some white cosmos that had grown as tall as his shoulders. Then a light snow began to fall. Collun looked up, puzzled, then afraid. Brie woke.
She remembered as if from long ago a day at Cuillean's dun when she had come across Collun sitting silently beside an overgrown patch of weeds. He had been very still, with a blank look on his face. She had knelt beside him.
"Cosmos and briar roses," he had said, a tangle of winding roots and stems clutched in his hand. "They were Emer's favorites. This was her garden." Brie could see unshed tears in Collun's eyes.
"Can we help it to grow again?" she had asked softly.
"Yes." And they had spent the rest of the day weeding, watering, and staking the neglected plants. When they were done, the blank look in Collun's eyes was gone.
But in her dream he had been afraid.
Still exhausted from the deep-sea fishing, Brie could have easily slept through the rest of the day, even into the night. But she quickly got to her feet and dressed. She must go to Collun. She had postponed it too long. Pulling on her boots, Brie flinched as she remembered her bitter parting words to him.
She checked on the fire arrow. It hummed against her skin, but not with warmth. It seemed faintly displeased.
As she stepped outside, Brie breathed in the morning air. Something was different, she thought. There was a tang, a chill that had not been there yesterday. Sharply she turned her face toward the mountains. Snow. And clouds heavy with darkness hovered over the highest peaks.
It was too late. She sank to the stone steps in front of the hut. Everyone had told her that once the snows came to the Blue Stacks, no one dared travel through. "Think of the storm you met, Biri," Hanna had said, "and imagine ice and snow mixed in with the wind. Not to mention drifts of snow as high as your shoulders."
She could try anyway. Or perhaps ... perhaps she could go by sea. It was possible, she thought, her face lighting for a moment. She could borrow a cross-stave and a table of the airts; she had Crann's map, which clearly marked Dungal's coastline. Yet she had no boat.
She would go to Sago. Perhaps he knew of a boat.
But when she got to Sago's mote, he was just setting out with a canvas satchel slung over his chest. "Sago's amhantar," he said with a looping smile, pointing at the satchel. "For treasures," he added in a dramatic whisper, finger to his lips. And he wandered down to the shoreline peering closely at the sand. Occasionally he stooped to pick up a shell or a tuft of seaweed. Brie watched him, frustrated. Then she followed after.
"Sago," Brie called. "I must return to Eirren."
"Too late, too late," he chirped. Brie frowned and he began to sing,
"I wish I were
where I could not be
and that where I could be
I was not at all."
Sago finished his doggerel with a cheerful smile, then dived upon a bright purple starfish that was missing a leg. He placed it in his amhantar.
"I was thinking I might go by sea...," said Brie, reining in her temper.
"The sea, the salty old sea. And shall old Sago teach you the cerdd-moru, the songs of the sea? 'Sing hey ho, the life of the sea,' " he trilled.
"I must go," Brie almost shouted.
Sago turned to face her, still grinning, but his words were spoken softly. "Perhaps, but not to Eirren. And not yet."
Brie searched his face for meaning. Then he chuckled again and, wagging his forefinger at her, recited,
"One little fish bone
went to see the queen;
when the bone came back
nothing had it seen."
After that she could get nothing of sense from the sorcerer, who skipped down the beach, occasionally crouching low to inspect something in the sand. Brie sank to her knees, numb with disappointment.
Finally she rose to leave. Sago suddenly doubled back, ran to her, taking hold of her wrist.
"Have you ever seen a ghost anemone?" he asked.
"No," replied Brie.
Sago led her across the sand, then onto a large rocky outcrop. He stopped in front of a sheltered basin of water within the rocks and pointed down. Brie moved forward, stepping on a bronze-colored plant that let out a wet, popping noise. Sago told her the plant was a bladder wrack.
"But here, look," said Sago.
Brie peered down into the still pool of water and saw a slender column from which emanated dozens of delicate, swaying tentacles of a whitish, translucent color.
"It's beautiful," said Brie.
Sago nodded. "But when it is disturbed, the ghost anemone releases white stinging threads that paralyze. It uses its ghostly little arms to pull anything edible down to its mouth. You see the mouth? In the center there."
Brie gazed at the oval lips, which undulated with small sucking movements.
"There are two kinds of predators: those who set forth to hunt and kill, and those who sit still and wait," the Sea Dyak sorcerer said matter-of-factly.
Sago stirred the water in the basin with a long piece of driftwood. The tentacles of the ghost anemone contracted slightly, and Brie saw several threads of white shoot out and coil around the stick; then they drifted slowly away.
"You saw the sumog on the sea?" Sago asked unexpectedly.
"Yes."
"Come," said the sorcerer, dropping the driftwood and moving away from the tide pool. He bent down and picked up a shell. "Moon shell," he said with a smile. It was fan-shaped with whorls and ridges corrugating the opalescent, milky white surface. Brie gazed on it with pleasure, then she suddenly noticed Sago's thumbnail. It was long and thin /and it hooked under, curving in toward his thumb at a sharp angle. Sago smiled and held up his other thumb for Brie to see. It was the same.
"It is the mark of a Sea Dyak sorcerer. They are said to be fishing hooks that catch the souls of the departed so they won't be washed out to sea."
Brie stared stupidly at the hooked thumbnails.
Sago raised both thumbs and wiggled them, wearing his looniest grin. "Showy, aren't they? But of no use whatsoever. Not these days. Not becaus
e there is no death, may the gods forbid, but because souls have a way of finding their own way to where they belong. No assistance is needed from a pair of brittle old thumbnails.
"Flora, dora, bora, bite," the sorcerer suddenly chanted, counting out on his two thumbs, "bimini, jimini, reena, mite." Sago wiggled the thumbnail he ended up on, said, "You can never have too many moon shells," and deposited the shell in his amhantar.
They walked on, following the curve of the seacoast. Sago occasionally paused to point out some new wonder—sea spiders, pipefish, blood stars, and two dainty arrow crabs.
The sorcerer suddenly turned to Brie and said, "Have you the stomach for hunting sumog with old Sago, I wonder."
"What do you mean?"
"Next full moon. You will come?"
"I suppose so," she replied, uncertain.
"Nothing better, nothing better. Hunt the hunter." He fluttered his thumbnails at her again.
They walked back to Sago's mote and found Hanna there, waiting for them. The dogs and Fara were with her, and she carried a loaf of fresh bread and a flagon of new honey wine. Sago dug a pit in the sand in front of the mote, and Brie helped him start a small fire with pieces of driftwood and dry seaweed. While she and Hanna built up the fire, Sago wandered off and returned with several handfuls of clams. He threw them on the flames.
It was a warm night, and the three ate companionably, the animals ranged around them. The broiled clams, the fresh bread, Sago's sepoa tea, and the honey wine were all delicious. Brie lay on her side on the sand, feeling peaceful, her stomach full. Then Hanna broke the silence. "I leave tomorrow," she said. "The dark months are soon upon us and it is time I journeyed north. I will return to Ardara by the winter solstice."
"Breo-Saight and I will have stories to tell you, of hunting beasties in dark waters," said Sago, winking at Brie. Hanna raised an eyebrow, then called to Jip, who was trying to get at a hermit crab.
***
Brie and Hanna said their good-byes the next morning, and, after thanking Farmer Garmon and Lotte for their kindness to her, Brie moved her few belongings to the stone hut behind Jacan's house. Then she headed for the Storm Petrel.
The night of the full moon, Brie set out for Sago's mote. Fara was not with her, having disappeared at twilight as she occasionally did. When Fara reappeared the next morning she would no doubt have a sleek, well-fed look, and Brie guessed that hunting forays accounted for her absences.
It was a warm night and the moon hung in the darkness, swollen and heavy. Brie walked quickly, feeling jittery.
Sago was readying his boat, a small one-masted ketch he called Gor-gwynt or Western Wind, after the wind direction that all right-thinking fishermen favor. The sorcerer worked quickly and with easy skill. He brought aboard his fishing pole, a lantern, a small basket, and a handheld landing net. Brie saw no weapon of any kind.
They cast off, and Brie took the tiller while Sago raised the sail. The night wind was fresh and came from the east. "We are lucky," Sago said, making fast several ropes in quick succession. "Dwy-gwynt means we don't have to row out of the inlet." Brie recognized dwy-gwynt as the name for the east wind on the table of the airts.
They came out of the harbor into the long waves. Sago took over the tiller, and, though the moon was bright, he bade Brie light the lantern. Then Sago had them change places again, and, as she gripped the straining tiller, Sago lay belly-down on the bow of the boat, holding the lantern just above the surface of the water. He stayed motionless for a time, then rejoined Brie.
"It is early yet" was all he said. The boat, poised and eminently sure of herself, skimmed over the rippled surface of the ocean.
"Where do the sumog come from?" asked Brie as she rehung the lantern on the iron forkel at the bow.
"Oona, moona, mollopy, mite; show me little fishies that bite!" chanted Sago gleefully.
"Sago," Brie said, impatient. "Truly, tell me what place they come from. The north?" she said, thinking of Scath, and of faraway Usna and Uneach, where the morgs lived; even the north wind on Jacan's table of the airts wore the face of a viper.
Sago made his face serious and shook his head. "There is much of value that comes out of the north. The corals of Usna. The bearded yellowfish of the Grissol Sea. The mountain sheep of Sola. No. Not the north. It is from man that evil always comes."
"But man did not make the sumog."
"Did he not?"
"Then are the sumog from the Cave?" Brie asked slowly.
Long ago an evil sorcerer named Cruachan had unleashed a horde of malformed, deadly creatures on Eirren. They were caught and contained in a vast cave by the great hero-king Amergin and his allies. Henceforth it was called the Cave of Cruachan. But in recent times Medb, Queen of Scath, had found a way to unseal the cave, using the cailceadon stone, and from the cave she released Naid, the Firewurme; Nemian, the black-winged creature that had nearly sucked the life out of Brie; and Moccus, the eyeless boar.
"There was an evil man who walked an evil mile..." Sago began. "No, not Cruachan; not this time."
"Medb?"
"Riddle me this, and riddle me that," Sago said with an air of finality. He stood and lowered the sail, letting the boat drift. Then he reached for his fishing pole. As he baited the hook with a mudminnow, he said mildly, "The sumog is a beaked fish and beaked fish always circle bait before swallowing it. And we will need something large to catch the eye of a sumog." He cast the line, and a few moments later it jerked. Sago pulled in a small chub, then threw it back. He caught several more small fish and threw them back as well. Finally he hooked a good-size mullet, and he set down his pole. He proceeded to kill the fish, slice it in half, and remove its spine. After inserting a hook in its head, he deftly sewed the fish back up using a thin clear thread. Then he set the whole thing aside, floating the dead fish in a bucket of seawater. He passed Brie a skin bag filled with tepid sepoa tea, and several of the small fish-and-potato cakes called taten-pisc.
They ate in silence in the rocking, drifting boat, the moonlit sea whispering around them.
Halfway through her second taten-pisc, Brie saw Sago's body go still. He slowly set down the skin bag and took up his fishing pole.
Sago moved silently to the bow and looked across the water. Then, with a set face, he cast his line, the dead fish shining silver in the moonlight as it arched through the air, dropping into the sea with a small splash. Brie joined Sago at the bow. She caught sight of a blur of darkness moving swiftly toward the bait fish. Sago gestured at the lantern, and Brie quickly took it from the forkel. She held it up over the water and saw a school of five sumog converge on the dead fish.
Teeth flashed and powerful jaws tore, and in a matter of minutes there was nothing left of the fish. Sago quickly pulled in the line and the iron hook was bitten in half.
Suddenly there was a thudding sound from the hull.Sago looked surprised, but he gave a manic grin as the boat lurched. Then another thud and the boat rocked violently. Brie was thrown off balance and clutched the side of the boat to keep from falling. A sumog cleaved out of the water, slicing at her fingers with its knife-sharp teeth. She let out a cry and pulled in her hand, several drops of blood falling into the water.
A pair of sumog threshed around in a frenzy where Brie's blood had spilled, and she caught a glimpse of their round, bulging eyes rimmed by shiny orange. Then she spotted more dark shapes flowing toward the boat.
Brie crouched in the bottom of the rocking boat, cradling her torn fingers. She looked over at Sago, who stood, holding on to the mast, still with that wide, reckless smile on his face. The boat pitched from side to side as the sumog continued butting against the hull.
They were trying to capsize the boat.
"Raise the sail!" Brie cried out.
Sago shook his head, smiling, his eyes fixed on the water.
"Sago!" she shouted.
"A sailor sailed the sea, sea, sea, to see what he could see, see, see...," Sago sang.
Thump went the sumog.
The tilting boat suddenly seemed very small in the vast dark sea.
THIRTEEN
The Wedding Dance
Brie rose and took a step toward Sago, thinking to push him aside so she could get to the sail, but she stopped and stared. Some kind of light was coming from the Sea Dyak sorcerer, a golden glow from under his skin. His face, his hands, even his stalklike legs, were lit with a fiery radiance, burning brighter than a hundred lanterns. Then he gestured with a golden hand toward the sumog.
Brie turned her gaze on the writhing, undulating mass under the boat. There must have been fifty or more sumog in the water. She could feel the evil pulsing from them.
Turning to look back at Sago, she had to shield her eyes, for bursts of light began to appear on the surface of the water all around the boat, like tongues of flame. As she watched, transfixed, the movements of the sumog began to slow. The bright shafts of light were widening and thrusting down under the water, spreading like some kind of undersea wildfire. The sumog had gone still, and as the light lapped over them, they too began to glow, the brown serpentine bodies becoming suffused with light.
Brie was just about to avert her eyes when, with a flash, one sumog near her burst into pinpoints of light, and then there was nothing left except tiny phosphorescent specks floating in the water.
Hypnotized by the sight, Brie watched as one by one the sumog exploded, like so many iridescent soap bubbles. Then the sumog were gone, and the water around the boat sparkled with thousands of tiny motes of light.
Brie wheeled around to look at Sago, suddenly, irrationally afraid he, too, was going to burst. But the light was already fading from his body, and he gave her a smile.
Then he crossed to her. His arm was glowing only faintly as he took her injured hand. Wiping the blood off her hand with 3 cloth, he looked closely at the jagged cut across the backs of her fingers. Abruptly he lifted them to his mouth and sucked. Brie winced.