The Spellcoats

by Diana Wynne Jones

  “Hern!” I said.

  “Stand back there!” Hern said at the door of the tent, speaking very loud and slow. “I want to say something private to the King.”

  A great many voices made objection to this. I think everyone in the camp was standing there listening in.

  “I know that,” said Hern. “But you can guard him from where you can’t hear. Get over near that hut, all of you.”

  There were more objections outside.

  “What do you take us for?” said Hern. “We could have had the King to the top of the Black Mountains by now if we wanted. I swear to you we are not going to harm a hair of his head or a hair of his soul’s head. But I must speak to the King alone. Now move away, all of you.”

  Feet shuffled off, from all round the tent. It must have been every Heathen in the place. Hern peeked a look round to make sure they had all gone, and then he came back inside. Kars Adon lifted his chin and gave him a haughty stare. I admired that. Kars Adon must have been afraid Hern was going to work all sorts of terrible enchantments on him, but he let Hern know who was King here. As for Hern, I could see him shaking at his own audacity. When he saw the King look, he went bright red.

  “I apologize for that,” he said, and sat on the stool again—I think his knees gave way. “I had to get them out of the way because I’m going to be frank with you, and I didn’t want to be murdered on the spot. Before you tell us about Kankredin, I want to tell you that we are not of your people or of any clan of your people. We are natives, as you would say.”

  “Is it possible?” said Kars Adon. “You look as we do.” He was really frightened now. So was I. When Hern launches himself on one of his rash ideas, you never know what will happen.

  “My father’s fathers,” said Hern, “were born here by the River, as far back as I know. I wanted to tell you that, by way of friendship, and to prevent mistakes. Otherwise—well, you’ve already let us know there are not many of you, that your father is dead, that you’re camped in a bad place without too much food, and in some trouble with Kankredin besides.” This astonished me. But Hern was quite right. What Kars Adon had not told us, we could see by looking at his camp. “So before you give away all your plans and secrets,” Hern said, “I shall have to tell you we are your enemies. If I didn’t, we’d have given ourselves away somehow, and you’d have killed us, and we’d have lost our chance to help one another. Aren’t I right?”

  “I… suppose so,” Kars Adon said. He looked at Hern dubiously. He wanted to trust Hern, for whatever trouble he was in, but he was not sure at all. I did not blame him. I was not sure I trusted Hern either.

  “So why did you send for us?” Hern asked.

  “He probably doesn’t want us anymore,” said Duck. He thought Hern was mad.

  “I think I do,” said Kars Adon. “Only mages can understand a mage. I am sure you have the power to reach Kankredin in his ship. But I do not want to send enemies to him or tell you—” He did not seem to know what to say.

  “Tell us as little as you can,” I suggested.

  “If this will help you,” said Hern, “we were going to see Kankredin anyway. We just didn’t know his name. And though we are your enemies by birth, our people do not love us. They think we are Heathens, too.” It is hard to explain the bitterness with which Hern spoke. He must have been remembering Zwitt and Aunt Zara and Gull in anger for a long time. Kars Adon looked at him and wondered.

  “What makes you a Heathen?” Duck asked Kars Adon.

  “I don’t know what you mean,” Kars Adon said.

  “Do you believe in the Undying?” I said.

  Kars Adon smiled. “We’ve no use for dolls beside our fireplaces, if that’s what you mean. The Undying are not clay figures. But when I die, I hope to be gathered to them.”

  This made me very indignant, but I could see, all the same, that Kars Adon did in some manner believe in the Undying.

  “I will tell you,” Kars Adon said suddenly, “since you know so much already. Kankredin has been all the while out on his ship, wrestling with the might of your River. But when my father was killed, he knew, and sent one of his mages to bring us here, where he told us to stay. He promised us that he would conquer the land for us, through the River. But while we wait here, those of us who have not been killed by the natives are being sucked in by the River. The River is a greedy and devouring monster. It has carried off all our ships, except one. Kankredin has angered it with his enchantments, and it rises in ever-increasing might. And we suffer for it, not Kankredin.”

  It really might have been Zwitt or Aunt Zara talking. But Kars Adon evidently believed it.

  “I have known for some time that we must leave,” he said.

  “Will you go away home?” I asked hopefully.

  “That seems the only thing to do,” Kars Adon said. “We must build another ship and go. Now that my father is dead, my uncle will let us come back; they had quarreled, you see. It means that I must give up all claim to the throne and perhaps have both hands cut off, but I owe it to my clans.” He seemed very calm about this. “But,” he added sadly, “Kankredin will not let us out through the Rivermouth for any reason. I want to ask you to make him let us go.”

  “Fair enough,” said Hern. “But what do you really want to do?”

  “What do I want?” Kars Adon said. He lifted his head and stared at the gray flapping wall of the tent. “I want to go inland and found my kingdom there, of course. It is a wide country. There is plenty of room for us and the natives. I think there are certainly scattered bands from the clans between here and the mountains. I shall call them in and make a city. I don’t pretend it will be easy, but someday we shall be a great people again.” The way he said this made me think of flags flying over stone roofs and golden towers, and I really believed he could do it.

  “That’s a bit hard on us natives,” said Duck.

  “I shall make treaties with you. If you choose to fight, I shall win,” said Kars Adon, lost in high dreams.

  “Right. When do you start?” said Hern.

  That brought Kars Adon back to earth. He put his chin down and looked bleakly at Hern. Hern looked bleak and chalky back. The windy air in the tent seemed full of flags and half-heard trumpets out of Kars Adon’s thoughts.

  “You want me to go to Kankredin and get his permission for you to conquer the country?” Hern asked, in his most jeering way.

  Kars Adon was so angry that he stood up and took a limping step toward Hern. “I am not the servant of any mage!”

  Hern stood up too, showing himself again much larger—not that this daunted Kars Adon. “That’s more like it,” Hern said. “Then what’s keeping you here?”

  Kars Adon glared at Hern. “The River. The River drowns anyone who tries to go inland. Tell Kankredin from me that he must leave the River alone.”

  “I shall do that with pleasure,” said Hern. “We’ve already spoken to the River. You’ll find the waters are going down.” He could not stop himself from smiling as he said this.

  Kars Adon smiled, too. He was so pleased that he put out a damp knuckly hand and wrung each of our hands in turn. “Thank you,” he said. “I wish I could offer you a reward or something to eat or drink, but—” He paused a little blankly. I think the Heathen notion of gratitude was to shower food and drink on people, and possibly gold and silver, too, and it seemed to hurt Kars Adon that he could not do it. “I give my protection and friendship freely to all three of you,” he said, rather lamely. “I suppose you’ll go to Kankredin when the tide starts running out?”

  It was lucky he said that. We still had no notion about the tides. I turned to Hern and said knowingly, “Now, the tide turns when?”

  “Um,” said Hern, pulling his chin wisely.

  “It’ll be around sunrise tomorrow,” Kars Adon said obligingly, “won’t it?” He knew all about tides. His people came from the sea. It was odd that he knew so little of the River.

  “We’ll set off at sunrise,” Duck said, as wise as
Hern.

  “And so will we,” Kars Adon said eagerly. “I shall have them strike camp tonight.” His flags and trumpets were back. “We should be many miles inland by tomorrow night,” he said.

  After that we said good-bye with great politeness and went back to our island. Arin and his flag bearer did not come beyond the edge of the camp with us. They were too anxious to get back and find out what had been said. That was fortunate, because when we reached the channel, no one would have believed Ked and I had nearly drowned in it. It was nothing but a ditch of wet brown sand. They would have known we were not mages.

  We could see the One’s fire flaring beyond the hill of our island. “I hope Robin’s all right,” said Hern.

  “And the One,” I said. “Hern, what got into you?”

  “I could see he liked straight dealing,” said Hern. “And I took a risk. I wanted to find out about this Kankredin. And we did. I’m going to give him a piece of my mind tomorrow.”

  “But,” I said, “you’ve sent him off—Kars Adon and his Heathens—to get slaughtered inland. Just those few of them can never last.”

  “We’ve done our people a service,” Duck said complacently.

  But Hern said, as we trod across the brown ditch, leaving pale footprints, “It was better than sitting on a sandhill dreaming dreams. If I was him, I’d never have gone there in the first place.”

  9

  Sunrise next day came with a fine itching mist of rain. I was woken by miserable wet cats trying to get under my blankets. My clothes, which I had hung on the boat to dry, were wet as ever, and Robin, while she was no worse, was not better. And in spite of the rain, the One’s fire was by no means out. It had fallen inward to a flat heap of charcoal, in which blackness and redness came and went as the rain met it, but it was as hot as it was the night before.

  This was a serious difficulty. When the One is newly out of his fire, he is at his strongest, and I knew we should take him with us to meet Kankredin. The One signifies that he is ready to come out by putting the fire out and appearing among the ashes. He was not ready. We argued about what we should do. The argument was made more urgent by the sound of the tide racing seaward on three sides of us.

  Hern said, “There’s no need for anyone to go but me. You two aren’t reasonable enough, anyway.”

  Duck and I refused to stay behind. Duck said he had bound himself to go, too. I wanted to confront Tanamil. “And suppose you’re not back when the One is ready to come out?” I said. It had to be Hern, as head of the family, who took the One from the fire.

  Then Hern suggested pouring water on the fire and taking the One out at once. That is Hern all over. I would not hear of it. Neither would Robin. By this time Robin had realized what we were intending to do. She started croaking—her voice had become like a raven’s, as ugly as her face—on and on at us that we were not to go out to sea, that Mother would not like it, that we were not to go without her, and a dozen other objections beside.

  She annoyed me. I am sure the reason we are stuck in this old mill, having failed at everything, is that I got so annoyed with Robin that morning. We should have waited until the One was ready to go with us. The Lady and the Young One were not strong enough alone. But I still think we were right not to take Robin. I do not think her soul would have been safe.

  I jumped up. “Let’s go,” I said to Hern. “If the One doesn’t want to come, it’s his bad luck. He can stay with Robin.” Robin sat up, with blankets sliding off her shoulders. “Lie down,” I said to her. “You can’t come. I’m wearing your skirt.”

  Robin was too ill to stand up to me. Normally she has a long, weak persistence, so that I end up losing. But she just lay down and cried.

  “Now she’s crying!” I said. “She cries like a weapon. Lie down, Robin.” I was really horrible. Duck and Hern looked on, subdued. They wanted to see Kankredin too much to interfere. “Let’s build her a shelter to keep the rain off,” I said to them, “and then go.”

  The cats got into the shelter gladly. We put food and water in it, and Gull. Nobody argued about Gull. We knew he must stay. Robin was still tearful, but I am almost sure she was glad to be staying, too. We tucked her up where she could see the One’s fire before we ran the boat down to the brown racing tide.

  Though we put the sail up, it was the tide which took us and snatched us toward the sandbanks at the Rivermouth. It snatched so fiercely that I took up the Young One. I was afraid already. Duck had the Lady in his hands the moment the boat was in the water. Hern smiled scornfully, but he was shaking whenever I looked at him.

  It was impossible to see far in the whiteness and grayness of the rain, but I think the River goes into the sea through many channels, among banks of sand and marsh. The place is miles wide, and low and wet. It was lucky Kars Adon had mentioned the tide because the place where our boat went through was shallow enough as it was. Without the race of the water, we would have run aground. We could not see any distance. Our boat drew on swiftly, drawing with it, as it were, the circle of what we could see. At first we saw water; then, on both sides, there was sticky, shiny marsh, sometimes like wet sand, sometimes covered with brown plants. Even in our small circle, there were more birds than I could count. I saw herons wading, River birds swimming and diving, geese, ducks, grebes, coots, and more gulls than I thought possible, glimmering white through the white rain. Everywhere came cries and squawks, splashings, and the beating of wings. And with every yard, our fear grew.

  “I bet the fishing’s good here,” Duck said. His teeth chattered. Yet it felt hot and airless among the beating wings. The rain dewed our rugcoats and filled our hair, and we did not feel cold.

  Then we saw something dark through the rain ahead. It was not a ship. We could see the darkness crossed our channel and ran off on either side. Black fear grew in us. We leaned forward, trying to see through the veils of rain. We saw what seemed to be a small boat being poled across in front of the obstruction, just at the limit of what we could see. It went slowly, but we could barely see it all the same. We saw the fair heads of Heathens in it. One was poling, the other stooping and flinging things from the water into the boat. They had gone, slowly to the right, before we could see more.

  We knew—though I do not know how—that we had seen something terrible.

  “Mother!” whispered Duck. “What were they doing?”

  “Fishing, I should think,” said Hern. But from the way he shivered in the heat and wet, he did not believe it.

  “Let’s go back!” I said. But the tide was taking us on all the time, and we could not. “Oh,” I said, “why is the One in his fire just when we need him most?” We were slipping forward between the banks of croaking, splashing birds, and I still could not see what the black thing was across our way. I hugged the Young One to my chest and prayed to him to help us.

  “Mother!” whimpered Duck again.

  “Shut up! She’s dead,” said Hern.

  We slid on. The white rain veiled us. Everywhere was white. We slid in a white circle on gray water, and even the marsh was hidden. I heard a duck croak and a gull cry overhead. My fear of gulls made me look up, but I could not see the bird. The rain seemed to have stopped. Not so fearsome, you think? Next moment our boat drifted upon two ducks, which flew off from almost beneath it, with a great outcry. And we could not see the ducks. You know how ducks run through the water, flapping, until at last they have speed enough to fly. We saw the splash and scuffle in two lines on the water, the spray and drips as the wings beat the surface on either side, and we saw the last splash as they rose on the wing. We heard their quacking. We felt the whir of the wings on our faces. But there were no ducks.

  “What’s happened?” whispered Duck.

  “We’ve not gone blind,” said Hern. His voice cracked. “We can see the water,” he said. He was not steering anymore. He was crouched with one arm on the tiller, gazing as if he could force his eyes to see again.

  The boat turned sideways and drifted on. I saw the deep
V of a swimming grebe, and many scutterings upon the water. I heard birds overhead. But not a single one did I see until, without break or warning, we were out at sea and I could see the birds again.

  The obstruction stood behind us. It was a great net, as high as a house, black as midnight and made in large squares. It was hung on posts as far as we could see in both directions, across the marshes and across the many trickling mouths of the River, from one shore to the other. The birds were in the mud behind the net, feeding and flapping as before. We could see them perfectly. In the distance, also behind the net, we saw the boat with the two Heathens in it, still at their strange business.

  On the other side of us was wide blueness. The sea is a great field of water. Where it meets the sky, it is a darker blue. It is immense, too big for me. I was glad to fix my eyes on the long black ship moored to lines not far away. It swung on its ropes as I looked. There were two big eyes painted one on either side of its sharp black prow, with which it seemed to stare at us.

  “Look, look! In the net!” said Duck.

  There were things struggling against the net, on the River side of it. They were not clearly to be seen. They were large, for the most part, the size of geese or swans, and I think they were winged and of a pinkish color. Each one, as it came against the black net, struggled furiously to get through. We could see the struggle more easily than the thing which fought. Some were able to force themselves through the wide mesh. These flew off to the sea over our heads and were lost in the blue. Many, many more gave up the struggle and slithered down the net inside. The water there was full of their strugglings and floppings. It was these that the Heathens in the boat were collecting.

  “People’s souls,” said Duck.

  “I don’t believe it!” said Hern, staring. “I don’t believe it!”

  Just then the Heathens in the small boat saw us. They shouted angrily and came poling back along the net. Hern quickly swung the tiller and let the wind to our sail. It was a fine breezy day out there. I think the rain and the mist were made by the net. In the breeze and the tide we raced toward the black ship and came in under one of its great eyes. I wanted to hide. It stared so.