Dark Heart (Husk)

by Russell Kirkpatrick

  ‘Why has this been done to us, Father?’ Anomer’s voice was sharp.

  ‘You think this is my fault?’ Noetos could not help it: he found himself instantly on the defensive.

  ‘I know this is your fault. Every time we get into trouble, you are to blame.’

  Noetos decided to speak plainly. Or as plainly as he could with a sack over his head. This was not the place for it, nor was it the audience, but the boy was becoming insufferable.

  ‘I am often to blame, my son, because I seem to be the only one prepared to do anything about injustice. We got into trouble at Saros Rake because I came after you. I suppose I could have stayed at home—like you would have, perhaps. I faced down the whirlwinds at Raceme to protect you and your sister. Are you saying I should have left Arathé to face the Fingers of God alone? I make mistakes because I do things. Until you’ve made your own mistakes, I don’t want to hear any more talk of blame from you.

  ‘We’re here because I tried to bargain with the captain for Miss Sai’s freedom. Is there anyone here who thinks I ought not to have tried?’

  His son had courage, if not sense. ‘Less than three months after my mother died, you are chasing a slattern. Who could possibly agree that a sad old man thinking of his own selfish needs deserves anyone’s support? Father, she’s Arathé’s age. I’m embarrassed for you.’

  In the long silence that followed this, Noetos could hear someone—Dagla, if Arathé was right—struggling for breath. A muffled murmuring came from one direction: two voices that sounded like Seren and Tumar, discussing the boy’s injury.

  Arathé, have you spoken to Anomer about Miss Sai?

  I’m speaking to him now.

  Tell him—no, ask him—to think before he speaks, would you? He’s a gifted lad, but no one will follow him if all he does is criticise others. I want to reconcile with him, Arathé, and I’d appreciate your help.

  Very well, I will tell him.

  The sound of booted feet brought Noetos out of the semi-daze he’d fallen into.

  ‘Is there going to be any trouble?’ came a voice. The first mate’s, Noetos thought. In the end, he’s the captain’s creature.

  ‘We’ll not make it,’ Noetos said.

  ‘Good man. This is what is going t’ happen. We’re going t’ loop a rope through all your bindings and lead you from the ship. All your possessions will be placed in a pile. You’ll get most o’ your coin back, but some goes to one of our agents who will guard you until we’re well clear and on our way back to sea. Then your blindfolds will come off and you’ll be set free. Is that all clear?’

  ‘It is.’ They were trapped.

  No, we’re not. Arathé’s voice in his mind. Father, Anomer says he’s sorry, and wonders whether you require the strength of his children. You could overpower the guards—

  No, Arathé. We don’t know how many of the crew are out there. And even were I somehow to prevail over them, the whole ship would be against us. Passengers and crew.

  But we should try! Anomer’s voice.

  We know where she is, Noetos told his children. If we allow the inevitable now, we can rebuild our resources later. I know I normally rush in, but this is not the time for action.

  ‘Stand up, the lot of you.’

  ‘One of us can’t stand,’ Seren growled. ‘If you’ve done him permanent harm, be assured I’ll find who did it and—aaah!’ A thump accompanied the shout of pain.

  ‘Enough!’ Noetos cried. ‘We’re doing what you want. Please, just do as you said you would and let this be ended.’

  If Noetos had been on his own, of course he would have tried something. But his children and his sworn men were his responsibility. It hurt him deeply to leave Miss Sai in the hands of such a blackguard, but he truly saw no choice.

  They were to be transferred to the longboat, which was lowered and launched with a great deal of shouting and swearing from the crew. The first mate informed his captives of what was happening all the while.

  As they shuffled across the deck, Noetos became aware that what sounded like the entire passenger list had been assembled to see them leave. Mutters and mumbles distinguished them from the crew, whose exertions told on their breathing. No doubt this assembly was Kidson’s final attempt to humiliate them. He listened with everything he had as he walked past the watching passengers, their lighter breathing marking them out. Could he tell?

  He didn’t need to. ‘Goodbye, fisherman,’ she said.

  ‘I’ll return.’ It was all he had time to say. So much he wished to tell Cylene; a deep unease at his decision to keep the truth about herself from her. Too late for regrets now.

  Slowly down the rope ladder, gently easing themselves into the longboat, the slap of choppy water on the sides. Then slow strokes and the sounds of the ship fading into the distance.

  ‘Do we really need these sacks on our heads?’ Seren asked.

  ‘Captain’s orders,’ said the first mate.

  ‘And do you always follow captain’s orders?’ Noetos countered.

  ‘When the captain’s nearby, he does,’ Kidson said.

  There was no more conversation. Eventually the boat came to a halt, and ropes were secured. By then Noetos was nauseous, the heat working on his fouled head covering. He wondered how the others fared, but would not give Kidson the satisfaction of enquiring. He could check on his children, of course, who told him they were uncomfortable but well. Anomer expressed real concern for Dagla, who was barely breathing.

  Up another ladder they were guided, and they found themselves on rough wooden planking, a wharf of some kind. People were watching. Noetos could hear their laughter clearly. A final thump—probably Dagla—and then silence.

  ‘Untie us,’ Noetos said. ‘We need to see to our man.’

  ‘You’ll wait until I say,’ a voice growled.

  Noetos wriggled his way over to where he’d heard the thump. Someone lay there, someone who wasn’t breathing.

  ‘Please! He’s dying!’

  ‘I said wait.’

  Anomer! Arathé! Lend me your strength now! Dagla—Shh.

  Anomer will do it.

  The next minute was among the most frustrating Noetos had ever endured. A great pull in the back of his mind, then a shout, followed by further shouting, scuffling sounds and a thump, then a splash. Someone—it must be Anomer—went to work on Dagla. Heavy breathing, then muttering, and a cry of anguish.

  ‘What, Anomer? What? Is he all right?’

  Hands at his neck, pulling the sack from his head. Anomer’s sweat-streaked face hovering above his own.

  ‘Dagla is dead,’ his son said to him.

  The survivors stood on the dock, free of their bonds and surrounded by inquisitive locals. Noetos swept the sea with his eyes: the longboat had already drawn some distance away. He wanted to scream at the retreating cowards, but he held his tongue.

  The boy was dead, and the blame rested firmly on the uncaring shoulders of that thug in the longboat. Noetos walked over to the body and bent bown beside the pale, dirt-streaked face.

  ‘He never had a chance,’ Tumar said, joining him. ‘Even if we’d bin allowed t’ help him, he woulda died. Head wound was too bad.’ The man had tears in his eyes. ‘He was a luv’ly boy. Never woulda hurt anyone. No need to hit him so hard. My knife an’ I want to hear that captain do some explaining.’

  ‘So do I,’ said Noetos, ‘but explanations will have to wait a while.’

  Anomer approached. ‘Everyone else is well. What shall we do with Dagla?’

  ‘That depends,’ said Noetos, looking at the young man’s body, ‘on what the captain left us.’

  ‘No swords, no coin, no luggage,’ Seren reported. Was the miner weeping? Without doubt. ‘Though the ship’s agent has a weapon ’n’ a purse. I’ve secured ’em both.’

  Noetos grunted an acknowledgment. No luggage. On the first day of the voyage he’d taken the huanu stone and sewn it into the lining of his pack. He had reasoned that the danger of accidental
contact with his children outweighed the need to have the stone on his person. Now the stone was lost; and, surprisingly, he felt more relief than disappointment.

  ‘Not a man of his word, then,’ he said. ‘I cannot say I am surprised. Then neither will we keep ours.’

  He took a step forward, and another, carefully stretching cramped legs, until he reached the seaward end of the wharf. The Conch came into view, more than half a mile distant, slowly rounding the headland that defined the bay.

  ‘We will return, Cylene,’ he whispered, though the words were as much for Kidson as for her. ‘I promise.’

  COSMOGRAPHER

  CHAPTER 20

  THE LAKE OF FIRE

  WHAT DID CAPIXABA really know?

  Torve sent a series of paired spiral kicks into the air directly above him, one-two, one-two, one-two, as fast as he could count. He wondered if he could lift himself completely off the ground with his own effort so he hovered unsupported in the air. Capixaba had said such a thing was not possible.

  But the ancient progenitor of the Omeran Defiance had said a great many things, passed down from generation to generation without question, and Torve now knew some of them were not true. What had been his biggest lie? That the Defiance could only be used for self-expression? Or that it was a necessary part of what made him Omeran?

  Both were untrue; he realised that now.

  It was Capixaba he duelled with today, the most proficient exponent of Defiance ever to have lived. Or so said the lore. Was this also a lie?

  The man was good, Torve would grant him that. He knew exactly how much to move in order to fake Torve out, a ripple of a shoulder or twitch of a thigh enough to trick him into moving precipitately. For the first few minutes of their encounter the imaginary master had entirely dominated him. Torve had found himself fully occupied with responding to Capixaba’s movement.

  And really, that was the problem. By accepting this man’s teachings as heart and law, the Omerans had locked themselves into an ever-repeating pattern of subservience. Three thousand years of it, father and son, mother and daughter, bound by the ritual designed to set them free.

  Yes, it had prevented them from being destroyed by the fierce Amaqi. But Torve had begun to harbour doubts about even that truth. Could this also be a lie? Tell me, Capixaba, is there any truth in you? He scissored his ramrod-straight legs left and right while supporting himself on the ground with splayed hands. The old master was there to meet his move, and flowed with it, always a step ahead. As he always will be if I continue to use only the prescribed movements, the ones he invented.

  Do something new, he told himself.

  Could he? Was it possible to escape millennia of restrictive practices? To lead rather than follow?

  He would try.

  Torve pushed back with his hands, landing on the balls of his feet. He tensed his strong leg muscles, then leaped forward, tumbling through the air, and landed on his hands, sending waves of pain through his wrists. But his illusory opponent had not tracked the move. A flick of the knee, an extension of the ankle, and his foot stopped a finger-width short of the master’s head, which had still not turned to follow him.

  The wave of pure ecstasy that swept through Torve at that moment was the single most powerful emotion he had ever experienced. It undid all the fear and loathing that had built up after the terrible events at Foulwater.

  Had he become something other than Omeran? Would the Desert Children, whom he saw as his pure ancestors, approve of what he had done, or would they reject him?

  Had they been watching from some spirit world as he killed those defenceless villagers?

  He let go of his meticulous training, his pattern of Defiance comprised of endlessly repeated prescribed movements, and moved his body at random. Capixaba stood motionless, unable to oppose him.

  His freed mind went back to that morning, weeks ago, when the villagers of Foulwater came to confront the Amaqi. Dryman had led them south of the village, back to the wreckage of the Yacoppica Tea House, to search for any sign of Lenares.

  ‘She’s disappeared,’ he said, encouraging Torve and Duon to search for any sign of her.

  ‘We saw her swept away,’ Duon replied patiently. ‘No one could have survived such force of water. Of course she disappeared.’ He spoke as though to a child. Torve also could not understand what his master meant.

  ‘No, it’s not just that she’s missing,’ the mercenary said testily. ‘I can’t sense her any more. It’s as though she no longer exists. Even if she died, even if her body is buried under rubble or crushed and broken into pieces, I ought to be able to sense her still.’

  Duon looked up from the wreckage he was searching through. ‘What are you talking about? How do you “sense” her?’

  ‘You are remarkably obtuse, even for a human,’ Dryman said. ‘Have you not yet worked it out?’

  Duon looked at Torve. ‘Worked out what? What is the man talking about?’

  Torve could not answer, of course, for fear that he might betray his master’s secret; though it appeared his master was on the point of doing so himself. At that moment the first villagers, angry and out of breath, burst through the shelter belt and out into the open.

  ‘What did you do to her?’ one of them shouted in between deep gasps for breath. ‘What did you do?’

  He had a flimsy stick in his hand, clearly broken from some bush. The others with him were similarly equipped.

  ‘We know what they did,’ said a youngster. It was the curly-haired boy at whose parents’ house Torve had stayed last night. ‘Foul murderers. I want to know why!’

  ‘What is going on here?’ Duon cried, as a line of twenty villagers, sticks and farm implements in their hands, advanced on them. ‘What did we do to whom?’

  Dryman stepped forward. ‘We killed her,’ he said, and the villagers roared, an ugly sound.

  Duon spun to face him. ‘I killed no one! What are you talking about? I don’t understand.’

  ‘Those words will be on your lips when you die,’ Dryman said. ‘You’ll never understand. Now get out of the way.’

  The message must have made its way back through the forest, as the next group of villagers to emerge—older men, well-armed with axes and swords—asked no questions.

  ‘Get them!’ a burly man cried, and the crowd surged forward.

  Duon and Dryman had weapons, but Torve was unarmed. As an Omeran, he’d never been taught their use, so even if he could disarm the men rushing towards him, he could do nothing to oppose them. Nor could he protect his master, except by interposing himself between him and the mob. And that would slow them down only for a moment. Nevertheless, he took a step forward.

  I’ll be with you soon, Lenares.

  Such anxiety, such helplessness, had settled upon him that he automatically thought of his Defiance. To think was to act; and, before he could check himself, he’d assumed the opening stance.

  A single thought flashed through his mind, one of the five basic tenets of the discipline: The Defiance can only be used for self-expression. It is not a weapon. Then the mob was upon him.

  He convinced himself they were imaginary and began throwing moves at his attackers. But for the first hectic seconds he could not make contact with them; his blows, learned from thousands of sessions on his own, stopped short. It is not enough to dominate them, he told himself. I must strike.

  The first blow, delivered by the rigid outer edge of his right foot, took a man in the throat. The feel of his foot crashing into the man’s neck, of the complex and delicate membranes of the throat tearing, crushed beyond repair, almost paralysed him with self-loathing. But the Defiance had him now, and he could no more stop than he could disobey his master, who was shouting: ‘Kill them! Kill them all!’

  To his eternal shame, he felt a sort of glory come over him. This is what all these movements are for; this is the real purpose of the Defiance. Chops, thrusts, rapid blows, closed fists, open palms, patterns interwoven in the classic combina
tions he’d trained himself in his whole life, but taken to their logical conclusions. That the recipients of these blows didn’t deserve to die barely touched his consciousness.

  He danced, as the Children of the Desert had danced, and found his true self amidst death.

  ‘Torve! Torve! They are fleeing!’

  Duon’s shout brought him back to himself. His real opponents had melted away and he’d carried on defying imaginary foes. He forced himself to stillness—it took an effort, even though his muscles screamed with agony—and bowed to the retreating backs of the villagers as they disappeared into the trees.

  ‘Count them, Torve,’ his master said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Your victims. Look around you.’

  Ten bodies lay still, scattered in a circle around him. Ten lives ended. No sign of the curly-headed boy; perhaps he’d run rather than fought. Three more people groaned with their injuries, two faintly stirring where they lay. The third—a woman—crawled slowly towards the trees.

  Ten. He’d just killed ten people. Or, more correctly, his Omeran heritage had slain them. He bent over the first of the injured, to see what he could do for them.

  ‘Greedy Torve,’ said his master cheerfully. ‘Leave them for me, would you?’ He came over to the young man Torve was examining, who had suffered a broken back, and pulled out his research knife.

  ‘Master!’

  Duon walked over. ‘What is he doing?’ he asked, as the man set to work on the villager.

  A roar sounded from the trees. The villagers had returned, bringing reinforcements, including those who had been slower to arrive in the first place.

  Dryman growled in frustration, pushing the villager aside with his boot. ‘You have angered them, Omeran,’ he said, in a mock-chiding voice. ‘They will keep coming until we wipe them all out. Those lying injured here will keep until we are through with this.’

  The villagers advanced, exercising much more caution. Dryman strode forward, raised his arms and, with an ear-popping whoosh, the vegetation around the villagers erupted into flame. Screams rose from the trees ahead as stragglers were suddenly surrounded by fire. The villagers who had already entered the tea house clearing were trapped between the three Amaqi and the flames.