Watcher of the Dead

by J. V. Jones

  “Is that him?” she said, elbowing Chedd. “The man who brought us in that first day?”

  Chedd squinted. “His skin’s kind of speckly. I think so.”

  “Let’s get a boat and follow him.”

  “No.” Chedd shook his head emphatically. “Double no.”

  Effie grabbed his shirt by the collar. “You promised. You spoke an oath and spit and clasped on it. Don’t make me call you a turnie.”

  “I’m not a turnie,” Chedd shot back. “I don’t see how following Green Fur over there is going to help lift any curses.”

  “He’s some kind of big cheese around here, but we never see him in the roundhouse. Wouldn’t hurt to find out where he goes. And anyway. You said it’s our duty to escape. If we follow him we might learn a secret way out.”

  Chedd’s face told Effie exactly what he thought of her reasoning. “All right.”

  Finding a boat wasn’t difficult. Dozens of craft were tied to the pilings and landings that clustered at the base of the roundhouse. If Effie thought about it she’d say there were more boats than people at Gray, but she wouldn’t like to say why. Chedd chose a green skimmer with a curved nose and bow that was moored to one of the floating docks. Horse bladders filled with air barely kept the dock afloat. Effie got a soaking as she waited for Chedd to untie and turn the boat.

  “Hurry,” he told her when he was ready. “People are looking.” Effie glanced back to the roundhouse. Seen from outside you could hardly call it round . . . more octagonal. A couple of old timers were shucking mussels and sieving for shrimp on the main landing, and two tied clansmen were shoring mud at the base of the roundhouse, jamming bones and cane mesh into the ooze. No one was looking at the two people stealing a boat on the dock. Effie decided to hold her tongue: it was an experiment, she’d see how it went.

  “Jump,” Chedd commanded, and she did.

  It was nice to be in a boat and not have one’s legs chained together. Chedd appeared to appreciate it too and paddled with his feet up on the gunwales. It didn’t make for a very good transfer of force, but Effie was still holding her tongue and didn’t criticize. She felt almost serene.

  The lake surrounding the Grayhouse was called the Stillwater. Tull Buckler had warned them that although it was mostly shallow it had sinkholes that were hundreds of feet deep. Slicks of shiny, sulfurous tar floated on the surface acting like flytraps for mosquitoes and riverboatmen. The wind drove the slicks toward the reeds.

  “Why are there so many of these?” Effie asked as Chedd navigated a field of copper pipes, some with hissing flames at their tips.

  “They vent the marsh gas, stop it from building up.”

  “What happens if it builds up?”

  Chedd slammed the paddle against the lake surface, spraying water into the boat. “Explosion. They’ve lost a few clansmen that way.”

  “That could be the curse. Marsh gas.”

  Chedd turned to give her one of his special withering looks. “Gray’s always been in the marsh. It may have sunk a bit, but it’s always been here and it’s always had to deal with marsh gas. You can’t curse a clan with something it’s already got.”

  She had to admit it: Chedd Limehouse had a superior grasp of the laws of cursing. “Over there,” she told him. “Green Fur went between those rushes.”

  “Aye, Captain.” Chedd did as he was told while sounding only a little bit sarcastic.

  As they moved south toward the rushbeds, Effie realized she hadn’t felt afraid once since they’d left the Grayhouse. Here she was—outside—with a big gray sky above her and open water and a jungle of bulrushes at eye level and she felt . . . what was the word she’d thought of earlier? Serene.

  She glanced at Chedd. He was paddling hard and fat in his lower back and butt was jiggling. She loved him. He was crucial to her peace of mind. “You missed the turn,” she told him. “It’s back there.”

  Chedd grumbled. “Greenie’s probably just checking his traps.”

  “So. We’ll still learn something about the Reed Way.”

  “He’ll knock our heads together and chuck us into the Stink.”

  “No he won’t. He paid Waker Stone good money for us, remember? And what a man pays for he doesn’t throw away.”

  Chedd grumbled some more. As he turned from open water into the rushbeds, light and wind dropped. Walls of bulrushes grew eight feet high on either side of the boat. They smelled meaty. Sticky white horse-fly chrysalises were glued between the canes. Effie spotted a little yellow warbler perched above one of them, waiting for something to come out.

  Paddling slowly and carefully to keep them centered on the narrow channel, Chedd was focused and silent. His feet were now on the deck. Effie wondered whether he was thinking the same thing she was: Escape was becoming more and more unlikely. As the crow flies they were a third of a league from the Grayhouse, but they couldn’t see it. They couldn’t see anything, only high cliffs of rushes.

  “Eff, are you remembering the way back?”

  “Yes.” Up until then she hadn’t been, but she was absolutely going to remember from now on. “You can see Green Fur’s wake on the surface.” She pointed to the gentle flow of ripples tapping the prow of the boat. “We have to keep them in our sights.”

  “That’s dodgy logic,” Chedd told her. “Ducks, wind, muskrats: anything could cause those ripples.”

  Effie knew Chedd was right. They’d lost sight of Green Fur half an hour back and although Effie was pretty certain he had turned in to this channel, she had no idea if he was still on it. The problem was the breaks in the rushes. Sometimes there were gaps between the islands, thin threadways that you couldn’t spot until you were dead abreast of them, where a boat could just slip through and end up somewhere else. It wasn’t hard to imagine there were breaks that you couldn’t see, gaps curtained by canes.

  “Should have brought a whistle,” Chedd said. “Remember Buckler gave us that warning? Said even experienced Graymen could lose their way—especially after a storm. Islands can break away, crash into each other. Channels are lost overnight. New ones open up. Tangled root-balls can block—”

  “Chedd.” Effie poked him in the center of his spine. “Calm down. At worst we can turn the boat and back out.”

  “Five minutes,” Chedd warned, “and then we’re heading back.”

  The boat skimmed the marsh, barely breaking the dark brown water. Mergansers called from deep within the rushes, single hollow notes that sounded like the word More.

  “That’s it, I’m turning,” Chedd declared, working the paddle backward. “No food, no water, no whistles. It’s like being in the Want.”

  Effie helped Chedd turn the boat, pushing off against the rush canes. The clouds were getting darker overhead and she’d just felt the first spits of rain. Chedd put some real effort into paddling and soon they were gliding down the channel with the wind behind them. As they passed one of the gaps in the rushwall, Effie caught a glimpse of a raised mound in the distance. A hump of land with something built on it, rising above the rushes.

  “Eff.”

  Snapping forward, she saw straightaway why Chedd had called her name. The channel had ended. A solid island of bulrushes blocked the way ahead. “Must have missed a turning.”

  Chedd shook his head emphatically. “We didn’t take a turning. We’ve been on the same channel since we left the Stillwater.” His voice was getting higher. “You were supposed to remember the way.”

  “Let’s push through it.”

  The nose of the boat parted rushes as Chedd paddled forward. After a couple of feet the bow jammed in the tangle of roots. “It’s solid. We can’t go any further.” He handed Effie the paddle. “Turn in your seat and back us out.”

  Effie turned. The way back was blocked.

  “Come on, Eff. Hurry up.” Chedd spun in his seat and saw what Effie saw. His expression froze and a strangled kind of noise escaped his throat.

  Effie was about to tell him to close his mouth he might c
atch flies in it when she caught a glimpse of something moving out of the corner of her eye. Suddenly the bulrushes parted and Green Fur slid his craft into the channel directly ahead.

  He did not speak. His small, dark face was tattooed to look like newt scales. As he brought his boat bow-to-stern against their boat and tied both craft into a line, Effie saw his hands were tattooed in the same pattern. She and Chedd sat tight as Green Fur expertly towed them from the rushes. Pulling their boat stern-first, he headed for the blockage straight ahead. When he was about three feet from the block, he pulled a long hooked pole from his boat, hooked a great chunk of bulrushes and floated the entire block aside, revealing the channel ahead.

  Impressed, Effie glanced over her shoulder at Chedd. Worried would have been a better word for Chedd just then.

  “What about the other block back there,” Effie called to Green Fur. “We pushed against it. It didn’t move.”

  Green Fur was silent as he towed the boat upchannel.

  Chedd leaned forward and said in Effie’s ear. “I bet he tied it in place.”

  Effie nodded slowly. She’d caught sight of the mound again and was beginning to suspect they were being pulled toward it. Green Fur executed a series of tight cuts, steering them onto a channel so thin it was barely as wide as the boats. Effie tucked her head low to stop bulrushes from whipping her face. She didn’t feel afraid but couldn’t be sure if that made her brave or stupid. I wish the pike hadn’t taken my lore.

  The channel turned and the mound was suddenly dead ahead. It rose ten feet above the water level and was gently rounded on all sides. A handful of alders grew just above the waterline and yellow weeds had sprouted in clumps across the surface. The closer they got, the more and more certain Effie became that the mound was man-made. As she’d floated down the Wolf, she’d seen a lot of islands and none of them were symmetrical.

  Green Fur brought the boats to dock by the alders. He sprung ashore and tied the line to one of the branches. “Out,” he told Chedd and Effie when he was done.

  “First rule,” he said as he helped Effie onto the steep bank, “is never travel in the Reed Way unless you know where you’re going and at least two ways to get back.” He helped Chedd next, moving lightly and exactly, doing just enough to help Chedd gain his feet. “Second rule. Water. Drink the marsh and you’ll end up in the marsh. Third rule—”

  “Food?” Chedd said hopefully. Seeing Green Fur’s expression, he changed his answer to, “Spare paddle.”

  “Useful,” Green Fur allowed, “but not a rule. You could rip out your boat’s seat or gunwales if it came to it, use them to scull back to shore.”

  Chedd nodded with interest.

  “Light,” Effie said.

  Green Fur turned his full attention on her. Beneath the motley of newt scales, his features were small and regular. His eyes were the color of bitumen—black with a little green in them—and it was easy to imagine you were seeing the surface of something deep. “Good,” he told her. “You never want to be caught out here in the dark.”

  Effie beamed. Praise made her bold. “Why did you bring us here?” Green Fur looked from Effie to Chedd and back again. The scale tattoos went all the way down his neck, disappearing beneath his muskrat-skin collar, and Effie wondered if his entire body was marked.

  “We hope you will become clan.”

  It was not the answer Effie had expected. She didn’t know how to reply. Green Fur was watching her intently. “You bought us,” she said finally.

  “We paid someone to bring you here.” Green Fur’s voice was level but there was some pride in it. “We do not own you.”

  “Then let us go,” Chedd said.

  Effie knew what Green Fur’s response would be even before he spoke.

  “You’re free to go.” Green Fur flicked his hand toward the marsh which surrounded them like a sea of canes. Sunlight breaking through the clouds sent a bar of gold running across it. “We will not hold you.”

  Of course you won’t. Impatient, Effie said, “Who are you?”

  “Rufus Rime, the Marsh Chief.”

  Dagro Blackhail had taught Effie the names of all the clan chiefs. Clan Gray was chiefed by Tournie Gray. She told Rime so.

  Rime shrugged, not denying what she said but not giving it any importance. “Have you seen Tournie since you’ve been here?” he asked, his gaze focused on some faraway point in the marsh.

  Effie looked at Chedd. Both of them shook their heads.

  Rime let them think about that.

  After a minute or so Chedd said, “Is he dead?”

  Effie elbowed him. Sometimes Chedd didn’t get things at all. “He’s at Clan Hill, with the Gray warriors and horses.”

  A dragonfly wheeled in the air between Effie and Rime, its wings glinting cobalt blue. Effie thought she understood Rime’s title, but would be hard-pressed to explain it to Chedd. It wasn’t so much that Rime was Gray’s chief-in-absentia—in fact she was pretty sure it wasn’t about Gray much at all. It was exactly as Rime said: He was chief of the marsh. Its keeper.

  Rime’s black gaze stayed on Effie a moment longer, confirming half-formed thoughts. Abruptly, he turned and hiked the short distance to the top of the mound. Crouching close to the apex, he beckoned Chedd and Effie to join him. As they approached he put a finger to his lips.

  Turtles, over a dozen of them, were basking in a small depression at the peak. Chedd lay flat on his stomach to get a good look at them. “Spotteds,” he said with feeling. To Effie’s disgruntlement, this evoked a similar look of praise from Rime as when she’d correctly guessed the third rule: lamps.

  “If they’re lucky they’ll get some sun afore the day’s out,” Rime told him.

  Chedd nodded, transfixed. The turtles were small and green with yellow spots. A handful were hatchlings.

  “Why do the newborns die?” Effie blurted. “There’s been four funerals in ten days.”

  Chedd groaned. Effie glared at the back of his head. Wasn’t he supposed to be busy escaping?

  Rime moved away from the turtles. Effie followed. “If children and newborns die here that means Chedd and I are goners too.”

  The scales on Rime’s face rippled as he breathed. “You will live, though the cut on your friend’s face needs attending.”

  “How do you know we’ll live? You’re cursed. Your whole clan’s sliding into the—”

  “Do not,” Rime warned, cutting her off, “speak ill of this clan. You do not know of what you speak.”

  Effie hung her head. You could hear the pride again in his voice. They were facing south now and Effie could see humps of land above the reeds, tiny isles covered with trees that looked as if they were under assault.

  “You’re from Blackhail?” Rime asked. Effie nodded. “Be glad of it. Be glad your kin and clansfolk are safe.”

  “They’re not safe.” Da and Drey were dead. Raif was lost. Raina had been hurt in terrible ways by Mace Blackhail.

  “Still better there than here,” Rime said in his faintly accented voice. “All things being equal, safer in Blackhail than Gray.”

  The words made Effie feel old. Pushing the thick black mud aside with the toe of her boot, she realized the ground she was standing on was stone. A stone dome. She looked up.

  “Are they all so clever at Blackhail?” Rime asked, reading the word roundhouse on her face.

  Effie didn’t think it would be polite to answer truthfully so she practiced her new talent of silence instead.

  This made Rime smile. His teeth were greenly white. “Yes. We’re standing on the top of the old Grayhouse. It’s been sinking for over a thousand years. Come back next spring and it’ll be gone and rushes will have closed the water.”

  “Rate of sinkage must be increasing,” Chedd said matter-of-factly from his position on the ground by the turtles. “Twenty feet every year for a thousand years would make for one tall roundhouse.”

  Effie blinked at Chedd, but he didn’t look up from his turtling. Nor did he say a
nything else.

  “They say it was the most beautiful roundhouse in the clanholds, built of green granite carted from the stone fields of Trance Vor, surrounded by walled gardens and blue pools and weeping willows. The marsh was drained for a league in all directions and clansmen built breakwalls to keep out the water. They grew flowers and wheat, and cows grazed on rich grass. Slider Gray, the Turtle Chief, raised a path through the marshes all the way to Trance Vor. He called it the Gray-road. Two stovehouses sprang up along the way. Any clan with goods to trade came here and Slider charged them a toll to take his road. Gray grew rich and powerful and began to look west to Otler, Hill and Halfbludd. Dry land there, no need to keep shoring the dams.”

  Rime’s voice began to fade. “Slider took Hill and moved half of his clan there. They say he was fixing to take Otler when the water started rising and the wralls came.”

  Effie shivered. She’d once heard Anwyn Bird and Dagro talking about wralls. When they realized she was there they’d fallen silent. “What happened?”

  Rime moved to the top of the mound, crouched next to Chedd and seized the largest turtle. With a twist of his wrist he broke the creature’s neck. The remaining turtles scampered into the water.

  “Gray failed,” he said, chucking the turtle into the front of his boat, “and we’ve been fighting the water and our own bad luck ever since.”

  Effie glanced at Chedd. He was standing up and his face looked kind of crumply. He’d been turtling the day Waker kidnapped him. Turtles were one of his favorite things.

  “Was that when Gray was cursed?” Effie shot at Rime.

  “This land was cursed before we got here. We just didn’t know it.”

  Chedd had come to stand next to Effie. She put her hand on his shoulder. He felt hot.

  Worry made her forceful. “Why do newborns die?”

  “The air is bad. The swamp gets into their lungs and they can’t fight it.”

  “What about us?”

  “You’re older. You’re strong.” Rime beckoned them to the boats. “Those who come to us after the age of five or six rarely die.”

  Chedd and Effie went to board the green boat, but Rime made it clear they’d be traveling in his craft with him. As soon as they were settled, Rime untied the rope and cast off. The green boat followed them on its line.