The Night of the Swarm tcv-4

by Robert V. S. Redick

  ‘I cannot answer you,’ he said. ‘Indeed, you had better ask me nothing about our destination, for what binds the selk tongue binds mine also. But perhaps we should speak of other matters, while we may.’

  ‘If you mean to ask me where my clan-brethren on the Chathrand disappeared to-’

  ‘Dear me, lass! Nothing could have been further from my mind. No, I had quite another concern. I am thinking of your mistress, Diadrelu.’

  Ensyl froze. ‘What about her?’ she managed to ask.

  ‘She is in Agaroth, the halfway-land, the Border-Kingdom through which the dead must journey, before they gain their final rest. Nearly all pass through it in a heartbeat or two — like birds, or shadows of birds, they flit over its twilight hills, and are gone. Your mistress descended, seized a branch, stilled the natural flight of her soul. To do this requires magnificent strength, which Diadrelu Tammariken had in abundance.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And it requires something further, Ensyl. I think you know what I shall say. It requires love.’

  Ensyl hugged herself in the darkness. She hoped Ramachni could not see the way he had in the Infernal Forest. She hoped he was as blind as she was herself.

  ‘My mistress loved well,’ she said. ‘Hercol was a strange choice, a choice that would have brought her suffering, even in peacetime, if she had lived. But you know how it happens.’

  ‘Do I?’

  ‘There’s a song,’ said Ensyl, and recited:

  One path through endless pathways, one string unwound from birth,

  Through the mountains or the marshlands, over blest or barren earth,

  One lover from the multitude, one seedling on the plain,

  It is the heart that chooses for us, and who may ask it to explain?

  ‘That is a human song. My mother heard me sing it once, and slapped me. But it made no difference; I sang it to myself all the more. And that’s the point, you see. The heart goes its own way. You can reason with it a little. Not very much.’

  ‘That is true of human beings generally,’ said the mage.

  Ensyl laughed aloud. ‘We ixchel are exactly the same. My mistress used to call me headstrong, but who in Alifros was more headstrong than she? No one could turn her from a task. She would drive herself past all exhaustion, past the time when even the strongest of the young folk had gone to their rest, and then look at me suddenly and say, “Very well, I have dawdled long enough; it is time to start working.” Do you know, I had to stand with my back to the door to make her eat? At day’s end, when she bathed, I’d hide her trousers, offer her nightclothes only, or she would go out for a third or fourth patrol. Limits were for other people, not for Dri. I begged her to stay clear of Taliktrum, I warned her that he would strike-’

  Ensyl broke off, or rather her voice quit of its own accord. There was a wall inside her, solid bricks in the back of her mind.

  ‘Diadrelu loved you like a daughter, Ensyl,’ said Ramachni.

  ‘That’s not what I wanted,’ Ensyl heard herself say. ‘I had a mother, she was a wine drunkard; she left us to join another clan when I was ten. I didn’t need more mothering, Ramachni. I wanted Dri to love me as a mate.’

  Ramachni lay still. No tears, no tears, thought Ensyl wildly. But how had he done it? How had he pulled those words out of her — those thoughts, forbidden and precious, the ones she never allowed out of her own stifling little cave? How had he made her know?

  ‘Of all. . curious things to tell a mage,’ said Ramachni at last.

  ‘You broke his rule,’ said Ensyl. ‘No magic, Thaulinin told you. But you did some anyway. You breathed a spell onto me.’

  ‘You’re wrong there, lass. I only listened. There is a greater magic at work here than my own, and that too we may call by the name of love. But why this shame? Does your kind condemn this kind of longing?’

  ‘Yes. Oh, they’d not admit it — that would make us no better than most giants, and worse than some. For every human shortcoming you’ll find an ixchel ready to swear that we have no such problem. But in this case no one would breathe a word about it.’

  ‘I have heard it said that ixchel do not speak of love.’

  ‘Rarely the feeling,’ said Ensyl, ‘and never the act. Some things aren’t for telling — that is all an ixchel will tell you. And I’m no different. I don’t want to speak of what happens in the dark. Yes, I am ashamed. There is an order to our lives that the giants cannot comprehend; there are bonds between us that cannot be broken or changed. Dri took me as a student. I wanted more. That is greed, and unforgivable. Because we are different from humans in one way. The heart chooses, yes — but our heart is shared.’

  ‘The clan above the self, is it?’

  ‘Always.’

  Ramachni sighed. Ensyl waited for him to say more, to reveal why he had felt it necessary to torture her thus with thoughts of Diadrelu. But the silence held, and the pain lay heavy on her, and fleeing it she tumbled into sleep.

  How long that sleep lasted she did not know. Dreams assaulted her in fragments, waking moments came and went. She felt like a smooth stone rolled along a riverbed by a stream without end, without pity, over the rounded, polished details of her life. The palanquin swayed, the selk laughed faintly; the warm fur became Dri’s hair as she scrubbed it, in the little herring-tin bathing tub on the Chathrand. Her mistress reached up and grasped her hand, soap-slippery fingers interlaced, she could have died of bliss in that moment. The palanquin shifted. Diadrelu was gone.

  ‘A shared heart,’ said Ramachni, as if no time had passed at all. ‘That is a lovely idea, whether fact or communal fancy. But now I must tell you what I fear is occurring. Dri has stopped in Agaroth of her own free will. And Arunis is there with her, and they are fighting.’

  ‘Fighting over what?’

  ‘Over the fate of Alifros, and the outcome of our struggle. It is an unequal fight, of course. A mage has certain powers even in death. But take heart, for in Agaroth they are closer to equals than they ever were in life. And Diadrelu arrived long before Arunis, and has had time to prepare.’

  ‘Prepare for what?’

  ‘I do not know, Ensyl. I have journeyed through many worlds, but none so strange as the Border-Kingdom. Time and thought are different there. One comes to know things suddenly, and to find things merely by thinking of them, and yet losing and forgetting come just as quickly. And always one senses the nearness of that terrible wall at the edge of the kingdom, the seething wall, beyond which is death.

  ‘As for Diadrelu, she is no slave to the sorcerer, though clearly it was through his power that she appeared beside our bonfire in the clearing. He offered her that chance, meaning to appal and sicken us with her agony — and in that he succeeded, of course. But he never counted on her strength. Even impaled, Dri spoke to us, warned us that Arunis is once more being aided by Sathek the Vile. Well, Arunis will not make that mistake again. Dri, however, will keep on trying to help us, to reach out to us. I do not know if she will find another means — but if she does, it will be through those she loved the best. So I must ask you, as I have asked Hercol, to be watchful. Look for her, listen for her. She might come at any time.’

  ‘Or-’

  ‘Never. That is possible too.’

  Ensyl lay down on the pelt, curling on her side like an infant. Which was worse: to see her mistress as before, knowing she was dead and suffering or never to see her again? Ensyl felt a sudden, gut-twisting desire for the Nilstone: to touch it, to be obliterated, reduced to an absence, a negative, something that could not feel or think. Look for her, listen for her. The mage’s request merely changed her curse into an obligation. She was already haunted by Dri; now she had to welcome that haunting, pry the wound open whenever it started to heal.

  ‘I regret the pain I have caused you,’ said Ramachni.

  ‘You did not cause it,’ said Ensyl. ‘It was there already. Don’t you understand that much? Ramachni, do mages take no partners, ever?’

  ‘We do not,
unless we cease to be mages.’

  ‘And before? Were you never in love?’

  When Ramachni answered her his voice was oddly hesitant. ‘I will tell you this much. The life I lived before is gone, irretrievably gone. It is like the memory of a story — or a sailor’s journal, perhaps. It resides whole and complete in my memory, but behind a wall of crystal through which no heat or sound may pass.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Yes, but I am not. My road has led far from that quiet beginning. I am myself. The life before was another’s.’

  He said no more, and Ensyl closed her eyes. Mercifully, oblivion found her again. This time it was far deeper and longer. She had many dreams, many half-wakings, and behind them all was a strange feeling of forgiveness, of sympathy for the folly of her kinfolk, even deluded Lord Taliktrum, whom Myett had loved with as much ferocity as she, Ensyl, had loved Taliktrum’s aunt. Foolish Myett. But in the end, less foolish than Ensyl herself. She had at least confessed her love; Ensyl had hidden, smothered, her own. What if Ramachni was right to doubt the ixchel way? What if the one unforgivable thing was not her love for Dri, but her silence?

  I will become a mage. I will transcend this life, set it in crystal, place it on a high shelf where it need never be touched.

  Stillness. Ensyl rubbed her eyes. The selk were talking; the palanquin was resting on the ground. A moment later the thongs were loosed and sunlight poured through the opening. ‘Come out, travellers,’ said Thaulinin. ‘You have missed all the rain.’

  Out they climbed, stiff and dazzled. They were in a stone tunnel, low and round and stretching away in two directions as far as Ensyl could see. The tunnel was unlit, but its roof was pierced at regular intervals by smooth holes, and it was through these that the sunlight poured. About half the selk from Thaulinin’s band were here. So was their party, though they yawned, and looked unsteady on their feet.

  ‘Have we. . arrived?’ asked Pazel.

  ‘Almost,’ said Thaulinin, ‘and that is good, for you were starting to toss and turn inside the slings by which we carried you. Can you manage these last three miles?’

  The travellers assured him that they could, although Ensyl had her doubts. Thaulinin gestured to Nolcindar, who held up a bundle of green cloth, tied firmly with a rope. ‘That is your special burden,’ said Thaulinin. ‘It is surprisingly heavy, for such a small thing. Who will carry it?’

  The travellers looked at each other uneasily. The question had yet to arise. ‘Be so good as to bear it these last miles,’ said Hercol finally. ‘We are. . not quite ourselves. I for one am dizzy, and have the feeling that I have forgotten something, or several things perhaps. You drugged us, did you not?’

  ‘With your consent,’ said Nolcindar, ‘though you were reluctant, truth be told.’

  The hunting dog leaned wearily against Lunja’s calf. ‘You even drugged poor Shilu,’ said Lunja, bending to caress the animal.

  ‘And carried him,’ said Thaulinin. ‘He is not woken, but any animal can become so. And those who do retain their earlier memories, animal though they are. We can take no chances, in this troubled age.’

  ‘I feel like I’ve slept for weeks,’ said Thasha. ‘How long was the journey, really?’

  ‘Not weeks,’ said Thaulinin, and his tone made it plain that he would say no more.

  ‘But Thaulinin, where is Dastu?’ asked Ramachni suddenly. ‘I hope you did not forget him back at Sirafstoran Torr?’

  A dark murmur passed among the selk. ‘Do not jest,’ said Thaulinin. ‘The youth deceived us. He only feigned swallowing the mushroom, and the sleep it should have brought. When darkness fell on the first day of our journey, we rested atop a deep defile, and laid you all down in rows. He must have been watching through slitted eyes. As we lay there we heard the maukslar bellowing, far behind us on the Torr. We all turned, fearing the demon might come hurtling out of the peaks, despite the care we took to hide our trail. And it was while we were thus distracted that your companion rose and slipped away. We gave chase, but the defile branched into many chasms, and the bottom-lands were wooded and black. All the same I marvel that he escaped us. He must have run almost as fast and silently as one of my people.’

  ‘What will you do?’ asked Big Skip. ‘Let him run?’

  ‘By no means!’ said Thaulinin. ‘He can only work mischief, if he manages to stay alive. We will seek him high and low. This is my failure, and his capture will be my charge.’

  ‘You may hunt long for him,’ said Hercol. ‘Dastu has great talents as a spy.’

  ‘But no talent for trust,’ said Nolcindar. ‘He would have found only healing and friendship among us. I wonder where his suspicious nature will lead him. To our enemies? Can he have more faith in their mercy than our own?’

  ‘The Secret Fist does not teach mercy,’ said Hercol. ‘Only power, and sometimes power means striking a bargain. Dastu has just one thing to bargain with: his knowledge of our mission. If he chooses to betray us to our enemies, he can.’

  ‘There will be no choosing, if the Duirmaulc-Dweller9 seizes him in its claws,’ said Nolcindar. ‘His mind will be shorn open, and his knowledge taken as a bear takes honey from the comb.’

  ‘I think I want to go back to sleep,’ muttered Pazel.

  Thaulinin looked at him. ‘Take heart,’ he said. ‘Twice before in my life I have seen Alifros brought to the edge of ruin, and twice before we clawed away from the precipice. And no matter what is to come, there remain the stars.’

  ‘I just can’t work out how that’s supposed to be comforting,’ said Pazel. ‘The stars business, I mean.’

  Thaulinin smiled. ‘Perhaps one day you will. But whatever the future brings, you will be safe for a time in Ularamyth.’

  Ularamyth! The word struck Ensyl like a thunderclap. She had heard it before, hadn’t she? Where, when? She could not place it at all, and yet it felt intensely familiar, suddenly, like the name of some home or haven visited as a child, a place where she had been happy; a place lost early in life and never glimpsed again. The name had stirred a response in the others as well, she saw: there was a sudden radiance about them. She might almost have called it hunger.

  ‘Ularamyth,’ said Ramachni. ‘You have freed my tongue to speak the name. And to think I feared never to see it again.’

  ‘You’ve been there?’ said Corporal Mandric, shaking his head. ‘Any place you haven’t been?’

  ‘I have been there, also,’ said Thasha.

  The others looked at her, startled, and Ramachni’s dark eyes gleamed. ‘Not you, Thasha,’ he said.

  A look of distance and distraction had come over Thasha. Pazel and Neeps drew close to her: they were all too familiar with that look. Thasha did not even glance at them. ‘I’ve been there,’ she insisted. ‘With you, Ramachni; don’t you recall?’

  The mage said nothing. Doubt flickered suddenly in Thasha’s eyes. ‘No,’ she said, ‘I’m just confused. Forgive me.’

  ‘Some know the place with their hearts, before their feet ever touch its blessed soil,’ said Thaulinin. ‘But come and see for yourselves.’

  Hercol knelt, offering his shoulder, and Ensyl bounded onto it, steadying herself as always with a fistful of his hair. The tunnel rose gradually, winding like a snake. They moved from one pool of sunlight to the next. She saw that each roof-hole was in truth a shaft leading upwards some ten or twenty feet, and ending in a riot of greenery: ferns, flowers, trailing vines.

  ‘I know what this tunnel is,’ said Bolutu. ‘It is a lava tube. Is that not so?’

  ‘Well guessed!’ said Thaulinin. ‘Yes, the blood-fire of the mountain formed this entrance-road, and others. We have been walking it in darkness for some hours already, carrying you. The shafts illuminate only the last few miles, where the jungle above is guarded. Soon we will pass under the mountain, and be in darkness again.’

  ‘Is the jungle guarded by the selk?’ asked Ensyl, peering up through a shaft.

  ‘Not here,’ said Thaulinin. He stop
ped and smiled. ‘Climb up, if you will, and look around. But on your life, do not go beyond the shaft!’

  Ensyl glanced at Hercol. ‘I. . will look, if you’ll indulge me,’ she said.

  The leap into the shaft was easy, as was catching hold of the lowest vines. Up she went, hand over foot. The sun warmed her, and a wet, fetid jungle smell filled her nostrils. When she finally raised her head above the shaft, she thought she had never seen such a lovely forest. By the height of the sun Ensyl knew it was midday, but the fierce beams slipped through only here and there, and cool shadows abounded. Every shade of green was here in abundance, caught in a thousand forms of leaf and shoot and stem and creeper. Bright droplets sparkled on leaf-tips, and gleamed in spiderwebs flung like a ship’s rigging from tree to tree. Birdsong fell in great melodious threads; bees flowed like minnows through a sunbeam, and on an outflung limb dangled an orchid in brilliant, blood-red flower.

  Then Ensyl’s breath caught in her throat. Beyond the orchid hung row upon row of white, ropy vines, straight as piano wire, and as taut. She knew those vines, and the trees they were part of. She looked around, wildly: there! Huge grey trunks, towering over the lesser trees. Far above, those trunks would open in slitted mouths. And those vines, so innocent and still — they could tear a man apart.

  She descended in a flash. Back on Hercol’s shoulder, she gasped, ‘The trees, those hideous trees from the Infernal Forest. They’re here.’

  ‘They are not hideous to the selk,’ said Thaulinin. ‘We have taught them manners, and a wider diet than flesh. For sixteen centuries they have secured this eastern approach to Ularamyth. They would not harm you if we stood at your side.’

  They walked on, still climbing. The light shafts ended; one of the selk lit a lamp. Then came a great iron portcullis, barring their way. On the wall beside it was mounted an iron wheel, larger than the wheel of the Chathrand. Thaulinin took a key from about his neck and slipped it into a hole at the wheel’s centre. He turned the key clockwise, then gripped the wheel and spun it in the opposite direction. After a moment it began to turn on its own. Gears clattered, counterweights rumbled in the walls. The wheel spun faster. The great gate began to lift.