The Singer of All Songs

by Kate Constable

  Quickly, quickly, fighting for breath, Calwyn launched into a chantment to block the doorway with a wall of ice, the same song they used in Antaris to build the great Wall. Her voice wavered; the spell would not hold. She was too weak, too slow.

  And then all at once she felt it come right. All the notes of the song fitted smoothly together as they should, and the chantment was strong. The thin crust of ice might not stop him for long, but it would buy them a little time.

  She grabbed Trout by the shoulders. ‘We must get away from here!’

  ‘But it’s curfew. Can’t you hear the bells?’ A steady, deafening clang pealed out from the bell tower above their heads. ‘We can’t go out now. The guards –’ ‘We must go!’ Calwyn cried. ‘Curfew or no curfew.’

  ‘Hold on! I don’t like to see someone trying to kiss a girl when the girl doesn’t want to be kissed. That’s one thing. But breaking curfew –’ He shook his head helplessly.

  ‘Kiss me? Is that what you think? If we stay here, then you’ll see him kill me!’

  Trout stood in an agony of indecision, shifting from one foot to the other. At last he said, ‘All right, this way,’ and started to run along the high wall back toward the gate through which they’d entered.

  ‘No, no.’ Calwyn caught at his sleeve. ‘We must get to the river. We must find a boat.’ If they could get back to the port, back to Fledgewing, they might be safe until the others returned. ‘Is there a quicker way out?’

  Trout spun on his heel, then plunged off in another direction, toward the mass of buildings that made up the bulk of the college. Calwyn followed, tucking the little Clarion inside her shirt; she felt it glowing and warm next to her skin, like a living creature. Dodging through arched gateways, across courtyards, Trout led her through a bewildering maze of buildings and corridors, almost colliding with other students as they ran. ‘Hi, Trout! Careful there!’

  ‘What’s he up to now?’

  ‘Who’s that with him? Is that a girl ? ’ ‘Where are your wheels, Trout?’ one boy shouted after them, but Trout had no breath to answer him.

  At last they came to one of the low ironwork gates in the wall. ‘Through here,’Trout gasped, thrusting Calwyn through it. Night had truly fallen; they emerged onto a darkened street, so narrow between the dark college walls that the moons couldn’t light it.

  ‘We must get to the river,’ urged Calwyn. ‘I saw boats by the bridge, near where you crashed your machine.’

  ‘I didn’t crash it,’ said Trout indignantly. ‘The mechanism failed.’

  But Calwyn’s sharp ears had picked up the sound of the river, and she was already running toward it. And then she heard another faint sound, weaving through the bells: a rumbling, menacing noise that drew closer and closer. Trout stopped, and stared up at the darkening sky. ‘Can that be thunder?’

  ‘No, it’s Samis!’ cried Calwyn, tugging him onward. ‘It’s chantment.’

  ‘But –’Trout wanted to argue with her even now, but at the next moment a slate crashed down into the street from the roof high above, then another, and another, until sharp-edged slates and tiles were raining down all around them.

  ‘The river! We’ll be safer by the river!’ Calwyn gasped. Dodging the deadly hail as best they could, their hands over their heads, they stumbled onward, until at last they came out onto the green ribbon of gardens that flanked the river. Heaving for breath,Trout halted, listening. Calwyn could hear the noise of distant shouts, and other heavy feet on the cobbles.

  ‘You see? The guards are coming!’ hissed Trout accusingly. ‘We’re breaking curfew. They could expel me from the college for this!’

  ‘Expel you!’ snorted Calwyn. ‘That’s the least of your troubles.’ She rubbed her elbow where a falling slate had struck her, while she caught her breath. Then she threw back her head – she’d lost Xanni’s cap long ago – and began to sing, clear and loud and true. Her voice rang out across the town, as she sang up a film of slippery ice to cover the cobbles of the narrow streets.

  ‘What are you doing?’ cried Trout. ‘This is no time to start singing!’

  Calwyn broke off her chantment. ‘Find a boat! And hurry!’ She could hear shouts of dismay, and clattering thuds from the streets as the guards began to tumble, their feet sliding from under them. But ice on the streets wouldn’t slow Samis for long. She had another idea. Drawing in a deep breath, she began a different chantment, this time to seal off the narrow streets with walls of ice, just as she had blocked the door of the workshop, so that the guards, and Samis, would be prevented from reaching the river. But she could only sing up one wall at a time, and it was impossible to tell where the greatest danger lay. Where was Trout with that boat?

  There was shouting and clamour now all over the town as people rushed out of the colleges to see what the commotion was, the sound of running footsteps, the sound of bodies crashing down, cries of rage and fright and pain. People will be hurt. Calwyn faltered in her song, the Clarion burning next to her skin like a warning. She knew that this was not the way. She didn’t know what else to do; she could have wept. Calwyn held out her hands imploringly to the moonlight, ‘Help me, Taris, Mother of the Dark!’ And then she began singing once more, because she had nothing else. She sang up a storm of snow out of the clear sky, and she was sobbing as she sang.

  Samis was coming closer. Through all the tumult, and the sound of her own chantment, she could still distinguish the background roar of his voice. Then she saw that the grass beneath her feet, the whole green length of the riverbank, was rising and falling, in small ripples at first, then in great unsteady dips and troughs like the undulations of a sea serpent. The spreading spander trees tilted and tossed, lurching as the ground convulsed as if someone were shaking it out like a blanket. With a cry she put out her hands for balance, and staggered, and lost the thread of her song; with every wrench of the ground, her breath was jerked out of her.

  Then she heard a most welcome sound, and an unexpected one: the sound of Xanni’s laughter. It rang out from somewhere nearby, from the maze of black walls, clear and gleeful. He shouted, ‘You must try harder than this, O mighty sorcerer! I am a sailor, I have braved rougher seas than this one.’ And Calwyn saw him leap out from between the colleges onto the riverbank that billowed before her eyes, sure-footed as a goat, and she caught her breath in an echo of his laugh. She knew then, even before she saw Darrow and Tonno following behind him, that this was not a true earthquake, only another spell of seeming. She closed her eyes, and trusted the feel of the earth beneath her feet, and she felt the ground stop its shaking, and become firm under her boots. Snow swirled in the air, brushing cold against her cheek, and for a moment it seemed that everything fell quiet around her while the Goddess gently touched her face.

  From the river, she heard Trout call out in alarm. Her eyes flew open. A figure stood there, powerful, dark and forbidding, shrouded in a cloak. Calwyn blinked, and a chill ran down her spine. Was that Darrow, or Samis? Her vision blurred. No, this must be Samis. For the first time, she could see his face. His features were strong, almost ugly, as if carved from a slab of stone: a beaked nose, a long, cruel mouth, a shaggy mane of grey hair that sprang back from a high, broad brow. He was perhaps ten years older than Darrow. Without realising it, she began feverishly to rub her wrist where his fingers had clutched her, as if she could rub the bruises away. She shuddered as she remembered the heat of his breath on her cheek, and the touch of his hand, like a loathsome animal, on her hair. How easily he’d deceived her.

  And it was only at that moment that she realised how badly she’d wanted to be deceived, to believe that Darrow did care for her.

  Samis was not far from Calwyn, but he was not looking at her. His dark, piercing eyes were turned toward the place on the riverbank where Darrow and Tonno and Xanni were standing, frozen still. Why were they standing there like statues? And then she saw why: a flash of steel in the sorcerer’s hand.

  Calwyn heard the shouts of the guards, blocked from th
e river by the walls of ice she had raised. From the corner of her eye she saw the dim shape of a rowing boat close to the bridge, and a figure awkwardly waving an oar.

  The dark figure spoke. ‘With one breath I can sing this knife into the throat of any one of you.’

  Darrow took a step forward. ‘Let them go.’

  ‘Do you know, there is some part of me that is glad to see you here, my old friend.’The steel glittered, and the ruby ring winked with a dull red light.

  ‘So you can have the pleasure of killing me, which was denied to you in Antaris?’ Darrow’s voice was taut, not with fear, but with a bitter anger.

  ‘Is that what you think of me? I assure you, it will not be a pleasure. Only a sad necessity. Do not force me to it.’

  Trout’s thin and desperate cry came from the river. ‘Cal – Calwyn! ’ And Samis turned his head a little, as if the sound reminded him of something he had forgotten.

  ‘Give me the Clarion.’ His hooded eyes, and his knife’s aim, were still fixed on Darrow, but his words were for Calwyn. ‘Give me the Clarion, and I will let you all go, and keep the guards from following. We will prolong the hunt a little longer.’

  Calwyn’s hand flew to the warm little Clarion nestled inside her shirt. It seemed to beat under her hand with its own life.

  ‘You’ve surrendered to me once already, my dear; I know you will do so again. Quickly, now. We have no time to waste.’

  Darrow said sharply, ‘Calwyn? What is it you have?’

  ‘It’s nothing,’ she said. ‘It’s just a little trumpet.’ Slowly she drew it out; the Clarion of the Flame glowed golden on her palm with its own soft fire. Darrow gave a cry. Samis sang out a note of command, and the Clarion lifted from her hand and spun across the space between them, faster and faster, until it was a flat disc of shining light, making its own eerie humming song. Calwyn could hear someone’s sobbing breath, and realised it was her own. The Clarion paused, still spinning, just out of reach of Samis’s outstretched hand, like a bird too wild to settle on someone’s finger. Samis grabbed, and caught it, and held it fast, though a wince of pain flickered across his face as though it had burned him. As his fingers closed, its brightness dimmed, and its eerie singing faded away, so that it was just an ordinary little trumpet, a child’s toy, lying dully in his hand.

  And then, quicker than Calwyn could comprehend, he sang another note from deep in his throat, swift and harsh, and the knife flew from his other hand, a lightning bolt shooting toward Darrow. Xanni cried out, and threw himself forward, knocking Darrow to the ground. Calwyn screamed. Something whistled next to her ear, and then suddenly the air was thick with lances and arrows tipped with flame: the patrols had broken through, the guards were upon them, shouting and hurling their weapons. Samis whirled around, lifting his hands, and sang out strongly, and the weapons twisted in mid-air and began to rain down on those who had thrown them.

  ‘The boat, get to the boat!’ cried Calwyn, shielding her head with her arms; she could see the others stumbling toward the river. She reached the rowing boat before them. Trout yanked her aboard and reached for the oars, but Calwyn stopped him. ‘No, wait – my friends –’

  ‘We must go now!’ Trout cried. But Tonno was there, hauling himself into the wildly rocking boat, dragging Darrow and Xanni after him. Darrow seized one of the oars from Trout and pushed him aside. Some of the guards ran up to the bank; one lifted his arm and hurled his lance, just missing Trout, who gave a moan of fright and threw himself backward so violently that he almost tumbled overboard.

  ‘Keep down!’ Tonno shouted, grabbing the second oar. At once he and Darrow splashed the oars into the water, unevenly at first, then with a smoother, stronger stroke, swaying forward and back in a desperate rhythm, sweat starting on their brows. If Darrow’s foot was weak, there was nothing the matter with his arms, and he could pull on the oars as strongly as Tonno. They drew away from the river bank, into the current, moving downstream.

  Somewhere there was a whistle, then a splash. The same noise was repeated several times before Calwyn realised what it was: more of the guards on the bank were flinging their long sharp lances at the boat. But none of them hit their mark, and thanks to Darrow and Tonno’s steady pulling at the oars, the little boat moved away faster than the flying weapons. She strained to see what had become of Samis; she couldn’t hear his chantment any longer. Perhaps he had hidden himself in a cloak of darkness, as he had that night in Antaris, and stolen away to gloat over his prize – A sob broke from her throat.

  ‘Calwyn!’ said Darrow sharply. ‘Look to Xanni.’

  She turned around, startled, and saw that Xanni was crumpled in the bottom of the boat.

  ‘Xanni?’ She knelt beside him. ‘What is it, what’s wrong?’ But she could see for herself in the bright moonlight the hilt of Samis’s knife, and the dark sticky patch spreading at his side.

  ‘Don’t pull it out!’ Tonno barked. ‘It’ll bleed worse.’ Sweat streamed down his face as he yanked fiercely at the oars.

  ‘I can slow the bleeding,’ said Calwyn. How she wished she had stayed longer in the infirmary to learn all Ursca’s arts! But at least she’d learned enough to be some use. Xanni was groaning softly, his face pale and his eyes squeezed closed as he leaned against the side of the boat. Calwyn touched his shoulder. ‘Xanni, I’m going to sing a chantment to make you cold. It will help stop the bleeding, it will help you.’ He didn’t answer her. She touched her hand to the wound, and softly began the chantment.

  Only once she lifted her head and shouted to Trout, who was crouched at the front of the boat. ‘Quickly,Trout, give me your shirt!’

  Grimly, silently, Darrow and Tonno hauled at the oars, watching her as she tore Trout’s shirt into strips. All the while she kept up the quiet chantment, as Xanni’s skin grew colder to her touch.

  Trout said, ‘Let me row for a while. I know how to do it.’

  He scrambled forward to take Tonno’s place, while Tonno knelt by his brother, cradling the curly head in his lap. ‘Easy, easy. We’ll have you back on Fledgewing before you know it.’ He looked up at Calwyn. ‘Why is he so cold? You’ll have him halfway to death. He’s hardly breathing, we should warm him.’

  ‘That’s not the way.’ Calwyn grasped the knife and gently eased it out of the wound. ‘See, his heart has slowed, the bleeding is less. This is what we always do in Antaris.’ As deftly as she could, she washed Xanni’s wound, and bound it, but her hands were trembling.

  Tonno struck her hands away from him. ‘I want none of your witch’s craft near my brother!’

  ‘Let her be, Tonno!’ Darrow’s face was pale and grim. ‘It was their witches’ craft that saved me. Perhaps she can save Xanni too.’

  For a long moment Tonno and Calwyn stared at one another, thenTonno dropped his head, and Calwyn began her chantment once again, with a voice that shook at first, then steadied.

  Darrow said, ‘We must have a lookout, or we will go into the bank. Tonno, you had better come back to the oar. You, what’s your name? Trout, into the bow and keep watch.’

  Clumsily Tonno made his way to the centre of the boat, and soon he was straining on the oars.

  Trout pushed past him to the bow. He stared down the river, the silver path down which they were slipping, not quickly enough, toward the sea. ‘Pull harder, there’s a fallen tree on the port side. No, not so hard.’ And then, ‘Hard to starboard.’

  Calwyn cradled Xanni’s head. She remembered him sitting on the cabin roof of Fledgewing in the sun, teaching her the difference between port and starboard and laughing at her when she got it wrong. She blinked hard, then laid her hand across his cool brow.

  ‘Rocks ahead,’Trout called. ‘Easy there.’

  And all the while, beneath the soft murmuring of Calwyn’s chantment, there came the long, groaning breaths of Xanni.

  The journey downriver to Mithates Port was a far quicker one than the journey up the road had been, but it seemed to take longer. They couldn’t pause at the
ir rowing, for every moment they gained now would help their chances of escaping the port before Samis could follow them. Calwyn took her turn at the oars, though her arms were even weaker than Trout’s. The scorched and blighted lands slid by in the quiet dark, on and on, until at last the river broadened, and they came shooting out into the mouth of the Amith, and the little harbour.

  They didn’t bother to fetch their own dinghy; all anyone could think of was getting Xanni safely aboard Fledgewing. Darrow took both oars, and the rowing boat flew across the bay. Together Tonno and Darrow lifted Xanni aboard and carried him below, with Calwyn hurrying behind them.

  Afterwards, Calwyn tried not to remember the terrible night that followed. While she stayed below with Xanni, she was aware from the noises overhead that the others were hauling the rowing boat aboard, casting off and hoisting sail, and then she knew that Fledgewing was moving once more toward the open sea.

  But these things were a dim background. The whole world had shrunk to the cabin and the bunk on which Xanni lay. She did everything she could think of to ease his pain, using honey and what herbs and healing potions she could find to dress his wound, as well as her chantments to cool his body as Ursca had taught her. But though the flow of blood slowed, she couldn’t stop it altogether. She laid cold poultices around the wound to numb his pain. From time to time he seemed to look at her and almost smile, and once he touched her sleeve – the sleeve of his own shirt, that she had borrowed – and she thought that he winked at her in the old way, sharing the joke of her disguise. Tonno came below to sit with his brother, and took his hand, and talked to him, and Xanni seemed to hear him, and squeezed his hand. Then Tonno had to go above to see to the ship, for althoughTrout knew how to row, he was no sailor, and Darrow couldn’t sail Fledgewing alone.

  Calwyn didn’t know how long she sat beside Xanni, cooling his forehead, and holding his hand. As well as the chantments, she sang him songs of the bees, and lullabies from the House of Mothers, far away in Antaris. Presently, after Fledgewing had been sailing hard for some time, Darrow let himself quietly into the cabin. Calwyn looked up.