‘We’ll wait until just before dawn,’ Darrow had said, ‘when the watch are at their sleepiest. Best to get some rest while we can.’ But Trout lay awake, watching the lantern lights from the shore play over the roof of the cabin as the others slept.
Tonno was stretched out on his back, snoring with a steady rhythm; Darrow slept sitting up, a faint frown on his face, as though even in his sleep he was still wrestling with some problem that had to be solved. Trout rolled over onto his other side, but found it no more comfortable. How could these Doryans bear to live under such heat? No wonder they took to chewing slava to dull their misery. If he had some of the disgusting stuff on hand, he might almost try it for himself.
Just then he heard voices up on deck, the mutterings of the sailors on watch. Someone was coming aboard. ‘Hey lads.’
‘You come to relieve us?’
‘Better’n that! This way you can enjoy yerselves and follow the captain’s orders at the same time. Take a look, I’ve brought you some slava.’
There was a murmur of appreciative laughter, sounds of back-slapping, and then a period of concentrated silence as the pirates settled down to enjoy their shipmate’s gift. Trout lay in the dark, listening and thinking hard. He didn’t know much about slava; it was forbidden in Mithates on pain of exile, but there were always one or two students in every term who risked smuggling some of the stuff up the river from the traders who called at Mithates Port, and he had seen people under its influence, dull-eyed and stupefied. And that was in Mithates, where the only slava available would be weak stuff, adulterated with who-knew-what weeds and other rubbish. But this was Doryus, where the bushes grew, and the leaves would be pure and potent.
He struggled up out of his bunk and woke the others with a finger on his lips, gesturing toward the deck above. ‘They’re chewing slava,’ he hissed.
Darrow was awake in a moment, alert as if he had never been asleep. Tonno was more difficult to rouse, but when he realised what was happening, it was all they could do to restrain him from rushing on deck at once.The three of them waited in the dark, straining their ears as the slow moments slid by, waiting until the slava should take its full effect. One by one the sailors slumped against the side of the cabin. Cheerful murmuring turned gradually into drowsy grunts, and finally into silence, broken only by an occasional deep sigh followed by sluggish spitting, as the spent wad of slava was discarded and a fresh one groggily pushed between the chewer’s teeth.
At last Darrow nodded, and sang a single low note. Slowly, easily, the hatch at the top of the companionway swung open. Darrow was through it in a moment, closely followed by Tonno. Four sailors sprawled, nearly comatose, about the deck. Only one of them looked up as Darrow leaned over him. ‘Wha –?’ he began, but Darrow laid a finger to his lips, and sang a series of low growling syllables. It seemed to Trout, watching open-mouthed, that invisible hands plucked up the sailor by the scruff of his collar and the belt of his trousers, levered him up through the air, and deposited him neatly on the jetty, where he rolled over and began to snore as comfortably as though he were lying in his own hammock. Tonno swiftly bound the hands of the other pirates with their own long caps, and Darrow used the chantment of iron to lift them off the boat and onto the wharf.
Trout clutched at the rail with clammy hands. He had always believed that there was no such thing as magic; he was sure he’d seen nothing on that last night in Mithates that could not be explained by the laws he’d been taught. And yet here were men flying through the air and doors swinging open without the touch of any hand or machine. It could not be, and yet it was.
‘Simple,’ grunted Tonno.
Trout found his voice, though it was somewhat cracked and unsteady. ‘All right, we’ve the boat back, but how are we going to move it?’
Darrow was singing once more; this time the ropes that held Fledgewing fast to the stern of the pirates’ ship were loosened and flung back into the water with two soft splashes. ‘We are in shallow water here, I can move us as far as we need. The more important thing is to get us a new mast.’
Now his hands were a blur of swift movement, and a stream of guttural song flew from his lips. One of the spare masts that lay in a pile on the shore gave a jerk, then lifted itself. At once the string of yellow lanterns draped over the poles collapsed, and the flickering lights blew out. The whole harbour was plunged into darkness; Trout had trouble seeing his hand in front of his face. The pole hurtled through the air toward the boat, while the boat itself moved steadily away from the shore. Tonno called to Trout to come and hold the tiller. Now the mast clattered down onto the deck, narrowly missing Trout’s foot. Darrow gave him an apologetic glance; evidently he had too many things to juggle to be precise about where he dropped the pole. Trout ran to the stern and gripped the tiller.
‘Just keep her heading away from the shore.’Tonno clapped him on the shoulder. ‘Darrow’ll take care of the rest.’ And then he was off, leaping across the deck and dashing down below to fetch the spare sails.
Darrow sang rapidly, the notes tumbling from his mouth faster and faster. Trout could barely see what was happening, but he could hear the stump of the old mast cracking at its base, little by little. Still Fledgewing moved, slowly, steadily, further and further from the shore, slipping away unnoticed in the darkness. Where are the moons? Trout wondered suddenly. There was one: a reddish crescent behind them in the southern sky. A blood moon, thought Trout, and shook himself. There was no time for superstitious nonsense like that now.
The old mast stump was fallen; the new pole rose up silently where it had been. Tonno had lugged the sails up on deck, but Darrow shook his head. Beads of sweat flew from his brow as he heaved for breath. ‘No, not yet. I cannot –’ Trout saw the tall spear of the new mast slowly topple to lie flat on the deck again. Darrow’s magic couldn’t stretch to do it all: keep the ship moving, fix the mast in place and hold up the sails, all at once. Trout’s heart sank; were they going to leave Calwyn behind after all? But still Fledgewing was sliding away; the pirates’ ship was far behind them now.
‘Where are we going?’ called Trout, no longer bothering to keep quiet.
‘Around the island a little,’ replied Darrow. His teeth were gritted with effort. ‘The waters are shallow, I can keep her moving a little longer. We won’t need the sail just yet.’
They were almost out of the harbour. ‘We can rest soon,’ said Darrow, but he spoke in such a low voice Trout couldn’t tell whether he was reassuring them or himself.
Mica was quicker to move than Calwyn, who stood frozen in disbelief, staring at the smooth place in the water where Fledgewing had been. ‘Come on!’ She plucked urgently at Calwyn’s sleeve. ‘Never mind about them now. We got to get away while we can!’
Get away to where? But already Mica was running silently across the wheel deck, disappearing down the ladder, swallowed up by the darkness. Calwyn followed her.
The red moon watched them, a half-closed eye, as they darted across the deck. One of the sailors stirred and called out something, slurred with sleep and slava, but Mica sang a quick little chantment to send a cool breeze playing over his hot face, and he fell back again into his stupor. She found the place on the lower deck where the gangway reached out to the crude wharf, and pulled Calwyn across it. They both staggered; even on such a large ship there was some sea motion, and their legs were not accustomed to solid ground.
‘This way,’ whispered Mica. ‘Quick, past the houses. I know a place we can hide. There’s an old fishin hut round the other side of the island.’
And what then? Calwyn wondered. They couldn’t hide for long on this tiny island; they were bound to be discovered. Without Fledgewing to run to, there was no reason to leave the ship at all. She wanted to tug at Mica’s sleeve and drag her back across the plank. But she couldn’t have caught her. Mica skipped past the huts, dodging around the faint cracks and squares of candlelight cast from inside. Calwyn heard just once the unsteady murmur of voices, and a tinny c
latter as something, a jug or a goblet, was knocked over. Was that the captain’s voice? She froze, listening hard, but Mica pulled her on.
What could have happened to Fledgewing? She couldn’t believe the others would have sailed away without her. Could Samis have found them somehow, and spirited the ship away, or destroyed it? A sick feeling clenched in her stomach as she thought of her friends, trapped in the cabin, water rushing in. ‘Mica,’ she hissed suddenly, ‘why is it so dark? What’s happened to the moons?’
They had already come out of the village, if the haphazard cluster of stone huts by the water could be called a village, and begun to climb the steep and rocky hill that rose behind the harbour. It was so dark that they had trouble seeing where to tread; pale stones slipped and skidded away under their feet.
Mica stopped and looked up at the sky. The red moon swung low above the horizon, and its reflection left a bloody stain on the sea, but there was no spangle of stars flung across the darkness as there usually was when only one moon shone. ‘Must be a storm comin,’ she said with a shrug. ‘There’s clouds all over the sky.’ Her voice was curious rather than concerned; she was too excited by their escape to be troubled by anything.
‘I didn’t know it was the time of the Blood Moon,’ murmured Calwyn, unable to shake off her unease.
‘You call it that, too, up in your mountains?’ Mica scrabbled for a foothold among the shifting stones. ‘There’s always storms in Blood Moon season.’
‘I don’t think it’s a storm.’
‘What then?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Calwyn, but she began to scramble more quickly up the slope. There was a strange stillness in the air as well as the unnatural darkness; no bird chirped, no breath of wind stirred the boats at their moorings. She shivered, though the air was as sticky as ever. Mica was ahead of her, silent and climbing sturdily, eyes down. Neither of them could see the far side of the island, nor the stretch of sea below, nor the boat that lay there, out of sight of the harbour, a boat without a mast.
On Fledgewing, Tonno turned to Trout. ‘Get me that tube of yours.’
Darrow, slumped wearily by the tiller, looked up at Tonno. ‘What is it, what can you see?’
‘There, on the island.’Tonno squinted, and pointed at the two tiny dark figures moving against the pale rocks. ‘It looks like Calwyn.’
Trout re-emerged from the cabin, breathless, with the looking-tube in his hand. ‘It can’t be. She’s with the pirates. And you can’t see from here, it’s too far.’
‘Why do you think I asked for your tube?’Tonno held out his hand for it impatiently. After a moment he said, ‘She’s not with the pirates any more. She’s with that other girl we saw on the deck, the little Doryan girl, the windworker.’
‘There’s no such thing as a windworker,’ muttered Trout from habit, before he remembered what he had seen that night. He shot a quick glance at Darrow, but he wasn’t listening.
‘Tonno, look there, at the bottom of the hill, behind them. Do you see another person?’
Tonno was silent for a moment. ‘Yes – no. I’m not sure.’ He lowered the tube and rubbed his eyes fiercely. ‘This thing’ll send me blind.’
Darrow snatched the tube. ‘It’s the captain,’ he said after a moment. ‘The pirate captain. He’s gaining on them.’
‘We have to warn her,’ said Tonno. ‘Trout, go below again, fetch me a lantern.’
‘But what if she’s looking the other way?’
‘Do as I tell you, for once!’ roaredTonno, and Trout backed away, then turned and fled down into the cabin. A light’s no good, he thought stubbornly as he rummaged in the wreckage of the stores and lockers. Calwyn might not see it until it was too late. It would be better to make a noise. But they had nothing to use to make a noise. Tucking the lantern under his arm, he scrambled back up onto the deck.
‘Mica, wait!’ Calwyn grabbed Mica’s jacket.
‘Time enough to catch our breath when we get to that old hut. We got to hurry. I don’t want to get caught in no storm.’
‘I don’t need to rest. Stop a moment. Listen.’
Reluctantly Mica stopped, a little further up the slope. ‘What? I can’t hear nothin.’
‘There’s someone behind us – someone sliding on the rocks. There!You must have heard that!’There was a skittering of pebbles somewhere far behind them.
‘Better hurry then, like I said.’ Mica turned away indifferently.
But the next moment there was no doubt that they were being pursued. Faintly there came the sound of someone yelling, and then the rattle of rocks dislodged by scrambling boots. Mica stiffened, and clutched at Calwyn’s arm. ‘That’s him – the captain! Quick, quick!’
Calwyn ran after her, sliding on the loose stones, but her heart was filled with dread. They couldn’t hope to evade the captain now; even if they reached Mica’s hut, they would soon be found. Fledgewing was gone; she herself would be sold to Samis. There was no hope. But still she stubbornly struggled up the hill, feet skidding, her heart hammering.
And then, from somewhere ahead and below in the darkness, from far out on the sea, there came a sound unlike any she had ever heard. It was the blaring of a trumpet, and the wild cry of an eagle, and the sweet music of a choir, and the clear chime of a hundred bells pealing out, echoing through the night. For the space of ten heartbeats the sound hung in the air, pure and bright, and there was no other sound, no other movement, nothing in the world but the shining glory of that note. And then slowly, sweetly, it began to fade, dying away into stillness, a silence so deep and calm that Calwyn heard her own blood roar in her ears like a rising storm.
Then it all began.
First there came a fierce grumbling from the depths of the earth beneath them; the loose stones on the hillside began to roll and slither down the slope, and Calwyn heard the voice behind them, the captain’s voice, shout out in fright. The ground shook so violently that she and Mica were almost knocked off their feet. They clung to one another as the ground heaved beneath them. This was no spell of seeming, thought Calwyn; this was a true earthquake. The slope buckled and bent like the ocean in a storm; at any moment it would tear itself into pieces. Mica put her mouth close to Calwyn’s ear. ‘Look, look there!’
As they watched, a banner of flame was flung across the darkness, from horizon to horizon, lighting up the world below, dim and reddish as though fires burned in the clouds themselves. Calwyn could see Mica’s face flushed with the crimson glow, the white stones stained pink and strange at their feet, and the great expanse of the ocean like a sea of dark blood spilled out before them. And far off, across the sea, the shadow of the peak of Doryus was glowing with its own fire, golden bright, a crown of light at the summit of the mountain.
Once again the ground trembled under their feet with the growling roar that was not thunder, the sound rolling around the bowl of the horizon. ‘The mountain – the mountain’s wakin!’ cried Mica, and her voice was filled with awe. They both stared at the great peak of Doryus that loomed over all the islands. A tongue of fire glowed at the summit. As they watched, it spilled over the rim like a boiling stew overflowing a cauldron, and poured, with a dreadful deliberate slowness, down the side of the peak. ‘A fire-flood!’ Mica clutched at her, more excited than afraid. ‘Just like the stories!’
Now the reddish light was fading from the sky. The rising sun glimmered behind a veil of sooty steam, casting an eerie metallic light over the sea, the boats in the harbour, and the cluster of huts. Slava-dazed people began to stagger outside, shaken from their stupor by the tremors, milling about the waterside in confusion. Calwyn could hear their scared cries, borne through the still, hushed air.
Across the water, on Doryus, slowly, stealthily, the tide of fire crept down the side of the mountain, an inexorable river licking its way toward the sea.
‘May the Goddess protect us,’ whispered Calwyn. And she shivered as she placed her fingertips lightly on the marks of the moon that were etched on her arm,
for this was stronger magic, more ancient and terrifying, than anything she had ever witnessed.
But Mica was not looking at the fire-mountain now; she was staring back down the slope behind them. The captain was drawing closer, his face clearly visible now in the sickly light. The gold threads woven through his beard glittered, and sweat shone on his brow; he was climbing toward them at a great rate, his face contorted with rage and terror. He was still shouting, and his words carried to them clearly. ‘This is witches’ work! You won’t escape me. When I catch you, I’ll have you tortured till you beg for mercy! When I’m done with you, then you’ll wish you’d perished on Emeran with your witch of a grandmother!’
Calwyn was tugging urgently at her arm. ‘Mica, I can see Fledgewing. The others are waiting for us – quickly!’
But Mica stood where she was. She raised her hands, threw back her head and began to sing.
‘Mica, there’s no time!’ Calwyn could see Fledgewing clearly now, battered and mastless, but free, and the three figures on board. Someone was standing on the cabin roof, waving his arms to and fro, with a lantern in his hand. She swung around. The captain stumbled up the slope, yelling and cursing and waving his fists. But as she watched, the wind of Mica’s chantment caught him full in the chest. He stopped and doubled over as though he had been punched by an invisible fist. Then a look of horror spread over his face as he found himself lifted off his feet, up and up into the air, higher and higher, far above the slope and the huts by the harbour. The wind carried him, twisting him as lightly as a straw, out over the water where Mica’s arm pointed arrow-straight. She stood tall and scornful, singing out her spell, and then with a sudden gesture she dropped her arm. He was too far away for anyone to see him fall, or to hear any sound as he struck the water.
‘Let him drown!’ cried Mica, wild-eyed, but Calwyn had seized her hand and they were running, running down the hill toward the sea, toward Fledgewing, half-falling down the slope that still shuddered under them. Her feet thudded in time with the rapid beating of her heart. They were at the bottom of the hill now, running along a beach of smooth grey pebbles. There was Fledgewing, there was Trout, still waving madly, and Tonno.
The Singer of All Songs Page 17