‘How can I say anything while you’re strangling the breath out of me?’ growled Tonno, folding her in a bear hug.
Trout leapt forward to pump Halasaa’s hand and ask a dozen eager questions about their journey, and Gellan. The small group of priestesses who had sung the chantment of unmaking hung back, wrapped in winter cloaks. And Calwyn hung back too, looking for Darrow. When he stepped from behind the big sled, fair hair gleaming above his dark cloak, her heart rose into her throat.
‘Calwyn,’ he said.
She nodded; she couldn’t speak. Halasaa spoke into her mind. My sister, is all well with you? Have your powers returned?
She shook her head. Halasaa and Darrow exchanged a swift, unreadable glance, then Darrow stepped forward and wrapped his arms around her. Calwyn pressed her cheek against the rough cloth of his cloak. Then, over his shoulder, she saw the fourth figure, standing apart from the others, wrapped in a fur-lined, cherry-coloured cloak, a faint smile playing about her lips. Calwyn’s mouth fell open.
Tonno was muttering toTrout and Mica. ‘ – travelling with us. She says Samis has gone to Spareth, got some story – most irritating woman I ever met – not far behind him, we’ve seen his camping places. Darrow thought he might have stopped here – ’
The former princess tripped daintily across the snow to kiss Calwyn on both cheeks, just as if they’d met at a grand ball at the Imperial Court. ‘Darling Calwyn, how delightful to see you again! Isn’t Darrow a wonderful travelling companion? So amusing, so considerate! We sledged all the way from Gellan on the sea-ice, then along the rivers, day after day, and he hasn’t let me suffer a single moment’s discomfort!’ The princess slipped her arm possessively through Darrow’s.
Calwyn stared from Keela to Darrow and back again. Darrow shook off Keela’s hand.Without a word, he nodded tersely to the priestesses and stalked along the path to the Dwellings.
‘Poor boy!’ murmured Keela. ‘So brave! His illness is troubling him, of course, but he never lets us take proper care of him, and he insisted on singing all the way…’ She shook her head, and sighed, and set off after Darrow.
‘Illness?’ cried Calwyn. ‘What illness?’
‘He caught the chanters’ plague in Gellan.’ Tonno put his strong arm around Calwyn’s shoulders. ‘But Halasaa’s helping him, he’ll be right for a good while yet.’
‘Chanters’ plague? The snow-sickness?’ The chip of ice in Calwyn’s heart spread its coldness through her body.
It is here, too? Halasaa was grim.
‘It began here. The sisters had an object called theWheel. Tamen broke it, and it released dark magic. I have one part, but Samis stole the other. If we can mend it, we can undo the evil – ’ Calwyn spoke distractedly, her eyes fixed on Darrow’s dark, slim back, and Keela’s red cloak billowing as she ran up beside him. Keela’s light, musical laugh drifted back to her.
Tonno whistled. ‘The Wheel, eh? Darrow’ll want to hear this. And a missing piece, just like Keela said – So she’s told the truth for once in her life, has she?’
‘Darrow’s wits has turned like a bucket of fish guts in the sun, to think of bringin her along!’ said Mica.
‘I hoped we’d seen the last of her,’ said Calwyn.
Peace, my sister! It was Halasaa’s turn to hug her. There will be time to tell our stories. Come, help us bring the sled inside.
On the way back to the Dwellings, Calwyn walked beside Mica, some distance behind the others. ‘Cal,’ said the younger girl, after a long silence. ‘I want to talk to you.’
‘What about?’ Calwyn was barely listening as she craned to see what had become of Darrow and Keela.
‘When you leave, Cal – ’ Mica drew a deep breath. ‘I ain’t comin.’
‘What? ’
‘I want to stay. I like it here. I been talkin to Gilly, we reckon if we work together, we could melt the ice and keep the snow away. Then the grass might grow, and the goats could feed, and make more milk. Or we could even get some vegies started.Worth tryin, anyway.’
Calwyn was so startled she hardly knew what to say. ‘But we need you, Mica! How will we keep the storms away, and…and clear the ice and play the Clarion?’
‘You got Darrow to do that now. Reckon the sisters need me here more’n you will.’ Mica set her mouth in the stubborn line that Calwyn knew well.
‘But Darrow’s ill!’ said Calwyn sharply.
‘He’s all right. Halasaa said so. He looks all right. He’s walkin quicker’n we are! Even if it is only to get away from Keela,’ she muttered.
‘Mica! How can you be so selfish?’
‘I’m tired out, Cal!’ cried Mica. ‘I weren’t born to the ice and snow, like you, I hate it, I hate it! And I ain’t goin off into the forests again, to live in a tent, and be cold all day and night and never feel my toes, and be snufflin all the time!’
Calwyn was white with rage. ‘Do you think any of us enjoy being cold, and living on burrower meat and stale bread? Don’t you realise how important it is that we find Samis and the other half of the Wheel? After all we’ve been through together – ’
‘After all we been through, I reckon it wouldn’t kill you to give me a kind word now and then!’ cried Mica. The two girls halted in the middle of the path, breathing hard.
‘So that’s what this is all about,’ said Calwyn quietly. She was very angry. ‘You think I haven’t been kind to you.’
‘Well, you ain’t.’
‘I’m sorry if I’ve hurt your feelings,’ said Calwyn stiffly.
Mica waved her hand dismissively. ‘My feelins ain’t hurt, it ain’t that, I don’t care what you say to me. But you ain’t the same, Cal. I feel like I don’t know you. You been like a sister to me. But now – well, I reckon you’re the one what’s selfish. I know you got good reason to be miserable, and mean-mouthed. But that’s all you ever are! It’s like there ain’t no one in the world ’cept you.’
‘Be angry with me, if you like,’ said Calwyn after a pause. ‘But what about the others? What about Tonno, and Trout, and Darrow? They need your chantments too. You’ll be hurting them just to punish me.’
‘It ain’t to punish you!’ burst Mica. ‘There you go again! It ain’t all about you! I told you already, I’m tired, I want a rest. Trout don’t mind if I stay.’
‘You’ve spoken to Trout about this?’ Calwyn was shaken; this felt like the greatest betrayal of all.The two girls stood in silence for a few moments longer, while their breath drifted across the path.
‘You come back and fetch me when you’re done with Samis,’ said Mica awkwardly. ‘I’ll be waitin.’
‘And what if we don’t come back?’ said Calwyn. She thrust her hands into her pockets and strode away, leaving the small, lonely figure of Mica behind.
IT SEEMED TO Calwyn that the time they’d spent in Antaris had vanished as swiftly as a dream, and she had woken again into a journey through the hushed, still forests that had never been interrupted. But now they were headed south-west, following the course of the river downstream toward the great jagged mountain that Halasaa’s people called the Peak of Saar, and then to the distant sea, where Spareth lay. Darrow and Tonno, the navigators of the party, stared at the quivering needle of Trout’s which-way just as intently as they gazed up at the stars.
Darrow droned out a steady chantment of iron that sent the two sleds flying along the ice. The skaters were pulled along behind, careful not to let their lines tangle or catch their skates on ice-flaws and debris that Mica would have blown out of their way.
For the first few days, the weather stayed clear. Snow-laden branches stretched overhead like the roof-beams of a great hall, and the only noise was the hiss of their skates on ice. Icicles glittered like diamonds from every branch, and the heaped snowdrifts shone with stark blue light.
But then black storm clouds gathered, and they had another reason to miss Mica when the blizzards struck. They lost half a dozen days while the storms raged, squashed into the tents, huddled around the
Clarion, sipping endless cups of steaming broth.
‘You see?’ said Keela. ‘If you’d let me bring some of those unnecessary luxuries, how much better off we’d be!We could have played fan-bones, or eaten sugar-balls, or strung beads.’ She sighed, then brightened. ‘But there’s no reason why we couldn’t have a poetry tournament! I’ll begin…’
‘Don’t!’ said Calwyn.
Darrow said wryly, ‘I thought we could not be more uncomfortable, but Keela seems determined to prove me wrong. Please, no poetry. Unless Tonno will take the first turn?’
‘I’ll tell you when I’m ready,’ growled Tonno, and that was the end of the tournament.
We must hope that Samis, too, has been trapped by the storms. Halasaa held out his hands to the Clarion’s golden glow.
Trout shivered under his sleeping fur. ‘We could have caught up with him, if Mica – ’ He saw Calwyn’s expression and broke off. ‘Probably not.’
‘Surprised we’re so close behind him,’ said Tonno. ‘Reckon he’d go quicker than this.’
When Keela was out of the tent, Calwyn whispered, ‘Samis mustn’t have known that the other half of theWheel was in Antaris. He must be going to Spareth to search for it.’
‘So he can fix it?’ hissed Trout. ‘Why would he want to do that?’
Darrow frowned. ‘Perhaps the Wheel holds other dark chantments that we don’t know about; perhaps that’s what Samis discovered in Gellan. It could be mended, then broken, mended, then broken again – ’
‘And a different evil released each time!’ Calwyn stared at him in horror.
‘But Samis was in Spareth two years ago, and he had the half-Wheel,’ said Trout. ‘Why didn’t he look for the missing bit then?’
Calwyn said, ‘But the winter, the snow-sickness, it all began slowly. Last winter was harsh, but not like this, and chanters didn’t begin falling ill until after he left Antaris. Samis can’t have worked out that theWheel was to blame until he arrived back in Gellan.’
It might have been Tragg who realised the truth, Halasaa pointed out. From all accounts, he was a learned chanter.
‘Could Samis have gone to Gellan specially to talk to him?’ wondered Trout.
‘Squeezed out what he knew like juice from a mango-fruit,’ grunted Tonno. ‘Then phht!’
Calwyn laid her hand on Darrow’s arm. ‘If we can mend theWheel, we will mend the world.’
‘I pray you’re right.’ Darrow looked away and said under his breath, ‘Not everything that’s been broken can be mended. Don’t hope for too much, Calwyn.’
He laid his hand over hers, but removed it almost at once as Keela pushed back inside the tent, shaking a crust of snow from her cloak and hood.
Calwyn tried to find a chance to talk with Darrow, but during the storm-bound days they all crowded into the larger tent and it was impossible to be private. He was resolutely cheerful, but Calwyn knew that his jokes and flippant remarks were a mask for his anger and his grief; his feelings were a shadow of her own.
Watching Calwyn as she brewed roseberry-leaf tea for Darrow and cleaned his boots, Trout was reminded of the small, loving attempts that Mica had made to comfort Calwyn. And he could see how, just like Mica, Calwyn tried not to be hurt by Darrow’s silence.
Calwyn drew comfort from her friendship with Halasaa and the silent, private conversations the two of them shared. There are so many of us! I think, if we had more tents, things might be different between Darrow and me, she confided one day, and Halasaa grinned.
But we brought only two, and if you and Darrow took one, Keela would not share with Tonno and Trout and me!
Another good reason for leaving her behind! Calwyn grimaced. I wish we’d made better use of those two or three days before we left Antaris. But Darrow was so tired.
At last the storms passed, but the sky remained heavy with brooding cloud, and for a day or two they were slowed by snow on the ice. But every day they saw signs of Samis’s trail: a ring of blackened stones, a string of broken branches, and, once, the fresh remains of a trapped burrower, skinned and gutted.
That night, after Keela had retired into the girls’ small tent, Calwyn took out the brokenWheel in its silken wrapping and turned it over in her hands. It was strange to think that this scratched chunk of dark stone could hold such deadly power and, at the same time, the hope of saving all Tremaris.
‘Calwyn!’
Tonno was calling to her from near a gap in the trees. She carefully rewrapped the half-Wheel and thrust it deep inside her jacket before she clambered up to join him.
‘Your eyes are sharp, lass. You see anything over there, in the next valley?’
Calwyn stared hard. After a moment she said, ‘A fire.’
‘Him.Who else could it be?’
‘Do you think he can see us?’
Tonno shook his head. ‘I always make sure we’re well hidden.’
The two stood close while their breath rose white, gazing at the far-off flicker that could have been a distant star. They both knew that they would not tell Darrow; they didn’t want to tempt him to try to reach Samis’s fire that night. As the only chanter among them, he had to play the Clarion as well as drive the sleds onward, and he needed rest. But the fire was close enough for Calwyn and Tonno to want to keep the knowledge from Keela. Tonno turned away. ‘Time to sleep, lass. Skies are clear, we should have a long run tomorrow.’
But Calwyn was slow to join Keela in their tent. She returned to the embers of the dying fire, and stared up at the sky. Two moons bobbed low above the line of peaks to the west, and a spangle of stars was flung across the darkness of the east, like phosphorescence on a dark ocean.
Darrow had gone into the woods to empty the cooking pot. Calwyn saw him clearly in the moonlight as he returned, his head bowed; his footsteps were black indentations on the snow’s blank silver. Softly she called to him, ‘Good night, Darrow.’
He looked up, startled from his reverie. ‘Good night, dear love.’
He had spoken from the heart. Even in the moonlight, Calwyn saw his face flush. She lowered her head, feeling an answering heat in her own cheeks. She heard the snow crunch beneath his boots as he strode to her, and then she was in his arms, and his lips were on hers. Calwyn’s heart leapt into her throat. He murmured in her ear, an explanation or an apology, she couldn’t make out the words.
‘Calwyn!’ Keela’s imperious voice rapped out from the mouth of the small tent. ‘Hurry up, I want to seal the tent. It’s freezing in here!’
Calwyn and Darrow sprang apart. ‘Go,’ whispered Darrow with a rueful smile. ‘We can talk another time.’
It isn’t the talking that I care about! lamented Calwyn to Halasaa in mind-speech, as she curled up crossly beside Keela. I’m sure Keela interrupted us on purpose.
Do not blame Keela. Since the day you met, you and Darrow have taken turns to push one another away, like children squabbling.
Calwyn smiled in the dark. You’re right.
Halasaa’s voice was sober. There will be time to make up your quarrel with Mica. But do not wait too long to mend your friendship with Darrow, my sister.
Calwyn did not answer.
THE NEXT DAY, as usual, they had to chivvy Keela out of the tent, and, as usual, she grumbled as she emerged into the cold, clutching her fur-lined cloak around her throat. ‘Why can’t I sleep a little longer? It isn’t even light yet! I don’t want breakfast.’
‘You’re lucky we woke you at all,’ growled Tonno. ‘If it was up to me, we’d let you sleep till we were well away.’
‘Now, darling, you know you’d never do that.You’d miss me far too much!’ purred Keela.
Halasaa smiled to himself as he gazed at the line of the mountains and the curve of the river ahead.
‘What is it?’ asked Calwyn.
These forests are known to me. We are entering the lands of the Spiridrelleen.
‘But Spiridrell is near the sea!We’re a long way from where we first met you, Halasaa. These can’t be t
he same forests, surely?’
These are the winter forests. He placed a picture in her mind: Tree People, huddled in caves for shelter, seeking food among the snowy trees. She remembered as he showed her that winter was especially difficult for his people, and she was ashamed that she had forgotten it until now. She touched her friend’s arm. ‘Tonno and I saw a fire last night. Perhaps it belonged to some Spiridrelleen, not Samis after all.’
Halasaa smiled a little sadly. I think it must have been Samis, my sister. There are no Tree People here now.
‘I didn’t know the Tree People came so close to Antaris, Halasaa. I could almost have seen you from my tower!’
I did not realise it either, Halasaa admitted. But we have not come so far north for many years. Now we keep further south, to make the journey shorter for the old ones and the children. There are fewer of us now than when I came here with my father. Every year, fewer. Every year, weaker.
Calwyn was silent, wondering how the Tree People were faring in this hardest of winters. Halasaa had been treated harshly by his own people, but he was still one of them. As if he understood her without words, Halasaa smiled. I will know if we come close to my people. I will tell you, Calwyn, when they are near.
Thank you. But Calwyn turned away with a twinge of pain, knowing that a year ago she would have sensed the presence of the Tree People in the forests without Halasaa’s help. He was the last of his people to have the gift of the Power of Becoming, and the discovery that Calwyn shared it had filled him with joy. Though the Power of Becoming was expressed in silent dances, not songs of chantment, Calwyn had lost that ability when she lost her other powers of magic, and she knew that Halasaa’s sorrow for her, for what she had lost, had been compounded with the extra grief that he was alone once more.
As Tonno had predicted, the day was fine and the air crisp. By the time the sun had risen, they were out on the frozen river. Darrow’s rhythmic growl of ironcraft droned beneath the hum of sled runners and the hiss of skates. The morning sun turned the snowdrifts on the bank to dazzling white, and Calwyn narrowed her eyes and blinked against the glare.
The Tenth Power Page 10