The Tenth Power

by Kate Constable

  At last Samis stood. The declining sun lit him in orange and gold, and opal glimmers sparked from his dark cloak. Calwyn realised that the whole day had passed. Guiltily, she thought of Darrow. But Briaali had said the healing Waters would hold off his illness; he was safe for now.

  Samis said, ‘That will do for today. Tomorrow we will practise the Power of Iron.’

  Calwyn bit back a yawn. She didn’t dare ask after the Wheel again; she didn’t want to seem too eager, in case he guessed how important it was. If he didn’t give it to her tonight, she would hunt for it herself tomorrow. ‘It’s almost night.Where will we shelter?’

  Samis smiled broadly. ‘I have a story that will surprise you. Come, I’ll tell it as we walk.’

  He held out his large hand to her, and, dazed with fatigue, Calwyn took it. As he led her through the chilly, darkening streets, he said, ‘No doubt you believe that our people have lived on Tremaris as long as time itself.’

  Yes, my people, the Tree People, have lived here forever! she wanted to reply.

  Samis glanced up at the sky. ‘Our ancestors came to this world in a silver ship.’ There was a strange yearning in his voice. ‘They sailed across the stars as if the sky were a great ocean. That ship is still here, Calwyn.’

  ‘The ship is here? You’ve found it? It’s in Spareth?’

  Samis threw back his shaggy head and gave a rich, deep laugh. ‘Spareth is the ship!’ He swept his arm across the silvery towers and domes. ‘The ship is all around us, and beneath us. What you see is only a fraction of what lies below. The Ancient Ones built their first city on the foundation of the vessel that brought them to this world.You will see!You think that Spareth is an empty place, but there are storehouses of supplies, tools, clothing, medicines, devices like the cloud-boat, everything we will ever need.’

  As she stumbled by Samis’s side, Calwyn stared with new eyes at the vast, mysterious structures that surrounded them. Were those silver towers the ship’s masts?Were the domes its sails, its watchtowers, the captain’s bridge?

  She shivered. ‘Imagine if the ship could sail again!’

  Samis glanced down at her. ‘But it could, dear heart. The Singer of all Songs could make it fly like a great silver bird. When this ship sails again, we will conquer Tremaris as easily as plucking an apple from the tree.’

  Calwyn pulled her hand from Samis’s grasp and halted in the middle of the empty street. ‘You told me you wanted to save Tremaris! But you don’t care about that at all! You lied to me.’

  Samis halted too. A breath of breeze caught his cloak and it billowed around him like a thundercloud. ‘No, little priestess. I told you the truth. With your help, I will stop the chanters’ plague, and return spring to Tremaris. But after that – ’ His teeth gleamed as he bared them in a wolfish smile. ‘I have grand plans for us, dear heart.’

  ‘I’ve heard enough of your plans,’ said Calwyn, but her words were hollow; she was too tired to summon up proper outrage. And after all, what Samis wanted was a peaceful, prosperous Tremaris. That was not such a terrible plan. ‘And don’t call me dear heart,’ she added.

  Samis stalked off, and after a moment, Calwyn followed. He used a chantment of iron to open a doorway in a low, featureless dome, and led her up and up, along countless empty corridors, all lit with the soft glow she remembered from her previous visit.

  She followed him into a round, airy room, with curved windows that overlooked the whole city. A band of sky circled the room, scattered with stars, and the three moons were all visible, small and sharp, and white as pearls.

  The room was furnished with divans and long tables, littered with silver tablets. A spiralling ramp in the centre led to another room above. Samis threw open panelled doors to show Calwyn shelves stacked with canisters and boxes.

  ‘Food. Enough to feed us for centuries.’ He laid out a curious feast for them: slabs of crumbling cake made from spiced beans; broken biscuits tasting of salted meat; unfamiliar dried pink fruits.

  Samis mixed a powder into a flask of water and asked Calwyn to heat it with one of her newly learned chantments to make a hot, foaming drink that tasted of cinnamon and chocolate. He raised his cup.

  ‘To the Singer of all Songs,’ he drawled.

  Calwyn clasped her cup with both hands until she felt it burning her. The Singer of all Songs. She had travelled so far since that spring day when she and Marna walked beneath the apple blossom in the orchard of Antaris, and Marna had told her of the prophecy. Marna had not believed that anyone could master all the different chantments of the Nine Powers. What would she have said if she’d seen Calwyn today, summoning fire, and spinning dreams from the sky? Of course, I am not the Singer yet, Calwyn told herself. I need more practice, much more practice. She smiled privately, then looked up at Samis. ‘How did you know the Knot of the Waters would restore me?’

  Samis waved his hand at the piles of silver tablets. ‘Stories, legends. I took a risk, my dear. But aren’t you glad I did?’

  ‘The risk was all mine – ’ Calwyn began indignantly, then stopped. ‘Mine, and Keela’s.’

  There was silence in the room; Samis sipped at his drink, watching her over the rim of his cup.

  Calwyn picked up a silver tablet and read at random: dressed in animal skins and woven vines… ‘So, it’s not only chantments that are recorded here?’

  ‘Our ancestors made observations of their new home.They wrote down information about the primitives, their beliefs, their customs.’

  ‘The primitives? You mean the Tree People?’ Calwyn’s face had gone white, and her voice rose. ‘The Spiridrelleen are a wise and ancient people. They lived here long before the Voiced Ones came, with their weapons and their – their powdered drinks!’

  Samis laughed. ‘You are sentimental, my dear, like all the yellow ladies of Antaris.’ His voice hardened. ‘TheTree People are doomed.’

  ‘You’re wrong.’ Calwyn’s hands shook. She wrapped her cloak around her shoulders and lay down on one of the divans with her back to Samis.

  ‘Good night, little priestess.’ A low throat-song of chantment filled the room, and the lights dimmed. There was a sighing sound as the doors sealed, and the soft tread of Samis’s feet on the spiral ramp. Calwyn knew she was alone. She could search for theWheel, or read more from the silver tablets scattered on the table. But she was so worn out that she fell instantly asleep.

  TONNO, TROUT AND Briaali’s party pressed northward. The Tree People had their own paths through the forest, and they made rapid progress toward Antaris.

  ‘We’ve been marching two days,’ mutteredTrout. ‘How long before next moondark?’

  Tonno said grimly, ‘Time enough to warn the sisters, and help them defend themselves.’

  No. We must persuade our brothers to abandon their attack. Briaali’s words were steely. There must be no fighting.

  ‘But you’ve already tried to argue with them,’ said Trout. ‘Without weapons – ’

  At that instant, a spear whistled past his nose and thudded into the trunk of an ember tree.With a muffled yelp, Trout threw himself onto the snow.TheTree People whirled around, and Tonno snatched the knife from his belt, shouting, ‘Who’s there? Show yourselves!’

  It is the warriors! cried Briaali. Peace, brothers!We will not harm you! But another voice screamed into every mind: Death to the Voiced Ones!

  The warriors rushed from the cover of the trees, brandishing spears, their faces streaked with red and white war paint.

  Trout grabbed a fallen branch, shouting, ‘Keep back!’ and Tonno yelled, ‘Hold your peace! Hold your peace!’ as he swung his knife. At the sound of their voices, their attackers fell back, teeth bared in silent snarls of fear. But they did not fall back for long.

  There were more than a hundred warriors; they had the advantage of numbers and weaponry. Before long, it was clear that the warriors would win. The struggle that followed was curiously silent. Trout was slashed across the shoulder by a stone knife, and quickly disarmed.
Briaali’s wrist was sprained, and most of her followers suffered hurts of one kind or another, surrendering before they could be badly injured. Tonno fought on alone, but a group of the warriors surrounded him, and he was felled at last by a blow to the head that knocked him unconscious.

  The leader of the warriors was a young man called Sibril, no older thanTrout. He picked upTonno’s knife and thrust it through his own woven belt. He watched with satisfaction as the voiced travellers were gagged and bound, and roped together with the other captives. We have won our first battle! he exalted. Let us go on, to the lands behind the thicket of ice!

  Trout struggled as the ropes were twisted round his wrists, though he was glad to see that Tonno was conscious, and sitting up groggily. As the warriors forced a gag between his lips, the burly fisherman gave a bear-like roar. Two or three of the Tree People took a hasty step back.

  ‘Call themselves warriors!’ thought Trout scornfully. But then the prisoners were all hauled to their feet, the wound in his shoulder began to throb, and he had other things to think about.

  THE DAYS THAT followed passed like a strange dream for Calwyn. If she hadn’t been comforted by the knowledge that Darrow had gained strength at the Knot of the Waters, and had Halasaa to help him, she couldn’t have delayed so long. She and Samis practised chantments together, and she learned to adjust her voice with ease from ice to fire to ironcraft, from windcraft to seeming, and back again. Samis was a stern teacher, but Calwyn learned more in this short time than ever before. Samis helped her to see connections between the different forms of chantment that she had never understood, the overlap between powers that Marna had spoken of but never explained.

  Every day, Calwyn asked about theWheel, and every day Samis made some excuse: he had searched, but not found it; he was sure it was in this cellar, or that store room. Tomorrow – she would have her precious relic tomorrow.

  And every night, Calwyn vowed that soon, soon, she would use the dark chantments to force Samis to tell her where his half of the Wheel was hidden. She could hear Marna’s words in her mind. I lacked the courage to act. Do not make the same mistake.

  Then she would hear Mica’s blunt voice. So you’re goin to torture him? Calwyn knew that was exactly what she must do, and day after day she hesitated. Tamen, or Samis himself, would have called that weakness. But if that was weakness, did Calwyn want to be strong?

  One day she said to Samis, ‘You wanted to be the Singer of all Songs.Why are you happy to teach me instead?’

  ‘Do you think I’m happy?’ said Samis.

  ‘No,’ said Calwyn, after a pause. ‘Do you expect me to serve you?’

  ‘You have a timid spirit.’

  His words echoed her own thoughts so closely that she started. Samis smiled. ‘I will guide you, little one. Or – ’ He fixed his dark, hooded gaze on her. ‘I could repeat the proposal I made to you once before. You might be my queen. My empress.’

  Calwyn’s mouth was dry, and she struggled to keep her voice light. ‘Keela would have been your empress willingly.’

  ‘Poor Keela! How jealous she would be if she could hear us now!’ Samis’s smile faded, and a brooding look came over his face. ‘These last years, since Darrow abandoned me, I have had no friend, no companion, no one to share my thoughts and plans. Keela thought she could be my partner. But she cares only for jewels, and servants, and compliments – that is all power means to her, flattery and fine clothes.’

  Calwyn said, ‘But she isn’t stupid.’

  ‘No,’ agreed Samis. ‘But she has no interest in knowledge, or the wise use of that knowledge – ’ He stopped suddenly, as if he’d said more than he intended. Beneath his breath, he murmured, ‘It is not easy to be alone.’

  ‘I know,’ Calwyn whispered. ‘I was lonely, too, growing up in Antaris.’

  ‘I do not expect your answer now,’ said Samis. ‘Think on it, little priestess. Think on it.’

  For a time they were both silent, and then they went back to their work.

  In the evenings, Calwyn and Samis returned to the round tower.They would prepare a meal from the strange foods in the stores, and then they would talk. Samis told her stories of his peculiar childhood in the Imperial Court of the Merithuran Empire, and one night Calwyn told him about her friends’ adventures in Merithuros the year before.

  Samis had heard a version of events from Keela, but he listened with deep interest to Calwyn’s story.When she came to the part where Darrow was proclaimed Lord of the Black Palace and became, in effect, the ruler of Merithuros, Samis roared with laughter. But his laugh was warm, not mocking. ‘To think of my Heron, who always shied from power, ruling the Empire!’

  ‘It’s a Republic now.’ Calwyn looked down. Where was Darrow? How much had the healing waters helped him?Was he weaker than before? Suddenly she was seized with a sick panic. How many days had slipped away while she sang. How could she have wasted so much time?

  Samis had said something. He was watching Calwyn across the table, waiting for her reply.

  ‘I’m sorry. I – I didn’t hear you.’

  He whispered, ‘Sing for me, Calwyn.’

  Calwyn walked to the curving window. The empty streets and plazas of the moonlit city spread below, an island of silver hemmed on all sides by the white sea of the frozen forest: cold, silent, beautiful.

  Calwyn closed her eyes and breathed in. The first tremble of power ran through her, from the soles of her feet to the top of her head. For an instant she paused, feeling the magic suspended within her, like oil stirred into water. And then she sang.

  As her song of seeming unfurled, the streets of the empty city were transformed, clothed in brightness, bustling with people as they would have been in the time of the Ancient Ones. Painted walls, green gardens and singing fountains flowered into being under her chantment; music and laughter drifted up to the round tower. Far below, Mica looked up and waved; Marna strolled arm in arm with Lia. Heben of Merithuros was deep in conversation with merry-faced Xanni, who had died long ago, and the children from the island of Ravamey shouted as they chased each other across the square. And Darrow and Halasaa smiled up at her as they threaded their way through the crowd.

  Calwyn’s body thrummed with effortless power as magic trembled from her lips. A mixture of feelings whirled inside her: mingled joy and sorrow, for the ghosts of the people she had known, and the phantoms of the friends she might never see again; for the Ancient Ones, so hopeful in their new world, so blind to the harm they were about to do; and for herself, her own intertwined hope and fear.

  The chantment died away, and the bustling, noisy, colourful square blurred before her eyes. The babble of talk and music faded. And then the image was gone. The square was empty once more. Snowflakes whirled softly through the streets. Calwyn shivered, though it was warm inside the tower, and drew her cloak around her shoulders.

  Samis was beside her. Calwyn held out her hand, and he grasped it. She was surprised by the coolness of his fingers. He raised her hand to his lips. ‘Are you ready, little priestess? Are you ready to call yourself the Singer of all Songs?’

  Calwyn opened her mouth to speak, but no sound emerged. The Singer of all Songs. She had spent the past two years running from this moment. But if it was truly her destiny, it would be cowardice to turn her face away.What if the salvation of Tremaris did lie in her hands, in her voice, and from false modesty, from the shying of her timid heart, she allowed the world to wither and die? What was more dangerous: too much pride, or not enough? Perhaps she had learned more from Samis than she’d realised.Was the Singer of all Songs the person she had become, or was it the person she had always been? It didn’t matter: the answer was the same.

  Her heart pounded. Samis was watching her carefully, as if she were a wild, dangerous animal that he held at the end of a slender string. ‘My queen,’ he said softly. She had expected him to smile in triumph, but his dark eyes were shadowed with sorrow. ‘There is one more lesson for you to learn.’

  �
��No,’ murmured Calwyn. ‘No…’

  ‘You must.’ His hand tightened around her fingers. ‘Did you think there would be a flash of light? Did you think your Goddess would stoop to kiss you? No, little priestess. Becoming the Singer of all Songs is not accomplished in one leap. It is one step, then another, some steps in the light, and some in the darkness. Calwyn, it is time to walk in the dark. Do you want yourWheel? Yes? I will not give it to you. You must take it. Take what belongs to you, Calwyn. Take it!’

  Calwyn made a small sound, a moan of protest, quickly stifled. Then she turned to face him and reached up to kiss his mouth. She had never kissed anyone else but Darrow. Samis’s lips were dry and cool; his back stiffened briefly as their mouths met, but then he seemed to relax. Calwyn’s heart thudded in her chest as she wound her arms around his neck. Her lips brushed his ear.

  And, in a whisper, she sang.

  twelve

  The Secret of the Wheel

  SAMIS CRIED OUT and staggered back in pain, clutching at his eyes.

  Calwyn faltered, but she forced herself to keep singing. The dark chantment hissed and spat; her lips were numb, as though venom dripped from them. Samis sank to his knees, driving his fists into his eyes. His mouth was stretched wide with pain.

  In mind-speech, without pausing in her song, Calwyn formed the words, Where is theWheel?

  Samis moaned and shook his head.

  Where is it? Calwyn demanded.

  Tears streamed down her face; it took all her self-control to keep her breathing even. Her heart was jumping in her chest.

  Samis fumbled, one-handed, with the many tiny hooks that fastened his jerkin; the fingers of his other hand were jammed into his eye sockets. Calwyn stepped forward, then back, not knowing whether she should help him. The dark chantment writhed around them both. Feeling sick and dizzy, Calwyn groped for the windowsill to hold herself upright.