Between them, his uncle and aunt had five children. Sal’s cousins ranged from the enormous mute, Aron, to a young girl with the annoying habit of wailing in high-pitched tones whenever denied anything. One of them, Etheria, was about his age but had acted on the long caravan ride south as though she thought herself too good to mingle with anyone other than adults. While her mother wasn’t watching, she made it clear that she still didn’t want to have anything to do with a mere boy, and went to talk to her older brothers instead.
That would have been bad enough. His stomach was growling almost constantly by the time he had run the gauntlet of his mother’s family, and he was looking forward to getting some of the food he could smell from the far side of the garden. Just when it looked as though he was finally going to be allowed to, three more guests arrived through the kitchen door.
Sal didn’t need an introduction. Two of the three were Shom Behenna and Tait. The ex-warden was torc-less and dressed in sand-coloured robes. Tait still had the uniform of a journeyman, but he wore it uncomfortably, as though it didn’t quite fit any more. The third was a square-faced, fair-haired woman of middle years who he recognised as a member of the Stone Mage Synod. Her name was Luan Braunack, and she had travelled with two junior mages as a diplomatic emissary to the Alcaide and Syndic. Sal hadn’t exchanged more than a dozen words with her throughout the entire journey. What she was doing at his grandmother’s breakfast party he couldn’t guess.
Mage Braunack was the only one who seemed genuinely pleased to see him, though. She manoeuvred herself through the Mierlos until she was standing in front of him. Her light skin was a match for those around her—Sal was amazed at how quickly he had again become used to the darker complexions in the Strand—but her rust-red robes stood out among the pallid colours of the other guests. She greeted him warmly, then went off to talk to his grandmother. Behenna scowled at him and followed.
That left him alone with Tait.
“How’s Shilly’s doing?” the tall young man asked him.
Sal was thrown off-balance by the question. A vivid memory of the kiss surfaced, and he felt himself flush.
“Fine,” he said. “That is, she’s settled in and her leg is doing well.”
“Good.” Tait nodded awkwardly, then asked, “What about Tom. Seen him about anywhere?”
Ah. The studied nonchalance of the question revealed the point of the conversation. “Yes. I presume you already know that he’s not talking to you.”
“But why?” Nonchalance gave away to grievance. It was clear that Tait has already aware of Tom’s decision.
“If you don’t already know, me telling you isn’t going to help.”
Sal went to walk away, but Tait caught his arm. “Tell him I’m sorry, will you? We shouldn’t be fighting like this. I want my brother back.”
Sal nodded slowly. “I’ll tell him, but I don’t know how he’ll respond.”
“I know.” Tait looked glum. “He’s always been a strange one. But he’s the only one who can help me get back in. Master Warden Atilde won’t see me; the Alcaide and the Syndic act as though I don’t exist. Tom can put a good word in for me, I’m sure—”
Sal pulled his arm free and walked away, shaking his head. Tait deserved what he’d got. He had betrayed his brother and allied himself with the ambitious Shom Behenna in order to advance himself, and both actions had worked out badly for him. If he’d been tarred by Behenna’s failure, that was a just punishment as far as Sal was concerned.
Tait fitted in perfectly among the Mierlos, Sal decided. He’d had it with all of them. He was about to go up to his grandmother and ask if he could leave when she chose that moment to announce that breakfast was ready. He was ushered forward to the front of the group, where Highson handed him a plate. Sal stared at the servings heaped on it by a dark-skinned chef in a white hat, with a deepening feeling of dismay. His appetite was gone.
When breakfast finished, he told himself, he would surely be able to leave. But there was more to come. He was forced to endure conversations about places he’d never seen and people he didn’t know. Small grievances and triumphs flew backwards and forwards like darts. What did he care if Etheria had already caught the eye of a well-placed local dandy? Why should he mind if the house they were renting was a huge step down from their digs at Mount Birrinah?
He managed to extricate himself from the conversation by saying that he needed to use the bathroom. Highson Sparre, the man who would claim him as his son, given half the chance, showed him the way. Sal bet that he would be waiting for him when he came out afterward. It was beginning to feel as if Highson was always there, wherever he went, a compact but powerful presence. The Change swirled around him like an invisible cloak, making Sal’s ears tingle. Sal was beginning to feel utterly closed in by it all.
When he walked out into the garden, Highson a pace behind him, his grandmother waved him over.
“We were just talking about your grandfather, Sahen,” she said. “He was a good man, and a good father.”
“I never met him,” said Highson, “but Seirian spoke about him often.”
“He passed away when she was a teenager.” Behind Radi Mierlo’s social mask he glimpsed a brief hint of sadness. “She was always his favourite, Sal. She cried for weeks after the accident. He made her the ward she gave you, remember? I told you that when we first met.”
Sal reached instinctively for his ear, and only realised then that it was missing. The hole in his ear was empty. “Uh, yes,” he said, hoping the alarm he felt wouldn’t show. “I remember.”
The social mask cracked. “You haven’t—?” His grandmother’s eyes darted to his ears, then narrowed as dismay turned to anger. “You have! How could you lose something as precious as that? Sahen made that ward especially for your mother’s fifth birthday present. It watched over her all her life, until she gave it to you. And now you’ve lost it. You stupid, careless boy!”
Sal fought the natural sense of shame that rose up in him in the face of her bitter words, conscious of the crowd watching. “N-no,” he stammered. “I know where it is. It’s safe.”
And it was, too. He knew exactly where it was. He had taken it off when Shilly tattooed the charm on his back the previous night, and he must have left it in her room when Skender hurried him off to bed.
“I want to see it tomorrow,” she said, her expression stern. “If you’re lying—”
“I’m not. I swear.”
She accepted that with a look that told him she still didn’t entirely believe him. He caught Behenna staring at him from one corner of the garden, and suddenly he felt naked. The last time he had taken the ward out of his ear had been in Fundelry, and even then he had worn it on a thong around his neck. He couldn’t remember ever being without it before. The sooner he got it back, the better.
“I wouldn’t worry about her,” said a warm, female voice in his ear. A hand on his elbow guided him away. “Your grandmother’s under a lot of stress at the moment,” Mage Braunack added. “It’s not a good time for her.”
So what? Sal wanted to retort, but he held his tongue. It wasn’t a good time for him, either.
“Tell me how young Skender is doing,” she said. “I was speaking to his father just last night and he enquired about him. Has he got up to any antics yet?”
Stone Mages, like Sky Wardens, could communicate across vast distances by using the Change, but Sal didn’t realise that Skender’s father was in such regular contact with the diplomatic party. He wondered what Skender Van Haasteren the Ninth would think if told that his son had been crawling around in the roof of the Novitiate every night. Instead he explained that Skender seemed to be doing well in classes.
“It’s a unique opportunity for him,” said Braunack. “We encourage cross-cultural experiences in the young. Especially those who will teach the next generation.”
“You should talk to
Skender about that,” he said. The boy was destined to take over his father’s school one day, but he had said many times that he found the idea stiflingly dull. “I think he’d rather follow in his mother’s footsteps.”
“Yes, who wouldn’t rather be a Surveyor than a teacher? On paper, the job looks much more interesting. But I think Abi Van Haasteren could tell a thing or two that would curl her son’s hair.” Braunack nodded with a certainty Sal couldn’t fathom. “He’ll change his mind in time. As will you. Mark my words. Sometimes when we’re young, we’re so busy running from what we think other people want us to be that we don’t notice we’ve come full circle, until it’s too late.”
Sal frowned at her, not understanding at first what she was trying to say. Was she telling him that he would accept coming to the Strand, one day? He couldn’t imagine doing that. And why would she, a Stone Mage, want it to happen?
Then he remembered that Mage Braunack had been one of the nine Judges who had decided to send him back to the Strand. The elderly Mage Erentaite had insinuated that the mysterious Weavers were behind Sal’s expulsion, and that they were everywhere, influencing every decision. Could Braunack be one of them?
It did make sense. Skender had’ said that he’d heard Shorn Behenna and his grandmother talking about the Weavers two nights ago. They’d been waiting for word from their masters. And now here Braunack was, socialising with them—and smiling at him as though appreciating a fine, subtle joke.
“Tell the Mage Van Haasteren that I look forward to seeing him again soon,” he said, and walked away.
His grandmother began winding things up soon after the incident with the earring, as though that moment had soured the entire occasion for her. Sal felt nothing but relief as his relations said goodbye to him one by one, and the various other hangers-on filed out the front door. Cool farewells from Tait, Behenna and Mage Braunack mattered nothing to him. As the moment of his own departure came closer, he found himself longing to be back at the Novitiate. Anything, he thought, was better than this.
Finally they were on their way. Sal’s grandmother walked in sullen silence through the Haunted City’s convoluted lanes, Sal and Highson following her.
Nothing was said until Sal realised that he didn’t recognise where they were going.
“This isn’t the way we came,” he said.
“No,” said Highson, his hoarse voice firm. “You’re not going back to the Novitiate just yet.”
“But I have my tutor class—”
“I know, Sal, and I’m sorry. This is important, too. I want you to meet the other side of your family.”
“The other—?” Sal stopped in mid-sentence. He belatedly understood with a sinking feeling who Highson was referring to. Just as his mother had a family he had never known, so too did his real father. The only one he had ever heard of was the Syndic, Nu Zanshin, but there had to be others. He had never given them a moment’s thought.
He groaned on the inside. More strangers claiming to be uncles, aunts, grandparents, cousins…It was unbearable.
But he was in no position to argue. He could make a run for it, he supposed, but he doubted he would get far. He would certainly be unable to escape the island; they had yet to find a way to cross the channel between the Haunted City and the mainland. And it would expose the fact that he and his friends had managed to break the power of the bracelet. The next restraint wouldn’t be so easy to break, and when the wardens found out where their knowledge of tattoos had come from, as they surely would, he doubted Skender would get another chance to browse through the library unimpeded.
He had to grit his teeth and endure it. It wouldn’t last forever. When it was over, he would have homework and Kemp to look forward to—but that wouldn’t last forever either. Nothing was permanent. All he had to do was persevere. They would find Lodo and a way out eventually, he was sure. Even if he did have to ask a golem for help…
They came to a section of the island that sloped steeply around the bases of the mighty towers. Sal was becoming quite used to the gleaming glass and ghostly presences surrounding him in the Haunted City, but when the ground level rose up and the towers didn’t rise with it—as though the towers had been there forever and the island had formed around them, partly burying them—he lost all sense of familiarity. Rows of small houses lined the roads they travelled along, some of them piled three or four high around the tower bases. He sensed great age in the crumbling brickwork and salt-damp, in the way paint had peeled and wood had swelled. But the houses were all well made, and stood the ravages of time with grace and strength. There was a patient, unimposing solidity about the suburb, as though dynasties had risen and fallen in such houses, unconcerned by fashion or fad.
They came to a single house at the summit of a hill. It stood alone behind a small, sandy front garden. The door opened at Highson’s touch, and he waved Sal and his grandmother through. The interior was neat and clean, and smelled of a flower Sal recognised but didn’t know the name of. Soft music filtered from a room out the back.
Highson put a finger to his lips and walked ahead of them. As they wound through a portrait-filled corridor and a simple kitchen, Sal identified the musical instrument as a small harp. A gentle lay rippled from its strings, trickling in the weak afternoon light that crept down through the towers looming over the small house and past the lace curtains. Sal saw dust motes dancing as Highson indicated that they should come through a curtain of beads and into a bricked-in veranda at the rear of the house. He was moving very quietly, as though wary of startling someone. Sal did as he was told and then he learned who that someone was.
In a wooden rocking chair by the back door, with a crocheted shawl over her thin knees, a very old woman sat sleeping by herself. She was easily the oldest person Sal had ever seen—even older than the Mage Erentaite. Her hair was white and wispy; her shoulders were narrow and hunched, and her skin was a blotchy, faded brown. She looked as though she weighed less than the shawl keeping her warm.
But she made a peaceful figure, sleeping softly in the sunlight, listening to the music.
Sal had enough time to be amazed at the beauty of the slender, silver harp standing in one corner—and the fact that it seemed to be playing itself—when Highson leaned in close to the old woman and took one of her hands in his.
“Gram, it’s me,” he said softly.
The old woman started softly and opened disconcertingly large eyes. They were as clear as a child’s, and a light honey-brown in colour.
“Harun?” she said, looking up at him in momentary confusion. Her voice quavered but wasn’t soft.
“No, Gram. It’s Highson. I’ve brought someone to meet you.”
The old woman looked around and noticed the two other visitors. “I know you,” she said, stabbing a crooked finger at Sal’s grandmother. “You’re the girl’s mother.”
“It has been a long time, Mistress Sparre,” said Radi Mierlo, dipping into an unexpected curtsy. “I’m pleased to see you again.”
“Didn’t think I’d last this long, eh?” The old woman—who had to be Highson’s grandmother, Sal decided—shifted uncomfortably in her seat. “Well, I didn’t think so either. That daughter of yours has given us some grief. When are you going to sort her out?”
“My daughter?” Radi Mierlo looked completely flustered. “She’s—that is…”
Highson shook his head to silence her, and moved his hand to the old woman’s shoulder. “Gram,” he said, more firmly than before, “this is Sal.”
“Sal? Who’s Sal?” The ancient woman’s upper body swivelled to bring her lined face square-on to his. Sal felt an almost physical force sweep over him when she locked eyes with him. “I suppose you must be Sal,” she said, nodding to herself. “Would you like to see a picture of your mother?”
The question momentarily flummoxed him. Of course he wanted to see a picture of his mother, but he wasn’t su
re the old woman really knew who he was. Whose mother might he be shown if he said yes?
“Of course you do,” she said, putting her hands on either arm of the rocking chair and struggling to get up. “It’s over here. You can keep it if you want.”
“Please, um, Mistress Sparre,” he said, worried that she might hurt herself, “don’t trouble yourself—”
“Call me Gram,” she said, giving up on the attempt and pointing Highson in the right direction instead. “Everyone does. Except you,” she added with a reproachful glare at Radi Mierlo, who sniffed huffily.
Highson returned with a small picture in a frame. “Here,” Gram said, taking it from him, turning it over once in her quavering hands then giving it to Sal. “There she is. What do you think, eh? Quite a looker, isn’t she?”
Gram cackled to herself while Sal stared dumbly at the woman in the picture.
It showed a young woman in half-profile, as though looking just past the camera. Her features were narrow and delicate with hair black and flowing like a waterfall down one shoulder. Her eyes were the same colour as Radi Mierlo’s and Sal’s, and her mouth curved in a half-smile. Dressed in a simple white robe, she held a bouquet of red flowers in her lap and wore an elegant silver band across her temple.
Sal looked up and caught Highson’s eye. He nodded.
“I always liked her,” said Gram, shaking her head. “You were a fool to let her go, Highson. A fool.”
Highson cleared his throat and asked if anyone would like a cup of tea. Sal returned his attention to the picture. This was the woman who had married Highson and then left him for another man. This was the woman who had escaped with her lover into the wilds and survived for a year without being found. This was the woman who had given birth to Sal and loved him as much as any mother had loved a child. This was the woman who had been wrenched away from her son and died alone in captivity.
The Storm Weaver & the Sand (Books of the Change) Page 11