The Storm Weaver & the Sand (Books of the Change)

by Sean Williams

  Highson hadn’t let her go. She had escaped from him and her family and everyone else who had tried to hold her back.

  This was Sal’s mother.

  “I won’t have tea,” Radi Mierlo was saying, as though from a great distance. “I have business to attend to elsewhere.” Sal glanced up and noticed his grandmother’s eyes gleaming. “Can I leave the boy with you?”

  Highson nodded. “I’ll keep him safe.”

  “Thank you.” She bent down to address the old woman. “It’s nice to see you again, Mistress Sparre.” Her voice was a little too loud. Sal thought he caught Gram wincing. “We must catch up soon.”

  “Yes, yes.” The old woman snapped her fingers and the harp changed its tune.

  Sal felt his grandmother’s breath on his ear as she leaned in close to him. “Find that ward,” she whispered, “and do as your teachers tell you. You offend the memory of your mother and your grandfather by wasting your talent like this. I expect to hear more positive reports soon.”

  She was gone in a rush of silk before Sal could even think of a retort.

  While Highson showed her from the house, Gram fixed Sal with a piercingly alert stare.

  “Highson would’ve been Alcaide, you know,” she said. It was hard to tell with all the lines around her mouth and the faint tremor that affected her every movement, but she might have been smirking. “Would’ve been Alcaide, but for her. And I liked her, you know. Never saw it coming. Sometimes I miss her.”

  She cleared her throat as Highson came back through the bead curtain.

  “What’s that you’re saying, Gram?”

  “Nothing, Harun, nothing. Where’s that tea?” She snapped her fingers again and the harp switched to yet another tune. With a contented chuckle, the old lady settled back into her chair.

  They finished their tea before Sal began to realise that this was it: Gram was all the other family he was going to see that day.

  Highson had produced two rickety chairs from elsewhere in the house and placed them before the old woman. Her conversation had rambled through subjects and years, and Sal had done his best to keep up. It didn’t seem to matter if he did or didn’t. She chatted quite happily into her cup half the time, and he couldn’t always hear what she was saying.

  When her tea was drunk and the empty glass taken from her, she exhaled heavily once, closed her eyes, and fell sound asleep. The room instantly felt empty.

  Highson straightened her shawl and folded her hands.

  “I hope this doesn’t disturb you,” he said. “She did get your name right most of the time.”

  “You told her about me?” Sal felt uncomfortable, alone with his real father for the first time. It wasn’t somewhere he’d ever planned to be; the situation had crept up on him unawares.

  “Of course.” Highson drained his own cup and put it aside. “She’s strong, and has heard worse stories in her time, I’m sure. I wanted you to meet her because I don’t think she has long left. The others…” He shrugged. “They can wait.”

  So there were others. Sal had been wondering if Highson was also an orphan.

  “I understand that this is awkward for you,” his real father went on. “We don’t have very much to talk about, or it doesn’t seem so at the moment, and I don’t want to force anything on you because that will only drive you away. Similarly, I don’t want to justify anything I did because I trust you to make up your own mind when you know the whole story. I have faith in…” He hesitated. “Well, I was going to say that I have faith in any child Seirian and I produced—but it feels wrong saying that. You’re no more my child than Shilly or Skender. Dafis Hrvati raised you, and he earned the title of father. But you did come from us, from our bodies, and I have faith in that raw material. Seirian was a good person. I know that you have a lot of her in you.”

  The speech was surprisingly long, and startled Sal further by bringing a lump to his throat. He looked down at his hands, at the picture of his mother still clasped between them. She seemed to be looking at something just over his shoulder. Her smile was mysterious; he longed to know what had amused her at that moment. Was it something Highson had said? Had he made her laugh? Or was it the thought of her lover, the man whose name Sal claimed?

  In that instant, his feelings for his real father became more complex than he could ever have imagined. Highson spoke of his mother fondly, not with anger and bitterness, unlike her own family. He had shown Sal more consideration and respect than anyone else in the Haunted City to date. Radi Mierlo had claimed in the memorial that Seirian had married Highson willingly enough, and for the first time he could see that it might be true. And if it was true, but for the crossed fate of falling in love with another, might they not still be together right now—husband and wife and child in the Haunted City?

  No. He shook the fantasy from his mind. Highson Sparre, the jilted husband, had chased his wife all across the Strand, not resting until he had found her. He had snatched Seirian from the bed she’d shared with her lover and child, and incarcerated her in the Haunted City. And there, alone, she had died of a broken heart.

  Highson may have loved Sal’s mother, but he had killed her, too, and Sal would never forgive him for that.

  “Thank you,” he said, not hiding the stiffness in his tone. And then, because he could think of nothing else to say, he said nothing at all.

  Highson nodded. He looked down at the ground, then back at Sal. After a long moment, in which Sal sensed he was hoping for something more but didn’t get it, he put his hands on his thighs and stood up.

  “Well,” he said, “I have chores to do about the house before I leave. Do you mind sitting here with Gram while you wait? It could be some time.”

  Sal glanced nervously at the old woman. “Uh, I guess.”

  “There are books in the next room, and cushions to make yourself comfortable. Rest. Sleep if you want. I’m sure you’d rather be here than locking horns with your tutor and lecturers.”

  That was exactly true. Sal couldn’t remember the last time he’d had nothing to do but read. Highson would be elsewhere, doing his chores, and Gram was likely to sleep for hours. He could relax, if he let himself.

  “Thanks,” he said, meaning it, and wondering what Shilly would think if she heard him saying that to the man he had sworn he would never even talk to, given a choice. But she was a long way away at that moment, and the strangeness of the afternoon seemed to permit him to relax for a while.

  That nothing ever went as he expected was a lesson he had had drummed into him many times since Fundelry, and it seemed so patently true of this day that he was becoming numb to the surprises. Instead of questioning this one, he took it in both hands and, finding himself a thick book from the shelf in the next room, settled back to relax for a while.

  There was no idle chitchat between him and his real father on the walk through the towers of glass when the time came for him to return to the Novitiate. The silence was thick with unspoken words that Sal was content to leave that way.

  “I think Gram enjoyed your company,” Highson did say at one point. The old woman had woken several hours after he had begun his chores, which had consisted, it turned out, of cleaning the house from top to bottom, then preparing an evening meal for the three of them. Sal had felt compelled to help at one point, but had been encouraged to sit with the old woman and listen to her stories instead. She seemed to enjoy having an audience, even if she did forget he was there sometimes. After a while, he read to her from a book he picked from her small library, and she had enjoyed that most of all.

  “She’s nice,” Sal admitted, glad that there was at least one member of his new family that he could honestly say that about. Gram had liked his mother. She had given him a picture of her to keep, which he had wrapped carefully in tissue paper and placed in his pocket.

  “I think so, too,” said Highson with a faint smile, the
n he was quiet again. The only sound was the distant thunder of waves breaking against the cliffs of the island, and wind whispering faintly, high up among the towers. The Haunted City was very still. Had Sal not known better, he might have imagined that he and Highson were its only inhabitants.

  The full moon was rising when they reached the entrance to the Novitiate. Silver light poured like water through the steep valleys between the mirror-finished towers, echoing and re-echoing in a silver torrent. A robed attendant was waiting for him by the door, painted eerily by the moonlight. Luminous ghosts moved restlessly in their cages, thin and faceless, silently clamouring to be let out.

  Sal shivered even though he wasn’t cold.

  “Thank you for joining us today, Sal,” his father said. “I know it’s not something you wanted to do, so I appreciate the effort you’ve made. It was a long day, and you must be exhausted.”

  Sal shrugged. The effort lay not so much in what he had to do, but in what he had to stop himself from doing. He was supposed to be the troublemaker; sometimes it was harder to endure than to fight back.

  “I’ll see you again,” Highson went on. “If you ever need me, I can come at any time. I want to help you, Sal.”

  His real father’s expression was intense. Sal shied away from it, and mumbled his thanks. He didn’t know what else to say.

  Highson nodded. “He’s all yours,” he told the attendant, not looking at either of them. “Look after him.”

  Then he was gone, walking back the way they had come through the winding streets of the Haunted City, lit from all sides by the liquid light of the full moon. The set of his shoulders was tense, but no more so than Sal’s, whose muscles from his neck right down his back felt as though they were made out of stressed stone.

  “It’s late,” said the attendant. Sal nodded distractedly. The day had been wasted in just about every sense: he was no closer to finding Lodo, or a way off the island, and the option of staying was as unattractive as ever, with the Mierlos and the Syndic jockeying to take advantage of him, Tait wanting to use him to regain favour with the wardens, his real father trying too hard to be nice…

  He was startled out of his thoughts when the attendant grabbed him by the left arm and whirled him around.

  “What—?”

  “I need your decision, Sayed Hrvati.”

  Sal froze at the voice issuing from the attendant’s mouth. The shadows inside the hood seemed to swarm with malignant energies. Sal’s breath fogged in the cold issuing from it. His voice deserted him as he realised what it was talking to him.

  The golem.

  “How—Why are you here?”

  “It’s the full moon, boy. Rules bend. I will return this one when I am done with him. As to why: I do what I must in order to hear your decision. Do you accept my terms or not?”

  “I don’t know,” Sal said, wincing at the iron grip on his arm. Without the ward in his ear, he felt vulnerable, exposed. Yet the fact that the golem had taken a physical form—was more than the nebulous, hostile energy inhabiting the air all around him as it had been the last time—reassured him. There was a target, if he needed it. If he dared. “I still don’t know what your terms are,” he said.

  “What’s to be unsure of? I have offered to help you in exchange for your help.”

  “Yes, but how exactly will you help me? What do you want me to do? I can’t agree until I know what I’m agreeing to.”

  The grip tightened. “I told you that I would give you the body of the old man you call Lodo.”

  “Why not just tell us where he is so we can get him ourselves?”

  “He is in darkness. His body is hidden. You will never find it. They will not let you. Only I can bring it to you.”

  “How?”

  “Do not concern yourself with my side of the deal.” Sal felt the golem draw in breath. He tried to pull away, but couldn’t. “Worry only about what you must do in return.”

  The golem tugged him closer to the dark maw under the hood. Sal wasn’t sure, but he thought it might be smiling. “I want you to open the Golden Tower.”

  Sal blinked, not knowing how to respond at first. He had been expecting far worse—for him to steal something, perhaps, or to hurt someone.

  “Well?”

  “I, uh—that is, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Don’t be a fool, Sayed Hrvati. I was there when you read your mother’s letter. I know what you seek. Your friends have been searching for the Golden Tower all day. They will not find it. Only I can show you where it is. I can show you how to open it, too.”

  “How do you know all this?”

  “I walk the old places, the hidden places of this city. Nothing is secret to me.”

  Sal didn’t believe the last part for a second, but was tempted to believe the rest. Bodiless, it could go anywhere at will, unhindered by locked doors or walls. It was in a far better situation to explore than Skender would ever be.

  “I don’t understand,” he said, trying to think. “Why do you want us to do that? What’s in it for you?”

  “Just that. I want you to open the Tower.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I cannot!” The golem hissed icy breath across his face. “Do I ask you why you want the old man?”

  “But how do you know we can do it? What if we fail?”

  “I will be there to guide you. Failure is not likely, not when you want success enough. I know you will want it very badly.” The golem wrenched Sal’s left arm upward so the sleeve fell back. The bracelet that had once bound him slid into view. “And I know that you are resourceful.”

  “You’ve been spying on me?”

  A hissing laugh issued from under the hood. “I spy on everyone. That’s how I know where Lodo and the Golden Tower are to be found. You can’t have it both ways.”

  “I can have nothing to do with you.”

  The laughter stopped, and Sal found himself released. He backed away, rubbing his wrist.

  “That is true,” said the golem. “Let me go, and I will leave you in peace. You will never hear from me again. But in doing so you will lose this opportunity to gain both things you want. Lodo and the Tower. You cannot escape without them, and I can give them both to you. Only a coward would turn aside such an opportunity. Are you a coward, Sayed Hrvati?”

  “No.”

  “I didn’t think so. Which is it, then? Will I give you what you want, or will I leave you forever?”

  Sal thought hard and fast. He was being offered Lodo in exchange for a favour that happened to be something he wanted too. Perhaps he could have it both ways. But what if it was a trick? What if the golem had something up its sleeve that it hadn’t told him?

  Undoubtedly, he thought, that was the case. The golem was malignant. It would want to hurt them if it could, while they helped it to undertake its dark mischief. But in its non-physical form, it couldn’t touch them, and in a physical body it would be vulnerable to attack. Sal was confident he could stop it if it tried to put something over him.

  And the thought occurred to him that maybe—just maybe—the golem was also trying to escape the Haunted City. If that was the case, then their goals were exactly the same. There would be no mischief. There would just be freedom.

  The attendant hunched over and began to shiver, as though huddling against the cold.

  “Time is running out,” came the muffled voice of the golem from under the hood.

  Sal decided. There was just one way to find out if the golem was as good as its word. And if it wasn’t, it was hard to imagine how he could be worse off than he already was.

  “All right,” he said, “I’ll do it.”

  “Ahhhhh…” The golem’s sigh was a thin wind whistling between them. The attendant straightened, staggered back a step. One hand came up to touch the face beneath the hood.


  “I’m sorry,” said the man in a more natural voice. “I don’t know what came over me. I—” He stopped and seemed to gather himself. The attendant straightened. “This way, Sal. It’s late, and the streets are dangerous in the full moon. You’ll be safe in your room.”

  Sal let himself be led inside, even though he suspected that he wouldn’t be safe anywhere again. This day had shown him the worst he had to fear. What would come of it was another story entirely.

  Chapter 7. A Bad Ending

  “He’s not there.”

  “So where is he then?”

  “I don’t know.” There wasn’t much else Skender could say as he lowered himself carefully through the hole in Shilly’s ceiling and dropped to the floor. He was becoming heartily sick of the crawlspace, and beginning to wish he’d never gone up there in the first place.

  But that was a stupid thought. The crawlspace was his gateway to the unknown. It might be dusty, dark and even dangerous in places, but it was better than being cooped up in his room all night long, as Shilly was. If she’d only stop worrying about Sal, he planned to sneak out and take in the full moon flying high over the Haunted City. If he missed that, he would wonder forever what it looked like.

  She was sitting on her bed wearing the bottom half of her Novitiate uniform and the top of her pyjamas. Her bad leg was stretched out in front of her, bent slightly. She worried absently at a fingernail like a dog chewing a bone.

  Sal hadn’t come to breakfast. He had missed both the morning lecture and the afternoon tutorial, prompting annoyed remarks from their lecturer and irritation from Fairney. He had then failed to appear in his room when the day came to an end. None of the attendants would tell them where he was, saying it was none of their business, and Fairney simply hadn’t known. Skender could understand why Shilly was puzzled, but he couldn’t remember seeing her so worried before.