“Thanks for coming, Aunty Merinda,” said Shilly, limping along behind them.
The old woman nodded. “I knew it in my knees before you called. ‘Not just the rain,’ I said to myself. ‘Best get a wriggle-on before Lodo leaves for good.’”
“He’d be glad you’re here.”
“I know he is, the old crank. And he knows I’ve missed him. I’m glad he’s here so I can say goodbye.”
The next to arrive was a woman about the same age as Sal’s real father, with short, brown hair. She carried a baby in a sling against her stomach, and she waved when she saw them in the distance. They met up with her on the crest of the final wave of sand, where one last strip of grass and scrub made a stand against the salt and spray. The wind was stronger there, tugging at Lodo’s stained robe with ghostly hands.
“Sorry if I’m late,” the woman said, kissing Shilly softly on the cheek. “I just put little Gil to sleep.”
“You’re not late, Thess.”
“The others are down there.” Thess nodded at two figures standing at the shoreline, watching the waves advance and retreat. “I’m sure they’d give you a hand…”
“It’s okay,” said Sal. “There’s not much further to go.”
Lodo hung unresistingly between him and Aunty Merinda as they walked the last thirty metres to where the rest of Lodo’s friends waited. Von, a tall woman wearing a wild, orange wig, didn’t say anything as they approached. She just nodded, as though not trusting her voice. The man standing next to her was holding a battered guitar in one hand.
“You’re not planning on using that, are you, Derksen?” asked Aunty Merinda. “We’re here to farewell the living, not wake the dead.”
“Lodo liked it when I played.” Derksen managed a look that combined mournful with hurt.
“Lodo had no ear for a tune, so I daresay you’re right.”
The six of them stared at each other for a long moment, unsure what to do. It wasn’t a large crowd of people, and certainly not as large as Lodo deserved, but what it lacked in numbers it made up for in heart. Beneath the occasional bickering, Sal sensed nothing but love and sadness for the seventh among them.
Lodo’s pale eyes were staring at the sea. Sal felt a tremor play through the old man, as though he was trying to move. But nothing came of it, and his gaze fell slowly to the sand at his feet.
“We should put him down,” said Sal.
“What about over here?” Shilly suggested, pointing at a nearby hollow in the sand. The beach stretched in a wide curve kilometres in length. There was very little other shelter from the wind.
“That’s as good as anywhere,” said Aunty Merinda. “Let’s dump him before my back permanently kinks.”
Shilly unfolded a rug she’d brought and placed it on the sand. She sat down first with the stick at her side. Aunty Merinda and Sal laid Lodo’s body so that he was leaning across her lap. The old man’s tangled, patchy hair spread in disarray across her dress. She tugged it into something resembling order.
The rest sat around him to wait.
Time passed.
It was the weirdest thing. Sal had lost loved ones before, but not like this. His father had died so suddenly it had taken him weeks to accept it. His mother had been dead before he ever really knew how to miss her. This silent, passive wake was like nothing he’d heard of. He wondered if he would notice anything different when the moment came.
Derksen cleared his throat. “I’ve been thinking of a memorial,” he said, “like they do in the cities.”
Sal remembered the place his mother and grandmother were honoured: the forest of totems in wood and stone; the markers for the dead. “Do you think he’d like that?”
“He’d like that we’d thought of him,” said Thess. “I can help you carve something.”
“And I’ll put a charm on it to keep the weather off,” said Aunty Merinda.
“I’ll supply the wood,” said Von, speaking for the first time. Her scarred voice broke on the last word, and she looked up at the sky.
There was another long silence.
“They miss him around town,” said Thess. “The hot water isn’t so reliable now, and of course the lights don’t work at all.”
“It doesn’t help that he blew up half the globes,” said Aunty Merinda.
“No one still really knows what happened, that night.”
“I know Mayor Iphigenia’s given up trying to find out.” Aunty Merinda chuckled. “She even came to me, looking for advice.”
“What did you tell her?” asked Derksen.
“To mind her own business. And maybe think twice, next time, before letting a certain Alder ruin things for everyone. If Sproule hadn’t stuck his nose in—”
Thess caught Aunty Merinda’s eye and shook her head slightly. Sal was glad she did. This wasn’t the time to debate what had gone wrong all those weeks ago.
Aunty Merinda mumbled discontentedly, but fell silent.
Shilly stroked Lodo’s wrinkled forehead.
Sal moved closer to her, so she would know he was there.
“He was a good man,” said Von, and didn’t say another word the rest of the day. Sal learned later that she couldn’t cry; the same fire that had burned her throat had ruined her tear ducts as well. Her grief might have run to rivers, but none of it showed on her face.
“Put that down, boy,” warned Aunty Merinda as Derksen went to fill the silence with a tune. “If you think it’s too quiet around here, I’d rather hear something positive. What’s next for you two, for instance,” she said, turning to Sal and Shilly. “When this is over, what are you going to do?”
Shilly looked up, scattering a sprinkle of jewel-like tears down the front of her dress.
“We’ve talked about it,” she said. “Sometimes I think I’d like to pack a bag and start walking.”
“Where?” asked Thess.
“That way,” she said, pointing west along the coast, away from Fundelry. “Wherever it takes us.”
“Is that safe?” asked Aunty Merinda, looking at Sal.
“As safe as anywhere,” he said. “I can’t feel the Syndic, and the seagulls don’t seem to be watching us. The wardens probably assumed we’ve gone north again and are looking for us there.”
“Do you have anywhere in mind?” asked Derksen.
“If we walk far enough,” said Shilly, “we’ll come back where we started, and then we can decide.”
Sal nodded, understanding the sentiment even if he didn’t feel it as strongly as she did. Shilly wanted to move—to do something, anything, rather than wallow in what had become of her life. Sal, for the first time, quite liked the idea of staying still for a while, of gathering his life around him and determining what it contained before leaping off in a new direction.
“If we had the buggy, it’d be a lot easier,” he said.
“Easier on your leg,” Thess said to Shilly, who nodded distantly.
“Of course, you’d be welcome enough here,” said Aunty Merinda, “if you wanted to stay. Things would be odd for a while, and you’d have to be careful. But as I said, they miss Lodo. They miss what he did for them. You’ve learned some of that. What you don’t know, you might be able to teach each other. You could take his place. It’d be a quiet life, but a safe one.”
“It’d give us one less thing to worry about,” said Thess. “Whether you’re okay, I mean.”
Sal nodded. The offer was tempting. Fundelry was a small place with small dangers, compared to some he had negotiated recently. It would come as a relief to let go, to forget all about the bigger picture and concentrate on the everyday.
But he couldn’t just switch his talent off. Nowhere would ever be truly safe again, despite what Aunty Merinda said. His life would never be simple. What he needed to find most of all was a way to coexist with that fact, wherever he was, wh
atever he was doing. If he didn’t, he was sure his real father would have something to say about it.
Perhaps I could be a Weaver, if I wanted to, Sal told himself, just like him…
The others were looking at him as though expecting a response. All he could think of were the words Shilly had used when Kemp had asked her why, of all places, she would ever consider returning to Fundelry. He repeated them now, feeling the truth of it in his bones: “It’s a start.”
What the finish would be, only time would tell.
The sun dipped low to the horizon. A bank of clouds opened to allow a profusion of reds and yellows to wash across the grey sea. Derksen was eventually allowed to play a tune—a simple, lilting lament that perfectly suited the moment—and even Aunty Merinda sat silently through it without commenting.
When the end finally came, it was almost an anticlimax. Sal felt Shilly stiffen beside him. Soundlessly, she began to cry. He looked down at Lodo and saw by the light of the sunset that the old man’s eyes were half-closed. His head had tilted back so he was no longer looking at anything at all. Shilly’s hands held the body close as she grieved for the man who had loved her as a daughter and done everything he could to make her life better. Sal grieved with her, holding her in turn as her shoulders shook and whispering her heart-name to her through the Change. One at a time, her arms left Lodo and came around him. They leaned on each other as the light drained out of the world and darkness took its place.
So wrapped up in their grief was he that he didn’t notice the others until Derksen gently moved him and Shilly apart so he could get at Lodo’s body. They had discussed what would happen next when Sal and Shilly had summoned Lodo’s friends to the workshop the previous day and filled them in on everything. Lodo would be buried on the beach, under the weight of ancient mountains, where things began and ended. That was the home he had found when the worlds of stone and water had rejected him. That was the place he had returned to, to die. That was where he would rest forever.
Thoughts of the future—even one as immediate as the next minute or two—seemed to break a spell. The sound of the waves returned. Sal noticed stars appearing through the gap in the clouds. A breeze danced around them, unpredictable and lively.
Live long, his real father had said. Be free.
I’ll start doing that, thought Sal in response, helping Shilly to her feet. Right now.
Character List
SAL HRVATI (HEART-NAME: SAYED): son of Seirian Mierlo and Highson Sparre, two Change-users with prodigious talent. He came late to his “wild talent” while leading a nomadic life with his adoptive father, the fugitive Dafis Hrvati. Fleeing capture by his Sky Warden relatives, Sal escaped with Shilly to the Interior and was partially trained at the Keep, but he was ultimately returned to the Strand by orders of the Stone Mage Synod.
SHILLY OF GOORON: orphan and former apprentice of Lodo in Fundelry, a small town in the Strand. Where Sal is talented but lacking in knowledge, she has no innate talent but, thanks to Lodo’s teaching, a keen understanding of the way the Change works, particularly when it comes to illusions. Separated from Lodo in Fundelry, she takes the opportunity to flee with Sal, with whom she supposedly shares a “destiny.” She suffered a serious leg injury on the road to the Interior and may be permanently disadvantaged as a result.
SKENDER VAN HAASTEREN (THE TENTH): son of Skender Van Haasteren the Ninth and next in line to run the Stone Mage school known as the Keep, deep in the Interior. Caught up in Sal and Shilly’s story when they came to the Keep seeking training, he smuggled himself aboard the caravan taking them south, seeking adventure. Thanks to an eidetic memory, he never forgets a charm or pattern on which the Change relies, but has little true understanding or talent to make it work on his own.
THE STRAND
RISA ATILDE: Master Warden of the Novitiate, where potential Sky Wardens are trained in the Haunted City.
SHOM BEHENNA: former Sky Warden, stripped of his rank for breaking his oaths while chasing Sal and Shilly in the Interior.
DRAGAN BRAHAM: Sky Warden and Alcaide of the Strand, responsible for justice and governance of the realm. Injured by Sal during their confrontation in Fundelry.
DAFIS HRVATI: former journeyman and Sal’s adoptive father; deceased.
SEIRIAN MIERLO: Sal’s mother, once a promising young student of the Change in the Haunted City; deceased.
HIGHSON SPARRE: Sky Warden and Sal’s real father.
KEMP SPROULE: son of Alder Sproule of Fundelry and successful candidate for training in the Haunted City.
TAIT: Tom’s ambitious brother and former apprentice of Shom Behenna.
TOM: formerly of Fundelry, now training in the Haunted City.
NU ZANSHIN: Sky Warden and Syndic of the Strand, responsible for administration of the realm. Also Sal’s paternal great-aunt.
THE INTERIOR
LUAN BRAUNACK: a senior Stone Mage and a Judge when the Synod meets.
BELILANCA (BELI) BROKATE: caravan leader plying the roads between the Interior and the Strand.
JARMILA ERENTAITE: a senior Stone Mage from Ulum.
LODO (PAYAT MISSERI): former Stone Mage, convicted necromancer and outcast. Shilly’s first teacher in the Change.
MAWSON: a non-human man’kin in the shape of a stone bust, bonded to the Mierlo family.
ARON MIERLO: Sal’s cousin, the very strong but mute “steed” of the man’kin Mawson.
RADI MIERLO: Sal’s ambitious maternal grandmother.
ABI VAN HAASTEREN: Skender’s mother and Surveyor of ancient and dangerous Ruins.
SKENDER VAN HAASTEREN (THE NINTH): Stone Mage and teacher at the Keep. Lodo’s former friend.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
The lines quoted in Chapters 4, 5 and 6 are from the poem “The City In The Sea” by Edgar Allen Poe.
Copyright 2002 by Sean Williams
ISBN 978-1-4976-3496-1
This edition published in 2014 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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The Storm Weaver & the Sand (Books of the Change) Page 44