39 CONTRITION
From the driver’s bench of the wagon, seated next to yet another dirty, well-traveled, and nearly incomprehensible merchant, Sayri examined the northernmost town on the Somrian coast. There were tiny flakes of snow in the air, drifting about wildly and flying up as often as down, which surprised her; they had gone a fair distance north in their time on the road, but Sayri was accustomed to thinking of the coast as milder than nearby inland areas. It wasn’t so cold, true enough; she imagined that the snow might be carried by winds high overhead from a frostier place, further north. Certainly there wasn’t any on the ground.
The town was called Pichow, or something like it. The farther she had traveled from Yalcinae, the more foreign the names seemed to be, not only of towns but people as well; her driver was named something that sounded like Gloopigock, near as she could tell. She had given up attempting to communicate with the short, round, hairless man, though he babbled endlessly, and it had been a strange tenday. He had, at least, been kind; he had shared food and drink with her, so she had returned the favour by cleaning up after meals. All in all, it had been a relaxing trip, though she had worried every time they passed an outpost or town, imagining that the warders there would arrest her on sight, or worse. Her concern proved to be unfounded, fortunately; she supposed she could have expected to stay ahead of the news. Besides, Ooji had been certain she could bluff her way out of the mess Sayri left behind, at least well enough to give her some time. Until they noticed that Sayri was gone.
Pichow vaguely reminded her of Benn’s Harbour, though it was far smaller. The town lay across a row of hills that encircled a southeast facing harbour. The hills were much lower than those around Benn’s Harbour; she could clearly see the docks as the wagon approached the town. What she saw caused her heart to sink; the docks were small and the ships resting there hardly more than boats. It seemed likely that she would need to find her way south to a larger town if she wanted to find passage to the South Island.
The driver followed the road, which remained dry and rocky, as it wound it’s way down from the inland flats around a long, low hill that faced the sea, and straight into the centre of town. The docks lay to their right. The town was simple in layout; first the docks, then a row of shops, warehouses, and a tavern across the road, then a scattering of houses and small farms in the low-lying hills above. Sayri expected not to go much farther than the tavern to ask after the ships.
The driver stopped at one of the warehouses and she thanked him and bade him farewell, shouldering her small bag. Tiny flakes of ice were still swirling, clouding her view of the sea, so that the boats at dock seemed to fade into nothing. Though there were a few people on the street, the docks were silent, and the whole town seemed hushed.
With her hair covered, she did not expect to stand out, and took some pleasure in being ignored by the locals as she made her way to the tavern. It was marked by a simple sign on the road, depicting a cup and some sort of flying lizard similar to a gazer. There was a heavy wooden door at the entrance; she pulled it open and slipped inside.
The tavern was simple, and clean; unlike a typical one in the Lords’ Lands, it had a stone-cobbled floor. Dirt floors made for mud half the year in a tavern back home—she appreciated the difference.
There were a few wooden tables with chairs and benches, all empty. The only patron, a short, round fellow with massive forearms, sat at a bar along the left wall opposite the entry. Sayri guessed he was a craftsman, perhaps a blacksmith; he wore a leather apron. The man was speaking to the barkeep, a rail-thin, balding fellow missing his left eye, who attended a waist-high stone table with a clay bottle in his hand.
Both of them turned to look at Sayri when she entered, and she was overcome by self-consciousness. It was not a welcoming look and stopped her at the door, which promptly bumped her unceremoniously on the bottom, pushing her into the room.
“Pardons, y—friends,” she said carefully, putting on her best Somrian accent. The lands ruled by the Overlord were so expansive that she imagined it didn’t much matter if her accent matched no particular place, only that it wasn’t Lords’ Lands. “Might either of ya know where’s I could speak ta na ship captain about passage?”
The blacksmith—she decided to think of him as such—just frowned at her. The barkeep stroked the sides of his mouth absently with his left hand; Sayri wondered if he had recently shaved off a beard.
“Tha’sa strayed da lect,” he said.
Great, I can’t even understand their accent, she thought depressingly. How will I find a boat now?
“Passage ta where?” the barkeep asked her. Sayri started; his accent was completely comprehensible. Clearly he had not intended her to understand the first comment; in that, he was successful.
Sayri swallowed. What was she to say? Surely they knew there was a war in the southern islands. She hadn’t thought this through.
As it was, she just stood there, blinking at the two of them.
She was saved by a third person entering the tavern. Air rushed out as the door swung open behind her, and she hopped to the side nervously. The newcomer was a young man, with perhaps only a few summers more than she had. His skin and hair were dark, and his arms and legs long and gangly.
He ignored her completely; perhaps he missed her in the comparatively dim light of the tavern. “There’s a fleet in na harbour!” he exclaimed.
“Don’ be daft, boy,” the blacksmith scoffed. “Na fleet ever’s come here.” He turned back the barkeep, chuckling. “A half quarrel fishin’ cogs, na doubtin’.”
The youth wasn’t put off by the man’s dismissal, however. “I tell ya, is a fleet!” he repeated, throwing his arms in the air. “They’s na ours either! Come’s see for yaself!” At that, he turned and dashed out the door, letting it clump closed behind him heavily.
“Harfwit,” the blacksmith muttered. The barkeep didn’t look so convinced, but he seemed hesitant to leave the side of his only customer.
Finally, putting down the bottle and glancing at Sayri, he strode to the door and threw it open. His mouth opened in a gasp and he said something, but if he cussed Sayri didn’t hear it, because there was a single distant yell from outside, followed by a roar of many voices. The barkeep’s eyes went wide, and he slammed the door and put his back to it, his face white.
“Wha’sut, Mawdla?” the blacksmith asked, rising to his feet. “The lad’s speak true? Wha’sut?”
“Lordslanders,” the barkeep said, his voice hush, and barely audible above the far-off pounding of many feet on the wooden docks. “Lordslanders,” he repeated. “Wa’re been invaded.”
A chill shot down Sayri’s back, and her hair prickled. The Lords’ Lands was attacking Somria? It couldn’t be! She wanted to rush outside, but the barkeep remained in the doorway, and she was terrified to look, regardless.
Finally the blacksmith went to the door, brushing the barkeep aside. He threw it open and stood there, frowning, then he swore and dashed away, leaving the door ajar.
Sayri made for it, but the barkeep slammed it shut, and pulled a metal bolt down on it. “Na, girl. Ya know wha’s invaders’a do ta the likes of you? Quickly na, come w’ me.” He seized Sayri by the arm, dragging her to the back of the tavern. She wanted to twist free of his grip and shout at him: These are my people! But she didn’t dare. What would he do if he knew she was from the invaders’ land? Would he try to hostage her? Kill her?
Besides, she couldn’t be sure the attacking warders wouldn’t do the same. Would they even give her time to explain who she was? Likely not, or they might not believe her.
So she stayed silent as the barkeep led her to a door at the back of the room, and down a twisting flight of narrow stone steps. At the base was another smaller door, with a heavy latch. The barkeep unlatched it and the stench of rotting fruit drifted out.
“Hide here, girl,” he said, pushing her through the door. She caught a glimpse of a small room filled with bottles and wooden barrels, and barely enough space fo
r her to stand inside. She turned to protest, but he slammed the door shut, and she was plunged into blackness.
Sayri threw herself against the door, pounding on it. “Let me out!” she shouted in the darkness, panic rising. “What if you don’t come back? You can’t leave me in here!”
But she heard his footsteps on the stone steps, and then silence. She was left with the sound of her own breathing; it seemed magnified in the tiny room, and her heart was thrumming.
Not a victim, she reminded herself. With her hands on the door, she closed her eyes, and took control of her nerves.
As she calmed down and considered her predicament, she began to hear other sounds, from beyond the tavern. They were faint, but she could hear yelling, and the sounds of battle. It was true; the town was being invaded. It was a tiny town, and couldn’t have had many warders; surely it would fall quickly.
She sat down on the floor cross-legged. Perhaps the barkeep was right, she was safer here, at least until the sounds of battle died down. Would he come back? She wasn’t sure, but once the initial panic had subsided, she began to wonder if she was truly trapped—she had, after all, used the Link to hurl a man high into the air when she was desperate. Surely the door wasn’t as strong as that.
Time passed. She became aware of a tiny glow under the door as her eyes adjusted; she focused on it, and used it as a channel for her intention. Her heart slowed. Silence the mind, draw in the outside. Reach for the Link. Extend it.
Suddenly, she was outside the door. Or, at least, she could see outside it. It was as if the door didn’t exist—or she was a tiny house lizard on the steps, looking up. She willed her view to shift up the stairs, and it did, drifting upward as if the lizard were crawling. She reached the corner, went around it . . . stopped. She couldn’t go farther.
Sayri concentrated. Keep moving. Still, the view did not change. She could see the top of the stairs, but couldn’t go there.
All right, another approach. The door at the top of the stairs was open; she willed the view to rise up, to move vertically so that she would have a view out into the tavern.
Her view began to change, rising. The upper step drifted down—she could see the top of the outside door at the opposite end of the tavern—rising—stopped. She couldn’t go higher.
Sayri sighed in frustration. She could almost see the main room but not quite. However she was doing it, her clairvoyance seemed to have a range limit.
Limited by distance—but is it restricted by solid objects? she wondered.
Drawing her view back into the darkness, she thrust it up, straight above her. Her viewpoint passed right up through the ceiling, and into a storage closet.
“Rot,” she cussed, then felt a flash of embarrassment at her foul mouth. She couldn’t go high enough; the room above was too tall to get beyond it to the next floor, or out onto the roof.
“Okay, let’s try sideways then,” she muttered to herself. She brought her view back again, then extended it up at an angle, away from the tavern’s main room and toward the outer back wall.
Daylight dazzled her; she was outside. She could rotate her view; she looked around, and saw she was in an alley sloping down toward the docks. The snow had stopped falling. There was a battle being fought there; a small number of Somrian warders were being pushed back by a larger group of her own people. As she watched, men on both sides dropped, but mostly the Somrians were falling back. They retreated until they filled the street at the end of her alley, then began rushing past, running from the attacking force. A moment later warders from her homeland were charging by; she couldn’t help but feel a sense of reprieve. They were her people! In all the time she had spent in Somria she had always felt the outsider, and always sought to hide her identity as a foreigner. Being hunted by Arad’s father had intensified that sensation. She was one of these invaders, she realized. Somria did not want her here.
One of the warders turned up the alley. In reflex she turned to run and hide, and her view snapped back into the storage room’s blackness.
Had the warder seen her?
Silly, she thought. You weren’t there.
But would he have seen anything?
She extended her view out again, back up to the alley. The warder was gone. On the street, the invaders were moving about more calmly now, and confidently. There were smiles and back-slaps. The Lordslanders had won the battle, and the Somrians had surrendered. Or died.
Sayri watched. Occasionally she saw Somrians being dragged by in the grasp of warders; prisoners. Some were unharmed, others gruesomely injured. One Somrian warder was missing a leg, severed at the calf. The wound was tied off, but the man’s head was slumped as two warders carried him by his arms. Perhaps he was dead.
Out in the harbour, she could see a number of familiar-looking vessels. They were all fairly small, swift-looking ships. As the number of warders passing in view dwindled and the noise faded, she became more relaxed, gazing out over the water. The ships sat in calm water, and all seemed to be well. In time, she began to half-forget about the battle that had just been fought in the streets above, and started wondering if she could find passage on one of the ships. Might they be going to the southern islands next? It seemed possible.
It was late afternoon; soon the light would fade. Sayri worried that when it became dark, her view would only be blackness, inside her prison or out.
She heard noises in the tavern above, and her viewpoint vanished.
Voices. She’s heard a man’s voice; a Lords’ Lands accent. Another. Then, the voice of the barkeep. She couldn’t hear the words, but the conversation went on for about a hundred heartbeats, then stopped.
She heard footsteps on the stairs, then the latch being drawn. Light flooded into the storeroom, blinding her; apparently using the Link to view around her hadn’t adjusted her eyes to the outside light. How long had she been in there, five thousand heartbeats? More? It was impossible to say.
The barkeep was there; he took her by the arm and pulled her out. “Sorry, girl. If they find ya, it be bad for me,” he explained guiltily. “But it na soldiers. Ya don’t have ta worry about that.”
It was her people up there, wasn’t it? She thought that she didn’t need to be afraid, but she was terrified. She resisted, but the tall barkeep dragged her up the stairs easily. She didn’t think to use the Link to break free.
At the top of the stairs he drew her out into the main room. There were three people there; two Collectors, one tall and one short, the third a girl.
“Merikal,” Collector Welgray said, his voice filled with relief.
・
It was her. Welgray couldn’t believe his luck. In the chaos of the attack he had been forced to hang back; in any case, the infantry had already hit the docks while he and Wissa were still in their room. Once the waterfront had been secured—which had happened before they made it to the dock—he had felt safe disembarking from the ship, but he hadn’t dared begin poking around until the town’s warders had been driven into the hills. At least, what few were left; most had already died at the hands of the invaders or surrendered. The docks, as well as the roadway that ran parallel to it, were stained with blood.
Once things calmed down a bit along the waterfront, Welgray and Wissa—she was actually helping now, instead of tittering about; he began to realize just how much she had been playing down her intelligence—started looking for someone to ask for directions to Yalcinae. It was the last known location of the Lower Valley girl, and the logical place to start.
Captured soldiers were less than cooperative, and the few fishermen who were to be found—most having fled the area—couldn’t give him good directions, but one of them pointed out a tavern along the boardwalk, so he made for it, hoping the innkeeper was still holed up there.
Drast, unfortunately, had found them by then. Welgray had hoped that he would stay hidden in his cabin until they were long gone, but he emerged as soon as the fighting stopped and sought them out. He accompanied them to the
tavern where they found the innkeeper, a scrawny fellow with one bad eye, hiding behind a stone-topped bar. He gave them directions to Yalcinae, sure enough in his barely understandable accent, but as he did so both Welgray and Drast caught something in his demeanour; he was hiding something.
Two Collectors were more than anyone could handle; the man folded like a house of tinder. He admitted that he was hiding a girl in the basement, and if they let him be, he would surrender her.
Drast advised that they not bother with the girl, but Wissa suggested—to Welgray’s surprise; he wasn’t accustomed to her speaking up—that she might be useful as a guide, and would, in any case, be safer with them. Drast gave Wissa a long, intense look, which she fiercely held; clearly he knew of her guise, and recognized that she had dropped it. He was not pleased seeing her do so, but after a long contest of wills, he finally relented.
None of them could have imagined who the barkeep would ultimately drag up the stairs.
A moment after he blurted out her name, Welgray cursed himself; he knew should have kept that to himself. He wouldn’t have wanted Drast to know.
The girl was dressed oddly, in a brown leather vest and Somrian skirt, with a weather-worn cloak thrown over it all. Her honey-yellow hair was completely hidden by a thick cloth hat, and her face had been darkened by the strong Somrian sun, but it was undeniably her.
He took a step forward, raising a hand toward her. “Are you all right?” he asked tentatively.
The girl matched his advance by stepping back. There was an odd air about her; frightened but predatory, as if she held a sword in her hand; she was, however, unarmed.
Welgray decided caution would be wise. “Merikal . . . Sayri. You don’t need to fear me. I will protect you. I will take you home,” he promised, holding his place.
The girl’s eyes flicked to Drast, then Wissa, then back to him. She stayed silent, her expression tense.
Surprisingly, Drast turned to push open the door, and walked out. It bumped shut loudly behind him.
Sayri's Whisper: The Great Link Book 1 Page 48