Sorcerers' Isle

by D. P. Prior

  Tey was watching them too, enraptured, her mangled leg a joist propping her upright. Her lips were in perpetual motion, seeping whorls of misty white. It was hard to hear what she was saying, so close was her voice to the pitch of the wind. It was a song, Snaith caught that much. Muttered into her chest, while her eyes were rolled upward toward the treetops.

  Snaith inched closer, corralling his senses and pitching them at Tey. Her singing was muted, her voice that of a little girl. Not the girl he’d grown up with, either. This was contrived, an affectation. At first he thought she was being playful; she often was when they were alone together and her shyness seemed to slough away. But no, her ardent stare gave the lie to that idea. It was the blade of the moon through the leaves she was rapt by, as if she were divining both their futures in its whey complexion. Her mournful lyrics echoed around Snaith’s skull:

  “Slyndon Grun, Slyndon Grun,

  Cock and sickle, blood and scum,

  Inside outed when you come

  To stay with me forever.”

  It was the melody of the plague song she sang, the one used as a warning when the rot came a-hunting. The one Snaith’s parents no doubt had to sing if ever anyone strayed too close to their place of exile, wherever that was. The words, though, were her own, and Slyndon Grun was the name of the sorcerer Theurig had mentioned as coming to take her away.

  Tey twisted her neck till she faced him, took him in as if she’d only just realized he was there. Her lips curled into a pleased crescent, and something like a sheen of ice melted from her gaze, leaving her eyes moist and limpid. But her mouth kept working, spewing out the words of her song, chanting it, incanting.

  “Slyndon Grun, Slyndon Grun…”

  Snaith felt his lips and tongue straining to comply with an unspoken invitation to join in. Her rhythm was compelling, the look of tender familiarity on her face more commanding than even his compulsion for neat and tidy rows, for knocking on doorjambs, for counting steps and letters and people.

  “Slyndon…” Snaith began, jumping in when the line came round.

  Tey’s smile split into a jagged grin. Starlight spangled her teeth, perished in the void of her gap.

  Snaith averted his eyes; felt the palpable snap of her spell.

  And Tey stopped singing.

  Coldman’s Copse resumed its breathing.

  He felt Tey watching him. Pictured her drinking in his deformity, comparing it with her own. There was a shift in the air when he knew she must have looked away, and he sighed inwardly, a fish off the hook.

  Snaith seated himself upon the grassy summit where Theurig had so recently worked the Weyd’s will—the Weyd that was no-thing but was worth pouring your life out to.

  Either Theurig was ignorant and covering up with confabulation, or he was deliberately muddying clear thought with mystery. And Snaith abhorred mystery.

  He glanced at Tey, let his held breath go when he saw she’d hidden once more beneath her shawl, still perched precariously on her mangled leg. He hated secrets, too. The kind Crav Bellosh kept, supposing the rumors were true about what he’d done to become chief, were bad enough, but secrets like Tey’s, hidden from her only friend beneath her dress, from the man she was supposed to marry…

  The vein in Snaith’s temple began to throb.

  If she’d told me the first time she cut, maybe she’d have stopped at one. She was supposed to be perfect. She was supposed to…

  He stomped on the head of his snaking thoughts. They’d been spawning seething emotions, boring through his defenses, worming their way to that secret place inside where he was no man, just a beast that ate and pissed and shat and slept. He would not go there; throttled its refusal of all he’d made himself through hard work and discipline.

  We are more than that, the well-worn mantra kicked in. One foot in the world, the other in the Weyd. Theurig had drummed that into them at the schoolhouse. Although, you had to question how sincerely he’d meant it, given what he’d said earlier. It was all too vague and confusing. There was no place for ambiguity in Snaith’s mind. Either something was or it wasn’t. There was no in-between.

  He found he was staring at Tey’s misshapen leg again, a rugged outline beneath her dress. If she had a foot anywhere other than the world, it was more likely the Nethers than the Weyd.

  The silence between them stiffened. Snaith wracked his brains for something to say, something to elicit a response from the Tey he used to know. Out of the whirl of competing images, he snatched one at random: the shadow-formed Shedim that had cut down Balik, Tol, Leah, and the others.

  He started with a chortle, hoping to catch her attention. When she didn’t respond, he said, “They weren’t half bad, the disguises.”

  Without looking at him, in her little girl voice, Tey said, “Yes, they were. They were very bad.”

  Snaith dredged up any number of replies, examined them, cast them aside. He came close to asking how she knew, but he suspected the answer was that she didn’t; that like Theurig, she was just making things up.

  He was on the verge of going back to his sullen ruminations while waiting for the sun to come up, when Tey lurched round to face him and hitched up her dress to expose her injured leg, a twisted mandrake in the dark. She ran both hands down the thigh to the knee. Creeping dread yelled at Snaith to run, but his curiosity wanted light to see it by, and the fingers of his good hand itched to probe the contorted flesh.

  “You know, I was thinking of taking up fighting,” Tey said, a wicked glint in her eye.

  “You? Fight?” She was about the only person in the village who’d shown nothing but disdain for the circles. She’d watched Snaith train, seen all his bouts, but she claimed that was due to the grace of his movements. She called him her little dancer.

  “I was thinking of it.”

  Snaith tried not to stare at her leg, but it was a losing battle. “I would have trained you, if you’d wanted.”

  “Nah,” Tey said. There was something about her voice; something different. “I asked the bear to, but he wanted too much in return, so I backed out.”

  Snaith lifted his eyes to hers. Was she being serious? Did she believe what she was saying.

  One of her eyebrows raised slightly.

  “I should have reacted sooner, Tey. Should have seen it coming.”

  “Why?”

  “Your leg. My arm.”

  “You don’t like them? I like them.”

  “I’m a warrior,” Snaith said. “It’s all I am.” And with that, his newfound enthusiasm for the Weyd drained away like wine from a ruptured costrel. And it wasn’t just shattered dreams, either, no matter how childish they’d become. The loss of his parents mangled his guts so much he could barely keep from crying out.

  Tey jutted her chin toward him. “Theurig doesn’t think so.”

  “No, he doesn’t. But this…” He raised his ruined arm, then turned a circle to take in the Copse, the burial mounds of the ancestors. “This is a poor second.”

  “Not for me.”

  “Because you had nothing else,” he muttered under his breath.

  “What’s that?”

  “I said—”

  “What? That I’m nothing without you? Just some sad and worthless cow that’s good for one thing.”

  “That isn’t what I said. If you’d just listen—”

  “Of course. Shut up and listen, so you can tell me how it is. That’s what my father used to do. You know what they say, Snaith: a girl wants a man just like her father.”

  “I wanted to help you.”

  “Save me, more like, then spend your life reminding me of it.” Her face hardened for an instant, then it was as if she peeled away a layer of plaster. Her lips parted, her eyes widened, and she took a step toward him. This time when she spoke, it was through a half-smile, her words hot and breathy. “What could I possibly do in return?”

  “You don’t know me,” Snaith said. “You don’t know what I want.”

  “You still wa
nt to marry me, Snaith Harrow?”

  A hammer slammed into Snaith’s ribcage, stopped his heart dead. A malformed response worked its way into his throat and retreated. He had wanted to, when he’d thought he’d known her head to toe, but now? Like this?

  Tey unlaced the front of her dress, slipped it below her shoulders.

  “I thought you weren’t ready to see all of me,” Tey said. “That you wouldn’t understand. But there are no secrets between us now. No hidden treasures.”

  Snaith’s good hand wavered in front of his face. He didn’t want to look but couldn’t stop himself peeking through the gaps between his fingers. The sallow pertness of her breasts, etched with slits and ridges. The darker areolae, near-inscrutable against the backdrop of the night.

  “Is this what you dreamed about?” Tey’s voice grew husky. “You want to feel?” She was a whore now, as brazen as Branny Belgars, who serviced all the widowers and didn’t give a damn about the Weyd.

  Tey limped closer.

  Snaith’s legs were more lifeless than her mangled one; they refused to back away.

  Tey let her dress drop to the ground, stepped out of it with her good leg; didn’t notice it snag on the injured one. Another lurching step, trailing black cloth like shadow. It was macabre, repugnant, but still Snaith couldn’t look away. Even when she shuffled close enough he could feel her breath on his face, he didn’t take a step back.

  “You want to kiss me?” Tey asked, her words humming against his lips. There was something sickly on her breath. Something fruity.

  Her eyes merged into one over the bridge of her nose. Snaith’s heart skipped into a thundering gallop. Heat flooded his face in response to the hot swelling at his crotch. He tried to cover his shame with his dead hand, but Tey beat him to it, stroked him through his britches.

  “No!” Snaith squealed, spinning away from her, stumbling as he turned back. “No.”—This one merely a shout, accompanied by a bone-rattling judder. One deep breath through his nostrils, a huffing exhalation, and he could speak as a man. “No.”

  He might have calmed his voice, but all he could think of was getting out of the Copse and finding a cold stream to fling himself in.

  “Nobody,” he said with forced precision. “Nobody touches me. Not there.”

  “But if we’re to be married…” Tey said, a girl once more, eyes damp, totally bemused.

  “‘To be’,” Snaith said, “is a far cry from ‘are’. You know the law of the Weyd.”

  She knew all right. But this was nothing to do with the Weyd. Somehow Tey had redressed the balance. Exposed him for the hypocrite he was. He’d been offended that she’d hidden her scars from him, and yet all this time he’d kept a secret of his own. Outside of the circles, where contact was of an altogether different kind, even the idea of being touched made him squirm.

  “What were you thinking?” Snaith said. “Are you even capable of thought?”

  Tey gasped like she’d been struck. She wobbled, threw her arms out for balance. When she found it, she looked helplessly at her crumpled-up dress caught around the ankle of her bad leg.

  “Forgive me,” Snaith said, voice barely above a whisper.

  She nodded, forlorn, less than a child now: newborn and needy. A faltering smile. A fleeting look. A pathetic attempt to cover her nakedness with her hands.

  Snaith stooped to hike up her dress with his good hand. He got it to her hips without ripping it, then Tey seemed to realize his impotence and took over.

  “I can’t think without risk, Snaith,” Tey said, lucid as you like, while she laced up her dress. “You know that, right?”

  Snaith straightened up, backed outside the bubble of frisson between them. He had no idea what she was talking about.

  “I’m struggling, Tey.” There, he’d said it. As honest with her as he was with himself. “I thought… You know.” I thought that you were perfect.

  She eyed him coolly; gave the impression she was reading him. “I know what you thought, Snaith. I allowed you to go on thinking it. Poor sweet Tey. Poor quiet Tey. No friends but me. No hope of a family but for me. Poor damaged Tey. No place in the clan, save with me.”

  “No,” Snaith said, but she’d pried where he’d not thought to look. Yes, he should have said, if he were to maintain his hard-nosed honesty. Yes, I thought I could save you. Yes, I set myself up above you, condescended to be your friend. Yes I wanted to… And again he retreated from those unconquered parts of his mind that rutted with the beasts.

  “I should have shown you my scars.”

  Yes, you should have.

  Snaith dumbly nodded.

  “When it first started, when we were kids, I should have told you.”

  Then why didn’t you?

  Tey slid in close, placed a hand either side of his head. He winced but forced himself not to move.

  “But I liked the way you saw me, Snaith. At first, that was all I had.”

  At first? But—

  “You couldn’t save me, Snaith. I was already lost.”

  Snaith sighed and squeezed his eyes shut. “What really happened, Tey?” He placed his hands over hers, the live and the dead one. He was starting to like the warmth of her palms on his temples. “What did your father—”

  “Oh, fuck off, Snaith.” She recoiled, seemed to forget about her ungiving knee, twisted into a fall.

  Snaith caught her by the elbow. She snatched it clear, teetered three paces, hopped round to face him.

  “You think you understand, but you don’t. You haven’t got a clue. All your twisted, winding thoughts, your sick little images.” She jabbed a finger at him. “I know you think I’m crazy, but it’s you, Snaith. It’s always been you.”

  “Oh, really? How? Tell me how I’m mad.”

  “You don’t need me to tell you, Snaith. You might be a freak, but you’re no fool.”

  “What do you know? Well? Tell me what you think you know about me,” Snaith said. He didn’t like it. His blood was up. He’d slipped his harness, and he’d come to regret it.

  “Everything.” Tey folded her arms across her chest.

  “Such as?”

  “Everything. Everything you prattled on about when we were alone together. You thought I was timid, but I just couldn’t get a word in edgeways.”

  “That’s a lie.”

  “Is it?”

  Snaith had to think about that. He had talked a lot. Told her things he’d told no one else, about his mental pictures, the rank and file of his thoughts. He’d just been making conversation.

  “That picture you made of me in your head,” Tey said, a spiteful look on her face. “Do you pleasure yourself to it?”

  “What?”

  “Bet you do.”

  “No!” And he wasn’t lying. Though he’d felt like it, often enough. But the Weyd… It would have been wrong. He’d have ended up like Vrom Mowry, only with far more cause. There was a form and a function for these things, Theurig had taught; for each member of the body. You ignored that at your peril. Or had that been a lie, too?

  Snaith braced himself for the onslaught, but instead, Tey turned away. She began to shudder with suppressed sobs.

  “Tey?”

  Her torso swayed to the sound of a groan that came from deep within her belly. She flopped forward from the waist, head between her bad leg and good, hair a cascade of shadow. Snaith thought she was going to vomit, but the groan just grew louder, building to a tortured keening.

  He reached out to touch her shoulder. She spun, stumbling till she found her balance.

  “Filth!” she spat. “Broken!”

  “Tey—”

  She thumped him three times in the chest, each punch accompanied by a barbed word: “Blood. Shit. Ashes.”

  He gritted his teeth. Tried to embrace her. She pushed him away, lurched to her own spot, and clumsily lowered herself to the ground. She sniffed and shook, and Snaith was powerless to do anything other than watch. Finally, she swiveled round to face him, wiping away
tears with the back of her hand.

  “Why’d you get a black tattoo, Snaith? No one else has one.”

  At first he couldn’t answer. He was still trying to catch up. Tey had always been hard to read, but right now, her moods were worse than Branikdür’s ever-changing weather, as fleeting as its summers. He took a few deep breaths to gather himself then said, “The Weyd—”

  “Right,” Tey said. She gave a snarky smile.

  “I thought it was meant to frighten my opponents, give me the advantage.” But clearly, that hadn’t been the Weyd’s intentions. Or Theurig’s. Which begged the question: what was the design for? Why the Wyvern of Necras?

  “Like my scars.”

  Snaith screwed his face up, but he sensed she was deadly serious. He settled on a nod of agreement.

  “Your tattoo shows them death,” Tey said. “I like that.”

  And your scars? Snaith had discerned a pattern to them, or at least he thought he had. Got to be realistic. She’s damaged. Not right in the head. Any pattern I see is one that I’ve imposed. Isn’t that what he always did? Imposed order where there was none? Isn’t that how he got through each and every day?

  “Is that all it does?” Tey asked. “Frighten people? Or does it have real power?”

  “Just frighten,” Snaith said, though he eyed her curiously.

  Tey’s head bobbed knowingly for a while. When it stopped she wore another mask, and her voice was once more childlike. “I think I would marry you.”

  Snaith said nothing. Too much had changed for him to know what he wanted right now. She’d changed. Or had she? He was starting to realize Tey had been this way all along, only she’d concealed it from him, and he’d refused to see what was staring him in the face.

  He looked away, but her likeness was still rooted in his mind. Not the one he’d painstakingly created. The real one. The one with breasts and scars. The one who’d offered herself to him. By the time he realized the image had hold of him, by the time he buried it beneath a mountain of numbers and affirmations, he was already hard.

  “Remember Vrom Mowry?” Tey said in a voice so normal it stunned him.

  Snaith sat down, good arm folded across bad in his lap, so she wouldn’t see his arousal. “I remember him getting the rot.”