by Anthony Ryan
“Writing,” Vaelin said, singing a little, a small sensation of words captured in text.
“Ahhh.” Wise Bear nodded in understanding then shook his head. “No . . . words.” His hand smoothed over the myriad markings on the bone-staff. “Power.”
They were ready to move on by the second week, Dahrena leading them on a south-westerly course. “There’s an inlet some fifty miles along the coast,” she explained. “The forest has game and the waters offer good fishing. There was a settlement there many years ago but it was abandoned when the bluestone mine proved too poor to sustain the effort of surviving the winter. I doubt these people will have that problem though.”
During the journey Vaelin was able to piece together a clearer picture of the events which had driven these people from their home. Wise Bear told of countless years on the ice, warring with the Cat People to the west or trading with the Wolf People to the north. Life remained unchanged until the Cat People grew ambitious. It seemed a new shaman had arisen amongst them, great and powerful in his command of beasts. Under his hand the Cat People became ever more discontented, looking with envious eyes on the vast hunting grounds enjoyed by their neighbours. They couldn’t hope to defeat them alone, of course, for all the war-cats and spear-hawks they bred, and so sought alliance with the iron-shapers south of the ice. Traditionally they had been looked on with a mixture of bafflement and contempt, living in the same dwelling all year round, shutting themselves away when the snows fell, valued only for the iron tools they fashioned and traded for furs. But recent centuries had seen them change, seen them range further and further north, and not always with the intent of trade. Children were taken, later seen dragged away south in chains. The Bear People exacted vengeance of course, for a feud cannot be turned from on the ice, many iron-shapers were killed, but there were always more, and the Cat People’s shaman saw an opportunity for alliance.
“But you defeated them,” Vaelin said, recalling the vision of the great clash between cat and bear. “Drove them into these lands where they perished.”
“Lost . . . many men,” Wise Bear said. “Many bears. Too many.”
Their victory had been no more than a respite, and a costly one. When the Volarians came north in force they were too weak in number to stand against them. The Wolf People fled east, the Bear People west, and the ice was lost to them forever.
◆ ◆ ◆
The inlet was known as the Mirror Sound for the placidity of its waters which offered a clear reflection of the tall-forested slopes rising on either side. Dahrena guided them to the site of the former settlement, now a ramshackle stockade on the eastern shore, the wooden dwellings overgrown with creepers and moss. Wise Bear gave it only the most cursory of glances before turning his attention to the water. “Boats,” he said.
“I can have some brought here,” Vaelin offered but the shaman shook his head.
“Make boats.”
He disappeared into the forest with a group of the younger men and women and soon the sound of chopping wood was echoing through the trees. They returned some hours later with a number of midsize tree trunks and set about stripping the bark. When the trunks were bared they were split with some well-placed axe blows and the ice folk began hollowing them out and shaping the rounded sides into hulls. Within two days the Bear People had a fleet of ten boats with ever more being fashioned on the shoreline. They had also begun to pull a regular supply of fish from the inlet, mostly cod and a few salmon.
They made no effort to repair the settlement, even pulling some of the huts down for firewood. Their own shelters were easily collapsible rounded structures of twisted branches covered with skins or foliage. “We move,” the shaman said in response to Vaelin’s query about where they intended to make their home. “People are home . . . not place.”
The first child was born that night, a girl, brought to term by a combination of her mother’s will and the sacrifice of her family, who starved so she would eat. The shaman emerged from the shelter holding the child aloft as she squirmed and cried towards the heavens, calling out his unfathomable blessing, raising the ice folk to their feet in hushed reverence. Vaelin felt it lift then, the pall of despair that had covered these people since he met them, seeing smiles on some faces, tears on others. They may have lost their name but they were alive again.
He took his leave the next morning, having agreed to return in two months with fresh supplies, although, given the Bear People’s proficiency as hunters he doubted they would need any. Wise Bear’s mood was warm with gratitude as Vaelin clasped his hand in farewell, but also held a note of foreboding. “Volariaanns,” he said. “Won’t stop.”
“They can’t reach you here,” Vaelin said. “If they come, we’ll fight them together.”
The shaman’s expression was sorrowful, a deep sense of apology colouring the vision he sent: an army, dark ranks of infantry and cavalry, stretched out across a frozen plain, more than could be easily counted, heading south towards a distant port. “Not coming . . . for us,” he said. “For you.”
◆ ◆ ◆
He rode in silence for much of the day, the old man’s vision stuck in his mind, unwelcome but compelling.
“They called the baby Dark Eyes,” Dahrena told him, riding alongside. “In honour of you.”
He nodded, still distracted. He tells of an army marching on the Realm, but the blood-song has no note of warning. And Volaria is an ocean away.
“I shall be glad to get home,” Dahrena said. “It’s been a few years since I spent so long in the saddle. I’m afraid I’ve grown too fond of comfort.”
“I should like to call on my friends before we return to the tower,” he said. “If you would care to accompany me.”
“I would, my lord.” She lapsed into silence for a moment, then gave a small laugh.
“My lady?”
“Just a thought, something Brother Kehlan said, ‘They’re sending us a warmonger.’ In fact they sent a peacemaker.”
That night he sat apart from the fire where Dahrena kept company with Captain Orven and the Eorhil woman, far enough away to escape the distraction of voices, and began to sing. He found his sister first, dabbing paint onto a canvas in her room at the tower, a rendering of the harbour, the ships and sailors depicted with her usual unnerving precision. She seemed rapt by her work, content, but it pained him to see her alone.
Reva was next, the first time he had sought her out. The relief at seeing her safe was palpable as he watched her offering a much-missed scowl to a buxom woman holding a scroll. They appeared to be in a library of some kind and he could see the twin spires of the Alltor cathedral through the window. It was strange to see Reva in a dress, squirming in discomfort and boredom as she listened to the woman, who seemed vaguely familiar. He saw Reva’s scowl deepen before she voiced a no-doubt-biting insult. However, the woman just laughed and reached for another scroll.
He found Caenis encamped with the Realm Guard, sitting in council with the other Wolfrunner officers. Their expressions had a uniform tension he knew well; the faces of men sent to war. More discord in the Realm? he wondered as his unease deepened. Or something worse?
Caenis himself seemed as unconcerned as ever in the face of impending battle, issuing orders with the unhesitant surety Vaelin remembered. But the song carried a sorrowful note as he watched his brother and he knew their last words weighed on him.
He moved on, feeling the creeping chill that would soon force a halt to his song, spending his remaining strength on a final effort to find Frentis, but as ever it proved hopeless. The song became discordant, the images fragmented, a cluster of rocks in a scrub desert, a burning house, a ship approaching a harbour . . . This last proved the most compelling, even though it lasted barely a few seconds, the tune becoming more ominous as the ship ploughed through the waves, hull and sails dark from age . . .
The chill lurched, dragging heat from
his body, and he knew it was time to stop. He started to open his eyes, seeking to quiet the song but it kept on unbidden, the vision shifting, fixing on a road tracking through the Urlish Forest, a young woman with golden hair riding a pony at the head of a cavalry regiment, a tall Lonak woman at her side. Lyrna . . . The princess had grown yet more beautiful in the intervening years, but whatever recent trials she had endured seemed to have brought a change in her that went beyond beauty. There was an ease to her manner that hadn’t been there before, the way she laughed with the Lonak woman spoke of genuine friendship. Also the fierce intellect she had hidden so well now shone in her eyes, unbound and unsettling. The song’s tone deepened as the vision lingered, Lyrna’s face filling his mind as the ominous note heralded by the sight of the aged ship stretched then built until it was almost like a scream . . .
He coughed, feeling blood spatter onto his chin. He was on his back, retching, the chill so intense he trembled from head to foot. “Lie still, my lord.” Dahrena’s voice was a whisper, her hands warm on his face, brow furrowed in concern. “I fear you have been somewhat foolish.”
◆ ◆ ◆
“When I lived with the Seordah, I met a woman. Very small, very old, but every soul in her tribe afforded her the greatest respect.” Dahrena added more fuel to the fire as she spoke, Vaelin huddling in his cloak, as close to the flames as he dared. The chill had lessened somewhat but still he trembled.
“I sensed her gift,” Dahrena continued. “And she sensed mine. The Seordah are not like us, they speak openly of the Dark, discuss it, try to understand it, even though true understanding still eludes even the wisest amongst them. She told me something about the nature of gifts, she told me that the greater the gift the greater the price it exacts. For this reason she rarely used her own, for it was great indeed, but every instant of its use brought death one step closer, and she wished to see her grandchildren grow. I only saw her use it once, when the summer came. Fires are common in the great forest during the summer months, the tinder grows dry and it only takes a single bolt of lightning to set whole swathes alight. The Seordah do not fear the fires of summer, in fact they welcome them, for they thin the forest where it grows too thick to hunt, and bring forth stronger trees from the cindered ground. But sometimes the fires grow large, and when two or more fires meet they birth an inferno that destroys more than it renews. And that summer was very hot.
“When it came it moved so fast there was no outrunning it, the way it leapt from tree to tree, as if it were some great hungry beast, and we were its next meal. It surrounded the camp on all sides, we huddled in the centre and my brothers and sisters sang their death songs. Then this small, old woman stepped forward. She spoke no incantations, made no gestures, just stood and stared at the fire. And the sky . . . the sky became black. The wind came down, chill and cold, bearing rain, a rain so heavy it bore us to the ground with the weight of its waters, so much I feared I had been saved from burning only to drown. Steam billowed as it met the fire, covering us all in a dense mist, and when it faded the fire had gone, leaving damp, blackened stumps, and an old woman lying on the ground, bleeding as you bled just now.”
Vaelin rubbed his hands together, trying to keep the chatter from his teeth. “D-did she live?”
Dahrena gave a small smile and nodded. “Just one more season. To the best of my knowledge she never used her gift again. It was strange but the summer ended that day, rain and wind replacing sun and heat until autumn brought golden relief. She told me she had tipped the balance too far and it would take time for the scales to right themselves.”
Dahrena extended a hand towards the fire, fingers wide in the warmth. “Our gifts are us, my lord. They do not come from elsewhere, they are as much a part of your being as your thoughts or your senses, and like any other action they require fuel, fuel that burns with the use, as this fire will burn until it’s nothing but ash.” She withdrew her hand, her face serious. “As First Counsel, I ask that you exercise greater care in future.”
“S-something comes,” he stammered, clenching his teeth in frustration. “My song brings warning.”
“Warning of what?”
Lyrna’s face . . . The song like a scream . . .
He closed his eyes against the vision, fearing the song would return, knowing he wouldn’t survive another verse. “I don’t kn-know. B-but there is one amongst the gifted who may, one who lives at the p-place they call the Dark Clave . . . A man named Harlick.”
◆ ◆ ◆
She wanted him to spend the next day resting but he refused, clamping himself to Flame’s saddle and staying there by sheer effort of will, though Captain Orven had to reach out and steady him a few times. The guardsman was clearly disconcerted by his Tower Lord’s sudden and unexplained illness but wise enough not to voice any unwelcome questions. Insha ka Forna however, felt no such restraint, offering several caustic observations to Dahrena throughout the day. He thought it best not to ask for a translation, though from the discomfort on Orven’s face, it seemed his knowledge of the Eorhil language had grown considerably.
The chill had begun to abate by midday, and by the time they made camp all trace of the tremble had disappeared. But the vision lingered, the princess’s face capturing his thoughts with maddening compulsion. Throughout his captivity he had never sought her out when he sang, more through indifference than spite. His anger towards her had faded that day on the Linesh docks, but he never grew any more regard for her than his already healthy respect for the sharpness of her mind. Her ambition had been too great, the crime they shared too terrible to allow for affection or friendship. There were times though, when he felt the song tug at him, singing the tune he recalled from his last vision of her, when she had wept, alone with no-one to see. But he had always resisted the song’s call, concentrating instead on Frentis and, occasionally, Sherin. Finding no more than the vaguest glimpses of the former and increasingly dim visions of the latter.
Is it because she feels our love gone? he often wondered. He understood now the blood-song was not limitless, that he could seek out only those he knew, those who had touched his soul somehow, and even then the clarity of the vision varied. His first visions of Sherin had been bright and clear, like looking through well-polished glass, gradually becoming more opaque as time passed. His last glimpse had seen her alongside Ahm Lin, standing in a courtyard set within a house of completely unfamiliar design, exchanging words with a man in plain clothing, unarmed but exuding a warrior’s nature. Vaelin saw how the man tried to hide his regard for Sherin, but it was clearly considerable from the way his eyes tracked her. Vaelin knew his own face had once held a near-exact expression. The vision faded, leaving hurt and regret in its wake. He didn’t search for her again for almost a year, and when he did all he could find was a sensation of clear air and great height, as if she stood atop a mountain . . . That and something more; she had been happy.
◆ ◆ ◆
The journey to the place Sister Virula called the Dark Clave, and Dahrena called Nehrin’s Point, took the best part of another week, tracking through mountain and forest. They took hospitality from a few settlements along the way, Vaelin gaining an appreciation of the hardships and rewards on offer to those who chose to make a life in the Reaches.
“Came north four years ago, m’lord,” a gap-toothed Asraelin bargeman told him at Lowen’s Cove, a small port serving the mines some forty miles south of Mirror Sound. “Worked barges on the Brinewash from a boy, till the Fleet Lord scooped me up for my three years under the King’s flag. Half the fleet’s gone now, sold off to settle the war debts. Got left on the quay with no more than the shirt on my back, worked passage on a freighter to the Reaches. Came ashore penniless, now I got a wife, son, house and third share in my own barge.”
“You don’t miss the Realm?” Vaelin asked.
“What’s there to miss? There a man is born to his station, here he makes his own. And the air.” The ba
rgeman put his head back and breathed in deeply. “It’s clearer, sweeter. In the Realm I was always choking.”
Nehrin’s Point sat on a promontory overlooking a sickle-shaped bay where waves pounded a beach of white sand. There were perhaps forty houses, well-built with thick stone walls against the sea-borne wind. They arrived in late afternoon when a stream of children were emerging from one of the larger buildings. There was no sign of any Faith presence or guard house.
Vaelin made for the large building where a blond, bearded man played with an equally blond boy of no more than six years age. The boy was throwing stones at the blond man, his small hands plucking them from a pile at his feet, the man batting them away with a stick. Despite his age the boy had a good arm, his throws fast and precise, but the blond man smacked every stone from the air with unerring precision as the stick moved in a blur, stopping as he caught sight of Vaelin, giving a pained grunt as one of the boy’s stones thumped into his chest.
“Got you, Father!” the boy yelped, jumping with excitement. “Got you! Got you!”
Vaelin dismounted a short distance away, walking towards the blond man who dropped his stick and ran to embrace him.
“Brother,” Vaelin said.
“Brother.” Nortah laughed. “I could hardly believe it was true, but here you are.”
Vaelin drew back, seeing the curious stare of the boy, and the settlers beyond who had all paused to take in the sight of the Tower Lord. The blood-song’s note of recognition grew loud in proximity to so many gifted.
“Artis,” Nortah told the boy. “Give greeting to your uncle Vaelin.”
The boy stared for a few seconds more then gave an awkward bow. “Uncle.”
Vaelin returned the bow, feeling the song’s volume dip a little. The boy has no gift. “Nephew. I see you have your father’s arm.”