Darksong

by Isobelle Carmody

  Gif sniggered, and said in his sibilant voice, ‘And you think this fantastical device would be in this room? Why would the Iridomi chieftain bother listening to the words of her own guests, and those she considers her allies?’

  At this, Mingus looked at his companion without smiling. ‘But does she think of us that way? Do not forget that her decision to invite us here has its roots in the will of our master.’

  Gif shrugged. ‘I do not believe the decision to invite us here was against her desire. Our master uses what he finds in people. I think this chieftain has some purpose of her own in bringing us here, and I do not believe it is merely that she desires to present us to her son so that we can explain out philosophies and gain favour, thereby further disrupting the power of the hags of the misty isle.’

  Glynn glanced back in time to see an exchange of puzzled looks around the table before Mingus challenged Gif to explain what he was hinting at. There was a jibe in this and Glynn thought she remembered hearing one of the draakira say to another that Gif had a reputation for hiding meanings under a tapestry of words, and that it was impossible to say whether this obfuscation was an ability or a disability.

  ‘It is my belief that her desire is to use us to provoke the hag Alene to some indiscretion,’ Gif said slyly.

  Mingus nodded. ‘Perhaps. But I doubt the soulweaving hag will allow herself to be provoked if she has not been already. It is well known that Tarsin humiliates and disparages her at every opportunity.’ He gave the table a sneering smile.

  But Gif said sourly, ‘We may wish the soulweaver powerless, but if you ask me, there was too much fury in Kalide when he spoke of her for this to be completely so. Victory is seldom the cause for rage.’

  ‘A natural trait, perhaps, that rage,’ Leta murmured delicately.

  Mingus cackled. ‘Certainly he can be easily provoked as we saw when the Prime gave him a grazing to test his mettle as we came from the ship. He showed an immoderate temper. But I think he will hie quick enough to his mother’s call.’

  ‘Reason enough since she would have him on the Holder’s throne in place of his brother,’ Gif said. ‘I wager she cursed in secret that this poisoning plot did not succeed and prays for another attempt.’

  ‘How would that serve her? The septs will not accept Kalide as a replacement while the mermod lives,’ said another of the senior draakira.

  ‘Unless he is judged to have played a part in the plot …’ Gif murmured softly. He smiled as all eyes rested on him. ‘After all, he is brother to the poisoner.

  ‘The proof would need to be absolutely damning.’

  ‘I doubt it is Coralyn’s desire to have the mermod legally disqualified,’ Mingus cut into the web of speculations suggestively. No one said anything, for the implication was clear, even to Glynn. Coralyn would kill the mermod to clear the way for Kalide to take the throne.

  ‘Vespi will never accept a Holder that was not Chosen by Darkfall, and without Vespi behind it, the throne is no more than a place to rest the buttocks.’

  ‘Vespi is the key to power on Keltor,’ Mingus agreed. ‘It always was. Darkfall has power only because Vespi supports it.’

  ‘Fulig is rigid in his obedience to lore and law, and there are ways to exploit rigidity,’ Gif said.

  ‘What do you know?’ Leta hissed.

  Gif smiled placidly, watching the others through half-slitted eyes. ‘No more than the rest of you. But do you not think it interesting that Coralyn must know these things as well as we, yet still she plots to take the throne for her second son? Does it not suggest she has in mind some way of dealing with Fulig and the Vespians?’

  Another silence met this, and Glynn waited with bated breath to see what would be said next, but one of the servitors waiting on the tables dropped a jug and the sound of shattering glass shocked everyone to startled silence. When the conversation at the window table resumed, it was only talk about map cloths that had been sent to the Draaka, with an offer from their hostess of a site upon which a Ramidani haven could be built.

  Glynn gave up, deciding that she had better make her escape before she was noticed. She must eat and prepare herself mentally for her escape attempt. She picked up two platters of food and made her way to the door, hoping, if anyone noticed her, they would assume that she had been sent to fetch the food for someone. For once, luck was with her. No one spoke her name or commanded her to stop and she took this as a good omen. Once in her room, she ate swiftly then dressed in hide boots, a pair of canvas-like trews and a heavy shirt and jerkin with many pockets. She pulled a skirt over the leggings and stuffed some fresh underwear in her pocket, along with a wooden comb that Bayard had given her, then she bundled the elderly draakira’s pale tunic dress to use as a cushion for the feinna so it would not dig its claws into her, and to serve as a quick disguise, should one be needed. The cape would go over the top and hopefully the hood would cover the small bulge over her shoulders made by the feinna.

  The little animal watched her preparations with bright, quizzical eyes, ignoring the food she had set beside it. Glynn decided not to waste the food and pushed as much of it as would last into the deep pockets of the cloak. Then she drank some water and advised the feinna to do the same, for there was no way to carry it and she had no idea how long it would be before they were able to drink again. It padded obediently to the water bowl and, watching it lap daintily at the water, she thought how feline feinna were in manner despite the mink-like, sinuous length of the body from snout to tail tip, and the short powerful legs.

  She sat on the side of the bed to await the draakira who would come to summon her to the Prime, activating her feinna hearing so that she would have some warning before anyone opened the door. The feinna leaped up onto the bed beside her, and curled back to sleep. Glynn decided that it would look odd if she was cloaked when the door was opened. She would have to wait until her summoner turned away, mentally command the feinna to leap onto her shoulders and swiftly draw the cloak over it. She calculated it would take only a few seconds. It was a makeshift plan, but there was no other way.

  Gazing down at the feinna, Glynn wondered again if it really was the last of its kind. Somehow she could not bear to think that she might have saved the little animal in order for it to sit vigil at the death of its species. Bayard’s decision to release the younglings born to her ‘mate’ into the Ramidani wilderness had been based on the very slight possibility that there might still be wild feinna there. Glynn had adopted Bayard’s intent and had not thought beyond that, but now she found herself wondering what would become of the feinna if there were none of its kind left?

  To be the only one of a kind would be the greatest loneliness, she thought, and the feinna link responded by informing her in its pedantic way that it would be highly unnatural for a feinna to be mentally alone. Feinna would naturally dwell in units consisting of several monogamous couples with younglings, all of the animals linked and interlinked at varying levels of physical and emotional intensity. The finding of a mate was actually less urgent than finding what the feinna link called think mates. Glynn remembered the liquescence of the female’s sorrow in those last moments of its life, and understood that the She had known that it might be condemning its sole surviving youngling to unendurable solitude. No wonder its eyes had begged Glynn; begged her to save the little He, Glynn had thought at the time; begged to be allowed to change Glynn so that she could birth link with the youngling. But maybe the She had been begging for something more than that as well, for in those last seconds of life, it had to have known that its youngling would not survive without a think mate. There had been despair in that gaze, but there had been, at the last, hope too, when Glynn had managed to revive the youngling. Hope. Not for the youngling to live, Glynn now realised. Hope that she would be able to link with the youngling.

  Tears trickled down Glynn’s cheeks and she made no attempt to brush them away, for when she left Keltor, she would not, perhaps, just be leaving the feinna. She would be leaving h
alf her soul. Then a brightness shafted through her, for she had forgotten something important. The feinna was also linked to Solen. When she left, they would have one another. At least that …

  notsame … the thought came dreamily, sadly from the feinna. Glynn petted it until it was sound asleep again.

  No, she thought. It would not be the same as it had been with them. But it would be something and far more than she would have. It would have to be enough.

  Then suddenly, she was seeing him again. This time it was night and Solen was wrapped in a cloak and walking briskly along a city street towards what looked to be a communal food market. He stopped at a stall to buy a round of bread and a bag of some sort of berries, and was jostled from behind by a very pretty, lightly clad girl who gave him a cheeky grin and crooked her finger at him. Solen frowned and shook his head firmly before turning away. Glynn was aware of the longing for her that the girl had provoked to painful life with her approach. Further along the street, Solen turned into a quiet lane and, halfway down it, he stopped to knock softly but firmly on a wooden door. As he waited for a response, he leaned against the wall of the house, his face lit by the lantern hung above the door. His expression was calm, but there was a haunted look in his eyes. She ached to smooth her fingers down the clean gaunt lines of his cheek and to press her mouth against those lips she had so stupidly refused.

  Her longings wound loosely together into a thin tendril, and she poured her will and focus into the wavering probe, but the effort was so great that it drained the world around her of colour. Just as it seemed she could not hold on another moment, she felt again the sense of connection, like a plug sliding into a socket or a key fitting into a lock.

  Solen! her mind whispered.

  His eyes widened and his lips curved into a smile as he cast about. Glynn’s heart twisted at the realisation that he seemed to imagine that she was nearby. She watched his face drain of hope.

  Solen! she thought, and again he stiffened and looked about him, but suddenly the anguish in his expression faded, and his eyes widened in incredulity. Then he closed them and all expression drained from his features.

  Glynna-vyre …

  Glynn gasped aloud at hearing his voice in her mind. It was as if he was calling her from the bottom of a very deep well. She was summoning her wits and will to respond when, without warning, the door beside Solen opened and the red-haired follower of the Shadowman from her dream peered out. Shock broke the connection and her spirit rebounded painfully back inside her body.

  Glynn opened her eyes with the knowledge that, although she was weak from her interaction with Solen, warm energy was actually flowing into her from the little He-feinna which lay beside her. Unable to guess how long she had been unconscious and siphoning energy from the helpless feinna, Glynn tried to withdraw, but immediately the feinna link rebuked her, informing her that whatever it was – the soulflow – worked both ways.

  Glynn relaxed and accepted the golden flow with gratitude, cherishing the knowledge that she had twice made some sort of telepathic contact with Solen. And that this time, he had reached back, which meant he had developed powers, too. She must have drifted to sleep again, for she startled when the feinna pressed its damp muzzle to her palm. Marking her and tasting her smell, the link told her. Sampling it for some sort of internal scent palate. Was that what the smells were that it emanated? Memories regurgitated? No, something more. She struggled to match words to the alien concepts trickling into her mind. Scent as art form? Odour constructions? Memory as art?

  She gathered her drifting wits and sat up, relieved to find that she was completely refreshed. It was totally dark, although already her feinna vision had begun to allow her to see. Her senses said it was no longer early morning and she rubbed her eyes and wondered why no draakira had been sent for her. Unless she had misunderstood, and the Prime had intended her to go on directly to the kitchens of her own volition. The latter seemed unlikely, and yet, would the Prime have let her lie in her bed for so long? She got up and looked down at her clothes, which were badly crumpled and smelled of sweat. Her skin felt sticky too. That was the worst of sleeping fully clothed. She decided that she had better at least wash herself before deciding what to do. The cold water would wake up her wits. Stripping off, she shivered at the chill in the air, and then frowned as an idea came to her. If she went to see the Prime wearing her lightest clothing, then she would have a legitimate reason for returning to her room for her cloak before going to the kitchens for the pelflyt. Which meant that she could avoid the dangers inherent in facing the Prime with the feinna concealed under her cloak. To this end, Glynn changed into a sleeveless grey dress in a thin fabric and a pair of flat sandals. Fortunately the Prime already thought her an idiot so her inappropriate clothing was unlikely to cause any suspicion.

  Tying the laces on the sandals, Glynn found herself wondering what it was about Solen, above all the men she had met, that had roused her deepest affections. She had liked Kerd very much and had even sensed them to be kindred spirits in a way that she and Solen were not, yet the mere thought of the lavender-eyed windwalker woke a fever of desire in her. She summoned up a vivid memory of the windwalker as he had been aboard the ship during the storming; black hair, soaked and plastered in dark spikes to his cheeks, purple eyes lit by flashes of stormlight yet filled with a ravenous tenderness. She had never been looked at as Solen had looked at her in that moment, certainly not by Wind, who had cherished her and had always been exquisitely thoughtful. With Solen, there had been a fierce yearning that promised no softness and no quarter. But instead of being frightened by the savagery of his emotions, Glynn had felt only an answering urgency.

  What might they have said to one another if the contact between them had not been interrupted, she wondered? Her thoughts shifted to the red-haired man who had opened the door. His appearance made it likely that her ‘dream’ of him and Solen and their other companion had not been a dream but a vision. Unfortunately she was unable to recall clearly what the men had said.

  She did remember how certain Solen had been that the missing Fomhikan had left Ramidan. She chewed her lip, and scratched at her memory. Solen and the two shadowmen had named the soulweaver’s myrmidon companion – Fate – and had spoken of sending a message to her at the palace. If she was still in the palace, perhaps she could be approached. Myrmidons were sworn to serve their mistresses in all things and surely that must mean they would have to serve the dictums of Lanalor’s charter. The trouble was that the myrmidon’s first duty was to protect the soulweaver and she would hardly warm to someone who had been serving the Draaka.

  Glynn thought wistfully of the myrmidon, Duran, whom she had met on Fomhika. If she had been Alene soulweaver’s protector Glynn would not have hesitated to seek her out, but with her luck Fate was more likely to be like the stony-faced Gorick, or huge Silfa with her ready knife and lethal solutions! In which case, seeking out the myrmidon might very well be jumping from the frying pan into the fire.

  The feinna began to growl, a low, ferocious rumbling that turned the skin on Glynn’s arms and legs to gooseflesh. She sent an urgent command to the feinna to be silent and still, and sat on the side of the bed lifting her foot as if to lace her sandals; not a moment too soon, for the door slammed open and a wedge of lanternlight sliced into the darkness. It was a draakira, holding the lantern so that Glynn could not see her face.

  ‘Make haste,’ the draakira commanded. ‘You are required.’

  ‘I will come,’ Glynn said, and prayed as she went out the door that her plan was a sound one. As they passed along the corridor, Glynn sent to the worried feinna that it must hide under the bed in the secret place she had shown it until she returned.

  Crossing the foyer, she was once again entranced by the sight of the place, lit up in a shifting dance of colour and light. She glanced over to the draakira guarding the door, and was relieved to find they barely glanced at her, for they were deep in conversation with the senior draakira Gif. Her mo
uth dried out as her feinna senses perceived their excitement and elation, and she realised that, despite the surly face and manner of the draakira who had come for her, the woman was emanating the same emotions. It could mean only one thing. Glynn’s fears gathered momentum when they reached the large waiting salon, which was now crowded with draakira, all emanating the same edgy glee as the door guards.

  She could not now doubt that the Draaka had awakened. Glynn told herself not to be a fool and fall to pieces. After all, she had known this interview was looming. All she had to do was to keep her wits about her. She had been interviewed by the Draaka before and, although the woman was frighteningly clever, she had not discovered that Glynn was a stranger.

  All she had to do was to tell what had happened to Bayard and the She-feinna without mentioning Solen, and convince the Draaka of her desire to remain with the delegation. The irony was that she must pretend the opposite of what she now desired. But she had no doubt that if she announced her wish to abandon the delegation, she would be imprisoned or even killed. To defuse any thoughts the Draaka might have about her being a danger to the cult, Glynn must convince the woman that she wanted to remain. The fact that she had not taken her chance to part company with the draakira when they had landed on Ramidan would tell in her favour, as would her obedient but abortive attempt to complete the errand she had been assigned the previous day. If she had wanted to escape, they would tell themselves, she would have done so already.

  At last they came to the doors that led to the Draaka’s audience chamber.

  ‘We will wait,’ the draakira said brusquely. Glynn moved meekly to one side, striving to compose her mind and prepare herself for whatever lay ahead.

  Suddenly, the feinna broke into her thoughts, demanding to be with her and lavishing her with telepathic affection and reassurance. Glynn realised that she had provoked the benevolent onslaught by broadcasting her fear and anxieties. Incredibly, rather than being frightened by her fears, they had roused in the little animal a powerful protective urge! The feinna link informed her that this was a feature that operated within family units, regardless of maturity. Even in the little space of time it had taken her to formulate these thoughts, the feinna’s insistence increased to the point where it was actually painful, and Glynn had a horrified vision of it scratching at the door and howling loudly as its mother had done once when Bayard had deliberately tested the limits of the link between them.