Darksong

by Isobelle Carmody

  Ember turned and saw the older man on shore give a final wave to the Acanthan girl before he strode away. The girl watched him a moment longer before turning away and crossing the deck to go below. Ember hoped she would drug herself and sleep the whole way to Myrmidor.

  Returning her own gaze to the shore, Ember marvelled at how quickly the piers were deserted. Her eye was immediately caught by the sight of a man in flamboyant draperies striding purposefully along the shore. It was unmistakably the seerat, and with him was a woman, all but obscured by his bulk. One of his ubiquitous attendants, no doubt. But what was he doing, she wondered? She had no doubt that he was making his way to the place where the Stormsong had been tethered. He could not have sent word that he would come, else Revel would have waited for him. Perhaps Soonkar had told his master that Ember was a stranger. The seerat was definitely the sort of man who would want to speak with her after such a discovery, even if he meant her no harm. Ember was suddenly very glad that the ship had cast off early. A glance over her shoulder assured her that the shipmistress had mounted her platform and was facing out to the open sea, using her wavespeaking abilities to propel them against the churning tide, so there was no chance of her noticing the seerat and turning back.

  Looking at the shore, Ember watched the seerat and his companion turn onto the pier. It was not possible to see their faces, but obviously they had seen that the Stormsong was gone. The woman turned and looked out to sea and suddenly Ember realised who she was looking at. It was not one of the seerat’s attendants as she had surmised, but the tall haughty soulweaver, Faylian!

  Ember could not imagine what she was doing with the seerat, unless Soonkar had confided what he has seen under her veil to his master, who had in turn told Faylian. But even if Faylian now knew that she was a stranger, what would make her come down to the pier when she had been so determined to dissociate herself from Ember and Bleyd? Suddenly more weary than curious, Ember shivered and went below deck.

  Bleyd was awake when she entered their cabin and she noticed under the bruising there was still a gaunt, greyish cast to his features.

  ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘I am not sure. I feel … so weak and tired. I felt good when I woke yesterday … I think it was yesterday,’ he added, uncertainty like a mist in his eyes. ‘Then Revel bundled me into a carriage and near rattled my bones out of my skin to bring me to the ship. I am afraid she resents having to carry me along with you.’

  ‘I think she resents both of us,’ Ember sighed, but Bleyd did not seem to hear her.

  ‘The white cloaks on Vespi are truly gifted to have healed my wounds in such a short time. Perhaps I was not so close to death as everyone seemed to believe. The white cloaks said I needed rest and warned me to see another white cloak as soon as I am on Iridom. That is where Revel said we were going.’

  Ember realised that he had no recollection of being treated by Faylian and told him.

  ‘Faylian! I did not know that she was still upon Vespi. Nor that she was so gifted a healer. She must have drained herself near to death to have done so much.’

  Ember wondered if this was true. Faylian had not looked the altruistic type, but Bleyd’s wounds were healed. Changing the subject, she said, ‘I am glad we are away, and that you are healing, but I am afraid that when Revel told the white cloaks we were going to Iridom, she was telling the truth. The Stormsong is scheduled to make some sort of an emergency delivery there on the way to Myrmidor. We had the choice of going along for the ride or of trying to find another ship.’

  ‘It must be a delivery of herbs grown on one of the other septs, which the olfactors buy for certain medicaments.’ Bleyd seemed less perturbed than Ember had expected. But perhaps he was merely too tired to react, because now he closed his eyes, saying softly, ‘I only wish that there had been time on Vespi for me to find out what has been happening on Ramidan. I heard the white cloaks speak of the Edict bell being sounded because the criminal Bleyd of Fomhika was seen.’ A smile ghosted over his lips and he opened his eyes again to look at Ember. ‘I should be glad that I have a mysterious alter ego keeping the attention of the legionnaires on Ramidan.’

  ‘I suspect that Feyt is your mysterious alter ego,’ Ember said. ‘The only other news I have heard from Ramidan is that Kerd has announced his betrothal to Unys to his father. He means to offer a life bond.’

  Bleyd rolled his eyes back in disbelief. ‘A life bond to Unys? How can he be such a fool?’

  ‘Faylian said that Fulig is raging to forbid the match, but that she will advise him to scribe to Kerd that he would accept a year-end contract.’

  ‘Clever,’ Bleyd said. ‘The boy might do it if it is put to him as a request, for he loves his father.’ Ember made no response and, soon after, he drifted back to sleep. She sat quietly for a while to let him settle, then she turned down the lantern wick so that it gave off the merest glow and stretched herself out on the bed beside Bleyd. He did not stir as she pulled a corner of the blanket over herself and relaxed into sleep.

  This time, if she dreamed, she had no memory of it when she woke, nor any sense of how long she had slept.

  A loud thud brought her awake, heart hammering. The sound had seemed to come from below deck, perhaps from the hull, and her first thought was that they might have been attacked by the vicious giant sea slugs Keltans called silfi. But common sense told her there would be a lot more noise if that had happened, besides which, Revel was too good a shipmistress to allow a silfito blunder into the ship, for her wavespeaking sensitivities would have warned of its approach.

  There was another thump and Ember decided to investigate. Bleyd was still deeply asleep as she crossed to the door to press her ear to it. Now, as well as thumps, she could hear shouting and scuffling. It sounded as if someone was having a fight, but she could hardly imagine the disciplined and sober shipfolk brawling and the only other person aboard, apart from herself and Bleyd, was the Acanthan girl. Ember pulled on her cloak, straightened her lighter veil and slipped her feet into a pair of sandals before opening the door.

  The noise was coming from further down the ship and she made her way unsteadily along the passage, passing several cabins that belonged to the crew or were empty. She stopped when she came to a set of steps leading down to the hold, wondering if what she had heard had just been shipfolk shifting something heavy from the hold to the deck or vice versa. There was another set of steps quite close, going up to the deck.

  She was peering uncertainly into the stygian darkness that lapped at the steps to the hold when she heard the sound of a footfall behind her. The Acanthan girl was standing in the open doorway of the nearest cabin wearing a nightgown and wrap and looking as pale and startled as she probably did.

  ‘Wh … what are you doing?’ she asked.

  ‘I … I was just trying to find out what the noise was,’ Ember explained.

  The other girl nodded. ‘It woke me, too. They brought someone past my door from the hold.’

  ‘Someone?’ Ember echoed in astonishment.

  ‘A stowaway. People often try, but few manage to keep hidden until it is too late for the ship to turn back.’ She hesitated, then said, ‘How is your brother? Shipmistress Revel mentioned that he had been attacked by ruffians on Vespi.’

  ‘He is sleeping,’ Ember said, interested to note that the girl seemed not the least bit curious about why she was wearing a veil on a ship in the middle of the night.

  ‘Will you take him to the white cloaks on Iridom? They would be able to prepare you with very specific olfactor treatments.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Ember said noncommittally, wondering why the girl had not been told that there would be no time to disembark on Iridom, but decided it was Revel’s place to offer such information. ‘You are travelling to Iridom?’

  The girl lifted her chin and said somewhat defiantly, ‘I am bound for Myrmidor.’

  Something in Ember loosened and she said, ‘My brother and I journey there also. My name is Gola.’
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br />   The other girl’s manner altered immediately, softening. ‘I am Hella and I thought your destination was Iridom.’

  Ember realised that they had probably been wary of one another for the same reason. Obviously anyone travelling to Myrmidor in these times was unlikely to be opposed to Darkfall. They smiled at one another shyly. ‘My brother has business upon Myrmidor, though I do not know what he can do in his condition.’

  ‘I know how determined brothers can be,’ Hella said ruefully, and Ember remembered that she had spoken of a brother to the older man, Lev.

  ‘What will you do upon Myrmidor, Hella, if you do not mind my asking?’

  The other girl’s expression became serious and slightly sad, ‘I … I have a sister who went to the Darkfall landing …’

  ‘She had a question for the soulweavers?’

  Hella hesitated fractionally before shaking her head. ‘She … she went to join the sisterhood. She is younger than me. But she was accepted and is even now upon the misty isle.’ Her voice held awe and also, surprisingly, a tinge of envy, and the words came out in a rush that suggested she had been suppressing them, or the sense of them. To Ember’s alarm, she suddenly burst into tears.

  Ember patted her arm, feeling inadequate. The tears showed no sign of abating, so she led the Acanthan girl back into her cabin. Sobbing, she let herself be seated. Fortunately the cabin was an exact copy of the one she shared with Bleyd, so Ember was able to find a glass and water without difficulty.

  Hella accepted the glass and drank, her sobs lessening, then they tailed off into sniffs. She drank a little more water and looked wanly up at Ember. ‘I am so sorry. You must think me mad,’ she said miserably. ‘It is just that everything and everyone in my life has changed and everyone else seems fine about it except me. My brother and my sister know what they want. They have always done so … but I feel … I … Maybe if I can see Flay, she will … she …’ She began to sob again and Ember resisted the urge to sigh. The girl managed to regain control of herself, though her eyes were now red and swollen. ‘I am sorry for the way I have behaved. It is just that I have been so … so frightened and then so angry and hurt, and I had to keep it all locked inside me because I did not want to worry Lev … You saw him on the deck? The older man?’ Ember nodded. ‘I met him through … through someone I had thought a friend, but in the end, she was just another person with something important to do, that had nothing to do with me. But Lev … he was like a rock. He insisted on bringing me to Vespi and booking passage on a ship bound for Myrmidor before he left. Of course he had no idea the ship would have a sudden schedule change.

  ‘I hope this stowaway will not delay us,’ Ember said, as this thought occurred to her.

  ‘Only if the shipmistress decides to lay a formal charge on Iridom. But that is not normally done, precisely because it would cause a delay and shipfolk hate that more than anything else. The stowaway is usually just put on a ship bound for where they boarded, and then is made to pay the full fare for the journey and a fine.’ Hella was beginning to look sheepish.

  Ember took her cue and rose. ‘I must return to my brother.’

  Hella rose, too. ‘Of course. I am sorry to have kept you. You have been very kind to listen to me.’

  ‘It was nothing,’ Ember said gently. ‘Why should not two women be kind to one another?’

  Hella smiled gratefully.

  Back in her own cabin, Ember reflected briefly upon the encounter, and decided that no harm had been done by it. It was even reassuring to have learned that the Acanthan girl was not only bound for Myrmidor rather than for Iridom, but had a sister who was a soulweaver. Bleyd had turned onto his side in her absence, but his expression was peaceful, for all his gauntness. Ember went to sit by the hanging brazier, opening the flue to let the flames grow as she wondered who the stowaway was, and if they had known their first stop would be Iridom, rather than Myrmidor.

  segue …

  The watcher settled on the web of connections between Keltor and the Unraveller’s world, felt the distant quiver of the Chaos spirit. It had grown more and more perceptive over time and now it could sense the slightest disturbance of the farthest strand. It allowed itself to be drawn to the danger that was building to a small nexus on the Unraveller’s world.

  There was an older man and woman seated at a table with a younger woman and man and a small blond boy with thin wrists and pale slender hands. The woman was like enough to the boy to be his mother. They were all eating a meal and the window showed that it was night outside. But the night was also a symbol for the Chaos that seemed to hover somewhere close by.

  The watcher knew the boy. Strangely, it knew the older man as well, though through the eyes of another. Sometimes it puzzled as to why it was drawn to these particular people. Was it having been in their minds that kept drawing it back, or something more? Certainly the latter seemed likely, given that, more and more, those whose minds it had touched were being drawn to one another.

  ‘The whole thing is ridiculous,’ the older man was saying. ‘If a reputable bank like Abernathy’s has turned the project down, it can’t have anything to recommend it.’

  ‘Not by Abernathy’s standards,’ the younger man said mildly. ‘But I thought that was the whole point. Banks like Abernathy’s turned the proposal down because they’re only interested in making big loans that might produce a big return. They would rather lend millions than thousands, and thousands than hundreds.’

  ‘And those men who borrow millions are notorious for not repaying loans and bankrupting countries, while managing to stash masses of money in Bermuda or somewhere. Then it’s the little people who have to pay for the loss in increased taxes and higher prices …’

  ‘You sound as if you are pleading for the elves, my dear,’ the older man said with sneering amusement. The young woman gave him a look of spiking hatred, which he did not see. But before she could compose a scathing rejoinder, he added, ‘What goes on in third-world countries is nothing to do with us.’

  ‘Of course it’s something to do with us, Dad. There’s no longer any place for that old imperialistic attitude. In this world, with communications and travel being what they are, national boundaries are nothing but false and out-dated divisions. We have to get beyond that. These days everything is connected to everything else and we have to care about everyone. Things have to be more fair and equal.’

  ‘What you are describing is communism. And look what that led to.’

  ‘Communism, like socialism, is an ideal that people didn’t live up to. Like they never live up to any ideal,’ the young woman snapped, with a bitterness that stopped conversation until the older woman rose and began to clear the table with jerky movements. She had a smiling, browbeaten air. When her daughter rose too, her lips pressed together, the older woman gave the younger a look of subtle pleading which the other affected to ignore. There was a web of pain and love between the two women that bound them tightly and seemed to have little to do with the two men. The boy was connected to them all, but at the same time he was free of them because of a brightness in his spirit that was not the Song, but something that matched the Song on this world. Something for which the watcher had no name.

  ‘Capitalism suits people better because it appeals to their greed and their desire for instant gratification,’ the younger man said, but his eyes were on the younger woman. ‘I just think that maybe there are other things that can be appealed to.’

  The child was watching the interplay and the watcher entered him for his opinion of matters. He was startled to find that the child was not thinking of the conversation at all, but was imagining vividly a dream he had experienced. To the watcher’s surprise, it was the same dream that the young policeman had experienced of Shenavyre, only the boy seemed to sense the danger looming, and every fibre of his body trembled with watchfulness. Even as it found the word, the watcher realised that it perfectly summed up the boy’s character. He was watchful.

  He began to listen to th
e conversation between the adults as the older couple now seemed to be preparing to leave. The older man shrugged on an expensive overcoat with an irritated air, then he said in a cheerful, bullying tone, ‘Now Joan, let’s not start any long reminiscences by the door.’

  ‘I’m happy for you to linger any time, Mumma,’ the young woman said with defiant affection and embraced her mother warmly before helping her on with her coat and hat. She pointedly ignored the fact that her father had tried to take her mother’s coat, and stepped quickly out of his reach when he moved towards her, arms outstretched. His hands fell to his sides and he flushed a dark purple. The young woman had red spots of colour in each cheek but was otherwise as pale as her mother.

  ‘Well, it was great to see you both,’ the young man said with tense joviality.

  ‘Goodbye then, and Timothy …’ the older man said with bullying camaraderie. The watcher saw that the boy felt pity for the older man, though he did not like him very much. He stepped forward and allowed himself to be held. Once released, he turned to hug his grandmother without reserve before stepping back to slip his hand into his father’s. It felt warm and damp.

  After the door had closed, the man and woman exchanged looks over the head of the boy. They would have been astonished that he was aware of the look and knew that they were using it to warn one another to say nothing while he could hear. He also felt the heat of his mother’s rage. It would have appalled her to know that the boy sensed it as a sickness that frightened him.

  The child was sent to prepare for bed, but he lingered in the passage to listen.