Darksong

by Isobelle Carmody

  Glynn ignored the interruptions, for although she was hoarse and weary, she was lost inside her own story which was the story of falling in love with Solen and of the wondrous union with the feinna.

  ‘You are saying that a draakira was bonded to a She-feinna and you to them both?’ Feyt interrupted once more, sounding incredulous.

  ‘Hush, let her tell it,’ Alene said. ‘We can ask questions later.’

  Glynn described her attempt to escape the haven and the chilling voice of the Chaos spirit announcing that the Unraveller had come at last, and commanding that the Draaka travel to Ramidan to find the promised hero. She told of her deeper bonding with the She-feinna, and of the invitation from Coralyn, predicted by the Chaos spirit. When she spoke of finding out that Solen was alive on the journey to Ramidan, Glynn kept the story bare. Both Feyt and Tareed looked impressed when she spoke of Duran’s offer.

  Glynn sighed. ‘So many times after we parted, I wished that I had told her the truth, but I had feared that she would not understand about me being linked to the feinna and …’

  To her surprise, Feyt burst into incredulous laughter. ‘A myrmidon not understand about pack …’ She used the word in the feinna sense, and Glynn was puzzled, but Alene was again urging her to continue.

  So she told of Bayard’s drowning and of the feinna birthing. Sounding breathless even to her own ears, she described the younglings, each born dead until the incredible mental and spiritual merging which the dying She had forged between Glynn and its lastborn to allow it to come to life. She tried to explain what that birth link had felt like but human words would not suffice.

  ‘I felt it …’ Alene murmured and they all looked at her. ‘I did not understand what it was until this moment, but as I segued one night, I sensed an enormous and potent connection being woven. Something which had never been, and the forging of which changed everything forever after in some small or great way. But I did not have the impression of two connecting. There was another.’

  Glynn nodded, feeling suddenly shy. ‘Solen was part of it. I’m not sure how great a part, but the primary link was between the feinna and me. We had been … talking when Bayard fell into the water and Solen was with me during the birthing, trying to help me save the younglings. When the She … changed me, he was drawn into it as well. Linked to me and the feinna, though not as strongly as we were to one another.’

  ‘And?’ Alene asked, her expression intent.

  Glynn understood what was being asked and a sadness flowed through her. ‘Afterwards I could smell and see and hear better. I could … sense people’s emotions and I could even affect their emotions, though I was never very good at it, and it made me terribly tired and numb. But the main thing was that I could communicate with the feinna in words. Of course I didn’t know all of that until later. Right after the birth, I just knew that my normal senses were sharper, especially sight and smell.’

  Glynn wept when she told of the death of the She. She tried to explain about how it had been crippled by its bond with Bayard, while she had been enhanced by her bond with the little He, but the need to use human words and concepts again hampered her. For this reason, she did not even try to explain about the memory garden, or her ability to enter the feinna and see out of its eyes.

  ‘You speak of these feinna powers in the past tense,’ Tareed said alertly.

  Glynn nodded and felt suddenly close to tears again. ‘Because they are past. The birthing link was temporary. When the feinna matured enough, the link dissolved. In fact it happened just before Anyi ran into me outside the citadel.’

  ‘You are no longer bound to it?’ Feyt asked, and now there was, unexpectedly, compassion in her eyes.

  ‘I can still see and hear and smell better than I used to be able to do, but I can’t reach Solen and I can’t feel the feinna any more.’

  ‘Even to have the memory of such a bond is a brightness that never dims,’ Feyt said, and to Glynn’s confusion, the big woman’s eyes glinted with tears.

  ‘You are exhausted, Glynn, I know,’ Alene broke in gently, ‘but we need to hear the remainder of your story. Can you manage it?’

  ‘Maybe with some more of that tea or whatever it is.’ And as Tareed boiled more water and prepared another tisane, Glynn told of her arrival on Ramidan, and her refusal of Solen’s offer of help, explaining that she had believed that her swiftest route back home was to see the soulweaver Alene, whom she had believed to be in the palace.

  ‘You wanted to get back to your world?’ Tareed asked, handing her a hot mug and looking puzzled. Perhaps she wondered that Glynn would want to leave a world where she had bonded with a feinna. Glynn realised then that she had left out the main part of her story. So she explained how she had accidentally invoked the darklin on Acantha and had seen Ember lying on a pale bed in a pale room. Then she told them about Ember’s illness, and her self-imposed role as protector of her sister.

  ‘So, you were a myrmidon protector of your sister in your own world …’ Feyt murmured with strange formality.

  ‘In a way, I suppose,’ Glynn said. ‘But the thing I am trying to say is that it is for Ember’s sake that I must go home. I came here to see you and find out what I had to do to get back.’

  ‘Back?’ Feyt echoed blankly.

  ‘To my world,’ Glynn said impatiently.

  ‘But there is no way back,’ Alene said gently.

  Glynn felt as if the carpet and maybe the ground had been pulled from under her. ‘I … I thought that I could just use the portal that brought me here, if that’s how I came …’

  ‘The portal is a mystery that only Lanalor understood, and perhaps even he did not fully understand what it was that he had wrought,’ Alene said.

  ‘So … all of the other strangers who came here …’

  ‘Stayed,’ the soulweaver said with gentle finality. ‘Either they took on Keltan identities or they remained on Darkfall where they would be safe from persecution.’

  ‘Did any of the other strangers … want to go back?’

  ‘Most, to begin with,’ Alene said. ‘But many of them ended up being contented here. Not all. Some killed themselves in despair or because they believed they had gone mad, while others were so reckless that they deliberately courted death – another form of self murder. You have heard of the Scroll of Strangers?’ Alene’s silver eyes seemed to bore into Glynn’s.

  How does she know where I am? Glynn wondered. How does she know where my eyes are? ‘I have heard of it,’ she stammered. She could not seem to grasp the fact that she was not going to be able to go back.

  ‘Most of the stories of strangers are recorded there. Perhaps one day you will read them and add your own tale. I am sorry for your disappointment, but go on, please,’ Alene told Glynn.

  It was easier to think of the past than of the future, and so Glynn turned her mind to the palace and the events there. She described meeting Kalide and Kerd and Unys and Aluade, and she told of the trip to the library, the exposure of the feinna link, her second entrapment by the Draaka. And finally, she told of the darklin gifted to Tarsin, and all that she had seen in it. She drank the last of the tisane to wet her throat and, in a few bald sentences, she related her escape from the citadel, and her final communications with Solen.

  ‘That’s all,’ she concluded. ‘I tried to reach to him again when we were camped at Skyreach Bluff, but it was no use.’

  There was a silence and Glynn watched the play of emotions on the faces of the three women, the false alertness created by the tisane a thin crust over a yawning chasm of exhaustion.

  ‘Thoughts, Feyt?’ the soulweaver prompted, turning her face to the myrmidon. ‘But let us focus on the moments at hand rather than metaphysics and legends. And let us for the moment disregard the darklin vision which may be largely false.’

  Feyt said, ‘Practicalities then, and immediacies. If Coralyn is prepared to kill Anyi and capture Fulig, she is ready to make her move to take the Holder’s throne. I wager that it will
involve an uprising by the draakan hoards, beginning with those on Ramidan. Either Tarsin has degenerated enough to be completely manipulated by his mother, or Coralyn means to kill him or declare him insane and replace him with Kalide. I know it will take a quorum of five chieftains to put Kalide on the throne as an interim chieftain, but she may try to force it through with less, and she will succeed if the Draaka has her hoards riot and cause trouble enough to distract the other chieftains. She can then have Kalide summon up a Holder’s armada.’

  ‘For what reason?’ Tareed asked, looking horrified.

  ‘There are any number of possible reasons. The ostensible one would be to recapture Bleyd and to examine the nature of Darkfall’s involvement in the attempted assassination.’

  ‘Ostensible?’ Alene echoed. A question.

  ‘Coralyn will claim that the misty isle is rebelling against the Holder when they know that Bleyd is bound for Darkfall. She knows they will refuse to hand him over to Kalide.’

  ‘But if what Glynn heard is correct, the Draaka will want the Unraveller before she will allow her hoards to serve Coralyn,’ Alene murmured. ‘But the Unraveller is not on Ramidan.’

  Glynn stared at her. ‘He … he is not?’ She was startled to find that she had said it aloud and flushed guiltily when they all looked at her.

  ‘The Unraveller left this sept by ship, but we do not know if that ship has yet reached Myrmidor,’ Alene said.

  ‘The darklin vision had it that the Chaos spirit forced the Unraveller to go to Iridom,’ Glynn said.

  ‘A darklin vision is not reliable,’ Feyt replied.

  Alene only said, ‘Tar, thoughts?’

  ‘Two things,’ the younger myrmidon said. ‘I was thinking that it was strange the legionnaires did not come here to look for Anyi at once, since they must know he would head here.’

  ‘Probably there it is still thought that the mermod is in his bed, ill. Coralyn might even plan to use Anyi and his supposed illness, for if Tarsin is dead or not able to rule then, theoretically, Anyi has a chieftain’s vote and could agree to give way temporarily to Kalide,’ Feyt said grimly. ‘Of course, sooner or later, the legionnaires will come here.’

  ‘They will be here by this evening,’ Alene announced dreamily, and Feyt sucked in a breath of alarm.

  ‘When did you weave this?’

  ‘Just now,’ the soulweaver answered, blinking rapidly. ‘It came to me when you spoke. Green legionnaires come to arrest us and return us to the citadel. You and Tareed and I and Anyi if he is here. But they believe he is dead.’

  ‘We must not be here when they come.’

  ‘You will not be here,’ Alene agreed. ‘Nor Glynn nor Anyi. Only Tareed and I.’ Her face became smooth and her voice flat and distant. ‘We greet the legionnaires and I thank them for coming to escort us back to the citadel for the betrothing. They are confused. They ask casually about you, and I tell them that you came looking for Anyi, but left at once in a fury when you found that he had not come. I tell them that you think he has played a prank on you. They agree to escort us to the citadel but say we must leave at once. I say that is exactly what I want.’ Alene shuddered and ran her hand over her eyes. ‘You were right in guessing that Anyi’s disappearance is being kept secret from the palace, Feyt. Of course the green legionnaires know the truth, but my apparent ignorance will make them unsure of what to do. Especially when I am so willing to come with them. The fact that you are missing will worry them and because they will fear to make a mistake, they will decide to escort me courteously to the palace. Let someone else deal with me, they will decide.’

  ‘I will not leave you to face them alone,’ Feyt declared.

  ‘I will not be alone, and you will obey your soulweaver as you have always done, Protector,’ Alene announced, and there was a cool kind of love in her voice, but also absolute authority. ‘I will not be harmed by these legionnaires.’

  ‘But what about when you get to the citadel?’

  ‘I think that I will be told that you and Anyi are ill and contagious. I will offer my aid but will be told that a proper white cloak has been procured.’ Her expression grew stern. ‘We will not argue about this. I must go to Tarsin now. It is my duty.’

  ‘Tarsin does not want you!’ Feyt accused.

  ‘He does not want my duty,’ Alene said, sadly. ‘But if it will reassure you, I have seen that I will be present at the betrothing of Kerd and Unys.’

  Feyt stood up and glared at the soulweaver as if she wanted to kill her. ‘And where was I in this weaving dream?’

  Alene’s face became subtly stony. ‘You will have got Anyi and Glynn into the city,’ she said in a wintry voice. ‘Anyi will be in the care of the Shadowman and Glynn will be on a ship for Darkfall.’

  ‘Kerd would no more order Vespian ships about to please Coralyn than his father would,’ Tareed said suddenly and defiantly to the older myrmidon who looked somewhat taken aback at an attack from this quarter. Clearly it was an argument that they must have been having before Glynn’s arrival, and Alene’s mention of ships had kindled the younger myrmidon’s anger. ‘If that is what Coralyn imagines, she misjudges Kerd’s devotion to Unys.’ She poked rather savagely at the embers of the fire and Glynn warmed to the girl for her defence of the gentle Vespian.

  ‘If you don’t mind my saying something,’ she said apologetically, ‘it seems to me that you can’t do anything about Tarsin while he won’t listen to you and, since Anyi is the rightful heir, the main way to stop Kalide taking the throne is to keep the boy safe. You ought to send him to Darkfall.’

  Feyt looked suddenly tired, ‘By ancient lore, Anyi can not leave Ramidan unless Tarsin does or when he journeys to be made Holder himself. Otherwise he forfeits his right to the throne.’

  ‘It is true,’ Alene murmured. ‘But you are right in saying that Anyi is the key to this matter of Holders. Although keeping him safe is only one part of it. The difficulty is going to be that Anyi must be seen to be alive, to claim the throne, and if Coralyn has control of Ramidan, that may be hard to manage. Especially if she claims to have the boy with her, because then we will have to produce him to substantiate our charges.’

  Feyt frowned and sat down again, all the fire and anger seemingly burned out of her. ‘If Glynn is to be got on a ship, it had better be done before the betrothing ceremony.’

  ‘How will we get into the city with green legionnaires watching all the gates?’ Tareed asked.

  ‘I will think on it,’ Feyt said. She cast a look at the soulweaver and said rather bitterly, ‘But we can be sure that I will manage it if Alene has foreseen it.’

  Glynn took a deep breath. ‘Look, you might as well know that I am not going to Darkfall. There is no point if I can’t get back home. As things are, I’d rather stay here and do what I can to help.’ She was thinking of Solen, although she wondered suddenly how he would view her now, all but stripped of the glamour of her feinna abilities.

  ‘You must go to Darkfall,’ Tareed burst out. Then she stopped, clearly aghast. Glynn could understand neither the vehemence of her statement nor the extent of her dismay at having voiced it.

  ‘What she means to say is that all strangers go to Darkfall to learn how to fit in on Keltor, to construct identities and to read the Scroll of Strangers and add their own notes for those who will come in the future,’ Alene said smoothly.

  ‘You said that before, but aren’t you forgetting that no more strangers will come now that the Unraveller is here?’ Glynn asked, and yawned widely. The tisane was losing its battle.

  ‘Decisions should be made with a clear mind. You need to sleep,’ Alene said, and she rose and led Glynn to one of the beds.

  ‘The blind leading the tired,’ Glynn muttered absurdly and lay down. She ought to wash and take her boots off, she thought.

  And slept.

  At one point, she half woke. Alene and Feyt were both behind the herb-strewn table talking in low voices as they worked. Glynn could not make out their words, but sh
e found herself mesmerised by the soft thud of the pestle and mortar, and the unexpected delicacy with which the myrmidon twisted the paper packets of herbs closed.

  Gradually she became aware that she could, after all, hear some of what was being said.

  ‘… still do not understand what her crossing can possibly mean,’ Alene murmured.

  Feyt’s response was inaudible.

  ‘I doubt it,’ Alene answered. ‘From her words, it is clear that she half fears it but how could the Chaos spirit have brought her here? It has great powers in the Void. And more than we guessed out of it, since it was able to prevent us seeing the coming of the Unraveller. But it could not have that power.’

  ‘… created the portal for Lanalor?’

  ‘The Chaos spirit gave Lanalor the power to create it. That was their bargain …’ Alene emptied the powder she had created neatly into a bowl.

  ‘It amazes me that the girl has experienced so much and has met so many important people in the short time she has been here … might as easily be called a fool as brave and the Song protects fools, so the balladeers say.’ Now Feyt was transferring the twists of cloth to a small pack.

  ‘I do not think she is a fool. That she strove and risked so much in the belief that she could return to her own world, all because of her sense of duty towards her sister, is admirable. I am surprised that a myrmidon would not see it as such.’

  ‘My instincts say there is no evil in her, and Duran clearly felt the same. But it troubles me that she existed so well in the midst of evil. Can one do that and not be tainted? And what of these predictions naming her betrayer …’

  ‘These predictions do not seem so very clear to me,’ Alene said. ‘When first the girl overheard talk of the Unraveller, the Draaka was sent to Ramidan and bidden to use Lanalor’s signs to identify her quarry. Then here, Glynn hears that the Chaos spirit has named her its trakkerbeast, which implied Glynn is to locate the Unraveller. But then in her darklin dream, she hears that she is to be taken from Ramidan in order to betray the Unraveller who is now upon Iridom. In truth, I think the Chaos spirit has greater powers than we fear, but also less. It does not see this world clearly and, while Glynn obviously has some role to play, I think the Chaos spirit can see what that is no more than I can.’