Darksong

by Isobelle Carmody

  Quite suddenly, she realised that she was no longer afraid that she might betray the Unraveller. Predictions could be, after all, self-fulfilling. It now seemed to her that she had been giving this prediction of betrayal substance by considering it, treading lightly around it. Madness, when she had been told over and over that trying to avoid fulfilling a prediction was the surest way to bring it about. She must act according to her own ideas of need and right and wrong and forget about the prediction.

  She found the apartment with almost absurd ease, given all of her earlier efforts to discover its whereabouts. There were no legionnaires stationed there and she knocked at its handsome doors. No one answered and, after a little wait, Glynn turned the ornate lever. The door opened and she slipped through it and ghosted up a set of broad, pale stone steps to an exquisite foyer lit dimly by a single lantern with its wick trimmed low. Despite the pain-killers she had absorbed, Glynn’s foot was beginning to give her a lot of pain and she realised that she would not be able to go far without help.

  ‘Hello?’ she called softly.

  No answer.

  Glynn took another step, and then froze because her feinna senses were telling her that she was not alone. The cold triumphant aura that dominated the foyer left her in no doubt as to who was behind her. No wonder the little servitor had emanated such strong fear. Coralyn had got to him, somehow. Probably by threatening his master, given his words to her. That was why she had sensed no betrayal. Because he was doing what he must do above all else. He would have been protecting his beloved Holder.

  She took another step, giving no sign that she was aware that she was not alone. ‘Soulweaver …’ she called, her mind racing as fast as her heart. ‘I need your help in …’

  ‘So, you have already escaped your new master,’ Coralyn’s husky voice slithered through the silence. Glynn whirled, pretending a fright that was only half false. As her senses had told her, the chieftain was not alone, but her skin crawled at the realisation that it was Kalide who stood beside her, his face flushed with vicious triumph and anticipation. There were also several green legionnaires with drawn weapons. Since there was no possibility of fighting her way free in her weakened state, she relaxed and stood quietly.

  ‘The Draaka said that she had the abilities of a sword maid, but I can only think that the woman has never seen true fighters,’ Kalide sneered.

  ‘Think before you speak, occasionally,’ Coralyn said caustically. ‘You will find it a useful technique.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Kalide demanded angrily.

  ‘What sense would there be in her trying to attack when there are so many against her? Only a fool would do it. Especially given the wounds inflicted upon her by you. That she makes no move indicates something else about her.’ The voice of the woman was casual and even good-humoured. ‘What do we know of this girl. Summarise for me.’

  ‘I am not Asa,’ Kalide muttered resentfully.

  ‘No, you are not,’ his mother snapped. ‘Asa was once a gifted and subtle emissary. Sometimes it comes to me that perhaps this is why he suffered so much at your hands. It is the mark of a brilliant leader that he gathers about him people who possess talents that he does not, rather than killing or maiming anyone with gifts that he does not share. But let us focus on the question. This young woman is a nothing I am told. A nevvish who happens to have a myrmidonish face and a style of fighting similar to the manwomen but, conveniently, no memory. We know now that she was not taken into the Draaka’s employ upon Fomhika, but on Acantha. We know that she was pulled from the waves by Solen of Acantha. A man whom the Draaka tells us was also thought to be a drunken nothing until he revealed himself to be something very different.

  ‘The girl comes to the haven and is taken as a drone by the Draaka, yet she soon becomes indispensable to a senior draakira because of her ability to handle scrolls. Then she is used in some experiment of Bayard’s, and is supposedly bonded to an animal. Then Bayard drowns. Incidentally the girl happens to be the only witness. She is brought here where she is befriended by none other than our own Kerd, who actually delays repairing to his long-desired betrothal bed this night in order to plead with Tarsin for her. The Draaka sends her to Tarsin on an errand, and Tarsin somehow conceives of using her to invoke the darklin he had been given. She manages to avoid having to say what she saw, and then she disappears. Aluade, who is with her, dies under peculiar circumstances, and again this girl is the only witness. Once again, she conveniently does not remember what happened. Where was she between leaving the drinking house and being captured by our legionnaires outside the establishment of Clover, which just happens to be visited by Rilka of Fomhika at that very time?’

  ‘I told you there was something going on there. If you had let me interrogate Clover …’

  ‘She would probably be dead or mindless. When will you get it into your head that interrogation is a subtle business requiring a cool head. You vacillate between bursts of unthinking fury and blind brute lust.’

  Kalide scowled, ‘But you …’

  ‘Control yourself!’ Coralyn all but screamed. Then she composed herself and said very calmly. ‘Even anger is a tool, which can be used, but it is a poor master, Kalide. I was not speaking of Clover but of the gap of time and what might have taken place in it.’

  Kalide glowered as she turned back to Glynn. ‘So here we have a nothing whom the Draaka comes to believe to be vital to their cause. Do you see a pattern here?’

  Kalide shook his head reluctantly.

  ‘Then think! What you see is one who appears to be a bewildered and frightened drone. But in fact her history shows her to be a clever and manipulative young woman whom I suspect to be a brilliant opportunist. See how she makes herself indispensable over and over, only to abandon the person she has used when they are no longer needed. Solen of Acantha, this Bayard, the Draaka, Kerd and even Tarsin. I suspect that she planned to do the same thing to the soulweaver.’

  ‘But whom does she serve?’ Kalide asked.

  ‘A good question. Answer it, girl.’ This was directed at Glynn, who straightened and allowed fear to melt from her features, leaving them impassive. Coolly she locked eyes with the chieftain. ‘Let us for argument’s sake say that I am the daughter of a Ramidani ruffian whose father was betrayed by his friend, another ruffian, and who was thrown in the waves as silfibait. Let us say that my desire was to find my twin sister and to take revenge on the once friend of my father.’

  ‘See how clever she is,’ the chieftain murmured in open admiration. ‘She tells a tale that can not easily be proven false, and she shows no fear because she knows full well that she is too valuable to the Draaka for me to squander lightly.’ Her face hardened. ‘Yet know that you are not indispensable girl. I could kill you and use your death to incite the Draaka against Tarsin, thereby securing the use of her minions. I could convince her that the Chaos spirit had revealed the identity of the Unraveller to me instead of relying on you to betray him.’

  ‘I cannot betray what I do not know,’ Glynn said, glad that this, at least, was true.

  The chieftain bared her teeth in a beautiful, deadly smile. ‘You know as well as I do that there is no Unraveller. Yet the Draaka requires one and she believes that you will be instrumental in revealing him to her. It is my opinion that her belief is your doing. Fanatics are suggestible. But where does your sister come in?’

  ‘She is real and she is ill,’ Glynn said. ‘I have found out where she is and I want to go to her.’

  ‘This has the sound of truth and a sister has been mentioned before, so she might truly exist. Such opportunists as yourself often are flawed by a single weakness. What I require of you is simply that you do what you have led the Draaka to think you will do. You will accompany us to Iridom, where you will name as the Unraveller a man who is even now being prepared to play the role.’

  Iridom! Glynn thought, both elated and terrified. But instead of responding to Coralyn’s command, she said boldly, ‘You do not believ
e in the Chaos spirit?’

  ‘Of course not,’ Coralyn sneered.

  ‘What about strangers?’ Glynn was playing for time but she also wanted to ensure that the woman had no inkling of the truth. Her senses caught only a flare of irritation and impatience from the older woman. ‘The hags of the misty isle have used strangers as foundation stones for their Legendsong, but they have no more significance than the stones which once fell burning from the stars. Now, enough of these diversions. You have heard my proposition. I want the Draaka under my control. At the moment she believes that the Chaos spirit moves me, but she does not entirely trust me. You, however, have cleverly convinced her that you are the tool of the Chaos spirit and she will not question what you tell her. Very likely this is how you managed to finesse yourself from Acantha to Ramidan.’

  ‘Why should I do what you say?’ Glynn asked. ‘I will as likely be killed by the Draaka as soon as she has her precious Unraveller.’

  ‘Now we see the true face of the newish,’ Coralyn said. ‘It is a fair question, girl. The answer is that if you do as I require, I will contrive not to give you to the Draaka. I will convince the Draaka that I hold you as a bargaining counter, though you will serve her in seeking out her precious Unraveller. When this matter is ended satisfactorily and Kalide is on the Holder’s throne, I will reward you with land and a nobleman, through whose bed you may rise to title, and whose fortune you may use to seek healing for this sister. If you desire it, and if he exists, I will have this ruffian who betrayed your father taken and flayed alive before your eyes and the eyes of your sister.’

  ‘Mother! You would give a servitor so much?’

  ‘I meant what I said about gathering useful tools when you rule. Knowledge given judiciously to a servitor is like the honing of a fine blade,’ Coralyn said, but her blue eyes held Glynn’s and the words were for her as much as Kalide; a promise that she would keep her son in check. In spite of everything, Glynn felt the pull of the woman’s dark and dangerous glamour even as her feinna senses detected her essential ambiguity. At one level Coralyn actually meant her offer, and yet if circumstances altered, her promise would be abandoned in the blink of an eye. But if Glynn had been what the chieftain thought her, she would know all of this, and would weigh the possibility of future betrayal against immediate death.

  ‘Where is Alene?’ Glynn asked, as much because Coralyn would expect her to ask it as because she actually wanted to know.

  ‘She has boarded a ship bound for Darkfall,’ Coralyn said. Glynn’s feinna senses found no lie in her words, and she supposed that Coralyn might well be delighted because the fact that Alene had fled Ramidan meant she had broken her soulweaver’s vow to abide with Tarsin always. Glynn was surprised to discover that she was hurt by the fact that the soulweaver had left without making any attempt to help her or at least to speak with her. And she was not the only one abandoned, for both Feyt and Anyi were being left behind. And even Tarsin. The only answer to the soulweaver’s hasty departure must be that she had learned that the Unraveller was on Iridom and she had seen her first duty as being to protect and aid the long-awaited hero.

  ‘What if I agree, then?’ Glynn asked Coralyn. ‘What about Tarsin?’

  Coralyn’s eyes had flashed with amusement, and this time Glynn’s feinna senses were bruised by a flash of violent and purposeful hatred. ‘His mind is now caught up in matters more vital than the disappearance of a servitor. Incidentally, what did you see when he had you invoke the darklin?’

  ‘I saw where I could find my sister,’ Glynn said. She had expected the question. ‘That was what I strove for.’

  ‘See what I mean about a brilliant opportunist?’ Coralyn remarked to Kalide. ‘Tarsin commands her to weave for his pet visionweaver but instead she seeks for her sister, and manages to put Tarsin’s questions off by pretending a swoon.’

  Kalide gave Glynn a look of patent jealously. ‘If she was so clever, she would not have been caught now.’

  ‘This sister is her weakness, as I said.’ She looked at Glynn. ‘You came to Alene’s apartment in search of healing for your sister, did you not? Or perhaps a prognostication of her future. You would have traded information about the Draaka for it?’ The chieftain’s supreme conceit in her own not inconsiderable abilities was her flaw, Glynn thought.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Very well, I agree to your bargain, Chieftain. However, I wish to scribe a chit to my sister. In the darklin vision I saw her at that bakery I went to. I will leave the note there. Maybe she will come back. And I want some coin to leave with it.’

  Coralyn smiled and Glynn knew that she had struck exactly the right note of greed and mistrust. ‘I knew that we would understand one another … I agree. Now, you might as well go straight aboard the ship, for quite soon the alarm will be raised and people will be hunting you. Kalide will escort you.’

  ‘Ship?’ Glynn echoed.

  ‘Tomorrow, Kerd and Unys depart on a small betrothal journey to Vespi and Iridom. Kalide and I will travel on one ship, while Fulig of Vespi will travel on his own vessel, which will end its journey at Vespi. The Draaka and her entourage will be on another of the ships, and after the formalities on Vespi are completed, our two ships will continue on to Iridom. That is where you will do your little performance for the Draaka to keep her amenable. Once she has had the use of you, I will arrange for you to be returned to Ramidan.’

  ‘You would cross to Vespi tomorrow?’ Glynn echoed, thinking she must have heard wrongly.

  ‘We leave tomorrow. Unless you have some reason to wish for a delay?’ Coralyn’s suspicion was immediate and instinctive, a sharp reminder that Glynn must be constantly on her guard.

  ‘It is just that there will be no time to arrange to send the coins to my sister,’ Glynn said, allowing mistrust to edge her own tones.

  Coralyn laughed. ‘You will write a chit now and I will have a hundred hacoins sewn into a bale of silk. You can drop both on your way to the ship.’

  Installed in a pleasant cabin almost identical to the one she had aboard the Waterdancer Glynn stretched out full length on the ship bunk to rest her aching body. Her injuries were definitely healing but the healing was draining her. She was beginning to understand that when the healing abilities of a body were sped up, it was not a near magical force used, but the resources of her own body. From what she understood, a healer could supply these energies or create a loop which drained the body’s vital energies to hasten its own healing. Tarsin’s healer, reasonably enough, had done the latter.

  Her transfer from palace to ship had been undertaken in less than two hours, including dropping the chit and the bale of silk at the bakery. The baker’s mouth had all but fallen open when Glynn stepped through the door, but his expression had become instantly bland when Kalide entered behind her.

  ‘My sister came here once and maybe she will come again,’ Glynn had said. ‘Her name is Eleana. Can you give this to her?’

  ‘I do not know the name,’ the baker had said. Glynn gave a description of the brunette jogger who had found Wind’s body and the baker insisted again that he had no such customer. Glynn had in turn insisted that he take the package until a woman fitting this description came. The baker had shrugged and taken the chit and bundle muttering to himself in pretended irritation.

  Kalide had watched them like hawks the whole time, waiting to see if any meaningful glances or secret signals were exchanged, but Glynn had nothing to say. Her true message was contained in the fact that she was accompanied by Kalide, and in her battered face. If legionnaires called to retrieve the message and coin after they had gone, the baker could play ignorant and hand them over untouched without giving anything away. As a member of the Shadowman network, he had been smart enough to divine that, just as she had expected.

  ‘Where shall I tell your sister to find you?’ He had asked casually as they had turned to go.

  ‘Tell her that I go to Iridom,’ Glynn had said, before Kalide could stop her, though perhaps the thought
had not occurred to him.

  The baker would have told Solen by now, Glynn knew. Somehow she felt comforted to know that even if Alene could walk away from her plight, Solen would not dismiss her welfare so lightly. Not because she was a stranger or Ember’s sister, but because he cared for her. Loved her, the feinna part of her sang with a joy that would not be quenched, even in spite of her grim circumstances.

  And they were grim, for all that Coralyn might be offering wealth and nobility in the new order. For Glynn was about to set off on what could very well become the beginning of a war armada, accompanied by two of Darkfall’s deadliest enemies and a man who had already tortured her savagely and longed to kill her, all of them bound for a hostile island where Ember was trapped along with a legendary hero whom Glynn was supposedly destined to betray. It sounded like the plot out of some strange fantastical melodrama, and if she was the heroine she probably ought to be hatching some exciting and highly dangerous scheme in order to triumph. But the fact was that she hardly knew what she was doing. Or would do.

  On the other hand, she was being taken to Ember, and this, all along, had been her primary aim, and so perhaps she ought to see her recapture as good fortune.

  What would Ember think to see her, she wondered. Glynn did not know. Tareed’s and Anyi’s words about Ember had suggested that she had changed since coming to Keltor.

  ‘It does not matter whether she is glad to see me or not,’ Glynn said aloud to herself. ‘I swore to look after her, and I will. It is a pity if she can’t love me, but I will do my best for her, and when it is over, there will be Solen, and perhaps we can go back to Ramidan and seek out the feinna …’