Tales of Noreela 04: The Island

by Tim Lebbon

  “No,” Namior said, though in truth she could not even recall looking out to sea. The cobbled streets, the moss-covered stone walls, the undamaged buildings and herb-filled gardens had been so familiar that she had barely taken her eyes from them. Normality had struck her, warm and safe, and she had not wished to lose it again that evening.

  “Hmm. They’ll wait ’til morning, probably. Look too suspicious coming in through the night.”

  The conversation cooled, and they sat in silence as the stew cooked. Namior looked at the groundstone, smoothed by generations of her family’s hands, and she resisted the temptation to touch it. She was tired, and the land was wounded. She needed food and rest if she was to face the morning strong and ready to begin healing once again.

  “I need to wash and change,” she said. “Will you call up to us when the food is ready?”

  Her mother glanced from Namior to Kel, and back again. She nodded. “But I used the last of the hot water to clean the fish.”

  Namior stood, reached out for Kel and led him upstairs.

  The stairs creaked slightly, but the house had been built strong many centuries ago, and they walked silently along the landing. Her great-grandmother’s door was open a crack and Namior glanced in, keen to see the old mother’s face one time before resting for the night. She lay on the bed with her hands twisted on her chest, her mouth slightly open. She mumbled in her sleep. A rush of love hit Namior, and a familiar sense of the fragility of things. So many people in Pavmouth Breaks could not look at their loved ones’ faces tonight, and there were many mothers whose children were dead. But she was too tired to cry.

  She led the way up the narrow staircase to her attic room, and once inside she closed the door, lit the oil lamp and sat gently on the bed. Its creaks were familiar to her, and many times she and Kel had stirred those creaks together. But that suddenly seemed so very long ago.

  He stood inside the door, awkward, and her sadness deepened at the realization that he too felt this new distance.

  “So what have you made me, Kel Boon?”

  The wood-carver sat on a chair in the corner of her room, placed the gift on the floor and pulled the blanket from it.

  Namior gasped. Beautiful, she thought, and for a moment the cliff hawk seemed to shift. She glanced at the oil lamp to see if the flame was steady, and when she looked back the carving was motionless again. She blinked, but there were no tears. Tiredness is fooling me.

  “Wellburr wood,” Kel said, obviously keen to fill the silence. “It cuts cleanly, and the sap stays fresh for many moons after it’s taken. It feeds itself. It likes the chisel and the knife. If you look at it in just the right light …” He picked up the carving and stood beside the oil lamp, turning it this way and that. “Can you see the shadows? The depth?”

  “Beautiful,” Namior said. “Very beautiful.”

  Kel shrugged. He’d always been embarrassed when she complimented him on his carvings even though he took great pride in them. “It’s not finished. The beak’s not quite right, the claws are thicker than they should be. The wing tips need to be more pronounced. I had a couple of evenings’ work to do on it, but… today seemed like the right time.”

  “It did?”

  Kel really stared at her then, and she could tell from his eyes that he was fighting with something inside. He clenched his jaw, then came to her and handed her the carving.

  She took it, surprised at how heavy it was, and how cool. Maybe that was the sap, still fresh. She turned it this way and that, trying to take it all in, but Kel stood over her and blocked out most of the light. Whatever he has to say, maybe he needs a little nudge.

  Namior looked up between the cliff hawk’s spread wings. “So tell me who you really are.”

  Kel sighed, and all the tension seemed to drain from him. He backed up a couple of steps and sat heavily into the corner chair again, resting his head back against the wall. He seemed to be staring at the ceiling, and Namior saw the flicker of light and shadow play over the cracked paintwork. She and Kel would be seeing completely different shapes.

  Kel popped the buttons on his jacket and opened it. He touched the handles of weapons she did not know, not threateningly, but so that she saw. Then he closed his eyes and took several deep breaths.

  After a few beats, with his eyes still closed, Namior thought he’d gone to sleep. She put the carving gently on the floor and touched the hawk’s head, running her fingers across the wonderfully realized bone crest across its skull. It was used to crack the shells of large molluscs, and each crest was unique, a distinct mark of identity. This is a hawk that never was, she thought.

  When she looked up again, Kel was staring at her.

  “I’m Kel Boon,” he said. “I’m the man you met five years ago in the Blue Ray Tavern, carving a set of wine tankards for the landlord. You watched me all night, as I carved and drank ale. I saw you watching, and you knew that I saw, but we played the game of not noticing. I wanted you to come closer, and you were fascinated by what I was doing. Seabed Kine… a strange wood, that should never be able to grow beneath the waves. But it does, and it’s the hardest wood there is to carve. Almost as hard as stone. And it has the remnants of things long dead set in it, as if they died and the wood grew around them, way down at the bottom of the sea. So each tankard is unique and has the polished sections of dead things cast into it.”

  Namior remembered that night, and she flushed with embarrassment. She hoped it would not show in the lamplight.

  “You came to me at the end of the night. I’d finished three tankards by then, and the landlord had paid me with food and ale for the evening. A good trade. You told me you’d never seen me there before, and you asked if I was a sailor. I said no, I’m a wood-carver, I’m Kel Boon. We met and drank together the next night, and I started to fall in love with you. That’s who I really am. I’m Kel Boon.”

  “Then Kel Boon,” Namior said, because her flush had gone cold, and she was becoming sure that he was playing her emotions, “tell me who you were before you started carving those tankards.”

  In the soft light his eyes seemed suddenly lifeless. Then she realized that he was looking at something much farther away than her, and the room, and what they had both been through that day. He was searching for himself in the past, so that he could introduce that person to his love here and now.

  “I’ve killed people,” he said. “Those I’ve killed directly weren’t from Noreela, and they wished us harm. Some I’ve killed indirectly, or let die because of my actions, and they were Noreelans. They were the people I was trying to help, and some were people I cared about. And that matters more.” He touched his thigh, tapping something metallic beneath his trousers as though drawing strength from it. “And that’s the worst you need to know about me.”

  “The worst?” Namior said. The words he had spoken were gaining weight. “What could be any worse?”

  Kel frowned, leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. His hands hung limp, still filthy from the work they had done. Perhaps they were stained with blood.

  “I’m going to tell you a secret, because I love you. I could be killed for telling you this, but the Core want me dead anyway because I deserted them. I left because of a mistake I made. I was too weak to deal with it, and I thought that abandoning my cause … leaving behind everything that had meant so much to me, everything I was passionate about …” He shook his head, as though shuffling thoughts so that he could find a place to begin, or perhaps somewhere to end.

  “Tell me about the Core,” Namior said. She no longer felt tired.

  “We number only in the hundreds, all across Noreela. We hunt down, follow and eventually kill people from beyond Noreela. We call them Strangers, because we have no other name for them. We know no more of their origins now than the original Core did four hundred years ago.

  “Duke Melkar of Cantrassa formed the Core, because he and his witches had come to suspect a steady ingress of people arriving from beyond the s
eas. They’d disembark at Conbarma, usually from ships incoming from The Spine, then fan out across the Cantrass Plains. He created a group of thirty men and women—soldiers, Practitioners, witches—to find out more. When one of the Strangers was killed in a fight at the Conbarma harbor…Well, with the mystery of his death, a lot more became clear.”

  “What happened?” Namior asked. His mention of The Spine had struck her, but he did not appear to make any connection between what he was talking about and the story Kashoomie had told earlier.

  “When a Stranger dies, his or her wraith bursts from the body. It’s visible for a short time, and during that time it’s deadly. It destroys anything of flesh and blood it touches. Then it settles over the Stranger’s body and burns it away to nothing.”

  “And they look exactly like us?”

  “Almost. There are… differences.” Kel rubbed his face with both hands, glancing at Namior between his fingers. Seeing whether I’m believing this, she thought. Whether it’ll change anything between us. She nodded for him to continue.

  “That first death started a purge. Duke Melkar expanded the Core from thirty to three hundred, every one of them sworn to complete secrecy. He said that if the truth of what they had found got out—that there were people, things, from beyond Noreela—it would change everything. He was right then, and the same applies now. Can you imagine if the truth were known? Most Noreelans exist in their own small world, and even those who have open minds rarely think beyond the island. There are the Shantasi, but Shanti was close by and known about, even when it was destroyed many centuries ago. Other than that… ? Everyone thinks we’re alone. Noreela is a big enough world for most people.”

  “And the Core is as big as it ever was?”

  “Bigger, if anything. When the purge began, over a hundred Strangers were tracked and killed, then the duke was murdered in his bed. The killer never caught. Quite apt.

  “The Core members vowed to continue their mission, and through the years there has always been a cabal that ensures the numbers are made up. They found me when I was eighteen. I was traveling through the Pengulfin Woods at the time, on my own, heading nowhere. I witnessed a Stranger’s execution. The woman who performed it, a Shantasi called O’Peeria, jumped me and held a knife to my throat. And she gave me a choice.”

  “Not much of a choice.”

  Kel smiled. “At the time, I thought I was one of the luckiest men alive. I’d always respected the old Voyagers, read a lot about their journeys and discoveries. And I was already starting to despair of finding anything that would equal that for me. This… the Core… To begin with, I thought it was an adventure.” His eyes were distant again, and Namior could sense that he still carried the name of the Shantasi O’Peeria inside. Perhaps she’d ask him about her one day…but not yet.

  “You don’t think the Komadians are the Strangers you’ve hunted? I heard about what happened at the harbor, what you did to Kashoomie.”

  Kel raised his eyebrows.

  “It’s a small village, Kel. And I’ve lived here all my life.”

  He smiled sadly, fidgeting in the chair. “She’s not a Stranger, no. But at the same time …” He shrugged. “For me, her story just doesn’t carry the ring of truth. What they’ve done, what they’re doing here now… I can’t help being suspicious.”

  “But there’s no sign that they’re connected with your Strangers?”

  “Nothing overt. But then, they say their island has been doing this for a long time. Have you ever heard of it? Any legends, stories, rumors of an island that appears from out of nowhere? Back in the main library of Noreela City, I spent a long time one summer studying old maps and charts, some of them drawn up by the ancient Voyagers. None of them ever mentioned another island beyond Land’s End in The Spine. Not one map taken as accurate, and not even any of those assumed to be fanciful. And I know from people far older and wiser than I that much of Noreela’s history is documented in that library, and much of its mythology originates from there. If her story is true, there’d be some evidence somewhere, don’t you think?”

  Yes, Namior thought, you’re right. But he was talking about the Core, and she knew there was more.

  “And in all these years of the Core, the truth has never emerged? No one has spoken?”

  “Oh, they have,” said Kel, his tone growing darker still. “People have tried to leave the Core and spread the truth. But the Core cabal have their own separate group of mercenaries, and they pay handsomely to have any absconders hunted down and killed. And if it takes a moon or two to find them?” He waved his hands. “Any stories they have told are usually treated as fabrication, myth, madness. Campfire tales is what O’Peeria once called them.”

  “And now you’re an absconder?”

  Kel nodded. “Pavmouth Breaks seemed such a safe place,” he said. “Isolated, self-contained, small. Nine out of ten Noreelans have probably never even heard of us. And the more time goes by, the more I’ve started to think—to hope— that they’ve forgotten about me. It’s not as if I’m shouting to anyone who’ll listen about invaders with gills and lightning-sparking spines growing from their backs.”

  “Not everyone. Only me.”

  “Only you.”

  Namior lay back on her bed and looked at the ceiling, trying to absorb what Kel had told her. I believe every word. She wished she did not, because it terrified her utterly.

  “Do you want to contact them?”

  “I’ve thought about it,” Kel said. “I have. And though I can’t contact them directly, I have the means to call them here.”

  Namior sat up, and however serious their conversation, she could not hold back a wry smile. “Magic, Kel Boon?”

  “Magic.” He tapped his jacket pocket, and she wondered just what he carried in there.

  “So why don’t you?”

  “Because if I’m wrong, and Keera Kashoomie’s story is true, I’ll bring the Core here for nothing. And if I’m still here when they discover it was a wasted trip, then they’ll definitely kill me.”

  Namior nodded. “And me.”

  “Only if they know I told you all this.” He leaned forward in his chair, hands clasped before him like a worshipper beseeching the moons. “So don’t repeat anything of this to anyone. Not your mother, not Mell. Anyone.”

  “Just in case your suspicions prove wrong.”

  “Just in case.” He nodded and sat back.

  Namior’s mother called up the stairs, and the smell of food seemed to follow her voice. Namior heard her great-grandmother stirring, and Kel sighed as though happy the conversation was over.

  Or almost over.

  “So how are you going to settle this?” she asked.

  He stood and came to her, hoping she would also rise and be close to him. But she did not think she could do that, not yet. He was a different man, and though she loved him, and love involved learning, she’d been given too much in one fell swoop.

  “There’s only one way I can,” he said at last. “Tomorrow, I’m going out to the island to see for myself.”

  THEY ATE THE fishtail bakkett, and it was wondrous. Kel didn’t trust magic, but he always trusted witches to know how to cook. They were in tune with the land, and the fruits, spices and herbs it offered up were a vital part of a witch’s training.

  Namior’s mother asked about what had happened that day, most of her questions directed to Namior. Kel had the feeling she already knew much of what had occurred, and that she was simply enjoying the communication with her daughter.

  The older woman sat with them, ate with them, but her good eye was bloodshot and distant. She paused frequently and muttered something at her soup. As soon as she was finished, she closed her eyes and snored softly at the table.

  After eating, Namior and Kel went outside for some fresh air. Namior filled a long bone pipe with aromatic leaves and a blend of dried roots, and she smoked it while the two of them leaned against a wall and looked down at the harbor. There were lights on down there
, though not nearly as many as there would have been only a night ago, and most bobbed in the darkness. Kel guessed they were on the backs of Komadian machines. Farther out to sea he could see the shipping lights of the visitors’ boats, though there was no sign of any more vessels coming in. The island was silhouetted against the horizon, and he could see the speckled lights of settlements along its coastline. The hills at its heart were dark.

  “How will you get out there?” Namior asked, her gaze following his.

  “I don’t know. Most of Pavmouth Breaks’ boats have been smashed, but perhaps I’ll find some upriver that are still seaworthy.”

  “If you sail down the river and out to the island, you’ll be seen.”

  It should be so easy. But as well as crippling the village, the waves stranded us as well. “I’ll find a way,” he said. “Find a boat, drag it overland, launch from farther along the coast.”

  Namior puffed at her pipe and offered it to Kel. He had never smoked. If you smoke, you stink, had always been his mantra. But if he took a considered breath just then, he knew he already stank of sweat, grime and the muck of disaster.

  “I can help,” Namior said.

  “What?”

  “I can cast a concealment spell. It won’t make us invisible, but it’ll deflect attention from—”

  “Us? You’re not coming with me.” He cringed at his tone. But he had no wish to place Namior in peril.

  “Why?” she asked. “Too dangerous for a woman?”

  “You know I don’t think at all like that, Namior.”

  She sighed smoke. “I know. But what’s your reason for me not to go?”

  “I’m the soldier.”

  “Oh. And just a while ago, you were the wood-carver I met.”

  “I still am. The cliff hawk should show you that.”

  Namior was silent for a while, smoking and looking down at the harbor, then up at Drakeman’s Hill facing them across the river. That place at least looked as it had before the disaster, though there were more lights than usual at that time of night. Not many people could sleep, it seemed.