by Tim Lebbon
“They should be guarding it better,” Kel whispered. “If they don’t want it seen, we’d have never got as far as we have. So why here?”
“But what is it?”
Kel’s only response was to hum softly.
The black structure Mell had told them about was being built at the foot of Steep Hill’s eastern face. Its base was as Mell had described, square and about thirty paces to a side. But it was much taller than when their friend had seen it the previous night. The structure rose from the square base, its far edge curving inward almost imperceptibly, near face leaning outward, and Namior thought it would not be long until it cleared the highest part of Steep Hill. At its summit, where the machine worked, it was a perfect rectangle, thirty paces wide and maybe twenty across.
And the machine Mell had described was still there, huge, holding itself to the black structure with eight spindly metal legs, crawling back and forth like a giant slayer spider and exuding a black fluid from vents in its stomach. The material slumped onto the rectangular surface and found its own level. By the time one of the machine’s legs stepped that way, it was solid.
On the ground around the structure’s base was a group of Komadians, perhaps fifteen in total. One of them stood forward from the others, looking up at the machine and controlling it with a small box in his hands. They were too far away to make out details, but Namior saw the pale blur of his hands moving, fingers lifting and shifting.
A burst of steam issued from the machine’s back, startling Namior. Kel’s hand was already on her back, holding her down.
“What do you think it is?” she asked. The structure ate the sun. Nothing reflected back, it did not shine, but neither did it have depth. It was like a block of nothing being built up out of the ground and reaching for the blue sky.
“I don’t know,” Kel said. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Namior looked at the Komadians clustered around the base of the hill, trying to make out faces, see if there was anyone there she recognized, but her gaze was dragged back to the black column growing out of the ground. That’s just what it looks like, she thought. As though the ground has sprouted that thing. Its base appeared set deep, the ground around it apparently undisturbed.
“Are you going to try to send your message?” she whispered. She feared that Kel would say yes, but it was her own fear that drove her to ask.
“Maybe,” he said. “Maybe not yet.” He shook his head, frowning deeply as he stared down the hillside. “But just what in the Black is that?”
“We could go down and ask,” Namior said. And as she spoke those words, they seemed to make sense. The Komadians had only helped them so far, apparently shocked at the damage the waves had caused, using their machines to dig for survivors, repair the bridge, build the ramp against Drakeman’s Hill … “They promised technology,” she said. “Perhaps this is it?”
Kel glanced at Namior in surprise, then back down at the industrious visitors. He shook his head. “We can’t just go and ask, not yet. Whatever that thing is, they can’t be too concerned about people from the village seeing it; otherwise, it would be better guarded. But still, I don’t trust them.”
“The island, then,” she said. “Let’s do what we said we’d do.”
“The island,” Kel said.
Taking one last look at the black structure, they slid backward down the hill.
AM I A coward? Kel thought. Should I take out the communicators and try one now? Breathe on it, stick it in the ground? The consequences don’t matter. It’s Noreela that matters, it always has been, and I can never run away from that.
But behind everything else was the certainty that the Core would kill him if they came there, even if the Komadians were Strangers. And if he did manage to make a communicator work where magic had become uncertain, it would likely end in conflict and bloodshed. Use one of these fuckers, and Noreela’s at war, O’Peeria had said. He felt the weight in his jacket pocket—so much potential in such small things.
He had been responsible for enough innocent deaths to last many lifetimes.
He led the way again, reversing their route back toward the cliffs. Namior moved quickly and quietly behind him, and he was glad that she was with him. She might claim to trust the visitors, but there she was, spying on them and agreeing to go out to the island with him. Surely she had her doubts.
At the foot of the hill they turned toward the cliffs, passing through a small wooded area, and Kel concentrated on the grasses they had crushed on the way there, the small bush branches their legs had snapped, the splashed droplets where morning dew still clung to plants as yet hidden from the rising sun. And looking at the ground was why he almost walked into the man standing before him.
“Calm morning,” the Komadian said. He was smiling, hands free of weapons, a dark-skinned man with long hair tied with metal braids, a small scar across the bridge of his nose, and a light leather jacket slung over his shoulders. “Lovely day for—”
Kel moved before he could really consider his actions. Perhaps it was instinct—the training drummed into him by the Core—or maybe it was an eruption of pent-up stresses and suspicions. Later, he thought that anger at his own clumsiness had a lot to do with what happened next.
He pivoted on his left leg and drove his right foot up toward the man’s chin.
The visitor was quick, but not quite quick enough. He twisted to one side, but Kel’s heel caught him on the jaw. He grunted and turned, facing the other way.
“Kel!” Namior said, and he silently cursed the volume of her voice.
He stepped in close and threw one arm across the man’s throat, pulling tight to prevent him from shouting. The man gurgled something and went stiff in Kel’s embrace, both arms coming up and trying to shift Kel’s arm from around his neck.
“Move away!” Kel whispered to Namior. He plucked a short knife from his belt and pressed its tip into the Komadian’s back. Now we’ll see, he thought. Now we’ll know for sure. “Get back, Namior, you’ve no idea what—”
“What the fuck are you doing?” Namior said. She was trying to stay quiet, at least, but the amazement on her face gave Kel pause.
What am I doing? The man struggled, but did not fight, not really. He was groaning and gasping, trying to talk.
Kel pushed the knife a little harder, feeling it pierce the jacket and part the man’s skin. The Komadian grew stiff and motionless, hands clawed in the air before him.
And if I kill him, and no wraith rages out of the wound… ?
He could feel the man’s heartbeat, rapid and terrified.
I’m already a murderer.
Kel dropped the knife and tugged hard at the man’s throat, and when the visitor went limp he eased him to the ground.
“Kel, I don’t know, I don’t think I can—”
“Quiet!” Kel moved across to Namior and pressed his hand over her mouth. “Please, just keep quiet.” He nodded at his woman, his love, and when her wide eyes narrowed slightly and she nodded back, he took his hand away.
With everything he did next, he felt Namior’s eyes boring into him. But she said nothing. He was glad for that, but he also knew that things had changed. She would stay, or she would go, and he could no longer have any influence over whatever decision she might make.
He went back to the man and began searching through his jacket pockets. Weapons first, then evidence, but leave no sign. The Komadian was carrying a short knife in a sheath on his belt. Kel glanced at it briefly before throwing it aside; well cared for, rarely used. He found no other weapons. Pulling the collar wide, he saw the smooth neck, and when he turned the man on his side and thrust his hand down the back of his shirt, he felt damp, hairy skin and nothing more.
The man groaned and stirred, and Kel prepared to run. I could hit him and force him under again. But he glanced at Namior, and knew he had committed too much violence already.
The Komadian sighed, eyelids fluttering half-open. Kel flicked his finger at the man�
��s left eye, and when he did not blink Kel went through his clothing some more. In one deep pocket on the thigh of his trousers there were a few crumbs of fledge, stale and old. His eyes had not seemed tinged with the drug…but then the realization that the man carried something that came from Noreela, but not Pavmouth Breaks, hit Kel hard.
“Fledge,” he said, flicking the crumbs from his fingers.
“So?” Namior asked. Her tone and stance were confrontational. Kel did not look at her, afraid that her eyes would take off the back of his skull.
“So, they’ve visited somewhere else in Noreela.”
“Which is just what their emissary said.”
Kel nodded, then went through the unconscious man’s two shirt pockets. One contained a mass of dried root of some kind, and the other held a few strands of shredded, colored rope. He threw the root to Namior.
“What’s that?” he asked.
She closed her eyes, sniffed the root, and frowned. “I don’t know.”
“Rope charm,” Kel said, turning the rope strands over in his hand. “What’s left of one, anyway.” He nodded at the root. “Keep that.”
“Why?”
“Because we don’t know what it is.”
“Don’t tell me what to do, Kel.” She stared at him, hard and harsh, and his shoulders slumped. The tension was still there, and there was a weight pressing him down as well.
“Please,” he said. “I can’t make your mind up for you, but I need you to stay with me, for a while at least. Just until I’m sure.”
“Sure of what?”
Kel shrugged. “I really don’t know, Namior. But that thing they’re building back there …” He pointed past her up the hillside, but did not have the chance to say any more. The man at his feet rolled from his back onto his front, elbows rising as he groggily placed his hands against the ground ready to shove.
And then Kel heard the sounds of people coming through the undergrowth.
He dashed to Namior, grabbing her hand and breathing a sigh of relief when she let him lead her toward the cliffs. Once they were out of sight of the fallen man he paused, holding his breath as he listened. Footsteps, the swish of clothing against undergrowth, a few subdued words and a burst of laughter. Whoever was coming had no reason to be cautious.
“Can you try to hide us?” he whispered, mouth pressed close to Namior’s ear.
She nodded and pulled him down into a patch of bracken. From the pocket of her slacks she produced a long ground rod, the metallic sliver all witches used when trying to draw on the magic in the land for some purpose. She slid it into the soil between bracken roots, then clasped one hand around the metal end, holding Kel’s shoulder with her other hand. She closed her eyes and started to chant quietly, and Kel looked away.
They were coming closer. He counted six people at least, making no real effort to keep quiet. And then, hissing through the morning air but barely interrupting their conversation, the gush of steam erupting from a machine.
He looked back to Namior and she was staring at him, panicked.
“It won’t work!” she said.
That was all Kel needed to hear. He glanced around, saw that they were in as much cover as they could hope to find anywhere close by, and pulled Namior down beside him. “Keep as still as you can.”
He moved only his eyes. He could see too much of the trees above them, too much sky, too many clouds. Even if the Komadians did pass them by without seeing them, as soon as they met their winded and bruised companion the search would be on. Namior’s magic had not worked, and the two of them would have only one way to go: to the cliffs, then back toward Pavmouth Breaks.
They would be trapped.
I should have slit his throat, he thought, then a shadow fell over him, and he stopped breathing.
NAMIOR STARED DIRECTLY at Kel, trying not to blink, trying not to breathe, trying not to see this stranger lying before her.
The night before he had given her a gift and they had made love, but only moments ago she’d watched him readying to shove a knife into a man’s back. Now he was lying there before her, staring just past her shoulder at whoever walked by, his jaw clenched and his right hand holding something cool and sharp across her leg.
If we’re seen, he’ll fight, she thought. No matter that he found stale fledge in the man’s pocket, and part of a rope charm, which are both things of Noreela. He’s focused on his Strangers. She blinked and tried to catch his eye, but his own eyes shifted only slightly, following shapes she could not see as they walked by.
The Komadians chatted softly, making no effort to keep quiet. Whatever they were doing there, surely it was of no harm? She heard the soft hiss of a machine venting steam.
Kel’s eyes glittered. She had yet to see him blink.
Namior closed her hand around the ground rod piercing the soil between her and Kel. She shut her eyes and breathed softly, deeply, inviting the flow of the language of the land through her, but it was barely talking in echoes. It was like listening to someone speaking from a long way off, their words stolen by the breeze, meaning lost to the lazy sunshine bathing the ground between them. She listened harder, but the interference was strong. It’s never been like this before, she thought, and that was true. Even as a little girl, when her mother first taught her to commune with the magic in the land, she had been able to sense its flow. Understanding had come later, but magic had always been available to her.
When she opened her eyes again, Kel was looking at her. He put a finger to his lips. Namior nodded.
When Kel slowly sat up and watched the Komadians walking toward the hill, she remained where she was, working the ground rod out of the soil. She ran it between two fingers to clean it off, then slipped it back into the sleeve in her pocket.
Kel leaned over her and pressed his mouth to her ear. So quietly that she could not even feel his breath, he said, “We have to leave now.”
They stood and dashed through the undergrowth, lifting their legs high to avoid making too much noise. After a few beats Namior caught up with Kel and grabbed his arm.
“What did you see?” she whispered.
“Eight of them,” he said, still moving. “And a floating machine I haven’t seen before. It had tubes projecting from it, but they didn’t steam. I think it was a war machine.”
“How can you know that?”
Kel did not answer.
“So what now?”
He held up a hand and they stopped. Kel tilted his head sideways, listening, turning so that he could discern direction.
“What?” Namior asked.
“They’ve stopped walking and talking,” he said. “They’re trying to be quiet now, which means they’ve found him. So we have to go.”
“Where?”
Kel’s eyes darted here and there, and for a moment Namior was afraid he was losing control. She was surprised at how much that worried her. She feared him and what he had done, but somehow he was still very much in charge. I’m no soldier, she thought, though she could not hide the sick excitement that had seeded itself deep down.
“The Throats,” he said. “Come on.” They started again, emerging from the small wood and rushing through heathers and bracken toward the area where the first of the holes broke the surface.
“That’s mad!” she said.
“They go down to the beach, yes?”
“Some of them, but no one ever goes in there. You know that. You know why!”
“Dangerous. But not as dangerous as returning to Pavmouth Breaks.”
He’s still set on the island, she thought. She looked left, past the cliff edge and out to sea, and the island sat there as though it had been there forever.
Someone shouted behind them. Namior did not turn around, afraid of what she would see.
“Here!” Kel slid behind a slight rise in the land and she followed him, skidding down on the gravel and wincing as it scratched her legs.
“Are they coming?” she asked.
Kel lifted h
imself up, then dropped down again quickly. “Not yet. Maybe they won’t. But they can’t know where we’re going. They see us go down into a drop hole, they can block both ends and send in their machines.”
“By the Black, Kel, can’t we just get back to the village?”
“I need to see for sure,” he said, his voice suddenly calm and full of reason. “They’re not the Strangers I know, but I need to see the island. And you really don’t have to come with me, Namior.”
“I don’t want to go back on my own.”
“Well, you’ve always wanted an adventure.” He actually smiled, and she was amazed to feel herself smiling as well.
“True,” she said. “But I thought of traveling across Noreela to find it.”
“What’s better than an adventure in your own village?” He looked over the small rise again, then nodded. “We can go. Not far to the holes. Do you know which is the best one to go down?”
Like many children of the village, Namior had explored the Throats when she was a child, a mixture of curiosity and dares from other children encouraging her descent. And like most children who went down, she had never gone very far beyond the influence of sunlight. For people from a fishing village, being underground felt similar to being beneath the surface of the waves: it was not a place they were meant to be.
“They all lead down, and I’ve heard they all join up at some point.”
“So let’s go down the closest one to us,” Kel said.
“I’ve never been all the way through.”
“As a friend of mine always said, there’s a first time for everything.”
Namior liked that, but it did little to dispel the frisson of fear. Most children had started down the holes, yes, and few had gone far. But everyone in Pavmouth Breaks had heard the stories and rumors. Ancient, angry wraiths, deadly dark-snakes, poisonous fumes from the land’s mysterious innards …
She took one more look at the island. Then Kel stood and ran for the first of the Throats.
Trying not to hear her mother’s voice berating her foolishness, and her great-grandmother’s confused tears, Namior followed.