Obsidian

by Suzie Wilde

  Bera spat on her sword hand. ‘You’d better run fast before I decide to punish you.’

  The children jeered.

  ‘ALU,’ roared Bera, touching the runes on the blade.

  The urchins ran to the far end of the twitten and scrambled up the wall like green crabs on a wreck. Rakki leapt at them, nipping at their heels, but they were too fast.

  Bera turned on Egill. ‘Where were you?’

  ‘We’re here right beside you.’

  ‘If you’d come at them from behind…’ She trailed off. Neither of them would have killed children.

  ‘I went through that fishmonger’s store, look.’

  Bera checked her things. ‘They’ve run off with my best brooches.’

  She felt a sharp pang. One was a marriage gift from Hefnir, her first and last link with him. A clasped silver grooming set that had belonged to his wife, Heggi’s mother. Bera was going to give it to Heggi’s wife, perhaps Ginna.

  Egill was speaking: ‘… plenty more at the Abbotry. Silver, gold, all that. Not as good as Iraland, of course.’

  ‘Is Heggi all right?’

  ‘They were well ahead of us. Faelan will keep him safe.’ Egill sheathed her sword. ‘They should be there by now.’

  ‘Did you know I’d be trapped, Egill? How do you know Faelan?’

  ‘Doesn’t your skern have any answers?’

  Bera hated the fog of suspicion and confusion. Her only workable instinct was to head seaward, no matter where she was.

  ‘I need clean air. Let’s go.’

  Bera followed Rakki and they charged past hovels with new sources of grime and stench. Then they were through, close to the sea. She faced to windward and breathed deeply, letting the salt air cleanse her lungs. The dog took a scent and raced off, nose to the sand.

  Egill took her hand. ‘The tavern’s just along here. I bet Rakki’s picked up their scent.’

  ‘Couldn’t we have rowed round?’

  ‘Faelan keeps his boat this side, where it’s deeper.’

  As they went down to the shore, a line of black rocks came into view. They spiked the centre of the bay, like the spine of a sea monster, coming ashore and separating it into the two beaches. You would need to be careful at high water, even if you knew they were there. If you didn’t, they would rip the bottom out of any boat.

  ‘Why does Faelan keep a boat this side?’

  ‘Shellfish.’

  Egill began scrambling over the ridge of stones that were the spine come onto land. They were rounded by sea-pounding and covered in weed, so she slipped and slithered, crashing into Bera and knocking her down. They rolled on top of each other, towards the water. Bera shrieked, shrill and beside herself after being so pent up and afraid.

  ‘You sound like a squealer pig,’ Egill joked.

  Bera, suddenly furious, pushed her. Egill drew her sword and her eyes were dark.

  ‘Put your sword away, Egill. If you sent for me, you know I must live.’

  Egill sheathed her sword. She held out her hand and Bera took it.

  They listened to the waves washing the shore.

  ‘Would you have used it on the urchins?’ Bera asked.

  Egill took time answering. ‘I’m not the person I was.’

  ‘So I see.’

  ‘It’s not always the right choice to kill.’

  ‘Unless it’s a blood debt.’

  ‘I’m not sure a blood debt is ever the right choice.’

  Bera felt heat rising from her stomach. This was the old Egill, putting on airs copied from Iraland. It was a betrayal of where she was born and a criticism.

  ‘So you think everything I do is wrong, do you?’ Bera said. ‘That I’m some idiot thrall with stupid beliefs that you can just kill?’

  ‘I think you’re scared, to be honest. I keep telling you: life isn’t as black and white as you see it.’

  Bera strode off.

  ‘I’m not scared,’ she shouted at the darkening sky.

  They entered a wide shack, like a shrunken mead hall, where blowsy women and tough-looking men traded goods in a blue haze. They traded bodies too. Bera was glad to see Heggi at a long table with Faelan, then worried about him seeing the proceedings at close quarters. The noise was making her head ring.

  ‘Is this a tavern, then?’ she shouted.

  ‘Or alehouse. We have lots of them in Iraland, near Abbotry, cos the ale’s best.’

  ‘Egill – is there anything I could show you that Iraland hasn’t done first and better?’

  ‘No.’ She meant it.

  They barged their way through the jostling crowd to Heggi, who was alone now.

  ‘Faelan’s gone to get food,’ he shouted.

  The scrubbed table almost ran the whole length of the shack. It was full of folk, slurping, clattering, shouting, laughing. Bera’s stomach knotted with unease.

  Rakki gave a sharp bark, hackles up, and gave chase under the table, through everyone’s feet.

  She grabbed Heggi. ‘Stay here. Rats are on the move.’

  ‘I know. Other creatures are too.’

  Heggi made no move to follow his dog. Perhaps he sensed danger too. There was a new threat here, not like fighting Drorghers or beasts of prey. These were mortal men, but brutal, like the Serpent King. Pirates and sea-riders, with dragon tattoos. Bera watched Egill, trying to match her friend against this new world. Was life always going to be like this? Every time Bera won a battle, she was plunged into some new world where she could not read the signs, some new person to challenge her.

  First copy the new ways, then learn how to command them.

  Faelan returned with two big bowls of stew. Bera hoped he would sit next to her but he went straight off again. Someone sat at the far end of their bench and Bera was forced to slide along, ending up next to a huge man who smelled of tar. His massive forearm lay on the table, one hand on his knife. His tattoos were marks like runes. She tried scrying to make out what they might mean.

  ‘Kiss my arse,’ he growled.

  Her spoon dropped into her bowl and hot stew skit her.

  His laugh was not for sharing. ‘Kiss my arse, girlie. That’s my little joke.’

  He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, leaving a wide snail trail of grease on it.

  ‘What do the runes say?’ Bera would not be cowed.

  ‘Them signs bring good things to me.’

  Egill leaned in. ‘But not to you, Bera. Keep away.’

  ‘Is he from Iraland?’

  ‘Eat your stew and don’t look at him.’

  Egill’s new forcefulness was troubling. Then she gave Bera a secret, shared smile and suddenly the old warmth flickered. Perhaps she was trying to put her desertion right, and on that same landfall beach Bera had vowed that things would be more open on Ice Island. She would work to make their friendship right.

  Faelan returned and sat between her and the tattooed man. There was so much Bera wanted to ask him but no one talked. Secrets and lies teemed in this nest. At least the food was honest and good. She used it to tamp down her fears and sharpen her mind, so she and Heggi had second helpings. Faelan fetched them and then left.

  They soon finished and Egill showed them into a small room off the main one. It had no windows but there was a thin fire, which dimly lit a lumpen figure on a chair. Faelan was on a stool next to him, his trim figure making the person look even more mangled. Old – and a humpback. Crowman.

  Faelan got up. ‘This is Cronan. The man who sent for you.’

  ‘Cronan?’ She had misheard the name but was reassured that otherwise her Valla powers had been correct. Then her stomach churned at the confirmation that her vision must also be real.

  Heggi pulled at Bera’s sleeve. ‘I need to find Rakki.’

  ‘No, I don’t want—’

  ‘We’ll both look for him.’ Faelan gave Heggi a shove. ‘Come on, fellow. I challenge you to a stone-skimming contest.’

  ‘I’ll win, won’t I, Bera?’ His face was free of rec
ent care.

  ‘Let Rakki find you,’ she said. ‘Look after them, Faelan.’

  ‘Always,’ he replied quietly. It sounded like a promise of more.

  Light came and went as they stepped out.

  ‘You can trust this man,’ Egill said. ‘Cronan’s holy.’

  Bera wondered if the humpback had seen her in the same dream. If he had, it would be the first time and another sign that her returning Valla powers were to be trusted.

  ‘I’m Bera,’ she said.

  ‘Tide’s turned.’ He gave an odd gesture as he stood, making his head dip further to one side.

  He was as short as her because of his deformity. The knobbled curve of his spine showed through the linen tunic.

  ‘You’re wondering why no one stoned me. I live in the Abbotry. They would say that God makes them charitable. I would say that my gift is too precious to them.’

  ‘What is your gift?’ she asked.

  ‘They forgive my appearance for the sake of my sight.’

  ‘I thought you were blind.’

  ‘Purblind. But I’m talking about inner vision.’ The humpback pulled back his sleeve and turned his wrist over. Blue veins coursed down towards his palm, beneath a tattoo that looked like Th and S runes together. She wished it did not look so much like Faelan’s cross and serpent.

  ‘Touch.’

  ‘I have reason to distrust folk with tattoos.’

  ‘This is the true god, Brid. She is three women in one. A poet, a smith and a doctor. Touch it.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You either feel it… or not,’ he said. ‘I think you will.’

  Bera hated doing it but wanted to know more. Even before she reached the mark the air crackled like frost and she had an answer.

  ‘I have to go north.’

  ‘Brid has revealed herself to you.’ He pushed his sleeve down. ‘The Abbotry lies north and west. We go to Obsidian.’

  ‘What do you know about it?’

  ‘I am the one who first recognised the power of the black stone. I am the one who saw the special woman with the beads.’

  Bera moved closer to see him better. She decided to give the man a chance to prove his worth; after all, Agnar may have been old and blind but he brought her nothing but luck. Cronan’s face was open, easily read, and not as old as she had thought.

  She placed a finger on the tattoo at his wrist. ‘I’ve seen this before.’

  ‘Then you know that if you see it, you can trust him.’ His voice was warm.

  ‘It’s the sign of our faith, so we know one another,’ Egill chipped in.

  Bera was tart. ‘Have you got a tattoo, then?’

  ‘Not yet, no.’

  ‘She has to earn the mark of Brid,’ Cronan said. ‘As do we all.’

  ‘I wear this.’ Egill pulled out the leather thong from her neck.

  ‘So what did you do to earn that, Egill?’ Bera hated the serpent signs.

  ‘Keep your voices down!’ Cronan spoke urgently. ‘Faelan will be watching outside – but folk are killed for their faith.’

  ‘The sea-riders in there won’t let anyone through.’ Egill nodded towards the inner door.

  Bera was genuinely unsure whose side Egill would be on. She was confused herself, if the sea-riders were enemies of the serpent faith. She felt trapped, which she detested.

  ‘Then whisper as low as you like but you will tell me. Why have you brought me here?’

  The humpback lowered himself painfully onto a chair. ‘Only you can get us into the tower within the tower.’

  15

  ‘What is a tower? I want plain speaking now,’ said Bera.

  Cronan struggled to alter his position. He moaned softly with the pain of it but without complaint. She could be kinder to the bent person in front of her. As she tried to ease him upright, she touched his back. The small crookedness of his bones were like a broken bird she had picked up once, fallen from an eagle’s beak. She moved closer, to be gentle. There was some kind of peppery sweetness on his roughly weaved clothing.

  She sneezed.

  ‘Ensense,’ he said. ‘It lets me see. You might say scry.’

  Bera gasped, shocked at his skill but also full of hope that there was some other way of scrying.

  He clicked his tongue. ‘I’m no Valla. You know that.’

  ‘Did you see me?’

  Egill patiently explained. ‘He saw a woman with beads. I’m here because only I knew it was you.’

  ‘And you both know Faelan.’ Bera turned to Cronan. ‘Can you predict the future?’

  ‘I render my visions and dreams.’

  ‘Like whale oil?’

  Egill snorted. ‘He interprets, like you do. He’s a seer, Bera. A holy man.’

  Bera clung on to hope. ‘So a holy man is like a Valla?

  ‘Do not listen to Egill,’ he said. ‘Holy means without sin and only Brid is that.’

  The others made a long cross on their bodies, as Bera had seen before. It excluded her – but their future was in her hands.

  ‘Tell me what you saw!’ She touched the man’s hand. ‘Please.’

  ‘This foul air…’ The man coughed, spat, then began. ‘At the last ensense burning I saw the earth heaving and spewing fire, like a woman birthing, bathed in blood.’

  ‘The same as me!’

  ‘It was you, birthing a child of quicksilver from the earth’s core.’

  That slight shiver of fear. ‘Valdis is flesh and blood and all the better for it.’

  ‘Your baby can make silver,’ he said.

  ‘She makes nothing but noise,’ Bera said, needing to keep her baby human.

  Cronan smiled. ‘Do not be afraid. I mean only that the child is a silversmith. Her grandmother is a poetess.’

  ‘A real skald,’ put in Egill.

  ‘My mother is dead.’

  ‘Alfdis lives on in you and in your daughter, Valdis.’

  ‘Alfdis,’ echoed other crow voices, ‘and Valdis.’

  ‘Is my mother with the crows?’ she asked Cronan.

  ‘What crows?’

  She shivered. ‘Voices I hear. Not my skern. These are sinister.’

  Egill said, ‘Brid is three women in one. A poetess, a smith and a doctor.’

  ‘I heard it the first time.’

  Cronan said, ‘You are part of that.’

  ‘I’m not Brid. I’m one woman: a Valla. A leader. A prophetess.’

  ‘That’s three. And Vallas heal, don’t you?’ asked Cronan.

  Her skern was at her throat. Let them believe what they like if you want to save folk. But hurry up.

  ‘I can heal. But I am not Brid!’

  Her scalp flared and when she touched her beads the black one was too fiery to hold but it showed her an absence of light so total that she clawed at the air to pull it aside.

  Egill caught her arm, ‘What is it?’ She had a vision of heaving blackness and Hel’s breath was poison.

  Bera ran to the door. ‘We need to go. Now.’

  ‘I call upon the serpent,’ Egill said, raising her cross. ‘Brid will protect us.’

  The earth tilted. Outside, folk screamed and there was thunder.

  ‘This is the end of the beginning,’ said Cronan.

  Crashes, shouts, pounding feet and cursing.

  Bera staggered back to him. ‘Come!’

  ‘Run, both of you, I’ll join you at the boat.’

  Egill was urgent. ‘I’ll show you, Bera.’

  Cronan clutched Bera’s hand. ‘Remember: you must enter the tower!’

  The world slid. Egill fell to her knees and began to pray.

  ‘Get up, Egill, and help!’ Bera heaved Cronan from his chair. ‘I’m not leaving you.’

  The mountain had vanished behind a huge, shimmering cloud of thick ash that rained stones, which pelted down, burning. Maddened by pain and fear, folk ran in all directions, desperately seeking cover. But where? The wooden stalls and shanties were going up like pyres. Bera and Egill pu
lled their tunics over their heads and made a chair of their hands for Cronan. They stumbled their way down to the beach under the hail of firestones.

  Faelan was at the water’s edge, dragging Heggi. Rakki was not with them.

  ‘Come on!’ Bera cried. ‘Nearly there!’

  She took Cronan’s weight again and she and Egill got him down to the shallows. Fear made them strong.

  ‘Boat!’ shouted Faelan above the rattling storm and hiss of fiery stones.

  He pointed further along the shore to a narrow rowing boat and set off again, fixed on his own purpose, forgetting Heggi and offering no help to Egill and Bera. She told him to cover his head.

  ‘Get to the boat, Heggi, and help him!’

  ‘Rakki’s gone…’

  ‘Run!’ screamed Bera.

  They stumbled after him, trying to keep their heads covered and protect Cronan. It was slow.

  ‘Burning, burning, fire, burning,’ the crows urged with wild glee.

  A blizzard of fiery fragments came down, hitting the sea, which exploded into hissing smoke. When it thinned, Bera scanned the beach. Heggi had stopped. His gaping mouth told her it was bad. Not Rakki! She followed his gaze along the shore, where Faelan was thrashing at his head and beating his shoulders.

  He was on fire. Bera raced to him.

  Faelan was roaring in agony, his whole cloak alight. Bera threw him to the ground and rolled him over and over in the deep sand, towards the sea. He was screaming, struggling, until a wave broke over him and he staggered into the water, pushing through desperate, wailing others, and went under. He did not come up.

  ‘Brymstones!’ screamed a man.

  He barged into Bera, knocking her to the ground and trampled some children to reach the sea. She scrambled to her feet, cursing, ducked another fiery shower and desperately tried to see Faelan. It was impossible to make out anyone in the broil and she had to help the others.

  Finally she caught sight of Heggi, running up and down the beach, yelling, frantic to find his dog. Egill was slumped on the shore, rocking, her new confidence melted away in the horror. Only Cronan had kept his wits and was trying to make progress. Bera headed for him, battling through screaming animals and people. A wave of frenzied people carried her with them out to sea and she went under. A man grasped her clothes, pulling her deeper, and then stood on her when she was on the seabed. She bit his leg, wrestled herself free and came up, spluttering, choking on salt water, eyes stinging, to face another pelting of burning hail. Her heavy clothes dragged her down but she was fuelled with the need to live and managed to haul herself out.