Blood Ties (31 page)

Remember their names, and praise them daily:

Acton and Aelred, the boon companions,

Beorn and Baluch, Merrick and Mabry,

Aelric and Asgarn, Garlok and Gabra . . .

They walked silently for some time after he had finished reciting the song. Ash kept his eyes on the road, not wanting her to see the turmoil the song raised in him.

“So. The world changed in a day,” Martine said eventually.

He nodded. “In a day, and a few hundred years. The landtaken took a long time to finish. More tribes followed Acton’s people over the mountains, and the Domains are large. It took them a long time to wipe out every settlement.”

“Yes,” she said. “Longer than you might think.”

They made their way gradually north, toward the mountains. Elva lived in a village at the foothills, Martine had said. At first they traveled through farmland, land that had been settled even before Acton came. But as they moved farther from Turvite they came upon more and more patches of wild land — forest, or marsh, or heath.

After two weeks on the Road they were having to walk a whole day to get to the next village by nightfall, and in the evenings their breath clouded on the chilling air. Even though Ash had been on the Road for most of his life, some parts of the country seemed strange to him: moors where the wind wuthered through the gorse; or stretches where granite cropped out from grass that looked as close mown as if sheep had grazed there for a thousand years, but there were no sheep anywhere to be seen, and the granite never took warmth from the sun, no matter how hot the day; or stands of pines where the sun never reached the path, even at midday.

On the fifteenth day, they came late in the twilight to a village set in foothills, and as they came down over a ridge they saw the lights just being kindled in cottages. There was no inn, but a bush hanging above the door of one cottage showed them where the ale was brewed, so they went on down and knocked.

“Come along in,” came a man’s voice.

“Blessings on this place,” said Martine as they entered.

It was a drinking place like you’d find in any village. There were a few tables with benches, a few chairs near the fire for the old men, a couple of kegs against the wall, a shelf of tankards gleaming cheerily in the firelight. Ash felt his spirits rise, and they rose further when the brewer came toward them and smiled, the first smile they’d had from an innkeeper since they’d left Turvite. He was a broad, strong-looking man, though not tall, with wide-set blue eyes and laugh lines at the corners of his eyes and mouth.

“Travelers, then?” he asked. “Singers, storytellers?” His tone was hopeful, the voice of a lover of tales and one starved of entertainment. It was easy to see why he had become a brewer; he relished the company and the talk around the fire.

Martine held up her pouch, and his face fell.

“Stonecaster,” he said. “Ah, well, no less welcome for that. I’m Fiske. Come, sit by the fire.”

Fiske fed them pea soup, grilled trout, greens, carrots and baked parsnips. The food was good, and they ate hungrily. Fiske sat down and ate with them, asking for the news of the Road. There was a good deal they could tell him about the nearby villages, but he didn’t care about news from Turvite, dismissing it with a wave of his hand.

“Foreigners,” he said, and asked instead about the horse race in the town they had just passed through. He had a bet on, and he was very pleased when they told him that his horse had won. “Hah! I knew it. With Bramble not riding Thorn last spring, the chases have opened right up again. I knew Silver Shoes could win! Golden Shoes was his dam, you know.” He looked at their blank faces and smiled. “You don’t follow the chases, then?”

They shook their heads.

“Shame, shame . . .” Fiske said. “It’s a great sport.” He realized that he had distracted them from their meals. “Eat, eat.”

They returned with pleasure to the sweet crispy-skinned trout and when they were finished, Martine asked where they might find somewhere to sleep for the night.

Conversation around the room seemed to hush.

Fiske pulled at his lip. “Well . . .” he said, considering.

The crowd of men at the tables and round the fire looked on, but kept out of it. Ash realized that Fiske must be the village voice, the one who acted as mediator and arbiter in village disputes: not quite a mayor, not quite a judge, not quite a peacemaker, but something of all three.

“I reckon you’d be happiest at Halley’s place,” he said, finally. “I’ll take you.”

“I’d better pay you first,” Martine said, laughing at him.

He laughed, too, throwing his head back. “Aye, aye, so you’d better!”

So she paid and they followed Fiske out into the dark. He led them to a cottage on the other side of the village, near the southern road.

There was a ghost waiting outside the door. It was pale and wraithlike after the clarity of the Turvite ghosts, but Ash could see it plain enough, though it was clear that Fiske couldn’t. It was an elderly man with a big mustache, dressed as a villager. They nodded to it and it nodded and grinned back, gesturing excitedly as if it had something to say. Martine gave it a short nod and tilted her head to Fiske, to show that it should wait until he went away. The ghost nodded.

Fiske, oblivious, knocked at the door. “Ho, Halley, open up! I’ve got guests for you.”

A young man opened the door. He was in his late twenties, maybe, with the fair hair of Acton’s people but with dark eyes. The knock had caught him in the middle of getting ready for bed, it was clear — his shirttails were out and he had one boot off.

“Fiske?” he said, in a light tenor voice. “What’s the matter?”

“No problem, lad, just some guests for the night — a stonecaster and her boy. Thought you’d welcome them, for your da’s sake.”

Halley nodded at once and opened the door wide. The ghost slipped in and they followed, into a space that doubled as sitting room and cobbler’s workshop.

Fiske raised his hand in farewell.

“Thank you, Fiske,” Martine said.

“Welcome, welcome always,” he said, and smiled at her, maybe a little more warmly than a brewer would smile at a customer.

She did look very beautiful in the light from the lantern, tall and slender and graceful. She smiled back at him, maybe a little more warmly than a customer would smile at a brewer. Ash raised an eyebrow. He suspected that Martine would not have smiled so warmly if they weren’t due to leave tomorrow. In her own way, she was as self-contained as Doronit.

Halley shut the door and gestured to them to sit down on the settle by the fireplace. The fire had been banked for the night and he stirred it up again, and added more wood. Apple wood, Ash thought, by the smell of it. The ghost stood by the fire, waiting, its eyes on Martine and Ash.

“You’ve had a death in the family recently,” Martine said to Halley as he turned from the fire.

He was surprised. “Yes, yes, my father . . . Fiske told you?”

Martine shook her head. “No. A man with a mustache?” she asked. “Balding on top but with curly hair around his ears?”

Halley went pale. “Yes, that’s him. How—”

“He is here,” Martine said gently. “He wishes to speak to you.”

The ghost nodded urgently.

“H-here?” Halley said, looking around nervously.

“Trust us,” she said, and turned to Ash, a question in her eyes. Ash nodded. “My friend here will ask him to speak, but you must be prepared. It will not sound like your father. It will sound . . . harsh.” She held Halley’s eyes until he nodded, then she nodded in turn to Ash.

Ash looked at the ghost. “Speak,” he said.

“Burn them, burn them!” the ghost said quickly, as though he were afraid the charm would be too brief.

Halley flinched at the grating graveyard voice and looked around the room wildly. He made the sign against evil and backed into a corner near the fire. “That’s not my f-father! It’s a d-demon! It wants to kill us all!”

“No,” Ash said, pitying his fear. “All the dead speak in that voice. Don’t be afraid. Nothing will harm you.”

Halley calmed a little but wouldn’t come out of the corner.

“Burn what?” Martine asked the ghost patiently.

“The stones, the stones, purify them, burn the bag . . .” the ghost said.

Halley flinched again, and looked for the source of the voice.

“Ah.” Martine turned to Halley. “Your father was a stonecaster?” Halley and the ghost both nodded. “He died suddenly?”

“His h-heart.”

“And you inherited his pouch and stones. You have been using them.”

Again they nodded, the identical gesture marking them as father and son, although in features they were very different.

“Give me the pouch, Halley.” Martine’s voice was very gentle.

Wordlessly he went to a cupboard opposite the door and took out a stonecaster’s pouch, dark blue leather with a red drawstring. He handed it to Martine, who had wrapped a fold of her tabard around her hand.

She walked to the fire and threw the pouch in. “Fire free thee, fire speed thee, fire light thy way,” she said, and smiled at the ghost.

Halley protested and moved to the fire as though to pluck it out. Ash didn’t understand what was going on, but he trusted Martine and held Halley back until the leather pouch had flared and seared, the smell of burned leather forcing them all to breathe shallowly. The stones fell out of the pouch as it disintegrated and lay amid the wood, their runes glowing white against the dark granite fireplace. The shapes seemed to call his eyes as the light in Martine’s hair had done. He looked away.

“Stonecasters,” said Martine, “put a little of their soul into their stones and pouch. There’s no spell to it — it’s just that over the years, with handling, and concentration, and constantly wearing the pouch, the two grow together. The stronger the caster, the more this is so. When a caster dies, the pouch and stones must be purified with fire to cut the tie so that the spirit can travel on. Unknowingly, you have been keeping your father from his journey.”

Halley relaxed against Ash’s arm, and Ash realized that he had again automatically reacted as a safeguarder, keeping him in a wrestling hold.

When the leather pouch had finally fallen apart, the ghost began to fade and he gestured urgently to Ash.

“Speak,” Ash said again.

The voice of death sounded harsher than ever, but this time Halley listened carefully.

“I am in your debt, so I repay the only way I can . . . The road you are traveling will take you to the dead.”

Ash shivered, full of sudden alarm, but Martine just raised her eyebrows. Then the ghost crossed the room and made as though to caress the head of his son, a curving gesture full of love and regret that faded before it was completed. Ash felt his eyes fill and looked at Martine. Her eyes were dark, but not full of tears. He wondered what it would take to make her cry, or show fear.

“He loved you,” he said to Halley. It was important that Halley should know it, all the more because he couldn’t see his father’s ghost. “He wanted to embrace you.”

Halley stood, confused, shaking his head in mingled grief and shock.

Martine looked at him with interest. “You are not completely of the old blood,” she said slowly. “Nor was your father.”

“No . . . It was his grandmam was a Traveler.”

Martine studied the stones glowing in the fireplace. “I’m thinking,” she said, “that I might take these stones with me when we go.”

“But they—”

“The thing of it is,” she cut across him, “you don’t have enough of the Sight to make it safe for you to use them. You’ll be seeing the wrong things, five times out of ten, or not be able to hear them when they speak.”

“Speak?” he said.

That seemed to decide her. “You cannot see your father’s ghost, you cannot hear the stones speak — you should not be using them.” She softened a little. “It’s no disgrace. You have another trade.”

Halley sat down in a chair by the table, his working chair. “I used to watch him, and wonder how he knew. The stones . . . I always wanted to play with them, but he would never let me. When he died, handling them made me feel like he was close to me . . .”

“He was,” she said softly. “But he’s gone now.”

Halley put his hands in his hair and began to cry, the hard, coughing sobs of deep grief. Martine just stood there, so Ash went to him and laid an arm across his shoulders.

“Out of the dark, new life is born,” he said, quoting an old Traveler saying. “The spark flies upward and becomes a star.”

He didn’t think Halley heard him.

“‘The road you are traveling will take you to the dead,’” he quoted to Martine as they spread their blankets on the floor in front of the fire.

“The Road is long and the end is death,” she said.

“I don’t think that’s what he meant.”

“What can we do? ‘The dead’ is not the same as ‘death,’ of course. But this is a road I must travel.” She turned her head and looked sideways at him from under the dark fall of hair she had loosened, as she always did before sleep. “But it’s not your road, Ash. You can take another turning anytime you want.”

Alone on the roads . . . A shudder ran through him. “No,” he said. “Our road lies together. For as long as you want.” He had tried to sound adult and sure of himself, but his voice trembled a little.

She smiled. “You may change your mind about that one day, youngling.” She yawned suddenly and stretched. “All right then. We take the Road tomorrow together, and see what comes.”

“And if it’s the dead?”

She chuckled. “Of all the people in the world, we have least to fear from the dead. They need us too much.”

They left in the early morning, with hot porridge warming their insides and Halley’s father’s stones tucked safely into Martine’s pack. The air smelled of hay and ripe apples and they set off with surprisingly light hearts, considering the solemn warning.

They were heading for the ford across the Sharp River, the river that eventually curved around and flowed into Mitchen Harbor. The Sharp divided the Domains into two unequal parts, north and south, with all the fertile flatlands between Turvite and the river. Past it, to the north, was pastureland, heath, swamp and rock. Here there were fewer birds, fewer animals, and fewer insects, except in the swamps. Even the earth was different: much poorer and coarser. The southern curve, as they called it in those parts, was where the people of the old blood had retreated to when Acton’s men invaded. They were left alone there for quite a while — the land deemed not worth the trouble — until the invaders ran out of room in the lowlands. Then the push north started, and gradually the people of the old blood were either killed off or forced out and scattered to go where they could. Many became Travelers.