Blood Ties (45 page)
Authors: Pamela Freeman
As they climbed the road to the pass they met a farmer with a bullock cart laden with apples coming the other way.
“Afternoon,” he said affably, reacting to the horses rather than the riders. Then he looked again and scowled at them. “Got airs above your station, ain’t you?” he said, and spat on the road behind them.
“Afternoon to you, too,” Ash said.
He wanted to quicken their pace, but Cam had her own ideas about how fast you climbed a hill, and he didn’t know how to persuade her otherwise.
By the time they had threaded their way into the pass, the sun was setting. The pass was a flattened part of a saddleback ridge, sharp as a knife everywhere but here. They stopped for a moment and looked down the long road before them. In the distance they could see a village by a river.
“Oakmere,” Martine said, and smiled. “Not far.”
“Let the horses take a rest,” Bramble said. Her voice was thready.
Martine dismounted, groaning, and then stretched and went over to her. She didn’t try to help Bramble down, just checked her arm and gave her water.
Ash climbed off Cam and discovered why Martine had groaned. Every muscle in his legs and most in his back wanted to lie down and die. As for the chafing . . . He’d wait until he was somewhere private before he found out how bad that was.
“Go faster,” Martine said privately to Ash as they mounted. “She might lose that arm if it’s not treated soon.”
“Next stop, the Well of Secrets,” Ash said cheerfully to Bramble.
She tried to smile at him. “And that’s supposed to be reassuring, is it?”
The path was wide enough, so they set off down the long slope side by side.
T
HEY’RE ALMOST HERE
, the other three,” Safred said to her uncle Cael. “Get them to clear the street so the horses can get through easily. There’s no time to be lost if we want to save that arm.”
“Whose arm?” Cael asked, but she didn’t answer.
She was listening to some other voice again. Then her eyes focused and she looked at him. “What comes after the healing, that’s the hard part.”
“Well, what comes after?”
“Nobody likes being destined to do something,” she said, and he knew how little she relished her responsibilities from the gods.
“It’s an affront to our sense of free will,” he said mildly.
“Powerlessness without impotence. Purpose, but someone else’s volition.” She paused. “I must make it their own will if we are to succeed.”
“Can you do that?”
She nodded slowly. Her mouth curved wryly. “I will have help. From Saker.”
H
E RAISED
the black stone knife level with his scarred palm. The bones of a thousand murdered innocents lay before him. He was at one of the largest massacre sites in the Eleven Domains.
“I am Saker, son of Alder and Linnet of the village of Cliffhaven. I seek justice for Owl, for Sparrow, for Lark, for Ash, for Oak, for Cedar . . .”
There were so many buried here that every name he spoke brought up an image in his mind: men and women, old and young, beautiful and ugly, strong and frail. But all angry. All thirsting for revenge.
The rest of the spell wasn’t in words, but images in his mind, complex and distressing. Colors, phrases of music, the memory of a particular scent, and now, the memory of blood and broken bodies and exultation could be added . . .
He pressed the knife to his palm then drew it down hard. The blood surged out in time with his heart and splashed in gouts on the bones as he walked over the site, sharing his blood as widely as he could.
“Kinsmen,” he said. “Arise.”
An earlier draft of this book was my thesis for a Doctor of Creative Arts degree at the University of Technology, Sydney. Many thanks to my supervisor, Debra Adelaide, and to my examiners: Richard Harland, Van Ikin and Sophie Masson. Thanks also to my agent, Lyn Tranter, and to the people who read the manuscript in draft form: Stephen, Rose, Jeremy, Ron, Cathie, Leanne, Patricia, Judy and Jens.
Alison Casey
P
AMELA
F
REEMAN
is an award-winning writer for young people. She has a doctorate of creative arts from the University of Technology, Sydney, Australia, where she has also lectured in creative writing. She lives in Sydney with her husband and young son. Visit the official Pamela Freeman Web site at
www.pamelafreemanbooks.com
.
What professions were you involved with before becoming a writer?
I have only been a full-time writer since my son was born, in 2001. Before that, I ran parallel careers as a writer and scriptwriter, university lecturer, educational designer, technical writer, consultant in organizational communications, and trainer. My most interesting work involved researching the effects of reporting misconduct or corruption in law enforcement organizations. We found that the people who reported (the good guys) were much worse off socially, physically, and psychologically than the people they reported about (the bad guys). This research allowed me to help some Australian law enforcement agencies and government departments design programs to support the people who were trying to do the right thing. I still get asked to consult in this area from time to time, and also to design complaints systems that ensure natural justice is achieved. Not easy, but fascinating.
Prior to writing
Blood Ties,
you predominantly wrote for children. What made you want to write a novel for adults?
There are some stories that just aren’t right for kids, and the Castings story is one. I have always found that I am moved to tell a particular story, and then figure out what age group it is for. In this case, it was clear from the start that the story was both too complex and too political to really appeal to children — not to mention the violence, which is extreme.
What interested you about the sci-fi fantasy genre?
I have always read speculative fiction and I think my imagination was shaped by early exposure (thank you, Mrs. Wall, my local librarian). If I’m writing a story, quite often it just takes a specific twist without me intending it. I think it’s just the way my mind works. As a reader, I love the sense of otherness, of exploring limitless possibilities, of things larger and in some way more real than our normal lives. The sense that everything
matters;
every action, even every thought. And having read fairly widely in contemporary mainstream fiction, I think that spec fic is where ideas are being explored, as well as emotions and relationships. I find a book that combines all those to be the most satisfying.
Who or what do you consider to be your influences?
Probably Tolkien is number one, closely followed by Jane Austen — and for the same reason: every time I read their work I learn something new about writing. Then all the classics: Le Guin, Carroll, Lewis, L’Engle, Heinlein, Asimov, Ellison, etc. I would also include Dorothy Sayers and Georgette Heyer, because their styles are so clean and their dialogue so vivid. And let’s not forget the Bible; the rhythms of the King James Version even got to me, and I was raised Catholic, with a different version altogether!
The Castings Trilogy is a wonderfully unique concept. How did you come up with the idea for it?
Um . . . I can’t tell you without spoiling the third book. I can say it was a combination of a lecture by Bishop Desmond Tutu, having a prime minister who has no respect for indigenous people, and the desire to know what was going to happen the night before I auctioned my apartment. That’s where the line “The desire to know the future gnaws at our bones” comes from. I was pacing around my living room, just wanting to know if the place was going to sell, and the sentence popped into my head. I thought, “That’s a good line, I’d better write that down,” sat in front of my computer, and wrote “The Stonecaster’s Story” in one sitting.
The ghosts probably come from a poem by William Butler Yeats, “The Cold Heaven,” which asks, “when the ghost begins to quicken, / Confusion of the death-bed over, is it sent / Out naked on the roads, as the books say, and stricken / By the injustice of the skies for punishment?” I read that in high school, and it has stayed with me. There’s your quickening, and the roads, and the sense of a larger power . . . maybe the whole story comes from there, after all . . .
Blood Ties is a very intricately plotted novel. Was it difficult to structure it so that the characters’ paths would intertwine?
Yes. It took several drafts to get the passage of time right. At first, I had several more years pass for Bramble than for Ash, but I realized that they needed to move through the same years at roughly the same pace. So although there was some jigging with time to get them to meet in spring, that wasn’t because of their paths not meshing, it was to set up a part of the plot for
Deep Water,
the second book.
When you have finished writing the Castings Trilogy, what type of literature do you think you will be interested in writing?
I hope I will continue to write both children’s books and fantasy for adults. I do already have an idea for the next story, set in the Castings universe but in a different time and place. Even after three books, there will still be some unanswered questions for me, some areas I want to explore further. I hope readers will feel that they want to know more, too. But don’t worry — I’m not planning on leaving the Castings story up in the air in any way. There will be resolution!
If you enjoyed
BLOOD TIES,
look out for
DEEP WATER
Book Two of the Castings Trilogy
by Pamela Freeman
THE WELL OF SECRETS
“The desire to know the future gnaws at our bones,” said Safred, the Well of Secrets. “Or so a stonecaster I knew once told me.”
Her uncle, Cael, grunted and kept cutting up the carrots.
Carrots, beetroots, onion and garlic, lemon juice and oil. Delicious. “Are you going to bake that?” Safred said hopefully. She wasn’t fond of salad, but Cael loved it.
Cael grinned at her. “The desire to know the future gnaws at our bones.”
She threw a cushion at him, laughing, then sighed. “They’re almost here. Send out the word. The girl is badly hurt.”
“Don’t tire yourself out.”
“You’d rather I let her die? Besides, you’ll like her, this Bramble. She’s contrary.”
He frowned at her but went out to the street to spread the word, as she had instructed.
The Well of Secrets sat for a few moments more, wondering if she had the strength to bring the Kill Reborn back from her second death. The gods were silent on the matter; she had even asked them, a thing she rarely did. Prophecy was all very well, but then time came to a turning point, where the future could go either way, or it came to a person who held the future in her hands; this was such a moment and Bramble such a person. If the Kill Reborn lived . . . if the girl, Bramble, survived . . . Which was more important? Safred thought that not even the gods knew.
What was to happen in this room in the next hour would shape the future of the Domains, perhaps of the world, and Safred was as blind to it as Cael was.
“Gnaws like a rat,” she said, and laughed so she wouldn’t cry.
SAKER
Oh, it was so easy! There were so many bones here, and not buried, just thrust into the cave like garbage and the stone rolled across the entrance to keep down the smell. No laying out, no ceremony. There had been no sprigs of pine between these fingers, no rosemary under their tongues. Hundreds of bones, hundreds of skulls. So many names responding to his call. He had not needed to bring Owl’s skull from Spritford after all, but he placed it with the others anyway. The man deserved to be recalled again from death.
Saker tolled the names with glee: “I seek justice for Owl, Juniper, Maize, Oak, Sand, Cliff, Tern, Eagle, Cormorant . . .” So close to the sea there were many seabird names, and even fish: “Dolphin, Cod, Herring . . .” At almost every name there came a
flick
in his mind, and in one out of ten a picture came to his head: men, women, babies, granfers, all ages and conditions, with nothing in common but their anger.
It was the dark of the moon and he had not used light; the risen would be invisible to the inhabitants of the town below them. The brick houses of the harbor town looked more forbidding than they really were. The dead would be upon the sleeping usurpers before they realized what was happening.
“I seek justice for Oak and Sand and Herring and all their comrades.”
Saker paused. Here on the hillside overlooking the harbor he could feel their anger building. It was dangerous, that anger, even to him. He remembered when the ghosts of Spritford had met two Travelers at the river. For a moment, there, he had feared the Travelers would be struck down, not recognized as their own. They had been spared. But this was different, a night attack, when Traveler and invader would look and sound alike in the dark, so he had made precautions.
“I seek recompense for murder unjust, for theft of land, for theft of life; I seek revenge against the invaders, against the evil which has come of Acton’s hand. Let no Traveler blood be spilled, let no brother or sister fall by our hands. Listen to me, Owl and your kin: taste my blood, recognize it as your own, and leave unharmed those who share it.”
The spirits of the dead were listening. The rest of the spell wasn’t in words, but images in his mind, complex and distressing: colors, phrases of music, the memory of a particular scent, the sound of a scream . . . He looked down at the skulls. He pressed the knife to his palm then drew it down hard. He flung his arm wide and blood surged out in time with his heart and splashed in gouts on the bones.
“Arise, Oak and Sand and Herring and all your comrades,” he commanded. “Take your revenge.”
He watched, smiling, as they streamed down the hill towards Carlion, weapons in hand. Then he followed.