Deep Water (55 page)

When everyone was seated, Rowan cleared his throat. “So. We have two things to decide, it seems to me. Firstly, will we resist
this enchanter? Secondly, will we give the… the songs to Ash so that he can resist him by following the Well of Secrets’
plan?”

The other men nodded.

Skink leaned forward and took over. Ash remembered that in other years, it was Skink who ran discussions and gave orders when
orders were needed.

“I can tell you one thing. If Acton’s people work out
why
this enchanter is loosing the ghosts on them, every Traveler in the Domains will be slaughtered overnight.”

They sat, recognizing the truth when they heard it. There had been massacres before, for no more reason than a Traveler man
seducing a blond woman; or a child sickening after a Traveler family had passed by. For a reason, a
real
reason such as this, the massacre would spread like fire through a pine forest.

“We should not only resist him, we should be
seen
to resist him,” Skink concluded.

The other men nodded, even Vine.

“So,” Rowan said.

“So,” Skink echoed. “The second question. I say, Ash is not ready for the songs. Someone else should sing them.”

“How do you know I’m not ready?” Ash challenged him.

Skink laughed shortly. “Are you married? Do you have a family? You are not ready.”

Ash was intent on arguing, but Rowan intervened. “There are seasons in a man’s life, son. Babyhood, childhood. Then youth,
when a boy first comes here. Then the wild time, when he Travels and lives and is irresponsible. And then maturity, which
comes with marriage and children.”

“And then age,” Snake said dryly, “which comes to us all, whether we like it or not.”

“If we’re lucky,” Ash said out of habit. The others nodded and said, “Aye, if we’re lucky,” and spat on the ground for luck.

“I don’t understand . . .”

“The songs you’re talking about . . .” Skink stopped and looked at Rowan for help.

“Songs of power,” Rowan said. “They are songs of power.”

“Exactly!” Ash said. “That’s why we need them.”

“Power like that — young men want to change the world, Ash. Just like this enchanter does. So we protect the power from the
impetuousness of youth. No man may learn those songs until he has a stake in the future. Until there is a risk to him in changing
things.”

Ash was confused. “I don’t understand.”

“Until you have children,” Flax hissed at him. “Until you’re a father.”

The men nodded. Oh, Ash thought. It wasn’t me. Father didn’t refuse
me.
He would have taught me later. He would have trusted me. But although he was flooded with relief that his father hadn’t deliberately
withheld the songs, a small doubt remained. He had left the Road, after all, and gone to Turvite. Would his father have ever
sought him out again? Visited, no doubt, when they were in Turvite, but that only happened every decade or so. Would his father
have come to teach him the songs when the time came?

He couldn’t brood over it; there was too much at stake to let his attention wander.

“You have no stake in the future yet,” Skink said. “One of us will sing the songs.”

“It won’t work,” Ash said.

“Oh, only you can sing?” Vine mocked him. “Hah! I’ve never heard you sing a single note ever.”

There it was, the moment he had dreaded. He opened his mouth to try to forestall it, but Flax got in ahead of him.

“You don’t understand!” he said. “He has the prophet’s voice, like the Well of Secrets when she heals!”

Ash was surprised by this championship. Flax’s voice was full of awe, and it impressed some of the men, but Vine was still
skeptical.

“A prophet’s voice? What does that sound like?”

Flax opened his mouth to explain, but Ash put up a hand.

“It’s not a prophet’s voice. Is it, Father?”

Rowan shook his head. The other men looked at him. “It is the voice of the dead,” he said.

There was silence. Then Flax spoke, his brow furrowed. “The dead don’t speak.
Can’t
speak.”

Rowan explained reluctantly, not looking at Ash. “Some people have the power to compel the dead to speak. When they do… ‘from
the grave, all speak alike, and it is not easy to hear.’ ”

“But that saying means that the dead are silent!” Snake objected.

Rowan and Ash both shook their heads. The movement was identical, and as Ash realized that his heart contracted inside him.

“No, it doesn’t mean that,” Ash said. “It means that the voice of the dead is terrible.”

“You didn’t think to share this with us, all these years, Rowan?” Skink asked quietly.

Rowan flushed. “It’s not one of the secrets of the Deep,” he said. Ash knew that it would have been his mother’s decision
to keep the information within the family. He was almost certain that he had inherited the ability from her.

“I was told,” Ash said, to distract the men from his father’s discomfort, “that only one in a thousand thousand can compel
the dead to speak.”

“And that’s you, is it?” Vine asked.

“Yes.”

Skink was still gazing at Rowan as though he had betrayed them all. Rowan cleared his throat.

“It is a great blasphemy to compel the dead to speak. It is a power best left unused.” His voice was urgent, utterly convinced.
“That is why we did not teach Ash about his… ability. Blasphemy must be avoided.”

Ash remembered the shame and excitement of standing next to Doronit at Mid-Winter, compelling the ghosts of Turvite to speak.
He remembered the ghost of the girl he had killed, and the stonecaster’s ghost, anxious to help his son and go onto rebirth.

“To compel a ghost to speak is blasphemy,” he said. “But if a ghost wishes to speak, the power can be a blessing.”

It was the first time in his life he had disagreed with his father. Rowan looked at him in surprise.

“I still don’t believe he can sing the songs,” Vine said.

Ash stood up, trying to relax his throat muscles. He knew how he was
supposed
to sing; knew about breath control and pitch and phrasing. But he had not sung aloud since he was a small child, and the
ring of faces was hostile, except for Flax and his father. He felt his gorge rise, and forced it down. Then, deliberately
making it as bad for himself as he could, so there could be nothing worse waiting for him, he chose to sing
The Distant Hills.

As the first note left Ash’s throat, he saw them all flinch. His father kept his head bowed; Flax and the others stared straight
at him, mouths agape. Except for Vine, who looked away and then back again, over and over.

He sang the first two lines, which was more than enough. The grating, stone-ripping-stone sound was magnified by the rock
walls, just as Flax’s voice had been, but with Ash the sound became unbearable, unthinkable, the howling of demons. He watched
their faces. They were horrified. Repelled. Just as he had known they would be.

At the end of the second line Ash fell silent and stood there, waiting.

“So?” Flax said eventually, running out of patience.

“Mmm,” Skink said. “He was on pitch.”

Ash gaped at him. The last thing he had expected was a critique. “I —”

“That’s a voice to make a man’s balls climb up into his gut. But the phrasing wasn’t bad. He was in tune, though it’s not
an easy melody line.” Skink spoke as if Ash were any young singer, come to the Deep to learn the old songs. He had seen the
older men do this, time and again — take a young singer and groom him. He had never expected it to happen to him. He felt
a warm ball of gratitude to Skink grow in his belly.

Vine looked sour. “I don’t care if he can hit the highest note in the scale. He’s a child. He has no stake in the future and
he shouldn’t be taught the songs. That’s the real issue.”

“He doesn’t even know his true self yet!” Snake added.

Ash could see what was happening. Better to keep things the way they always had been. Better to be in control; especially
when the alternative was to give away power to someone strange, like him. Someone incalculable. What he had to do was to make
himself unthreatening: to meet their demands in a way they could accept.

“I have a stake in the future,” he said softly.

They looked at him, puzzled.

“Got some girl pregnant in Turvite, did you?” Vine snapped. “Might have known.”

“No,” Ash said, controlling his impulse to slap Vine backward onto the hard rock. “No, not that. But friends of mine had a
baby last winter. He’s being raised in Hidden Valley, and I have sworn to protect him and his family. He is my stake in the
future.” He paused for a moment, trying to look them all in the eye, one by one, to convince them. “His name is Ash.”

Skink considered, pulling at his lip while he thought. “I will ask you some questions. If the answers are sufficient, then
we will think about the next step.”

“What’s that?” Flax jumped in.

“No man may learn the songs unless he knows his true nature. If we accept that Ash has a stake in the future, he must find
his true shape. Only if the River accepts him can he learn the songs.”

Ash breathed out, hard. Another step, and another step. Fighting was a lot easier.

“When the child was born, what did you feel?” Skink said. Ash knew by his tone that the question was more complicated than
it appeared.

“Well . . .” he said, trying to give himself enough time to think it through, then realizing that all he could do was tell
the truth. “Firstly, just thankfulness that everything was all right; that his mother was safe and he was well.”

The men nodded.

“Then, when I saw him, I felt . . .” Ash paused. What had he felt? “I was surprised, because he was so little and so… red
and scrunched up.”

Some of the men laughed, but it was the laughter of recognition.

“Then he was named for me, and I held him for the first time and I felt… joy. But later, when I thought about it, I felt
afraid. Afraid for him. Afraid of all the things that could happen to him. Like the ghosts. That was when I swore to protect
him.”

His answer poured out of him, each emotion vividly alive again. He was still afraid for little Ash, and it showed, he knew
from the looks on their faces. Rowan had tears in his eyes. But it wasn’t enough.

“Have you sung to him?” Skink asked, putting him in his place.

Ash felt his face harden. “No,” he said.

“And you have left him.” There was condemnation in Skink’s tone. Traveler children were few, and cherished. Rowan placed his
hand on Ash’s shoulder in support and warning. Be calm, he meant. Ash could almost hear the words. He took a breath and let
it out slowly, then answered.

“The gods willed it. Go to the Well of Secrets, they said, and she sent me to find the secret songs.”

“There is one last question. Is the child of the old blood?”

“His mother was a Traveler.”

“Was?”

“She has Settled.”

Skink, Vine and Snake exchanged glances. Vine shrugged, and the other two nodded.

“It is enough,” Skink said. “We declare that Ash, son of Rowan, has a stake in the future in the form of the boychild Ash.”

“When the time comes,” Vine added, “Ash, son of Ash, son of Rowan, will be admitted to the Deep and meet the River.”

“As you will do, tonight,” Skink said, “when you make your climb.”

F
OR A MOMENT
, Bramble wondered whose body she was in. Whosever it was, it was achy and cold, with sleep-encrusted eyes. She wanted to
open those eyes and see, and astonishingly, they opened as soon as she thought it. There were faces staring down at her that
she knew, looking scared and relieved at the same time.

She was back.

Her eyes closed again for a heartbeat, in a mixture of thankfulness and loss, then opened again.

They weren’t on the island anymore, but under the trees. They were holding hands around her, which seemed strange. She was
half-naked under a blanket. As she struggled to sit up, they sprang into life, supporting her, getting her water to drink,
pulling up the blanket which threatened to slip down.

“Are you all right?” Martine asked.

Bramble nodded and swallowed more water. Her mouth was as dry as a Wind Cities’ river in the hot season. “I have to go to
the Western Mountains near Actonston,” Bramble said. No sense wasting time. “That’s where he… where the bones are.” She
turned her thoughts firmly away from Acton’s death to consider how she was going to get there. Forget him, she told herself.
Think about it later.

“I need Zel,” Bramble continued. Her mind was crystal clear, as though she had thought through this plan for days. Perhaps
she had. She had no idea how long it had been since she left Acton.

“I’d rather stay with Safred,” Zel said quietly.

“Maybe. But we’re going to the Western Mountains, and I am not going through Thegan’s territory to get there.”

Safred frowned, pleating the crown of her hat in her hands. “So? How will you go?”

“The sea ice will be breaking up about now. By the time we ride to Foreverfroze it should be free and we can take a ship for
Turvite, then ride up the southern bank of the White River to Actonston.”

They were all silent, surprised.

“So I need Zel,” Bramble repeated. “She’s the only one of you who knows enough about horses to help me on board ship.”

Zel nodded slowly. “You’ll need help, sure enough, if we take those chestnuts. But why will you need more than your own horse?”

“Because I need Cael, too,” Bramble said.

Safred started to argue, but Cael held up one hand. “Why?” he asked.

Bramble hesitated. “The bones are in a cave; maybe thrown down a shaft, I’m not sure. We might need some muscle.”

“We’ll all go,” Safred said.

“How are we going to afford a trip like that?” Cael asked. “We don’t have enough for even Bramble and Zel, let alone all of
us.”

“If we wait a day,” Safred said, her eyes unfocused, “we will meet someone on the Road who will help with that.”