The Spellcoats (17 page)

“It's only paint,” said Duck as he moored our boat to the great chain that held the black ship to the bottom of the sea. Hern hoisted himself up it, onto the deck. Duck looked at me and put the Lady into his shirt, under his rugcoat. I did the same with the Young One before we followed Hern.

The floor of the ship was black and smelled of tar. Overhead it was like a winter forest—ropes upon ropes hanging from masts that were trees braced with iron hoops. There was no one to be seen. But a number of large wicker baskets stood along the sides. Duck opened one. He sprang back, and so did Hern and I, when a host of the almost unseen winged things whirled up out of it, with a noise like roaring flames. They did not hurt us. They flew in a stream over the side of the ship and vanished seaward.

Before we had recovered from the shock of that, a door in the high black stern flew open. Heathens dashed out of it, shouting, “Who are you? What do you think you're doing?”

These were mages. I knew it. When Uncle Kestrel first told us of the Heathen enchanters and their battle spells, I had imagined ugly yellow-haired men with large mauve noses, creased cheeks, and crooked mouths. It surprised me that Tanamil and, later, Kars Adon were not like that. But these men were just like my imaginings. It makes me think a man does not become a Heathen mage unless he is too unpleasant to find friends any other way. They wore gowns that trailed, which they had to hold up as they ran shouting toward us. I was very frightened and clutched the Young One under my rugcoat.

I think Hern had learned from Kars Adon. He stood there calmly and bowed to them a little as they rushed toward us. This made them pause. They did not lay hold of us—as they had meant to when they first saw us—but they crowded threateningly round. With all those ugly faces so close, I do not think Hern was as calm as he looked.

“What do you brats want?” they demanded.

“We are mages with a message from Kars Adon,” Hern said. “May we speak to Kankredin if you please?”

The ugly faces circled round us, arguing. “These aren't mages.” “Yes, they are. They came through the net.” “He won't want to be bothered with brats!” “Put a weight spell on them and tip them overboard.” I was very confused. While they milled around us, I kept seeing words and scraps of sentences. Each of them had sayings woven in his gown. It seems they had this art, too. They were large words, and boastful.
I tortured the beast in
—I read.
I took the eyes off Sandar.
Then again:—
made jewels where none were in
—and—
three dead in one spell
and
I sent the hidden death
. It was enough to make one ill.

“Silence!” someone boomed at the other end of the ship. “What is this?”

“Three brats saying they're mages, sir,” someone called.

“Did they pass through the net?” the voice boomed.

“Yes, sir. Ladri's shouting about it from the soulboat, sir.”

“Then I suppose I'd better see them,” roared the voice. “Bring them in.”

We were hustled along the deck and through the door at the end. There was a room there with hammocks slung from big beams, but we went straight through that into another room right in the stern. This room had a big window looking on the sea, and one empty chair—a good chair, much better than Kars Adon's. They pushed us in front of it and stood milling behind.

“Some of you get out!” boomed Kankredin. He was sitting in the chair. It was empty till then.

I had thought, after seeing that net of souls, that nothing could frighten me anymore, but I was wrong. Kankredin was not Tanamil. He was not young. He was old—old in the way a stone is old, hard and lasting and as if he had never been otherwise. And like a stone when you turn it over in the earth, a coldness breathed off him. He froze my skin and lifted the hairs on my arms even before I looked at him properly.

It was not easy to look at him. The coldness of him numbed my eyes. I think he had a wriggly gray sheet of hair on either side of his face, and that the top of his head was bald and gray with dirt, with one or two big pink lumps on it. That is what you notice first when a person is sitting down. Then he lifted his face, numbingly, and it seemed to be a plump face, with the eyes thick-lidded, in folds. But as soon as I met his eyes, the face grew and removed itself, to seem large and faint and far away. Hern says he can still see it like that when he closes his eyes, but he cannot tell what he sees. It is the same for me. I remember his voice better, telling the mages to get out. It sounded out of his great chest and belly like the clapper in a bell. But it was a bell in the distance. The voice did not seem to come from Kankredin's mouth. It came clanging from a way off, sounding of fear and horror, defeat and death. As soon as I heard it, I knew we were standing in front of a great evil, and I saw we were mad to have come without the One.

The thing I saw most clearly was the gown Kankredin was swathed in. It was long and voluminous. Unlike the gowns of the other mages, his was woven all over with words, from collar to hem, and the words were much larger and looser than I would weave them. At first I could not look at those words. They leaped from the cloth, close and violent, as if they would do damage to anyone who read them. I had to turn my eyes aside. It was too hard to see Kankredin and too easy to see his gown.

I know Kankredin was not Tanamil. Yet I had, all through, a strong feeling that Tanamil was close by. I looked round for him among the other mages, but these had all left the room by then, except for
I tortured the beast
and
hidden death
.

“Well?” Kankredin clanged out, looking up at us. “You passed through the net without losing your souls, and I daresay you think yourselves mighty clever. What way did you do it?”

It came to me then that we had, most oddly, arrived on the far side of the net, but I could not say how this was. Duck said airily, “I think it may be a spell you don't know.”

“There are no spells that I don't know,” Kankredin thundered out of the distance. “Have you any means of stopping me taking your soul now you're here? Eh?”

“I don't know until you try,” Duck said.

“Then we shall see,” said Kankredin. “I see you fancy yourself as a mage, boy. Not much of a one, by the looks of it. What's that spell on the edge of that extraordinary native garment you're wearing?”

Duck lifted the sleeve of his rugcoat. Hern's and mine are plain, but Duck, because he was the youngest, has bands at the wrist, very faded now, which say
Duck
many times, in all the duck colors. Duck was annoyed to have such a babyish thing noticed. “Just my name,” he said crossly.

“Pretty poor stuff, eh?” said Kankredin. “And a silly name. And you, girl—turn round and let me see it—what on earth is
that
on your skirt? Eh?”

I was very much ashamed, and angry, too. That skirt of Robin's is my worst piece of weaving ever. It says
A man came over the hill
muddle muddle
lady in the mill
muddle muddle. Then it takes a step down and goes, muddle
from the river
muddle
lived forever
. Terrible. In two broad bands round the bottom. The ugly mages both sniggered as they read it, and Kankredin chuckled. His laughter was as bad as his voice. It had such echoes of cruelty that it made me think someone was being tortured behind his chair.

“What kind of spell do you call that?” he boomed.

“It's a nursery rhyme!” I said angrily.

“In baby talk,” said Kankredin. He turned, laughing and torturing, to Hern. “At least you have the sense to go plain,” he said.

“I have a message for you,” said Hern. It was an odd thing. Duck and I were never as troubled by Kankredin as Hern was. He was pale from the beginning, and before long, he was sweating and breathing heavily. Duck and I each had our Undying, of course, but I think Hern's trouble was more than that. Hern still thought he could fight Kankredin with reason. Reason was overthrown when we saw the souls struggle in the net, but Hern would not admit it. “I've come from Kars Adon—” he began.

“What does that stupid boy want now? Eh?” said Kankredin. He had a terrible way of saying “Eh?” It dragged at you for an answer and bullied you even if you meant to answer. If you resolved to say nothing, you still found you were replying to that “Eh?”

“I am to tell you,” Hern said, as if he were struggling, “that Kars Adon is going inland today. He says—”

“He can go, and be eaten by the natives, then,” said Kankredin. “I can't be bothered with him. If he had stayed, I'd have let him share my victory, but as it is, I'll make do with the natives. Was that all? Eh?”

“No,” said Hern, struggling still. “I want to know what you think you're doing to the River.”

“What impertinence is this?” Kankredin boomed, rising to his feet. “Eh?” The cold that came off him made us step back.

Now I must explain that I do not remember well what was said after this point because it was then that I started to read Kankredin's gown. I have to rely on Duck's memory, which is good, but not as good as mine. Hern confesses that from then on his mind felt as if he had his head underwater. His ears were roaring. He remembers little except a struggle with Kankredin to keep his soul.

My reading started first, idly, as Kankredin stood up. As I stepped back, I saw at his left shoulder
I, Kankredin, mage of mages, have set these spells to conquer and confound this land
. It was just level with my eyes. After that, I had to read on.
First I studied deeply,
I read,
to find where the soul and substance of the land lay, for there only may a land be truly conquered. And soon I came to conclude that the soul of the land lies in the one mighty river, which, with his tributary, waters all the country. This river
—this is correct, for he used all through the common weaving for
river
, not the one Tanamil taught me
—this river lies at his source, coiled, I conceive, like a snake or a dragon. Him I catch with this net of words, between sleeping and waking, and bind him fast. But his strength is not yet
—

Here Kankredin sat down, and the next lines were lost in the fold between his belly and his legs. I had to move on to his left thigh.

Meanwhile, Duck tells me, Kankredin was abusing Hern for daring to ask what he was doing to the River. “I am working night and day with the River, bringing his waters down to drown the natives, cleansing the land for us, and you have the gall to stand there asking what I
think
I'm doing!”

Duck answered, seeing Hern struggling and panting, that it was generally thought the River was angry.

“Angry? Of course he's angry!” Kankredin thundered. “He's fighting me tooth and nail. But I'm winning. I have him in a stranglehold, and he won't escape.” Duck says Kankredin roared on in this way for some time. Duck listened scornfully because he was sure Kankredin had no idea of the truth about the River. This was just how I felt, reading Kankredin's gown, though Kankredin was saying one thing to Duck and another on his gown.

—
come to my terms,
was the next thing I read.
Thus I keep him tame and pull from him the vital strength of the land. But he has been cunning and fixed his strength in certain of the souls of his people. When I knew this, I sent forth my mages to battle to seek these souls.

The weaving was large and loose. The next part was on Kankredin's right shoulder.
Then I put my first command on this river that he yield up to me these souls, which he was not willing to do. We strive, and he turns rotten with the effort, bringing sickness, for which I curse him
—Kankredin had pulled the gown up into folds here, at the top of his right leg. I stared and stared, but I could only pick out disjointed fragments at the surfaces of the folds—
refuses the land his waters … hides his souls from me … send forth greater strength … by this I invoke total power
—

“Why do you think I put up the soulnet?” Kankredin roared, as Duck tells me.

“To catch the natives' souls, I suppose,” Duck said. “Did you know that quite a lot of the souls were getting through?”

This made Kankredin very annoyed, though he tried not to show it. “So you have mage sight,” he said scornfully. “Quite a lot of people can see souls without being mages. Are you telling me to use a smaller mesh? Eh?”

“You'd catch more if you did,” said Duck. “What do you do with them?”

“Never you mind,” said Kankredin. “That net is a charm on the River, not a soul trap in any strict sense.”

“I see,” said Duck. Not that he did, he says. But he was enjoying himself, I could tell. I remember thinking, as I stared at Kankredin's gown, that I had seldom seen Duck more confident.

Then, pulled up on to Kankredin's thigh, I read:
and thus we took one with such a soul, outwitting the river by accident, I confess, since his captors had thought he was a clansman like themselves
. I knew he was talking about Gull. I read furiously.
The river would not yield me the soul of the lad, though we strove for three days. But I am cunning. I examined the lad and turned his soul about in my mind. I find his soul is more than the river. It is part of the ancient life behind the river
.