The Tenth Power
KATE CONSTABLE
was born inVictoria but spent much
of her childhood in Papua New Guinea, without television but
within reach of a library. She studied Arts/Law at Melbourne
University before working part-time for a record company.
The Chanters of Tremaris series has been published in the USA,
Japan, Denmark and Slovenia. Kate now lives in Melbourne,
Australia with her husband and two daughters.
The Chanters of Tremaris
BOOK 1
The Singer of All Songs
BOOK 2
The Waterless Sea
BOOK 3
The Tenth Power
Praise for the Chanters of Tremaris series
‘I love the Tremaris series; I can hardly put the books down.’
MELISSA, USA
Praise for
The Singer of All Songs
‘Kate Constable writes with such grace and clarity
that she stands out from the pack.’
SARA DOUGLASS
‘A terrific book, wonderfully written,
with rich and fascinating magic.’
GARTH NIX
Praise for
TheWaterless Sea
‘This fantastic book takes you through a journey of courage,
determination and friendship. The story keeps you guessing and
wanting to read more. If you’re looking for a worthwhile read,
then definitely go for
TheWaterless Sea
.’
BIANCA,
AUSTRALIA
Chanters of Tremaris
BOOK THREE
•
THE
•
TENTH
POWER
KATE
CONSTABLE
First published in 2005
Copyright © Text, Kate Constable 2005
Copyright © Illustrations, Beth Norling 2005
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.
The Australian Copyright Act 1968
(the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or ten per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) under the Act.
Allen & Unwin
83 Alexander St
Crows Nest NSW 2065
Australia
Phone: (61 2) 8425 0100
Fax: (61 2) 9906 2218
Email: [email protected]
Web:
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National Library of Australia
Cataloguing-in-Publication entry:
Constable, Kate, 1966– .
The tenth power.
For children.
ISBN 1 86508 976 1.
I. Title. (Series: Constable, Kate, Chanters of Tremaris; bk. 3).
A823.4
Cover and text design by Sandra Nobes
Cover image: Ice-scape (Roine Magnusson)/Getty Images
Set in 12 pt Centaur by Tou-Can Design
Printed in Australia by McPherson’s Printing Group
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For Michael
Contents
THE AUTUMN NIGHT
was chilly, and the skies over Antaris were black.The three moons had turned their faces away, as if they could not bear to watch the scene below. Even the stars were hidden behind a bank of cloud, and the priestesses stumbled in the uncertain flicker of torchlight.
If the procession had led to the sacred valley there would have been music. The initiation of novices would have been accompanied by solemn, joyful songs, by chimes and drums. But on this night, there were no songs; there was no ritual music for what they were about to do.
The Guardian of the Wall led the way, torch held high. Her plait swung heavy down her back, black and silver intertwined, and her thin lips were pressed together. The sisters followed in silence. The hems of their wide yellow trousers were splashed with mud, dark as bloodstains.
At last the Guardian halted and turned. Behind her towered the Wall, the impenetrable barrier that protected the community of Antaris from the world outside. It was made of ice, high as three men, and wide as the nearby river. The Guardian raised her torch, and theWall reflected glints of fire in its depths: cold fire, without heat or warmth.
The silence of the sisters deepened and widened. Just as they sang together in their rituals, so now they were silent together, and the silence of many was stronger and more dreadful than the silence of one alone. The spit and hiss of the torches seemed unnaturally loud.
The Guardian beckoned, and one of the priestesses stepped from the crowd. She was a strongly built woman of middle age; the flames picked out gleams of red in her dark hair. Her skin was very pale, her face stiff and expressionless, as if carved from white marble. As she moved toward the Guardian, someone sobbed, ‘
No!
’
The Guardian uncorked a small earthenware vial. With unsteady hands, the other priestess took it, tilted back her head and swallowed the liquid within.When she lowered the vial, her lips were stained black. She closed her eyes, and swayed; she reached back and unbound her long hair, shaking it loose around her face in the traditional gesture of mourning. Without a sound, she crumpled to the ground. The little vial rolled away, a few drops of dark bitterthorn brew trickling from it.
The Guardian nodded, and two priestesses wrapped their hands in their cloaks and propped the fallen woman carefully between them.
The Guardian raised her hands in a movement that was more challenge than entreaty. For the space of a breath, two breaths, there was no sound but the crackle of torches, the distant hoot of an owl in the forest, and the rushing of the river. Then, unsteadily, one priestess began the chantment of unmaking.
One after another, the sisters took up the song. Behind the forbidding figure of the Guardian, the Wall began to melt, revealing the deep dark of the forest outside as it dissolved. Some priestesses averted their eyes, either from the black night beyond the Wall, or from the pale, slumped body of their sister, or both. Hidden in the centre of the crowd, someone was weeping.
When the breach in the Wall was large enough, the Guardian held up her hands to halt the chantment. The two sisters clumsily manoeuvred the limp body into the gap. The Guardian sang a swift chantment, and a husk of ice swam up to enclose the body and hold it erect.Without pausing in her song, the Guardian gestured to the assembled sisters to begin a new chantment.
The spell of strengthening was faint and reluctant at first. But as more of the sisters joined in, the ice slowly thickened, and the body of the red-haired priestess was sealed in the very heart of the Wall. The Guardian lifted her hands, and the chantment ceased.
‘It is done.’ Her low words fell like stones into an icy pool. ‘Now let us sing the song of mourning for our beloved sister Athala. We sing the song for those who die in childbed, giving life. Our brave sister has given us all the gift of life, this night.’
The Daughters of Taris loosed their hair around their shoulders, and took up the lamentation, singing now with their whole hearts, drawing comfort from the familiar ritual. Many of the sisters wept, and covered their faces with their yellow shawls.The procession turned, with the Guardian at its head, and wound its way swiftly back toward the Dwellings.
Only one priestess lingered, the chill breath of night on her face as she gazed at the lifeless body within the ice. ‘Taris, Lady Mother!’ she whispered. ‘Deliver us from this darkness!’ She scanned the sky, but the lowering clouds still veiled the stars. Winter was coming. Shivering, the priestess rubbed her hands together.They were so cold – and her feet were cold, too.
The priestess stifled a sob, and she stumbled after the others along the path to the Dwellings, where she had always known safety and welcome. But her home was safe no longer.
THE FOREST WAS
a sheet of white, streaked with charcoal and daubed with blue shadow. Snowdrifts were heaped beneath the trees, and each twig was outlined with a silvery coat of frost. Day after day the freeze had continued, and the sky was a clear, crisp blue. Here and there, the tracks of birds and burrowers marked the coverlet of snow, but bears and other animals dozed, waiting for the sun’s warmth to wake them.They could not know that this winter had lasted too long, and the time for spring’s return had already passed.
The only sign of movement in the vast silence of the forest came from three small figures, stark shadows against the snow, their breath puffing in the air.
Calwyn tucked the end of her dark plait securely into the hood of her fur-lined cloak and kicked snow over the remains of the fire. Smoke and steam rose with a hiss. It was midday, but the sunlight was weak and watery where it filtered through the trees.
Calwyn’s face ached with the cold, and her eyes were sore from squinting into the glare. Under her cloak, she wore a padded jacket, thick trousers and several layers of woollen undershirts and tunics. A sharp hunting knife hung from a sheath at her belt, and she wore a small wooden hawk on a silver chain around her throat. Rabbit-skin mittens protected her hands and a woollen scarf partly hid her face. Her dark eyes stared out beneath straight eyebrows, level and watchful. Calwyn did not often smile, these days.
Balanced on iron blades strapped to her boots, Calwyn crunched across the snow to where her companions squatted by the bank of the frozen river. She was taller, stronger, and, at eighteen, a little older than her two young friends. This was her journey. She was taking them to the place she thought of as home: Antaris, locked away behind its great Wall of Ice. They had been travelling for more than twenty days, almost a turn of the moons. They’d been lucky with the weather; in all that time the freeze had held, and there had been no snowstorms. But even so, the journey from the coastal city of Kalysons had not been easy: they had skated along the shore of the Bay of Sardi – frozen across for the first time in living memory – then upriver through the mountains.