The Tenth Power (26 page)

Samis’s eyes were squeezed shut, his face grey, showing none of Calwyn’s exhilaration. Calwyn realised that his voice had failed; she was singing alone. The vast swooping ship was under her control.

Swiftly, subtly, she changed her song, and the ship angled to the ground and swung so low that it barely skimmed the treetops. The flat, silver-lit, winding river was just below. In one smooth movement, Calwyn wrenched herself from her chair and dived onto the long, low shelf that ran beneath the curving window. As she sang, she clung to a section of the silver shelf. She altered the chantment again, and the shelf tore free and was hurled at the window. Calwyn ducked her head and braced for the shattering of glass, but the window parted and re-sealed as she hurtled through it, like the membrane of a soap bubble.

The icy air outside made her gasp. The long silver shelf plunged with Calwyn clinging to it, her hair streaming behind her. She sang out, and the shelf swooped, clear of the ship, down toward the treetops. Just as her feet brushed the snowy twigs, the shelf levelled, and paused. Calwyn hung in mid-air for a heartbeat, then crashed down, knocking the snow from the intermeshed branches as she fell.

The deep snow broke her fall. She tumbled against a tree trunk, scratched and bruised, but not badly hurt. Instantly she scrambled up. Only the space of a breath had passed since she’d torn herself from the high-backed chair. The ship was still afloat, directly above Calwyn’s head, a huge, round silver platter. It was as if one of the moons leaned across the gulfs of sky to aim a drunken kiss at the face of Tremaris. The ship’s pocked and pitted underside was so low it blotted out the sky; and it was slowly falling closer. Calwyn threw back her head and sang with all her power.

The strength of the chantment surged up through her body, as if the whole sphere of Tremaris pushed behind her. Her voice was stronger and more confident than it had ever been, the double notes of ironcraft buzzing from her lips. Magic crackled from her raised fingertips and shot out to repel the silver shape that had been Spareth, the vessel that had carried theVoiced Ones across the stars.

The silver platter hovered and steadied. And then, slowly, it began to retreat. A dark fringe of night sky appeared around its edge, a margin that grew steadily bigger as the silver disc moved higher and higher.When it was the size of her hand, Calwyn felt her first twinge of doubt. Ironcraft worked by pushing from the ground. As the ship moved further away, would the chantment buckle and let the ship crash down? Would a chantment of the winds be safer?

But the magic coursing through her was still strong, and she sang on, thrusting the ship higher. Now it was the size of the largest moon at harvest time; now it was as small as her thumbnail. Suddenly Calwyn felt the connection snap. The power of ironcraft had stretched as far as it could. Calwyn held her breath as she stared up through the lacework of twigs overhead.

But the ship did not fall. The tiny silver ball gathered a cloak of blue fire around itself.Was Samis performing some chantment? Had he helped her to thrust the ship away? There were secrets of Spareth that Calwyn did not know, devices and machines Samis had never shown her.

The small, bright sphere did not grow any larger. The ring of blue fire that licked around it flared briefly. And then it streaked away across the night, trailing a spectacular tail of blue and green flame. In a moment it was gone, swallowed up into the darkness between the stars, the same darkness it had come from so long ago.

Calwyn stood staring up at the sky. She thought of Samis, alone in that huge vessel, hurtling past the moons and out into the vast ocean of stars. He would be staring from the window in the round tower through his swollen eyes, watching the green-blue marble of Tremaris shrink smaller and smaller, knowing that he could never return. He would sail that empty ocean forever, a lonely man wandering the rooms and storehouses of his deserted ship. Had she understood him, was that truly what he had asked of her? If he were not already mad, such a life would surely make him so.

Calwyn shivered.
It is not easy to be alone…my queen, my empress
…
She covered her face with her hands.

Then she swept the tears from her face. Her arm ached; she had bruised it when she fell. She laid her other hand on the hurt place.Though she barely made the effort to summon the Power of Becoming, the tips of her fingers tingled with sudden magic, and the flesh of her arm grew warm. Instantly the soreness was gone. The scratches were not worth healing, but she soothed a swelling on her ankle and sealed up a deeper cut on her shin.

Her eye was caught by a dark shape against the snow: the Wheel had fallen from her pocket, and she bent to retrieve it. Marna had valued it: for that reason alone, she should treat it with respect. Gently she brushed the snow from its surface, and as if in response to her touch, a carved pattern flowered about the rim of the disc. She had never noticed any carving before – then she remembered the faint pits and scratches that had always marked the Wheel’s surface. But until now, they had been meaningless. It was too dark to see clearly; the pattern was very faint, only just perceptible beneath her fingertips.

Calwyn sang one of the deep, resonant chantments of fire that she had practised with Samis, and a small yellow-white globe of light blossomed at her shoulder. She tilted theWheel carefully to make out the carvings, and as the light struck the rim of the disc, she saw that the marks were indeed signs of the Tenth Power.

Calwyn traced the symbols with her finger, sounding each sign as she’d learned. It was not a chantment, only a string of words.

When the Singer of all Songs shall dance, and the dancers shall sing, then
will be the coming of the Goddess, and the healing of the world. For this
world breathes chantment as we breathe the air, and drinks in the dance like
water, and the song and the dance are one music.

Calwyn lowered theWheel. This was the secret! This was the message locked in the signs of theTenth Power, the answer that Marna had known was there. But what did it mean?
The
dancers shall sing
…The only dancers Calwyn knew were the healers of theTree People. And they had no voices, they could not sing. It made no sense.

‘Taris, help me!’ Calwyn whispered. But the Goddess did not answer.

Calwyn’s hands were numb with cold; she sang a chantment that shook the ball of light and warmth into a gossamer cloak that she could wrap around herself.
The Singer shall dance, and the
dancers shall sing.
Whoever had made the Wheel knew the worship of the Goddess, and the Tree People’s Power of Becoming.Was the message simply a plea for harmony between the two peoples of Tremaris? But Calwyn felt certain that the words held a more particular meaning.

She smiled faintly as she remembered how Briaali had warned her against wasting time on ‘idle prophecies’…Briaali – An echo of memory chimed in Calwyn’s mind. Briaali had said something else that night. Calwyn had not paid much attention at the time, and now she struggled to remember the wise woman’s words.

In the wake of the storm, the night was clear and cold, and Calwyn gazed up through the trees at a slice of dark sky and a sprinkling of stars. She recognised the constellation of the Bell that gleamed in springtime skies. Though it was still deep winter below, the stars wheeled in their proper patterns above, following their stately dance.

There were great dances here, in the old days. The lively figures painted on the walls of the cave by the Knot of the Waters.

Dancers twirling and stamping their feet, lit by the flickering of the scattered fires. The murmur of music, the beat of drums, the call of flutes. And the distant sound of voices, all the sisters of Antaris singing together.

It was all one,
one music
, the singing and the dance, the magic weaving ice and fire, wind and iron, the spark of life and the cold breath of stone.

The three whirlpools, the three twining waters, surging together to form one knotted, living whole.

The light of the stars, the light in the depths of the Knot of theWaters, the living light bursting inside Calwyn’s heart.

Briaali’s voice echoed:
Hand to hand, the world’s circle danced, the
people, the trees, the land, the sea, the moons, the stars. . .without beginning,
without end…
This world breathes chantment, and drinks in the dance.

And Mica’s song, an old song of the Isles where she was born.
From the river, the sea; from the sea, the rains; from the rains, the
river…

Her mother, her father, their love merging as the whirlpools merged, to create new life, Calwyn’s life, child of two strands of magic.

A clear note suddenly rang across the heavens, like a chime struck with a small silver hammer. Calwyn was lying on her back in the snow, but she didn’t feel the cold as she stared up with wide eyes. The brightest star at the top of the Bell, the star called Lenari, flared blue-white, then faded gold as the sweet note faded. One by one, the stars rang out, each one glowing brightly as it sang. Calwyn lay breathless beneath the song of the stars, watching as the pattern of their song was picked out across the dark of the sky, each note a sign etched in silver, marked with gold.

Calwyn opened her arms, and the music of the stars and the forest wrapped around her and carried her into the light.

WHEN SHE WOKE,
her head was spinning. She stood and brushed the snow from her clothes. She was barely cold; she could only have been dreaming for a moment. She threw back her head and shouted for joy, there in the middle of the forest. ‘Darrow! Halasaa! My dear ones, I know what we must do!’ She knew they were too far away to hear, even with mind-speech, but the words sang themselves though her whole body.

She knew how to preserve Tremaris and its chanters. She knew it as surely as she knew the chantments of ice-call, knew it deep in her bones, etched in her soul with signs of golden fire.Whether the Goddess had spoken to her, or the spirits of the Knot of the Waters, or some ancient chantment of the Wheel, she did not know, and it did not matter.

Calwyn tucked theWheel reverently inside her jacket, then twisted her hair into a long rope, and wound it around her head. Her mother’s carved comb was still safe in her pocket, and she pushed it into place. She held her head high. It was as Samis had said: she was no longer a little girl.

It was time to go. She had no cloak, no provisions, no skate-blades, nothing. She had no cloud-boat, no sled –

She spun around. The long section of silver shelving had landed some distance away. And she was not far from the river.

With a chantment on her lips, the Singer of all Songs began her journey.

thirteen
The Flight of the Goddess

THE CAPTIVES MARCHED
through the wilderness, roped in a long line behind the victorious warriors. Trout and Tonno were tightly gagged at first, and treated warily. On the second day, Briaali demanded that Sibril remove their gags.
How can
they eat and drink with their mouths stopped?

Sibril was unmoved.
I cannot risk it.

Young fool! Not allVoiced Ones make magic with their mouths.These are
not chanters, but ordinary men.

You are the fool if you believe their lies, old mother. The chanters must
die.

Briaali lost her temper.
If these two were chanters, they would have
used magic to fight you when they had the chance. You would not allow a
beast of the forest to starve thus.

Be silent, old one! You have no authority here. I am the leader!

Briaali held up her hands and said nothing more, but the next morning one of the warriors removed the gags. Tonno and Trout were allowed to eat and drink their fill, but as soon as Tonno began to speak, the alarmed warrior jabbed him in the ribs with a spear-tip and roughly pulled the gags back on.

Trout reflected miserably that all the other hardships – the forced march through the forest, the inadequate food and warmth, the chafing of the ropes – did not make him feel as helpless as being unable to speak. If only he could have one brief conversation with Tonno, he thought as he stumbled through the snow, the rest would be bearable.

Seven days after their capture, much sooner thanTrout and Tonno had expected, they came to theWall of Ice.When the great rampart of ice reared out of the forest before them, every one of the Spiridrelleen, warriors and Briaali’s followers alike, reeled back in dread and wonder. Trout shivered, and Tonno felt a prickle of hope. Surely it would be impossible for the Tree People, armed only with spears, and without the power of chantment, to pierce this immense barrier.

A few warriors approached the Wall and stared up at it speculatively. Trout and Tonno exchanged a horrified glance and began to jerk the rope and stamp their feet, trying to catch Sibril’s attention.
The Voiced Ones wish to speak!
cried Briaali with mind-speech, but the warriors ignored her, too.