Authors: Jude Fisher
‘Da, Da, please stop!’
‘I am in the mood for no more words,’ Aran said shortly, not slowing his pace.
‘You must take me to Sanctuary!’ Katla pleaded, all her carefully-worded arguments put to flight by her desperation. ‘Please, Da: don’t sail without me. I couldn’t bear it!’ She grabbed his sleeve.
Now Aran Aranson came to a halt. He turned and took his daughter by the arms. His face looked harrowed. ‘Do you so want to die?’ he asked.
‘I will die if I am left here,’ Katla declared dramatically.
Her father sighed. ‘We are too alike,’ he said after a long silence.
Katla held her breath, wondering what would come next.
‘You want no marriage; and I have none.’
His daughter frowned. ‘What do you mean?’ A cold dread suddenly gripped at her stomach.
Aran gave a short, harsh laugh. ‘Your mother has cast me off: declared us man and wife no more.’
Katla’s mouth fell open. In the Northern Isles a woman could divorce her husband for three reasons: for infidelity, for insanity, or for violence against her. Surely it must be for the second of these, a quarrel over his obsessive expedition? It might seem insanity, in the midst of an argument; but Bera couldn’t truly mean it. ‘Oh, Da,’ she said. Then: ‘But you know Mother’s temper: she’ll have calmed down by now; she always does—’
‘Your Uncle Margan is overseeing the settlement.’
He stated it so flatly she knew it must be so. She did not know what to think: her parents, living apart from one another? Maybe even taking other marriage partners? It seemed unthinkable, as if the world had suddenly changed shape. Suddenly, the notion of the voyage seemed a nonsense. ‘And you’re still going to Sanctuary?’ she blurted out.
Aran gave a single, curt nod. ‘I have my pride.’ His eyes gleamed in the moonlight. When he turned them upon her, they shone so silver it was like looking into the gleaming, empty orbits of an afterwalker. ‘If you still want a place on the expedition, it is yours,’ he said simply, then walked on, leaving her standing in the dangerous backwash of his anger.
Katla felt the breath rush out of her. An hour ago; ten minutes, even, it was all she had dreamed of; but now? He did it to strike back at her mother, she knew that much instinctively; to demonstrate his power and the rightness of his quest. She felt boneless, dazed by the choice she must make: to go, and by doing so acquiesce in the madness that had already destroyed their family; or to stay at home with an angry, grieving woman and knuckle down as a dutiful daughter?
Katla knew which alternative she should choose; as a daughter, and as a woman. But she also knew that if she remained on Rockfall, her spirit would dwindle and chafe. ‘I will go with you!’ she shouted after Aran Aranson’s retreating back. But if he heard her, he gave no sign of it.
Dawn the following morning found Katla climbing steep ground with a coil of rope draped over her shoulder. Sense had, for once, prevailed over instinct: and so she had eschewed her favourite route to the summit of the Hound’s Tooth, via the precipitous seaward face, in favour of the old folks’ route, as she thought of it, and was strolling up the well-worn path to the top of the headland at a leisurely pace. Just what her brother had in mind for their challenge when she got there, she did not know, or even much care: it was good to be up and out of the steading, away from all the acrimony and gossip. Perhaps she and Fent could just sit in the early sun and talk about the split between their mother and father, and maybe find some way to mediate between the two of them; persuade Aran to put off the expedition by a few days, or at least until they had made some reconciliation. Even so, she had packed her seachest against the possibility of a noon sailing. And had, of course, not slept a wink.
She was surprised to find her brother already there; and even more surprised to find that he had for some bizarre reason toiled up the path with a heavy wooden chair, which he was now sitting in, like some landless king. She stared at him, dumbfounded. ‘What on Elda have you brought that here for?’ she demanded.
Fent, lolling in his self-styled throne, barely acknowledged her presence, but gazed out over the wide ocean as if he had not a care in the world. ‘Fine view, isn’t it?’ he said laconically after a while.
Katla frowned. Her twin had never been much interested in scenery. Annoyance made her spiteful. ‘How can you sit there, with everything that is going on?’
Fent turned his head lazily in her direction ‘There’s not much I can do about it, is there? They’ll make it up: they always have before. Besides, I’ve other things to think about.’ With a sudden surge of energy he came upright out of the chair. ‘I see you were not so caught up in all the drama that you forgot to bring the rope,’ he observed. ‘So let’s get our contest underway.’
She regarded him curiously. ‘Well, I am intrigued. What is the nature of the challenge you have for me?’
‘Knot-tying,’ Fent announced cheerfully. ‘You said I didn’t know “a bowline from a reef, or a carrick from a clove hitch”. So I have devised a game to test our respective skills in that quarter.’
‘Actually,’ Katla corrected him crossly, ‘what I said was that at least I did. I only
implied
you didn’t.’ She grinned. ‘But I know you don’t!’
Instead of rising to this bait, Fent sat himself down in the chair again and laid his forearms along its wooden frame. ‘I will free myself from any knots you care to bind me with.’
‘Ha!’
‘And then, you must win free of mine.’
Too easy
, Katla thought gleefully. It was a game they had played as children, and Fent always lost. But perhaps he had been practising. She decided to go easy with him: after all, they would be sharing a long, rough passage if the
Long Serpent
did sail at noon, and there was no point in there being bad blood between them if it could be helped. She uncoiled her rope: a fine but sturdy length of twisted sealskin bound with horsehair which gave the cord a certain elasticity as well as considerable strength, and made a beginning by looping an end around the arm of the chair. Leaving a good tail on the rope to make a solid stopper, she bound his arm to the chair in a series of running hitches, then passed the rope twice around his waist and the back of the frame, lifted one of the legs so that she could slip a securing knot to keep the bands in place, then set to work on an elaborate combination of bowlines and sheep-knots. Eventually, she finished the process with a neat fisherman’s, using the spare tail of rope, and stood back to admire her handiwork. Not too difficult; but it would surely take him a while to extricate himself.
Fent bared his teeth at her, and his features were as sharp and cunning as a fox’s. ‘Go sit in the sun, small sister. I’ll be with you shortly.’
Katla shrugged and moved away. Her favourite boulder beckoned: it lay in a pool of sunshine which made the rosettes of yellow lichen that bloomed upon it shine like golden coins. There was a depression in the granite into which you could just insert a shoulder and lay your head: it was remarkably comfortable, for a rock.
How long she dozed, she did not know, but when she came awake at last it was because the chill of a shadow had fallen over her. She opened her eyes and found her brother staring down at her. She scrambled upright, surprised. The rope lay on the ground around the chair and showed no sign of unfair tampering.
‘I’m impressed,’ she said.
‘You should be,’ he returned. ‘It took a good deal of working out. Now it’s your turn.’
It was in Katla’s mind to call off the challenge and let him win, for there was something in his expression she could not place. Not for the first time, it occurred to her that her twin – who had for most of her life seemed an extension of herself, as she was of him – had lately become a separate being entirely, as alien and unknowable as the strangest stranger. But the stubborn core of her would not allow him the simple satisfaction. She took his place in the chair and watched with a small smile as her brother tied a series of utterly inept knots.
‘Call that a carrick-bend—’ she started, when suddenly there was something in her mouth, and the smell of earth and sweat assailed her. Powerful hands grabbed her from behind and then another rope went around her – not her own, which confused her mightily – but a thick rope of twisted hemp; and to confound her further, Fent was still in front of her; so who—
The man who had bound her to the chair rather more expertly than her twin stepped now into view. She glared at him over the clout of cloth they had rammed into her mouth, and was only slightly surprised not to recognise him. He was tall and sinewy, with the dark skin of a seasoned mariner and his blond hair worn in a tumble of dirty-looking curls. A large silver earring gleamed in one ear. Fent clapped the man on the shoulder. ‘Nice one, Marit. I’d say you’ve earned your place on the
Serpent
, wouldn’t you?’
The other man grinned widely and Katla saw he was missing his two front teeth. ‘I’ll knock the rest out, you bastard!’ she cried, struggling against the rope, but all that emerged was a muffled groan; and the knots gave not a whit.
Her twin placed himself firmly in front of the chair, his blue eyes sparking malice. ‘As I said, it’s a fine view from here. A perfect vantage point for watching the
Long Serpent
sail out. Thanks to Marit Fennson’s expertise, I doubt you’ll be able to free yourself, for if you struggle too much, the knots will merely tighten. I dare say someone will think to look for you up here after a while. Or perhaps they won’t. Though if you’re left for long enough without sustenance you may shed sufficient flesh that you can slip your bonds and crawl back down into Rockfall. It will, at the least, give you plenty of time to remember the occasion when you and my beloved dead brother knocked me over the head and tied me to the pillar in the barn with this same gag in my mouth, so that you could steal my place aboard the
Snowland Wolf
.
‘You’ll not make a fool of me again for a long time, sister. Fare well.’
Twenty
Flight
In the wake of the destruction of the crystal and the confusion that followed, Virelai took the back stairs down to the yard two at a time, his feet sliding on the age-polished slate, palms pressed against the walls for balance. Only one other person in all of the castle wore gloves like those the seeing-stone had offered up to him in its sudden flash of vision before it had shown the gathered company the Rose of the World flaunting her great belly before the northern court; and while the others were transfixed by that remarkable sight, Virelai had been shocked rigid by that prior, very ordinary glimpse.
Saro Vingo was making his escape from Jetra.
Virelai felt his new-formed plan – so elegant, so perfect – slipping away. It had all seemed to fit into place with the precision of one of the beautifully engineered wooden puzzles they sold for the delectation of rich children in Cera’s summer market, and the moodstone the boy carried was its key. Or, as the grimoire he had stolen from Rahe’s great library would term it, ‘the eldistan’. After his first terrifying encounter with the boy in Jetra’s Star Chamber, Virelai had become fascinated by the trinket Saro wore with such apparent ease around his neck, and had searched through every line of the mage’s book until he had found this entry:
‘In
Natural Alchemia
(Idin Haban c. Swan Year 953) there is mention of moodstones/channel-stones, called in the regions of the far south of the mts, whence such stones most often derive, “eldistaner”. Extremely mutable in their properties,’ he had read in Rahe’s swift and spidery hand. ‘Only “youngest” are simple moodstones – for amusing diversion only. Display in outwd fashion passing whims & fancies of one who holds it in his/her hand. Takes warmth fm holder’s skin. May take on hues which differ greatly fm nat. state.
‘Chart shows my own findings:
White = Death
Grey = Emptiness of Mind; failing health
Cyan = Serenity
Green = Wholeness
Yellow = Sickness; tho pale Gold = Wellbeing (further obs. req.)
Vermilion = Anxiety/Fear/Disruption of Humours
Carmine = Rage
Violet – in its harsh form = Turbulence of Emotion; if tending towards the blue, denotes Intellectual Activity.’
There followed more in this vein which Virelai had passed over impatiently. The next entry which caught his eye had been this:
‘“Elder Eldistaner. Ejected fm deep veins of the earth, typically fm feet or crown of fire-mts, and most esp. from area surrounding Red Pk, where the Heart of Elda lies.” Larger than usual, darker, and when polished shows compact, smooth grain. Weighs more heavily in hand and can feel warm even when untouched for hrs. Idin Haban spks of telling future w some such; others open mind of holder to viewer, and one esp. pwrful stone enabled him to make fire by channelling sorcery. Have w much magecraft channelled sufficient heat to effect burning of cockroaches, sparrows and rats, even once a seal to ashes, but V’s mind remains closed to me, if mind he has.’
This made Virelai wince. Had Rahe truly made him the subject of one of these experiments and if so, when had this occurred, and why did he have no recollection of it? It was possible, he mused, that the stone had erased the memory, and there was, as far as he knew, no other being to whom the Master might refer as ‘V’. But the idea that the mage had regarded him as so expendable that he would risk his well-being so – or, worse, even wished his destruction – disturbed him greatly. It was as if he were no more to the old man than the cockroaches, sparrows or rats Rahe had so blithely listed. The thought made him seethe and doubt the wisdom of the course of action he was determined on; so he had pushed the doubt away and continued to read.
There then followed a detailed list of every bird, animal and sea-creature which the Master had managed to reduce to cinder, together with the periods of recovery required after each such act. Further down the next page, Virelai had come upon this note:
‘More remarkable is Xanon’s account in his
History of the Ancient World
, ch. 13 “Among the Nomads” in which he tells how an old woman, by burying one hand deep in the ground, made a stone blaze in a great arc, killing an entire flock of rock-pigeons flying many hundred feet in the air above her. Imagine what a weapon such a stone in other hands wd make.’