The Gray Isles

by F. T. McKinstry

  Lorth closed the door behind them. Faena hadn’t moved. Lorth said, “You found something, didn’t you?”

  She walked to the far side of the chamber. A tall bookcase stood there, with only a few books on it. One lay flat on an empty shelf. She drew it tenderly into her arms and said, “Several days before Eadred left, I found the librarian putting away the books he had borrowed”—a wry smile—“books containing lore about immortals, which is why I wasn’t able to find them before. But he never borrowed this one; I knew right where it was. He must have taken it from the library and put it here just before he left.”

  Lorth approached and held out his hand. She gave him the book: Turtles: Land and Sea. “This is the book you were reading when he first came to you?”

  She nodded. “There are no spells on it, I looked. Seems he just...left it here.”

  Lorth extended his mind into the pages and bindings of the book, but perceived nothing besides the dry impressions of distant readers. Eadred himself wouldn’t have left an impression. He handed it back to her. “Did Eadred know about your skill with locks and cloaks?”

  She nodded, her chin tucked into the binding. “What are you saying? That he planted this here thinking I could break that spell on the door?”

  “Perhaps.”

  “Well I couldn’t.”

  “But you found me. Don’t underestimate the powers of synchronicity and interconnection. You didn’t need to come to the library last night, but you did. The Old One is in everything—and Eadred knows that.”

  She stood there, clutching the book. Lorth put a hand on her shoulder, and spoke softly. “Listen to me, Faena. Eadred sealed that door knowing you alone would come in here and recognize the book. He wasn’t one to go through such elaborate maneuvers only to leave a parting message of comfort. He had something else in mind.” He withdrew. “I need you to keep looking up here. Use your heart. Do you understand?”

  “Aye.” She took a deep breath. “I understand.”

  He guided her to the door. “You won’t be able to find me over a dark sea, and I don’t know when I’ll be back. But if you find something, keep it close.”

  She smiled. “I will.”

  *

  That afternoon, Lorth, Farous and Samolan stepped onto a path to a cove tucked into the cliffs northwest of the conservatory.

  Lorth turned to Farous. “Eadred didn’t hide that door to impress us. I asked Faena to keep looking up there. She has an extraordinary talent for finding hidden things.”

  Farous looked at him strangely and then nodded.

  They passed beneath an arch into a tunnel. As they emerged, shouting echoed from the rocks below. “What now?” Farous grumbled.

  They descended a wide stair that ended abruptly in high water. An adjacent path led them to a pier. Among smaller, simpler crafts, a long, beautiful vessel rocked against her lines.

  The two youths Lorth had greeted at his door the night before spun around.

  Cimri barked, “Idgits! Now convince him of it!”

  Cloaked in yellow-gold, the young wizard strode purposefully in Lorth’s direction. The girl tagged somewhat behind. As the Hawk approached, he knelt and bowed his head low. “Masters. I beg a word.”

  With an air of boredom, Samolan moved around them and made for the boat.

  “Rise, Aengus,” Farous said tiredly.

  The girl sidled around the group, keeping a distance, and then quickened her step in the direction of the tunnel. “Stop!” Lorth called out. As she faced him, he beckoned to her. She came, trembling like a rabbit. “What is your name?”

  “Maeve.”

  “Please join us, Maeve.”

  She moved to Aengus’s side, averting her gaze.

  “Now, what’s going on?” Farous demanded.

  Lorth folded his arms over his chest and leaned his brow on two fingers as the red-haired apprentice began. A servant named Hemlock. Curly, dark brown hair and blue-green eyes. Good with a yarn. Good with a boat. Lorth peeked at Maeve and noticed a blush. Good with her too, he surmised. Well, Hemlock claimed to have seen a loerfalos—

  Lorth dropped his hand as the ink drawing on the edge of the map he had perused the night before leapt up in his mind like a sudden laugh.

  “Three times,” Aengus finished.

  “Four,” Maeve corrected. “On the quarter moons.”

  Farous rolled his eyes. “And you believed him. You came down here to accost a Master of the Eye on mission from Eyrie for that?” He addressed Lorth. “Stories like that are stock and trade in the Isles. Every fool sailor and fishwife has one. I’ve lived here for thirty years studying these waters and never so much as dreamed of a loerfalos. It’s a myth.”

  That word again, Lorth thought.

  Aengus wore a prickly hedge of remorse. “I wish I had believed him. I didn’t, even after he went to Master Eadred and told him about it.”

  “He did what?” Farous gasped. Cimri and Samolan turned around. Cimri shook his head and said something to the warrior that made him smile.

  Lorth placed a hand on Farous’s arm. “This might explain that imprint I felt on the tower steps.”

  “They had a row,” Aengus said. “Afterwards—”

  “About what?” Lorth cut in.

  “Eadred didn’t believe him, either. Struck him for being a fool. After that, Hemlock was sure Eadred was watching him, and he was so upset he stole Eadred’s own boat and sailed for Mimir. He planned to go to Wychmouth.” As if to escape the stunned silence that followed, he continued: “Moon is new tonight! If Hemlock was right and a loerfalos is following him—”

  “Did you actually see Hemlock take the Dark Mistress?” Farous asked.

  “Aye! Night before last. I tried to talk him out of it.”

  “And you didn’t tell anyone?”

  Aengus lowered his head. “No, Master.”

  “You were protecting him,” Lorth observed.

  “Aye. He’s my friend. But I decided to tell someone when I found out Eadred went missing. They thought he took the Dark Mistress, but the day after, I found another boat gone.” He shared a glance with Maeve. “Then you arrived. I didn’t have the nerve to tell you anything until I discovered why you were here. I came to warn you.” His face crumbled into a wild expression of distress. “Master, I don’t know if this matters, but Hemlock is, as they say, touched. He sees beneath the surface. If anyone would see a loerfalos, it would be him.”

  “He wouldn’t lie about it,” Maeve added softly.

  Farous turned to Lorth sidelong. “You’d best get underway.”

  “Shortly.” He asked Aengus, “What did Hemlock plan to do in Wychmouth?”

  The red-haired wizard tossed his head in exasperation. “He said he was going to tell the Master of Wychmouth about Eadred.”

  Farous’s laughter echoed around the cavern. “That won’t go well for him.”

  Lorth brushed off a sudden apprehension. “Does Master Sedarius know Eadred is here?” he asked Farous.

  “No. That was kept strictly between me and the Council.”

  “Masters,” Aengus ventured, visibly shaken, “I told Hemlock about Eadred. Who he is, why he was here.” The confession spilled out of him at a swifter pace. “I was just repeating rumors—I wanted to scare him out of what he was doing. He’s a dreamer! I never believed he would go through with it—and I certainly never thought Eadred would go after him!”

  Shit, Lorth groaned inwardly.

  “Meet me in the council room,” Farous said to the young wizard. The calm in his voice barely concealed his wrath. “Both of you.”

  Without a word, the youths moved off. Maeve took Aengus’s hand.

  Lorth drew close to Farous and dropped his voice. “I must ask you to leave this to me, now. Send no word to anyone. Do you understand?”

  The Raven tilted his head into a nod. “Seat mor streac Maern,” he swore. “Fair journey.” He pressed his fist to his chest and strode off, his cloak billowing around him.

&nb
sp; Lorth buckled under a black cloud of implications. Bloody politics! If Hemlock made it to Mimir and told Sedarius about this, it would muddy his mission like mounted warriors riding roughshod through a clear river. Aside from having a temper that rivaled the northern seas, the Master of Wychmouth would send word to Eyrie, and then Lorth would have to deal with the upshot. There was no time for that.

  And how would Eadred have “watched” Hemlock; or, indeed, gone after him without any way to tap the grid or search the sea? This whole thing reeked of stories and suppositions; either that, or something very dark moved beneath it. Something unseen.

  As Lorth stomped over the pier, Cimri stood up and pointed. “Behind you.”

  “Master!” a woman called out. Lorth turned around like a bristling wolf as Maeve ran up to him, out of breath. She stepped back a pace, visibly spooked by his ravening expression. “Master, please...” Glancing quickly over her shoulder, she untied something from her neck and held out a small stone turtle dangling from a cord. “This belongs to Hemlock. If you find him, give it to him. Tell him I”—she floundered in a blush—“tell him to come home.” She gazed up with a woman’s need and the hope of a fresh spring day.

  Lorth took the charm and left her there with an assassin’s indifference. No words or comforts could bridge the chasm between her innocence and the forces of the Destroyer beating in his veins like the hidden sea.

  The White Gull

  The boy stood beneath the longest night, the darkest night, and a heavy sky. A presence surrounded him like the gaze of a distant star. Twilight cloaked the snowy wood as a man walked slowly, as if burdened, to the cliff’s edge. Far below, the sea writhed, splashed, and hissed along the rocky strand. He wore his best boots, clean trousers, and a thick woolen tunic dyed by seaweed. As he gazed out, his rough hands nervously fingered a piece of pale fabric stained by darkness. His cloak billowed on the wind as he knelt, picked up a stone, and tied the cloth around it. Then he looked up with watery eyes and whispered to the sea.

  Foreboding rose in the boy’s heart as he watched, unseen, unheard. The presence did not stir as the fisherman spoke: “By the sea in my blood, by the silence in my wife’s womb, by the grief in our hearts, let light shine from the Void. Give us your gift, Mother, Old One, Mistress of the Sea. Give us the power of creation. Give us—”

  “Father, stop!” cried the boy.

  “—a son,” the fisherman finished. “That we may honor you.” He bowed his head. One tear fell from his eye and vanished into the air. Then he rose, raised his arms, and cast the rag over the drop. The boy expanded into the wind and down into the sea, closing around the strange thing sinking into the depths of his mother’s arms, but he could not discern what the fisherman had given as payment for his request.

  He blew to the forest’s edge as a mist whispering with shadows and tears. His father had gone, leaving only the frigid night and the immortal presence by his side.

  *

  Hemlock awoke with a gasp, his heart pounding. He rolled over with a groan. Yawning, he rose, grabbed his map, some breakfast and a water jug, and staggered to the cabin hatch.

  He emerged to the dawn. Patchy fog hung over the sea and a light wind blew. The sails luffed on their lines. Hemlock drew a breath, then another, and drank deeply. After his head cleared, he trimmed the sails. The Maiden shone faintly on the fading indigo. A gannet flew overhead, in the direction of Urd, with a fish in its mouth. Hemlock marked the line of its flight and adjusted his course, then sat at the tiller with a linen sack of cheese and dried apples.

  A gull’s cry rent the air. A huge bird circled the boat and then landed on the beam. White as snow, no trace of gray or black, it rearranged its wings and then cocked its head expectantly. “You again,” Hemlock said, though he couldn’t be sure that the same gull had visited him last night. “I don’t have anything for you.” He gestured to the waves. “Plenty out there, I think.”

  The seagull hopped onto the deck with an audacious squawk. Hemlock bit off most of an apple ring and tossed the rest to the bird. Best to befriend—or at least distract—the creature, in case it was a spy.

  Hemlock put the food away and eased back into his seat. The rising sun cast sparkling light through high clouds above the mists. A brisk, windy day by the look of it, a nod to his recklessness. Eadred knew Hemlock had seen a loerfalos, and he probably knew she had appeared twice more. He would certainly know Hemlock had left the isle. Perhaps the blackring prevented him from doing anything over a distance. Hemlock dared not assume that, but surely, by now, he would’ve felt the presence of magic beyond an obnoxious gull.

  By the sea in my blood, by the silence in my wife’s womb, by the grief in our hearts, let light shine from the Void.

  His dream nibbled away at the surface of his conscious mind like a fish worrying a piece of bait. It was so vivid, more vivid than a memory.

  Give us the power of creation.

  A son. Hemlock’s breakfast went sour in his stomach. That carried far greater implications than he wanted to ponder. He wouldn’t have witnessed it. Just a dream, brought on by a stressful situation.

  The morning passed and the wind blew. Hemlock studied the shapes of waves, the movement of currents, the graceful arcs of dolphins, and the patterns of clouds. The seagull came and went like an uncomfortable memory. By afternoon, Hemlock had begun to consider stringing Aengus’s bow and taking a shot. Instead, he fed the bird a piece of bread he had rolled up into a ball between his finger and thumb.

  Evening fell and the wind calmed. A thumbnail moon rose as twilight cloaked the sea. To the east, the horizon blended water and sky into gray. Hemlock dozed, then leaned against the beam and slept.

  He blew to the forest’s edge as a mist whispering with shadows and tears. His father had gone, leaving only the frigid night and the immortal presence by his side. It said, “The sea knows its own.”

  Hemlock awoke. Night had fallen, leaving the sea black as ink under a starlit sky shrouded in diaphanous mist. The serpent craft glided along. He fumbled for the tiller and tied it off, then unlashed the mainsail to ease it into the wind. He scanned the sky for the tree-shaped constellation of Seolin, and adjusted course. Not too far off. Softly, he sang an old rhyme:

  “Springtime blooms the starry tree

  “Bearing fruit the mariners see.

  “High by night and low by dawn

  “The silver apple guides us home.”

  His voice did little to quell the gloom. The stars, usually close enough to touch on a night like this at sea, hid behind the mist. He tied off the sails and felt his way to the cabin below. He rustled out his woolens and put them on.

  A short time later, he sat by the tiller and gazed into the darkness. His warmer clothes eased his body but not his heart; the night weighed on him like a bad feeling he couldn’t put his finger on. Beyond the confines of the boat, sea and sky became an endless void. The loerfalos might have been out there, but Hemlock wouldn’t know unless she came close enough to move the waters around him.

  Time passed slowly. Hemlock’s mind began to circle on him like hungry wolves closing around a dying fire. He hummed songs, told stories; he indulged in fantasies of Maeve in the golden candlelight or the soft ferns of a forest hollow. He ate a meal of salted herring and hardtack. All the while, he glanced at the sky, one moment or hour to the next, as the stars began to fade beneath the dampness of a coming rain.

  When it came, the light drizzle brought relief by offering evidence that something existed beyond the hull of the serpent craft, even if it was only weather. The wind picked up, and Hemlock appreciated having the new task of working his sails. For a short time, he forgot about his fears. When he grew too tired to sit up, he secured his course and found the small bed below, where he fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.

  *

  Hemlock opened his eyes to stillness. He flung off the heavy blankets, donned his boots and cloak, and went above. Not as much as a breath touched the sea. The sails hung limp on t
heir riggings like a tired sigh, and the telltale sagged against the mast. Everywhere, in every direction, a sheet of glass mirrored a predawn sky as still and gray as a tomb.

  Hemlock went to fetch some food. No point in adjusting course; he wouldn’t go anywhere in this. He returned to the tiller. Food tasted empty. He wondered where the seagull had gone. He wouldn’t have minded seeing it again.

  The morning waned, though under the heavy, gray stillness it was nearly impossible to tell how much time had passed. Hemlock sat on the aft deck against the inside of the hull with his head in his hands. He began to think more fondly of the night before. At least he’d been moving.

  He wandered over the small boundaries of the boat all day, until the light began to fade. He studied the vast, watery stillness like a witch gazing into a scrying pool, hoping to see some sign of the loerfalos. He didn’t know why he searched; as Aengus had pointed out, seeing the serpent at sea would be very different than seeing her from the safety of a rocky shore.

  The stillness began to gnaw at his mind, exposing the raw nerve of his deepest fears. You’re born to nothing but a fishing net. I’m sorry but I can’t believe these tales you tell. What if Aengus spoke the truth? What if Hemlock had imagined the loerfalos, seeing in the natural life and movement of the sea only what he wanted to? Perhaps Eadred had struck him for being just that foolish. The wizard had probably only watched him so closely to make sure he wasn’t spreading it around the conservatory.

  He lowered his hands and gazed out beyond the stern towards the isle he had so foolishly departed. Under the still, gray sky, he couldn’t tell in which direction it lay, nor could he turn around and head back even if he could. No wind blew, not as much as a whisper. Perhaps Eadred had caught up with him at last.

  If he’d been able to study wizardry, Hemlock might know how to raise a wind. What good were his stories now? That nonsense had only landed him out here at the mercy of the Eye with no loerfalos but the one beneath his hand, stolen from a Raven. He had no excuse for what he had done.