Old Ammet shook his blowing hair and smiled regretfully. “I’m not anyone’s judge.”
“But you could be,” said Mitt.
“What good would that do?” said Old Ammet. “What is your answer?”
Mitt was glad to find that he had not, after all, yet answered Old Ammet’s question. He thought about it. The first thing he wanted to do was to ask Old Ammet to come back in an hour or so, to give him time to think. But Old Ammet stood there, old and patient beside the tall grey horse, and the horse cropped the cool green turf with drops of bright water falling gently from its mane, as if, for both of them, there was all the time in the world.
“I’m bad at thinking without talking,” said Mitt. “I’m like Al that way. We both love to talk.”
“Then why not talk?” suggested Old Ammet.
But Mitt did not talk because it suddenly came to him that he had it in him to be far worse than Al. Mitt, if he wanted, really could become the person out of his recent daydream and go round the country putting people like Navis to death. Al did what he did for himself alone. Mitt would be doing it against people. Mitt looked up at Old Ammet and caught his face as it changed to young. He looked as splendid as Mitt’s daydream. Yet beyond Old Ammet was the opening of the dell, and there lay the Holy Islands spread out between the evening sea and the sky. And Mitt knew he did not want to come back to them hunting people from island to island and putting them to death. It just did not fit. But if he came back as an enemy, he would. He had Old Ammet’s word for it that he would come back. And it would be like destroying his own early daydreams.
He looked up at Old Ammet’s face and caught it between young and old. “It’ll have to be friends,” he said.
Old Ammet, turned to old now, simply nodded gravely. It was no more than Mitt expected, but he was disappointed all the same. He had hoped Old Ammet would praise him, or at least reward him, for his decision. He was a very puzzling being, and, Mitt suspected, a very powerful one too.
“What’s your name?” he said. “It isn’t really Old Ammet, is it?”
“Once,” said Old Ammet, “it used to be the same as yours. But people have forgotten.”
Mitt thought he had known that. Old Ammet and Alhammitt did not sound so very different. “And Libby Beer,” he asked. “That’s a silly sort of name.”
Young Ammet smiled at Mitt, dazzling him by the heave and billow of his bright hair and the brightness on his clothes. “You can learn how to call both of us now you’ve decided. Go on up to our house and take what help you can from there. Remember to ask for our names.” He pointed to the end of the dell. Mitt saw the path went on there, up into the rocks. While he was looking, Mitt had a feeling Old Ammet walked dazzling out of the dell, leading the horse, into the sky. But he was not sure. He was only sure he was gone.
“Well, I’ve met him at last,” Mitt said, and he was wonderfully pleased now as he went on up the path.
It was not far, a short, steep climb through the rocks. Then Mitt came to the very top of Holy Island, into a strong breeze, and found a little grey building which looked as old as the island. Standing in front of it was an old, old Island man with long white hair and a wrinkled brown face.
“Hey!” said Mitt, remembering that Jenro had said there was no mortal soul on the island.
“You’ve had a hard climb,” the old man said in a gentle Island voice. “Come and seat yourself on the bench here and be breathing.”
“Thanks,” said Mitt. “But I got to ask for their names first. That’s what I come for.”
“Sit down first. That will be needing a quiet mind,” said the old man, pointing to a stone bench outside the house. Mitt went over and, a little impatiently, sat down. The old man sat creakingly beside him. “Will you eat?” he said.
“Well, I – Yes – Thanks!” said Mitt. The old man was suddenly passing him a large bunch of grapes and a flat loaf plaited like an ear of wheat, and Mitt had no idea where he got them from. “How about you?” he said politely.
“I am well, thank you,” said the old man.
Mitt supposed that meant he was not hungry. He was very hungry himself. The loaf was better even than the bread they had that morning, and the grapes were sour-sweet, cold and juicy. He ate every scrap. “How about those names?” he said, munching.
“The names of the Earth Shaker and She Who Raised the Islands are strong things,” said the old man, “even the least of them. Spoken aloud by the voice, they are too strong, unless the speaker has right in the heart of him. And I must tell you that the names of the Earth Shaker are cruel even then, as they are strongest. He who learns these names must never say them aloud, even sleeping, unless he wishes something perilous to follow. Will you still learn those names?”
Mitt was not sure. He did not like the idea that he might say something perilous in his sleep. He was about to tell the old man to forget he asked when he realised that Old Ammet had indeed rewarded him for his decision, and this was to be the reward. Frightening though it was, Mitt saw he would have to take it, or he would be going back on his decision. And when he thought of himself conquering and killing among the people of the Holy Islands, he knew his decision was right. “Yes, please,” he said.
“And who was it sent you?” asked the old man.
Mitt answered without hesitation. “The Earth Shaker.”
“Then I will be showing you,” said the priest, “if you have taken enough of their gifts.” He stood up as creakingly as he had sat down. Mitt brushed the crumbs off his suit and got up too. “Can you read?” asked the old priest.
“Just about,” Mitt conceded.
The old man walked to the door of the house, but he did not go in. He signed to Mitt to go inside. “Look under them in the sun,” he said. “And do not speak what you read until you have true need.”
Mitt had to duck his head to get into the house. When he was inside, he was surprised to find it was not dark, as he had expected, but light and warm and quiet. The late sun was streaming in through windows placed curiously low down, nearly at the floor. The red-gold light fell on the end wall, on two hollows in the stonework. In one hollow stood Libby Beer, and in the other Old Ammet. They were not as grapes and corn, but as queer old statues of themselves as Mitt had just seen them. Mitt knew that whoever had made those statues had seen them too. Libby Beer was carved smiling as she had smiled at Mitt, and Old Ammet was miraculously both old and young at once. Mitt wished he knew how to carve like that.
Look under them in the sun, the old man had said. Mitt took his eyes reluctantly off the statues and looked at the wall under the hollows. There was a mass of cracks there, as if something had hit the wall and all but smashed it. But as Mitt looked, he found that the sun was lighting some of the cracks and not others and that the lighted parts were forming letters. The letters fell together to form words, two words under each figure, and the words were names.
Mitt had always thought he could not read without saying what he read aloud. But he dared not do that now. It was one of the hardest things he had done, spelling out those words in his head. Three of them were such strange names too, that he was not sure how to say them. Only one – the one immediately under the hollow where Old Ammet stood – was not so strange. It was almost Ynen, or like Ynen with an extra Yn to it. From this, Mitt gathered, though he could not say how, that the top name in each pair was the lesser name and went with the usual figures of Old Ammet and Libby Beer, made of corn and berries, and that the names below were the strong ones and went with Old Ammet and Libby Beer as they really were. After that he found them a little easier to remember. Even so, he walked to the door with his eyes up and his mouth moving, remembering hard.
“Will you let them stay easy? They will stay in you,” the old priest said kindly, seeing his trouble.
Mitt blinked at him. “They will? They seem to get away every time I stop thinking about them.”
“You will be saying them when you should not if you will not leave them lie,” s
aid the old man. “Now what you must be doing is going down that way.” He pointed to the rocks on the landwards side of the low grey house.
“But how can I get off the island that way?” Mitt said.
“The Earth Shaker will show you,” said the priest.
Mitt shrugged and looked over at the green hump of the nearest island, a good half-mile away. Still, where the old man pointed, there looked to be an easy way down. Mitt turned back to thank him, and he was gone. Mitt knew he had not had time to hobble off anywhere. He was simply not there any more. Mitt could feel that the space by the house was empty somehow.
“And he felt like a real one too,” Mitt said. “I wonder who he was.”
WIND’S ROAD HEELED gently westwards in a peaceful evening breeze, threading her way among the islands. When the sun went red and gold behind High Tross and the misty green hump of Holy Island beyond that, Hildy began to feel chilly. Riss told her there were coats below. Hildy went into the cabin. There she found that not only had the cupboard been repaired and the water keg refilled, but the forward bunk held a pile of coats and sea boots to fit both men and boys. Puzzled by this, Hildy put on one of the coats and came out, intending to ask Riss about it.
A sweet, haunting sound came to her. It seemed to be coming from Ommern. Hildy listened, enchanted, to a tune at once melancholy and filled with joy – at once a tune and at the same time only the broken pieces of a tune. Instead of coming from Ommern, as she had thought, it came from the green hump of Wittess. But when she turned that way, the sound came from Prestsay to one side. “Piping?” she said to Riss.
He nodded. “The greeting of the great ones.”
Hildy leant over the side of Wind’s Road listening until she thought her heart would break, but whether with joy or sorrow she could not tell.
They heard the piping aboard the tall ship Wheatsheaf too, as she tilted among the islands, carrying Navis and Ynen to Holand. They were in Bence’s stateroom, with Al, Lithar and two guards. Bence was stamping about above in a considerable rage. It seemed that the Wheatsheaf’s sails unaccountably kept losing the wind, and they were making very poor progress.
“Can’t any of you trim a sail right!” Bence roared.
“It is the wind towards evening, and the islands taking the force from it,” explained a gentle voice.
“Teach your flaming grandmother!” roared Bence. “You there! Stop sleeping along that yard and trim your sail!”
The piping came to Ynen’s ears very sweet and fitful, sometimes like a melting song, sometimes as a wild skirling. He could not hear it properly for the roaring of Bence. “I wish he’d be quiet,” he said to Navis.
From time to time Bence fell into an exasperated silence. Each time the piping came from a different quarter. Al wriggled his shoulders at it as if it made him itch.
“I wish they’d stop that flaming piping! What do they do it for?”
“Nobody does it,” Lithar said in surprise. “It happens sometimes. Always near sunset, around suppertime. Shall we have supper?”
“If it makes you happy,” Al growled.
Bence’s steward brought in cold meat and fruit and wine. Al did not eat much, though he drank the wine. The rest had supper and listened to the shouts of Bence and the piping in between. The steward cleared the meat away, and they were still among the islands and the piping still sounded.
Mitt heard the piping too, as he swung down the side of Holy Island, galloping the occasional steep stretch. The sound seemed to come from the heart of the island beneath his feet. It was the wildest, most joyful music he had ever heard. Mitt felt so glad and confident that he would have sung, except that he was afraid of spoiling the music.
But when he came down with a steep rush to the shingly shore and saw the well-known elegant shape of Wind’s Road leaning past High Tross in the haze of evening, he nearly despaired again.
“They’ve got away! They’ve gone and left me!” he said. “Wind’s Road! Hey, there! Wind’s Road!” He jumped and waved and shouted, knowing they were too far away to see or hear him.
A sudden wave rose between Holy Island and green Ommern and travelled swiftly to the shore where Mitt was. It was so queer, all on its own, that Mitt stopped shouting and watched it. It rushed on, one lonely peak of water, and thundered down on the shingle beside Mitt in a mass of white water and the rubbly squeaking of pebbles. Mitt scrambled hastily out of range. Then he realised that the white foam of the wave was still standing high above his head. He found he was staring at one of the lovely white horses of the storm.
“Thanks, Ammet,” Mitt said, laughing a bit nervously. He had ridden a horse only when he was a very small boy, and that was a cart horse. He edged towards the horse. It put its nose down and blew salty breath at him. Nervously Mitt grasped it by its rough wet mane, which it did not seem to like, and struggled on to its slippery back. The horse shook its head and rippled the skin under Mitt, but it did not throw him off.
“Can you catch that boat for us?” Mitt said to it.
The horse surged forwards, joggled him, bounced him, and then seemed to be pure movement under him. Mitt found they were galloping across the sea itself, tossing spray, tossing the horse’s mane, tossing Mitt. He fell forwards and put his arms round the horse’s neck. There were hard muscles in it, and it felt warm and cold together, like a hot day high on a mountain. Spray dashed into Mitt’s face and the dark sea raced beneath. He could only bear to watch it out of one eye. He tried peering forwards for Wind’s Road, but she had sailed behind Wittess.
Wittess was straight ahead. Almost there. Underneath him. The horse galloped straight across the island without checking. The only difference was that its hooves thudded deep and drumlike, and turf flew into Mitt’s face instead of spray. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw several people, who all shaded their eyes to see Mitt against the sun. They did not seem particularly astonished.
“Must have odd things happen all the time,” Mitt said breathlessly to the horse as it thudded down to the sea again. Among the sound of its hooves, he could hear the piping again, strong and wild. The sound changed to whipping water, and the horse seemed to splash wet sunset out of the sea. In the dazzle Mitt saw the deck of Wind’s Road just in time, almost underneath him, as the horse dissolved to a wave of grey, foamy water.
Hildy turned round almost too late. She saw Riss smiling, a welter of disappearing water, and Mitt’s feet landing on the cabin roof. “You’re not alive!” she said.
It was not very welcoming. “I’m not a ghost yet,” Mitt said gruffly. “Where’s Ynen then?”
“With Father and Al on the Wheatsheaf,” Hildy said miserably. “He’s taking them back to Holand. They went hours ago.”
“Oh, well,” said Mitt. He was going to say it was a pity, and then forget about it, when he saw Riss was smiling at him knowingly.
“The Wheatsheaf will be between Yeddersay and the outer island,” Riss said. “Jenro is seeing to that. They will wait until the sun goes down and the piping stops, when they will know you are not coming.”
“Oh,” said Mitt. This was too bad! It was not enough to decide to come back as a friend. It seemed to mean he was expected to act as a friend, and to Navis, of all people, here and now. Ynen, Mitt did not mind. But he did not want to see Al again either. He shot a surly look at the bows of Wind’s Road, where Old Ammet still lay, stiff and blond and bristly. It was all his fault.
But while he was looking, Mitt suddenly remembered, for no reason he clearly knew, the time when he had first seen Old Ammet in his other, better shape, standing by the bowsprit as Wind’s Road hung on the slope of that monster wave, trying to turn over and drown them all. For a moment he felt like Wind’s Road himself. But at that point he had already saved Ynen’s life by grabbing his ankle just in time. Mitt sighed. It seemed as if it was his way to make friends without knowing he had – just as he had with Siriol, or Hobin, for that matter. Perhaps even Hildy and Navis were friends too, deep down where it did not show.
“We better make haste to Yeddersay then,” he said.
Riss looked dubiously up at the sail. He meant they were doing as much as the wind would let them.
“I’ll see to it,” said Mitt. He clambered sideways along to Old Ammet and gently, politely, touched the image on its shoulder. “Could you give us just a bit more wind, please?”
Hildy glowered after him. The pure annoyance on Mitt’s face when he first realised what his decision meant made her feel anything but trustful of him. She saw the water ahead ruffle and darken. Wind’s Road creaked. The sails tightened, and she heeled over with a much brisker rippling round her bows.
“Never fear,” Riss said, thinking Hildy was staring at Mitt because she was afraid of him. “He has been on Holy Island.”
“I wish he’d stayed there,” Hildy muttered.
Wind’s Road threaded among the islands quickly now, accompanied by her own ruffle of wind. The sun was just touching the rim of the sea when she rounded Yeddersay, and there was Chindersay, and the piping came from Hollisay, loud and joyful behind them. And there, sure enough, was the Wheatsheaf, towering against the crimson sky, hardly moving at all, with her sails drooping and swinging about. They could have heard Bence bellowing easily on Hollisay.
“What are we going to do?” Hildy asked.
Mitt was not at all sure. “There are four things I can do, I suppose,” he said. Then he had a bad moment, thinking he had forgotten those names. But, when he examined the inside of his head, they were there all right, safely stuck.
“Nothing, nothing, nothing and nothing, I’ll bet!” Hildy said scornfully. Wind’s Road glided nearer the Wheatsheaf, and she saw that there happened to be two ropes dangling over her side, just where they would be within easy reach. Somebody trusted Mitt. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’ve been having a horrible time, you see.”
“You’re not the only one!” said Mitt, looking up at those ropes dangling over the steep side. Al was up there. Mitt was afraid the sight of him was going to drive those four strange names clean out of his head. It seemed to him that it would be as well to take precautions. As Riss was bringing Wind’s Road up alongside the Wheatsheaf, Mitt hurriedly leant right over the side and came up again with his hand dripping wet. “See here,” he said to Hildy, “if I get in a fix, or you do, and if I don’t seem to know what to say, shout this out.” And he scrawled with his wet finger on the cabin roof, big crooked letters: YNYNEN.
Drowned Ammet (UK) Page 22
