by Jaine Fenn
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
CHAPTER FORTY
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Acknowledgements
Also by Jaine Fenn from Gollancz:
Principles of Angels
Consorts of Heaven
JAINE FENN
Orion
www.orionbooks.co.uk
Copyright © Jaine Fenn 2009
All rights reserved
The right of Jaine Fenn to be identified as the author
of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with
the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published in Great Britain in 2009 by Gollancz
An imprint of the Orion Publishing Group
Orion House, 5 Upper St Martin’s Lane, London WC2H 9EA
An Hachette UK Company
A CIP catalogue record for this book
is available from the British Library
eISBN : 978 0 5750 8812 2
With thanks to Barry Andrews and SHRIEKBACK for permission to
reprint a verse from ‘Fish Below the Ice’, from the album OIL AND GOLD
© 1985, Island Records Inc. All rights reserved
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 42
Typeset by Deltatype Ltd, Birkenhead, Merseyside
Printed and bound in the UK by
CPI Mackays, Chatham, Kent
www.jainefenn.com
The Orion Publishing Group’s policy is to use papers
that are natural, renewable and recyclable products and
made from wood grown in sustainable forests. The logging
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For Emma. A good friend and an honest critic.
We get it right sometimes
We shine a light sometimes
We see the fish below the ice sometimes
Stand up and fight sometimes
We get the fright sometimes
How will we ever pay the price this time?
- ‘Fish Below the Ice’, Shriekback
The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be ignited
- Plutarch
CHAPTER ONE
A storm was coming. Kerin scented it on the air, sharp yet heavy, as she walked down to the stream for the evening’s water. By the time she got back to her hut, grey clouds were churning over the snow-capped mountains beyond the head of the valley. As she closed the door for the night, the first spits of rain hit the wood, growing heavier by the moment.
And there was no sign of Damaru.
Kerin tried not to worry. While the villagers valued her son because of his sky-touched nature, it made the job of caring for him all the harder. Let those who whispered that she should watch her only child more closely try to raise a boy whose wishes must be obeyed but whose mind was fixed on a world only he could see.
All too soon, he would be beyond her care for good. Until then, he would do as he pleased - even if that meant staying out late in a storm.
She stacked the fire, then filled her cooking pot with water and put it on the hearthstone to heat. A warming stew would use up meat she had dried for Damaru’s journey, but she wanted to indulge him while she still could.
When she ran out of things to add to the stew, she covered the pot, then began to sort through her late husband’s travelling gear. She was running her hands over his best shirt when she realised she was trying to occupy her mind to avoid the growing certainty that something bad had happened. She refolded the shirt, trying to calm her suddenly racing pulse.
Her boy was not dead. She knew that because the space in her heart that was his did not ache, not in the same way her heart had ached when Neithion had died on the drove; though her husband had been far away when he met his end, she had felt his passing. Though she was certain Damaru yet lived, he could have fallen and hurt himself; perhaps he was lying in a gully somewhere even now. She must go and look for him.
She changed out of her skirt into Neithion’s old work breeches, then pulled on his travelling boots: her clogs would be worse than useless out on the moor. She put on a cloak, but did not bother with a hat - in this wind she would surely lose it. She took a stick, both for support and in case there were wilder-dogs about; any animal out scavenging on a night like this might be desperate enough to attack a person.
She wondered about enlisting help: if Damaru was in danger, the other men would put aside their feelings for her in the interests of saving the holy child. But he had stayed out late before in weather as bad as this, he knew the land around the village as well as she knew the inside of their hut, and he had senses she lacked. Right now she was going on nothing more than intuition, and given where that had got her mother, she knew better than to share unfounded worries. She would search alone.
As she ducked under the lintel, the wind cuffed her. She screwed up her eyes against the rain as she felt her way around the side of the hut; the quickest route would be up through the village, but she did not want to attract attention.
She skirted the huts, using the stick to support herself on the slippery ground, then struck out upslope. Damaru was most likely up at the mere. The constantly shifting landscape of water and vegetation fascinated him; Kerin suspected he understood that he would soon be leaving his home and was trying to soak up the essence of the place he loved most.
Water trickled down inside her cloak and seeped into her boots. She put her head down and curled over the stick until a brief lull in the weather enabled her to look up. She needed to head for a small dip between the higher peaks - an easy walk on a fine day, but in the dark and rain she would have to go carefully. Thank the Mothers both moons were up and near full; their light combined with that from the stars to set the clouds aglow, bright enough to partially light her path.
Once, before Damaru had been born - perhaps the very night the seed of him had quickened in her - she and Neithion had climbed up here and lain together in the heather. In the breaks between their loving, they had looked up at the sky, which was clear for once. It had been a breathtaking sight, with each glance taking in more stars than could be counted by the tally-knots of every village in Creation, spread above them in patterns at once both random and filled with meaning. Neithion had pointed out the constellations the drovers used to help them navigate through the drylands. S
he knew most of them, but watching his finger outlined against the glowing sky with his arm protectively around her shoulders and her head nestled into the crook of his neck, she had let him explain them to her as though she knew nothing. Sometimes being right mattered less than being happy.
Tonight the beaten-down heather was a constant hazard underfoot. From the sound of it the rain had already swollen the stream to a torrent. The concentration necessary to keep on her feet and on course soon drove away both past recollections and future worries.
By the time she reached the top of the slope the rain had eased to a drizzle, though the wind still whipped and harried. There had been several previous spring squalls, coming in fast, driving hard and blowing out quickly - at least she was spared thunder and lightning this time.
Stands of bogwood grew here, their long dark leaves clacking in the wind. She spotted a pallid constellation of tiny yellow lights under one tree’s aerial roots: boneweave flowers, their eerie glow visible even in the mossy darkness. She should remember this spot so she could return and harvest the tubers later in the year. Since Neithion’s death she was the closest the village had to a healer. If some chose to mutter about bad blood and unseemly behaviour, and find their own cures, that was their problem.
The ground flattened out; ahead she saw the solid wall of reeds that edged the mere. Paths had been cut by villagers collecting material for roofing or matting, and she soon found an opening. She heard a faint sound on the wind - was that a night-hawk’s cry, or the yelp of a dog? The rustling maze closed in on her and combined with the smell of rotting vegetation to tweak at her nerves. She began to call out, ‘Damaru! Where are you?’, but the wind whisked the words away and the reeds absorbed her voice. There was no reply.
At that moment the gale blew itself out, leaving a damp, eerie silence.
As the vegetation thinned she saw patches of light and dark ahead: pools of water, edged with stands of stunted reeds and the spiky balls of redthorn bushes. She slowed down, for the flat land between the pools was shifting and treacherous. According to the priests, in places such as this the land was no more than a thin skin over the formless chaos of the Abyss—
Suddenly she recalled, for the first time in years, what she had witnessed here, and what still lay, bound and weighted, beneath the silent mere.
She shuddered and drew a deep breath, trying to push the unwanted memory away. That was the past; this is now. Old nightmares mattered little when weighed against the fate of her child.
The clouds had begun to thin overhead and silvermoon showed as a bright smudge over the jagged peaks beyond the mere. She shouted Damaru’s name again, listening hard for a response, but none came.
She glimpsed something over to the left, an odd-shaped patch at waist-height, bright as water under moonlight, yet subtly wrong. She started that way, testing the ground as she went, stopping to call out every few steps. Despite her caution, she soon found herself up to the ankles in stinking mud. She stopped as she spotted something else, lying by her feet. It looked like a shiny scrap of cloth. Steadying herself with her stick, she crouched down carefully to pick it up. It was indeed a piece of fabric, finer than any she had ever come across and with a shimmering sheen to it. She was amazed to find that no dirt adhered to it, and it felt merely damp to the touch. She tucked the strange fabric into her waistband and continued towards the bright patch. She saw now that it was more of the shining cloth, bigger than she had first thought, but further away, tangled up in a stand of redthorn.
Beyond the bushes she could make out a dark shape; it looked like something lying on the ground.
‘Damaru!’ she shouted, desperation making her voice break.
The shadow moved. ‘Maman?’
Her shoulders sagged with relief. ‘Damaru! Stay where you are. I am coming to you. Do you hear me, Damaru?’
He did not reply - but that was quite normal. She had his attention, and he sounded unhurt. Kerin resisted the urge to run; a false step now and the night could still end in disaster. She paused briefly as she passed the material caught in the bushes: though it looked thin, almost insubstantial, she could see no sign of any rip or tear from the thorns.
Then she looked at the prone figure, and stopped once more: she had assumed the shadow was Damaru - he could often be found lying flat on the ground at the oddest moments; it did not mean he was in trouble. Now she saw that there were two figures ahead, one stretched out, the other crouched beside it.
‘Damaru?’ she called. ‘Look at me please, Damaru. Look towards my voice.’
The crouching figure turned. The one on the ground did not move.
What - who - had he found?
By the time Kerin was close enough to make out her son’s features, Damaru had returned his attention to the body, which was, Kerin now saw, lying on its front, its head turned away. It appeared to be naked, and covered in mud. ‘Damaru, are you all right?’ she asked again as she came up to him. ‘Are you hurt?’
‘No.’ He sounded perplexed that she thought he might be.
‘What do you have there with you, Damaru?’
Damaru turned his head towards her and she saw his eyes glitter in the moonlight. ‘Not part of the pattern,’ he said, his voice a mixture of confusion and wonder: this was outside his experience.
It was outside Kerin’s too. ‘Let me see, please.’ She crouched beside her son. The body was male, not someone from Dangwern, obviously, and if anyone had been missing from Carregogh or Penfrid she should have heard about it - unless, with the drove leaving soon, no one could be spared to carry the news. Yet he did not look like anyone she had ever seen: he was tall, and slightly built, and beneath the dirt his hair was fair and his skin pale and unblemished.
She looked at her son, who was still staring down at the body. ‘Damaru? Did you find him here? This man, he was here, and you found him, is that right?’
‘Aye.’
She did not bother to ask him when: Damaru’s idea of time rarely matched anyone else’s. Instead, she squelched around the body to get a look at the dead man’s face. He had only a few days’ growth of beard, and his short hair was neatly cut. She could see no sign of how he died . . . assuming he was dead. Maybe she should actually check.
She reached out to touch his cheek. It was warm.
She moved her hand to his neck, where she felt his pulse, beating faint and fast as a bird’s. He might not be dead now, but if he stayed out here much longer he soon would be.
She looked at Damaru, then beyond him to the shining cloth. ‘Damaru, I need you to help me,’ she said firmly.
Darkness. Suffocating darkness - can’t breathe - need to get free, find air. Throat closing - must get up, struggle up for air—
Yes! Alive!
But hurts so much - pain unbearable - want to go back - hide - safe in the dark.
Please, leave me alone.
Kerin had hoped, given it was the middle of the night and she lived on the very edge of the village, that they might return unseen, but the Mothers saw fit to choose another path for her.
It was the cloth that gave them away. She had retrieved it from the thorns at the cost of scratched hands, ripped clothes and soaking boots so she could use it as a sling. They rolled the unconscious man onto it, but when they tried to lift him, the sheer, soft fabric ran through their fingers. In the end they wrapped him up in it like a swaddled child and half-dragged, half-carried him back to the village. Both she and Damaru tripped several times on the treacherous slope, and each time they dropped their burden Kerin shuddered, afraid that her carelessness would end up killing the man whose life she was trying so hard to save.
But it was not to be so, thank the Mother of Mercy: when they got him into the hut and onto her bed, he actually appeared closer to consciousness: he moaned and twitched, and his eyes moved behind their closed lids. She piled the covers over him, then lit a rush and put it in the lamp over the bed. The two pieces of fabulous cloth she stuffed into an empty pot; when folde
d, the material was surprisingly compact. A quick examination of her patient showed the beginnings of a fever, thanks no doubt to his exposure to the elements. She must treat that.
First she and Damaru needed to eat after their exertions; she doled out the somewhat congealed stew and awakened Damaru, who had fallen asleep on top of his bedcovers. It wasn’t the most appetising meal, but it was hot and filling. She finished hers quickly and cleaned the pot so she could put water on to boil.
She was sorting through her herbs when a boy’s voice called from outside: ‘Mistress Kerin?’
She pulled open the door to find Shim, Arthen’s young bonds-man. Behind him, the sky was pale grey; it was nearly dawn. She smiled and bade him good morning.
Shim peered wide-eyed into the hut and said, ‘The chieftain says you are to come to the moot-hall.’
Kerin sighed. She was exhausted, and she did not want to leave the stranger untended - but Arthen demanded obedience, not reasons for disobeying him. Still, she would make him wait a little. ‘Kindly tell him I will be there as soon as I have changed out of my wet clothes.’
Shim’s expression said he had expected something like that. He turned and left.
Kerin sat on the low bench beside the hearth to remove her mud-spattered breeches. Instead of changing back into her everyday skirt she got down the embroidered one she had made for capel-best the autumn before Neithion died. It had become a keepsake: a reminder of her life with him; she remembered how this section had been woven while she listened to him pound herbs in the pestle, or how that piece of embroidery had been inspired by a tune he had been playing. Though she had held onto it for as long as she could, this year it would go with the drove, along with her second-best skirt and the new one she had yet to finish. She had nothing else left to trade.
