The Spellcoats (UK)

by Diana Wynne Jones

  “Look, look! In the net!” said Duck.

  There were things struggling against the net, on the River side of it. They were not clearly to be seen. They were large, for the most part, the size of geese or swans, and I think they were winged and of a pinkish colour. Each one, as it came against the black net, struggled furiously to get through. We could see the struggle more easily than the thing which fought. Some were able to force themselves through the wide mesh. These flew off to the sea over our heads and were lost in the blue. Many, many more gave up the struggle and slithered down the net inside. The water there was full of their strugglings and floppings. It was these that the Heathens in the boat were collecting.

  “People’s souls,” said Duck.

  “I don’t believe it!” said Hern, staring. “I don’t believe it!”

  Just then the Heathens in the small boat saw us. They shouted angrily and came poling back along the net. Hern quickly swung the tiller and let the wind to our sail. It was a fine breezy day out there. I think the rain and the mist were made by the net. In the breeze and the tide we raced towards the black ship and came in under one of its great eyes. I wanted to hide. It stared so.

  “It’s only paint,” said Duck as he moored our boat to the great chain that held the black ship to the bottom of the sea. Hern hoisted himself up it, on to the deck. Duck looked at me and put the Lady into his shirt, under his rugcoat. I did the same with the Young One before we followed Hern.

  The floor of the ship was black and smelt of tar. Overhead it was like a winter forest – ropes upon ropes hanging from masts that were trees braced with iron hoops. There was no one to be seen. But a number of large wicker baskets stood along the sides. Duck opened one. He sprang back, and so did Hern and I, when a host of the almost unseen winged things whirled up out of it, with a noise like roaring flames. They did not hurt us. They flew in a stream over the side of the ship and vanished seawards.

  Before we had recovered from the shock of that, a door in the high black stern flew open. Heathens dashed out of it, shouting, “Who are you? What do you think you’re doing?”

  These were mages. I knew it. When Uncle Kestrel first told us of the Heathen enchanters and their battle spells, I had imagined ugly yellow-haired men with large mauve noses, creased cheeks and crooked mouths. It surprised me that Tanamil and, later, Kars Adon were not like that. But these men were just like my imaginings. It makes me think a man does not become a Heathen mage unless he is too unpleasant to find friends any other way. They wore gowns that trailed, which they had to hold up as they ran shouting towards us. I was very frightened and clutched the Young One under my rugcoat.

  I think Hern had learnt from Kars Adon. He stood there calmly and bowed to them a little as they rushed towards us. This made them pause. They did not lay hold of us – as they had meant to when they first saw us – but they crowded threateningly round. With all those ugly faces so close, I do not think Hern was as calm as he looked.

  “What do you brats want?” they demanded.

  “We are mages with a message from Kars Adon,” Hern said. “May we speak to Kankredin, if you please?”

  The ugly faces circled round us, arguing. “These aren’t mages.” “Yes, they are. They came through the net.” “He won’t want to be bothered with brats!” “Put a weight spell on them and tip them overboard.” I was very confused. While they milled around us, I kept seeing words and scraps of sentences. Each of them had sayings woven in his gown. It seems they had this art too. They were large words, and boastful. I tortured the beast in – I read. I took the eyes off Sandar. Then again, – made jewels where none were in – and – three dead in one spell and I sent the hidden death. It was enough to make one ill.

  “Silence!” someone boomed at the other end of the ship. “What is this?”

  “Three brats saying they’re mages, sir,” someone called.

  “Did they pass through the net?” the voice boomed.

  “Yes, sir. Ladri’s shouting about it from the soulboat, sir.”

  “Then I suppose I’d better see them,” roared the voice. “Bring them in.”

  We were hustled along the deck and through the door at the end. There was a room there with hammocks slung from big beams, but we went straight through that into another room right in the stern. This room had a big window looking on the sea, and one empty chair – a good chair, much better than Kars Adon’s. They pushed us in front of it and stood milling behind.

  “Some of you get out!” boomed Kankredin. He was sitting in the chair. It was empty till then.

  I had thought, after seeing that net of souls, that nothing could frighten me any more, but I was wrong. Kankredin was not Tanamil. He was not young. He was old – old in the way a stone is old, hard and lasting and as if he had never been otherwise. And like a stone when you turn it over in the earth, a coldness breathed off him. He froze my skin and lifted the hairs on my arms even before I looked at him properly.

  It was not easy to look at him. The coldness of him numbed my eyes. I think he had a wriggly grey sheet of hair on either side of his face, and that the top of his head was bald and grey with dirt, with one or two big pink lumps on it. That is what you notice first when a person is sitting down. Then he lifted his face, numbingly, and it seemed to be a plump face, with the eyes thick-lidded, in folds. But as soon as I met his eyes, the face grew and removed itself, to seem large and faint and far away. Hern says he can still see it like that when he closes his eyes, but he cannot tell what he sees. It is the same for me. I remember his voice better, telling the mages to get out. It sounded out of his great chest and belly like the clapper in a bell. But it was a bell in the distance. The voice did not seem to come from Kankredin’s mouth. It came clanging from a way off, sounding of fear and horror, defeat and death. As soon as I heard it, I knew we were standing in front of a great evil, and I saw we were mad to have come without the One.

  The thing I saw most clearly was the gown Kankredin was swathed in. It was long and voluminous. Unlike the gowns of the other mages, his was woven all over with words, from collar to hem, and the words were much larger and looser than I would weave them. At first I could not look at those words. They leapt from the cloth, close and violent, as if they would do damage to anyone who read them. I had to turn my eyes aside. It was too hard to see Kankredin and too easy to see his gown.

  I know Kankredin was not Tanamil. Yet I had, all through, a strong feeling that Tanamil was close by. I looked round for him among the other mages, but these had all left the room by then, except for I tortured the beast and hidden death.

  “Well?” Kankredin clanged out, looking up at us. “You passed through the net without losing your souls, and I daresay you think yourselves mighty clever. What way did you do it?”

  It came to me then that we had, most oddly, arrived on the far side of the net, but I could not say how this was. Duck said airily, “I think it may be a spell you don’t know.”

  “There are no spells that I don’t know,” Kankredin thundered out of the distance. “Have you any means of stopping me taking your soul now you’re here? Eh?”

  “I don’t know until you try,” Duck said.

  “Then we shall see,” said Kankredin. “I see you fancy yourself as a mage, boy. Not much of a one, by the looks of it. What’s that spell on the edge of that extraordinary native garment you’re wearing?”

  Duck lifted the sleeve of his rugcoat. Hern’s and mine are plain, but Duck, because he was the youngest, has bands at the wrist, very faded now, which say Duck many times, in all the duck colours. Duck was annoyed to have such a babyish thing noticed. “Just my name,” he said crossly.

  “Pretty poor stuff, eh?” said Kankredin. “And a silly name. And you, girl – turn round and let me see it – what on earth is that on your skirt? Eh?”

  I was very much ashamed, and angry too. That skirt of Robin’s is my worst piece of weaving ever. It says A man came over the hill muddle muddle lady in the mill muddle muddle. The
n it takes a step down and goes, muddle from the river muddle lived for ever. Terrible. In two broad bands round the bottom. The ugly mages both sniggered as they read it, and Kankredin chuckled. His laughter was as bad as his voice. It had such echoes of cruelty that it made me think someone was being tortured behind his chair.

  “What kind of spell do you call that?” he boomed.

  “It’s a nursery rhyme!” I said angrily.

  “In baby talk,” said Kankredin. He turned, laughing and torturing, to Hern. “At least you have the sense to go plain,” he said.

  “I have a message for you,” said Hern. It was an odd thing. Duck and I were never as troubled by Kankredin as Hern was. He was pale from the beginning, and before long, he was sweating and breathing heavily. Duck and I each had our Undying, of course, but I think Hern’s trouble was more than that. Hern still thought he could fight Kankredin with reason. Reason was overthrown when we saw the souls struggle in the net, but Hern would not admit it. “I’ve come from Kars Adon—” he began.

  “What does that stupid boy want now? Eh?” said Kankredin. He had a terrible way of saying “Eh?” It dragged at you for an answer and bullied you even if you meant to answer. If you resolved to say nothing, you still found you were replying to that “Eh?”

  “I am to tell you,” Hern said, as if he were struggling, “that Kars Adon is going inland today. He says—”

  “He can go, and be eaten by the natives, then,” said Kankredin. “I can’t be bothered with him. If he had stayed, I’d have let him share my victory, but as it is, I’ll make do with the natives. Was that all? Eh?”

  “No,” said Hern, struggling still. “I want to know what you think you’re doing to the River.”

  “What impertinence is this?” Kankredin boomed, rising to his feet. “Eh?” The cold that came off him made us step back.

  Now I must explain that I do not remember well what was said after this point because it was then that I started to read Kankredin’s gown. I have to rely on Duck’s memory, which is good, but not as good as mine. Hern confesses that from then on his mind felt as if he had his head underwater. His ears were roaring. He remembers little except a struggle with Kankredin to keep his soul.

  My reading started first, idly, as Kankredin stood up. As I stepped back, I saw at his left shoulder I, Kankredin, mage of mages, have set these spells to conquer and confound this land. It was just level with my eyes. After that, I had to read on. First I studied deeply, I read, to find where the soul and substance of the land lay, for there only may a land be truly conquered. And soon I came to conclude that the soul of the land lies in the one mighty river, which, with his tributary, waters all the country. This river – this is correct, for he used all through the common weaving for river, not the one Tanamil taught me – this river lies at his source, coiled, I conceive, like a snake or a dragon. Him I catch with this net of words, between sleeping and waking, and bind him fast. But his strength is not yet—

  Here Kankredin sat down, and the next lines were lost in the fold between his belly and his legs. I had to move on to his left thigh.

  Meanwhile, Duck tells me, Kankredin was abusing Hern for daring to ask what he was doing to the River. “I am working night and day with the River, bringing his waters down to drown the natives, cleansing the land for us, and you have the gall to stand there asking what I think I’m doing!”

  Duck answered, seeing Hern struggling and panting, that it was generally thought the River was angry.

  “Angry? Of course he’s angry!” Kankredin thundered. “He’s fighting me tooth and nail. But I’m winning. I have him in a stranglehold, and he won’t escape.” Duck says Kankredin roared on in this way for some time. Duck listened scornfully because he was sure Kankredin had no idea of the truth about the River. This was just how I felt, reading Kankredin’s gown, though Kankredin was saying one thing to Duck and another on his gown.

  – come to my terms, was the next thing I read. Thus I keep him tame and pull from him the vital strength of the land. But he has been cunning and fixed his strength in certain of the souls of his people. When I knew this, I sent forth my mages to battle to seek these souls.

  The weaving was large and loose. The next part was on Kankredin’s right shoulder. Then I put my first command on this river that he yield up to me these souls, which he was not willing to do. We strive, and he turns rotten with the effort, bringing sickness, for which I curse him— Kankredin had pulled the gown up into folds here, at the top of his right leg. I stared and stared, but I could only pick out disjointed fragments at the surfaces of the folds – refuses the land his waters … hides his souls from me … send forth greater strength … by this I invoke total power—

  “Why do you think I put up the soulnet?” Kankredin roared, as Duck tells me.

  “To catch the natives’ souls, I suppose,” Duck said. “Did you know that quite a lot of the souls were getting through?”

  This made Kankredin very annoyed, though he tried not to show it. “So you have mage sight,” he said scornfully. “Quite a lot of people can see souls without being mages. Are you telling me to use a smaller mesh? Eh?”

  “You’d catch more if you did,” said Duck. “What do you do with them?”

  “Never you mind,” said Kankredin. “That net is a charm on the River, not a soul trap in any strict sense.”

  “I see,” said Duck. Not that he did, he says. But he was enjoying himself, I could tell. I remember thinking, as I stared at Kankredin’s gown, that I had seldom seen Duck more confident.

  Then, pulled up on to Kankredin’s thigh, I read: and thus we took one with such a soul, outwitting the river by accident, I confess, since his captors had thought he was a clansman like themselves. I knew he was talking about Gull. I read furiously. The river would not yield me the soul of the lad, though we strove for three days. But I am cunning. I examined the lad and turned his soul about in my mind. I find his soul is more than the river. It is part of the ancient life behind the river.

  Here came the hem, drawn up above Kankredin’s fat vague foot in a dirty sandal. The rest was on the back of the gown. I could have screamed.

  I had to get Kankredin to stand up and turn round. I have never been so determined about anything. I looked at Duck and turned my hand round inside my sleeve, hoping that Kankredin would not notice. Duck understood. He had been trying to read Kankredin’s gown too, but he is slower than me, and he could see I was devouring it. So he gave me his daft look, which is his private way of saying, Yes, but it’s not easy, and turned to Kankredin’s two mages.

  “Do you do illusions? Can you make yourselves look like somebody else?” I knew he was trying to find out if any of them had been disguised as Tanamil, and I wondered if I dared to shake my head at him. I was sure the back of Kankredin’s robe would tell me.

  Kankredin and his two mages gave out sounds of disgust. But this is exactly what they would do if they did not want us to know. Duck did not see it that way.

  “Yes, but can you?” he said. “Can you stand up and show me?”

  Kankredin saw there was some trick in this. He was terrifyingly clever. For a moment the fat shape of his face became near and clear to see. His thick lids folded down over his eyes, and he stared at Duck. Duck, for the first time, was troubled by his power. The front of his coat heaved as he grasped the Lady, and he gasped. “That’ll teach you to bother me with silly questions,” said Kankredin. “Won’t it? Eh?”

  At this, I thought suddenly: Why is he bothering to talk to us at all? He thinks we’re just silly children. I looked at Hern, and Hern was beginning to look the way Gull had looked.

  “Stop it!” I said. “Leave my brother’s soul alone!”

  “Not I,” said Kankredin. “There’s some strangeness in this soul.” He looked full at Hern. Hern put his hands to his face as if he felt giddy.

  Duck and I were both terrified. Duck took Hern’s arm and pulled him away across the room. And Kankredin sprang out of his chair in a wave
of cold air, roaring that Duck was not to meddle.

  The next part was very horrible. I had a perfect opportunity to read Kankredin’s back, but it was at Hern’s expense. And it came to me then that if Kankredin’s gown told the truth – and I think it did, as far as Kankredin knew the truth – Hern’s soul, and mine, and Duck’s were all like Gull’s and could be used the same way. Kankredin stared under his fat lids at Hern, and Hern leant against Duck, shaking. Duck put both arms round Hern and pressed the Lady against him so that they both had a bruise for days. At the same time, he says, he was willing Hern’s soul with all his might to look normal – like Korib the miller’s son’s, like Aunt Zara’s, even like Zwitt’s. And I read Kankredin’s broad back for dear life.

  Thus I, Kankredin, mage of mages, know how to rule the very soul of this land’s soul. The river tries to keep the lad’s soul from me, but I have bound the lad to come to me. I feel him approaching. He is near. By the power of these words and the hands of my mages, I now erect a soulnet across the mouths of the river wherein shall lodge the souls of all those dead in the land. These my mages collect daily. They shall be captive to me and learn to do my bidding, and I shall not suffer them to go out over the sea to their last home. But the lad who is coming to me will lodge in the net in his own body. Then through him I shall draw forth the soul behind the river’s soul. When I have it, I shall come up the river, rolling it before me like a wave of the sea, and the land will lie captive at my feet. I, Kankredin, have spoken.

  I did not read his sleeves. They seemed to be spells from much longer ago. “Duck! Let’s go!” I shrieked.

  Kankredin turned and looked under his fat lids at me. I did not think we would be able to go.

  “There’s no mystery about us,” I said. “We – we have to catch up with Kars Adon.”

  “That’s right,” Duck said quickly. “Take a look at our souls. Can’t you see we’re quite open and honest?”

  “I’ve looked at your souls,” said Kankredin. “Empty things they are. Suspiciously empty. His is not.” He pointed to Hern.