The Singer of All Songs

by Kate Constable

  ‘I have run too far already; I would rather face him.’

  ‘But

  –’ At that moment there came a distant sound, a single piercing shriek and then a low unearthly cry. Without another word, Darrow pushed past her and loped through the infirmary with his crooked stride, swinging his stick, quick and grim. Calwyn heard another terrible cry, and began to run.

  At the archway to the courtyard, she caught one brief glimpse of what lay within before she cried out, and fell back. Marna and Tamen were there, standing high in the gallery, hands clasped and raised, singing out across the enclosed space. The courtyard whirled with flurries of snow, as if a thousand pillows stuffed with goose-down had burst open, and icicles dripped from every archway, gleaming like silver swords. Samis was there too, at the centre of the storm, a dark shape with his arms raised high. The faint shrilling chantment that Calwyn had heard before was coming from him, but much louder now, piercing enough to make her stagger with the pain in her ears. And now she screamed, for the ground was writhing with snakes and serpents, and when the cold flakes of snow whirled against her face they were transformed into the sticky legs of beetles and spiders and crawling things that crept into her nose and mouth, and tangled in her hair so that she beat at her head, blind and terrified. And she was dimly aware that other sisters, old and young, woken by the commotion, were crowding along the gallery in their pale nightdresses. Their white shapes were darkened by the crawling creeping things, and the stones of the Dwellings were alive underfoot, wriggling and slithering. The screams of the sisters mingled with the piercing shrill of the sorcerer’s chantment until Calwyn clutched at her head and screamed in desperation to drown out the sound, and she was drowning, suffocating, she couldn’t breathe, and the snow and the beetles whirled about her head, choking her, choking her –

  A hand fell on her shoulder and she leapt away, trying to tear free. But she was held firm, and a calm voice spoke very close to her ear: ‘Be still. It is illusion. Do not be persuaded. Calwyn, hear me. Be still.’

  Darrow turned her away from the courtyard, pulling her hands from her head, and she opened her eyes, shuddering and sobbing for breath. ‘See, see, it is not real. Look at the ground – there is nothing but the stones.’ He held her shoulders with his strong hands, shaking her gently. She forced herself to stare down, wincing as the ground shivered with vague twitches. ‘Do not be persuaded, Calwyn. You can see past the seeming, if you try. See clearly. Do not fear.’ Darrow’s voice was as steady as if they were sitting in the orchard in the sunshine, not in the deafening chaos of this night. The wheedling chantment of Samis bored into her skull; she would not listen to it, she would not! She stared at the ground, and it seemed to grow still. She could hear, through the wails and the clamour, the clear sweet chantments of Marna and Tamen, strong and sure. She would listen to their music, not to the other, that twisted her mind and clouded her eyes. The stones swam up clear and sharp into her sight, and she saw a cloud of snowflakes drift across her feet, white as apple blossom; the writhing creatures were gone. She took in a deep breath, swung around to face the courtyard, and began to sing, adding her voice to the others, helping to weave a blizzard to choke the sorcerer into silence.

  Beside her, Darrow was singing too, a chantment of ironcraft, and she saw, through the whirling snow, that icicles were breaking off and flying with deadly swiftness toward the centre of the courtyard, where the hooded figure stood. But Darrow’s aim was not good; none of the missiles reached their target. The sorcerer did not falter in his chantment; indeed he seemed to grow stronger with every moment that passed. Calwyn had to close her eyes to concentrate on keeping her song true and clear; the screams of the other women, the flying snow, and her own fear all distracted her. She wished she were standing on the gallery with Marna and Tamen, their strong voices beside her and their hands firm in hers, instead of hidden away in this corner! But there was no time to run to them.

  Another scream, more dreadful than any that had gone before, and Calwyn saw one of the white shapes on the far side of the gallery rise up above the rest. One of the sisters, maddened by confusion and terror, had climbed up onto the low wall. For one long, appalling moment, she hung there, a pale shape against the shadows, blurred by the flying snow. And then she fell.

  In that heartbeat of time, Calwyn heard Darrow beside her change his chantment, frantic to hold the falling girl suspended in the air. But there was no time. She smashed onto the stones, with a sound that Calwyn never forgot. Then there was silence.

  Snow settled around the dark, unmoving figure of Samis, still with his arms raised high, but singing no longer. He was like a raven with wings outstretched, a black shape stamped on white snow, his head too large for his body. His back was to her, and she could not see his face. Someone on the gallery began to cry.

  Then came a sound, dreadful as it was, that she rejoiced to hear: a moan of pain from the fallen girl. ‘She is alive!Thanks be to Taris!’That was Ursca, who pushed blindly past Calwyn and trotted across the snowy expanse of the courtyard to kneel beside the crumpled white shape. Whatever danger there might be, Ursca would let nothing stop her trying to help someone who was hurt.

  Tamen’s voice rang out into the terrible quiet. ‘The one you seek is in the infirmary. Take him, do what you will, but leave us be!’

  Calwyn gasped. Marna cried out, ‘Tamen, no!’ but her voice seemed weak and frail.

  Samis lowered his arms; blood-red light flashed from a jewel on one hand. ‘Show me the place.’ His voice was deep and powerful; it seemed impossible that the shrill wheedling chantment of seeming had come from his throat. Perhaps Darrow was right; perhaps this man could indeed master every chantment.

  Tamen was standing tall and straight, high in the gallery, her face pale against the darkness of her cloak and the shadows behind. She said in a low voice, ‘I will take you there.’ Then she was gone, swallowed up by the dark.

  Calwyn whirled about. Darrow was slumped against the wall. She seized his arm. ‘Quickly, come with me!’ An idea was half-forming in her mind; perhaps there was still a way out. Darrow grasped his stick and followed her past the outbuildings and the animal pens, darting as swiftly as he could manage from one pool of darkness to the next. When they reached the orchard, he said, ‘It’s no use. He must know that I was in the courtyard.’

  ‘But he doesn’t know where you are now –’ ‘He will find me wherever I hide. And it will be worse for you if he knows you have helped me. Go back.’

  Calwyn pressed on. The apple trees were gnarled silhouettes against the silvery grass; ahead she could see the hives, slumbering by the river. But Darrow had stopped.

  ‘Go back. Calwyn, please! I will not have another life on my conscience.’

  ‘And I will not have your life on mine.’

  They stood facing each other for the space of five breaths; then Calwyn said, ‘I’m going on.’ She walked steadily past the hives and across the bridge, and after a moment she heard the awkward scrape of Darrow’s boots on the stones as he followed. She was deep in the woods before it occurred to her that she ought not to be leading an Outlander along the sacred path; but then she remembered what Marna had said about the different faces of the Goddess. Surely Darrow, too, whatever stars he was born under, was one of Her children.

  ‘Listen!’ called Darrow. He was some way behind her, limping up fast on his stick.

  Calwyn stopped. A deep rumbling came from the Dwellings. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Samis,’ said Darrow.

  Calwyn shook off her cloak and pulled herself into the branches of an ember tree. She climbed fewer trees now than when she was a little girl, but she hadn’t lost the knack, and ember trees were easy climbing. She swung from one bough to the next, until she could see down into the valley, where the Dwellings spread out in the moonlight. She paused there, clinging to the rough bark. It wasn’t hard to guess where the noise had come from; in the place where the infirmary ought to be was a pile of rubble and a gre
at cloud of dust. And now came the sound of its final collapse, rippling out across the valley: a cracking, creaking roar of destruction.

  After a moment, running figures appeared: the folk of Antaris, hurrying from the villages to investigate the commotion. Already she could hear faint shouts of horror echoing through the woods as the news spread.

  She climbed down. Darrow said, ‘The infirmary?’

  She nodded. ‘Perhaps he thinks he’s killed you.’

  ‘That would be better luck than I deserve. More likely he is showing the sisters what a sorcerer of Merithuros can do.’ Darrow’s face was grim. There was nothing else to say. Silently she picked up her cloak and they went on.

  So painfully slow was their progress that it seemed to Calwyn they had been walking half the night before they came to the shining bulk of the Wall. She’d never seen it by moonlight before, immense and silvery-white. She could sense its dense chill near her skin, and for the space of a breath she felt almost afraid.

  In a hushed voice Darrow said, ‘You will raise the chantment now?’

  ‘I can’t. Not alone.’

  ‘Calwyn, I cannot cross the Wall as I did before. I have not the strength. And if I was injured again –’

  ‘You won’t have to cross by chantment. There’s another way.’ Perhaps the idea had been planted in her mind the first day that she and Darrow talked in the orchard, but she was certain now, as certain as if her mother’s ghost had whispered it in her ear: she knew how Calida had done it, all those years ago.

  On and on she led him, beside the great curve of the Wall. Once or twice the eerie call of a night bird echoed above their heads, or a whirring of wings swooped from tree to tree, or a small shadow scurried across their path. Then Calwyn would hear Darrow stumble, and she would slow her pace a little. They passed the grove of the bellflowers, and the place where Darrow had lifted himself over the Wall. On and on they walked, until at last they came to the place where the roaring river cut through the ice. The sky was beginning to pale after the long night; the dawn birds were singing.

  Calwyn halted at the water’s edge. This must have been where her mother had stood, so long ago, realising it was her only way out. ‘The river flows quickly here, and the Wall doesn’t cross the living water. You must let the river carry you out.’ She hesitated, trying to recall the word. ‘You must swim.’

  She had wondered if he would scoff, or argue, but he did not. Instead he took off his cloak, his boots and his jerkin and tied them up in a neat bundle around his stick. But when he was ready, he lingered by the bank, poised unsteadily on his crooked foot.

  ‘Will you go back to the Dwellings now?’

  ‘Yes.’ She hardly dared to think of what awaited her there: the infirmary in ruins; one of the sisters badly hurt – who was it? she did not even know; Tamen running about to Samis’s bidding. She said with sudden passion, ‘I can’t forgive Tamen for betraying you.’

  He shook his head. ‘Tamen’s first duty is to protect Antaris. She did what she thought was necessary. Do not judge her too harshly.’

  ‘But she was going to send you to the sacred valley on midsummer eve, to be sacrificed under the blazetree, if you had stayed.’

  Darrow raised an eyebrow. ‘A scorpion under one foot, a snake beneath the other,’ he said. Then his face twisted in a half-smile. ‘Perhaps she was unwilling to carry out that duty, Calwyn. Why else would she tell you what she planned? She must have known that you would warn me.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Calwyn doubtfully. ‘But she was still willing to hand you over to Samis.’

  Darrow reached into his pocket and drew out the object he had been carving earlier in the night. He threw it to Calwyn and, startled, she caught it. It was a small wooden ball, the kind that the village boys used to play skittles. But Darrow had begun carving it into a map of Tremaris. ‘It’s not finished,’ he said. ‘But I thought you might like it.’

  Calwyn cupped the ball in her hands. No one had ever given her a gift before, even at festival time.

  Darrow said quietly, ‘Thank you for all you have done for me, Calwyn. Perhaps we shall meet again some day.’

  She could not speak, but nodded silently, pressing the wooden sphere hard between her hands. For a moment Darrow seemed about to say something more, but then he turned toward the river. She watched him plunge into the water, holding his stick above his head. Already the river had seized him in its current; soon he would be carried beyond the Wall and into the Outlands. Once more he would roam the world, and sail the wide seas in those boats of his, while she was locked inside the grey walls of Antaris, watching the moons wheel overhead and the seasons come and go, every day the same as the one that had gone before. And she would never see him again –

  Abruptly she thrust the little globe deep into her pocket. ‘Wait!’ she cried, stumbling down the slippery bank.

  And then she was in the water.

  The shock tore the breath from her lungs. She hadn’t expected the water to be so icy, nor the current so strong; cold and terror clutched her heart. This river was alive, and freezing, and it wanted to drag her under. Her head dipped once, then twice; she inhaled a mouthful of water and came up choking. Now she was facing the wrong way, pulled along backward by the churning water. She struggled to turn, but couldn’t balance; the weight of her clothes and her boots dragged her down as if strong hands seized her ankles and held them fast. She sobbed for breath, flailing against the current and the forces dragging, dragging her under.

  Then a strong hand cupped her chin, and a commanding voice spoke above the tumult of the rushing water. ‘Be still – the water will carry you. I won’t let you sink.’ Darrow was pulling her toward the centre of the stream, where the current ran more slowly. Calwyn thrashed once, and gasped wildly for breath, then lay still and allowed him to guide her. It was true: once she stopped struggling with the water, she floated more easily; the current swept them both past the curving banks and the trees that trailed their leaves in the water. Darrow’s head moved easily beside her, almost as though he were walking calmly along the bottom of the riverbed. His hair, still dry, gleamed pale as hay in the growing light.

  They had left the Wall far behind; she could see it, shining white, through the trees. This was the outside of the Wall. that she had never glimpsed before. But there was no time to wonder at that. Darrow seized her shoulder and pulled her with matter-of-fact strength toward the bank. He sang one of his gurgling chantments, and his bundled cloak and stick flew through the air and landed on the grass. Then he was guiding her, not to the riverbank itself, but to a fallen tree that sprawled in the water, its branches catching leaves and twigs and other flotsam. Now it was to catch Calwyn herself; she saw his plan, and reached out her arms to clutch a sturdy branch. The wood was slippery, but she wrapped her arms firmly around it and clung on. The black water churned past, but for the first time she was still.

  She held her head out of the water, gulping air, and watched as Darrow pulled his lean legs up the bank as easily as an otter, and shook himself. Then he balanced on the tree trunk, gripped Calwyn’s hand, and hauled her toward the bank with such force that she thought her arm would be wrenched from its socket. Was he singing a chantment to help lift her clear? She could hear nothing but the roaring of the water. Her leg scraped against the tree, but she didn’t feel it; with a cry of relief she collapsed on dry land, and huddled there for a moment, sobbing for air, clutching solid earth.

  three

  City of Cheese stone

  CALWYN HELD OUT her tingling hands toward the fire. Darrow had made her run about the grove, to gather wood and warm herself, before he lit the fire with his flint. Only then did he let her sit down, wrapped in his dry cloak. Apart from the crackling of the flames, there was silence. It was almost dawn now; only one moon remained, shining pale above the dark mass of the trees. All around them, birds had begun to stir at the approach of morning, first one tentative call, then another, until the forest rang with their twitterin
g.

  Calwyn blinked, and sniffed hard. She would not cry in front of Darrow. But it was too late; he was frowning at her.

  ‘What is it?’

  In a muffled voice she said, ‘I’m ashamed.’

  Darrow seemed at a loss. He poked another stick into the heart of the fire, and sparks shot into the air. ‘There is no shame in being afraid to drown when you have never been taught to swim,’ he said at last. ‘They say that children of Penlewin can swim before they can walk. Between the sea and the marshes, they have little choice. But I’m sure there is not one among them who can tame a swarm of stinging bees without flinching.’

  Her teeth were chattering so hard that she had to force the words out. ‘I would have drowned if not for you.’

  ‘Ah, well.’ He cleared his throat, embarrassed. ‘Then I owe you my life only twice now, not three times over. But all the same, you’d better learn, and quickly. I wouldn’t want to fish you out a second time.’

  She gave a shaky laugh. ‘So you will take me with you?’

  He stared into the fire, not meeting her eyes. ‘I hadn’t thought to take an apprentice. But I can hardly send you back. And I suppose I’m still in your debt.’

  This was not the hearty welcome Calwyn had hoped to hear. ‘You’ll need my help in the mountains; you know yourself that your foot isn’t mended yet.’With a sudden flare of temper she added, ‘And I don’t want to be your apprentice. I have my own power; I am your equal in chantment.’

  ‘Though not in swimming,’ said Darrow gloomily.

  Calwyn’s indignation was so great that her tears vanished. ‘If you think I’ll hinder you, then I’ll go on alone,’ she flashed, and started to her feet.

  Darrow said mildly, ‘Then I’ll thank you to return my cloak.’ And Calwyn saw a smile in his grey eyes. ‘Come, dry your hair, don’t waste the fire. I would like to get some distance between us and Antaris before we rest again.’