The Singer of All Songs

by Kate Constable

  Calwyn cupped her hands to her mouth. ‘Bring the boat as close as you can! And hold her steady!’

  Tonno nodded; then Calwyn caught sight of Darrow, seated beside him in the stern, as upright as ever, but pale and grim-faced. Her heart jumped. The boat drew nearer to the rocky shore. Calwyn sang the words of chantment, and called up the bridge of ice she had intended to make earlier. It was not easy; the little boat bobbed about on the water, and the ground where she stood was not too steady, still trembling as the mountain of Doryus stirred and roared. But she blocked out every distraction, just as the priestesses had taught her, and called up the bridge, weaving it across the gap one handspan at a time, until an arc of ice joined the pebbled beach and the deck of Fledgewing.

  ‘Mica, quickly!’ Calwyn ran across first, not letting herself think how slippery the ice felt beneath her feet. She had tried to make it as rough and safe underfoot as she knew how, but as she held out her hand, she could see how Mica wavered and hesitated, placing one foot gingerly in front of the other. ‘Quick, quick!’ But Mica had never walked across ice. She could not be quick, and even as Calwyn reached for her hand, she almost fell. Calwyn caught her just in time and hauled her bodily down the slope of the bridge to tumble on the deck. Calwyn was on her feet again in a flash, and rapidly singing the words of undoing to melt the ice.

  Darrow was beside her. ‘If I lift the new mast, can you fix it fast? We must raise sail.’

  Calwyn nodded. ‘Mica is a windworker,’ she said, and that was the only introduction Mica had before she became one of the crew.

  They were drifting now toward Doryus, through the scattering of rocks and islands that made up the archipelago. The fire-mountain still belched and roared, and Trout, clutching the tiller, could scarcely tear his eyes from the sight. But everyone else on Fledgewing was frantic with activity. Darrow raised up the new mast. Swiftly Calwyn sang a firm foundation to bind it in place, a solid block of ice at its foot to hold it upright. With Darrow’s help, Tonno hauled up the spare sail and held it steady. And Mica raised her hands and her clear young voice, and from the still air drew a wind, gentle at first, but growing slowly stronger, to fill the sails and drive them steadily away from the islands, further out into the open sea, leaving Doryus and the mountain behind them.

  In the weird half-light, the peak stood out starkly against the boiling clouds of steam and smoke, its summit outlined in bright red-gold. As they watched, a jet of steam and ash and rock suddenly shot high into the air, and rained down on the island, spattering and hissing into the waves. One fragment hit the deck of Fledgewing near Trout; he bent to pick it up, then dropped it hastily, shaking his fingers. ‘It’s hot!’

  Calwyn turned to Darrow. ‘Will Doryus Town be destroyed? Is there anything we can do to help the people?’

  ‘I wouldn’t shed no tears if Doryus Town was destroyed, with its slava, and its pirates, and its slave market,’ said Mica with venom, and spat over the side of the boat.

  Tonno gave an approving chuckle. ‘Don’t you fret over them, lass. They won’t burn, nor drown. See there, the fire-flood’s moving to the east, it’ll flow into the sea. If they stir themselves, they’ll come to no harm.’

  ‘Can’t we stay and watch a little longer?’Trout was staring at the peak. ‘I’ve heard tales about the fire-mountain of Doryus. But I never thought to see the river of liquid rock with my own eyes.’

  ‘Liquid rock? ’ said Mica with frank derision. ‘How can a rock be liquid, like water? Don’t make no sense.’

  ‘How can water be solid?’ retorted Trout. ‘But you saw it turned to hard ice just now. It’s the same with rock: if it’s made hot enough, it melts.’

  ‘But what made it hot?’ Calwyn swung to Darrow. ‘Was it chantment? What was that sound, did you hear it, before the fire began?’

  ‘Hear it? The whole of the Isles must have heard it,’ said Tonno.

  ‘That was the Clarion,’ said Darrow quietly. ‘The Clarion called up fire from the earth. It could have been nothing else.’

  ‘So Samis –’ Calwyn stared at him, wide-eyed.

  Darrow turned his head toward the south, where rags of fire still hung across the sky. ‘He is there, somewhere. Testing his strength. Seeing what the Power of Fire can do.’

  ‘We have to go after him!’ Calwyn’s eyes blazed as she grasped Darrow’s hands, half-beseeching, half-commanding. ‘We can’t just let him go! There are three of us now, three chanters united. We must try! I’ve told Mica everything, and she agrees. Don’t you, Mica?’

  Darrow looked from one face to the other: Calwyn’s dark eyes burning; Mica’s sharp, mistrustful but eager little face; Trout, wary, blinking behind his lenses, but holding the tiller firm as he’d been asked to do. At last he turned toTonno. ‘What do you say, old friend?This is your vessel. Where shall we take her?’

  There was silence for a breath or two, while the mountain roared and hissed behind them.

  ‘We need provisions,’Tonno said.

  ‘There’s the Small Isles, half a day from here,’ said Mica quickly. ‘There’s good folk on Eo, no friend to pirates. They helped me once. Reckon they might help me again.’

  Tonno gave the smallest of shrugs. ‘South then. If that’s where he is.’

  Darrow found Calwyn’s eyes; her face was lit up with a smile of pure joy. ‘So,’ he said in a low voice. ‘The hunt goes on. Calwyn, I believe you have saved me again.’

  ‘It’s you who have saved me, this time.’

  For a moment they gazed at one another, their hands still clasped together. Then, gently but firmly, Darrow pulled his hands from hers. Swiftly she let them go, suddenly embarrassed.

  Darrow looked at Mica. ‘Can you give us a wind to take us south?’ She nodded. ‘Then let us go now. I would like to catch him up. Can you do that?’

  ‘I can help,’ said Calwyn quickly. ‘Mica’s been teaching me windcraft.’

  Darrow raised an eyebrow, but he said nothing. All at once Tonno was the captain in command, bellowing orders. ‘Trout, keep your hands on the tiller and stop your eyes from wandering, or I’ll give you something better than a fire-mountain to look at. Darrow, those cleats look none too firm. Calwyn, your ice is melting in this heat, look to it, if you please. And you, little lass, what did you say your name was? Mica, you say you can summon us a wind, then let’s feel it!’

  Soon the boat was leaping across the waves out in the open sea, leaving the Isle of Doryus and its fire-flood to grow smaller behind them.

  Presently Calwyn found a moment to stand beside Trout. ‘I expected you to argue about following Samis,’ she said. ‘I thought you’d want to go home.’

  Trout shifted his hands on the tiller. ‘Could you take it for a breath? I’m getting cramp in my fingers – Oh well. I’ve failed this term now anyway. Missing lectures without leave, smuggling girls into the college, going off like that without a word to anyone. They’ll probably have me tried as a spy when I get back.’

  ‘You didn’t seem worried about that before.’

  ‘When we were all locked up in the cabin, I started thinking. And I thought, well, it’s not so wonderful in Mithates, is it? And besides, if I’d stayed in Mithates, I never would have seen that.’ He nodded behind them, to the tiny gold and red fountain of flame against the bone-bleached sky.

  ‘I’m glad you’re staying,’ said Calwyn. ‘I think we may need you.’

  Trout blushed as red as the moon had been. ‘I can take the tiller back now,’ he said shyly.

  ‘And I should be helping Mica,’ said Calwyn, getting up.

  All that day, with the double breath of chantment in Fledgewing’s sails, they followed the trail of the fire in the sky, the scarlet ribbons flung across the horizon, like the most vivid of sunsets, even though the sun blazed its own path above their heads.

  It was sinking toward the sea, an immense orange ball, by the time they glimpsed Samis’s ship. Calwyn caught her breath at the familiar shadow against the sky: the square sail, t
he banks of oars, the high serpent’s head of the Gellanese prow.

  Darrow lowered the looking-tube. ‘He has stopped the ship,’ he said. ‘He waits for us.’

  ‘Will we blow him out into the sea, like I did with the captain?’ asked Mica fiercely.

  Darrow held up his hand. ‘Wait!’ he barked. ‘I would speak with him.’

  ‘Samis is stronger than your captain, Mica,’ whispered Calwyn, and Mica’s thin brown hand crept into hers, and squeezed it.

  Before long they could all see him: the still, menacing figure in the empty boat. His large shaggy head was poised and watchful above broad, bulky shoulders, and the ruby of the great square ring gleamed on his finger, catching the light of the sunset. He stood with folded arms, utterly motionless; only the grey cloak fluttered behind him.

  Trout swallowed hard, and tried to turn it into a cough. Tonno raised his hand to Calwyn and Mica, and they fell silent. Fledgewing stopped; the two ships rocked on the waves.

  ‘Hail, Samis!’ cried Darrow.

  The sorcerer stood impassive, as still as carved stone, waiting.

  Darrow called across the water. ‘We have all seen now what the Clarion can do. But we have more chantments between us on this little boat than you can cram into one voice. We shall see what powers will be summoned in the final reckoning. Take heed, Samis. Pride has always been your weakness, and it will prove to be your downfall yet, if you persist in this course. It is not too late. Not too late for you, nor yet for me.’

  For a long moment there was silence, but for the slap of the waves. Samis stood motionless in his ship; but the curl of his lip communicated utter contempt.

  Darrow tried again. ‘I know what you think. How can he dare to challenge me, with his ragbag of witchlings and his broken fishing boat? But there will be a reckoning. We are stronger than you imagine. I am stronger than you imagine.’

  Slowly, deliberately, Samis tipped back his head. Now, surely, he would reply. But instead he raised his hands, and the powerful throat-growl of chantment echoed out across the water. The rows of oars dipped together, and pulled; the galley swung about, and began to pull away.

  Darrow’s face was a mask.

  ‘What now?’Tonno stood scowling at the tiller. ‘After him?’

  ‘How can we? We still don’t even have the mast fixed properly!’ Trout snatched off his lenses and rubbed them frantically on his shirt.

  ‘We’ll lose him,’ said Calwyn softly.

  The golden light of the sunset dazzled off the water, turning all the sea to a sheet of gold. Already the small dark shape of Samis’s ship had been swallowed up in the brightness.

  Darrow shook his head. ‘Let him go.’

  ‘We don’t know where he’s going,’ said Tonno.

  Darrow half-smiled. ‘I know where. He has told me.’

  ‘But he didn’t say nothin, not a word!’ cried Mica.

  ‘You forget that I know him. I know his plans. I was his friend, he told me everything. He is ready to try the reach of his power, and he goes south. South, to Spareth.’

  Calwyn shot a questioning look atTonno, but he shook his head.

  ‘Spareth,’ said Darrow. ‘The Lost City of the Ancient Ones. The birthplace of all chantment. They say that in Spareth, chantments had ten times the force that they have now. The further we have moved from that homeland, the more our chantments have diminished. Samis told me, in Gellan, that he would go there, when the time came.’

  ‘So where is Spareth?’ asked Trout.

  ‘No one knows for certain.’

  ‘South,’ brooded Tonno. ‘Through the Southern Straits? But there’s nothing beyond that but the Wildlands.’

  ‘And after the Wildlands?’ There was a gleam in Darrow’s eye, though whether it was amusement or something more grim, none of them could tell.

  ‘After the Wildlands – why, nothing.’Tonno frowned.

  ‘The coast is unknown. That is a very different thing from there being no coast at all,’ said Darrow.

  Calwyn could have stamped her foot. ‘You’re speaking in riddles, Darrow!’

  Tonno turned away. ‘Let him have his riddles. I’ve a ship to sail, and a port to find. Mica, you know these waters, lass: which way to Eo, by your reckoning?’

  The others began to move about the boat, and presently they were under way again, this time heading a little to the northeast, where Mica said the island of Eo lay. But Calwyn stayed beside Darrow. He was staring over the rail into the southern waters, where Samis had vanished.

  ‘Why didn’t we try to fight him just now?’ she said. ‘We’re all here. Why did we wait?’

  ‘Chantment is stronger in Spareth. We will have a better chance of defeating him there.’

  ‘But if chantments are stronger in Spareth, then he will be stronger too.’

  ‘I have my reasons, Calwyn. This is not the time.’ Darrow’s face was stern, hawk-like.

  ‘He let you see where he was going. It’s as if he wanted us to follow. Why would he do that? Could it be a trap?’

  Darrow made no reply.

  ‘You said, it’s not too late for you, nor yet for me,’ she persisted. ‘What does that mean? It sounds almost as if you want to beat him at his own plan!’

  ‘That is enough questions for one day,’ said Darrow. ‘Even for you.’

  ‘Darrow!’ She reached out her hand, but he turned aside. She let her hand drop. At the very moment they’d begun to draw close again, he was shutting her out, as though there was room only for Samis in his thoughts now. Without another word, he limped along the deck toward the cabin, and went below.

  For a long time Calwyn stayed where she was, staring after him with her eyes narrowed and the line of a frown between her brows. Then she reached behind and shook out her hair, and began to replait it, strand by smooth strand, until it was all neat again, two smooth dark ropes hanging down her back, just as they should be.

  eight

  The Song of the Trees

  FOR MANY DAYS they sailed southward, into the Southern Straits, which Mica called the Sea of Sevona. Every dayTonno peered through the looking-tube, scanning the horizon for some sign of Samis’s ship, but he never saw it. ‘He must have rowed far ahead while we were at Eo.’

  ‘No! We must be quicker than he is,’ said Trout, oddly proud, watching Mica and Calwyn as they sat side by side singing up a steady wind to send the boat flying across the blue sea. ‘I think we’ve passed him. No one could go faster than Fledgewing.’

  Gradually the cultivated lands petered out, and they left far behind them the silver streams and flat dusty fields. They sailed past the very fringe of the lands that could be called Kalysons, where farming had been abandoned long ago. Ruined windmills pointed forlornly to the sky, and here and there a line of trees still straggled to keep the pattern of their planting, but the Wildlands had triumphed. The land was barren here, a tide of rocks and scrub too strong to be beaten back with farmers’ ploughs and hoes.

  There was a chill in the air now, and at night the sun set more slowly, drawing dusk across the sea like a grey veil. With every day that passed, they sailed deeper into autumn, deeper into the Wildlands.

  As they rested at anchor one evening, Calwyn sat in the prow, watching the blue smoke of Tonno’s pipe curl over the railing and into the dusky sky. Trout was stretched out against a coil of rope some distance away, crunching on an apple. The only other sounds were the soft slap of water on timber and, far off, from the shadowy shore, the rhythmic cries of night darts as they came out to feed and flit about in the strengthening moonlight.

  At the other end of the boat, Darrow shifted his weight from his twisted foot, which often began to ache at nightfall, and sat back against the cabin wall. Mica was beside him, mending a fishing-net; she began to sing a song from Emeran, and the notes floated up to Tonno and Calwyn. Mica’s voice when she sang the songs of her childhood was quite different from when she sang the chantments of windwork: it was huskier, and there were tears buried in it.


  Tonno gave a contented grunt. ‘I like to hear the little lass sing. She puts me in mind of our Enna. Like a little lark, she was, always chattering and laughing and singing away. Mebbe this one’ll be the same, once she gets a bit of happiness in her.’ He sucked at his pipe and gave Calwyn a shrewd look. ‘You seem troubled.’

  Calwyn stared up at him in surprise. She wouldn’t have expected gruff Tonno to notice her unease, or to care. She hesitated before she answered. ‘It’s nothing.’

  He shook his head. ‘Something’s eating at you, lass. Let’s have it.’

  Calwyn looked up to be sure that no one else could hear. In a low voice she said, ‘It’s Darrow.’ Nervously she glanced at Tonno, but he was expressionless, chewing at his pipe stem.

  ‘Aye. What about him?’

  ‘It’s only – you heard how he spoke to Samis, when he said, it’s not too late, and I am stronger than you think. He almost made it sound as though he wanted to be the Singer of all Songs himself.’

  Tonno frowned. ‘Mebbe he said that to throw him off guard. Until now Samis has taken his time in going about this plan of his. But if he thinks we’re racing him to the prize, why, then he might stumble, be careless.’

  ‘Yes, perhaps. But –’ ‘Speak your mind, lass. I never could abide a time-waster.’

  Calwyn spoke slowly, cautiously, glancing over to where Darrow rested with his eyes closed. ‘I’m sure this doesn’t mean anything, and at the time I didn’t even believe it, but – when I met Samis in Mithates, he told me it was Darrow’s idea to collect the Nine Powers. That they only quarrelled when Darrow realised Samis was a greater sorcerer than he was.’

  Tonno snorted. ‘I thought better of you than that. To believe the words of one like him!’