Darkfall

by Isobelle Carmody

‘Why not?’ Ember asked.

  ‘They think that the waves and the sky merge after Kalinda sets,’ Tareed said. ‘They fear to begin a journey at night because they might accidentally set a course into the sky itself, or into the Void. They are very superstitious.’

  They reached the plain by midday when the heat of the swollen red sun was just as intense as Feyt had intimated. The plainway turned out to be only as wide as a six-lane highway, but it progressed beyond their sight. The forest could be seen on the other side of it, but where it met the plainway, it was almost impassably dense. There was no possibility, Ember could see, of their keeping to the trees. They would have no choice but to walk out in the open.

  Filling the water bottles from a streamlet at the edge of the forest, Feyt advised them not to drink too much lest it make the crossing harder.

  Common-sense told Ember she could do anything she wanted as this was a dream, but dream or not the Keltan sun felt very real, so she drank sparingly.

  It was a silent journey along the narrow plain for no one had saliva enough to talk on the way. The hot wind blew hard and constant, flinging sharp sand against their bare skin. Ember was glad of her veil even though it was like sweltering inside a tent. Her ankles and hands felt as if they had been sand-blasted! Alene had drawn a scarf over her own mouth, but the amazons weathered the wind and heat stoically.

  As they drew nearer the citadel, the wind dropped slightly and the sand gave way to a coarse, yellowing tundra scrub. Ember saw in the distance flocks of what looked like large goats watched over by shepherds in long, flowing Bedouin attire. Another movement caught her eye and, in the distance where the plainway met the coast, she saw a group of travellers heading away from the citadel.

  ‘They are bound for one of the casting settlements,’ Tareed said obligingly. She had explained enough for Ember to guess that casting was basically fishing, though here fish were called waterflyts. The big, bright-beaked butterflies Ember had seen earlier were plain flyts. There were also flocks of slender, long-necked creatures, their pale soft-furred antlers resembling bare, snow-covered tree branches.

  ‘Aspi,’ Tareed named the delicate creatures disparagingly. ‘They are very stupid. If you want to gasp at beauty, you must wait to see the unyki. They are truly worthy of wonder.’

  ‘Unyiky?’

  ‘Oorn yick yi,’ Tareed had corrected, laughing. ‘You have a strange way of talking.’

  Alene frowned at this. ‘Tar is right, Ember. Your manner of speech will call attention to us. You must avoid talking to anyone, but if forced to speak, do so softly and lengthen your words as we do.’ She made Ember practise until she could do a passable Keltan drawl.

  The activity absorbed them all and made the remainder of the journey pass quickly. The sun was near to setting when they reached the gate. Ember felt a stab of disquiet as they approached the heavy stone archway.

  ‘We could go round to the harbour,’ Feyt suggested, when Alene hesitated visibly before the arch.

  The soulweaver smiled ruefully. ‘I must take more care to guard my expression. Lead us in, Feyt. We must go in by the gate, for to go around the outside would involve a slow, difficult climb. Not only that, but if we were seen, much mischief could be made of my obvious avoidance. It would be a great deal worse than my failing to go to the palace and pay my respects. No, we must be bold and perhaps the Song will reward our courage.’

  Feyt said nothing but she unstrapped a long pole from her pack.

  ‘You expect trouble?’ Tareed asked.

  Feyt shrugged. ‘The colours showing above the palace mean Coralyn is in residence.’

  Alene sighed. ‘It should not be this way. If only Tarsin would hear his own thoughts and not heed his mother’s …’

  ‘I can not decide which is more hazardous – Tarsin being directed by Coralyn, or by his own crazed inclinations,’ Feyt observed sourly.

  She led the way, and Tareed brought up the rear, with Alene and Ember walking between them. Ember kept one hand on her veil, remembering what Alene had said of the fate of strangers.

  The road they were on was broad and busy, branching off here and there into narrow lanes which curved between rows of houses rising three and four storeys high. People were bustling about dressed in vaguely medieval-looking clothing with a predominance of greys and browns. Ember stared about with interest until she registered that most of the men and women they passed stared back in open hostility.

  ‘I have a bad feeling about this,’ Feyt said tersely. ‘Let us go a little faster.’

  They had been walking barely ten minutes when a voice hailed them, high-pitched and ear-piercingly loud. ‘Well! If it is not the soulweaver to the Holder and her two faithful myrmidons, honouring the citadel with one of their rare visits.’

  ‘Lanalor damn us!’ Feyt cursed under her breath, coming to a halt. ‘So much for getting to the harbour without being seen.’

  8

  Formed in the dying strains of the Song,

  the Lastmade alone was incomplete,

  unfinished and unwhole. Made yet Unmade,

  left ever to strive for completion,

  ever to contend with Chaos …

  LEGENDSONG OF THE UNYKORN

  The speaker was a pretty, doe-eyed girl wearing an outsized head-dress, which completely covered her hair and rose to an elaborate beaded tower. Her cheeks were so reddened with paint she looked like a cheap doll.

  ‘Greetings, Unys,’ Feyt said in a clipped voice.

  ‘Feyt,’ the girl tittered. She bobbed a curtsy at Alene, and the head-dress swayed precariously. ‘Soulweaver.’

  ‘You travelled from Iridom with Coralyn, Unys?’ Alene enquired courteously.

  The girl gave an exaggerated sigh. ‘Aye. Alene, you have no idea how dreary it is on Iridom. When my stepmother suggested I come with her to the citadel, frankly I was overjoyed. But now …’ She yawned dramatically. ‘Now I find it as dull here. All politics and court gossip.’

  ‘Kerd is not here?’ Tareed asked and Ember was startled to see real dislike in the amiable young myrmidon’s eyes.

  ‘Oh, Kerd,’ Unys said dismissively. ‘Of course, he is here. But you can not imagine he would cure my boredom! I know you favour him, Alene, but he is one of the chief causes of my misery. Vespians are so incredibly dull! I think they must have lessons in it. If I have to listen to him talk of his stupid ships and his stupid ship code one more time, I shall fling myself from the cliff.’

  ‘One can hope …’ Feyt muttered under her breath.

  ‘Kerd is nobly sung,’ Tareed said stiffly.

  ‘Then you have him.’ Unys uttered a trilling burst of laughter. ‘Oh, but I forgot about those vows of yours. But perhaps you should give them up for a day or so. You will be glad to go back to them after Kerd. Wait until you feel the weight of those great sad aspi eyes. Then you will know how I suffer.’ She giggled again, unperturbed that no one else shared her amusement. Her eyes came to rest on Ember’s veiled face again. ‘And who is that with you?’

  ‘Let us gift you with the mystery,’ Feyt said through gritted teeth. ‘It may help allay your terrible boredom.’

  They continued to walk, ignoring Unys’s protests.

  ‘She will waste no time in letting Coralyn know we are here,’ Tareed said, when they were out of earshot.

  ‘Aye. Of all the people we had to encounter!’ Feyt muttered.

  ‘Who is she?’ Ember asked.

  ‘Coralyn’s curst stepdaughter,’ Tareed said.

  ‘Poor child,’ Alene murmured.

  ‘That poor child will rush straight to her mother, who would as soon cut our throats as look at us,’ Feyt snapped.

  ‘Unys knows no better,’ Alene said. ‘She has modelled herself on Coralyn because there is no other. That is the way of children.’

  Feyt’s silence and rigid back spoke volumes.

  ‘Will legionnaires be sent out after us?’ Tareed asked.

  ‘I doubt it,’ Alene said dryly. She sighed.
‘I had hoped to leave the citadel unseen, but meeting Unys forces me to attend the cliff palace at least briefly. Well, that is a worry for the future. The important thing right now is to get Ember aboard a ship. We will go straight to the palace afterwards.’

  ‘Unys will tell them she was with us,’ Tareed pointed out.

  ‘That does not matter,’ Feyt said. ‘Unys did not see her face. We will say Ember was a traveller who begged our protection on the plainway. None will be able to gainsay us since she will be gone by then. She wore a veil of privacy and out of courtesy we did not press for her name.’

  ‘I think Coralyn will be too concerned with finding new ways to humiliate me to trouble herself with a departed traveller,’ Alene said.

  Ember noted the sadness in the older woman’s eyes. ‘Why does she dislike you so much?’

  ‘Dislike? Say hate and be done with it,’ Feyt said grimly.

  ‘There are many reasons,’ Alene said, ‘both personal and political. Most of all, perhaps, because as a soulweaver I represent Darkfall, and she believes the misty isle stands between her and control of Keltor. In a way, by virtue of Lanalor’s Charter, she is right.’

  ‘She wants to rule Keltor instead of her son?’

  The soulweaver shook her glossy head. ‘Only a man may fulfil the role of Holder of Lanalor’s Charter. Just as only a woman may rule Darkfall, or indeed walk there.’ A flash of complex pain crossed her face and was gone. ‘The Holder rules absolutely while he lives, but the soulweavers of Darkfall decide who will succeed him – the next Holder – and it may be any male from any of the seven septs and from any family or level of society.’

  ‘I don’t understand why Coralyn hates you if she can’t possibly rule anyway. Is it because you are supposed to be Tarsin’s adviser?’

  ‘There is no love lost between us over that, but these days my role as adviser can not trouble her much, given Tarsin’s attitude to me. No, it is more that she wants to break the power of Darkfall to choose the next Holder – the mermod. It is no secret that she plots for her other son, Kalide, to succeed his brother. It was to stop this sort of corrupt blood succession that Lanalor gave us the power of Darkfall Decree.’

  ‘Kalide is Coralyn’s youngest son and Tarsin’s half-brother. He has quite a following of his own,’ Feyt put in.

  ‘Mostly of women. Slimy silfi,’ Tareed muttered.

  ‘It is my belief that Coralyn’s desire is to set in motion a line of blood-descended Holders of Keltor, which she would control.’ Alene sounded abruptly weary. ‘It is very complicated, but the matter stems from the fact that, though a Holder is deemed not to belong to any sept, once chosen, a newly made ruler will invariably favour his home sept. It is tolerated and even expected to some degree because the next Holder may belong to any sept so the advantage is shared out. But Coralyn wants that favour to reside in Iridom alone, and ultimately in her own bloodline. Of course, there is far more to it than that …’

  Ember thought she understood. Clearly, Coralyn would see a stranger as damning proof that Lanalor was sane, and want her out of the way. She sounded both dangerous and formidable. Dream or not, Ember was suddenly glad to be leaving the isle of Ramidan.

  They had been walking along a road which now curved down into an open area that would have been a park but for the piles of rubbish everywhere. The air was putrid and Ember pressed the veil tightly to her nose, wondering how people could bear the stench.

  Houses and rudimentary shops were arranged in a cul-de-sac, which meant there was no through-way for the unwieldy carts pulled by the enormous woolly animals that on the plain she had thought were giant goats. Up close, they were more like a cross between a llama and a camel. She could not help smiling at their eyes, which were enormous liquid orbs fringed in long curling lashes. She wondered why Feyt was leading them into a dead end, until she noticed a small lane siphoning off foot traffic and the smaller aspi which some rode like horses.

  They were clearly bound for the lane, but it was going to take some effort to reach it, for there seemed to be a public meeting in progress. Ember was relieved to see that more than a few in the crowd wore head veils. She had been worried the veil would make her stand out. They passed a barrel of refuse outside one of the shops, and Ember saw a mass of maggots.

  ‘Uggh!’ She stepped sideways and was immediately separated from the others and pressed into a little knot of people.

  ‘Ugh is right,’ a man snarled. ‘This stench is the outcome of another idiotic idea of Tarsin’s. A tax on garbage disposed of, so of course no one disposes of it.’

  ‘Why don’t you just burn it?’ a man asked.

  ‘Yagh. Fine idea, except the legionnaires would burn us, do you see? You will learn how it is here if you stay more than a day or two, friend,’ the man said. ‘The Shadowman’s people set fire to a few piles and, the next day, the same number of houses were burned down as punishment for tax evasion.’

  ‘The legionnaires are supposed to protect us,’ an old woman quavered.

  The man looked even more disgusted. ‘Everybody promises to protect us, grandmother: the Iridomi legionnaires infesting the place and calling themselves Coralyn’s guard of honour, our own red legionnaires; even the Shadowman, who sets himself up to administer justice when the law of Lanalor’s Charter fails. So much protection, but who will protect us from Tarsin while we are bled of coin by taxes, live in garbage and have our houses burned down?’

  ‘We must send a delegation to the cliff palace,’ someone else said. ‘What is the good of public meetings? We are the only ones who come and we are not the ones who need convincing.’

  ‘What can we say to convince Tarsin? He does not care how the common streets smell, since he never walks along them,’ a woman said angrily. ‘Nor do the others of his court. They ride in carriages with sealed windows. They care nothing for us or our children. It is a wonder disease has not broken out.’

  ‘I do not blame the Shadowman for his actions. At least he tried to do something. When disease strikes, we will wish we had the courage to do as he did.’

  ‘I say we should have burned the palace when they burned our homes,’ a man said savagely.

  Ember felt a firm grip at her elbow and turned to see Feyt. ‘You must keep up,’ she said tersely.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Ember said. For a moment she had been so caught up in the arguments around her that she had forgotten what she was doing here. She felt as if she had slipped through a television screen into a movie.

  The man who had made the long speech spotted Feyt and shouted after her. ‘Everything is crumbling and you women are the cause of it. You and your precious soulweavers choosing a mad Holder. Let someone burn the misty isle and do us all some good.’

  The angry voice faded and in a moment they had caught up with Tareed and Alene, who were moving at a slower pace towards the lane. Ember did not like the feeling of being hemmed in. She was considerably shorter than the majority of people pressing around her and the danger of being stampeded underfoot in a crush was very real.

  ‘Darkfall sow!’ someone hissed nearby.

  Feyt whirled but Alene caught her arm, staying the movement. ‘There is no time to waste in defending my honour,’ she said with soft insistence. ‘Nor is there any point. Coralyn’s campaign has ensured that the common folk despise soulweavers and blame us for all that goes badly in their lives.’

  ‘They are angry about the rubbish,’ Ember murmured, but no one listened to her.

  Clearly Tarsin was the cause of the unrest. She could hardly blame people resenting the soulweavers for setting up a mad king. The thing was, if he was mad as everyone said, why had Darkfall chosen him?

  ‘We must not stand here like this. A crowd is gathering,’ Tareed said urgently.

  With stony stares and sheer brute strength, Feyt led the way through the glowering throng that had grown up around them. Ember’s heart beat rapidly. The violence simmering in the crowd needed nothing more than a spark to ignite it and she press
ed her hands to her sides so that no one would see how they trembled.

  They had just reached the edge of the mall when someone hurled a stone that struck Alene a savage glancing blow, opening her cheek to the bone just below her eye. She cried out in pain, and bright blood spilled onto the bodice of her shift.

  There was a murmur of shock even from the watchers, but the spark had flown and the crowd surged forward.

  ‘Darkfall hag …’ someone called. ‘It is your fault we are ruled by a madman!’

  ‘Evil sow. Demon-lover …’ screamed a woman.

  ‘Enough!’ Feyt roared and she leapt between Alene and the crowd, brandishing her javelin. Ember noticed both ends of the weapon were bound in dark, blue-green metal.

  The crowd’s forward motion slowed, then stopped.

  ‘Come, scum of the citadel, ratlets from the sewers. Taste the honest point of a myrmidon javelin,’ Feyt challenged mockingly. Her voice rang out loudly, gay and fearless. Several windows above shops flew open as people craned their necks to see what the fuss was about.

  The blonde amazon unclipped a leather thong from the javelin and slipped it over her wrist, raising its point high at the crowd as if she meant to pole-vault over their heads.

  ‘Well?’ she jeered loudly. ‘Is none of you brave enough to face a single spear maid? What about all of you together then? Good odds even for cowards. I daresay I would barely manage to stake ten of you before you downed me. Which ten will it be to sacrifice their lives for the rest?’

  She looked at the front runners in the crowd, and each person’s eyes she engaged slid away.

  ‘No? Come now, citizens. Having been mounted, my javelin hungers for blood. Who will feed it?’

  Dead silence met her query. Feyt turned her head slightly and spoke in a low voice. ‘Get them out, Tar.’

  Obediently, Tareed ushered Alene and Ember unobtrusively down the lane leading out of the cul-de-sac.

  ‘I am bored with waiting for someone with the courage of their cowardly convictions, but I shall wait in the lane for anyone who deludes themselves that I am weaker in the shadows,’ Ember heard Feyt call contemptuously as they hurried down the lane and out into another street.