Cry of the Newborn

by James Barclay

  Arducius had felt it approaching like a steadily increasing weight on his back. The others had sensed it too, though not as keenly or for as long. He had no idea whether Patonius had decided to move inshore but it didn't feel much like it. Pushing his mind out, he couldn't sense the steady rhythms of the land anywhere nearby, though that might have been because the storm obscured all else.

  'It's incredible,' breathed Gorian.

  'It's making me feel sick,' said Ossacer.

  'Surprise, surprise,' said Gorian. He was very much back to his old self following the brief remorse that had gripped him the day after

  he'd blinded the rigger. Arducius had wept too when he'd heard Gorian begging Father Kessian for forgiveness in his prayers.

  'Shut up the pair of you, I'm trying to concentrate.'

  'What is it?' said Ossacer.

  'It's getting stronger. Can't you see the energy being dragged from the top of the sky?' Arducius could. Like water sucked down a plug hole. Coursing into the heart of the storm. 'Oh no.'

  'Where are you going?' demanded Ossacer.

  Arducius pushed himself up the wall as another wave clattered them port and aft. The mess on the floor was rearranged and he heard someone's head strike wood. Gorian grunted.

  'There's a bigger wind coming. Much bigger. I have to warn Patonius. We have to turn into the storm.'

  'You can't go out there,' said Ossacer.

  'I'd rather get flogged than sink. Stay here.'

  The door slammed open. Patonius stood there with a crewman who held a lantern. Both were drenched from head to foot. She grabbed the collar of his night shirt.

  'Come with me.'

  'Careful,' he protested.

  She dragged his face right to hers. 'Stow it, witch-boy. Time to prove to me you're of use to this world.'

  Patonius hurried him along the lurching ship, past a blur of oarsmen trying to keep the ship travelling. It was a cacophony of shouts, creaks and grunts mixed with fear and the battering of water against timber. Water beat into the deck and sloshed around the floor beneath their feet. No one sought to clear it. Arducius felt the weight of their efforts as a solid presence in his mind, a wall of determination made up of the energy maps of their straining bodies.

  He stumbled up the stern ladder as the ship pitched into the guts of the swell, hands dragging him through the hole and out into the storm. In the open, the world was black and bucking. Beneath them, the sea rolled and gathered to fling itself at the tiny ship that was alone in the darkness. Arducius could see the froth on the water and above, the clouds so low they seemed close enough to touch.

  He grabbed the rail, planted his bare feet on the soaking, slippery deck and looked forward. There was no one ahead of him. The sail was down and furled rattling and slapping against the mast. Three men fought to keep the tiller steady and the ship moving ahead of the storm while the rain drove horizontally along the ship. A sheet of lightning split the night, offering Arducius a terrifying sight of the ocean, white-capped and huge above him.

  The energy release of the lightning acted like a heavy slap across his face. He turned to Patonius. Their heads were almost touching.

  'What do you expect me to do,' he yelled at her, his words tattered on the gale.

  'You sensed this thing,' she shouted back. 'You tell me where it's going. When it will pass us.' She paused. 'Tell me which way to point my ship.'

  Arducius already knew. 'You have to turn around into the storm. The wind will get worse.'

  'I can't turn. Broadside we'll be capsized. I have to run ahead.'

  Arducius shook his head, not knowing how he knew but seeing the pictures in his mind. 'The waves will sink us unless we are facing them.'

  She stared at him. 'Then we will be lost. Look at the swell. We cannot turn.'

  He felt the power above and below. The extraordinary energies nature threw together. And his mind, a calm oasis where they could rest.

  'Wait. Bring the others up here,' he said. She frowned. 'Please, you have to trust me.'

  The ship fell off the crest of a wave and slammed onto the down surge. The whole vessel shuddered. Wood flew across the deck, the remnants of a shattered oar blade.

  'What do you have to lose?'

  She gritted her teeth and nodded.

  There was no fear in them where they knelt facing each other on the aft deck. Nervous crew stood around them, stopping them from sliding while the ship plunged and yawed around them. Patonius stood by the tiller, watching. Arducius had seen her mouthing prayers and making the symbol of the Omniscient over her chest.

  The Ascendants linked arms around shoulders to keep themselves tight and their heads close together so they could hear Arducius speak.

  'Feel the storm. Ignore the power in the water which feeds from it. Accept it in. Channel it through your bodies and back into the sky. Tell me you can do it.'

  One by one they did and Arducius could see in his mind's eye, the circle completed. Together with their bodies linked by the lifelines surrounding them, they became as one with the storm.

  'Gorian, you wanted to know what calling a storm would feel like? Remember this night.'

  To create such power from the slight energies of the wind and sun on a cloudless day was still a dream to them. But the knowledge of the storm's magnitude told Arducius, told all of them, that they could create such a thing one day. It was not uncontrollable within them.

  'Flatten the energy map in your minds,' said Arducius. 'Push it out just a little way.'

  The effect was instantaneous. The Ascendants changed the nature of the energy cycle immediately around them. The twisting, bulging spirals and spikes were calmed in their linked consciousness and through their bodies, like teasing wool into thread. The wind about their heads died away. The rain stopped beating on their bodies Arducius was dimly aware of shouts of shock from around them and the shifting of feet.

  'Good,' he said. 'Now push out further. Use the wild energy to create the calm and keep the circuit unbroken. Gently. We have to get this right first time.'

  It was a time when he understood how far they had developed in the years since first emergence and the scant days since full emergence. Their minds and bodies were so much stronger. So much more capable of accepting energies and manipulating them in greater mass than before.

  Together, they expanded the bubble of smoothed energy. Pushed it out towards the sides of the ship and into the space beyond. In their minds the bubble appeared as a flat neutral circle with frayed edges. Surrounding it were the clashing whites and darks of the storm beyond.

  Beneath them, the ocean subsided. Not completely. The rhythms of the waves beyond their control fed into the deeps far below. And above them, the gale dropped to a stiff breeze and the rain fell straight down. Arducius smiled. Their minds were steady but the drain on them was huge, dragging the energy from them to feed the bubble and keep the storm at bay in direct proportion to its power.

  'Turn the ship, Captain,' said Arducius. 'We cannot keep this up for long.'

  The silence that had fallen on the Cirandon's Pride gave way to order, beat, action and song. The ship turned into the face of the storm and moved on to the cheers of the crew. The fear would come later with the return of the gales.

  'They are saying it was coincidence. They are saying God showed us mercy and the eye of the storm and so we were able to turn,' said Patonius.

  The Ascendants and Kovan were in Mirron's quarters. The wrinkles on their faces and hands had already faded. It was three days since the storm had passed and they had resumed their course. Arducius had assured the captain that there was not another storm within ten days of them but even so, she had set them near enough to the Gesternan coast for quick shelter should they need it.

  'If it keeps them happy,' said Kovan.

  'No, that's not it at all,' said Ossacer. 'We saved them. We made it possible for the ship to turn.'

  He was staring straight at Patonius, his sightless eyes making her uneasy.
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  'Next time, we'll let the ship sink,' said Gorian. 'Let God save them then if He can.'

  'And you would go down with it,' snapped Patonius. 'Where is your sense, boy?'

  'Where is yours?' he retorted. 'We can't drown.'

  Patonius stared at him and shook her head. ‘I will not talk to you. Petulant brat.'

  'None of this really matters,' said Arducius. 'What do you think, Captain?'

  ‘I know what I saw. So do those who were standing around you and on the tiller. I know you forecast the storm and I know there was a weakness in my hull.' Her head was shaking again. 'But still in my heart, I cannot believe it's really you that is doing this. And the crew do not want to believe, and so they don't. I see God's hand in this, all of it. And I would believe in coincidence faster than in witchcraft.'

  'It isn't witchcraft. It is inside us, part of us,' said Mirron. 'God works through us. We do what we do only by His grace and gift. Please, we only want to be accepted. We only want to be free to do good.'

  'I'm not sure I believe that of all of you,' she said, looking askance at Gorian for a moment. ‘I don't know. I've got a crew of grown men and women out there and they are frightened of four children. There is mistrust and there is hatred too. What would you have me do?'

  'Let us prove to you and your crew that this is not coincidence,' said Arducius. 'We can manipulate the elements and the energies of life at will. We're sorry for what Gorian did. But we can help your crewman.'

  ‘I can make him see again,' said Ossacer. 'I'm sure of it.' 'You cannot even see yourself,' said Patonius, not unkindly. 'How can you cure another?'

  'Let him show you,' said Mirron.

  'Anthus would not let any of you within a mile of him if he had the choice. Every rigger wants you put over the side. And while you might not be able to drown, you can certainly starve to death so don't push me.'

  'Please,' said Ossacer. 'You must let me try. The nerves in my eyes have died and I will never see. I think his are burned so the life energy can't get through them. I can heal the burns inside and take away the scars. Then he can see again.'

  ‘I have no idea what you're talking about. How can you know what is wrong with him?'

  'I'm guessing but I'm good at guessing,' said Ossacer. 'Please, captain.'

  She addressed herself to Arducius. 'If he causes Anthus any more pain there will be nothing I can do to save any of you, do you understand?'

  'Of course.'

  'Then I will speak with him.' The slightest of smiles crossed her face. 'What has he got to lose, right?'

  Arducius accompanied Ossacer to the surgeon's area later that day. Ossacer could have walked there by himself using the trails in the living wood but the captain didn't think it wise. The surgeon's area was just a table and chests with drawers fixed to the floor and curtained off from the hammocks in which the off-duty crew rested. It stank of old blood and the sweet aromas of herbal preparations. He couldn't count the hammocks that swung from the beams on three levels, the bedrolls on the floor and the belted knots of belongings. And Arducius had thought their temporary home to be tight and sparse. These people always had nothing.

  The walk made him sad. It would have made Gorian proud. The crew who saw them backed away from them. They made religious signs and muttered protective words. He saw keepsakes and charms around their necks that hadn't been there before. And he heard them spit on the floor behind them and rub their feet on the deck. It would have broken Father Kessian's heart.

  They were ushered through the curtain by the surgeon herself, a short-bodied woman who seemed somehow out of proportion. She had long limbs and powerful looking hands with long fingers. Probably good for a surgeon. He couldn't work out how tall she was because she was stooped in the cramped space. She was very pale skinned and he thought he could see a layer of downy hair on her face and the backs of her hands. He was aware he was staring and blushed. She chuckled. A hard sound from deep in her throat. And then she spoke and her voice was like the grumbling fall of rocks.

  'You have never seen my like, younger,' she said.

  'I'm sorry,' he said. 'I didn't mean—'

  ‘I am Gorres of Kark.'

  His mouth dropped open.

  'That's them, isn't it?' said Anthus from within. His voice was over-loud, frightened.

  'Yes,' said Gorres, sparing Arducius any further embarrassment. 'No need to worry, I'm sure.'

  She waved the Ascendants forward. Anthus was sitting on a stool near the table. His eyes were bandaged and his hands were clamped to the seat, his knuckles white.

  'Who's that?' Anthus's head twitched round.

  'My name is Ossacer. I'm blind too.'

  'Don't come any closer. Blind or not, you've got those eyes changing colour all the time. Not right. Will I have those eyes if you fix me?'

  'No,' said Ossacer. 'Only we have those.' 'Gorres?'

  'Yes, Anthus, speak.'

  ‘I will get better on my own, won't I? Eventually?'

  ‘I think not. You cannot even tell light from dark. I cannot help you.' Anthus was silent. 'Let the younger try. Do you want to spend the rest of your life in shadow? And on shore?'

  Anthus shook his head. 'Just don't make it worse.'

  Ossacer took that as agreement. Arducius watched him. His delicate fingers reached out. Gorres was rapt, licking her lips in anticipation.

  i'm going to lay my fingers on your bandages above your eyes,' said Ossacer. 'You'll feel warmth. Perhaps a tingling. If you feel any pain, tell me.'

  Anthus breathed deeply. 'This isn't right.'

  it wasn't right what Gorian did to you. This will put things back where they should be,'

  Ossacer's fingers touched and Anthus started violently.

  it's all right. Try to relax.'

  'Relax. Don't think so.'

  it'll be done quickly. Do you feel warmth?'

  'Yes. It itches. In my head. Make it stop.'

  it will. Just a moment.'

  Gorres whispered in Arducius's ear. 'What happens, younger?'

  'Ossacer will detect where the energy lines are blocked and he will remove the block by forcing a little of his own life energy in. That will clear the scarring in his eyes and let Anthus's own lifelines complete their circles and let him see again.'

  'He doesn't cut him?'

  'He doesn't even move the bandages.'

  'Done,' said Ossacer.

  'You've done nothing,' sneered Anthus.

  'Keep your eyes closed,' said Gorres, stepping up quickly and placing a palm over his bandages. 'Snuff the lantern, younger.' She began to unwind them. A couple of layers and then soft pads soaked in balm. She peeled the pads away. Anthus gasped. His hands reached up and his eyes flickered beneath their lids. 'Keep shut. Let me clean you.' She wiped away the slight weeping that had gummed his eyes. 'Now. Put your hand over them. Open slowly.'

  ‘I can see light,' said Anthus but there was no joy in his voice.

  'Fascinating,' said Gorres. 'Amazing.'

  ‘It doesn't scare you?' asked Arducius.

  Gorres laughed. 'Now why would it do that? I am Karku. I was born into wonder.'

  Arducius looked back to Anthus. His eyes were open and he was squinting against the light, even in the gloom below decks. He prodded around their edges.

  'The pain around the sockets will fade,' said Ossacer. 'You should have as much sight as you ever had.'

  Anthus retched suddenly and Arducius saw he was shivering.

  'Go away,' he said. 'No one can do this. No man. No woman. I'm dirty. Touched. This is devil's sight.'

  Gorres got to him before he could scratch his eyes out. Her strong arms bound him tight and she whispered for him to calm. Ossacer backed up. Arducius held him.

  'I helped him,' said Ossacer, voice trembling. 'I helped him to see.'

  'Best you leave, youngers,' said Gorres, holding the writhing Anthus hard. 'He'll come round. Maybe you should too. What you have, people will shy from. It's too different and men scare e
asily. Hide what you are when you can. Estorea isn't ready for you. It might never be.' She smiled rather sadly. 'I'm sorry for you. I know what you feel you can be.'

  Arducius led Ossacer past the staring, suspicious eyes of the crew in the open quarters and around the oar deck. They could all hear Anthus's cries. His denunciation of Ossacer's act to restore his sight and his assertion that he had been cursed. Ossacer himself was on the verge of tears and Arducius hurried him back to Mirron's quarters and called Kovan and Gorian in. Before he had the chance to tell them all that had transpired, the shouting had begun.

  'Why now? Why when we've cured him? Why not when Gorian hurt him?' asked Mirron.

  'Until now they could fool themselves,' said Kovan. 'Even what Gorian did could have been a fluke, poking his eyes out or something. But now . . . well it's there for everyone. He couldn't see and now he can.'

  There was a loud thud from outside. Kovan drew his sword and ushered the Ascendants behind him. Gorian stood at his shoulder.

  'I won't hesitate,' he said.

  Kovan glanced at him. 'I wouldn't ask you to.'

  'The more good we do, the more they hate us,' whispered Ossacer.

  He was sitting on the bed, Arducius with him. Mirron stood behind the two others, not knowing where to put herself.

  'You should listen to me more often, then, shouldn't you,' said Gorian. 'Stop snivelling. It makes you sound weak.'

  'You didn't hear the hate in his voice,' said Ossacer. 'He thinks me evil.'

  'So we have to defend ourselves against these unbelievers,' said Gorian. 'We can do it. We have power they can only dream about.'

  'You cannot think like that, Gorian,' said Arducius. He had closed his eyes when he heard Gorian's words but was clinging on to the possibility that they were said in fear, nothing else. 'Just because they don't understand doesn't—'