The Silences of Home

by The Silences of Home (v5. 0) (epub)

  “This way!” Leish had cried, and they had followed him into the rippling darkness. They had sliced through the water, drinking it, feeling it cleanse and harden their skin and everything beneath it.

  Mallesh had heard the river’s song clearly once he was far below its water. The song was very different from that of his own, far away river—but this one seemed to welcome him and draw him on, and he rejoiced in its strangeness.

  Mallesh had worried, when they entered the river, that Leish would never surface. He had hoped for this as well, with a sickening, humming intensity. After he had swum for a time, someone had grasped his hand and pulled him to the surface. He blinked and saw a faint glow up ahead, and Leish beside him. Mallesh tried to smile at him in the flickering light, and they waited together for the other selkesh to join them.

  “Quietly,” Leish had whispered when they had all gathered. “We are within the city walls now. The loudest people-singing is above us—but there could be other men down here, too few to hear. Maybe there, where the light is.”

  But there were only these two delicate-looking men in the chamber of the shining walls. Mallesh’s pulse had quickened when he brushed the water from his eyes and saw them: only two, surrounded by all the selkesh with their throwing spears and knives. He almost heard the strangers’ blood, singing like the river that had brought them here.

  And then one of the men called out, and Mallesh hesitated. As he did, leaning on the ball of one foot, the man spoke again.

  “Who?” It was the only word Mallesh understood, though the man spoke others. Yllosh words, Mallesh thought, and remembered the ones they had met on the ocean, the ones who had doubted and mocked him. Who is he to know these words?

  “Selkesh,” he said in slow syllables, drawing his feet together and his shoulders up and back. The man inclined his head in a gesture that was unfamiliar to Mallesh. After a wide-eyed moment the man’s companion did the same.

  “Where?” the first man said again, adding other, unintelligible words. He moved carefully into a standing position with his hands held before him. Mallesh noticed the dagger hanging at his belt in a pouch of blue and green.

  “Across the sea,” Mallesh said, gesturing to the tunnel as if this would encompass desert, jungle, a rolling, heaving space of salt water, and the swaying trees and vines of the land beyond. The man’s lips formed a sound he did not make.

  “Why?” he finally said. Only the one word this time.

  Mallesh heard his men murmur again. He tightened his grip on his knife and took another step along the bridge. “We will take this city. Our city.”

  “Our,” the man repeated, then, after a pause, “your city. Your. . . .” His face changed. Mallesh had never seen a face like this—but it was enough like his own that he recognized the clenching of shock and fear. The fear, though, was swiftly gone. The man’s eyes narrowed and his lips pressed together and the muscles of his jaw relaxed a bit. Mallesh thought, A pity—he is obviously a man of valour. As the murmuring around him swelled, he strode forward with his knife raised.

  “No!” the man cried as his companion leapt to his feet. Mallesh was three paces away—so much taller and stronger, deafened by the triumphant song of the city.

  “No—wait—” one pace away, the knife reflecting lantern light and glass “—I help you. Help you!”

  Mallesh looked down at the man. The chamber was quiet except for water that dripped from limbs and weapons. The man craned to meet his eyes. He whispered the words again, again, steady as the sound of the water. When Mallesh turned to look behind him, the words softened into silence.

  Leish was standing where the bridge met the ledge, his eyes were steady and bright. His mouth shaped a word that Mallesh understood, though he could not hear it.

  Mallesh turned back to the small pale man. “Yes,” he said. “You help.”

  Baldhron’s scribes gathered at midnight. They slipped through the rain, cool at this hour, and down well shafts throughout the city. They arrived in the library chamber in twos and threes, all of them silent. Baldhron stood on the bridge and watched them come.

  They looked at the water-man—Mallesh, his name was—who was standing beside Baldhron, most of them only briefly. Others stared at him. Baldhron saw some who frowned, some who gnawed at their lips and others whose faces were still and closed. When Baldhron began to speak, they turned to him, but their expressions did not change.

  “Thank you, truth-scribes, for answering my urgent summons. What we decide here tonight will change history.” He tried to look at each of them; it was so important to make them feel included, important, vital. “Beside me is Mallesh, a member of a race called the selkesh.” They all turned to Mallesh now. He gazed back at them impassively. “He does not understand these words. He speaks a language related to that of the fishfolk, who were selkesh kin long ago. Many of you were, as I was, instructed in this fishfolk tongue. For this I suppose we must thank our teachers.” A ripple of laughter, nervous and relieved at the same time.

  “Mallesh’s men have spread out into various of our chambers. There are many hundreds of these men. There is, in fact, an army of them.”

  He had expected a gasp at this point, but none came. He stood a bit taller.

  “They have come here because even in their land of Nasranesh, far across the Eastern Sea, they have heard of this great city.” Don’t mention the singing—if I don’t understand it, neither will my men. “They were inflamed by tales of Luhr’s majesty and beauty, and Mallesh decided that they must see it. He decided it must be theirs.” Mallesh and his brother, the sickly looking one who the selkesh seem to esteem more highly—but he’s such an unimpressive figure; mustn’t mention him either. “The selkesh journeyed across the sea and through the Mersid Jungle. They discovered the desert wells and used them to gain access to the city. They are an intelligent, worthy, courageous people.” Who planned to take Luhr with fish spears and filleting knives.“There are many of them, all as large and strong as Mallesh. They will make an attempt on the palace whether we offer them resistance or not. So.” He paused for a moment, tried to look stern as words spun in his head. “This is our moment of choice, come sooner than I had anticipated. The selkesh are here to reshape history. We could warn the Queen—and perhaps be mentioned at the bottom of the last page of Galha’s Triumph Over the Fearsome Sea Folk. We could flee so as not to be involved in what transpires. Or we could aid the selkesh. We could act and write this history—it could be ours.”

  Light leapt from the glass-set walls as people stirred and turned to each other. They’re frightened. Great Drenhan, let me speak wisely. . . .

  “And what if we aid them,” called the woman named Serenhan, “and lose?”

  Baldhron held up a hand to quell the muttering that had risen. “We will not lose. We know more about the palace and the city than any Queensguard. There are many of us and more of them, and look! Look at him! We will show them how to take the city, and they will do it.”

  “And then what?” Serenhan again, with her strident whine of a voice.

  Baldhron felt his cheeks grow hot. “And then the selkesh install us as the official scribes of the new realm. And then we tell truth, always, in the light of day and above the ground. We teach them and all of our people to read and write, and everyone will understand and revere and share our power.”

  “What of the rest of the Queensrealm?” Serenhan asked, not as shrilly as before. “Luhr is the centre, but it’s not the only place where Queensfolk rule.”

  Baldhron nodded, feeling his flush subsiding. “We have allies in all towns and cities where Queensfolk hold sway. I will—would send word to these allies, informing them of the proposed date of attack, advising them to be ready to seize control of their own places. With Luhr captured and the Queen dethroned, all will be chaos. Even with modest numbers, our people will prevail.”

  Some were nodding now, though most still frowned. “B
aldhron,” one man said, “this is a great risk to our lives, but also to the lives of others. My . . . my brother is a Queensguard. Others here have loved ones who live or work at the palace. If we. . . .” His voice wavered into silence. He was biting his lower lip hard enough to turn it white.

  Baldhron thought, Sentimental sap. He nodded and pursed his lips. “Of course, all palace folk will be endangered by an attack. And as you have said, some of them will be our friends and family. The many among us who have no families, or who were sent here from distant homes, are now the lucky ones—imagine!” A murmur of assent rose from these orphans and misfits, so many of them, grown to adulthood without ties of blood or place, with only each other, drawn together by Baldhron and the truth he had discovered in this room.

  “We will try,” he went on, attempting to address those who did have palace or Luhran ties, “to avoid harming your loved ones. If you know that they will be on guard the night of the attack, I will make sure that you are sent to where they are, to prevent their injury. Only come to me and tell me, and I will try. But,” he continued, his voice rising, “I cannot promise to eradicate the risk. Battle is quick and confusing, and some of you may make mistakes. Remember this. And remember that no glory is achieved without some measure of grief.”

  “You are right,” another man called. “But so far we have spoken only of individual lives. What of our way of life? Luhr is our city, whether—”

  “Galent,” Baldhron snapped, “how dare you speak of the Luhran way of life as if it were something to be prized. All of us know that there is corruption here—lies invented by the Queen and perpetuated by her consort-scribe. Most of us have known someone who has been lost in her service. My mother, who drank Galha’s poisoned wine. Your uncle, Galent! Your uncle, who was crushed in a mine shaft Galha ordered collapsed.” Baldhron had them now; they held themselves rigid, poised, and their eyes never left him. “We all know such stories. We have recorded them—and now, so much sooner than we expected, there is a chance that they may be heard. We can rid this land of its lying Queen. With the selkesh’s help, we will do this thing.”

  For a moment there was no sound. Then someone shouted his name, and others took up the cheer, and the library dome rang with the thunder of their voices.

  The marketplace began to stir just past dawn, only an hour after Leish and his two companions had slid over the lip of the well. He watched the palace towers brighten as the sky cleared; he watched men and women and creatures that seemed neither male nor female emerge from tents, wagons, wooden shacks, other places he could not see. By the time the sun had risen, he could smell food cooking and hear the clatter of wood and the slap of cloth being folded away from stalls.

  “Leish.” He turned to look at the Queensman who had accompanied Dashran and himself. Pentaran, Leish reminded himself, dividing the name into its rough, awkward syllables.

  “We walk. Baldhron say walk, show place,” Pentaran said.

  Mallesh had chosen who among the selkesh would first see the city. “It can’t be me,” he had told Leish. “I won’t go up until the attack. You must go and bring me back a thorough description of what you see. Of everything.” He had spoken with an urgency that was almost anger, and Leish had shrunk away from him—again.

  Even if Mallesh had not sent him, Leish would have had to go. They had been beneath the city for weeks. Baldhron had been explaining the layout of the palace and city with drawings (which Mallesh and Leish now understood) and his increasingly fluent selkesh words. Each day that they had remained in the underground water tunnels had increased Leish’s restlessness. His weakness had begun to ebb as soon as he led the selkesh into the river; but the city’s song was so close that it was a constant, muffled boom, and he knew that only seeing it would help to ease the pressure in his head. But Mallesh had chosen him—so he had climbed into the dark, open air, and he had sat down hard on the sandy ground and listened to a song that was as clear now as water.

  “Yes, Pentaran,” Leish said slowly, so that the man would understand. “We will walk.”

  There were so many songs in this place. Earth, water, stone, and Queensfolk lifeblood made up the deepest, most resonant one; above it were notes that were played and chanted and called across hot wind. Leish listened to all of these notes together, and he felt nearly whole, nearly at peace for the first time since had had heard the call of this land from his own shore. Only nearly, however, for beneath his feeling of calm was the insistent stab of desire.

  Mallesh was right, Leish thought, blind for a moment to the riot of colour and forms around him. I do feel his need, for more—for mine. It was this need that made him speak to cruel-eyed Baldhron, and learn from him. It was this need that would drive him into the palace beside Mallesh, seeking blood. Even though this search will forever twist the song that is in me now, he thought, and shuddered.

  “Leish—look at that . . . and there, see how they’re watching us? We should walk faster. . . .”

  Leish turned to Dashran. The man’s eyes were wide, leaping from face to face before swivelling to meet Leish’s. Sweat had darkened his upper lip from green to black.

  “I tell you, Leish, that one’s staring at us—and look, she’s going away, probably to say she’s seen us. . . .”

  “Dashran.” Leish touched the back of his hand and felt the tremor there. “These people are nearly all strangers. We are like them—no one will notice us.” Dashran did not respond, just looked around and trembled.

  “He all right?” Pentaran asked haltingly.

  Leish nodded. “Yes. Nervous because of the crowd, but all right.”

  And perhaps Dashran would have been, if the woman with the horns had not stepped down from a tumble of rocks and stood in front of them. Leish saw that she had talons instead of fingers; her long skirt hid her feet. Her black hair was like the ocean water Leish had swum through near his shore: black, but also glowing with other colours. The two horns that curved up from her hair were silver-sharp.

  She fixed her black eyes on Leish and spoke. Her words were also sharp, and they needled at him until Pentaran held up his hand. He talked rapidly to her and she answered, more loudly than before. Pentaran took a step closer to her. She spat three last words, looked again at Leish and leapt up the rock pile.

  “What did she say?” Leish asked Pentaran. Dashran seemed frozen. His cheeks were sweat-darkened now.

  “She iben,” Pentaran said. His eyes slid away from Leish’s. “She say . . . nothing.”

  “She did say something—to me,” Leish began, then stopped as Dashran gripped his arms and began to moan. “Water. Quickly—he needs water.”

  Pentaran led them away from the iben woman (whose eyes, Leish saw when he glanced back, were still on him), through the crowd of buyers and sellers and gawkers. Just as Dashran stumbled and cried out, Pentaran said, “Here—fountain.”

  At first Leish saw and heard only the water: a tall, graceful plume of it, rising in a flurry of notes from a wide-mouthed bowl. He smiled in recognition—and then he saw who floated in the fountain and stood beside it, and the singing seemed to die.

  One of the yllosh said, “Nasran-kin,” and all of them looked at Leish and Dashran. The yllosh in the fountain drew themselves up. The water that fell from their scales was so bright that Leish had to close his eyes.

  “Why are you here?” The question was not asked harshly, but Leish felt Dashran stiffen.

  “I need water,” he rasped, and the yllosh-woman shook her head.

  “No—not why are you at our fountain—why are you here? We have never seen your kind on these shores.”

  “We are here now,” said Dashran hotly. “And what business is it of yours?”

  “Tell him quiet,” Pentaran muttered to Leish. “Queensguards there.” Leish looked to his left and saw them: three women and two men, watching the fountain from about ten paces away. He knew who they were because Baldhron had told him about th
e palace colours they wore, and about the weapons they carried slung over their shoulders. Leish thought that they looked as fierce and graceful as he had expected when he had first heard their people’s blood-song.

  Leish turned back to the fishperson and said, “Please,” imagining how furious Mallesh would be at him for using this word. “Let my friend soak for a moment, then we will talk more.”

  “Talk now,” the yllosh-woman said, her eyes on Dashran.

  “By Nasran,” he shouted, “I will not take orders from your kind—you filth—” and he lunged forward with his hooked knife in his hand.

  Leish cried, “No!” Before he could move, one of the Queensguards was between Dashran and the fishperson. Dashran did not stop. He threw himself against the Queensguard with a howl, and his arm swept up and drove the knife deep into the skin of her neck.

  Leish heard Pentaran somehow, through the roaring in his head. “I go,” Pentaran said, his lips nearly brushing Leish’s ear. “I tell Baldhron.” When Leish turned himself around the man was already gone. The yllosh too were gone. Only Dashran was there, kneeling in the dust beside the motionless Queensguard. Dashran, the dead one, and the four others. Two of them wrenched Dashran to his feet. The other two strode to Leish. They wrapped their hands around his arms and he heard the city’s song begin its change and he wept, in joy and fear, for all of them.

  TWENTY-ONE

  Pentaran was doubled over, sniffling and gasping from his flight through the tunnels. He was favouring one ankle; he had blubbered about slipping on the damp stone. He is such a child, Baldhron thought, with no more self-control than he had when he was twelve. I never should have taken him in; his beggar’s life would have suited him better. Baldhron snapped, “Say nothing until you can speak clearly, then tell us what has happened.”