And so, he had fled from their fanaticism.
Only here, in the misty northern seas, on the Isle of Bonk, had he found a place where their order hadn’t reached yet, where he could live unchallenged, where he wasn’t hunted. It was his island. He had even named it with that silly name when he’d first reached it because it was such a silly place, just a grassy plot with a bluff, a creek and a few clumps of wild olive trees. He’d dug himself a hovel out of the crumbling east-facing cliffs, which he’d extended and extended until the whole cliff face was held together by a lacework of luck. At any moment it might all slip into the sea. He liked it that way. It made his life more daring, and part of him didn’t care that he might be hastening his own death. He had fish, seaweed and swallows’ eggs, and lots of those stringy samphire plants growing thickly on the shore—food was almost easy to find, but nourishment was not.
He had nothing to do except stomp up and down the shoreline or watch the pounding surf. It was the most peaceful place he’d ever been in; he had spent the most miserable years of his life there. There wasn’t a single soul on the island besides him. He idly wished for his early years again.
He had lived well among the outcasts of Rundirrian Run. He had thought he had some friends among them, until old Geffery had sold the secret of their hideaway to the wizards for a handful of gold. Mullie, Crust and little Fellowan—all of them dead. He told himself it was the wizards’ fault, though the power had come from his own hands—horrible power, uncontrollable power. Sheets of silver fire that ran backward on the threads of the wizards’ spells and burnt them to cinders and destroyed the outcasts who’d been clustered before them to receive their punishment. The oversized shack had been filled with writhing forms and hideous screams.
No, he would not go back. Never.
“But what if we find a way to control the power?” Seus asked from in front. “What if we could make it do what we wanted it to do?”
No. Control was what the wizards did with their Order. If he had to control himself, he would be bowing down to their false God.
“Why don’t we just use the power instead of pretending we don’t have it?” Seus insisted.
“We should burn more of those scurvy-tongued wizards to ashes,” Amyar joined in, his gruff voice, irritating Ethan more than ever. “Yellow-livered cowards! How could they ever stop us?”
No! Ethan thought. If he went back he would be hunted. He would have to use magic to hide who he was, and magic was what the wizards used. He would never be a wizard. They were mean, they enforced Order, they were wicked, they’d made him burn down his forest, they were evil, they’d killed Gedd the shepherd, and the dear goat Nå. They had placed the scars upon him, crippled him before he was even out of his mother’s womb. Brother Amyar remembered that, and he wouldn’t let Ethan ever forget it. The wizards should not be allowed to live. They should not be free to do as they pleased, when they denied others that same right. They should pay in blood for what they were doing. Someone should stop them.
He felt the familiar rage swelling within him and realised, almost too late, that brother Amyar was doing the thinking. He had been talking to himself as well. He should have realised the others were aroused. Ethan resisted, clawing back his command, reclaiming the lifeblood. He would do the thinking. He was the best and the strongest of the three. He was the special one, the one who had drank of mother’s milk, just the once. Despite his pale puckered face and the terrifying eye, he was the sane one, the one living in the present.
Ethan, because he was strong. Ethan, because he was the leader of his own life.
“Then why are you stuck on a little plot in the ocean?” asked Seus. “You won’t stay here, you know.”
“Then why haven’t you made the wizards pay for all they’ve done yet?” asked Amyar.
“Ethan, Ethan, Ethan!” he cried out loud, using the sound of his own name to bring him back to himself, but the others were too strong for him when they worked together, and he could feel the blood leaving his mind, flowing to the other lobes, forcing him to lose his train of thought, forcing him to… sleep.
The other brothers stomped along the beach, arguing as they always did, and Ethan dreamed.
Warm darkness swirled around him, and he sank into a dizzying depth. He tried to flail his arms but he couldn’t use them because his brothers had taken his body away from him. Vapour. He fell, and as darkness whipped past him, a great face formed. Illusion. He fell toward it, but it was so vast that he came no closer to the cracked and red-fired skin. It shall end. The world tipped, and the face rose over him, and yet it still felt as if he was falling, falling. Gravity made no sense. Time slipped away, and he ached, oh how he ached, all over, inside and out.
The face filled his vision. One dark eye watched him. The other socket was terribly hollow.
He knew who it was. He wanted to refuse, but his own pale lips betrayed him in the dream, beginning the mantra that would only strengthen their bond. “The world is a vapour, an illusion in my mind. We shall be wrenched from our folly to join the emptiness behind. We shall be broken by your will, life will burst and bend, for this world never was; what has begun shall end. What has begun shall end.”
How long have you been standing there in the corner of my mind, watching my every move, not saying a word, laughing now at how I will come to you in the end, how I resist, how I fight with all I have, and when that is not enough I must justify my failure with the words you have taught me?
“Father, you have the most power,” he said, completing the mantra, knowing it to be true. “Father, I cannot resist because nothing can resist you.”
The answer, in the sonorous awesome volume of the ancient language, shook him through and through.
“Søøŋ çaess ÿ.”
Although the language his father used was always strange, the meaning of the words infused the sounds and resonated in his bones. I see you, my son. Ethan trembled before the timeless face. He could feel the fragility of his own existence; he knew how impermanent he was. Everything would be ended, everything had been ended in the moment it had begun, and he was alive only within the illusion. A tide of worthlessness flooded over him, as if he was drowning in black oil. It was always like this. He always made Ethan feel so very, very small. Ethan knew that defiance was the only stance to take; if he surrendered he would fall to pieces and go mad.
“I don’t want to be here,” he said.
“I understand.” That great voice was like an audible form of rock and fire and thunder; it swept him away. “I see what you see, I know what you know. You are ready to follow my will.”
“Why me?” Ethan asked, knowing he had no choice, but wanting to demand something, at least.
The great black eye watched him through slit lids, its silver patterns quivering. The hollow socket seemed to watch him even more intently. Ethan felt his own single eye trembling in his head. “My power would break anyone else. Do my bidding and you will survive until the very end. Now leave your island. I do not want peace!”
Other people were too weak to be used by his Father, Ethan realised, and so He left them untested. They believed it must be because they were strong that they were able to resist his call. They had to believe that, because the truth would be so terrible to accept, that they were worthless to Him and so they had been left, for His power would break them in an instant. They were not worthy of His attention, but Ethan was.
“I have not seen all that there is to see about this time. You will travel, through the length and breadth of Oldenworld you will travel. You do not need to understand the magic to destroy it, but we must find the nodes of Chaos if we are to collect your power.”
“They will hunt me, Father, they always hunt me.”
“You will cloak yourself in the way of your far-sighted brother. They will not know until it is too late. You will walk alone, and you will carry my eye through the world.”
He would hide in plain view, using magic.
“No!” Eth
an cried. “Magic is what they use. I will never use magic!”
But the Destroyer had just boomed with laughter, and Ethan had been swept forward on a great avalanche. He had felt what it was to be destroyed, to be truly ended, with no memory and no significance, to have no time and no place, to be erased—the dismay of death in emptiness. He came back gasping for life. He saw his footprints leaving the island, and his brothers had carried him into the horror of the next chapter of his life.
15. OLDENWORLD
“Imagination can build the most wonderful palaces
for reality to tear down.”—Zarost
A vast and blinding desert of silver sand stretched away before them. Oldenworld was not at all what Prince Bevn had expected.
Nothing moved. For a long time Bevn couldn’t comprehend what he was seeing on that morning when they escaped Eyri. He had passed through the last of the Shield with great eagerness. The thrill of the newly donned Kingsrim had added confidence to his steps. His advantage over Gabrielle had made him feel like a man. He had believed he was prepared for anything.
He stood in shock. A glinting wasteland, total ruin, extended almost to the horizon but for a hopelessly distant dark line. Nothing lived out here! It seemed to Bevn that Black Saladon had told them a terrible joke. There was no Oldenworld left.
Bevn had expected to see a great vista of wonders all laid out before him like a tapestry of jewels. According to the wizard, there was supposed to be a well-populated land, with woven places, and terraced border fortresses, great roads, old kingdoms and glass-blown cities. Instead, there was just a scoured, pockmarked dead landscape, vast and empty beneath the huge curved sky.
It made him feel small. It made him feel lost.
Maybe I should turn back. Maybe we’ve gone out the wrong pass!
His gaze lingered on the blue sky overhead. There was something wrong with the air, it had cracks in it, and slightly different shades of blue, as though it was a jigsaw puzzle made of immense pieces which hadn’t been put together correctly. Slanted clouds occupied the middle distance, but they ran across three sections of sky and stopped abruptly at the border to the fourth, as if cut by a knife at the edge, as if a crazy artist had sketched irregular lines in the air then coloured the sky in at slightly different times.
The sun beat down from on high, searing a hole through one tilted patch of sky. It was a blinding orb with a crisp outline—no hint of the swirling corona he was accustomed to which made the sun soft around the edges. It was also too bright. Bevn dropped his gaze but the light coming off the desert was harsh as well—the silver sands reflected too much. He blinked away his tears. The land farther out was crossed with streaks of grey, but close by it was as sparkly, as if splinters of steel had been piled on the ground, all the way up to the edge of the bare weathered rocks on which they stood. He turned. The shimmering wall of the Shield behind them hid Eyri altogether. It reflected the view ahead, out across the desert.
Everything had become a silvery blue.
Oldenworld ... Where was Oldenworld? Maybe it began beyond the wasteland, but how was he supposed to travel through this? He reached up nervously to run his hand through his hair but knocked the crown off instead. He caught it hastily and set it back upon his head. He looked to Gabrielle, to see if she’d noticed, but she was just scowling at the scene before them as if it would turn into something else if she concentrated hard enough. He guessed she was also trying to recover from the pain of pushing through the Shield, of trying to catch up to the protection of the Kingsrim.
He was her king now, he reminded himself. And kings didn’t look for guidance—they knew what to do. Bevn lifted his head as his father often did, and tried to believe himself confident.
Ridges and ridges, silver and grey, miles and miles of sand.
He couldn’t fool himself. The Kingsrim might be a great defence against magic, but it wasn’t going to help them cross the endless desert. What would they do for water? The terrain ahead looked horribly dry. They only had two water skins each and they’d already drunk some since the last stream. Hell, he didn’t even know which way to go across the wasteland. He wished he’d concentrated harder on what Black Saladon had said.
North, he’d said north, through a woven land, or was it the Low Land first? Either way it was north, but which way was that? Somewhere away from the high sun, possibly to the right of where he was facing, out where the ridges of silver and grey formed lines as if they had been rippled beneath the desert wind.
He squinted against the glare.
Something moved in the wasteland. He caught his breath. Shreds of bright colour danced over each other, up and down like playful birds, yet they were far away and too large to be birds. Their movement was hypnotic, rhythmical, and… they were gone. Was he seeing things that weren’t there? Another movement caught his eye, closer this time. The colours rode the air again, weaving up and down, coming toward him. Either it was a different set of a similar thing, or it had moved very fast. Bevn rubbed his eyes. Something else moved beneath the three coloured shapes, a cluster of solid objects that chased the dancing shadows of the flying colours across the sands. Their course was steady; they cut across the desert like arrows fired toward Bevn and Gabrielle.
Bevn stood transfixed. Even when he could discern the details, he wasn’t sure what he was seeing. Some kind of craft—there were three of them and the biggest one was leading. It looked like a giant spider, but he could see it was a construction of some sort. Figures moved within its raised and elongated body. The craft moved on runners bound on the ends of its four innermost legs. The long outer legs also held runners across their tips, but these were clear of the sand, as if they were placed as stays to prevent the craft from rolling completely over if it tipped to one side or the other. The two smaller vessels scudded along in a wide ‘V’ formation, each one with a single rider straddling a central seat, which formed the apex of four splayed legs that again ended in runners. The smaller ones looked like sleds, although Bevn still couldn’t work out how they were powered. The coloured shapes still danced above the crafts, and Bevn was certain now that they weren’t birds. They didn’t move right and didn’t flap at all. But what were they?
The closer they came, the more apprehensive he grew. The vessels were running straight for them. At least five figures stood in the spider-sled, burly-looking figures with bright red hoods and flapping clothing. They were clustered at their high rail. One gestured and shouted to the outriders, and they began to converge on Bevn.
He wanted to run, but where could he run to? Out into the desert? He wouldn’t stand a chance against such speed. Back into Eyri? That wouldn’t prove a thing. It wouldn’t get him to Turmodin and the Sorcerer.
King ... I’m the King, he reminded himself. Kings didn’t get scared.
“Maybe we can get a ride with them,” Gabrielle said. She seemed calm, but he noticed that she loosened her knives in their sheaths.
The vessels came swooping up the final stretch. They made a scraping schhhrit as their runners cut the silver sand. A figure in the bow heaved on a wheel of sorts. The other four passed poles between themselves, and then took spaced positions on the rail. Bevn realised what they held: spears—long straight spears. The tips were wickedly sharp, like reeds sliced at an acute angle. The men threw their free arms up suddenly as if to shield themselves from something, and the spider-sled tilted to one side and ran with the aid of its outrigger. It kept on coming at Bevn and Gabrielle until the last moment, when it slewed to one side, threw a feather of sand away from its runners, and came to a halt with the edge of the outrigger almost touching Bevn’s knees.
Four spears pointed at him. Their polished shafts were covered with spiralled script. The nearest man’s skin was grey and rough. His muscled forearm had been tattooed up to the elbow, where a long-tailed ribbon bound his coarse shirt sleeve tight. The face watching him over the spear was hard and craggy, with a nose like an axe-blade and a chin that jutted out like a handle. Hi
s face reminded Bevn of a sculpture, all covered with fretwork. He’d never seen such grey stony skin on anyone before. A dark stripe ran above the man’s eyes, swept up and away to his temples. On his head was a soft red fabric cap, covered in the same swirling patterns, looking like a kerchief weighted down with knots.
Hard eyes watched him. The men looked the same—all had the grey patterned skin, all wore the weighted red head-scarves. They didn’t speak, and they didn’t move their spears. The spider-ship seemed to be poised on its long legs, ready to leap away. Some kind of skin stretched between the eight legs, just above the ground. A latticework of braided cane strengthened the inner legs from runnerboard to the basket. High above, one coloured wing waited, hovering like a kite on the breeze. It was made of fabric, scooped like a sickle. They must be like sails, Bevn thought, sails that danced in the wind and pulled them wherever they wanted to go.
“Ya chienny carom?” the rear-most spear-wielder demanded. His bristled white beard made his chin look even rougher than the others. He pushed out his hand at them as if trying to push them away.
“Yal morente cochinta!” added one of his companions, the one with the stripe over his eyes.
The bow-man, the only one who didn’t brandish a spear, hit him on the shoulder.
“Yal morente? Scollip! The old tongue of the Kingdoms, did he say.”
“Kingdoms three?”
“Du.”
Second Sight: Second Tale of the Lifesong Page 21
