Darksong

by Isobelle Carmody

  ‘Deal with this, Bonny. Seriously. I know right now it feels like life is too hard to make any decision, but you have to get on with it.’

  ‘Look, it’s not him or, or even the … the abortion. It’s like there is some sort of sickness infecting everything …’

  ‘Jesus, Bonny. Don’t go all philosophical on me now. Let’s stick to practicalities. I’ll go with you, how’s that? Once it’s over, that will be the end of the story. Now, I have to go back to work. This Third World Credit Company thing is really taking off. Remember me telling you about how the guy that came up with the idea based it on results he got from doing this obscure research for his economics PhD?’

  ‘Yeah … yes. Something about third world people borrowing little amounts of money and paying it back?’

  ‘Bonny, they paid it all back. Everywhere he went and set up his little loan company, Afghanistan, India, Vietnam, Sudan … poor people with nothing in western terms borrowed little bits and paid it back. There was never a bank in the west that had such a stunning rate of good loans. But when he took the idea to a big bank, the fat cats said it wouldn’t be worth their while to finance such a petty operation. These are the same guys that lend eighty million without a blink to some rich entrepreneur who loses the lot, but they won’t lend eighty dollars to some Indian guy who wants to buy an ice-cream maker for his little stall because the return is too small.’ She stopped and laughed self-deprecatingly. ‘Listen to me. Do I run off at the mouth or what?’

  ‘No. No, it’s great seeing you so committed. And … and this concert you’re organising is going to help?’

  ‘If we can get a fund out of it, we will be able to set the whole thing up without a bank loan, and soon there will be a whole little chain of tiny Third World Credit Companies all over the developing world. One of these days those banks will be begging for our business. The important thing is that it looks like these bands are really going to come to the party. Getting Hard Goth to agree to perform on the night is a real coup.’

  ‘I don’t like their music much,’ Bonny admitted wanly.

  The other woman laughed. ‘I think it’s awful, but who cares? They’re racing up the charts all over the world and, where they go, the others will follow. They’ve even agreed to let us take a chunk of the royalties for the live recording of the show, which means the other bands are likely to do the same and it’s going to be a true extravaganza. Night of the Comet, we’re calling it … Oh Bonny, I’m sorry, going on like this.’

  ‘It’s funny but hearing you talk makes me feel better. It’s good not to think about me and my problems for a bit. Maybe I should do something for someone else and stop thinking about myself too. After all, I’m not starving or dying of hunger or disease. And hell, it sounds like this Third World Credit Company will be a win for the good guys. I get the feeling we need a few home runs.’

  ‘Tell you the truth, honey, I never thought I’d be one of the good guys, but I always knew you were one,’ the older woman said with genuine affection. ‘Just remember, getting an abortion under these circumstances doesn’t turn you into a bad guy.’ She rose. ‘I’ll call you soon, OK?’

  When she was out of sight, the brown-haired woman sighed and said, ‘No it doesn’t make me a bad guy. Maybe it just makes me a coward. Maybe I should meet his daughter …’

  The dream faded and Glynn felt something plucking at her clothes. She opened her eyes and found that she was looking through the spreading branches of a tree, to the blue Keltan sky. Startled, she sat up and looked around. Then she realised that she was within the memory garden that she had created with the feinna-He. Getting to her feet, she noticed with puzzlement that whole patches that had been distinct before, had now faded into a sort of glittering sludge.

  a dream fades when it is not dreamed, sisterling, the He-feinna sent.

  Glynn started and turned to find it seated on one of the low, hanging branches of the tree. In fact, given the nature of the garden, it had probably caused the branch to grow at exactly that angle.

  What are we doing here? she asked.

  I willed us here with my longing, the feinna said. Longing has great power.

  Glynn’s heart twisted and she opened her arms to the feinna who slipped into them and curled against her chest, its sleek head resting against her heart. It felt thin and she wondered how much longer it would be before it would need to eat.

  soon, it sent.

  She brushed her lips over the small furred head before drawing back to look into the feinna face. It is good to hold you.

  When will we be free? the feinna asked, and Glynn bit her lip. She was about to explain what had happened with Tarsin, when it struck her that perhaps she could use the darklin vision to force the Draaka to send her to the citadel if she could claim that she had seen herself overhearing someone speak of the Unraveller. Of course the vision would end before she saw the man or heard his name.

  Very soon, Glynn sent. She would have to think carefully before she spoke. I will have to tell things that are not true.

  That will discomfort me, the feinna sent uneasily.

  Can you bear it?

  I will try, it sent, and Glynn thought how strange to be so brave physically, but to fear lies.

  The not-truths wound my soul-spar, the feinna sent. But I have said that I will bear it.

  Glynn nodded. Soon a woman will come to carry you from the place that smells of hatred. You must not fight her, no matter what happens or what you sensesmelltaste from her. She will take you from this place but I will be near.

  I shall prepare myself, the feinna promised, and faded from the garden like the afterimage of a camera flash.

  Glynn willed herself back into her own body and, after a brief sensation of falling, she could feel the bedding beneath her. She opened her eyes and lay for a time peering into the blackness and thinking about what she would say she had seen. Then her feinna senses warned her that someone was approaching.

  Steeling herself against the distortions and sensory allures that she would encounter in the Draaka’s audience room, Glynn entered, but this time the candles shed only light, and the darklin structures on their pedestals were cloaked. Even so, Glynn shuddered inwardly at the memory they provoked of Solen struggling on the draakan altar in her vision.

  The Draaka was standing by the feinna cage staring down at the small furry form. A swift probe told Glynn that it had put itself into a trancelike sleep. Noticing her, the Draaka waved the servitor away and came to look into her face. ‘Yesterday you saw the Holder and he had you invoke the darklin for him?’

  Glynn licked her lips nervously. ‘I … the Holder asked me to pick up the darklin. I … feared to do it, but he said I must. He wanted me to find out about the visionweaver who saved him.’

  ‘And what did you see?’ the Draaka asked.

  Glynn wrinkled her brow and was silent for as long as she dared. ‘I saw a huge square chamber where there were lots of men and women chanting and sighing. Maybe the visionweaver was among them, but I do not know her face.’

  A thoughtful pause. ‘Indeed. Go on.’

  ‘I … I saw you, Lady, going aboard a ship with the Prime and the other draakira. I saw you again, here in this chamber, talking of sending me to the citadel.’

  The Draaka suddenly turned away and said, ‘Leta, maybe you are right in suggesting that another darklin be sent to Tarsin. Arrange it at once.’

  ‘You know it occurs to me that it might be wise to send the girl to the citadel today after all, because you can be sure that Tarsin will send for her otherwise,’ the Prime said. ‘If we can say innocently that she was sent out on an errand, Tarsin might be impatient enough to call for you.’

  ‘A cunning thought,’ the Draaka said, and Glynn held her breath. ‘Very well. Send the girl out.’ She turned to the hovering Gif. ‘Let me see those plans for the haven again. How many stona of worshipers did you say will fit into the main chamber?’

  The Prime turned to Glynn. ‘Perhaps
you visioned true after all, girl, for you will go to the citadel this day.’

  ‘But the feinna will hurt me …’ she whined.

  ‘The animal will travel within the carriage that conveys you from the palace. The Iridomi Aluade will travel with it and if you cause any difficulties, the feinna will suffer. If you have any thought of taking this chance to disappear, think carefully before you act.’ Her tone made Glynn wonder at her certainty that the woman was a secret ally. Until it came to her that the Prime’s words, shorn of their nastiness, could be taken as a warning.

  ‘I understand,’ Glynn said evenly, and it seemed to her that the Prime’s eyes flickered.

  She was made to bathe and change before she went out, and this time some effort was made to enhance her myrmidonish appearance. A servitor brought her a yellow underdress and an over-tunic in the exact brown used by myrmidons for everyday wear, then her blonde hair was combed out until it crackled, the top layer braided into a multitude of plaits that might, at first glance, be taken for dreadlocks. She was given short mustard boots and a matching overcoat that fitted her well and fell to her knees, and also a bag whose strap crossed her body from shoulder to hip, because it would look odd if she carried nothing. Last of all, she was given a small store of coins to spend on food and a drink, so that she would have a reason to sit in a nightshelter.

  To her considerable dismay, Glynn found that Aluade was locked inside the carriage with the feinna cage, while she was to ride atop it, behind the enormous surly driver. Such an arrangement would make it much harder for her to escape with the feinna, and as the carriage rolled out of the citadel down a series of side ramps, all well guarded, on impulse Glynn decided to try to make contact with Solen. She wedged herself securely between two crates, slipping her hands through the lashings holding them down, and closed her eyes. She visualised Solen, but she could not seem to summon up the reaching spar. Then she remembered what the feinna had said about there being power in yearning. She opened the place in her mind where she had battened down all of the impossible longing for the man who was surely her soul mate, and this time she felt the reaching spar swell and swoop.

  Then she could see him. He was seated at a table with a petite and darkly pretty woman. She was laughing, her hand on Solen’s knee, and Glynn felt a small and painful stab of jealously, but this faded almost at once because, when she looked at Solen, she saw that his eyes were sombre and distracted.

  Solen! she sent the thought with all of her longing for him.

  As before, he stiffened in surprise and began to look around. Then suddenly he checked himself and closed his eyes and she was amazed to feel that he was trying to reach back to her! She had a sudden, vividly erotic image of them together and Solen must have seen it too, because his eyes flew open.

  ‘What is it?’ Glynn heard the girl ask worriedly.

  ‘I … nothing. Do not concern yourself with me I … I think the heat is affecting me.’ Solen closed his eyes again.

  Again Glynn felt him, and this time, she reached out her own mind spar. As the two touched, she was slightly shocked to understand that while her reaching was powered by yearning, his was powered by a surge of desire evoked by the image that she had inadvertently sent of them. The feinna link, silent for some time, informed her that this was the difference between male and female communications. She put this interesting thought aside to ponder another time and, somewhat shyly, responded to Solens urgent striving, allowing him to feel her presence. The urgency of his mental spar seemed to alter as it meshed with her yearning, becoming more of a tenderness and a cherishing than a ravening hunger.

  Glynna … she was stunned to hear his voice sigh into her mind. Glynna-vyre. It is you touching my mind. I thought that I was going mad! But what has been happening? Some time past, I felt that you and the feinna were in terrible danger.

  Glynn was amazed at how clearly his words came to her. It had never occurred to her that they might be able to communicate in this way. She said, The Draaka tricked us into revealing the bond. The youngling was badly hurt and I swore that I would die if they let it die, so they sent for a white cloak …

  She values you so much? She felt his puzzlement nuzzling against her like a horse scenting an apple.

  Oh, Solen there is so much to explain! The Draaka believes that I am going to reveal the Unraveller to her.

  The Unraveller? She must be mad!

  Solen, please. I will explain it all properly when we are together. But now I need your help.

  You shall have it, my love. I will get you out of the palace …

  But Solen, there is no …

  The carriage jerked around a corner and Glynn was wrenched from the contact abruptly and painfully when she banged her head into one of the crates. She felt weakened by her mental exertions and knew she would have to wait a little before she would be capable of reaching out again.

  Looking around, she saw that they were just entering a more commercial-looking area filled with booths and trading stalls as well as open-fronted stores spilling their wares out onto roadside tables. There were a lot of people walking about and carriages of different sizes and shapes parked or moving along the road. Before long the carriage was reduced to a crawl. If not for the feinna, Glynn could simply have leapt from the roof and lost herself in the crowd. But since she had no alternative other than to stay put, she gazed about at the sea of faces and found herself wondering what sort of lives they lived and what they cared about. She had always looked at crowds like this in her own world, marvelling that each of those unknown faces represented a whole long life and a wide network of interlinking relationships as complex as hers. Then she smiled wryly, deciding that, given the events of the last month or so, her life might be a little more complex than most.

  The carriage turned down a small street which brought them out to a wide road with no stalls and, because the hill sloped steeply down to the sea at this point, Glynn had a panoramic view of the horizon. To her surprised delight, the carriage halted almost at once beside a row of prosperous-looking houses. There was no sign of the nightshelter where she had been instructed to trawl for information about the missing visionweaver.

  ‘Iridomi says get down,’ the carriage driver called up gutturally to Glynn as he waddled about loosening the straps that bound the aspi to the carriage.

  Glynn obeyed and went docilely to the window of the carriage. A little chill ran through her veins at the sight of one of the narrow black draakan knives resting on top of the wicker cage where the feinna lay bound and unconscious. Glynn wondered with a sudden stab of despair how she was going to persuade the wretched woman to open the door without alarming her enough to harm the feinna. Obviously the draakira were taking no chances, having seen her in action.

  ‘The nighthall you are supposed to go to is just down the road,’ Aluade said coolly. ‘Moon Song of Lidorn it is called. I will wait for you here until Kalinda set. That is three hours. If you do not come by then, I will cut one paw off your pet.’ Glynn nodded, keeping her face expressionless, but a sick fury raged in her that anyone would make such a heartless threat, even if they had no intention of carrying it out. Of course, the woman might be perfectly prepared to torture or kill the feinna.

  Glynn wondered suddenly if Aluade was aware of the nature of the link between her and the animal. Not that it would make any difference.

  ‘I know what I am to do,’ Glynn said, affecting sullenness, because this was the sort of response Aluade might expect from someone dispatched on a forced errand. It might also ameliorate her irritation at having to sit in the carriage and wait. Glynn turned and walked in the direction indicated, deciding that she would settle herself inside in a dim corner with a drink of cirul and try to contact Solen again. Aluade would have to unlock the carriage if legionnaires stopped them. Surely an agent of the Shadowman could come up with an official-looking blockade.

  Entering the Moon Song of Lidorn, Glynn noted the wide, graceful dimensions of the entrance and the qua
lity of the carved cornices and guessed the nighthall had once been a superior sort of place matching the houses built around it. Now the walls of the entrance were pitted and scarred, the carpet worn to holes by the door and the bar, and the chairs shabby enough to have gone from comfortable to unstable. Yet the whole place was scrupulously clean, and there were jars of sether on the sills of polished windows offering a good view of the ocean, which suggested that the decline was more likely a lack of coin than a lack of pride on the part of the owner. No doubt if this was a place favored by those loyal to Darkfall, as she had been told, it had fallen into a slump when Tarsin began to turn his back on the soulweavers.

  Glynn walked to the bar, conscious that she was the cynosure of the eyes of the few customers. No doubt it was her myrmidonish look. It came to Glynn that she might claim to be meeting someone. That would give her a good excuse for sitting there and peering curiously about, and if she announced it loudly enough, it would also put anyone off approaching her.

  ‘What will you have?’ asked the bored, narrow-faced boy behind the counter. His face was pimply and he seemed to be trying without much success to grow a beard.

  ‘A cirul mixed with some kalinda-fruit juice,’ Glynn said, pretending to look around for someone in particular, before mugging disappointment.

  The boy put a mug of cloudy yellow liquid doubtfully before her and said, ‘Never heard of anyone mixing juice and cirul before.’

  Glynn shrugged and put a quacoin on the bar. ‘I will order some food in a bit, if you have anything.’

  ‘There is a good haunch of aspi on the spit,’ the boy said. ‘The outside might be cooked.’

  Glynn repressed a shudder. ‘Not meat … I … I have been ill and have no stomach for it.’

  The lad looked sympathetic. ‘I could ask my ma what would sit light on a sickly belly.’

  ‘I would be grateful,’ Glynn said, leaving the change, and she took the mug across to a chair and table by one of the windows. The seat was uncomfortable and the table legs crooked, but she stayed where she was because the window offered not only a view of the sparkling waves but also, if she leaned close, a view of the street and of the carriage further up the hill. Not that she needed it. Her instincts would alert her at once if the feinna was in danger.