Darksong

by Isobelle Carmody

  LEGENDSONG OF THE UNYKORN

  For a moment, no one spoke or moved. Then simultaneously Bleyd and Fridja reached for belt knives and moved to face the doorway.

  ‘Who speaks?’ Fridja demanded. ‘Step out so that we can see you, or die in the shadows.’

  ‘You have no need of weapons. I am unarmed and I will come out if you insist. But it would be wiser if you would join me in the shadows. The streets about here are full of legionnaires and ruffians searching for myrmidons who escaped their siege, and a woman of your size and strength would obviously be taken in for questioning, even if your hair is unbound. If you care nothing for yourself, think what prizes your two companions would make for the Iridomi chieftain.’

  Bleyd stiffened, but Fridja clutched at his arm. ‘Who are you and what do you want?’

  ‘Come into the doorway and I will show you a way out of this cul-de-sac. Then we will talk.’

  ‘Do as he says,’ Fridja commanded, and Bleyd gave her a look of disbelief.

  ‘What about the others?’

  ‘If he is right, they will be long gone. Now move. But keep your knife at the ready.’

  A chuckle drifted to them, sounding as if it was moving away as Bleyd entered the doorway. Fridja ushered Ember in after him, and then followed. Instead of finding themselves pressed up against a door, they realised quickly that they had entered the narrow space between the outer walls of two adjacent buildings. The only light came from behind them, for the roofs of the buildings overlapped, blocking out the light.

  ‘Hey you. Where does this lead?’ Bleyd cried with a tinge of aggression. The space was narrow enough that he had to walk side on because of the breadth of his shoulders.

  Before the stranger could answer, if that was his intention, they heard boots on the cobbles behind them and men’s voices raised and urgent. They all froze and Ember turned just in time to see a man’s head appear in the opening. Even though it was not possible for him to see them, Ember found herself holding her breath.

  ‘… said he saw … down this way …’ The man’s voice was distorted eerily by the walls. Someone gave a shout and his head vanished.

  ‘We must keep going. That fellow will come back with reinforcements,’ their guide hissed. They obeyed, then Bleyd stopped suddenly, and Ember heard the stranger order him to get down on his knees and feel for a gap in the left wall. There was the sound of scrabbling and Bleyd uttered a grunt of surprise.

  ‘I have it,’ he said.

  ‘Climb through. There is a drop on the other side, so go through feet first. Then stand back. Bleyd obeyed and then Fridja went next. Ember flinched as the stranger propelled her towards the hole, but his touch was impersonal. Bleyd and Fridja helped her down on the other side, then the stranger came through.

  ‘There ought to be a lantern and some tinder hidden in the beams …’ he muttered and they heard a scratching sound then light flared. Ember blinked until she could see a cloaked and hooded man. He wore a foxy mask and a voluminous cloak, and he was standing in a queer hunched way. He pointed to a flat rectangle of wood and bade Bleyd lift it into the gap where it fitted snugly.

  ‘Now, who are you?’ Fridja demanded.

  ‘A friend to your friends and an enemy to your enemies,’ the man said.

  ‘What the hell does that mean?’ Bleyd began aggressively, but Fridja’s cool, authoritative voice cut him off.

  ‘How do you know those words?’

  The hooded man shrugged. ‘The same way others know them, who are not myrmidons.’

  ‘But that would make you …’

  ‘Careful,’ the man said, ending Fridja’s sentence and offering a warning in the same terse word.

  ‘I know who you are!’ Bleyd said suddenly. ‘It was you who followed us from the ship! I recognise the cloak.’

  ‘Indeed it was me, but do not congratulate yourself too much on your perceptions for I have been closer to you than that. I had intended to present myself to you when you had settled in your rooms the day you arrived, but you went out too quickly. Your failure to return to the nightshelter after the expedition to the fire falls puzzled me mightily, until I saw a myrmidon enter the place. Then everything became clear to me.’

  ‘This is not the time or place for stories,’ Fridja said impatiently. ‘He obviously knows who you two are, and I wager me as well. If he is right about men searching for us, and that legionnaire peering down the lane suggests he is, it is only a matter of time before they find us. Especially since we were seen coming into the lane. You have a plan, old man?’

  ‘Old!’ the man barked indignantly, then he laughed. ‘Well, perhaps I am at that. Look to your right, woman. See the metal square on the floor? It covers a hole leading to the sewerage system. That is how you will escape if you and the Fomhikan have the strength to lift it.’

  Bleyd would have argued, but Fridja brusquely told him to help her, and with much grunting and cursing, they managed to heave the cover aside. The man made no offer to help them and Ember suddenly remembered that Duran had claimed to know this man because he had a strange deformity. ‘Now,’ he said, ‘Bleyd of Fomhika first, then the visionweaver, and then you, spy mistress.’

  Bleyd refused flatly, saying it was a perfect set-up for treachery. Despite his belligerence, Ember saw that he was shaken by the extent of the stranger’s knowledge about them.

  ‘Don’t be a fool,’ the cloaked man snapped. ‘Why would I bother to stop you walking into trouble if I planned to betray you?’

  Fridja snarled at Bleyd to go and, with a scowl at the hunched stranger, he vanished down the hole. They heard a splash and then Fridja lowered Ember down to his waiting arms. When he put her down, she gasped at the cold sluggish flow of water that reached her knees and seeped swiftly through her clothes.

  ‘The legionnaires will find this cellar soon enough, and if they see the open cover they will pour into the sewers behind you,’ the stranger said, speaking through the hole to them. He held out the lantern and Fridja took it. ‘I will close it from above. Go left and as swiftly as you can manage. I will join you in a little.’

  ‘What if you are caught?’ Bleyd called.

  ‘No one is looking for me,’ the man called. There was a great heaving groan and the metal cover fell back into place with a resounding clang that echoed horribly in the sewer.

  ‘You know who he is!’ Bleyd accused Fridja.

  ‘No. But I heard what he said, and no one who would use that phrase would betray a myrmidon. But now let us concentrate on walking.’ She went past Bleyd to take the lead and, before long, all of them were staggering against the slow force of the current, though Fridja was taking the brunt of it.

  They had been struggling through the water for about twenty minutes, and they were all panting when Ember stumbled. She caught herself in time, but the sharpness of the movement set off a nagging ache in the top of her spine, which spun a fine mesh of pain over her scalp and behind her eyes. Ember stumbled again a few steps later, and some bit of her brain noted that when the tumour was active, it always disturbed her co-ordination. For once, she was almost glad when Bleyd began to talk.

  ‘What I would like to know is why Duran did not just tell us who this man is,’ he said.

  ‘Duran would have had her reasons,’ Fridja said loyally.

  Ember tripped again and this time she fell headlong into the rush of filthy water. With a muttered curse, Bleyd pulled her upright and scooped her into his arms. As he straightened, the voice of their mysterious rescuer floated eerily to them from ahead, urging them to make haste.

  Bleyd strode on without putting Ember down, and it was an indication of how weak she suddenly felt, that she did not struggle and insist. In a few minutes they came round a bend in the tunnel to where a convex metal door aligned with the wall. The frame was rimmed and metal as well, no doubt in order to stop it leaking when the flow was higher, and it stood open, sending a shaft of muted daylight dancing on the sluggish grey water. The colour of the light s
uggested that it was now late in the afternoon, and Ember thought it was no wonder she felt exhausted. She had been up since before dawn, after all, and had eaten nothing but a sweet roll for breakfast.

  When the cloaked man saw Bleyd, it seemed to Ember that he stiffened before he asked what had happened.

  ‘If you know that she is the visionweaver, then you must know that she is dying,’ Bleyd answered haughtily, climbing through the door and setting Ember down.

  ‘Dying? Then it is true …’ He turned his masked face to her and asked if she could walk a little further to where a carriage awaited them.

  ‘How did you manage to secure a carriage?’ Bleyd demanded suspiciously, resuming his own mask, as did Fridja. Ember alone had removed neither mask nor veil in the tunnel.

  ‘Let us say that providence organised for the owner to leave one handily tethered to an aspi in a nearby laneway.’

  ‘You mean we are going to steal it?’ Bleyd asked.

  The man chuckled. ‘I prefer to say that we will borrow it. Now let us go while we can because the legionnaires may widen the search area at any moment and we are only just outside of it here.’ He heaved the metal sewer door closed behind them, slid a pin through the latch to secure it and hurried across to a door that stood open. He peered out, then motioned for them to follow. They found themselves in a small, rather shabby yard at the back of a tall building with shuttered windows. A gate stood open in the surrounding fence, and it was to this that the stranger led them. Beyond it lay a lane, and a little distance along it from the gate stood an ornate carriage tethered to a magnificent shining white aspi with richly embroidered tack.

  ‘I do not think …’ Bleyd began.

  ‘Keep your thoughts to yourself until we get out of this unless your words are worth our lives,’ the cloaked man snapped.

  Conveniently, although the carriage was open at the sides, it was fitted with opulent-looking draperies which their guide let down as soon as they had clambered in. But even as the draperies slithered into place, there was the sound of boot heels on the cobbles. The carriage creaked as their guide climbed into the seat.

  ‘Hoy! You! What are you doing here?’

  ‘I am about to take my master and his friends home somewhat the worse for wear after a night of revelry, if it is any concern of yours,’ the hooded man responded haughtily.

  ‘One moment. Pull back that hood and mask and let us see your face.’ A pause. ‘All right, be on your way.’

  ‘Are you just going to let him go?’

  ‘Do not be an idiot, Reddick,’ the other legionnaire snarled. ‘Do you see the crest on the door? And look at this fellow. You think someone would miss describing him if he were involved in this?’

  ‘Maybe so’, the other admitted grudgingly. ‘Wait, man. You have not seen anyone pass this way have you? A man and two women? One woman would have had a myrmidonish build and the other was slender and veiled.’

  ‘Lucky man to have such a pair,’ the cloaked man said, a lascivious note of envy in his tone. ‘What did he do to incur the wrath of the likes of you?’

  The man’s curiosity seemed to have achieved what nothing else had done, allaying the suspicions of the legionnaires, for they bade him be on his way before they arrested him.

  The carriage began to move, and Ember waited for the real owner to come after them, cursing about his stolen carriage. But there was nothing other than the rattle of the wheels, and when they turned a corner and sped up, Ember leaned weakly back against the seat.

  ‘That was too close,’ Fridja said.

  The ride did not last more than ten minutes. The carriage turned sharply and came to an abrupt halt and their fox-masked rescuer came to the side and pulled open the curtain. ‘We must leave the carriage here and go on foot because its master is well-known and he might by now have discovered its loss. We will wait here until full dark, then I will take you to a safe hole where we can wait until the city quietens.’

  He fixed the curtain back onto its hook and the reddish dusklight fell on his hands. They were scarred strong-looking hands, almost too big for the man, and suddenly it came to Ember that she had seen them before.

  ‘I will go no further without knowing who you are and what your name is,’ Bleyd said.

  ‘Bleyd, I told you …’ Fridja growled.

  And suddenly Ember knew. ‘You are the halfman, Soonkar of Vespi.’

  A chuckle issued from beneath the hood. ‘I wondered when it would come to you.’ And with that, he pulled off his mask to reveal a face which, for all its sixty or so years, was still more classically handsome than the face of any man Ember had ever seen. No wonder the legionnaires had sounded taken aback.

  ‘What … what sort of man are you?’ Bleyd stammered.

  ‘A man who deserves a little more courtesy from one whom he once carried puking sick on his shoulders,’ Soonkar said in mock reproach.

  ‘Carried me? I … what are you saying?’

  Ember spoke again, trying to ignore the pain that had begun to trickle into her arms and chest. ‘He was a servitor to the seerat I told you about, who helped us leave the Stormsong on Vespi. He carried you from the ship to the seerat’s carriage and then from the carriage to the white-cloak centre.’ The halfman nodded slightly but she could sense him wondering why she said nothing of the fact that he had seen her face.

  ‘You were the stowaway aboard the Stormsong!’ Bleyd guessed.

  Soonkar gave the Fomhikan a dazzling smile. ‘There! You are not such a fool as you look.’ He glanced at Ember. ‘It was a matter of need. You see there was no time to book passage or to make any ordinary preparations. I thought that the Fomhikan would be days healing, and I only went down to the ship to ask Revel when she would leave port. I was stunned to see the Fomhikan being brought aboard and I guessed you must be there already. Then the ship was making preparations to leave at once. There was no time to go back and register myself as a passenger. Even so I almost missed getting aboard because Revel left before Kalinda-rise. I did not mind stowing away, for I have a penchant for staying out of official records. Once exposed, I convinced Revel that I had got drunk and crawled into the hold. She agreed to let me slip ashore without a fuss and even gave me some coin to catch another ship back to Vespi. I begged her to let me go on with the Stormsong to Myrmidor, and then back to Vespi, but she refused, because she said the ship would be some time on Iridom.’

  ‘She said that?’ Bleyd asked, sounding puzzled.

  ‘Perhaps she just wanted to get rid of me,’ Soonkar said indifferently.

  ‘So, you came ashore and followed these two, then what?’ Fridja prompted.

  Soonkar shrugged. ‘I did. Then later, I tracked the myrmidon to your headquarters. I saw you three leaving, decked out in peculiar finery. I could not follow you so I waited, and that was when I saw the legionnaires arrive. I stayed there so that I could warn you, praying you would not return by some other route.’

  ‘Why did you follow them?’ Fridja asked Soonkar.

  The halfman’s face altered, and all at once he looked both solemn and remote. ‘Let us say rather that I followed a mystery.’ He did not look at Ember, which told her that he guessed that she had said nothing of being a stranger to the others.

  But Bleyd said, ‘I am grateful for your help on Vespi, and here as well, Soonkar. And I will repay it if ever I am in a position to do so. But you must say now what mystery it is that requires you to follow us.’

  There was a long moment in which no one spoke.

  ‘I think we must have an answer,’ Fridja said slowly. ‘Even from one who knows the myrmidon passwords.’

  Soonkar stepped back from the carriage and bowed very formally, his expression half hidden by the gathering darkness, and Ember’s heart began to pound. ‘Very well. Once, long ago, I dreamed that only by serving a certain woman would I come to understand the purpose of my life. It was an impossible dream yet it tormented me. The visionweaver has not told you, I think, that you pulled the veil
from her in your delirium, Fomhikan, when I carried you to the white-cloak centre on Vespi …’

  ‘You saw her?’ Bleyd sounded appalled, guilt stricken.

  ‘I saw the face of the woman of my dreams. I saw the face of she whom I was destined to serve.’

  ‘But, if you saw her face then you know that the visionweaver … resembles another. Is not that other face the likely subject of your dreams?’ Bleyd asked. Fridja gave him a peculiar look, but she did not interrupt.

  ‘For part of my life, I thought so,’ Soonkar said, coming close to the carriage again. ‘It tormented me, for how can a man serve a myth? I took it to mean that I was never to learn the truth of myself and the meaning of my life. Then I saw the visionweaver’s face, and knew that it was, after all, the face of a mortal woman.’

  Fridja shook her head in sudden impatience. ‘I do not understand any of this. What do you mean by saying that the visionweaver resembles another?’

  ‘I look like Shenavyre,’ Ember said softly, suddenly weary of being spoken about as if she was not there with them. ‘That is partly why Alene was sending me to Darkfall. That and my need of healing.’

  ‘Her appearance may be a sign that the Unraveller will come soon!’ Bleyd said eagerly. Then he turned to Soonkar. ‘But how is it that you know this place so well, if you come from Vespi?’

  ‘I am Iridomi, if I am anything,’ Soonkar said wryly. ‘I dwelt here before travelling to Vespi.’ He glanced over his shoulder at the sky, which was now dark. ‘We had better go. But first, Visionweaver, will you accept my service?’

  Ember blinked at him, and realised that he actually wanted her to accept him as if he were a knight pledging himself to a queen. She was speechless for a moment, then at last she said, ‘I don’t have any answers for you.’

  ‘My answers are not yours to give,’ Soonkar said gravely. ‘I ask only to serve you.’

  ‘This is foolishness,’ Bleyd snapped, and they all heard the jealousy in his voice.

  ‘Yes!’ the halfman laughed. ‘It is, and am I not the perfect fool with this face and this body. And should not a princess have her fool?’