Darksong

by Isobelle Carmody

  ‘But how we will get past the gates?’ Anyi persisted.

  ‘There is only one way. Distraction. I will go in ahead of you and make a loud and vocal fuss about the fact that you sent me on a wild hunt to the soulweaver’s hut by leaving me a false note, when all the time you had probably gone to the citadel on some foolishly dangerous jaunt. We will enter by the tide gate because it is always chaotic, so it will be easier for you to slip by unnoticed.’

  ‘But Alene said everyone still thinks I am ill and confined to my rooms,’ Anyi protested. ‘Will not the gate legionnaires be suspicious if they think I am sick in bed?’

  ‘I will be told that you are ill abed and I will play bewilderment and disbelief. Then I will say that I must go to see you at once. But the point is less that I should be believed than that the fuss I make is loud enough to prevent any of the factions from noticing you two. We will make our move right on dusk because that will mark the turn of the tide, and there is always a crowd going in because everyone wants to be through before the great water closes the gate. As well, the casters stage an impromptu market just inside the wall at dusk, so on top of all the rest, there will be a mill of people buying and selling fresh waterflyts not to mention low balladeers and urchins and petty ruffians working the crowd. If by some ill fortune you are seen, all of those people must be made witnesses, and you must use them to stop the Iridomi greens taking you. Of course their orders will be to avoid any fuss and get you quickly away without anyone seeing you properly, for witnesses will have to die. But it will not come to that.’

  ‘So we slip in, then what about you?’ Glynn asked.

  ‘As I said, I tell the reds that I am going up to see Anyi. The greens will do nothing because they will know that I will be apprehended once I am in the palace. They will follow me, but I will give them the slip and join you. Then we will seek out the Shadowman. Glynn, you remember the directions Solen gave you?’

  Glynn nodded, remembering how, after the birth of the feinna-He, Solen had claimed that they would be able to find one another no matter how much distance separated them. They ate the rest of the meal in silence, each of them busy with their own thoughts, but as they rose to go, Anyi said to Glynn, ‘I wish that you would tell me something of your world.’

  Feyt looked watchful, but she did not interfere, so Glynn considered where to begin. ‘My world is bigger than Keltor and there is a lot more land so there are a lot more people and many more kinds of animals. We have fish which go in the water like your waterflyts, and birds that are like your flyts, and we have a day star like Kalinda which we call the sun, only it is not nearly so red. We only have one moon, which we simply call Moon. It is usually white or pale yellow, not green or blue. We have many islands but also land masses that are so big that they are called continents rather than islands. We would call your septs countries, and as with septs, people from different countries do things differently. I come from the biggest island sept on my planet called Australia. There is no Holder to bind all of the countries of my world together. The countries have chieftains, only we call them kings or queens or presidents or prime ministers, but usually they are just the leaders of groups of people who decide things and rule the countries. Some of the countries are very rich and they have lots of food, but other countries have barren land …’

  ‘Like Acantha?’

  ‘Yes. Like that. But maybe they don’t have callstones and gems to trade, so they don’t have enough food and people die. Lots and lots of men and women and children die every day on my world.’

  ‘Children die of hunger?’ Anyi sounded appalled.

  ‘They die of hunger and disease and cold and neglect and of war devices left in the ground that they stumble over by accident as they play …’ She stopped, depressed. Surely there were shining things she could tell about her world as well. Things about art and music and great people like Gandhi, but in the face of the starving children, none of these things could truly be admired. How could one like a painting while children starved and, very often, the artist had probably starved as well, before his work became commercial.

  ‘Yours is a hard world, then,’ Anyi said as the silence continued. He was clearly disappointed. ‘It sounds like things used to be on Keltor before Lanalor made himself first Holder.’

  Glynn saw that her world was being classified by the mermod as primitive, and she could find no reason to argue with the judgment. ‘I think part of the problem with my world is that it is so very big that no one person, nor even a single council, could possibly hope to rule it, and the more people there are deciding and ruling, the more trouble there is because those people disagree about what they should do and how it should be done, and then some of the people they rule disagree with what they are doing …’ She stopped. Then she said, ‘The truth is that I … I felt far more like a stranger there than I have done here.’

  ‘It was so with many strangers,’ Feyt said surprisingly. ‘In fact Duran believes that the alienation of strangers from their own world is in part responsible for bringing them to Keltor. It is her theory that it is not the portal that inadvertently draws people to it but that certain people of your world are drawn to the portal by their yearning, and that this yearning somehow makes use of the portal meant only to bring the Unraveller.’ She stopped abruptly, and Glynn thought that, on Keltor, all conversations led ultimately and inevitably to the Unraveller.

  The journey along the arid plainway was tedious and painful, for a constant, hard wind drove clouds of sharp sand particles against any bare skin. Glynn’s eyes felt painfully gritty long before they reached the end of it, and her throat clogged with dust, although she, like the others, wore a gauze veil tied over her head and about her neck. Either side of them, she could see the dark even line of the wilderness that ended at the plain, for it was little more than a very, very wide road. But glimpses of the trees and sky were intermittent because the dust billowing about them blotted everything out. This, of course, was why they had come this way. Even someone on top of Skyreach Bluff would not have seen them.

  But at last Feyt prodded her and pointed, and she saw ahead the dark blue that could only be the ocean. They had almost reached the coast. The myrmidon suddenly turned at an angle and led them back to the wilderness hemming the plainway. As soon as they were within the trees, they stopped and shook the dust from their cloths and wet their dry mouths. Anyi went off into the bushes to relieve himself and Feyt went to see if the coast road was being patrolled by green legionnaires.

  Left alone, Glynn sat down with her back against a tree and closed her eyes. Her whole body seemed to be tingling from the branding of the sand winds. Suddenly, Glynn remembered two things that she had forgotten to mention when she had told her story. One was Ember’s uncanny resemblance to the long-dead Shenavyre, and the other was the fact that Anyi’s brother and sister were on Ramidan and trying to find him. Ember’s resemblance to Shenavyre was interesting, but only a curiosity, but with luck, Solen might very well be able to locate Anyi’s brother and sister, since they were staying in the city. They would not leave before the betrothal ceremony the following day.

  When Anyi came back, she told him about overhearing Donard and Rilka in the palace gardens. Feyt arrived in time to hear as well and said, frowning, that it was a pity Glynn had not remembered to tell this to Alene. That made Glynn wonder if Alene had seen something in her weavings about the Fomhikans. But Feyt was now telling them that she had seen only the usual five red legionnaires at the tide gate. Glynn rose to stretch and Feyt, frowning at her hair, insisted on plaiting and sleeving it in a brown band that, at a glance, would pass for hair, before laying over her head the dust-clogged yellow gauze veil. Last of all, she produced a long swatch of drab, fringed cloth which she helped Glynn tie about her waist like a makeshift skirt, saying this was now typical caster attire. Then she glanced at the sky and said that they should go.

  Glynn looked up too, and calculated that they had about half an hour before Kalinda set.
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  ‘I saw a carriage coming along some way back with a lot of children leaping about and squalling,’ Feyt went on as they made their way through the bush. ‘Attach yourself to that if you can. But whatever you see happening to me as you go through, do not do anything to draw attention to yourself. Go past, gawking as the casters will do, but do not stop.’

  ‘We ought to go together,’ Anyi told Glynn. ‘We can be lovers. Everyone knows that myrmidons do not have men and I will be able to lean on you without seeming to be injured.’

  Glynn felt herself blush but she also had an urge to laugh. ‘You don’t think I am too old and tall to be credible as a match for you?’

  ‘I am smaller,’ Anyi agreed easily. ‘But I do not think you are too old for me. A Holder needs a woman of experience and wisdom.’ Feyt listened to this with a bland look that suggested she was trying not to laugh, but Glynn was no longer amused.

  ‘The disparity in size will make people look at us,’ she pointed out with asperity.

  ‘And of course it is a myth that myrmidons do not have men, Mermod,’ Feyt added with suspicious gravity. ‘We can be with men, if we choose it, after rhiad when our hair is bound, although few myrmidons do choose it.’

  ‘I think it would be best if we just get through the gate as fast as we can rather than complicating matters with play acting that might go wrong,’ Glynn said firmly.

  ‘On the other hand, it might not be a bad idea if Anyi holds your arm in a comradely way, because he is right in saying that a limp is one of the things the greens would be looking for,’ Feyt said apologetically.

  All at once, bells began to ring. Feyt rose fluidly to her feet. ‘Dusk,’ she said. ‘Let us go.’

  ‘You didn’t say where we should meet inside,’ Glynn reminded her.

  The older woman turned and gave Glynn an enigmatic look, then she said, ‘I will find you.’ After she had gone out of sight, Anyi began counting slowly back from one hundred.

  The line of people going along the coast road seemed to end about a kilometre back from the gate, but Feyt had said their sudden appearance would not be thought odd for there were many paths leading from the plainway to the coast road. Nevertheless they waited until the wagon of children that Feyt had mentioned came past and then joined the road behind it. None of the adults on the wagon glanced at them, but several of the children trotting alongside it gave them quick bright looks. There were too many children for one family and, reading her curiosity, Anyi murmured that they were a troupe of entertainers. It was the habit of such groups, he explained, to go to casting villages where they could live very cheaply while learning new routines and training newcomers. Glynn only half attended, for she could now see the city wall running down the slope of the land to the shore. It ended some way short of the waves but the high water mark told her why it was called a tide gate.

  A little closer, and she could see that the sand was already wet enough about the end of the wall for the impressions of feet and hoofs left by those passing to quickly fade. There were few enough of the latter, and Glynn wondered if animals were more commonly led through the other gates. She also noticed belatedly that a sort of windowed booth was built into the end of the wall, and her heart quickened its beat, because she could see red inside. Red legionnaires. There were also two outside lounging against the very end of the wall in the fading sun, casting a casual eye over the passing stream of travellers. Clearly they only stopped those they suspected of being criminals, or who looked suspicious. Or maybe those whose descriptions had been given to them.

  Suddenly Glynn spotted the shapeless green cap that Feyt had pulled on over her dreadlocks bobbing along in front of a crowd of casters carrying woven baskets of waterflyts. The javelin rising sharply above their heads was like an admonishing finger and, the moment the legionnaires saw it, they were galvanised. Glynn felt faintly sick to see them summon out the other men, wondering if they would not have been better to just try to slip by in the crowd. Too late now though. The legionnaires had the big woman clasped between them. She struggled, and this was enough to reveal it as a pretence because she could easily have dispatched them if she fought like her sisters. Feyt had not warned them that the mere sight of her would cause the distraction she had promised to provide, and a cold finger ran down Glynn’s spine as she now realised the meaning of the odd look that Feyt had given her just before parting from them.

  The casters directly behind Feyt had drawn back from the myrmidon and the legionnaires at first, alarmed by the struggling and shouts, but now they saw the strife did not concern them, they were settling into a static audience. And it grew, for of those people coming along behind, only a few edged past to continue on their way. The rest stopped to find out what was happening. By the time the carriage reached the gap, there was simply no way that it could get through, and so it stopped too, effectively blocking the way to those behind, other than for a small gap between it and the booth. Glynn edged through the space, drawing Anyi after her and coming close enough to the wall to smell the dankness of the yellowing moss whiskering the rocks.

  Technically, they were now inside the wall, but unfortunately they were virtually trapped between it and the watchers. She did not dare to do more than wriggle and edge sideways, because any movement in the grid-locked crowd of watchers would draw the eye and she was tall and strong-looking enough to warrant investigation.

  She could now hear the legionnaires.

  ‘… is said that he had been poisoned …’ one was saying.

  ‘I did not poison the mermod!’ Feyt declared. ‘How dare you treat a myrmidon protector of the soulweaver to the Holder in this manner!’

  ‘It is obvious that she is in league with the assassin, Bleyd of Fomhika, for poisoning is his method, and it may be that she knows where he is. Kalide of Iridom has offered to interrogate her and all know that he is gifted in obtaining confessions from the recalcitrant.’

  Glynn felt Anyi’s arm stiffen, and she was startled to realise that she could feel his outrage.

  ‘I demand to be taken to your garrison leader so that I may state my case to him. It is my right,’ Feyt roared.

  ‘It is a she today,’ the legionnaire announced, ‘but she is not your sort, sword maid,’ he added with a sneer.

  ‘Tarsin will reward us well if we find a clue to the whereabouts of the visionweaver he seeks, and Kalide …’

  ‘I call upon these good people to bear witness and to speak on my behalf if I am not given my rights.’

  Glynn had managed to get them through to the other side of the crowd of watchers, all but towing Anyi after her, when she was frozen to a halt by the sight of a troop of green legionnaires marching into view up the road. Worse, one of them was the swarthy legionnaire who had tormented her outside the Iridomi apartment. The man had only to glance at the crowd and he would see her and know who she was. Unable to turn back, Glynn turned in the same direction as everyone else, tugging the yellow scarf forward to obscure her profile.

  ‘I obey my orders, myrmidon, not you,’ the red legionnaire was telling Feyt. Then he looked up to see the green legionnaires. His expression became uneasy but also belligerent. Before he could say anything, however, the leader of the green legionnaires announced suavely that he had brought some of his troop down to witness the smoothness and co-ordination of this particular group of red legionnaires.

  The red legionnaire sneered but he was also obviously pleased. ‘Let them watch and learn then, for we have just apprehended this myrmidon, known to have attempted to poison the mermod, who even now lies dangerously ill in the citadel palace.’

  Glynn was caught between fear for Feyt, and the fear of moving in case she attracted the attention of the swarthy green legionnaire. He was looking at Feyt, and Glynn could well imagine the shape of his thoughts. Suddenly, the myrmidon turned and let her eyes graze the crowd. For a second, no more, her eyes met Glynn’s, and like a punch to the heart, Glynn felt her urge them to go. Then she realised with astonishment that th
e older woman had expected her to apprehend this.

  ‘What is it?’ Anyi hissed anxiously.

  ‘We have to go,’ Glynn murmured.

  Anyi scowled at her in disbelief. ‘We can not just …’

  ‘We must do as we were bidden,’ she said, trying to sound firm and annoyed rather than terrified, for the sake of the people glancing at them on either side. Still Anyi resisted and Glynn sensed that he was on the verge of revealing himself to the legionnaires as proof of Feyt’s innocence. Noticing a group of men breaking away from the crowd, Glynn took the chance to grab Anyi’s hand and drag him with her. At the same time, she glanced back over her shoulder at the myrmidon and her captors to find that no one was even glancing in their direction. Then she stumbled, nudging a man who turned and muttered a curse. The slight commotion caused some of the legionnaires to glance idly in their direction, and one was the swarthy legionnaire.

  Inexorably, his gaze fastened on her, but for a moment it seemed that he might turn away as the others had done, without recognising her, then his eyes widened in delight, and Glynn sensed a hot wave of lust and triumph. The legionnaire took a step towards her and instinctively she drove her own terror and revulsion at him as hard as she could. Always before she had tried somewhat vainly to soften and temper her mental projections, but this time, she did the opposite. To her amazement, the legionnaire’s eyes bulged as if he had been given an electric shock, and he fell unconscious to the ground.

  The legionnaires around him stared down at him at first in puzzlement, and then they reached for their weapons and eyed the crowd suspiciously. Fortunately Glynn was too far away to be blamed, and she let herself and Anyi be jostled sideways when people began to hasten away from whatever might be developing. In a few minutes, they had slipped through the caster market into a narrow street that seemed to be the back of a lot of buildings. Glynn ignored Anyi’s protests, dragging him after her into a laneway that was mercifully empty. Only then did she let him go and sag against the wall, weak as a kitten.