The Aware (The Isles of Glory Book 1)

by Larke, Glenda

  I spared a glance for Ruarth on the end of her bed. Birds were just birds to me and little ones all looked alike anyway, or they did until I met the Dustels; but I would have had to be blind not to see the utter dejection felt by this one. Poor Ruarth. He sat huddled, his iridescence muted, his wings hunched, his head drooping, those deep blue eyes so filled with misery I wanted to comfort him—but I didn’t know how to go about it.

  Flame moaned again and vomited. We cleaned her up and I took her right hand, the only one she had now. ‘It’s over,’ I said. ‘But now you have to fight some more.’

  Her eyes opened and the pain hit her, almost sending her back where she had been. I watched as she fought it—and won, as I had known she would. She even managed a smile of a kind. She was quite a woman.

  Garrowyn gave her the pain-reducing draught from his medicine kit and went to stand near the window. My place by Flame’s side was taken by Ransom, now conscious and eager to make up for his earlier display of squeamishness.

  ‘You need to rest,’ Tor said quietly to me. ‘You too have wounds. I’ll look after things here.’ He waved a hand around as if to encompass everything: the blood, the amputated arm, Ransom, Flame.

  I nodded. ‘Thanks, Tor.’

  ‘Are you sure you’ll be all right?’

  I nodded again and touched his arm in gratitude.

  Then I looked across at Garrowyn where he was propped against the wall, watching us all with those calculating eyes of his. His nose still twitched. I couldn’t help thinking of rabbits; they had noses that always seemed to be quivering. ‘I really don’t like blood,’ he said.

  ‘We owe you our thanks,’ I said as I counted out the money I had promised him, and I added gravely, ‘Especially if you don’t like blood.’ In truth, I was inclined to believe him; he looked quite pale.

  He took it, saying, ‘I’ll leave the bottle of painmask. Give her two spoonfuls every two hours.’

  ‘Will you come back tomorrow?’ Ransom asked.

  He shook his head. ‘Nay, not me. I’ve too much respect for me own safety.’ He hefted his pack and made for the door. I picked up my lantern and followed on his heels.

  Tor thought I was going to my room, but I had one more thing to do before I could allow myself to rest, so I walked downstairs with Garrowyn.

  ‘No frets,’ he said. ‘She’ll be bonnie.’

  ‘I don’t know what we would have done without you… Tell me, why is it that Mekaté medicines are so much better than those of other islands?’ I’d seen a man have his leg cut off without the benefit of such drugs; it was not a scene I liked to remember, and that had been in one of The Hub’s best hospitals.

  ‘Because selver-herders think with their skulls instead of their superstitions.’

  It was the second time he had used that expression, selver-herders, and it meant nothing to me. ‘Who are they?’

  ‘The people of the Sky Plains. The Roof of Mekaté. Ye ever been to Mekaté?’

  I nodded.

  ‘And yet ye’ve never heard of us. Ye visited the dross, Blaze, and missed the gold.’

  ‘If it’s so wonderful, then why did you leave?’

  ‘The trouble with paradise is that there’s no room for devils.’

  ‘You weren’t a devil to us tonight.’

  ‘Ask any man about his devil and ye’ll get a different answer. Ask a Fellih-worshipper, and he may tell you tis a woman who speaks her mind. Ask yon young mun upstairs, and he may tell you tis the dirty beggar in the gutter who would gut you soon as plead your charity. Ask ye, Blaze Halfbreed, and you may say tis the man who denies you a birthright.’

  He was far too sharp to be a comfortable companion, Garrowyn. In petty revenge, I asked: ‘And if I were to ask your fellow selver-herders who their devils were, what would they say?’

  ‘They’d say a man who is different. No more, no less. Paradise must have rules, y’see. And one man’s paradise can be another man’s hell.’ We had reached the outer door to the inn, and he turned to me, the lines of his aging face furrowed into a mocking smile. ‘If ever ye find what ye’re looking for, ye’ll probably hate it. Life’s made of ironies like that. All I ever wanted to be was a chirurgeon, and then I found the smell of blood makes me want to chuck up.’

  I changed the subject. ‘How can you smell dunmagic and not be Aware?’

  He smiled, mocking me still. ‘I have an excellent nose, lass.’

  He signalled a lantern boy to come and light his way, and then he was gone, swinging down the street, clad in that strange garment that seemed to have no form, his hair a circle around his head like a clump of unruly dune grass.

  Once he was around the corner, he threw up. I heard him.

  ###

  I turned my attention to the reason I had come downstairs: I had to find Tunn. I had not forgotten what Tor had told me of the tapboy’s dunmagic whipping.

  He wasn’t in the fuel shed.

  I found him huddled with his dog behind the fish boxes. It was the smell that led me there, the smell of a dunmagic whipping that conquered even the stench of fish. He cowered away when he saw me, and his speech—if he was indeed trying to speak—had degenerated into utter gibberish. What I saw by the light of the lantern made me want to retch.

  He had weals all over his body as if he had been beaten. But I knew that physically he hadn’t been touched; those welts had been raised by spells and were designed both to give maximum pain and to heal slowly. What had been done to his skin was sick; the effect it’d had on his trust and on his mind was worse. I tried to reach him but he wouldn’t let me near. Every time I extended a hand to him, or even spoke, he cringed in fear. The only living thing he was going to trust was his canine pet. He wouldn’t take the ointment I had brought for him. In the end I left it there on the ground, hoping he would make use of it; it wouldn’t heal the wounds any faster, but it would deaden some of the pain, which I tried to explain.

  Then I went back to my room to suffer my guilt. I ought never have involved the lad in the affairs of a dunmagicker.

  That’s enough for today, if you don’t mind. Some things just to remember, even after all this time…

  THIRTEEN

  I knew I should never have come back to Gorthan Spit.

  There I was, not only with no prospect of ever earning my two thousand setus, but also unpopular with my paymasters, in danger of being further mangled by the dunmaster’s henchmen—and possibly, by association, putting Tor Ryder in a similar mess.

  Even a few hours’ exhausted sleep followed by a real bath achieved by bribing the drudge (two buckets full of brackish water instead of two clam shells)—did nothing to make me feel any happier.

  Further inquiries at the dock the next day confirmed that there was still no chance of a passage out of Gorthan Spit, not that Flame could have been moved yet anyway. She spent the day, attended by either Ransom or myself, marshalling all her power against the dunmagic that her system had absorbed. The effort left her drenched in sweat, close to collapse, and with no energy to talk.

  Every time I encountered Ransom, he glared at me. He evidently blamed me for everything that had happened, and was quite sure that my interest in Flame was purely mercenary anyway. He thought I stood by her only in the hope that she would tell me where the Castlemaid was to be found. He did me an injustice: for a start, I was fairly certain by this time that I knew exactly where the Castlemaid was. In addition, it was quite clear to me that if Flame would rather die than tell the Keepers what they wanted to know, she certainly wasn’t going to tell me. However, I’d already noticed that Ransom was about as short on logic as he was on charm.

  When he wasn’t with Flame, he was talking to Tor in his room. Fortunately, he was always a little calmer, a little more rational, after such conversations. Somehow Tor, with his quiet composure and soft humour, had a therapeutic effect on the Holdheir’s uncertain temper and childish sulks.

  The effect Tor had on me was just as therapeutic, if less calming. I f
orgot my fears in his arms and I learned how to give of myself and even more importantly, how to accept from another. I was in a constant state of wonder, it was all so new. Not even the tension of knowing that any interlude of peace and safety was just that—an interlude—could take away the joy.

  There were many things about Tor that still puzzled me. For example, his paymaster: just who had asked him to keep a protective eye on Ransom? And why, when I approached him unexpectedly, did he sometimes seem so…remote? He would sit so still, so divorced from the world around him, concentrating so hard on something deep inside himself, that he had no time for anything, or any person, in the real world. At those times I didn’t seem to count.

  There were other things that puzzled me too—about the Keepers. What was it that they had so well protected in the deepest holds of their ship? Why did pleasing the Bastionlord of Breth mean so much to them? Why did they need Breth so much? I’d been to the place, and I’d seen nothing about it to indicate it was so vital to The Hub’s sphere of interest.

  Towards the end of the second day after the amputation, it became clear that Flame was not progressing as well as we had first thought. A visual check of her body showed me that it wasn’t the dunmagic that was the problem; she had that almost beaten. Garrowyn’s unguent seemed to have stopped any infection of the wound, more proof of the efficacy of Mekatéen medications. However, with all her talents turned to defeating the remnants of dunmagic, Flame had nothing left for herself. She had lost an enormous amount of blood and her stump was not healing; it oozed fluid. She had no reserves of sylvtalent to draw on to deal with it; she had exhausted herself and her magic. Only rest and health would return her to her former sylv strength; rest she had, but health was quite another question.

  I went out on the streets again, to fetch Garrowyn back. I thought he might have some restoratives, or just advice. Anything. But I couldn’t find him. When I spoke to Wuk the Chandler, the man who had been his landlord, he told me that Garrowyn had come back late at night on the day before last (evidently immediately after the operation), had packed his things up, and gone. I asked around, but the only person who seemed to have seen him was a ship’s captain. Garrowyn had come to his ship to ask about a passage out of Gorthan Spit. On being told that no departures were possible until the winds and tides changed, he had simply disappeared.

  I sighed. Garrowyn had obviously taken the mention of dunmagic very seriously indeed, and had gone into hiding. I can’t say I blamed him, although I’ll admit I uttered some choice words of abuse under my breath when I realised just how thoroughly he had managed to vanish.

  As a last resort, I went to see Addie Leks in the fish-and-swillie bar. She was busy in the kitchen, grilling fish innards over the seaweed fire. It was hot in there, and sweat ran down her arms to mix with the food. She had a nasty black eye, and the look she gave her husband, the manager who doubled as the waiter, was somewhere between fulminating and just plain scared.

  ‘Garrowyn?’ she said. ‘Sure I know him. He scarpered night before last. Everyone’s talking about it. He was a godsend to the sick in this pizzling dump and if he’s gone—’ She shook her head and fingered the swelling along her brow. ‘But it seems some huge chappie with a huge sword came to get him on that evening. Wanted him to treat his wife. Well, Garrowyn did, but she died, and now the husband is mad enough to deck Garrowyn and flatten ’im to a flounder. So Garrowyn did a flit.’

  I hardly recognised the story. In twenty-four hours, Gorthan Docks had not only changed my marital status, they had also managed to change my gender.

  Addie flipped the last of the fish offal from grill to plate, decorated it with crispy-fried salted fish scales, and yelled for her husband to come and get it.

  ‘Where do you think he is?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh, hiding out with his girlfriend, of course.’

  ‘He has a girlfriend?’

  ‘How should I know? But that’s what I would do if I was a chappie on the run.’ She leant blowsily over the kitchen counter. ‘They say he’s actually a clan-noble from the wilds of Mekaté, a prince, in fact, from a place they call the Sky Plains. Ran away for daring to kiss his older brother’s wife…’

  Addie the romantic again. I hid a sigh and gave up. As I left for The Drunken Plaice, she jerked a thumb in her husband’s direction and whispered: ‘Blaze, we’ll split the cash box if you’ll deal with him for me…’

  I felt tired and oddly dirty. Was that how people viewed me now? Someone who would kill for a few coins?

  ###

  Somewhere towards the end of the next day I had to face the fact that Flame was going to die. And face the fact that I, who could have saved her from ever having to go through all this, had chosen not to do so. It was useless to tell myself that it was the way she wanted it; I still felt wretchedly guilty.

  ###

  Another night. A hot one. I had the window open and the Dustels were arranged along the sill with their heads tucked under their wings; doubtless Ruarth was one of them. Flame was groaning softly in an uneasy sleep. Tor and Ransom had long since gone to their rooms.

  I heard someone come up the stairs (the treads creaked so badly that they were audible even over the noise from the taproom) and I stiffened automatically; fear and tension were a continuous part of my life by then. I opened the door a crack and looked out.

  It was Syr-sylv Duthrick.

  He’d lit a sylv light, a dim one, and stood on the landing looking about, as if uncertain of which room he wanted.

  ‘Are you looking for me?’ I asked. I said it softly enough, so as not to disturb Flame, but he would have had to be as insensitive as a rock-clamped limpet not to hear the resentment in my voice.

  He nodded and doused the light with a gesture. ‘Yes. May I come in?’

  I stood back and motioned him inside. He glanced over at the bed, saw Flame and stepped over to have a look. There was only a single candle burning but it was enough for him to see her bandaged arm and poor colour.

  ‘Ah. So that’s what you did,’ he said. ‘But she’s not doing well.’ He hesitated, frowning. ‘The dunmagic is gone though.’

  ‘Yes. She’s just too weak.’

  He nodded. ‘Blood loss. Shock. It happens sometimes with surgery.’

  ‘You could save her still, and without undue expenditure of power now that dunmagic is not involved.’

  He nodded again. ‘I could.’

  The bastard wanted me to beg. ‘Will you?’

  He turned his back on her indifferently. ‘She knows the price.’

  I just stared, silent.

  He hesitated, but the pause seemed artificial. He had not come expecting her to have changed her mind. ‘I need your help,’ he said at last.

  ‘To do what?’

  ‘This dunmaster—he’s too strong. We need someone with Awareness to see his spells for us, and to identify him for us.’

  ‘Tell me, Syr-sylv, since when have Keepers been so concerned with what happens on a sordid stretch of sand and fish scales like Gorthan Spit? This place is a human garbage dump. It has no assets except the fishing grounds to the south. Why worry your heads at all about a dunmagicking bastard on Gorthan Spit?’ I thought that, thanks to Tor, I already knew the answer to that one, but I wanted confirmation.

  He debated momentarily whether there was anything to be gained by explaining, and apparently decided there was, because he said, ‘We wouldn’t concern ourselves if we thought he was going to stay on Gorthan Spit. But he’s been moving through the Middling Islands in secret, gathering and subverting sylvtalents, just as he tried to subvert this Cirkasian. He’s apparently brought them all to Gorthan Spit, but we doubt that he intends to remain here. He just needs a place to stay for a while, to consolidate himself perhaps—we don’t know why. But you can rest assured that he doesn’t intend to remain in a place like this.’ He looked around the room with distaste as if it symbolised all he disliked about Gorthan Spit.

  ‘You’ve been following him
for some time?’

  He nodded. ‘Always a few steps behind. We don’t even know what he looks like, thanks to his habit of changing his appearance at every stop with his dun-illusions. He’s very, very clever. We believe his purpose is to eventually challenge Keeper power in the Middling Islands. Hence our interest. We’ve lost a lot of sylvs, Blaze. Some of them Councillors.’

  I hadn’t known that, and I stared at him in shock. ‘You’ve kept that very quiet,’ I said.

  ‘We didn’t want to start a panic.’

  Or didn’t want to admit their failure to protect fellow sylvs? And, as a consequence, how many had been taken simply because they hadn’t been warned? I opened my mouth to say as much, and then thought better of it. As they say, quarrel with the well, and you die of thirst… Instead, I asked in all seriousness, ‘Syr-sylv, how are dunmagickers made? I’ve always assumed that they were just born, in the same way that sylvs are born, but is that so? Or are they all subverted sylvs?’

  ‘Both. A dunmagicker with a sylv partner has dunmagicker children. Always.’

  ‘And if a dunmagicker mates with a nonsylv?’

  ‘There are no records of any dunmagicker progeny in such cases. God knows, the bastards have raped enough women over the years for us to be fairly certain of that.’ He seethed with loathing, and I warmed to him a little. He didn’t like rapists.

  ‘You had better tell me everything you do know. I don’t like walking about half-blind with ignorance.’

  ‘There’s not much to tell. We first became aware that there was something afoot about three years ago, when we heard rumours that there had been a lot of Menod deaths and many disappearances of sylvs. But they weren’t Keeper sylvs. They were just scattered people from all islandoms—a healer here, a family there… Nothing much to go on, and it didn’t seem to be our business. And then eight months ago Angiesta vanished. And she was one of ours. You remember the case. I sent you and Syr-sylv Ralph to investigate. You found traces of dunmagic at her house. That was the first indication we had that a dunmaster was involved…’