The Aware (The Isles of Glory Book 1)

by Larke, Glenda

  They took me quite a long way from Creed village, up the coast to the west where the plateau of rocks thrust out into the sea, high above the water, far too high ever to be covered. The cliff face was exposed though, and the sea thundered against it as if it found the presence of stone on this otherwise flat and sandy island a challenge to be conquered.

  I wondered what the hell these bastards were intending to do with me.

  I’d seen blowholes before, in the Cirkase Islands. They have a lot of rocky coast there, and there is a place where the sea crashes against a low platform of rock, driving water through underground passages with such a force that the ground trembles. Then, with a great whoosh of air, the water shoots up through inland holes so that you’d think there were whales beneath the rocks…

  Gorthan Spit’s blowhole was a poor imitation. There was an underground passage, it’s true, but the blowhole itself—some twenty paces or more wide—was far too broad and deep for the water to ‘blow’. It just welled up and then drained down again. The lip of the hole was some ten paces or more above the highest level of the water. The hole itself was more or less circular and the sides were sheer and slick with spray and green algae. Anyone who had the misfortune to fall in would never be able to climb out again.

  I took one look and started to protest. ‘Hey, wait a moment—you’re not supposed to kill me.’ I tried to back off from the edge, but one of the men grabbed my arm. ‘Put me in there, and I’ll die of thirst and starvation, not to mention being battered to death on the rocks.’

  One of the guards laughed without mirth. ‘You? Not you! Last man we put down there lasted six weeks, and he couldn’t even swim. You’ll get fed, every low tide. Water too.’ He lifted his sword, slashed the rope that tied my hands and gave me a shove from behind.

  I clutched his coat with both hands. I curled my fingers into the weave and dug in. For a moment the two of us teetered on the edge, my feet slipping, his arms flailing. Then one of the others grabbed him to stop him following me over the edge. Still I wouldn’t let go. Yet another guard tried to uncurl my fingers; another, not so sensible, gave me a further shove towards the edge. Then, suddenly, I was flying through the air clutching an empty coat.

  I hit the water back first, the shock driving the air from my lungs. I came up whooping.

  When I could breathe again, I shook a fist up at them while they stared at me over the rim of the hole. If they had been true dunmagickers they would have laughed. Perhaps that was the most horrible thing of all; they didn’t do anything. They just looked, and my anger died to pity. I think it was then that I was, for the first time in my life, glad that I had not been born a sylvtalent. Nothing at all was worth the risk of being like one of those poor subverted sylvs with their lack of passion and their almost puzzled cruelty. They were like children doing wrong but too young to understand quite the iniquity of what they did.

  They went away without another word.

  I turned my attention to my predicament.

  It wasn’t as bad as I’d thought it was going to be. I found I could actually touch the ground each time the water ebbed away, even though I judged it to be high tide at the time. It was harder to keep from being washed into the wall of the hole when the water swept in and out; I had to be vigilant to stay in the centre of the pool. It would be even harder in the dark, I knew.

  I tried to work out how long it would be before low tide and a meal, but the tide timetables were especially complicated in double moon months and I wasn’t familiar enough with Souther Islands to know the patterns.

  I tried not to think of Tor.

  It was remarkably easy not to think of him, because it wasn’t long before I had troubles of my own to consider. I felt agonising pain in my hand—a pain that was all too familiar. A blood-demon had settled into the rawness on my wrist. I screamed and wrenched it out. I almost threw it back into the water in my revulsion, then realised that it would just find me again. I hesitated, holding the damn thing in my other hand where it didn’t even raise a tickle. I looked around me, and almost died. The water was alive with the bastards. I howled, ‘Shit!’ which really didn’t help much. I tried not to think how many cuts I had: the old ones that Sickle had made were almost healed, but there were still ulcers on my back and arms from the yoke, raw skin on my legs from the shackles—God damn Morthred!

  I thrashed around to scare the demons off, but I knew I would soon exhaust myself doing that. In the end, I started to collect the creatures, stuffing them into the sleeve of the jacket I had unintentionally removed from the guard. I tied a knot in the bottom of one sleeve, and every time I caught one of the beasts, I stuffed it down through the armhole and gripped the sleeve so it couldn’t get out again. I wasn’t quick enough to snare all of them in time; several managed to wriggle under my clothing and settle on to my back. Every second that passed before I could prise them off was unmitigated hell. Still, by the time the sea was washing around my ankles, I had a sleeve full of the things—and no idea of what I was going to do next. There were still more of them and even if the hole dried out entirely, it wouldn’t worry them. They could move across rock as fast as through water, and they homed in on cuts like a trained Fen Island lurger hunting swamp shrimps.

  I thought of trying to throw them, one by one, out of the hole, but if I missed, then they’d just fall back in. And even if I did get them on to the lip of the hole, they might very well have wriggled back in.

  Finally, when part of the bottom of the hole became dry at low tide, I knew I had the solution to my problem. I found a loose stone and used it smash the blood-demons, one by one, into little pieces against the rocky floor of my prison. I’d never before found such satisfaction in killing as I did then.

  Once most of the water had gone, I set about clearing the place of the creatures altogether. I overturned rocks, searched the pools, looked under the lumps of seaweed and found, as well as blood-demons, the remains of at least two people, probably more. There were bones everywhere, bleached white by sun and sea.

  In the end, though, I was fairly certain that I had cleared the area of the bastards. When I sat very still for a time in a final attempt to lure any lurking ones out into the open, I was unmolested. Only after that did I feel free to look at other things. I examined the sides of the hole and attempted to climb out, but not even a ghemph could have got up that sheer face. It was slimy and as smooth as eelskin, no cracks, no crannies, quite impossible to grip. Worse still, there was an overhang at the top.

  I hadn’t done much else when my jailers, two of them, arrived back with food and water. They looked down on me without compassion. One of them yelled, ‘Morthred wants to know how you like the blood-demons?’

  I didn’t reply.

  ‘He also wants to tell you that your Cirkasian friend is enjoying her task!’

  My heart beat faster but I didn’t move.

  Two bundles, both well wrapped in a tangle of dried seaweed so that they didn’t split when they hit the bottom, came tumbling down to splat into wet sand. Their job done, the guards disappeared. I tried not to think about what they had said.

  There was a drinkskin of water, most of which I drank immediately. I needed it badly by then. There were also the staples of Gorthan Spit: dried fish, shrimp paste and cooked seaweed. As a meal, I’d had better. I ate more sparingly than I had drunk.

  I had barely finished when I heard another sound from above. I looked up and saw Eylsa peering over the rim of the hole. She drew back her lips in what she probably imagined was a grin; she was trying to show me how glad she was to see me in a way that she thought I would recognise, but she made a bad job of it. Smiles did not come naturally to ghemphic faces. Still, I had never been so happy to see the ugly flat features of her breed before.

  I smiled back and raised a hand in salute.

  ‘There was someone guarding you back there, did you know?’ she asked. I hadn’t, but I supposed it made sense. Morthred wasn’t going to let me sit out in the open without
someone around to make sure no one found me. ‘I’m afraid I’ve killed him,’ she continued. ‘It’s odd how easy it is when you’re a ghemph—he didn’t expect it, you see. And humans always forget about the claws… That’s two people I’ve killed in two days.’

  I didn’t know what to say.

  ‘I’ll have to fetch a rope,’ she added. ‘I’ll be back!’

  ‘Wait!’ I shouted up at her. ‘Don’t go back to Creed! Get away while you can—’

  She grinned some more and was gone.

  ‘Shit! Eylsa!’ I yelled after her, but she didn’t come back. I just had to hope that she wasn’t going back to Creed. What if she did, and was caught? Much better that she circle around back to the Docks and get some rope from there, than risk her neck again in Creed. I could wait.

  Then I started to torment myself, thinking about Tor. What if I was wrong? What if…? Don’t think about it, you fool.

  I sat down with a sigh. The tide showed no sign of turning yet. I remembered that in double moon months sometimes there was only one tide a day; sometimes four. This looked like being the former. I sighed again. That meant I would have to spend most of the night in the water, fending off blood-demons in the dark; I didn’t have the slightest doubt that the incoming tide would bring a fresh batch of the little horrors.

  I looked over at the far corner of the hole, where it dipped down on the seaward side—where the water was forced in as the tide rose. That part had never dried out; there was a deep pool there still. Presumably under there somewhere was a tunnel that led out to the sea. I tried to visualise how far it was to the open water. And I wondered about the width of the tunnel.

  I picked up the drinkskin and looked at it closely. It was made from the swim bladder of a seacow; it was absolutely water tight. The bag part of it narrowed to a funnel, and this had been tightly corked.

  I looked back at the pool, and decided to go for a swim, or more accurately, a dive. I found the exit to the sea: here at least it was large enough for a person to enter. The water inside was surging to and fro in response to the movement of waves on the seaward side. I swam in a little way to find that it narrowed quite soon until it was more like a pipe. It was still large enough for a person, but if I entered that narrow part, I’d never be able to turn around. I’d be committed…the sea or nothing. And I had an idea that the swim was too far for one lungful of air, always assuming that the tunnel was wide enough for me to fit through all the way to the end. Once out in the ocean, there was the danger of being beaten to death against the rock face, and if I survived that, it would be a long swim to a beach.

  All of which made the tunnel a last resort escape.

  I came out of the pool and went to sit in the sun to dry out. I felt sticky with salt and wondered just how anyone could live this kind of existence for six weeks. My clothes would stiffen in the sun, and rub my skin. I wondered if it wasn’t better to take them off altogether. I had just decided that if Eylsa did not come back to rescue me that day, that’s what I would do, when I realised I had company again.

  Ruarth.

  He flew in and sat on a rock beside me.

  ‘You tell Flame,’ I said coldly, ‘that if—if—we get out of this alive, I am going to personally strangle her with both hands. Get that? You tell her!’

  He just looked at me. He was a mess. He hadn’t preened himself for some time. His feathers were as droopy and as listless as the way he stood there, just looking. I sighed and said, more kindly, ‘But then I don’t suppose she’s listening to you any more than she’d listen to me, eh?’

  He shook his head and then launched into an excited babble.

  I interrupted. ‘I can guess what you’re trying to say. And there’s no need to explain—I know exactly what she’s done, the hard-eyed Cirkasian bint, and when I lay my hands on her…’ I sighed and looked at him. ‘Thanks for finding me, anyway. Is there anything else you need to tell me?’

  He nodded.

  I thought for a moment about what he might think I needed to know. ‘Flame went to see the Keepers after we were taken?’

  Another nod.

  ‘And they confirmed they are intending to attack Creed?’

  Another nod.

  ‘Good. Now I need to know when. Today?’

  He shook his head and held up a foot with two claws extended.

  ‘In two days time?’ I asked, praying he didn’t mean in two weeks. ‘The day after tomorrow?’

  He nodded again.

  I wished it would be sooner. What the hell was Duthrick up to, taking so long about it? Was he hoping that Janko-Morthred was going to turn up at The Drunken Plaice and he could be dealt with there when he wasn’t backed by a village full of subverted sylvs and fellow dunmagickers? But surely Duthrick would have figured out why Morthred had bothered with a waiter’s guise in the first place: it was an ideal way to keep an eye on newcomers to Gorthan Docks. Anyone who was anybody would sooner or later arrive at The Drunken Plaice. Morthred, killing time until the full return of his powers, had wanted to know what was happening throughout the Isles—what better place to wait than an inn? But once everyone knew he was a dunmagicker, his disguise was of no more use. Surely Duthrick, having spoken to Flame, would realise that Morthred wasn’t going to go back.

  Then I had another thought: maybe it was my disappearance that was the problem. Duthrick had said he needed my Awareness; perhaps seeing that I was gone, he was going to wait until he could find another one of the Awarefolk to replace me. Now that would be the ultimate irony—the sort of thing that had happened too many times in my life for me to be surprised.

  In the end I gave up trying to outguess Duthrick.

  I continued my questioning of the Dustel. ‘What time is the attack planned for? Um, dawn?’ Right first time.

  I thought about what information I should pass on. In the end I told Ruarth about Eylsa and added, ‘Now, I need to know what I should do if I do get out of this place today. I need to know where Flame and Tor are. Uh—do you know what Morthred is making Flame do to Tor today?’

  He shook his head.

  I told him. If it was possible for a bird to blanch, then he did. I asked if he had seen Flame that day.

  He shook his head again.

  ‘Damn. Then I’ll just wait for the ghemph and see what she says.’

  Ruarth burst into a flurry of chatter and movement which meant absolutely nothing to me. I looked at him in frustration. Then he hopped down to the sand at my feet and began to write with his beak. The letters were badly formed and then scuffed about by his own feet, but I managed to make out ‘I go Creed find Tor.’

  ‘Well, all right. But be very, very careful Ruarth. Tor is probably out of your reach for the time being, down in the torture chamber with Flame and Domino. Or somewhere recovering from what she is supposed to do to him.’

  He nodded.

  ‘And Ruarth, try to get her out of there.’

  He didn’t acknowledge that. He spread his wings in a brilliant gleam of blue and was gone.

  I wondered how he had found me. If he hadn’t seen Tor, then I thought that the most likely way was that he had overheard some dunmagicker mention my predicament; even so, it was clever of him to have discovered me so soon. That was one of the few things I knew for certain where Ruarth Windrider was concerned: he was bright. Otherwise, he was a mystery to me.

  I trusted him, but I didn’t have a clear picture of his character. How could I form an impression when I couldn’t understand what he said to me, when everything had to be interpreted through Flame, who loved him? I couldn’t even tell what he was thinking by his facial expression: he didn’t have one! Nor could I imagine what it was like to be a human trapped in a bird’s body, to have been born a bird.

  In addition, as far as I was concerned, the kind of love Flame and Ruarth had for one another was incomprehensible. How could anyone fall in love with someone who bore a different form? Yet those two were in love in the real sense of that expression, in every w
ay except the physical one. I had often been touched by Ruarth’s concern for Flame; and there had been times when he seemed humanlike in his love, but there were other times—while eating flies, for example—when he seemed wholly avian and I had no empathy with him at all, and found it hard to imagine how Flame not only empathised, but loved.

  One day, I promised myself, I would learn the Dustel’s language. Then perhaps I would understand why a beauty like Flame loved a man who was a bird small enough to hold in her hand.

  TWENTY-TWO

  The water was beginning to swirl back into the hole by the time Eylsa came back. I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t been hoping she would return quickly and get me out of there. The whole idea of spending a night in those waters was enough to raise the hairs on the back of my neck. In the dark, one couldn’t see the blood-demons…

  The only trouble was that she didn’t come back to free me; she came back a prisoner. I never did discover exactly how or where they had captured her, but I suspect that a guard sent out to relieve the one she had killed may have seen and caught her. She had no experience with my kind of life: the sneaking around, the thinking ahead, taking care to look after one’s own skin before all else…

  When I saw her, she was standing on the top of the hole between two dunmagickers—genuine ones. One of them called out to me, grinning. ‘Thought you were going to be rescued, did you? Too bad, halfbreed!’ And then, with breathtaking callousness, he pushed her over the edge.

  With some desperate idea of catching her I leapt up and lunged forward, but I was too late. There was just a finger-width of water covering the rock on which she fell; no more than that.

  I will never forget the sound her body made when it hit the rocks.

  I knelt beside her. ‘Eylsa —?’

  She had landed face down. There was blood everywhere. I gently untied the bag she wore on her back and laid it aside. I was too scared to roll her over; I was afraid of hurting her, afraid to see what she had broken.