The Night of the Swarm

by Robert V. S. Redick

  The selk stopped them often, always with good cheer. They gave the youths small cups of wine or cider, and showed them places Thasha and Neeps had yet to discover. An amphitheater, a gold smithy, a stone table where gems lay unguarded among scattered leaves, a glass house full of silkworms, an archery range where Nólcindar was practicing, landing arrows in a spiral-shape upon her target, neat as a tailor stitching a sleeve.

  “You’re getting tired,” said Thasha, watching Pazel’s labored breath. “One more stop, then it’s back to bed with you.”

  The last stop was a little hill on the edge of the township. It was round and solitary, and a steep staircase led to its peak. At the summit, benches formed a circle about a strange hole fringed with ashes, from which steam puffed like a handkerchief shaken in the wind. It was a fumarole, a volcanic steam vent, like the ones they had seen on the lava field called the Black Tongue.

  “No flame-trolls,” said Thasha, “but plenty of fire underground. You can find these all over Uláramyth. Nólcindar brought us here yesterday, and showed us a thing or two.”

  They turned Pazel this way and that. To the west, high on the crater’s rim, stood the landing with the willow trees where they had arrived. On the north rim, higher still, a dark triangular doorway opened in the rock: that led to the Nine Peaks Road, an ancient trail over the mountaintops, by which no one journeyed anymore. To the south the floor of the crater was all forest, moist and dark, with gray mists sliding above the trees. And a mile east lay the great lake they had spotted from the landing, with its tall and solitary island.

  “We’re not allowed there,” said Thasha. “In fact we’re barred from three places in Uláramyth: the tunnels leading out of the city, a certain temple guarded by wolves like Valgrif—and that lake, which they call Osir Delhin.”

  Pazel started. “Do you know what that name means?”

  “Lake of Death,” said Thasha. “Ramachni told us. But the selk won’t talk about it at all.”

  They sat down together on the turf, outside the ring of benches; the dog dropped beside them with a contented whine.

  “I don’t understand the selk yet,” said Pazel. “There’s something different—really different—about them. Something you can’t just see, like the strangeness of their eyebrows.”

  “I feel it too,” said Neeps, “every time they glance at me. And here’s something else you can’t tell by looking: Ramachni says there are just five thousand of them.”

  “Five thousand in Uláramyth?”

  “Five thousand in all the world.”

  Pazel froze.

  “A lot of them are here, in Uláramyth and the surrounding mountains,” said Thasha. “The rest are scattered over Alifros. In the Northern world there are hardly any—maybe a few dozen all told.”

  “Five thousand,” said Pazel again. The idea shocked him profoundly. There were more humans in little Ormael City than selk in the whole of Alifros. “Where are their children?” he said. “I haven’t seen a single one.”

  “I’ve seen a few,” said Thasha. “But they’re very quiet about their children, and seem to want to keep them out of sight.”

  “Who knows when they stop being children?” said Neeps. “At age twenty, or two hundred?” He looked out wistfully at the green landscape. “I wish Marila were here. She would love this. I don’t think she’s ever known much peace.”

  A silence fell. Pazel wished he’d never mentioned children. “You shouldn’t have clung to my bedside, you two,” he said at last.

  Neeps and Thasha exchanged an awkward glance. “It wasn’t just for you, mate,” said Neeps. “The doctors have been poking and prodding me around the clock. Weird treatments. They gave me mare’s milk. And they asked Lunja to sit and stare into my eyes—which she did very reluctantly, I might add. None of those tricks changed anything, as far as I can tell. But Uláramyth has. The truth is I felt my head clearing as soon as we stepped out of that tunnel. It’s no cure; I can still feel something’s wrong up here”—he rapped on his forehead—“but I think it may be buying me some time.”

  Pazel could find no words for his friend. He was trying to imagine Neeps staying here, safe in Uláramyth but cut off from everyone he knew, from Marila, from their child …

  He glanced nervously at Thasha. What about you? he thought. But he could not bring himself to ask, not yet. Instead he linked arms with both of them.

  “Do you know why I wouldn’t let them carry me?” he said. “Because if we live—if some of us do—I want us to have this. A memory of seeing this place for the first time, together. Because right now we’re alive, and I’m blary grateful for that—and, well, that’s all, really—”

  Thasha squeezed his hand. Neeps looked him up and down. “Pitfire, now he’s going to start with the blary kissing.”

  Pazel tackled him, and Thasha joined in, besting them both, and they were still laughing and rolling when they heard a sharp canine woof.

  Valgrif stood over them, looking amused, if that were possible in a gigantic white wolf. “You look as healthy as cubs,” he said, “but come quickly, Master Undrabust, for the doctors have been waiting to see you this hour and more.”

  Neeps jumped up. “Credek, is it time already?”

  “We’ll come with you,” said Pazel, rising.

  Neeps shook his head. “Don’t bother, mate. No others allowed when I’m being tested. No other humans, at least. Bolutu’s often there, and Lunja. Devil take these tests, anyway! What good are they doing?”

  “Go on,” said Thasha firmly. “You told me this morning that they were almost finished. Don’t quit now.”

  Still grumbling, Neeps followed the wolf down the stairs. When he was gone Pazel looked at Thasha quickly. “Have they said anything else to you? Privately, I mean?”

  Thasha nodded. “That there’s hope. Real hope, but nothing certain.” She leaned into him, looking stunned. “We were sitting here yesterday at this time, and a dozen tol-chenni shuffled by. They live here safely, like the birds and the deer. Some of them were chewing bones. The selk feed them, Ramachni says. And Neeps made a joke about how if he became one of them at least he’d never have to mend his socks.”

  She gazed at him, as if asking how the world had ever produced so singular a creature as his friend. Pazel found himself laughing, and soon Thasha was laughing too, and it went on until she was limp and winded in his arms. “We’re supposed to keep him happy and relaxed,” she said. “Of course the second part’s impossible, since it’s Neeps we’re talking about. Still, that’s our job.”

  “Could be worse,” he said, and kissed her. It was an impulsive kiss more than a passionate one, but Thasha returned it desperately, clutching him about the neck. When he stopped to breathe she whispered I found a place, and he let her help him down the stairs, giggling at his clumsy urgency. She led him south, by footpaths and alleys, through the scattered buildings at the town’s edge, across a meadow, over a stile, and at last deep into a field of green grass that rose higher than their shoulders. On they went for hundreds of yards, and the warm grass smell was shot through with richer scents, lavender and sage, and Thasha turned to him with burrs clinging to her hair and put a hand under his shirt. He felt the edge of her nails, a warning.

  “You keep it away from me this time, or it’s going to bleed.”

  “Right,” he said at once, repressing a gesture of self-protection.

  “You think I’m kidding. That I’m going to let you, no matter what I say.”

  “Actually, I don’t.”

  “You’d better not. Because later we won’t be able to do even this much. It’s what I told you before. Later we’ll have to think of other things.”

  “I know that. And Thasha, listen: what I said on that island, in the river—”

  Thasha shook her head. Beneath his shirt her hand began to move. He touched her cheek; she was trembling. There were tears at the corners of her eyes.

  Time passed like a dream in Uláramyth: a dream of peace and heal
ing. It was the very end of summer, here in the Southern world, but the cold of the coming season had yet to arrive. Even at midnight (and Pazel was often awake at midnight, listening to selk music, or trading tales with them, or simply walking under the stars) there was as yet no chill, and by day the sun filled the crater-realm like liquid amber.

  He thought: the Swarm is out there, growing, gorging on death. He knew that was the truth, but part of him was working hard to deny it. No world that held Uláramyth could hold that as well. And yet they themselves had brought a thing into Uláramyth that gave the Swarm all its power. A black sphere, a little flaw in the world’s fabric, a tiny leak in the ship. Give it time and it would sink the ship, every last compartment, even one this small and secretive and blessed.

  Often Pazel found himself thinking of Chadfallow. The man was not his father by blood: Pazel had finally forced him to answer that question definitively. But what was blood? Nothing more than an illusion, a lie. Captain Gregory Pathkendle was his blood, but Gregory had abandoned his family and never looked back. If anyone had earned the right to call himself Pazel’s father, it was Ignus Chadfallow.

  And how he would have loved Uláramyth! How he would have begged the selk to show him its wonders, to open their libraries, clinics, laboratories, to teach him everything. Chadfallow might have found peace in the Vale. And perhaps the two of them could have made up a little for all the wasted years.

  We’ll start that the day I get back to the Chathrand, Ignus. The very minute. I swear.

  The others in their party had found pursuits of their own. Big Skip had befriended smiths and carpenters among the selk. Corporal Mandric was fascinated by their weaponry. Myett had traveled the forests with Valgrif, and Ensyl had been invited underground, and returned speaking of wondrous chambers of fire and ice. Hercól and Ramachni walked often with Lord Arim and Nólcindar and other leaders of the selk, but they were never long away, and stayed particularly close to the youths.

  Only Cayer Vispek held himself apart. He was courteous, and showed true joy at the speed with which their wounds were healing. But he was not enraptured by Uláramyth, and he kept a stern eye on Pazel’s sister. Neda herself was obedient to her master and dutiful in her prayers. Yet when Vispek allowed it she sought Pazel out, and no sfvantskor discipline could keep her from grinning at him, with that rare Neda grin he had almost forgotten. It had vanished so long ago, that grin. It had sailed with Gregory Pathkendle.

  No one spoke yet of leaving Uláramyth. Thasha said that she thought the reason was probably simple: they had nowhere to go. The wilderness was vast, but beyond it lay the Bali Adro coast and the forces of the Ravens. Others reasons for the delay occurred to Pazel, however. Neeps, for starters. But he, Pazel, had not healed fully either, despite how good he felt. Walking was one thing, but if he ran or climbed any distance his leg began to burn. Each day the feeling lessened, but it never quite disappeared.

  And then there was Thasha. Her body was healed, and by day her spirits were as bright as the late-summer skies. One morning she even challenged Hercól to a wrestling match, and laughed when he pinned her to the ground: “What an old man you are! I remember when you could do that in half the time!” But at other moments, at night especially, a wall of strangeness descended. Pazel had seen it before: the chilliness in her eyes. The bleeding away of all recognition of those around her. The fierce awareness of something no one could see.

  One night Pazel’s sister shook him awake and led him to a window in the common room. Over the streets of Thehel Urred, the Southern moon hung like a pale blue fish egg—and beneath it, in her nightdress, stood Thasha, arms raised as if to pull it down from the sky.

  “You know what’s happening, don’t you?” said Neda in Mzithrini. “The wizardess is stirring inside her.”

  “Of course,” said Pazel.

  “My master says that Erithusmé took a part of her own soul and wiped it clean of memories, and let it grow for seventeen years, into Thasha. Is he right, Pazel? Is she living with just part of a soul?”

  “No,” said Pazel. “There’s nothing partial about her. She’s a whole person, the same as any of us.”

  Neda glanced over her shoulder, as if afraid someone else might see her. Then she took Pazel’s hand. “Thasha is my sister. I swore as much on the battlefield, and even my master cannot say that I was wrong. But Pazel, there is a martyr’s look in her eyes. We call it kol-veyna, the gaze into darkness. Cayer Vispek says—”

  “Neda, don’t.”

  She saw it then, how hard he was fighting for control. They both fell silent. But when Thasha began to drift away from the square, Neda herself walked out into the moonlight, woke her with a touch, and led her back inside.

  It was hard for Pazel to remember such moments when Thasha was in his arms, or when she and Neeps bickered contentedly, as they’d been doing since their first encounter on the Chathrand. Together the three youths ranged farther across Uláramyth, exploring woods and keeps, caves and towers; and they guarded the memories of those joys for the rest of their days, like windows on a sunlit land.

  Early one evening they heard shouting in the street, and left the house to investigate. From all the doors of Thehel Urred, selk were emerging, running and all in the same direction. The youths watched, mystified, until a selk man paused and looked up at them.

  “Join us, citizens!” he cried. “Join us at the Armored Chamber! The elders have spoken: Thaulinin your benefactor will go free!”

  He ran on without a word. Overjoyed, the three friends made to follow at once. “As a matter of fact, you two should run,” said Pazel. “Try to get there before he’s released. I’ll come as quickly as I can. Well, go on, hurry!”

  For once neither argued with him, but merely raced off. Pazel followed impatiently; most of the selk were drawing ahead. He broke into a cautious run, and had to smile. He could have kept pace with them after all: his leg was finally healed.

  A selk man crossed the path ahead of him. Pazel glanced at the figure—and nearly stumbled in amazement.

  “Kirishgán!”

  For once again it was he. Pazel’s friend from Vasparhaven was running like the other selk, but in a completely different direction. “Wait!” cried Pazel. “By the Tree, Kirishgán, can’t you just stay a moment?”

  Kirishgán stopped. He turned back to look at Pazel—but as before, appeared to do so with reluctance or difficulty. Their eyes met. Pazel stepped nearer, and a smile appeared on the face of the selk. But the next instant he turned, as though hearing a summons he could not ignore. Then he sprinted down the path and vanished among a stand of apple trees.

  Pazel was confused and saddened. Kirishgán had never acted so strange in Vasparhaven Temple. Why on earth did he refuse even to speak? But there was no hope of catching up with him. Pazel went on his way.

  In the square of the Armored Chamber a crowd had gathered—and there on a platform stood Thaulinin, a free selk once again. The selk did not cheer, as humans might have done at such a time, but hundreds of them pressed close to the platform, obviously delighted. Only a few, at the edges of the square, looked on with unease.

  Neeps and Thasha had found Hercól, and Pazel made his way to them through the crowd. When he arrived he saw that Ramachni was here as well, curled like a cat in Thasha’s arms. Pazel had barely greeted them when a hush fell over the crowd. Thaulinin was about to speak.

  “I have little to tell you,” he said. “You all know my heart. But my freedom is a small matter, beside all that we face. Change is upon us. The earth trembles, the Swarm is loosed and spreading its dark cloak over Alifros. The return of human beings is one sign; if you would have another I can provide it. Our pilgrims are coming home, as they always have before a crisis. Some, like great Nólcindar, bring us joy and song. Others pass in silence. Among these is our brother Kirishgán. I saw him through my window this morning, running the silent race.”

  A sorrowful murmur rippled through the crowd. “I saw him running as well,” sa
id Nólcindar. A few others spoke up then, saying much the same. Confused and unsettled, Pazel raised a hand.

  “I saw him tonight,” he said, as hundreds of blue selk eyes turned his way. “He was in a great hurry, I think.”

  His words caused a stir. “Could you not have been mistaken, Pazel?” asked Thaulinin. “You met Kirishgán in Vasparhaven, but this is a very different matter. And no doubt we selk look rather alike to you.”

  “No, you don’t,” said Pazel, “and it was Kirishgán. I called his name, and he turned to look at me, and smiled.”

  The sounds of amazement grew. “Whatever’s the matter?” asked Thasha. “Isn’t this Kirishgán welcome in Uláramyth?”

  “As much as any selk who breathes,” said Thaulinin, “but perhaps we should speak of this later. Night comes soon, and there is much to decide.”

  The selk began to disperse, glancing thoughtfully at the humans as they went. “You never fail to surprise me, Pazel,” said Ramachni, “but I should have told you about the selk. You befriended one weeks ago, after all.”

  “Told him what?” Neeps demanded.

  “I will let Thaulinin answer that question now,” said Ramachni. “And others, perhaps. Let us go.”

  Thaulinin was waiting by the edge of the square. Beckoning, he led them down a twisting staircase bordered by junipers, and then into a dark, moss-covered tunnel. Pazel thought it must lead to some forbidding place, but on the far side lay a pleasant, hidden yard tucked into the bend of a swiftly running stream. A cool breeze touched their faces, carrying smells of nectar and pine. Thaulinin sat down by the stream’s edge, and the others followed his lead.