Tales of Noreela 04: The Island

by Tim Lebbon

  The door opened occasionally, letting a sample of the storm inside to blow out candles and spatter the wooden floor with rain. Whoever stumbled in was subject of the tavern’s appraisal, and more often than not they would have stories of how the storm was progressing. Waves fifteen steps high, they said, battering the mole and smashing boats against the harbor wall. Rain so heavy that some of the paths up to Drakeman’s Hill had turned into impassable torrents. “Looks like I’m definitely staying with you tonight,” Kel said at this, and Namior’s hand squeezed his thigh, remaining there afterwards.

  The evening turned to night, though daylight had been stolen long ago by the thundering clouds. Lightning flashed at the tavern’s windows, followed soon after by the rumbles of thunder. The heart of the tempest was almost upon them.

  Kel knew that Namior saw this as an adventure. Whatever had troubled her earlier had been melted away by the Wanderlust ale and fine Ventgorian wine, and her smile was a pleasure, her laughter a welcome song.

  But with each flash of lightning, as though the space between blinks was another world, Kel was taken back to that night in Noreela City.

  ONE DAY YOU’LL learn to pack your fucking weapons properly,” O’Peeria says, grabbing Kel Boon’s belt and tugging him to her. The Shantasi woman runs her hands across his body, beneath his cloak, around his belt, loosening and tightening straps and webbing, shifting knife sheaths a finger’s width, lengthening the string on throwing stars. Kel raises his arms from his sides and watches her, enjoying the opportunity to examine her face while her attention is elsewhere. She’s beautiful, in a harsh way, her pale skin set off against her long dark hair like day against night. He looks down at her own weapon-clad body, lithe and strong.

  She passes one hand between his thighs and adjusts the straps of his sword scabbard. Pausing, she glances up, her eyes darker than the Black. “If I feel your cock growing hard, I’ll cut it off.”

  Kel goes to say something, but he’s not entirely sure she’s joking.

  O’Peeria stands, grabs his shoulder and shakes. Kel stumbles and leans to the left to avoid falling over. None of his weapons makes a sound.

  “Good,” the Shantasi says. “A Core agent should know how to wear his weapons, at least.” She turns and heads for the door, sweeping her hair over her right shoulder and tying it in place. That way, it won’t interfere when the time comes to fight.

  “O’Peeria,” Kel says. She turns and stares at him. She’s been his lover, and she swears that she’s his friend, but she’s a hard woman. And with all they’ve been through he’s never found a way to get close.

  Kel shakes his head. “Doesn’t matter.”

  “You ready?” O’Peeria says, raising her eyebrows.

  “Yes.” Kel’s voice is quiet, and he cannot meet her gaze.

  “Sure, Kel? Are you fucking sure? This is killing stuff, tonight. No more fun and games. We’ve been watching him long enough, and the Core wants him dead. So are you ready?”

  “Yes,” Kel says, more firmly this time. He looks over O’Peeria’s shoulder at the door. Beyond lie the nighttime streets, alleys, parks, squares and secretive buildings of Noreela City. “I’m ready.”

  O’Peeria smiles, and not for the first time Kel thinks that he might love her.

  By midnight, she will be dead.

  THE THUD SHATTERED one of the Dog’s Eyes’ windows, cracked floorboards and shook the door in its frame. It knocked several wine bottles from the shelf behind the bar to smash at Neak’s feet, struck at Kel’s ears, and sent a heavy shock wave up through his feet and spine.

  The rain and wind did not lessen—with the smashed window, the noise from outside increased—but for a few beats after the thud, the interior of the tavern was almost silent. It felt as though the ground itself had moved.

  “What in the Black was that?” a soft voice said. The thought spoken, a ripple of surprise ran around the tavern, and a beat later most people were on their feet and heading for the door.

  “That wasn’t wind,” Namior said.

  “And no wave, either,” Mell added.

  Trakis raised a mug and drained it of ale, then stood and nodded at the door. “Shall we?”

  Kel felt a sudden chill of fear—a realization that nothing was safe. His world—anyone’s world—could be opened up and taken apart at any time. He had liked Pavmouth Breaks when he first arrived, and over the years he had grown to love it, but he always knew that safety and contentment were merely thin veneers camouflaging the random cruelties of the world.

  “Kel?” Namior said. She had remained close to him, and now he saw that strange look again, the one the others had not noticed before.

  “What is it, Namior?” Mell said.

  Namior looked at her two friends, then across at the broken window. Raindrops spat in. A dozen people had gone outside, but none of their voices were audible above the storm. “My mother and great-grandmother… they were worried, that’s all.”

  “And you?” Kel asked.

  She shrugged. “I’m still young. Felt nothing. But if they’re worried …”

  “Then so are you,” Mell finished for her. Namior nodded.

  Trakis placed his mug gently on the table. None of them drank.

  Someone burst back into the tavern, her hair made mad by the wind and rain. She wiped water from her face and Kel saw her eyes, the mixture of excitement and fear driving them wide. He’d seen such a look many times, and he knew exactly what it meant: she had seen something she had never seen before.

  “Something’s coming!” the woman said. “Out to sea, something out there, dark and big and fast!”

  “What is it?” Mell asked.

  “Don’t know. Something.”

  “Come on,” Kel said. He grabbed Namior’s hand as the four of them headed for the door, skirting around the woman, who evidently no longer wished to see.

  “The ground’s still moving,” Trakis said as he pulled the door open and stepped outside.

  And it was. Kel paused for a beat and felt the vibration enter his feet and transfer up through his bones, and when he pressed his teeth together it felt as if they could shatter. From behind came the musical rattle of wine bottles clanking together. From ahead, the sounds of the storm, and whatever else it had brought.

  Namior squeezed his hand. She was outside by then, arm outstretched, and he was suddenly desperate not to let go of her.

  “Come on!” she shouted. “They’ve gone up the hill behind the tavern to see better!”

  Kel realized that, other than Neak and the windswept woman, he was the only one still inside the Dog’s Eyes. He stepped out into the storm.

  NAMIOR WAS AWARE of the wildlife that existed in and around the village, and she was also used to seeing most of it only rarely. So when something ran over her foot she squealed, unheard in the gale. And when she looked down, pools of light cast from the Dog’s Eyes’ windows were speckled with dashing shadows. Rats ran uphill; swarm lizards dashed so quickly that they looked like smudges of shadows; a dog growled past. And around her head, what she had thought at first were leaves blown by the wind, were bats, soundless and terrified.

  Namior suddenly wanted to be back at home. Her mother was there, and her great-grandmother, and they had seen something more than the storm—something absent. Climbing the steps beside the Dog’s Eyes, and then the steep banking at the rear of the tavern, and finally mounting the flattened observation area where patrons sometimes drank on hot days and Neak occasionally held flat-ball tournaments, it was the absentness that disconcerted Namior the most. If they’d sensed something more, perhaps she would not have been so afraid. More could be dealt with, seen, challenged. But nothing could be done with nothing.

  Mell and Trakis were already up there, leaning on the wall and staring over the harbor and out to sea. Namior held on tight to Kel’s hand, desperate not to let go, and he ran up the steps behind her, drawing close.

  “What is it?” she shouted before they had even reached t
he wall. She shouldered in between Trakis and Mell, while the watchers shouted words that the wind stole away. Rain was driven at them across the rooftops of buildings farther down the hill, and the water had a slightly smoky taste when it hit Namior’s tongue, as though it had picked up chimney smoke.

  Kel stood behind her, held her arms and looked over her shoulder.

  “Nothing,” Namior said, because when she looked out to sea, that was what she saw.

  Down in the harbor, waves crashed against the mole and the harbor wall. At the base of the cliffs to the south, the sea smashed, boiled and foamed like a diseased creature, striving to gnaw into the land. Beyond the mole were violent white-crests, waves breaking and rolling and building again, surging in toward the village and promising chaos. And past the waves, out to sea, where clouds flashed but no lightning danced at the horizon, a wall of nothing seemed to be growing in the darkness.

  “What is that?” Kel shouted.

  Namior shrugged, comforted by the feel of his hands on her arms.

  “End of the storm,” Trakis shouted. “Sea growing calm.”

  “No,” Mell shouted, and Namior listened because the fisherwoman was wise to things of the sea. “Everything’s about to get worse!” Mell looked up at Trakis, then across at Namior and Kel. When she next spoke it was no longer a shout, but still they all heard. “We should be safe up here.”

  “A wave,” Namior said, dreadful understanding dawning at last. The thud, and now the wave. She’d heard of places far to the south, near Kang Kang, where the ground sometimes shrugged, cracked and turned over. Groundshakes, they were called, though many people thought they were the result of fledge demons deep underground collapsing another seam of that strange drug.

  Mother, she thought.

  “They’ll be fine,” Kel spoke into her ear, saying exactly what she wanted to hear. But how could he be sure? Namior glanced along and down the hillside at the chaos of rooftops, paths and courtyards, trying to place her house. It was slightly lower than the Dog’s Eyes, and closer to the harbor. Lower and closer…to that!

  She could not look away from the wave for long. It was a blankness on the horizon, a tall dark space above the foam-capped waves and below the boiling sky. And it was coming closer, making itself known at last.

  The ground shook. The air was filled with the taste of the sea. And a roar was rising, building quickly as the sound of the incoming disaster found the land and announced itself.

  They could only stand there and watch. Namior thought of all the people she knew who would likely be down in the harbor area; friends who lived there, others who worked through the night dealing with the day’s catch. They’d have felt the thud and now they would hear and see the wave. But for them, it was already far too late.

  She closed her eyes, but she had to look again.

  There was a flash of red lightning across the horizon, as though the flesh of the sky had been slashed.

  With a roar greater even than the wave’s, the water in the harbor surged out to sea, leaving fishing boats resting on their hulls and the pale shapes of sea creatures thrashing in their exposure to the night.

  And then the wave came in.

  KEL STAYED WITH her. His fingers sank into her arms, hurting, but the pain pinned her to the land. She was glad for it. It was nothing compared to what her village faced.

  As the wave came closer it slowed, growing higher—an impossible thing that should not be there. The rain and wind seemed to stop for a beat, as though cowed by this monster from the sea, then its base struck the mole. The heavy concrete structure disappeared beneath the foot of the wave, and the water thundered down, broke, swallowing boats and tossing them before it, smashing into the harborside and roaring onward. Buildings disappeared in its white-foamed fury.

  The noise was staggering, the roar of water expending so much power, then beneath that the sound of Pavmouth Breaks suffering a fatal wound. Buildings collapsed, adding their parts to the wall of water surging inland. It scoured the landscape before and beneath it, ripping away structures that had stood for longer than anyone knew. Timber buildings seemed to disintegrate almost before the wave touched them, submitting to the inevitable. The water’s texture changed, made sharp and heavy by the detritus it had picked up, and it boiled up the hillsides.

  The first stone bridge, spanning the River Pav across the throat of the harbor, collapsed beneath the onslaught.

  Across the narrow valley, on the much steeper slopes of Drakeman’s Hill, the water seemed to rise and rise. Forced into the narrow alleys and paths, it spurted upward and outward—sprays that carried parts of the land with them. Shattered buildings tumbled into the waters.

  “By all the Black!” Namior shouted in despair, shocked by what she was seeing and filled with a deep, dark sense of hopelessness.

  Kel pressed his face beside hers and said nothing, because there was really nothing to say.

  Namior looked along the hillside to where her house stood. It was still safe. The waters roiled farther down the slope, smashing and breaking and pouring their awful energy into the destruction of the village.

  The wave was broken at last, and before a huge cloud of spray and mist rose high enough to block the view, Namior could look down at the harbor and see what was left. There was not much. The mole had crumbled in several places. She could not make out any sign of the dozens of boats that had been moored there, and the harbor wall itself was vague, shattered and collapsed so that its true form was no longer visible. The buildings were mostly gone, only a few walls left standing, and their insides were home to surging, filthy water. It was as if Pavmouth Breaks had only ever been a painting, and a giant hand had come to smudge the image away.

  The ground continued to shake, and for a beat Namior thought the hillsides would slide down into the ruined valley, taking all those surviving structures with them. Pavmouth Breaks would be gone. She closed her eyes and rested her hands on the wall before her, trying to commune with the land, but she could not concentrate. Magic observed, she could feel that; it watched what was happening. But it could offer no easy explanation. If this wave was a part of the language of the land, then it was a roar of outrage.

  The front of destruction had passed them and was traveling up the valley. The wave had dropped into a surging mass of water that pushed up, colliding with the River Pav and combining with it to wreak more chaos and devastation.

  Namior could see roughly where her home was, and everything there seemed as it was. “Mother,” she said.

  “We’ll go down,” Kel said.

  “No, we can’t. What if—?”

  “It’s your family,” he said into her ear, just loud enough to defeat the continuing roar. “That’s reason enough.”

  She turned her head so that they were face-to-face, and she kissed him. She did not need to say anything else.

  The others were stirring, galvanized from the shock into which they had been frozen. Trakis and Mell looked at Namior and Kel, their faces grave. Namior knew that Mell’s parents lived down close to the harbor, her father a scarred old fisherman with one leg and countless tales, her mother a net maker, who cooked the best fishtail bakkett she’d ever tasted. Mell nodded without speaking, then turned to leave.

  Namior grabbed her arm. “I need to check on mine, quickly, but then I’ll be there,” she said.

  Mell’s lips pressed together, and as she and Trakis left Namior saw tears in the fisherwoman’s eyes.

  “Come on,” Kel said.

  They headed back down beside the Dog’s Eyes—Neak was standing before his tavern, looking down into the valley in a daze from which they could not rouse him—and then along the path toward Namior’s house. A machine stopped for them, lowering itself and offering a ride as if nothing had happened.

  Namior thought Kel said something as they passed by the machine, but she could not be sure. Either way, right then she agreed with him. It was a time when it felt better to trust their own two feet.

  Build
ings blocked their view of the valley for a while, the path they followed winding between old stone walls and newer timber structures. They passed a few people coming the other way, up from the valley, and all of them had a haunted look in their eyes. One woman was bleeding from a terrible head wound, but when Kel reached out to stop her she lashed out, knocking his hand aside, determined to walk on.

  “Wait!” Namior said. With time and a chant she could stem the bleeding and heal the wound. But when Kel tried to stop the woman again, she panicked and pushed him away.

  Namior went to go after her. “Wait, I can—”

  “At least she’s walking,” Kel said. “There’ll be many more who can’t.”

  “Yes,” said Namior, watching the woman’s back as she staggered away. And the impact of what had happened really struck her then. She could hear the steady roar of the receding waters, the grind of the village’s ruins scouring the land as the surge carried it away, and she thought of all the people who would not be with them anymore. There would be wraiths to chant down, if the village Mourner was even still alive, and bodies to collect, and …

  “Namior?” Kel said.

  She looked at him, eyes blurring with tears.

  “We should go. Your mother.”

  “My mother.” She saw this, Namior thought. “She knew something was wrong.”

  “Nothing could have been done,” Kel said. “It’s just nature.”

  “Just nature.” Namior nodded.

  Kel came to her and folded his arms around her, holding her tight. She thought that if he hugged her hard enough, maybe she would not be able to hear the flowing water, smell the scent of sea mist in the air or taste salt on her tongue like spilled blood. But she was wrong.

  THE AIR WAS heavy with mist and tasted of the sea. It was a taste that Kel had never become used to—exotic, distant, alien. He had been born and bred in Noreela City, and he had almost died there. Though he had been in Pavmouth Breaks for over five years, still it felt like a retreat, not a home. He was a visitor. He’d started to believe he always would be.