Tales of Noreela 04: The Island

by Tim Lebbon

  The buildings on their left opened up, only a short wall bounding the street, and Kel looked over, down at the harbor and the surrounding area. He realized with a shock that there should have been a house blocking his view, but it had gone. The ground it had been built on was washed away, leaving a sheer drop beyond the wall of at least twenty steps. If he fell, the mud would suck him down and drown him.

  Namior gasped behind him, pressing back against the building across the street.

  Kel backed away from the wall. Its footing had been exposed, and the slightest touch could send it tumbling. He looked across the ruined village at Drakeman’s Hill; a section of its lower slope had also been washed away, a dark wound in the land. As he watched, a two-story stone house slid gracefully down into the swollen river, maintaining its integrity until the rushing waters took it apart. He hoped no one had remained inside.

  Namior nudged him, nodding along the street. A machine stood there, stubby legs shaking slightly as though balancing against a tremor. There was a wide, deep dent in its side. The metal shell was scored, part of its stone interior crumbled, and a spread of flesh that connected the two was hanging loose, dripping blood and gore to the wet cobbles. It keened—a high, pained sound.

  Namior rushed to the machine and placed her hands against its metallic carapace.

  “Your family!” Kel said. He was not surprised at her concern for the machine. It was in magic’s control, after all, and he sometimes thought of Namior as a slave to magic.

  “It’s damaged,” Namior said.

  “It can stay damaged. Practitioners will fix it. We should check on your mother and great-grandmother, then …”

  “And then down there?” Namior stepped away from the machine, approached the wall and looked down into the valley. “They’re dead. All of them.”

  “We have to help,” Kel said. “There’ll be survivors, and wraiths for someone to chant down.”

  “And when’s the last time you tried to chant down a wraith?” she asked.

  “I didn’t mean me,” he said, blinking slowly to try to shake the memory of O’Peeria’s death. He saw the familiar look on Namior’s face, the one that said, I really know so little about him.

  Namior dashed past him, entering the short, winding path up to her own home. Kel followed. By the time he caught up with her, she had opened the front door and entered, and he followed her inside. Until a while ago, he’d planned on coming there with love on his mind, but when he shut the door it was to close out the stink of sea, and death.

  I know the smell of death so well, he thought. I can handle it again.

  For the first time since arriving, he began to think he could give the people of Pavmouth Breaks more than just wood carvings. He could help.

  NAMIOR’S MOTHER AND great-grandmother were fine, if a little shaken. The older woman was sitting close to the groundstone, stirring shapes in dried seaweed on the ground and chanting a low, painful song.

  “There are many wraiths,” her mother said. She was dressing, shrugging on her coat, pulling on heavy boots. “I’m going to find Mourner Kanthia.”

  “If she’s still alive. She lives up the valley, where the river’s even narrower.”

  “She’s alive,” Namior’s mother said, and Kel saw the certainty in her eyes. “But she’ll need help.” She paused and stared at her daughter, sparing only a quick glance for Kel. “What of you?” she asked.

  “Down to the harbor,” Kel said. “To help.”

  “Is this it?” Namior said. “Nothing more?”

  Her mother frowned and nodded at her own grandmother chanting beside the groundstone. “It’s difficult to see. Things are… in chaos. It’s like the wave swept through magic as well, and our paths inside are corrupted.”

  “There could be more waves,” Kel said.

  Namior spun around to face him, her eyes suddenly stern. “Trakis and Mell will be down there already.”

  Kel smiled. “I wasn’t suggesting we turn and run. Just that we need to take care. Listen. Watch.”

  Namior’s mother hugged her daughter close, smiling over her shoulder at Kel. He was pleased to be included at last. “Grandmother will keep looking,” she said. “And if she senses anything else, she’ll let us know.”

  “But she’s …” Mad? Was he really going to say that?

  “She will let us know.”

  “How?” Kel asked.

  “She’s been doing this for a long time. She has her ways.”

  Kel nodded. He’d heard of old, old witches who could touch the minds of their families at a distance, but it was a talent that took a lifetime to perfect.

  “Take care of our girl, wood-carver,” Namior’s great-grandmother said. And she looked up at Kel, her one good eye glittering with whatever her damaged mind cast into it.

  THEY WAITED WHERE the street had vanished. Kel knew the route down to the harbor. He’d walked it a hundred times with Namior, holding hands and laughing. Now it was changed. Several buildings on their left—houses, a shop and a storage shed for some of the fishermen—had vanished. The street was gone too, cut off in a ragged line. Beyond, the water had undermined the land and washed it away. To their right stood a low row of stone houses, a couple lit from within by candles and oil lights, several of them dark. Whether the inhabitants were hidden away within, afraid to emerge and terrified of what would come next, Kel did not know. It could be that the fisherfolk who lived there had been down at the harbor, or perhaps even out to sea. Some of them liked working at night, though the risks from inimical sea life were far greater then. They said it gave them a better catch.

  The water’s route had reversed, and now it was rushing back out to sea. It carried with it the evidence of the violence it had wrought on the village: smashed timbers, a couple of machines rolling along, uprooted plants and trees, and a body, facedown but obviously broken and twisted.

  Namior gasped, and Kel held her close. “Listen to me,” he said. “We’ll see lots of death down here. The entire seafront and harbor have been washed away. All the boats are smashed or gone. Are you sure you want to go on?”

  She pulled away from him slightly, and in the weak light he could see her eyes flash with anger. “This is my village,” she said. Kel nodded. He admired such unflinching loyalty. And envied it.

  The rain had lessened, as though the wave had been the culmination of the storm. The wind was weaker too, still lifting spray from the violent waters, but no longer strong enough to have to lean into.

  Ahead of them, the hill curved around until it faced out to sea, and this was where Kel had thought they could be of most help. Those living right down on the coast would be dead and washed away, but farther up the hillside, where the force of the water’s impact had been less, there would be people trapped in collapsed buildings and perhaps wounded in the streets. The bleeding woman they had seen was evidence of that; he only hoped that others were less shocked and more open to aid.

  “We’ll need machines here, and Practitioners,” he said.

  Namior raised an eyebrow. “With all your love of magic?”

  “It has its uses. This is one of them.”

  Namior was looking across the expanse of flowing water and debris.

  “Namior, we can’t get over there yet. The bridge is out, and—”

  “The central span’s gone, that’s all. The rest of it held. And Trakis and Mell will be trying to get over there, looking for Mell’s parents.”

  A hundred steps downriver, the remains of the old stone bridge held on valiantly against the backwash of water. Even in the darkness, Kel could see the shadow of debris piled up against its upriver side. It was crazy, but perhaps those uprooted trees and tumbled rocks could provide a way to cross.

  He looked back down the slope at the ruins of the lower parts of Pavmouth Breaks.

  “Kel?” Namior said. “We’ve seen how bad it is here. Wherever we go tonight, there’ll be people to rescue. And they’re our friends.”

  Kel nodd
ed. “Okay. Back past your house, then we can cut down through the Moon Temple grounds to get to the bridge.”

  “Maybe we’ll find some Practitioners on the way.”

  “Can’t you do it?” With all her witch training, communing with the land, drawing of magic and using it to cure and mend, he was sure she’d be able to control some lifting machines. But she seemed doubtful.

  “I could try. I use them, just like anyone. Ride them. But I’ve never instructed a machine, not like that.”

  “Always a first time for everything.” He hugged Namior and she smiled back, warming him through. “So come on,” he said. “Or by the time we get there everyone will be rescued.” Or dead, he thought. In which case Mourner Kanthia, if she was still alive, would have a busy night ahead of her.

  They hurried back the way they had come, and Kel could not help thinking that they were just another part of the confusion. They passed the path to Namior’s home and soon drew level with the entrance to the Moon Temple gardens. The heavy metal gate was open, and there were several people gathered around the ornate, half-moon entrance to the Temple. Kel knew that the moon priest lived around the hillside where they had just been, close down to the small beach, so it was doubtful that he had survived. He’d locked up his temple before returning home that evening.

  Kel looked up at the open viewing area on the Temple’s roof, and there was a naked woman up there. He paused in surprise and sensed Namior standing beside him, looking up as well.

  “Who is that?” Kel asked.

  “I’m not sure,” Namior said. “Someone seeking help.” The clouds were still heavy and thick, promising more rain, and neither life-nor death-moonlight touched the woman’s body.

  “We should go,” Kel said. “Things will get worse.”

  “How in the Black could they be worse?” Namior sounded almost desperate, and Kel wondered just how close she was to panic. He would have to look after her.

  “Things fall,” Kel said. “Buildings have been undermined. Foundations weakened. The wave has done all the damage, but it’s time that will keep destroying.”

  Namior said nothing. Perhaps she hated the defeat in his voice, but he could not help it. It was the way he had been trained.

  And as they worked their way downhill, past the Moon Temple and toward the lower streets, Kel could not help thinking about his time in the Core, and how it had prepared him for an occurrence such as this. He had learned a lot about survival in the harshest of times and living off the land. They had instructed him on basic medical requirements and demonstrated how wounds could be closed using twisted sheebok gut, a needle and a sprinkling of shredded hedge-hock. He had learned about languages and cultures, the subjects and objects of worship and how death was dealt with by the different races and peoples of Noreela. But the lesson that had been most valuable had undoubtedly saved his life, many times: always expect the worst.

  He was expecting that now.

  They skirted around the Temple, heading down the steep slope toward the road that used to run alongside the river. The lower boundary wall to the Temple grounds had fallen away, and the ground there had been undermined as well, slipping down to add to the chaos left behind by the wave. It was only so close that Kel saw just how much damage had been done.

  Ten steps below them was a sea of mud, rocks, protruding walls, smashed roofs, bodies, cattle and trees. Farther out, the flooded river still poured back toward the sea; but closer to the bank several struggling shapes splashed weakly at the muck, doing their utmost to remain afloat.

  “What’s that?” Namior said, but her voice trailed off. She already knew.

  “Stay here!” Kel said.

  “What? You can’t just leave—”

  Kel ignored her. Slipping to the place where the ground fell away, he tried to glance over, down into the mess now lit by an emerging death moon. There was a slick spread of muck beneath him, but to his right a horse’s body had washed against the mud cliff, lying on its side. Kel jumped.

  The horse coughed when he landed on its stomach. He steadied himself, ready for it to struggle, but the creature was dead, the air forced from it when he landed.

  “Help!” someone shouted, voice distorted by a mouthful of mud.

  “Kel!” Namior shouted from ten steps above.

  “Rope!” he yelled. “Blankets! Smashed wood, anything, Namior. Find it and throw it down.” He knelt on the horse and felt down into the mud for its saddle, but his hands touched the distinctive ridges along its back. A wild horse from the plains above the valley, likely come down for a drink. Just his luck.

  He looked across the sea of mud at the feebly struggling shapes. He was sure there had been at least four when he jumped down, but now he could only see movement from two. Shit, shit, shit, he thought, looking around desperately for something to throw out to them, wanting to offer hope but unable to find either.

  Kel probed at the mud with one foot and immediately sank up to just below his knee. He pulled back, grabbing hold of the dead horse’s mane to avoid being sucked in deeper.

  “Namior!”

  There was nothing he could do.

  He watched another shape going under, crying out a muddy name that he could not identify as they went from night to black.

  “Namior!”

  “Kel!”

  He turned and looked up, and Namior was edging a length of splintered timber down to him. He grabbed it, cursing as splinters bit into his hand, but by the time he’d turned again, ready to throw it across the surface of the mud, the last shape had disappeared. A huge bubble rose where it had gone, and even above the roar of the swollen river he heard that bubble burst. Another person’s final breath added itself to the dead atmosphere of Pavmouth Breaks.

  Kel stood slowly and propped the wood back against the bank. Carefully, slowly, he climbed, grabbing Namior’s hands and letting her help him up.

  “You did your best,” she said.

  “Let’s go along to the bridge, see if we can—”

  “Kel, you did everything you could.”

  They stood, and Kel held her close, seeing the yellow death moon reflected in her eyes. “It doesn’t matter,” he said. He could see that his words shocked her. But he’d witnessed many people die, and just then he could not pretend otherwise.

  O’PEERIA GOES FIRST. She’s always the one to take the lead.

  They skirt by the city’s bustling South Gate, passing a huge encampment of traders congregating for the annual Festival of Spice and Season. The darkness is driven away by a hundred campfires, and the air carries heady scents of warm spiced meats, vegetables and the unmistakable tang of fresh fledge. Kel has never tried the drug, but he has always felt its allure. O’Peeria sometimes calls him weak.

  The air is also filled with the chants, songs and pained moans of various sects, many of whom use certain powerful spices as their chief means of communing with their particular deities. Kel has no deities. He’s seen too much to believe in such influences, and even his trust in magic is all but shattered.

  There’s a cursory check by the gate militia, and as usual it’s Kel they pull to one side. O’Peeria is striking enough for them to leave her alone. He sighs, responds to their clumsy questions with answers he’s used a hundred times before—why is he armed, where is he going, on whose authority does he travel—then follows O’Peeria onto the main street that leads into the heart of the city.

  Sometimes, he wishes people knew of the Core. It would avoid having to deal with bored militia.

  “We need to make sure we all get there at the same time,” O’Peeria says. She does not have to explain why. Kel has been present at the extermination of three Strangers, and he has seen what they can do. They’re not all exactly alike, but they do share one characteristic: brutality.

  And he’s also seen what happens to them when they die.

  “So slow down,” Kel says. “You’re walking like you have a Violet Dog on your tail.”

  “No one and nothing
gets on my tail unless I say so.” She glances back over her shoulder without breaking pace, and Kel is pleased with himself when he does not smile. He won’t play her games so easily.

  He follows O’Peeria into the first of Noreela City’s squares.

  There’s a real bustle there, even though it’s almost dark, with stalls being erected, machines drifting just above the ground carrying building parts, several light balls floating here and there where required, and people hurrying about, all in preparation for the forthcoming Festival. Kel is glad. It means that he and O’Peeria won’t be so conspicuous, even though a Shantasi like her always warrants a second glance. It is not often that these mystical, strange people venture out from New Shanti, and when they do, observers generally assume they have a purpose. O’Peeria is good at staring down curiosity.

  Past the square, she steers them left into a darkened alley. There are no light balls here, and Kel is not disappointed; he has always felt uncertain around magic. He does not understand it. Does not like it. They say it comes from the land, but he can’t help believing there’s much more to it than that. He supposes it’s a result of his being in the Core, and that tracking, hunting and assassinating mysterious Strangers from beyond Noreela makes him more suspicious of what people generally accept as true. It’s a side effect that he welcomes.

  “Here,” O’Peeria says. She’s standing by a grating in the ground, three heavy locks holding it in place.

  “Down?”

  The Shantasi smiles, and the life-moonlight catches her face. It’s dazzling. “What, Kel Boon? Afraid to go into the dark with me?”

  “Just concerned that you’ll be scared.”

  O’Peeria raises an eyebrow, kneels and runs her hands over the locks. They’re heavy, and Kel knows that it’ll take a lot of effort and noise to break them. She knows it, too.