Tales of Noreela 04: The Island

by Tim Lebbon

  “Sorry,” she says, and pulls a thin iron spike from her boot. Placing it between the random paving in the alley, she sets her foot against the flattened head and shoves down, hard.

  O’Peeria touches the spike with one hand and uses a few whispered chants to break the locks. Kel looks the other way. He hears the broken metal clank to the ground, and he only looks again when he hears the spike being withdrawn from between the stones.

  “You should try it one day,” O’Peeria says.

  “We have Practitioners for that.”

  “Fuck that. One day we might meet a Stranger who knows how to use it better than us. What then?”

  Kel heaves up the grating and prepares to drop down into the darkness. “Then,” he says, “we fight for ourselves.”

  He could not know that today would be that day.

  KEL HEARD IT before Namior. Even when he paused, raised his hand and tilted his head, all she could hear was the still-raging river. He turned to her, his face suddenly pale in the yellow moonlight and his eyes going wide, then he grabbed her hand and started to pull. He scrambled up the remains of a house’s collapsed sidewall, as though suddenly eager to return to the Dog’s Eyes.

  She tugged back. He was going the wrong way! But then he pulled her close, their noses touching, and she could actually smell fear on his breath.

  “There’s another wave,” he said. “Save your breath and run.” And still holding her hand, he turned and started uphill again.

  She was supposed to warn us, she thought about her great-grandmother, and she feared that the old woman’s current craze was deeper than ever before.

  They’d made their way along the uncertain ground above the shattered lower areas of the village until they were level with the fallen stone bridge. It crossed the river from one side of the harbor to the other, and they could see the terrible destruction that had been wrought on the place. The bridge’s remaining surface and walls were just visible above the flooded river level, but either side of it, there were no easily identifiable areas left. Buildings had toppled, smashed and been carried away by the power of the wave, and few walls protruded above the thick layers of sticky, stinking mud left in its wake. The water was piling massive amounts of debris against the upriver side of the bridge: trees, shattered timbers, dead horses, furniture, half of a roof with some tiles still attached, and close to the uncertain shore where they stood, a knot of bodies. Namior had tried desperately not to look, but the arms, legs, heads and torsos cried out to be seen. She had wondered where their wraiths were, and she hoped that Mourner Kanthia was still alive.

  Kel let go of her hand so that they could both climb faster. The broken rubble beneath her hands was sharp, and several times she slipped and cut her knees and shins. The pain drove her on. Her breathing was rapid and heavy, but by the time they’d cleared the fallen wall and were making their way up a steeply sloping vegetable garden, she could hear the second wave.

  She did not look.

  Across the other side of the bridge, on the harbor side, she had seen the vague shapes of people already searching the ruin for survivors. She hoped they were making their way up Drakeman’s Hill.

  The wave was louder by then, and the ground was starting to shake.

  “Faster!” Kel shouted. Namior glanced up and he was sitting astride a garden wall, hands held out, glancing down at her, up at the wave and back again.

  Still she did not look. She remembered watching the first wave roar in, and she wondered how long it would take for her to die. She would feel the water pluck her up, sweep her along, and she would be battered by the broken parts of the village it had already consumed. One beat? Five? She doubted she would drown. The wave promised a more violent death.

  She was almost crawling up the steep slope, pushing with her feet and digging her hands into the soil, pulling toward safety.

  First wave didn’t reach this high! But she had seen the massive amounts of water still flowing back toward the sea from that first deluge. And the new wave could be even more powerful than the last.

  Kel pulled her roughly over the wall and they were on a path, and he grabbed her hand and ran, dragging her after him, unforgiving when she stumbled, ignoring her cry of pain as she twisted her ankle, his fingers digging into the back of her hand. He kicked down a gate and they ran up the slope of a garden planted with salt-herbs and spice. Other people ran with them—people she had lived with forever—but they were all alone in their panicked race for survival.

  They dropped over another wall and Kel kicked at a gate between two tall, thin houses until timber cracked and the gate bowed inward. He pressed through and Namior went after him, and soon they were climbing a terraced fruit garden, tearing through fine nets protecting the fruits from birds. Bizarrely, incredibly, someone opened a window and cursed at them. She wanted to scream at them to flee, but she remembered Kel’s words—Save your breath and run—and by the time her conscience pricked her, they were already over another wall and running up a winding, cobbled path.

  “Kel …” she said, gasping, her shins and knees burning, ankle aflame from where she’d twisted it. But though she called his name again, the monster the sea had birthed roared too loudly for him to hear.

  She fell to her knees and Kel fell beside her. They held each other as the second giant wave blotted out the moon and cast its shadow over the remains of Pavmouth Breaks.

  AFTER THE SECOND wave, they returned to Namior’s home. Her mother and great-grandmother were still there, surrounded by survivors who had fled uphill from the ruined and damaged areas below. Her great-grandmother sat close to the groundstone, shivering and crying as she held her hand a finger’s width from its surface. Her mother brewed tea, and between pouring large mugs she pressed a herby paste into an ugly wound on a man’s leg. The groundstone hummed very slightly, and the man groaned as his bleeding ceased.

  “Will there be more?” Kel asked, not aiming the question at anyone in particular.

  Namior’s mother looked at him, frowning. “Can’t see,” she said. “We tried scrying again before the survivors arrived, but there’s still a blankness there.”

  Kel went close to her, talking quieter. “Have you ever seen anything like this before?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Many times. Our eyes are our true sight; anything further is afforded to us by magic. But there’s plenty that can confuse what we see.”

  “Anything exactly like this?”

  She poured bondleaf tea into several more mugs, not looking up at Kel.

  “I assume that’s a no.”

  “You don’t like what we do,” she said, not scolding, simply stating a fact. “How can I expect you to understand?”

  There’s plenty about me you don’t know, he thought, but sometimes when Namior’s mother looked at him, he saw suspicion in her eyes. “Understand what?” he asked.

  “No, Kel. I’ve never seen or sensed anything quite like this. And I can’t tell you why.”

  Kel nodded, grabbed two of the mugs and returned to Namior. She was kneeling with several children, trying to calm them with a gentle song. One of them was sobbing quietly, and he wondered whom the child had lost.

  “We can help here as well as anywhere,” he said hesitantly, but he was pleased when Namior glared up at him.

  “I’m going back out,” she said. Kel smiled and nodded, then offered her the mug.

  They drank the tea quickly. It coursed through their bodies, tingled in their muscles, giving strength where tiredness had set in and lessening the pain of cuts and sprains. Namior conversed with her mother, then nodded at Kel and opened the front door.

  Outside, the air smelled of the bottom of the sea.

  “What did she say?” Kel asked.

  “She told me to look after you.” Namior chuckled as she led the way back down the narrow path. To Kel, her laugh sounded almost hysterical.

  On the main path along the hillside, people were hurrying in both directions. Kel could see no real sign of
organization; everyone was on their own mercy mission. A woman hobbled past holding a child beneath each arm, her face grim behind the mask of blood she wore. At first he feared the children were dead, but then a little girl looked up at him and grinned, as though this was the greatest adventure ever. Despite himself, Kel smiled back.

  Namior started heading back downhill. Kel grabbed her arm.

  “Namior, there may be more waves,” he said. He could see that she understood that, but there was a defiance born of desperation in her eyes. Their friends had been down there. Kel had seen the vague outlines of people struggling through the ruined harbor across the bridge from where they had stood. Trakis and Mell had probably made it across, searching for Mell’s parents in the ruins, and the second wave …

  “They’re dead, aren’t they?” she said, tears blurring her eyes for the first time. Shock could do that, Kel knew, protect you against the truth. By the Black, he was as aware of that as anyone.

  “We can’t know that,” he said. “We don’t even know they got that far. But we can’t just rush down there, not yet. Not when there might be more.”

  Kel could hear the roar of the waters receding once again, and combined with that sound were the impacts of rocks, the grinding of parts of Pavmouth Breaks being sucked out to sea.

  Namior wiped angrily at her face. “But there are plenty of people who need help up here.”

  “There are.” Kel pulled her close and kissed her cheek, and he was surprised at the comfort he took from the contact. What’s coming? he thought. During his time in the Core, he’d developed something of a reputation for only seeing the bad in things, only anticipating the worst. Often, he’d been right. What in the Black could have done this? He turned slightly, looking over Namior’s shoulder and out to sea. It seemed calmer now, and though a storm boiled on the horizon, closer in to shore the sky was clear enough still to allow moonlight through. That would help the rescuers, at least. But the sea itself was dark, forbidding, and no one really knew what lay over the horizon. Over the years many, such as Namior’s father, had gone to find out. None had returned.

  Of all people he, a Core member, knew that there was more beyond the horizon than sea.

  The long night stretched out before them, and at its end Kel had the feeling that many things would be different. Not just the ruin brought down upon the village, the deaths and destruction that everyone would have to start coming to terms with. But changed.

  A man shouted behind them, a woman screamed and somebody called, “My dada!”

  “Come on,” Namior said. She led the way and Kel followed, and for a brief flash she could have been O’Peeria, leading the way to her death with Kel following blindly behind.

  THEY SPENT THE rest of that night trying to help the wounded, the lost, the bereft. The Moon Temple doors had been forced open and it became their temporary hospital, the old one having been down behind the harborfront. Kel and Namior spent a while finding wounded people and helping them to the Temple, but then her position as a witch-in-training dictated that she should remain there, using her fledgling skills to heal wounds and soothe pain. The Temple had no groundstone, but Namior drew what she could from its deep-set walls, chanting softly over people with broken legs, water-filled lungs, rent flesh. Healers arrived at last from Drakeman’s Hill—they had made their way across the swollen river and plain of mud in a small boat that had been deposited high up by the waves—and while they used their herbs and drugs, Namior supplemented that with her young touch of magic.

  Kel remained close by. He had no wish to leave her, so he helped where he could, moving people around and finding them somewhere to sit or lie down while waiting for treatment. The village militia brought many people in; even the trained soldiers were shocked by what had happened, eyes wide and frightened. They had left their weapons behind and filled their belts with skins of fresh water, and they almost made Kel believe that someone was in control. But their commander had been killed in the harbor, drowned by the second wave as he tried to rescue the victims of the first. Perhaps the shock felt by the militia was more down to that than anyone else; their captain had been sixty years old, a veteran, and a father figure for many. Now, they were as lost as anyone.

  He carried three dead people out of the Temple and laid them down in the moon-bathed yard. The death moon cast a yellow light over their flesh. Their wraiths needed chanting down, he knew, but that was a Mourner’s job. He had tried it before, but that had been a friend, and he could not face such memories right then.

  Halfway through the night, just as a third and final wave came in, he was relieved when Mourner Kanthia arrived at the Temple, guided by Namior’s mother. Kanthia had struck her head and been made blind, but she willingly let Kel direct her across the yard to the bodies. The Mourner began her work.

  The third wave was much smaller, but still it caused upset and fear, and its roar was somehow more painful than the sound of the first two. Perhaps it was because he knew it was merely stirring the remains of a destroyed village, now, rather than doing any more damage. It felt like an unnecessary insult from the sea upon Pavmouth Breaks, and Kel was surprised at the strength of emotion he felt. It was ironic that he could think of this place as home only after half of it was gone.

  He watched from the Temple doorway. Kanthia—hooded, cloaked, flowing rather than walking—moved from one corpse to the next, chanting, making vague sigils in the air above their heads and chests. Soon she was finished, and when she returned to the Temple she stood far from Kel.

  Perhaps she had sensed what he had done.

  LATER, A LINE of four machines appeared from down the slope. They rolled on chipped wheels, crawled on clumsy legs, and they were all coated in a thick layer of muck. A Practitioner sat on the back of each construct, steering with chain harnesses, whispering their knowledge of the land’s magic and urging the machines onward.

  They brought the dead and injured with them. Kel and a couple of militia took them down, carried the wounded into the Temple, laid the dead side by side in the yard. Mourner Kanthia emerged from the shadows behind the Temple, converging on the corpses like the carrion foxes Kel had seen in the Widow’s Peaks. He stood back again and let the Mourner do her work.

  She spooked him, but he was glad that she was there. He was not sure he could have remained had the air been full of wraiths.

  DAWN BROKE, CRAWLING across Noreela and reaching them last of all. Its vibrant colors piled down the valley of the River Pav and touched the pitiful ruins of Pavmouth Breaks’ lower areas, glittering from the still-churning waters and reflecting a thousand disturbing images from the seas of mud. There were bodies trapped there, broken homes, and machines that still struggled feebly against inevitable rot and rust. People hauled themselves across the muck in small boats and on sheets of heavy timber, pausing here and there when they reached the remains of a building, investigating, then moving on. If they did pull someone out of the mud or water, they were usually dead.

  The water was back down to normal sea level, and the dawn revealed the fate of the harbor in full. The mole was broken in two places, the rest of it battered and missing huge blocks of stone. Most buildings across the harborfront had been demolished, their debris adding to the destructive wave as it had surged inland. Farther away from the sea the destruction lessened, though even far up the valley, close to the tall Helio Bridge, buildings low to the river had lost roofs, windows and doors, and many walls had crumbled and fallen.

  Drakeman’s Hill finished in a sheer drop thirty steps high where the wave had undermined the ground, carrying away the hillside and a score of buildings. Survivors had rigged a rope ladder, and Practitioners were using machines to pile rubble against the new cliff to provide an unsteady staircase.

  Kel and Namior stood in the Moon Temple’s garden, looking down at the village and trying to appreciate the full extent of the damage. Namior shook, though not from the cold. Kel hugged her.

  And then he heard a panicked, terrified voi
ce. And he already knew something of its meaning, because Kel always expected the worst.

  “What in the Black is that?”

  The shout came from someone farther down the slope, but it was taken up by others, and soon Kel saw a man amidst the shattered roof of a house pointing out to sea.

  “Another wave?” Namior asked, eyes wide.

  “No,” Kel said. He climbed the wall surrounding the Temple yard so that he could see over the neighboring houses. “Not of water.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Kel looked. He could not speak. For a beat he forgot to breathe, but then shock punched his chest and he gasped.

  “Kel, what do you see?” Namior was scrabbling at the wall, but all her strength had gone.

  For a moment, he thought the sea had grown spikes.

  “Kel?”

  “Masts,” he said, “and sails.” They were still far out, but he could see from their movement that they were sailing in toward Noreela. He guessed there were thirty of them, maybe more.

  “Whose sails?”

  Whose indeed? Kel thought of the Core, and how he had fled it, and how its fears and aims were still so deeply embedded within him that, somehow, he had always known that this moment would come.

  He just never expected it would happen to him.

  Beyond the sails, on a horizon that had forever been long, straight and unhindered by anything other than clouds and the dreams of what lay beyond, there sat an island.

  Chapter Two

  on stranger shores

  NAMIOR INSISTED THAT Kel lift her onto the wall so she could see for herself. Her heart was fluttering with excitement and unease, and childhood myths harried at her memory. As yet, the shock of what had happened did not allow them to manifest fully.

  The masts looked like trees growing out of the sea, swaying to different breezes. Their branches were dark, their colors as yet uncertain, and from their peaks flickered small shapes that could only be flags.