“I believe you will. Very well then. Shall we?” He offered me his arm and together we walked into the darkness.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Taking Tea
Will remained at the Stronghold. His time with Dana felt like a dream, but now he was awake and the city was his reality.
“Is your fault,” TeSin said.
They were drinking tea on a terrace at the Imperial Palace. The palace had passed unscathed through the earthquake and TeSin had set up residence there, along with a large portion of the populace, much to the shock of the servants and former residents. TeSin had taken charge of the Empire.
In the city was much hammering and rebuilding work; from up here on the terrace it sounded like birds, or small bells. Dust from the city spread across the plain as a fine haze, and above the haze floated the mountains, now bare of snow. Spring had arrived at the citadel, and soon summer would be on them. Will was not looking forward to the heat.
A serving girl placed a tray containing a tea set on the table. The steam from the pot smelt faintly of jasmine. TeSin lifted the lid, inhaled deeply, and smiled. “My friend? You take tea?”
“Thank you.”
TeSin folded his sleeves neatly, poured warm water into the small cups, washed them once, then poured the tea. Will bowed his head, accepting the drink in the traditional manner. TeSin sipped; Will sipped. Neither said anything for a moment.
TeSin set his cup down on the table. “Ah! Tea! A small pleasure. And yes. Is your fault.”
“My fault? How?”
“Magicians,” TeSin said, “they cowards. See you kill Emperor, the Great One. All people see.” He waved his arms in an expansive gesture, indicating the plain, the city, the mountains. “They see you, my friend. Magician, they angry. Eyes roll, teeth gnash.” He bared his teeth. Doubtless this was meant to terrify, but Will just laughed. “Then Bright One …” – by this he meant Dana – “fight Kamaye. Many not believe Kamaye real. Child story, they say. You want more tea?”
Will held out his cup and TeSin poured. Setting down the pot, he held up one finger. “But here is Emperor with Kamaye. Now, we know they real. Very scary. Strong magic, very powerful. Then you kill Emperor. Bright One appear. And …” he held out his hands, “Kamaye vanish.” He sipped his tea. “Now magicians do as I say. And they say I am Emperor. So yes, is all your fault.”
And also, Will knew, the troops at the scaffold had recognized their Noyan, their general. Grateful for a leader, any leader, they had immediately placed TeSin in charge.
Will smiled at his friend, but TeSin frowned. “Magicians are cowards,” he said abruptly, “I kill them all, if I could.” He sighed. “But city need them.”
Will couldn’t see why. The unkempt magic workers seemed of little practical use.
“Much change,” TeSin explained. “First earthquake, then Emperor dead, Kamaye appear then disappear. So, yes, magic needed. Magic help rebuild city.”
Will felt he needed to add something to the conversation. “People need stability. They need hope.”
TeSin nodded. “Hope. Yes. Most necessary.” He looked out across the haze-enshrouded city. “Is needed now. Will, my friend, I have task for you.”
“Oh yes?” But he wasn’t particularly interested in any task. In a few months, he thought, he might head west, toward the mountains and the kingdom. Dana had gone, and he must follow. He knew it would be difficult, and the road long. After all, the kingdom could be hard to find.
“You want follow Bright One, yes? Tell me, you hear from her?”
“No.” Will knew the curtness of his answer sounded rude. All these months, and still he missed her. Perhaps he always would.
“Let her go. When my wife, Morque …” TeSin stopped. “When she die, I tear in two. Is hard. But pain, it will ease.”
But Dana wasn’t dead. Sure, she might be hard to find. But that shouldn’t stop him trying.
“You want follow girl, I understand. But, my friend, now is not time. You love her, yes? Let her go.” TeSin shook Will by the shoulder. “I see her. She need find her own path.” The man’s eyes gleamed. “Anyway, Will my friend, I have task for you. I want you be Noyan.”
Will stared. Was he being asked to be TeSin’s prime minister? Or had he heard that wrong. “TeSin, Sir, I …”
“For a small time, maybe.” TeSin added quickly. “Then follow Bright One. If you want.”
“But …”
“Men need training. Need good fighter in charge. My friend, you are best.” He chuckled at Will’s surprise. “Ai, you think, No! TeSin, he crazy!” TeSin raised his tea cup. “You best fighter in city, Will Baker. Think you stay? For a time?”
“Sir –”
“Ah, there you are!”
Will turned quickly at N’Tombe’s voice. TeSin nodded at Will, as though to say, we will talk later on this thing, you and I.
Stepping onto the terrace, N’tombe put a hand on Will’s shoulder. “It is time. The snows are past; the way will not remain open forever. I can no longer delay.”
Will squinted up at her, a silhouetted shape against the sun. He didn’t want to think of her leaving; once she left, all connection with the kingdom would be severed. And how would he find a path to the kingdom without the enchantress to guide him? “Lady, will you not wait until next week?”
She shook her head. “Today.”
He scrambled to his feet. “Today? You leave today?”
“I told you. I can no longer delay. Ah!” She smiled at Mai-Long. The girl, carrying a staff and a leather pack, came toward them. “There you are. Thank you.”
Mai-Long bowed deeply to Will. For some reason, the girl had decided that Will was to be her teacher.
He glared at her. “What are you doing?”
“Providing me with supplies.” Shouldering the pack, N’tombe took the staff from the girl. “Thank you, Mai-Long.”
“Stop this!” Will growled. “N’Tombe! What are you doing? You can’t go yet.”
She looked him in the eye, and for a moment he forgot that she was shorter than him, for she seemed as tall as a tree, and as strong. And although her eyes seemed sad, she smiled. She touched his hair fondly. “Ah, Will. How you have grown.”
“N’Tombe …” Don’t go! he wanted to say, but it was her right to leave, just as it had been her choice to arrive, and who was he to tell her when or where she might not go? Instead he swallowed. “Go well.”
“Ah, Will. How proud I am of you.” She stepped toward him. Awkwardly, he put his arms about her. N’Tombe, on tiptoes, kissed his cheek. Her lips were soft and her breath smelt of strawberries.
“My son,” she whispered fondly. “My son.”
He blinked away the water from his own eyes. “You will write? Promise, you will write?”
“Will,” she said gently, “where I go, you cannot follow. At least,” she wiped the tears from his cheek, and half smiled, “not yet. And neither can a postman. So no. No letters. But I promise you this: your sorrow will pass. One day, you will be happy.”
When? When will I be happy?
“Do not follow her. She has things still to do, and so do you. Have patience, Will. Your time will come.”
He turned away.
N’tombe embraced TeSin. “My brother.” She looked over at Will. “You have asked him?” TeSin nodded, and she smiled. “Good. Treat him well.”
TeSin bowed low. N’tombe took a deep breath, pulled her hood over her head, and took up her staff.
“Wish me well, children.”
And N’tombe the enchantress, the wanderer from another world, turned and walked into the sun.
* * *
Will looked at the place where N’tombe had stood, then down at the city below. It was growing, he thought, and felt surprised by his pride in this fact. Was the enchantress right? Should he stay here? TeSin sat silent, waiting as Will thought on N’Tombe’s words and listened to his heart. They were right. He had to let her go.
Taking a deep b
reath, Will turned to TeSin. “Very well,” he said. “I accept.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
What Lies Beneath
The narrow corridor sloped downwards, winding into the hill. The torch flames created moving shadows and the uneven ground was slippery. I rested my hand on the stone wall to steady myself and tried not to panic. It felt like walking in a maze.
“Sir,” I asked the ferryman, “do you have a name?” My voice echoed, murmurings in the dark.
“My name is something left far behind, along with my wife, my son and my life. All gone. Now … I am only the ferryman.”
“And that is enough?”
“Some days, yes. It is enough.”
Shadows danced across the walls and in the distance, water dripped.
“Your dream,” he said abruptly. “Tell me, what else did you see, in this dream of yours?”
Dreams are transient things; hard to remember, easily forgotten, save perhaps for unsettling fragments that linger in the mind for a time. But true dreams, now, ah. True dreams are different. Such dreams carry substance, and at times they appear more tangible than waking reality.
“It was as though the water…” Glancing back, the ferryman’s eyes were shadowed, impossible to read.
“Go on,” he said, as I hesitated.
“It seemed as if the water engulfed you. Like something in the water took roost inside you. Sir,” I said in a rush, “the thing you swallowed. What was it?”
As if in answer, he lifted the torch, and the tunnel opened into a cavern. Here was the place I had seen in my dreams: the pond, the spring. Beside the water stood my father with Alden and Owein, spades over their shoulders, behind him like guardsmen. Their lamps, set on a stone ledge nearby, were unlit, so the only light was the ferryman’s torch.
“Do you believe in angels?” said the ferryman.
“Finally,” Daddy called. “We’ve been waiting.”
My brothers and father were covered in mud, as though they had been digging, and they carried an air of suppressed tension.
I am no one’s sacrifice.
“I know nothing of angels, but I have met devils: the Kamaye. Beings of darkness, whose only joy was killing. You want to know what I did to them?” I smiled, but there was no humor in my voice; none at all. This was not a place for laughter. “I destroyed them. And now the Kamaye are no more. Believe me, sir, angel or devil – if it threatens me or mine, I will kill it.” My voice rang through the cavern like a call, or a challenge.
“Perhaps you are the one,” the ferryman muttered. “Yes, perhaps.”
“Dana!” my father called impatiently. “Stop talking! Come on!”
I didn’t trust him. I didn’t trust anyone in that place. “Why?” I said. “What do you want?”
Daddy held out his hand. “Come.” His fingers were cold and covered in mud.
“There’s something I should tell you. I’m having a b –”
But his fingers pressed against mine, and he shook his head. “We don’t have much time.” He glanced at the ferryman. “We dug the channel to lower the pond, but the water keeps coming in. There must be a spring.”
“Time?” I asked, “What do you mean?”
“Didn’t you tell her?” he asked the ferryman.
“Tell me what?”
“Father!” Alden said.
“All right, all right. I’m coming.” He glared at me. “And you, girl. Don’t you get in the way. Just follow our lead. You understand?” He stepped into the pond. Owein and Alden watched him go, shovels by their sides, like an escort of guards.
When he was knee deep, Daddy stopped. “Come on, Dana.”
It was just like my dreams. I stepped into the water. It was cold, but not as cold as I had expected, although my breath caught as I waded forward. I reached my father; he took my hand.
“Well done,” he whispered.
“And now?” I asked him.
“And now,” he said, “we continue. Just you and I. Come on. It grows deep, but I will hold you up.”
Wavelets shrugged and shushed as we walked. My legs burned with the cold; I tried not to shiver. The whole cave felt weird, dreamlike. Perhaps because I’d seen it so often, in my dreams. The dancing shadows, the murmuring echoes – the cavern was like a place caught out of time, a place where anything might happen.
He squeezed my fingers. “All right?”
I nodded. It was comforting to have my father beside me; something I’d not had since I was a child, in the days where together we explored the castle, and he first told me there was something of great value in the tower. Back in the days when I thought I could grow up to become anything I wanted.
“I’m having a b –” I whispered to my father, as we stopped.
He put a finger to his lips. “Ssh!”
The ferryman plunged the torch into the water. A brief hissing, and the cavern turned completely dark. I stood in ice-cold water, clutching my father’s hand. For the longest time we waited, listening to the echoes and the still, quiet dripping of water. My legs ached with cold. Time seemed to shift and disappear until I felt like I had been in this place forever. Then gradually, as my eyes adjusted, the chill seemed to dissipate. On the water, ripples spun and danced. Torchlight darted sparks across the shining surface, the sparks growing and growing, forming and reforming, coalescing into shapes
Waves and light and flames and …
The ringing of bells,
A dark mass, floating on the water.
Suddenly, the cavern seemed full of golden light; like lines of fire. My brothers, my father, all seemed bathed in gold. The ferryman glowed. And, brightest of all, so strong it hurt the eyes, was a portion of the water.
“What is that?” I whispered.
“An angel, perhaps. A god? Who knows.” Despite the frigid water, my father’s forehead gleamed with sweat.
Freezing water stirred, and the waves about my thighs, my waist. Then, in an explosion of light, of fire, the water roared. I barely had time to seize a breath before a wave broke over me. The force knocked my off my feet; I clung desperately to my father’s hands. The wave parted, withdrew, and left me breathless.
“Are you all right? Dana?” he said. “Dana?”
I couldn’t speak. What had I just seen?
I took a deep breath, glanced at my father, and dived into the water. Above the ringing echoes, I thought I heard him cry my name, but the noise was muffled by water as I swam down, down, down.
Bubbles streamed past. All was darkness and cold. I swam further – how deep did this pond go? – until abruptly the light changed. And just as my lungs began to burn, I saw it. A mass of gold, changing, coalescing, moving: ink through water; tentacles of foam; petals of fire. Stretching my hand toward it, part of me marveled at how bright my own arm had become. Like a half-seen reflection, the form in the water reached toward me.
We touched. It felt soft, like feathers. Warm.
Alien.
Hello, I thought.
Hello, it replied.
* * *
They told me afterwards that one moment I was swimming free, but the next I was falling, down, down, into the black. They tried to pull me out, curled into a ball, I was sinking fast.
In a true dream, the things dreamed of become real. In a true dream, a dreamer may change the world. I have had such dreams. But falling through the black, I saw only empty space. No dream. No breath. Nothing.
I do not remember my father’s hands dragging me from the pond. I do not remember gasping for breath, or, once my head was above the water, screaming so hard my eyes bled. All I remember was agony – like a knife stabbing into my side. All I saw was fire and death.
Then, quite suddenly, I was somewhere else.
I was still in the cavern, but the place was empty save for the man who stood, knee deep in the water. His back was toward me, so I couldn’t see his face, but I knew him, oh I knew him, by the set of his shoulders, the tilt of his head.
“Hey,�
�� I rushed into the water, into his arms. So good to see him again, to hold him.
“What is this?” Will pointed at the glow within the water.
I shrugged. “Who cares? Kiss me again.”
Holding my shoulders, he pushed me away. “How long has it been here?”
In the water strange shapes formed: a cat, a dog, a human figure. Finally it became the shape of an infant, with closed eyes and tightly fisted hands. Will picked up the child and cradled her against his chest.
I smiled. “You look good like that.”
Carrying the baby, Will waded away from me, toward dry land.
“Will!” My voice echoed about the cavern, but he didn’t turn, he didn’t even seem to hear me.
The ferryman put a hand on my arm. “Wait. He needs to find his own way home.”
“What’s happening? Tell me, what is happening?”
“It was an accident that brought her here.” The ferryman’s voice was calm, but his eyes were alert.
“Who? You mean the child? I don’t understand. What is she?”
“You have fought demons,” the ferryman said, “and yet you have to ask that question?”
The infant began to glow, its skin orange, then gold, then incandescent white. Will and the infant both seemed as bright as the sun. There came a noise like thunder, a flash of fire.
“Cover your eyes!” said the ferryman sharply.
Will and the child shattered like fiery glass. A shard spun toward me, caught me in the belly. It burned, oh it burned! Frantically, I grabbed at it, tried to pull it out.
Blood on my fingers, blood on my legs.
“Will!” I called frantically. “Will! Help me! Someone. Help!”
But I was alone.
The world spun, turning gold, then red.
I heard my voice screaming.
My mother murmured in my ear, “Hush hush, hush.”
The SoulNecklace Stories Page 71
