The Night of the Swarm (Chathrand Voyage 4)

by Robert V. S. Redick

  ‘They are not hideous to the selk,’ said Thaulinin. ‘We have taught them manners, and a wider diet than flesh. For sixteen centuries they have secured this eastern approach to Uláramyth. They would not harm you if we stood at your side.’

  They walked on, still climbing. The light shafts ended; one of the selk lit a lamp. Then came a great iron portcullis, barring their way. On the wall beside it was mounted an iron wheel, larger than the wheel of the Chathrand. Thaulinin took a key from about his neck and slipped it into a hole at the wheel’s centre. He turned the key clockwise, then gripped the wheel and spun it in the opposite direction. After a moment it began to turn on its own. Gears clattered, counterweights rumbled in the walls. The wheel spun faster. The great gate began to lift.

  When everyone had passed within, Thaulinin removed his key, and ducked inside as the gate slowly descended. On they marched, faster now. A few of the selk asked Thaulinin’s leave to run ahead, which he granted.

  They’re as eager as children, Ensyl thought.

  A light wind began to blow in the tunnel – and with it came a song. Ensyl felt her heart lift suddenly. The music was high and mirthful, quite unlike the Creation-Song the selk had played for them in the ruins, and yet for all its joy, there was a strangeness to the song that unsettled even as it gladdened her. She could not tell if it was being sung or played on some strange wind instruments, nor even where it came from: ahead of them, or behind, or both?

  ‘I think the music is in the wind itself,’ she whispered to Hercól.

  ‘And the stone,’ he replied, gesturing. Now Ensyl saw that there were many small holes in the tunnel surface, scattered at random, and perhaps the music did come from them, indeed. She saw Thasha, her face still strange and radiant, put her ear to the wall.

  ‘I remember,’ she said. ‘The singing mountain. Just the same as before.’

  The selk bearing the lamp glanced at her and smiled. ‘This tunnel we call Ingva, the Flute. It always plays to welcome the return of old friends.’

  He blew out the lamp. In the deep darkness, the selk took up the song, full-throated and glad. A hand touched Hercól’s shoulder, guiding him. They walked on, and now the tune became both march and madrigal, a walking-chant and a song of praise.

  At last a new light gleamed before them. The tunnel was ending. There was a carved chamber ahead, and stairs climbing up into daylight. Figures appeared, and raised their arms in welcome, but no one called out; no one interrupted the song. They reached the chamber; Ensyl shaded her eyes. They reached the sun-drenched stair, they climbed, she saw it: Mother Sky, she thought, there is goodness in the world after all.

  It was what her heart felt, senseless though it might be. She clung to Hercól with both hands. Uláramyth was a great, green bowl, a hollow mountain, roofless and miles wide. A fire-mountain, a volcano: but the fire was long extinguished, and the crater teemed with life. They had passed through the wall of the mountain and stood halfway up the inner rim. Sweeping down and away from them was a lush land of jungle, streams, ponds, rice paddies, water wheels, citrus groves, white boulders, stone houses of fluid line and growing roofs, black horses, painted horses, flocks of restless birds, domes, towers, moss-green ruins, thickets of willow and bamboo. Parts of the crater wall sloped naturally; others were carved into great terraces, sweeping about the valley in concentric rings. Ensyl’s eyes devoured it all, spread there below her like a table buckling under the weight of treasure. So much was starkly visible, and yet there were hiding places everywhere: dense woods, dark tunnel-mouths, fog on a distant lake.

  The staircase had brought them out onto a marble landing surrounded by willow trees. Ensyl raised her eyes: the upper rim of the crater was a circle of barren, toothlike stones, the highest of them sparkling with ice. There were no gaps, no fissures: Uláramyth was completely enclosed.

  From the landing where they stood, many footpaths and staircases led away – up and down, and horizontally along the terraces – and by all of these routes selk were approaching. They sang as they converged on the newcomers. Some, with faces aglow, clasped the arms of Thaulinin and his party. If any were shocked to find living humans in their midst, they gave no sign.

  The song ended, and in the silence Nólcindar came forward and placed the Nilstone at Hercól’s feet, making a deep thump like a cannonball dropped on the marble. For a moment everyone was still. Then another selk woman came forward with a water jug. She held it out to Lunja, who was nearest her.

  ‘Peace and the stars attend you, citizen,’ she said.

  ‘Joy to your home and hearth-kin,’ replied Lunja, startled. ‘Yet I fear you are mistaken. I have never been here before.’

  ‘You are citizens nonetheless,’ said Thaulinin. ‘All who pass the threshold of Uláramyth are granted citizenship, and none may deny them the same. But as for me, Tisani, you had best send for shackles, and conduct me to the Armoured Chamber. I will stand bond alone, if the Five allow it. The choice to bring these travellers here was mine.’

  ‘You must certainly go,’ said the woman sadly, ‘and perhaps the others may remain at liberty for now. Yet all who walked with you must be judged alike.’

  ‘What, straight to jail, for bringing us here?’ said Neeps.

  ‘It seems an unmerciful law, to punish such an act of charity,’ said Hercól.

  ‘These are unmerciful times,’ said Thaulinin, ‘but I would have you know that I do this gladly, and fear no injustice at the hands of my people.’

  ‘Nor will your people fail you, Ambrimar’s child,’ said a voice from below the terrace.

  All the selk turned, and made a curious gesture: head slightly bowed, hands raised and open, as though to offer them in service. A figure was climbing the staircase with slow dignity. He wore a dark green robe, and a chain of thick silver rings about his neck, and on his head was a circlet of woven vines. He was the first selk Ensyl had yet seen who looked truly old – not just ancient, as they all did, but weathered, worn smooth, his flesh like driftwood on a beach. Ensyl found herself awed: how many years did a selk have to live before they took such a toll?

  ‘You shall not wear irons,’ he said, ‘and if I am heeded at the council, your stay in the Armoured Chamber will be brief.’ His old eyes passed over the newcomers. ‘Two dlömu, one ixchel – and eight human beings, wondrous to our sight. It is almost exactly as we were told.’

  ‘Told?’ said Pazel. ‘Told by whom, sir, if you please?’

  The elder turned back to the staircase, gesturing. Shilu growled. A huge, snow-white animal padded up the stairs. It was a wolf, and when it stopped beside the selk its shoulder was level with his waist. The creature’s jaws lolled open, showing white teeth. Unblinking green eyes studied the newcomers.

  ‘By me, Pazel, if you must know.’

  That voice! The wolf turned slightly – and Ensyl cried out, and flung herself from Hercól’s shoulder, not caring how hard she landed. And Myett, from her perch on the wolf’s back, did the same, and they met and embraced at the centre of the landing, overcome as ixchel rarely let themselves be. Myett was safe, whole, healed, and Ensyl kissed her hands and her forehead, asking no questions, needing no answers. Uláramyth, Uláramyth, for this I love you already.

  For Pazel too, the sight of Myett was overwhelming. He rushed to greet her, along with Thasha, Neeps and Bolutu. He had never quite trusted Myett: she had played a part in Diadrelu’s betrayal, after all. But she was one of them. She had tried to make amends by joining this expedition. And after so much death, she had returned to them alive.

  Over their joyous shouts Myett was saying that she had been seized by a woken hawk, and had been here for two days already. Like the selk themselves, the hawk had been terribly suspicious, and had left her with a pair of selk who happened to be circling east around the Infernal Forest, while it flew on ahead to share her story with Thaulinin.

  ‘The two he left me with got a shock when the bird came back and said Thaulinin had found you, and decided to bring yo
u here, and that I should be carried on ahead. But they obeyed, and tied me up in black cloth like a bundle of sticks. It’s a wonder they didn’t smother me.’

  Her habit of gripe had not changed, Pazel saw. And yet it had, for though the words were the same ones the old Myett might have spoken, there was no rancour in her voice, this time. ‘Even when I arrived, the selk had their doubts,’ she added. ‘They thought I was one of Macadra’s spies.’

  ‘And we feared the same of your companions,’ said Nólcindar.

  ‘It was not an unreasonable fear,’ said Thaulinin. ‘Macadra has heard of Uláramyth, and hates it, for she knows that the power here is not her kind – not the power of fear and threat, but of healing and nurture. She knows too that those who fight for the Vale do so freely, and with full hearts, while her armies serve with broken hearts, in terror and derangement, and longing for the Empire that was. She dreams that one day the bloodied flag of Bali Adro will fly over Uláramyth.’

  ‘While we live it never shall,’ said the wolf. Pazel jumped, and looked again at those green eyes. Woken eyes: once you saw it, the intelligence, you wondered how you could have ever failed to.

  ‘That is certain, Valgrif,’ said the old selk, ‘but who knows how long we shall live? For the fight is coming; the mountains are encircled. Since you left us the noose has tightened, Thaulinin, and every day new servants march eastwards from the river’s mouth. Yet I am sorry, Myett of Ixphir House, that we have been forced to take such precautions.’

  ‘No ixchel could ever condemn you for them,’ said Myett. Turning to her fellow travellers, she said, ‘This is Arim, second eldest of the Lords of Uláramyth. Lord Arim, these people are my … clan.’

  Pazel looked at her, startled. Myett had struggled with the word, and he knew the weight of her choice. To an ixchel, ‘family’ would have meant far less.

  Lord Arim gazed at them piercingly. His gaunt face and fine eyelash plumes made him look like an old bird of prey. ‘You are people of the Chathrand,’ he said, ‘and that alone would mark you as heralds of great change. The Chathrand, Erithusmé’s Great Ship. When last I saw her, the wizardess stood upon the forecastle, holding the chains of the demon Avarice. “I will take this one across the sea to a place of punishment, Lord Arim, and return before two summers pass, and dwell with you awhile in the Vale.” So she declared, on that storm-swept morning. But neither she nor the Chathrand ever returned across the Ruling Sea. Until today.

  ‘Your sister Myett has told us many things,’ the old selk went on, ‘but she too has her secrets. She would not name the burden you carry. I will not name it either, although I could. It is the darkest thing to enter here in many centuries.’

  Thaulinin, chastened, bowed his head. ‘We must speak of it soon, my lord,’ he said.

  ‘Yes,’ said Arim, ‘we must. For the present, take it to the home we have prepared for you, and keep it there, guarded and unseen. Do not unwrap it, or carry it about, unless an elder be with you. Now then, wizard.’ He looked at Ramachni. ‘Why do you not speak? For I think you are an old friend returned.’

  ‘I am that,’ said Ramachni, ‘and your eyes are as keen as ever, Arim, to spy me out in this disguise. You may call me by the name you chose yourself, on the bloodied sands of Luhmor.’

  Cries of joy and wonder rose from many of the selk. ‘Arpathwin! Arpathwin has returned!’ But there were cautious looks too, as though darker memories had been stirred by the name.

  The white wolf padded nearer to the travellers, lowering his head and sniffing. ‘Lord Arim, they are gravely hurt,’ he said. ‘The flame-trolls have burned them, and the poisons of the Infernal Forest are in their wounds.’

  The old selk walked forward until he stood among them, and turned from one traveller to the next, and his eyes were grave. He looked a long time at Pazel, and even longer at Thasha. But when he came to Neeps a flicker of pain crossed his face.

  ‘The youths are burning, wizard,’ he said.

  ‘But with different fevers,’ said Ramachni. ‘We have great need of your physicians, my lord.’

  ‘Go down into the city,’ said Lord Arim. ‘What can be done shall be done.’ He turned once more to Pazel. ‘But you we shall carry, child of the North, for your wound makes walking a misery, I think.’

  Again, Pazel shook his head. ‘You’re very kind, Lord Arim, but I can manage.’

  The others tried to persuade him, but Pazel was steadfast. It was true that his leg hurt terribly, and the descent looked very steep. And yet he wanted desperately to walk. He put an arm over Neeps’ shoulder. ‘Just help me, once more,’ he said.

  ‘Go then, citizens,’ said Lord Arim. ‘Valgrif will escort you, and keep me informed of your progress. Thaulinin, you may walk with them until your paths diverge.’

  The wolf looked at the ixchel. ‘You may ride together, if you like,’ he said.

  With Myett and Ensyl clinging to his back, the wolf led them downhill, by stairs and sloping paths. The way was narrow at first, and they walked single file, passing over bridges, along raised boardwalks through the rice paddies, beside small streams that trickled down from the heights. At times Valgrif led them through tunnels, where Pazel saw stairs and corridors leading deeper into the earth. Most of the time, however, they walked in bright sunlight. The paths grew wider, the descent less steep. They marched for half a mile through a stand of ancient oaks, where fat acorns snapped underfoot, and unseen creatures scurried in the brush.

  Pazel’s leg now ached unremittingly, and yet he found he could bear it more easily than he had feared. And at every turn he was struck by the beauty of Uláramyth, the moist health of its woods and meadows, the sheer variety of its forms of life. Water tanks teemed with fish; an ivy-shrouded doorway let into a hidden smithy; a troop of monkeys raced like agile spiders through the treetops, beehives hummed in a glade. There were few sounds of industry, and none of machines. They did meet with other selk, and occasionally passed groups of houses or workshops cleverly fitted into the landscape. But when he looked out across the sweep of Uláramyth, what he saw was less a city than a garden.

  ‘I can’t understand,’ he said at last. ‘How can all this be here, lost in the wilderness?’

  Ramachni glanced up at him. ‘After what you’ve seen of Alifros, lad? How could it be anywhere else?’

  Pazel found no answer. Like Hercól, he had felt upon waking from the drug that his memory was impaired, along with his sense of time. The feeling was mostly gone, but he still wondered if he might be forgetting something.

  They stepped through a gate in a hedge. Beyond it the trail forked, and Thaulinin took his leave of the party. The travellers showered him with thanks, but he waved them off, smiling. ‘Rest and heal, and do not forget the world outside. That will be thanks enough.’

  He turned and walked briskly away. Far down the trail ahead of him, Pazel saw a small house carved into a hillside. It had a door of iron, and its windows were barred.

  The path was level, now; they had reached the crater’s floor. Here the houses grew more numerous, and there were squares and meeting-places between them, and some larger buildings with great porches and balconies draped in flowers. They passed along the streets, under the eyes of the silent, olive-skinned people, until Valgrif stopped at last before a door in a stone wall. He barked once, sharply, and the door flew open.

  A trio of selk came out into the street. They were doctors, they said, and bustled around the newcomers to prove it, studying them, touching their wrists and shoulders. They were quiet and serious. Pazel had the feeling that they were paying more attention to what they sensed with their fingertips than what they saw. The effect was unsettling.

  ‘You’ve, er, never treated our kind, naturally,’ grumbled Corporal Mandric.

  The selk paused in their work, looking at him.

  ‘Turachs, you mean?’

  ‘Humans, human beings.’

  ‘But of course we have,’ said the doctor. ‘All our lives – except for the last hund
red years. Come in, strip off those rags.’

  Inside, they found a series of airy rooms, furnished with beds, wardrobes, dressing tables, shelves of books. Other selk were at work here, and from a back room came the a sound of water gushing into a basin, and a puff of steam.

  ‘Your home, citizens, for as long as you stay with us,’ said Valgrif. ‘You can dine here, or in the great hall, or anywhere else you like. Of course you have the freedom of Uláramyth.’

  Pazel stood in the centre of the large common room. His leg was throbbing so badly that he had broken out into a sweat, but the glad, dreamlike feeling was stronger than ever. He was thinking of Ormael. And as he glanced around he suddenly knew why. The chambers were uncannily like the house of his birth: the same simplicity, the same brightness and warmth. He turned to his sister, and she nodded, speechless. The dining table was the size of their old dining table, and pushed close to the window, just as their mother had liked. There was even a courtyard at the back with a small, spreading tree.

  ‘It’s not an orange tree,’ said Neda.

  In Ormael the soldiers had mutilated her tree, broken its limbs, hurled oranges through the windows of the house. Before they moved on to Neda. Pazel took her hand, expecting her to snatch it away. But she didn’t. She even squeezed his hand in reply. Then Cayer Vispek said, ‘Why should it be an orange tree, sfvantskor?’ and Neda dropped Pazel’s hand as though it burned.

  Hercól set the Nilstone down beside Ramachni. He unstrapped Ildraquin, bent and tore off his ruined boots. Then he slid down against the wall. He sighed – and Pazel thought he had never heard a sound remotely like it from the warrior. Rin’s eyes, he’s let his guard down. For the first time since they’d met on the far side of Alifros, Hercól was not protecting anyone. His eyes closed, gentle and serene. He was off-duty. It made him look like another man.

  The women moved to the back chambers to undress. One of the doctors was cutting away the left leg of Pazel’s trousers. He stood thinking of Dastu in the mountains, where the hrathmogs hunted and the maukslar raged. Do not forget the world outside.