by Ted Neill
“Whatever were you doing?” she asked in a scornful tone. Gabriella explained what had happened and how Mortimer Creedly had jumped in to save her brother. Gabriella’s mother, Marissa, looked at her father, who rubbed his whiskers with his calloused hand and said, “I suppose we should give him a cask of wine in thanks for his heroics.”
“Mark,” Gabriella’s mother said. “Drink is the last thing that man needs.”
“Then we could at least have him over for a meal,” he said.
“Sure,” Gabriella said because she knew she was expected to, but having that man with the penetrating stare and uncouth ways in their home made her uncomfortable.
“That would be a proper gesture,” her mother said.
They made their way around the harbor, past fields ready for harvest. Pumpkins and squash waited, ripe and colorful and fat. Heads of cabbage had grown to full-size and the corn was high and plentiful. Some farms had already begun their harvests, gathering hay in piles for winter feed. But no one was in the fields now.
Word had reached even those who had not been present dockside when the Servior had arrived. Fields had emptied and homes were shut up while entire families joined the throngs, marching down dark, well worn, paths to observe the ancient ritual at the tower.
The villagers grew quiet as they turned off the road to take the winding trail through the section of land that was owned by Mab Miller.
Gabriella listened to the whispers around her.
“Surely he won’t sell.”
“He’s a greedy man.”
“The dead will smite him.”
“What could these foreigners want with the tower?”
There was no response for the last question, and it hung unanswered in the silence that grew as they neared the tower. First to change were the trees. The ubiquitous pines of Harkness gave way to Caledonian trees, their leaves blood red with the season. These trees grew along the harbor and were thickest around the shore of the tower. In winter they would look gnarled and twisted without their leaves, like remnants of a forest fire. Yet even in that season the shadows of the trees conspired so that the black tower seemed always cast in darkness.
The loamy soil underfoot gave way to sand, but not the golden grainy stuff of ocean shore with which children built sandcastles. This sand was black as coal and suffocating. Nothing could grow in it, not a sapling, not a single shoot of grass. Children did not play in it, and adults were forbidden to dig in it. Those who had, had found bones, thousands upon thousands of bones.
Gabriella and her family rounded the end of the peninsula, and the tower rose up brooding. It was not tall. The highest conifers of the forest surpassed it. It was brutal in its simplicity. The black stones that made up its walls were irregular and mortarless, stacked tightly upon one another with sharp edges turned outward. There were no crenellations, no merlons or balustrades, only two plain windows and a single cypress door on the harbor side.
The door was locked for the protection of anyone who tried to enter. Only the initiated—those consecrated to the gods and the dead—who were wise in their ways and privy to their secrets could step within. Anyone else who did so would die. Or so it was said. In her lifetime, Gabriella had known no one to test the legend, but stories abounded of others in the distant past who dared to enter and never emerged alive.
The arm of land that held the tower was already crowded with villagers. Some had even rowed across the harbor and waited offshore in boats. Others braved the cold, and removing their boots, sandals, or shoes, stood submerged in the water up to their knees, so determined were they not to be on the periphery of the coming ceremony. Gabriella and her family found a place close to the open ground where the summoning would take place. This suited Gabriella, for although the dancers, once they were possessed by the Gods or spirits of the Dead, scared her, she wanted to be close enough to hear any prophecies they might speak. She moved closer to her father, glad he was there, a head taller than other men, with wide shoulders and large powerful hands. She always felt safer in his company.
As the sun oozed into a red band on the horizon and shadows grew, a novice priestess lit the lamp that indicated the presence of the dead. The village across the harbor and all the houses that lay between were dark. Gabriella had never seen so many villagers present for a summoning before. There were so many that there was a delay as the priests, priestesses, and sanctified dancers had to make their way through the crowd to the tower, which they entered alone in order to prepare. They filed in one by one, ducking beneath the low lintel, their faces drawn and solemn, their footsteps slow and purposeful.
Gabriella wished for expediency for she was growing even colder now that night had set in. Dameon was unbothered. He was keeping to himself, drawing spirals in the sand with a stick. But Eloise’s lips looked blue, and her teeth began to chatter. Gabriella was not much better.
“I wished I had changed clothes,” she said to her friend as she tried to wring out the sleeve of her shirt.
“It’s worse now that we are not walking.” Eloise stamped her feet.
A whistle sounded, the note soaring overhead then descending to a lower register, signaling that the musicians were in place and ready. It was the starting note of the ceremony, a flare sent up to the gods to beseech their attention, a stone tossed into a sea of darkness to disturb the boundary between life and death. The drums followed, roaring to life like thunder, their pounding giving a heartbeat to the dead, inviting them back into the world of the living. Above and below, gods and spirits were called.
The dancers, white robes swirling around them, emerged from the tower, a uniform line of motion. The identity of each dancer was obscured by a mask bearing the likeness of the god to whom he or she was sanctified. The dancers were villagers whom Gabriella knew. Everyone knew them, but beneath their robes and their masks they were indistinguishable from one another. A few times Gabriella had thought she recognized a dancer. It was rumored that Chief Salinger’s wife, Mellanye, was a dancer, but no one spoke of it openly. To do so was improper.
Gabriella knew many of the masks. There was Samiel the Sorrowful, a round face, round eyes, and agonized frown; Hydesen the Joyous, who had similar features to Samiel, except for a mirthful, laughing grin. There was Galbrieth—Quick to Anger, whose face was carved with aquiline severity. Dol the Rememberer, with her long thoughtful countenance and narrow pensive eyes. A number of masks passed under the light of the torches that Gabriella did not recognize in the play of light and shadow. Then she recognized Hiban the Seer and Kiuwa the Trickster.
The priests and priestesses in their white robes followed. It was their role to address the spirits when they possessed the bodies of the dancers. Former dancers themselves, they knew the rhythms and rites of the ceremony better than anyone. Only they were allowed to interpret the prophecies provided by the gods or the dead.
Gabriella turned her attention to the ceremony, trying her best to forget the cold that was seeping into her bones. Her muscles felt rigid with shivers. She set her teeth against each other to still their chattering. Eloise was faring better. She had only waded into the river up to her waist and was now standing closer to the offering fire. When she saw how Gabriella shivered, she traded places with her.
“Stand here and get warm,” she said, positioning Gabriella so that she could feel the warmth of the great fire that the priests had lit and the dancers circled.
Their arms and legs gave shape to the rhythms of the drums, the whistling of the flutes, and the bellow of conch shells. The seal skin drums, the bone flutes, the shells, all instruments fashioned from dead creatures pressed to warm flesh to give them life once more. The musicians played in unbroken unison, the sound of their music shaking Gabriella’s chest, altering her consciousness so that she felt as if her spirit might leave her body to let something, someone take its place.
Gabriella.
She turned, thinking Eloise had called her name, but her friend’s attention was fixed on the dancer
s, her hands clapping out the rhythms of the drums. The line of dancers swooped around the fire, undulating and swerving, an eel circling an urchin of fire. Suddenly one stepped out of line, then another as their bodies trembled under the weight of the spirits that were not their own.
The gods were coming.
There were fourteen dancers, one for each god. At most ceremonies, it was customary for three or four dancers to become possessed by their gods. Once the god had mounted them, they could call forth spirits of the dead to inhabit the bodies of the other dancers. Then the living could make requests of the dead, and the dead could answer, granting the request if they were satisfied with the offering made—usually wine, fish, or wheat thrown into the offering fire. But this night was different. The entire line of dancers splintered, and everyone was being mounted. Kimba of the Rain, Asaka of the Harvest, Airre’Soleigh of the Hearth—all settled into those sanctified to them. The drummers struggled to keep up, each one trying to follow with the rhythm preferred by each deity. The jumble of beats made for an overwhelming sound. Gabriella’s ears fluttered and her mind felt as if it, too, were shaking with the throbbing of the drums.
Gabriella.
Or perhaps she was just shivering. She moved closer to the fire, as close as she could without getting caught up in the swirl of the dancers. Soon even the fourteenth dancer was mounted by Savay-Mael, the Speaker, the oldest of the gods. The music of the instruments grew louder as the crowd became silent.
Savay-Mael rarely made appearances, and when she did, she spoke for all the gods and the dead. Her mask was that of a serpent, her symbol a snake biting its own tail, a sign of her own infinitude. Her priest, whose staff bore the same symbol, rushed over to attend to her as the dancers on either side of her grew completely still, in reverence to the ancient deity amidst them.
Savay-Mael took on the posture of an old bent crone. Her voice from behind the mask sounded strange and other worldly, tired, and full of whispers.
“My people,” she breathed.
The priests and priestesses knelt down. The music went silent. The villagers followed suit and settled their knees into the sand. It was a full summoning. Every god was present. Nothing like it had occurred in a generation. Gabriella felt her own stomach flip as she fell to her knees.
Gabriella.
She shook her head. The cold was getting the best of her. She wondered if the ceremony would last longer because it was a full summoning. She was not sure she could endure it. She looked at Eloise and Dameon, but neither was in as much distress as she. Gabriella’s hands shook, and her head hurt as if a metal band were fastened around her temples and was tightening.
Gabriella.
She must have been turning feverish. Her skin tingled. The priests, busy with their gods, had let the offering fire die down. Gabriella could barely feel its heat now. Her clothes felt like a heavy icy blanket. So focused she was on staying close to the fire that she was startled when the high priest spoke out, beseeching the gods for their wisdom. Savay-Mael hissed, cutting off his elaborate greeting, her sibilant voice cascading chills down Gabriella’s spine.
“What do you seek?” Savay-Mael asked.
“Counsel, oh most revered one,” the high priest continued, his hands shaking on his staff. “A group of foreigners, men who call themselves the Servior seek the lands about this very tower for what reasons we know not. The owner of the land will grant the sale if we cannot raise the amount. It is a great sum, greater than all our stores on the island. What are we to do?”
The crowd waited. Gabriella took a deep breath, but the air felt thin, her head foggy. She thought of all the counsels she had heard sought at summonings throughout her life. Which moons to sail under, which days to plant, which medicines to use for healing, even which man to wed. How many aches and pains had she seen healed? How many happy unions predicted? How could Mab Miller, or anyone for that matter, doubt the gods and their power? Surely the gods would want to keep the doorway wide open to the people of Harkness, to accept their offerings and for the dead to accept their tributes.
The gods will have the answer, they must, she thought.
Savay-Mael stomped her foot and raised her hands in a flourish, her mask agleam with firelight, her eyes dark pools of darkness.
“The seller will be cursed and live in infamy if the exchange takes place,” she said, the syllables floating over the heads of the villagers like a curse. “And the Servior . . . those whom they serve are treacherous.”
Abruptly, all the dancers collapsed. Villagers gasped. The priests, caught unawares, scrambled to catch them and carry them back to the tower. Not an instrument played, no one spoke. The only full summoning in a generation had ended—too soon.
Once the dancers and priests had disappeared into the tower, the whispers began. First suspicions fell upon the Servior: they were sorcerers and they had interfered with the ceremony. Had not the gods warned that those whom the Servior served were treacherous? A voice called out to burn their ship. Another man seconded it.
But then Chief Salinger stepped forth from the crowd. In the light of the offering fire he looked regal, trustworthy, and calm. Yet Gabriella could not focus on him. Her mind was a whirlwind. Her ears were filled with the noise of whispering voices, her skin crawling. This was beyond gooseflesh; it was as if hands were grasping for her, drawing warmth and life away from her body. Her vision was darkening. She attempted to pay attention to Salinger’s words, but when that failed, her eyes were drawn to the offering fire.
Gabriella.
Now her body felt rigid as a board, her chest convulsed, and her thoughts were not her own. Images flashed, and she could not tell if she saw them in the firelight or her own mind’s eye. The voices became a chanting cacophony, the music of the ceremony returned to her. Her body felt like it was shaking, not with cold, but with the very cadence of the ceremony. She felt as if she were falling into a trance herself. Her vision faded and her spirit felt as if it were lifting out of her body to wander over the rim of the horizon to distant oceans and continents. Towers filled to their highest windows with treasure dominated the sky. Dragons and carrion birds circled snowy peaks. Ruined cities rested in the laps of mountains waiting for her to loot them from her perch in the sky. She glimpsed Harkness, her own home, her own people, from a gull’s perspective: the island a single emerald on a cushion of blue wrapped in the lace of waves. It was in the palm of her hand like a baby bird fallen from the nest, so fragile, so precious.
Her self was finally pushed aside. Her mouth opened for a voice to come out that was not her own.
Chapter 5
Uncle Micael
They would die. The truth of it was obvious to them now as their own mother’s passing made clear to them with every door slammed in their faces, every look of derision they earned as beggars in the street. They had eaten nearly everything and anything they had come across: weeds, hay, wads of parchment they had wetted and balled into soggy, bite-size pieces. When they were chased away from the back of a tavern where they had tried to steal scraps and bones, they turned to eating strips of their own clothing.
Relief only came briefly when they would come to a stream and fill themselves up with so much water that their bellies would swell, but even this had worked against them as they had drunk some foul water that left them both with the runs. Weakened as they were, Sade and Vondales trudged onwards, westward across the island to familiar places. There were already new tenants in their old home and when they tried to sleep in the barn they were discovered and run off by the man of the house with a whip. So they found themselves back at Skull Point, overlooking the sea where their mother had disappeared from them forever. There was nothing left for them on this island, this earth. No one came up the hill to rescue them, no one had shown them kindness since their mother had passed. Illicaine was a cruel island and there was an even crueler world beyond its shores. But if there was no place for them on this island, where they had been born and raised, there was no plac
e left for them anywhere. And so they had sought out the familiar, that place where the center of love and life for them had left them.
And they would follow.
Sade held his brother’s hand as they stepped close to the edge. The sea crashed in long rollers on the rocks below. Somewhere below the foam and swirling eddies lay their mother. What waited for them on the other side? Sade comforted himself with the notion that after impact and a brief struggle against the pressure of air in their lungs and the weight of waves, tossing and twisting their bodies, they would know. At best their mother would be waiting on the other side; at worst, the pain stopped.
His brother poised on the edge with him. It was a sunny day but the air was still unforgiving. Sade would not miss that, always being cold. Gulls hung in the wind, calling to one another. How jealous Sade was of them and their ability to persist, to feed themselves, to survive on what little the world provided for them. The birds were so much more suited for the world than they were. The lowest roach and rat were better suited than they were. Sade took in what he resolved was his last breath. He savored the view of the clouds towering over the blue sea, noted the play of white on blue that brought to mind the breakers below. That was enough. That would be his last vision, his last sight. He closed his eyes and waited for his brother to pull them over.
But the tug did not come, much less the rush of salt air, the dizzying sense of vertigo, and the all important impact. Sade focused on the darkness visible behind his eyelids, long after he had taken many more breaths beyond his last. He finally opened his eyes to see his brother looking up to him, eyes large in sunken sockets and hallow cheeks.
“I’m scared, Sade.”
In that moment, the sun shining on them, the wind playing in the grass at their feet, Sade realized that he was scared, too. More than that, he wanted to live as well. That indeed the world was full of riches, they would just have to take them. Nothing stood in their way but rules, conventions, and what were rules? You couldn’t see rules, couldn’t eat them. But they could be broken.
