The Singer of All Songs (15 page)

C
ALWYN COULD HEAR
Trout fumbling to relight the lantern; there was a loud crash as it fell to the ground. He clucked in annoyance. ‘How did that happen? I hardly touched it. Cal, there are candles by the door, if you could throw one over.’

‘Cal – Calwyn,’ repeated Darrow softly. ‘Calwyn, my little runaway. Where is the Clarion?’

‘Here, on the floor. I must have dropped it, I was so surprised.’ Her head buzzing with confusion and a faint unease, Calwyn dropped to her knees and blindly felt about in the wreckage of the cart. ‘Where are the others?’

‘Waiting for us.’

‘If someone could pass me a
candle
– oh, never mind, I’ll get it myself.’ Trout stumbled across the workshop and tripped over the pile of twisted metal on the floor. ‘Ow!’

Calwyn groped through the wreck of the cart. ‘Darrow, have you found any chanters of fire? How did you know about the Clarion?’

‘Those who wield power know the objects of power. I followed its scent, just as you did.’

‘I didn’t know what it was, until I touched it –’

On the other side of the workshop, by the door, Trout struck a flint to light a candle, and as the spark flew, Calwyn saw the glint of the small, dented trumpet. She pounced and held it aloft. By the candle’s light, she could see that its surface was etched with a design of leaping flames, flickering and shifting in the reflected light. The pattern was half worn away and tarnished, yet the Clarion shimmered and glowed with its own light, like the glow of embers from a fire that had burned for a thousand years. Held high in her hand, it seemed like a living thing. Calwyn caught her breath. There was no mistaking that it was an object of great power, more ancient than the stones and spires of Mithates or the towers of Antaris, steeped in mystery and infused with secret magic. How strange it was that this little battered horn, hardly bigger than her hand, should be the source of such immense power. It was as if the spark that Trout struck could light up the whole world like the break of day.

She stood up and held out the Clarion to Darrow. His back was to the light and she couldn’t see his face, but she heard a soft
hah
! as his fingers closed around the horn. Yet Calwyn didn’t want to let it go. Since Darrow first appeared, she’d felt a prickling of disquiet; now that feeling grew more definite. Something was wrong here. Holding firm to the Clarion, she was aware of a tingling in her fingers. Surely there was chantment nearby.

Could Darrow feel it too? Anxiously she sought his eyes as they stood there, each holding onto the warmth of the Clarion, joined by its golden fire. Then Darrow reached out with his other hand and gently caressed her hair. A thrill shot through her.

‘Calwyn, Taris’s child,’ murmured Darrow. ‘We can be together in all things now, and all the world will be ours: the mountains and the oceans, the islands and the deserts, the forests and the plains.’

Softly, rhythmically, his hand stroked her hair. Her eyes closed. She couldn’t move; with every gentle caress she felt weaker. His words flowed about her like honey, rich and sweet, intoxicating. To roam the world as she pleased, with Darrow at her side – Softly, softly, his hand moved over her hair.

‘Tremaris needs a leader.’ Darrow’s voice was as musical as the humming of the bees. ‘With the help of the Clarion, with your help, I will be the Singer of all Songs. And you, little Calwyn, will be my empress. All the peoples of Tremaris will bow down before you. They will obey you in all things, never question you . . .’

Never to be questioned, always to be taken seriously! At once a dozen voices flashed through Calwyn’s head:
a piece of old
rope would be more useful – next time, try to hold your tongue – think
before you speak, child, and you will not appear so foolish – we have
despaired of you, Calwyn –
How sweet, how sweet it would be to prove all those voices wrong.

‘Excuse me!’Trout’s voice broke into her reverie. ‘You can’t just take that trumpet, you know. I mean, I’m the one who found it, after all. I’m not saying you can’t have it, but it’s only fair if we trade, isn’t it? I’ll tell you what –’ Darrow gave an impatient growl, and Trout fell silent as abruptly as if someone had clapped a hand, or a wad of cloth, over his mouth.

Calwyn blinked. She had fallen into a dream; now for the first time she truly heard what Darrow had said to her. Empress? People bowing down? Impulsively she tightened her grasp on the Clarion. At the same moment Darrow clenched his hand hard around it, and she saw a gleam of ruby light, a light that refused to be hidden, a blood-red light from the jewel of a square ring.

‘Darrow?’ she whispered. Then, ‘
Samis
?’

His hand shot out to circle her wrist, grasping it so tightly that her hand hurt. Now at last she recognised the chantment, as dense in the air as the shimmer of sunlight over a dusty path in summer. It was there in the tingling of her hands, the confusion in her head. Convulsed with horror, she wrenched at the Clarion, she twisted her wrist in his iron grasp, but she could not break free. She felt a scream rise in her throat. ‘Let me see your face! Let me see your face!’

‘My face?’ It was Darrow’s voice: dry, amused, familiar as her own. The man who held her arm swung her effortlessly around so that the candle shone full on his face. And it was Darrow’s face that gazed at her, a half-smile playing about his lips. He pulled her closer, so close that his breath was hot in her ear, and whispered, ‘Do you doubt me now, little one?’

She shook her head violently from side to side like someone struggling to wake from a nightmare. A voice cried out like a distant memory, ‘I am not persuaded!’This was not how Darrow spoke to her, this was not how Darrow acted.
This
was not how Darrow looked.

She whispered, ‘Your scar. Where is your scar?’ She let go of the Clarion, and reached out a fingertip to touch the corner of his eyebrow, the place where the silver scar should run.

Darrow’s face contorted with rage; then, like a reflection broken up by ripples, his face wavered and dissolved before her eyes. There was no face, no figure standing in front of her: only a yawning space where darkness shifted and congealed. But the space that was shifting darkness still held her fast; she looked down and saw a band of clotted dark around her arm, as if it had been eaten. Somehow this was more horrible than anything else had been.

Frantically she yanked herself backward, but the sorcerer’s grip was too strong. A voice came out of the faceless dark: ‘Join me, little priestess. In Antaris, they spoke of you as a healer, and a keeper of hives. Help me to heal Tremaris. Help me to bring order to the swarms.’

‘Never! I will never help you!’

‘Why do you fight me, little one? We are the same, your Darrow and I, we both strive for the same end. Yet only one of us will succeed: there is only one Singer of all Songs, and I am stronger than he.’

‘You’re lying!’ gasped Calwyn. ‘Darrow doesn’t want to be Singer of all Songs, he has no wish to be emperor of – of anywhere –’

The wavering dark resolved itself, as if the surface of the water became still; once again Darrow’s face was gazing at her, quizzical, affectionate, and it was his voice that spoke to her. ‘Why, little one! It was my own idea to collect the Nine Powers. It was only when I realised that Samis’s gifts were greater than my own – far greater – that I turned against him. Make no mistake, beneath my soft words, I have the same ambition I have always had.’

‘It’s not true!’ cried Calwyn, and in desperation she began to sing a chantment, a song of icy cold to wrap about the hand that held her, a song to chill him to the bone. It should have made him drop her wrist in an instant.

A look of pained bewilderment crossed the face that was, and was not, Darrow’s. ‘Little one, Calwyn, my heart, surely you don’t mean to hurt me?’ He didn’t seem to feel her chantment any more than the pricking of a thistle; his clutch on her arm was tighter than ever. Calwyn sang on, but her voice was shrill with fear, the magic feeble. Wildly she kicked out, lashed out with her free hand, thrashed in his grasp like a roancat. She heard a snarl of chantment, and felt her clothes drag on her like lead, pressing her inexorably to the ground. She screamed, ‘Trout!
Help me!’

And then several things happened very quickly. Trout snatched up a spool of wire and hurled it toward Samis’s head. The sorcerer at once raised a hand to ward it off, and growled out a note of chantment. The spool halted in mid-air, then crashed to the ground; but he had loosened his grip on Calwyn’s wrist, and his attention was distracted. It was only for a heartbeat, but that was all she needed. Instantly she threw herself onto the Clarion, seizing it with both hands and wresting it from the sorcerer’s grasp, then she dived for the still-open doorway, clutching the little horn to her chest. Trout followed her, slamming the door behind them.

Quickly, quickly, fighting for breath, Calwyn launched into a chantment to block the doorway with a wall of ice, the same song they used in Antaris to build the great Wall. Her voice wavered; the spell would not hold. She was too weak, too slow.

And then all at once she felt it come right. All the notes of the song fitted smoothly together as they should, and the chantment was strong. The thin crust of ice might not stop him for long, but it would buy them a little time.

She grabbed Trout by the shoulders. ‘We must get away from here!’

‘But it’s curfew. Can’t you hear the bells?’ A steady, deafening clang pealed out from the bell tower above their heads. ‘We can’t go out now. The guards –’ ‘We must go!’ Calwyn cried. ‘Curfew or no curfew.’

‘Hold on! I don’t like to see someone trying to kiss a girl when the girl doesn’t want to be kissed. That’s one thing. But breaking curfew –’ He shook his head helplessly.

‘Kiss me? Is that what you think? If we stay here, then you’ll see him kill me!’

Trout stood in an agony of indecision, shifting from one foot to the other. At last he said, ‘All right, this way,’ and started to run along the high wall back toward the gate through which they’d entered.

‘No, no.’ Calwyn caught at his sleeve. ‘We must get to the river. We must find a boat.’ If they could get back to the port, back to
Fledgewing
, they might be safe until the others returned. ‘Is there a quicker way out?’

Trout spun on his heel, then plunged off in another direction, toward the mass of buildings that made up the bulk of the college. Calwyn followed, tucking the little Clarion inside her shirt; she felt it glowing and warm next to her skin, like a living creature. Dodging through arched gateways, across courtyards, Trout led her through a bewildering maze of buildings and corridors, almost colliding with other students as they ran. ‘Hi, Trout! Careful there!’

‘What’s he up to now?’

‘Who’s that with him? Is that a
girl
? ’ ‘Where are your wheels, Trout?’ one boy shouted after them, but Trout had no breath to answer him.

At last they came to one of the low ironwork gates in the wall. ‘Through here,’Trout gasped, thrusting Calwyn through it. Night had truly fallen; they emerged onto a darkened street, so narrow between the dark college walls that the moons couldn’t light it.

‘We must get to the river,’ urged Calwyn. ‘I saw boats by the bridge, near where you crashed your machine.’

‘I didn’t crash it,’ said Trout indignantly. ‘The mechanism failed.’

But Calwyn’s sharp ears had picked up the sound of the river, and she was already running toward it. And then she heard another faint sound, weaving through the bells: a rumbling, menacing noise that drew closer and closer. Trout stopped, and stared up at the darkening sky. ‘Can that be thunder?’

‘No, it’s Samis!’ cried Calwyn, tugging him onward. ‘It’s chantment.’

‘But –’Trout wanted to argue with her even now, but at the next moment a slate crashed down into the street from the roof high above, then another, and another, until sharp-edged slates and tiles were raining down all around them.

‘The river! We’ll be safer by the river!’ Calwyn gasped. Dodging the deadly hail as best they could, their hands over their heads, they stumbled onward, until at last they came out onto the green ribbon of gardens that flanked the river. Heaving for breath,Trout halted, listening. Calwyn could hear the noise of distant shouts, and other heavy feet on the cobbles.

‘You see? The guards are coming!’ hissed Trout accusingly. ‘We’re breaking curfew. They could expel me from the college for this!’

‘Expel you!’ snorted Calwyn. ‘That’s the least of your troubles.’ She rubbed her elbow where a falling slate had struck her, while she caught her breath. Then she threw back her head – she’d lost Xanni’s cap long ago – and began to sing, clear and loud and true. Her voice rang out across the town, as she sang up a film of slippery ice to cover the cobbles of the narrow streets.

‘What are you
doing
?’ cried Trout. ‘This is no time to start
singing
!’

Calwyn broke off her chantment. ‘Find a boat! And hurry!’ She could hear shouts of dismay, and clattering thuds from the streets as the guards began to tumble, their feet sliding from under them. But ice on the streets wouldn’t slow Samis for long. She had another idea. Drawing in a deep breath, she began a different chantment, this time to seal off the narrow streets with walls of ice, just as she had blocked the door of the workshop, so that the guards, and Samis, would be prevented from reaching the river. But she could only sing up one wall at a time, and it was impossible to tell where the greatest danger lay. Where was Trout with that boat?