Full Circle (2 page)

They went carefully but as fast as they dared, not knowing how long they’d be down here. The candles wouldn’t last forever.
They followed the old river, ignoring narrower side passages, even though some of them sloped upwards, because in the larger
course there was a faint stream of air across their faces.

“Follow the air,” Medric said, as though it was the one rule of life, Bramble thought, and maybe it was, in a mine.

Medric settled down into a plodding careful state. He looked at the floor, mostly, leaving it to Bramble to look ahead. She
realised that this shutting off was how he had managed to survive the long years of mining.

The old river bed was leading them gradually astray, further down, further north. Bramble reckoned they had passed the mine
entrance some time back, and they were now much deeper than when they had started, but she was encouraged by the fresh air
which still blew gently in their faces. It had to come from somewhere.

They reached a section where the passage closed in, so they had to crouch, and then slither along. Medric started breathing
more heavily. He was a big man, and it was a tight fit.

“I’ll go up ahead,” Bramble said, “and see if it widens out.”

He nodded thankfully and backed out to where he could sit up, his hands shaking. Bramble left the candle with him and went
backwards on her stomach, feeling with her toes. The passage narrowed until she could only just move, and she felt a sudden
spurt of panic. The walls seemed to press down upon her, the dark she had found soothing only a few minutes before was now
full of death, the earth itself a grave where she would be pinned, helpless, forever…

She set the fear aside, but it gave her more sympathy for Medric. If he felt like this all the time, he was being heroic just
for not screaming. With an effort of will, she kept moving.

As if to reward her, the toe of her boot, sliding carefully backwards, fell into empty air. A ledge, dropping off. How far
down? She bent her leg up and found that at the edge her toe couldn’t reach the upper wall. The passage widened just before
the drop — perhaps enough to let her sit up and turn around. She snaked sideways so that she wouldn’t be hanging half-off
and half-on the ledge and edged carefully down.

She could feel the air moving more freely around her head and shoulders as she came closer to the drop, and cautiously sat
up, bumping her head just a little. She could sit crouched over easily enough, and she could sense a huge empty space in front
of her, full of sound… whispering, plinking, rushing…

“It opens up,” she called back to Medric, “but come carefully — there’s a drop on the other side.” She sat and listened hard
as her voice echoed out and round. Other noises, too. Water and air, air and water…

Medric came face first, pushing the candle in front of him. That’s not going to do much good in a place this size, Bramble
thought, but she took it from him and raised it high as he shuffled closer and sat up, more hunched than she but a safer distance
from the drop.

The tiny light from the candle was caught, reflected, from a million places, a million drops of water. They were at the top
of what must have once been a short waterfall, at the edge of a cavern so large that every sound they made was taken and echoed
and echoed again.

There was just enough light to see boulders and arches of rock, icicles and ant hills of rock reaching down and up from ceiling
and floor, joining in places into pillars. The cave — the cavern — stretched up in places so high that no light reached. It
seemed to reach up into the dark of the night sky, so Bramble felt surprised not to see any stars.

“There are no wonders like the wonders of the dark,” Medric said quietly. Bramble suspected that was something Fursey had
once said to him, but whoever said it was right. The echoes of Medric’s voice climbed and soared and flew back to them in
high cascades of sound.

“Wonders…” the echoes said, and, “Dark…”

The echoes were surrounded and supported by another sound. Everywhere, from the icicles of rock and from points on the cavern’s
roof, the tiny drops of water fell, onto rock or into shallow pools. Each small
plop
or splat was magnified and transmuted into a thin, ceaseless, mourning cry. The rocks were weeping, and this was the sound
of their tears.

The falling water caught the candlelight and sent sparks of it back to them, so that they were caught in a small pool of dazzle,
of rainbow glimpses and fleeting lines of light.

“You know where we are, don’t you?” Medric said. “These are the Weeping Caverns. The home of Lady Death herself. We’ll never
get out.”

L
IKE HARP
music, the sound of the river rippled far below them. It sounded calm, now. Soothing, as though it had never leapt high,
never threatened. The old man smiled, his long white hair casting a shining circle around his head in the firelight. Ash was
aware of the other men, his father included, standing in the shadows of the cave, but he couldn’t bring himself to look at
them. Desperately, he stared into the old man’s intense blue eyes.

“She calls you,” the man said. “She calls your name. Close your eyes. Listen.”

Bewildered, hoping that he was not beyond acceptance, that the human face which had reflected back at him from the pool did
not mean that he was worthless, Ash closed his eyes. He had so hoped to find his true shape when he climbed down to meet the
River. Every other Traveller man did so, after all. Why should he be different? Did he
have
no true shape? No animal spirit deep in his soul which the River could call out? What did that make him?

Ash shuddered with a combination of grief and horror at the thought and felt the old man pat his back in comfort.

“Listen,” he said gently. “She will speak to you.”

The river was growing louder. Ash concentrated. He had heard the River speak only minutes ago, when he stood in her waters
and asked permission to drink. She had laughed, and granted it. Now there were no words, only sounds, like music, like the
music he carried in his head, day after day.

The music built in his mind, speaking of emotion deeper than thought, deeper than words, stronger than time. Love was only
a small part of it, on the edges. Desire ran through it, but was not the centre. He strained, listening harder, and felt it
slip away.

“Be still,” the old man said.

The hand on Ash’s back was warm and reassuring. He let out a long breath, forcing his muscles to loosen, and found the centre
of the music, the rhythm that controlled everything.
Welcome
, it said.
Belong
.

He began to cry. He had yearned towards homecoming when he lived with Doronit, hoping past sense that she could give it to
him. He had seen belonging like this and envied it, watching Mabry and Elva hold their baby, his namesake. He had dreamt of
returning to the Road with his parents as a stonecaster, earning a place with them as he had not been able to do as a musician.
Each dream had withered, sending him back to the Road, and finally pushing him here. Perhaps he had been Travelling towards
the River all his life.

Yes
, said the music.
All your life
.

Ash raised his face to the old man, who was smiling.

“She has been waiting for you for a long, long time, child,” he said, as he had said once before. “And so have I.”

Ash found his voice with difficulty. “Who are you?” he whispered.

“I am the Prowman.”

It was a term Ash knew from old river songs — the Prowman stood at the front of the boat and signalled to the steersman which
direction to take, to avoid the rapids and treacherous currents. He found the name reassuring.

Ash’s father, Rowan, came forward hesitantly. His head was a badger’s; each of the men there wore his true nature in the form
of an animal, revealed to them through the power of the River. The sweat on his naked skin reflected the torchlight in slabs
of gold and red.

Rowan put a hand gently on Ash’s shoulder. The dark badger eyes searched his. And then Rowan let Ash go, turned to the other
men and lifted his arms high in a gesture of victory. He howled triumph and the other men joined in, dancing and shouting,
the animal screams and yowls echoing off the cave walls until Ash was nearly deafened. It was a terrible sound: harsh, cacophonous,
wonderful. It lifted him up into a kind of exaltation. He still didn’t understand what had happened, or why he had not been
given his true shape like the other men; but he did understand that they accepted him, honoured him, just as he was. The moment
was over too soon. Rowan and the other men ran off into the darkness which led to another cave. Some of them carried torches,
the flames and smoke flickering behind them as they ran.

They left one torch behind, stuck in a crevice in the rock wall. The dark closed in around, making the cave seem even bigger,
the echoes sharper. Ash was aware of his wet feet and calves, suddenly cold where the River had splashed him as he climbed.

The Prowman walked behind one of the boulders near the passage and came back with a blanket and pack. He threw the blanket
to Ash, who hesitated. All the other men were naked, except for the Prowman, who wore leggings and a tunic.

“Am I… allowed?”

The old man shrugged, the beads at the end of his long braids clicking softly. “Animals go naked,” he said. “We are not animals.”

“What are we?”

The Prowman gestured to the floor and they sat, cross-legged, Ash pulling the blanket around himself. The pack held food:
cooked chicken, bread, apples, dried pear. Ash fell on it thankfully. He hadn’t eaten in three days.

“Slowly,” the Prowman said. “Or you’ll just throw it all up again.”

It was good advice, but it was hard to follow. Ash forced himself to start with the bread and chewed it thoroughly instead
of wolfing it down.

“What are we… Well, that’s a little hard to say,” the Prowman said, smiling. “We are… Hers. I can tell you some
things about yourself, although I do not know you. You are a musician.”

Ash shook his head vigorously, glad his mouth was full of bread so he didn’t have to say the disappointing words out loud.

“No?” The Prowman paused, surprised. “You
don’t
make up music?”

Ash stilled, his hand over the chicken.
Did
he make up music? The moment seemed to stretch for hours.

“In my head,” he said finally. “Only in my head.”

“Ah, well, that’s where all music starts.”

“But I can’t sing!” Ash said. “Or play anything.”

“The River doesn’t care about that. She wants what’s inside you, not what you do outside.”

“What? What’s inside me?”

“The thing that makes the music, that
thinks
the music. The centre of you. It’s why She chose me, why She chose you.”

“Chose us to do what?”

For the first time, the Prowman seemed unsure. “Different things. Be Her voice, for one. Be Her eyes in the world, Her… life, Her…”

“Her lover, you said,” Ash prompted. He wasn’t sure how he felt about that, except intensely curious.

“Mmm… you’ll find out about that in time, although it won’t be what you expect.”

“Nothing ever is!” Ash exclaimed, tired of being told only part of things, tired of always being at the beginning of understanding.
Enough of this mysticism. He had a job to do. “I need to learn the secret songs.”

The Prowman shook his head, and Ash jumped to his feet, infuriated. “Don’t tell me there’s
another
shagging test!”

“No, no, don’t worry,” the Prowman said, laughing sympathetically. “You don’t need to learn the songs because when you need
them, She will give them to you. How do you think the men learnt them in the first place? She gave them to me, and I gave
them to the men. She will be your teacher, lad, when the time comes.”

But Ash had a better idea.

“
You
can sing them!” It was a relief, to hand over the responsibility to someone he was sure could fulfil it. But the Prowman
put up a hand in refusal.

“No. This is your job. Your time to be active in the world. I have had my time, and it was more than enough.” There was a
note of sorrow, of loss, of relinquishment, in his voice. “So there is nothing to keep you here,” the Prowman went on. “Go
where you need to go, and She will be there waiting for you.”

“Sanctuary,” Ash said without thinking. “I have to go to Sanctuary.”

The Prowman’s face became shadowed; tears stood in his eyes. With their bright blue clouded, he looked very old, the torchlight
showing hundreds of wrinkles, his hands browned with age spots, his hair snow white.

“Sanctuary,” he whispered. “That is a name I have not heard in a very long time.” He looked up, tears disappearing. “Why do
you go to Sanctuary?”

Ash hesitated, overwhelmed by how much he had to explain.

“To raise the ghost of Acton,” he said simply. “So that Acton can lay this army of ghosts to rest.”

The Prowman went very still.

“Acton,” he said. “She did not tell me that. I wonder why.” He sat for a long moment and then stood up, as supple as a young
boy. “If you go to raise Acton’s ghost, lad, I think you will need me with you.”

Relief washed over Ash. “You’ll come with us?”

“I will take you the River’s way.”

A
T NOON
the enchanter had sent the wind wraiths away and the ghosts moved off to the south, and Leof, Alston, Hodge and Horst followed
them on Thegan’s orders. The other troops had returned with Thegan to Sendat after the ghosts had routed them at Bonhill,
but there was just a chance that a small group of horsemen could pick off the enchanter from a distance.

“Take any chance you have,” Thegan had said. “At any cost.”

Leof nodded. “The other reports say that the ghosts faded at sunset or sunrise,” he reminded Thegan. “We might get our chance
then.”

Thegan clapped him on the shoulder in a parody of his usual comradeship. It was a show for the men watching, and Leof was
glad that Thegan could still make a show. He had never seen his lord angry like this, not even when Bramble had defied him
and escaped.