Full Circle (37 page)

Ash knew better than to fight them. Or to run. Hildie was faster, the Dung Brothers stronger, and Aylmer more cunning. Even
Elfrida had put him through a window, one time. All of them together could have stopped Acton himself. He shivered at the
thought, and remembered Baluch, hiding and listening.

“What are you doing in Sanctuary? Who needed so many safe-guarders?” Ash asked.

“Big shipment of jewels and velvet, coming down the river from Whitehaven,” Aylmer said. “Merchant’s landing it here so his
rivals won’t get wind of it. Not till early tomorrow, though. We thought we’d make a night of it.”

“And we’re going to,” one of the Dung Brothers said, settling more comfortably in his chair. “Don’t need all of us to take
him to Doronit.”

Aylmer looked at him steadily. “Well, if you don’t want to share the reward, that’s fine by me. Come on, Hildie. I reckon
you and I can keep him in line.”

Hildie laughed. “Sure and certain,” she said. “Off we go, cully.” She came behind Ash and he felt the nudge of a knife in
his back. They had been colleagues, he and Hildie, but he knew she wouldn’t hesitate to use that knife. “It’d be more work
to deliver you to her with your hamstrings cut, but we c’d do it,” she said.

He laughed. “Aye, that’s for sure.” He felt almost free; he could make no decisions here except to go with them or die fighting,
and that was no decision at all.

They walked him from the inn yard, Aylmer on one side and Hildie just behind. “So, cully, you’ve come full circle,” she said.

“Not yet,” Ash said.

Sanctuary was almost connected to Turvite. Houses and market gardens lined the road between the two, and at halfway there
was another inn called the Last Chance. Last chance to get good beer before leaving the city, or last chance to buy beer at
country prices? Both, maybe. His good mood continued, and he could just make out, at the edges of his hearing, Baluch whistling
“The Warrior’s Love.” Following, then, but not trying to break him free. Just as well.

He pretended to have caught a stone in his shoe, and as he bent over to dislodge it, he saw Baluch watching from behind a
house a hundred yards or so back. He shook his head and flicked his fingers discreetly to say, no, don’t try. Baluch looked
puzzled, but nodded and disappeared behind the corner of the house. Ash knew Baluch wouldn’t do anything stupid. He had been
a fighter once, but he was no match for Aylmer or Hildie now.

Walking back into Turvite proper, they strode up the long hill that he and Martine had struggled down in that storm, close
to a year ago. Ash felt like a different person to the boy who had left, but he wasn’t sure why. It wasn’t just the passage
of time. It wasn’t even the sense of being involved in a task of huge importance. It was mainly the memories of young Ash
and of the River. He had a home, now, and a stake in the future; a year ago he had been without any ties, without anywhere
he would be welcome, without the sense he had a future. It was why he’d followed Martine so doggedly — she was all he’d had.

Turvite itself hadn’t changed. It was still loud and busy and smelly, and full of people going about their many businesses,
even though it was coming on to full dark. The ghosts lingered, too, pale and insubstantial compared to the warriors Saker
the enchanter had summoned, but still clear in the fading light. They looked at Ash with concern, recognising him from the
Mid-Winter’s Eve when he had commanded them, on Doronit’s orders, to reveal their secrets. It was her source of power in this
city, all those secrets stolen from the dead. It was a bad memory, but it was important to remember what he had done, what
he was capable of.

A year ago, being a Traveller in Turvite had attracted no comment. This evening, he and Hildie were given black looks and
mutterings. Men spat on the ground as they passed, women made the sign against evil.

“What’s that about?” Ash asked Hildie, after a woman had cursed her for a black-haired slut. Hildie just shrugged.

“Don’t say you haven’t heard about this Traveller enchanter?” Aylmer cut in.

“I’ve heard,” Ash said. “But I didn’t know people were sure he was a Traveller.”

“Lord Thegan announced it,” Aylmer said. “Figured it out somehow from what had been done in Carlion.”

Ash felt cold sweep over him. If people in Turvite, famed for tolerating anyone from anywhere, were spitting at Travellers
in the street, what was happening in the rest of the Domains? Stories of massacres abounded in the old songs, and some not
so old. The Generation Laws had been enacted originally to stop large Traveller groups being attacked on the Road — the warlords
decided that their various services were too useful to lose. With a touch of panic, Ash wondered about his father and Flax.

He sent a prayer to the local gods, and heard them reply, saying his name over and over, as they had when he lived here. Then,
it had filled him with panic and a kind of shame. Now, he welcomed the sensation. He reached out to the River in his mind
and found her, very faint, far below the city.
Belonging
, he felt her say, and was comforted.

As they climbed the hill, coming into the richer quarters, lanterns were hung at gates, candles lit inside houses, curtains
drawn, and the streets began to empty. By the time they reached the very top and walked past the huge, sprawling mass of Highmark,
they were the only ones around.

Then there he was, back at Doronit’s house, back to where he’d sweated and yearned and maybe even loved a little. He’d always
heard that places seemed smaller when you went back to them, but Doronit’s house loomed larger: she’d built another storey
on, half-timbering, painted sand-colour to mimic the sandstone houses further up the hill.

He was glad it looked different.

The office was the same, though, and Doronit herself, when she finally walked in, looked just as she had the day he’d killed
the girl in the alley: wide navy trousers tucked into yellow boots, skirt and blouse of a lighter blue, a shawl pinned by
a sapphire brooch. And her face, he thought, meeting her eyes at last, looked as smooth, as beautiful, as… cold.

The thought reminded him of what he carried with him, and he reached out gently to the River, sensing Her to the north, and
deep below. A phrase from “The Distant Hills” played in his mind; his love was far away.

Ash stared into Doronit’s sapphire eyes and wondered how she was going to kill him.

H
E WAS
gone.

She looked around wildly, but there was nothing except the silent pool, and the fire burning low.

Acton was gone, as a ghost fades after quickening and never comes back.

She felt as if she were disintegrating, shredding apart on the wind, her heart flaking away, uncoiling like a ball of thread.
She couldn’t breathe.

Ash. It was because Ash had left. Ash had sung him up, and without Ash he had faded. He had not gone on to rebirth, as a ghost
that fades after quickening. He could not have, because he had promised he would help her, and he never broke his word.

That thought steadied her. He had promised, and what he had promised he would do. That was a certainty, and she clung to it.
They could bring him back. She would take his bones to Turvite and find Ash and they would sing him up again. It would be
all right.

Bramble deliberately put her feet down in the cold water, trying to shock some sense into herself. She had lived without Acton
until now. She would survive without him, as she had survived without the roan, without Maryrose. But as she walked over and
picked up the pack full of his bones, part of her didn’t believe it. They felt even lighter than before, as though some essence
of him had gone, too.

It was a long, lonely night with only the horses for company.

In the very early morning, Bramble saddled the mare and took the other two on a leading rein. They weren’t as fast, but at
least she could spell the mare. As they cantered along the grass by the side of the road, she found anxiety growing in her
chest. Not her anxiety — at Obsidian Lake she had become adept at sorting her own emotions from those of others. This was
coming from somewhere else.

Then she saw the black rock altar among the trees and realised that the gods were calling her. Thankfully, she headed the
mare towards the clearing and slipped off her back, tethering her to a sapling.

As she placed her hand on the altar, the anxiety rose to an almost panic.

Why are you here, child?
they asked.
You should be in Turvite. Now! You should be in Turvite now!

She cursed Acton. If she hadn’t listened to him, they would have gone straight down the river and been in Turvite by now.

I will hurry
, she said to them.

Too late, too late
, they said with sorrow, and turned away from her towards whatever battle they were fighting.

She backed away and stood by the horses, fighting her own anxiety. She could ride — of course she could ride, but on these
horses it would take too long. If only she had the roan.

She remounted and urged the horses to their best pace, but she knew they couldn’t keep it up for long. They weren’t chasers;
they weren’t even in top condition.

Rounding a bend screened by willow trees, she saw the barred fences, white-striped, that marked a horse farm. A stud, because
in the fields beyond were chasers. Long legged, short backed, beautiful. Valuable.

Horses that could get her to Turvite much faster than the slugs she had.

Horse stealing was a killing offence, but that wasn’t what made Bramble hesitate. She didn’t want to take a horse who might
be loved as she had loved the roan. But she had no choice. She’d bring them back, if she had the chance.

She wondered if any of these horses had come from Gorham’s farm. There was an easy way to find out. Perched on the fence,
she whistled them up: the come-to-me call all Gorham’s horses learnt.

Across the field, three of them threw their heads up, whinnying, and whirled to canter over to her. Her heart lifted as they
came — she was sure she remembered at least one of them. By Acton out of Silver Shoes — a great lineage, but the colt had
been so wild that the owner had gelded him. He’d be fast. With him were two mares, a bay and a liver chestnut who lagged behind
the others.

She took the tack off her other horses and turned them loose with reassuring pats. They were happy to graze and went off to
meet the others in the field, who were now crowding towards them with that insatiable equine curiosity.

She saddled the gelding and put the bay on a leading rein, and then left, wondering why no one on the stud had come out when
the horses had whinnied. Too afraid they’d meet ghosts?

The gelding’s canter was smooth as they rode down the flat even road. Not bad, and the mare could keep pace. But could they
jump? If they could ride cross country it would be much, much faster.

There were wooden fences all along this stretch of road — perfect. She set the gelding at one and he sailed over, the mare
following willingly on a very long rein.

Chasing had always been her great passion, the one thing that could set her alight: the speed, the freedom, the thundering,
shaking ground flicking past like a dream. On the roan, chasing, she had lost any sense of a separate self; they were one
being, acting as one, and her exhilaration was his, and his was hers.

It wasn’t like that with these horses, but it was still wonderful. In the broad light of morning, over field and stream, over
wall and ditch, over hedge and fence, the three of them raced together, and Bramble laughed each time they jumped. They sped
like an arrow towards Turvite, her sense of direction taking them in a straight line, no matter what the obstacle. There were
no big rivers between here and there, and nothing smaller that they couldn’t jump.

They galloped and jumped and trotted and walked, Bramble switching from horse to horse every couple of hours, until the sun
set, and they had to rest.

With these horses, she would be in Turvite by the next night.

M
ARTINE WENT
back to the gathering of stonecasters, because there was nothing else to do. She had left Sorn and Safred together eating
an evening meal, but she wasn’t hungry. Flax and Zel. She’d only known the boy a very short time, but he’d been as sweet as
new butter. She wondered, again, where Ash was and why he’d let Flax go anywhere alone.

Zel had a right to her anger, but surely Ash had had good reason. Safred thought he wasn’t dead, but she didn’t know for sure.
The gods were being coy, apparently. Martine felt a quick surge of anger. She should be grateful they were intervening at
all, she supposed, but their lack of care for individual humans set her teeth on edge. At least the fire saw
you
— the individual woman, the actual person. He knew each of them by name, by more than name… but He was no help now.

The stonecasters were in the big hall, with Ranny trying to organise them from the mayor’s podium. It was like herding snakes,
as the saying went. They were talking to each other, sitting on the floor, some of them, casting stones; some argued over
the right spell to use. There were only twenty or so, but the noise was immense. When Martine came in, they quietened and
turned to face her, their backs to Ranny. Another thing for Ranny to get upset about, she thought. She found their deference
surprising. She was a good stonecaster, yes, but she’d never claimed to be better at it than anyone else. Still, she did know
most of them… She realised that they’d all come to her for readings at one time or another, which showed they trusted
her skill, if nothing else.

“The ghost army is almost certainly on its way here,” she said, pitching her voice as loud as she could. “We thought we could
try to bespell the city the way we bespell our houses, to keep ghosts out.”

“But that only works because they’re
our
houses,” a portly auburn-haired man objected. She’d forgotten his name, perhaps because she’d never liked him.