Full Circle (41 page)

“Why?”

“Because you don’t want anyone else to hear why I killed her.”

That silenced all of them.

“Clear the room,” Ranny said.

Reluctantly, Hildie, Aylmer, the Dung Brothers, Boc and the other Moot staff trailed out and shut the double doors behind
them.

“Well?” Garham demanded.

He told them almost everything. Acton’s brooch, the gods in Hidden Valley sending him and Martine to the Well of Secrets,
meeting Bramble, meeting Safred and Cael, the tasks the gods had given them. They listened impassively, although their eyes
widened when he described raising Acton’s ghost.

“You left him behind?” Garham said. “With some chit of a girl?”

“The gods sent me ahead — perhaps to get you ready for when he arrives, so we can meet this enchanter next time he comes,
to lay the ghosts to rest and bring peace.”

“His story matches that of the Well of Secrets,” Garham said reluctantly, at the end.

“She’s here?” Ash asked eagerly. “Let me see her.”

“Later,” Ranny said. “Perhaps.”

“You say someone has to give Acton his voice, let him acknowledge his wrongdoing, like at a quickening.” That was the thin
one, a spice merchant Ash had once worked for, guarding a saffron shipment.

Ash nodded.

“What if he won’t acknowledge it?”

“Why should he?” a thickset, red-faced man broke in. Wine merchant, that was it. Garham, his name was and he was as influential
as the Highmarks, Doronit had told him. “He didn’t do anything wrong! He’s a hero!”

The others were silent.

“No matter what we think of him in the present day,” Ash said carefully, ’to the ghosts he is the man who invaded their homeland
and organised their deaths. And he has promised that he will go through the ceremony.”

“Why not just kill the enchanter?” Garham said, looking crafty.

“Someone else will raise the ghosts. And the ghosts will come, and it will all start over again. It is the ghosts who must
be — dealt with.”

“What do you want us to do about it, eh?” Garham asked.

“Let me go. The Well of Secrets and I will go to bring Acton here.”

They stared at him.

“You need me to finish the task the gods have given me.”

“Wait. There is still the matter of Doronit’s death,” Ranny said.

“Doronit was going to support the enchanter,” Ash replied. “To break the barricade and, once the city was overrun, hand over
her entire organisation to support him. You know how much information she had…” they looked, shiftily, at each other,
as though assessing how much each knew “… but you don’t know how she got it.”

“How?” Ranny demanded.

“She was like me. She could make ghosts speak. She made the ghosts of Turvite tell their secrets. And she was going to join
the enchanter, so he could talk to his army whenever he liked, discuss strategy, plan attacks…”

They shivered in unison.

“So I killed her.” Ash kept his voice flat. “It was the only chance we had.”

“Why would Doronit… ?” the thin spice merchant asked.

“Because she wanted to be sitting where you are sitting, and she knew she never would.”

“She was ambitious, yes, but surely she never imagined that a
Traveller
…” Garham spluttered.

“No,” Ash said. “She knew better than that.”

That was all he trusted himself to say. He ached all over. Head and legs and back and stomach, where the Dung Brothers had
kicked him and Hildie had punched him. He’d fought, but to stop them he’d have had to kill them, and he’d had enough of killing.

Ash waited all night in a small room off the hall. They didn’t bother to bring him a candle. He sat away from the window,
staring at the green wall with its frieze of little ships, to represent the mercantile wealth of Turvite. The longer he stared,
the more they seemed to dip and lift with the stylised waves they rode upon.

Safred had called him a killer, in her kitchen back in Oakmere. He’d known it was true, even then, but he’d hoped that he
could leave that behind him. Become someone else. When the River had chosen him he had felt washed-clean, new, ready for a
different life. To be a different person.

But here he was with blood on his hands, again. Doronit. He sat with his hands hanging between his knees, remembering her.
He hoped, with all his heart, that he had killed her for the reason he had told the council. To save them all. Not because
he had hated her. Not because he had loved her. Not because she was beautiful and untrustworthy and unrepentant.

He didn’t think he had killed her for those reasons. Before the River, maybe he would have. Since She had accepted him, he
had felt no desire for anyone else. So, surely, he had closed his hands around Doronit’s neck for good reason. Surely.

Killer.

He did not reach for the River, and She did not try to contact him. He refused to wonder if she would ever touch his mind
again. If not, he deserved it.

He didn’t know what would happen, but he clung to two things: Acton walked; and Safred was here, nearby, and would no doubt
find him eventually. But he might still hang for Doronit’s murder, if the ghosts were defeated.

S
HE RODE
for a day and a night, stopping only for water and privy breaks. When the horses tired, she stole new ones from abandoned
farms. By the end, she was lightheaded from lack of food and sleep, in a high exalted mood.

The Turvite headland hadn’t changed much in a thousand years. She had seen it then through Piper’s eyes, coming up from the
harbour. Now she stood on its northern edge, where it started to rise from the surrounding fields, and saw that it formed
a quarter circle, bounded by the cliffs on the sea and harbour sides, and by the stream to the north. It rose and became a
plateau at its height, dotted by boulders and rocks, turfed by hardy grass and small shrubs in the lee of the boulders. There
was a clear path up from the town which, protected a little from the rising wind, seemed as good a place as any to wait.

She drank from the stream and then leapt over it, her body feeling heavy after the fast ride. She had no food, but that didn’t
seem to matter. Perhaps she should sleep, though, before she went looking for Ash. It was very early, the sky only just beginning
to lighten. A couple of hours, and then she would go searching. She trudged up the hill towards the ring of high rocks. As
she approached, she realised that someone, a man, was waiting for her.

Baluch. Without Ash.

“Where is he?” Bramble called, unable to disguise her urgency.

“If Ash can get away, he will come here.” Baluch said. “The River will tell him where I am. He is imprisoned in Turvite, but
not harmed.”

“We need to get him out,” Bramble said. “We need him to sing Acton back.”

“He is not with you?” Baluch said tentatively, then realised what must have happened. “Could you not sing him yourself?”

She shook her head. “Ash has the brooch. I don’t think… I don’t think I could do it alone.” She didn’t know why she was
so sure, but she was. The thought of trying to sing Acton back by herself was nauseating. “Can you do it?”

“I can try,” Baluch said, but he was troubled by the thought, too, she could tell.

They spread the scarf out and laid Acton’s bones on it. “Best to wait for sunrise,” Baluch said, and she nodded understanding
— sunrise or sunset were the best times.

So they waited, and they talked over other things — memories in common, Ragni and Sebbi, Harald and Swef… Friede.

“I loved her,” he said. “I’ve never said that to anyone else, because no one else knew her.”

“So you wrote songs for her.”

He dropped his head for a moment, then brought it up again. “Yes… a poor monument.”

“ ‘The Distant Hills’ will keep her alive forever,” Bramble said, but he shook his head.

“I should have put her name into it.
Then
she would have lived forever.” He paused. “Strange. I put all those memories aside, but talking with you has brought back
all the pain.”

“It’s the same pain the ghosts are feeling. Just as fresh.” He looked at her with surprise, but she was angry again, at the
way people talked themselves out of guilt. “You’re a good man, Baluch, but you killed a lot of people in your day. Acton has
taken responsibility for that. Time you did, too.”

She pushed herself to her feet and walked out of the circle of boulders, feeling the salt spray on her face and hands. The
wind was building again, clouds scudding across the sky, waves smashing into the cliff. She walked to the edge and peered
down. The rollers were crashing against the sheer rock, sending spray shooting up and over the cliff face. Bramble grinned,
tilting her head back to the sky and letting the spray coat her face and neck, letting the wind whip her hair out of its tie.
Her spirits rose. Too much talk. She wished she were back in the forest again with her hunter, but this rampant display would
do. Wind, water, stone. The things that lasted. The same as they were a thousand years ago.

She took comfort from that; the land, at least, would remain no matter what the enchanter did.

After a while she turned and went back to Baluch, whom she found watching her, standing, leaning on one of the boulders as
if he’d been there a long time.

She was wet from sea spray, but she didn’t care.

“I can see why he looks at you the way he does,” Baluch said. Her heart skipped a beat with sudden longing to see Acton again,
even as a ghost. To see how he looked at her. To see that berserker grin he gave just before he did something outrageous.
The hollow under her ribs was enormous. She felt like a shell around thin air, as light and empty as an egg whose hatchling
has flown away.

As the sun showed its first edge, Baluch began to sing. His voice was much better than Ash’s — more trained, more controlled
— and the song rose like a bird song, like water flowing. Bramble hung her head and yearned for Acton, feeding all her longing
into the music. It was harder than with Ash, which surprised her, because she wasn’t revealing anything this time that Baluch
didn’t already know. But she and Ash had been attuned, and she and Baluch were not, exactly. Perhaps it was the missing brooch.
Perhaps it was the place, so far from where he met his death.

She remembered being Baluch, being inside his head, inside his music, and felt the connection between them grow stronger.

Come back
, she sent to Acton.
We need you. I need you
.

But she could tell, even before Baluch’s voice faltered to a stop, before she lifted her head, that he had not come.

S
AKER WOKE
and looked out the window to the east. A day’s march to Turvite. Perhaps two. The road curved and looped between low hills,
following the path of the river. There were well-built villages along the way, smaller streams with bridges over them, large
inns next to docks on the river, all the marks of prosperity.

He ran his fingers over the rim of the wash basin. He had to make sure that, when the spoils of war were distributed, it was
done fairly. His people had had everything taken from them: they should receive everything equally.

But that might be difficult, sometimes. There were not so many ceramic basins of this quality… Who should get this level
of goods?

Better to smash the luxuries and start even than have disputes about mere things, Saker resolved. Or else inequality would
be built into the foundation of their new world, and he would not let that happen.

The yard below was seething with ghosts. They had finished their morning blood ceremony. Saker had decided to let Owl and
his father just do it. He tried not to admit to himself that he was relieved not to have to use the knife on another person
— it was not because of that, not at all. It was because he was finding it increasingly harder to avoid reacting to the terrible
whining of the spirits of those they had killed. With each sacrifice, the sound grew louder, though no one else could hear
it. Each dawn and dusk, the distorted shapes crowded his vision more and more, writhing towards him against an invisible barrier.
He had nightmares about what would happen if that barrier ever broke, and he shuddered.

In a corner of the yard, the wind wraiths devoured the remains of the sacrifice. Saker turned away from the sight. Better
to avoid the whole ceremony, lest he break down in front of his army.

They had organised themselves into groups for the march: ghosts first, human allies behind them. It was time he went down.

As he came out of the house into the bright glare of the dawn sun, the lead wraith flew to him like a scrap of cloud and hovered.

“Master,” it said. “Today you go to the city of the woman.”

“The woman?”

The wraith shivered. “The enchanter who made the compact, long ago. The compact is strong, there. Too strong for us to follow
you, unless you break the walls and invite us in. Can you?”

Saker felt his spirits rise. At last, a battle without the horrific shrieking of the wraiths. “I will try,” he said graciously.

“Call us and we will come.” The wraith shot up in the air and was joined by his companions, until they were no more than specks
in the sky, and then were gone.

Saker looked down, his eyes blinded by the morning light, and he noticed a woman walk through the gate into the yard. She
stood for a moment, staring at the ghosts, and then she shrugged and came in. A black-haired woman, young, with the grace
of an acrobat. Saker realised he was staring, and flushed.

It had been longer than he could remember since he had looked at any woman that way.

She asked a question of one of the living, and made her way over to him. He could see that she had cried a lot, recently.
His heart contracted a little with pity.

“My name’s Zel,” she said. “My brer was killed by Thegan at Sendat.”

She has come to reproach me, Saker thought immediately. And she is right — I am responsible for those deaths.