Full Circle (48 page)

Saker had no sense of the passage of time, just of his growing weariness. The layer they had given him was the most damaged.
Part of him resented it, but the part Freite had trained recognised that they were not suited — not strong in the right way
— to knit the fabric of earth together into the spell. Each of the others, he could sense, was connected to something else,
something greater than themselves. When he Saw Martine, she was surrounded by a nimbus of fire; Ash had a melody of running
water twined around his spell song; Safred, a strangely empty presence, was a vessel, a pathway, for the power of the gods.
They were here, through her, and Saker realised that they had inspired the compact in the beginning, had given their strength
to the first compact spell, as they were giving Safred strength now. But the gods were not sending all their strength this
time. Their attention was elsewhere.

The four of them sent their song out across the compact to the very edges of the Domains. They sang until their throats were
raw, until none could draw more power from anywhere; and the fissures closed, slowly, until the world was whole again.

Finally, finally, Ash let his hand go and Saker opened his eyes.

T
HE WIND
wraiths were disappearing, fleeing out to sea like tatters of mist before a gale. The waters of the stream were clear again.
The fire wraiths had risen from the harbour in a ball like a second sun and now were gone. The ground no longer trembled beneath
her feet.

They were safe.

Martine dropped Ash’s hand and stood for a moment with him, coming back to the here and now. Saker stood dazed, hands at his
sides. He seemed younger than he had, and much weaker, swaying with exhaustion. Safred merely looked pale.

“Horst,” Thegan said softly. Martine turned to catch the warlord whispering to his archer. Thegan nodded towards Saker.

“My lord,” Horst said urgently, “we need him alive! The Well of Secrets said —”

“Do what you are told,” Thegan replied quietly.

Horst looked down at the bow in his hand, then up where the wind wraiths were scudding away across the sky, and his brows
twitched. His eyes met Ash’s, and Ash shook his head, pleadingly. Horst’s hand opened, slowly, and the bow fell to the ground.

“You will obey me!” Thegan drew back his hand and felled Horst with one blow. Sorn’s Leof tried to catch him but had been
too far away; Horst came down against one of the many small boulders that dotted the headland.

Something woke in Martine’s mind. Not Sight but the memory of Sight. The vision she had had when she was a girl, which Alder
had beaten her for. The destruction of Cliffhaven by a warlord’s men. By
this
man. He was much older, two decades older, but surely it was him.

She burned inside. This man had killed everyone she had ever loved. Her parents, Elva’s parents, her brother, aunties, uncles,
cousins… Everyone was gone when she had returned, and strangers lived in her dearest places. She was dizzy with rage
and a grief that felt new-minted.

Leof knelt next to Horst and held his shoulders up. He was bleeding heavily from the nose and ears. Ash came and knelt next
to them.

“You were right,” Horst whispered to them both. “Shouldn’t have trusted him.” Then his head fell back and blood bubbled out
of his ears.

Leof eased him back down to the ground. Another one of Thegan’s sergeants arranged his sprawled limbs neatly, smoothing his
hair down with a shaking hand.

“He won’t obey you again, Thegan,” Ash said bitterly. “Not ever.”

Saker stepped forward. He held his hand above Horst’s body and concentrated.

“This man was of our blood, too, although his blood was thin,” he said. “Arise, sergeant.”

Horst’s ghost rose, hands empty. He stared at Thegan and moved to stand near Leof and Sorn. Saker turned slowly towards the
parley group.

Now, Martine thought. If he can be swayed, it’s now. She pushed Ash in the back and he took a step forward, put a hand out
to Saker.

“There is something you don’t know,” he said. He held out his pouch of stones. “There is a new stone in the bag.”

“What?” Saker said, thrown off his course. “New?”

“Evenness.” Ash fished in the bag and brought out a small black stone. It was singing, a high simple song that Martine had
never heard from any other stone. A single note, but with overtones and harmonies wreathed around it. It looked so innocent,
lying there in his hand, she thought. How could it change anything?

“Change the stones, change the world,” Saker whispered, staring at it.

Martine was aware that they were all staring at the new stone, ghosts and warlords and soldiers and councillors. The whole
world seemed to be staring at Ash’s hand, where the future lay.

“You’re a stonecaster,” Ash said, indicating the pouch at Saker’s waist. “Can’t you hear it sing?”

It was singing more loudly, and the other stones in his pouch sang, too. Saker nodded slowly, eyes fixed on the stone. “Evenness,”
he said. “It sings of fairness. Balance. Justice.”

“Yes,” Ash said. “Balance.” He hesitated. “You were right — it is time for the world to change. But Balance needs
two
sides, not one. Acton’s people as well as Travellers.”

“Equal,” Saker said. He raised burning eyes to Ash, as though the stone had sung him a vision of the future. “Balance means
both sides equal.”

They looked at each other carefully, and Martine was struck by their similarities: same age, height, powers. What could have
pushed Saker to the extremes he had taken? She was filled with pride for Ash — he had said exactly the right things, exactly
the right way, and now the world was about to change.

Saker turned slowly and faced the parley group.

“What do you want?” Ranny asked.

“Justice,” Saker said. “Equality.” He paused, as if thinking through something new to him. “All the laws that push my people
into the dirt. The Generation Laws. The laws against owning property. The laws against Travellers being on town councils,
or being village voices. The laws must be repealed!”

Saker’s army started banging their weapons against each other in support. Flax’s group joined in. Only Thegan and his soldiers
stayed still.

Even Bramble was stamping now. Martine and Ash joined in, too. Saker was right about this, at least. The laws should change.
She watched the warlords. They didn’t look happy. Except Arvid. She smiled involuntarily. He had nothing to be ashamed of.

“We have no such laws,” Arvid said to Saker.

“The laws will be repealed in Central Domain,” Sorn said, in her soft voice. Thegan stepped forward but she stared up at him
reprovingly. “They are not just, those laws, and should never have been made.”

He stared back at her for a long moment, then turned aside, his fists clenched.

“I’ll repeal the laws,” Merroc said. “We all will.” He looked around, and each warlord nodded, some more readily than others.

“Our land,” Saker said, but his voice no longer had the flat tone of obsession, as it had before.

Martine’s gaze shifted to a ghost dressed in the ancient style, who moved from behind Saker to Ash’s side.

“Speak,” Ash said readily, with a flick of a glance at Bramble. Martine realised that this was Acton.
Acton
. They had done it, then. She felt dazed, staring at him. Acton, the invader.

“
Enough
land,” he said in the grating voice of the dead. “This country was not fully settled when we came, but there were villages
and towns. Give enough back to settle all who wish to be settled.”

He hadn’t identified himself. Why? The warlords looked at him closely. Thegan’s eyes narrowed, as if assessing his identity,
but Martine could see they never suspected who he truly was.

“I suppose,” Merroc said grudgingly, “we could give you land — enough land to support you.”

“Two or three villages in each Domain,” Coeuf said, nodding. “Safe havens for you and your kind.”

“Good land,” Acton put in. “Productive. From the warlords’ own estates. Mixed in with everyone else, not fenced off, and separate.”

He was enjoying this, Martine saw. Enjoying the game, enjoying hiding who he was, enjoying challenging the warlords. She saw
him exchange a smile with Bramble and felt a sudden shock. Sympathy for Bramble overwhelmed her. It was hard enough to love
a living warlord, but to love the dead… Martine shivered, imagining Arvid dead. She looked up to find him staring at
her, his hazel eyes intent on her face, as though he saw something new there. She could feel her expression soften as she
met his gaze, despite herself, and his whole face responded. It was only a moment, and then he turned back, but Martine knew
that they had crossed some boundary and were in new territory. Love.

“Two villages in Central Domain,” Thegan said, in the tone of one who had no choice, “and two in Cliff Domain. In good farming
country. Your people will be safe there. You have my word.”

Rage erupted through her. How dare he promise safety and deal only in treachery.

Saker had been looking at the ground, but at Thegan’s words he looked up, a rage burning in him, too. “ ‘You have my word’?”
he spat. “There were two villages of the old blood in Cliff Domain twenty-three years ago. Warlord’s men destroyed them!”

Martine stepped forward, heart pounding, and pointed at Thegan, her whole arm extended so that even those at the back could
see. “
You
destroyed them!”

Thegan simply nodded. “It was necessary,” he said. He turned to the warlords. “The Ice King was gathering his troops, but
I couldn’t convince my father that we had to do the same. I
knew
he was going to attack. We had to prepare. So I sacrificed a couple of Traveller villages. I let my father believe the Ice
King had attacked them, and he threw everything we had into preparation. And the next year, the king tried to invade. If we
hadn’t been prepared, the entire Eleven Domains might have been destroyed!”

The other warlords listened with suspicious eyes but nodded slightly, as if to say that they understood.

Martine was full of rage and grief, and Saker’s face showed the same mix of emotions. The big ghost next to him was incandescent
with fury. He was shouting, shouting and screaming silently with anger. She recognised him, finally. Alder. Of course. The
Voice.

“There was a Saker, a young boy, the son of the Voice in Cliffhaven…” she whispered. “I was from Cliffhaven.” Saker looked
at her, startled. She stared into his eyes. “Saker, son of Alder —” she flicked a glance at his father — “I am Martine, daughter
of Swift and Stickleback. I was away from Cliffhaven when…”

Saker swallowed visibly, his face a mixture of joy at finding her and anger at Thegan. He turned back to Thegan. “I was from
Cliffhaven. Your men missed me!”

Martine’s heart was skipping beats. Saker was Elva’s cousin — Alder had been Elva’s grandmother’s brother.

“All this,” Saker said, arms spread wide to encompass the whole ghost army, “is
your
doing.”

As though that had been a signal, Alder charged forward, sword raised like a club.

Martine heard a sudden high buzzing, a terrible scraping like fingernails down glass, like an animal in unbearable pain. It
split through her skull and she dropped to her knees with the force of it. Ash was holding his head, too, and Bramble was
swaying as if dizzy. Saker staggered a few steps, his face chalk white.

Everyone else was stunned into immobility. Except Leof. He ran forward followed by one of Thegan’s sergeants, but Alder simply
shouldered them aside and brought down his sword.

The blow was blocked, not by Thegan, but by Acton. Alder snarled and swung again, intent on getting to Thegan. What happened
next was too fast for Martine to follow, but in a moment Alder was on the ground, his face in the dirt, and Acton’s boot was
on his back, his hands holding both swords.

The whining stopped. Martine climbed back to her feet slowly, head still ringing. Safred had fainted, and Sorn was ministering
to her.

Alder bucked and threshed on the ground under Acton’s foot, with Acton staring down at him with pity. Bramble, her face pale,
squatted next to his head.

“You can’t win, Alder,” she said. “That’s Acton.”

A
LDER LAY
still.

Saker looked at the ghost who had so easily vanquished his father. Knowledge of his identity wiped out any thought of the
screaming from beyond the grave which had erupted when his father lifted his sword.

Acton. Evil incarnate. Invader. He moved only to defend his own, the warlord Thegan. He was dead, Saker reminded himself;
Acton could not be killed again. His own tongue swelled in his mouth with rage, gagging him.

Acton moved back, slowly, and Alder got up and faced him, his shoulders hunched and wary. He was frightened.

Frightened. Saker had never seen his father frightened before. Come to that, he’d never seen anyone burlier than his father.
Or better able to fight — although, now that he thought of it, Alder never had fought, except as a ghost, when he could not
be hurt. His size meant that he only needed to threaten; and he was good at threats.

As though he saw him for the first time, Saker looked at his father. At the fear in his eyes, the servile tilt to the shoulders.
He remembered Martine, now. She was the young woman his father had beaten so badly that her whole family had refused to ever
speak to Alder again. His father, a beater of women. A coward in front of a stronger man. A bully.

His heart began to beat in long, slow strokes, and he cast around for Zel. Her clear eyes would help him understand all this.
She was standing next to her brother, but her gaze was stony on Thegan. Something else they shared, Saker thought. Thegan
had killed both their families.

Thegan bowed to Acton, his eyes wide. “My thanks, my lord,” he said. Saker thought, now is the proof. The invader will clasp
the murderer in his arms and praise him. Acton looked him up and down. Every warlord there, every warlord’s officer, every
attendant and council member, waited for his response.