Full Circle (49 page)

Acton mimed spitting in the dust at Thegan’s feet, and moved away.

Thegan paled.

“Speak,” Ash said to Acton, with some satisfaction.

But Acton ignored Thegan and turned to Alder and Saker. “The dead should not kill the living,” he said.

“Who heard them?” Safred asked, leaning on Sorn for support. “Who heard the crying from beyond death?”

Martine raised her hand. Then Ash, Bramble. Saker, finally, raised his own, and then others in the crowd of ghosts followed
him. There weren’t many — perhaps one in a hundred. Saker remembered the other times he had heard that sound: when he had
raised the ghosts. It had started after the first battle at Spritford, he realised. After the dead had first killed the living.

He had thought it was the spirits of those he had killed shrieking for revenge. But… they were here. He had raised them
all, and they stood before him. Who was it, then? Who was calling from beyond the burial caves?

The last sunlight disappeared, and they were left in the grey light of dusk.

Safred broke the silence, speaking to Martine and Ash. “We will deal with that later, I think,” she said.

Safred turned back to him from the crowd. “Acton is here,” she said, “to make reparation. Just as at a quickening. To acknowledge
the wrongs that have been done in his name, and to offer sorrow for those wrongs.”

A susurration went around the ghosts. Then one began to gently stamp her feet in approval. It was taken up immediately by
the other ghosts, of both sides, so that they were surrounded by a circle of noise, so many ghosts stepping together that
the rhythmic tread made the ground shake.

“Wait!” Saker cried. He flung up his hands, palms out, to quieten them. Gradually, the stamping died away. “Yes!” he said.
“The warlord should acknowledge what was done. But I have acted to safeguard the future of your descendants. It’s still undecided
where they are to go.”

“They’re welcome in the Last Domain,” Arvid offered.

Saker nodded to him, then addressed the ghosts: “Do you wish your descendants to live in the Last Domain, safe?”

Many of the ghosts began to stamp again, but Zel came forward, hotly. “No! That means they’ve finally won. They’ve got rid
of us altogether!” She turned to Saker. “Can’t you make another spell? Let them —” she pointed at the warlords, “let them
change the laws and give us land, and you put a spell on them so that if they break their word and hurt us, the ghosts will
rise again?”

Saker was uncertain. That was a very complex spell, and would he be left in peace to make it? He doubted that. He hesitated.
“We cannot trust any warlord after what
he
did,” he said, pointing at Thegan.

“But Thegan is no longer lord of Central Domain,” Sorn said clearly. “I have renounced him, since he cannot give me heirs.”

Thegan started towards her but Acton intercepted him and two of the other warlords moved to flank her, staring Thegan down.
One of them, the younger one, smiled, and Saker saw a sudden resemblance to Thegan. Was this Gabra, his son, who held Cliff
Domain for him?

“And I,” Gabra said, “have discovered my true father is Masry, past warlord of Cliff Domain, and I will hold that Domain as
his only son.” He paused, as Thegan stared at him, face showing nothing. “Travellers will be safe in my Domain. The villages
of Cliffhaven will be given back to them, complete, as they were taken, and the laws will be repealed.”

Saker smiled at his father. Their villages regained! But his father only scowled at him and Saker realised, as if for the
first time, that nothing would satisfy Alder but death, and more death. That he was so angry about his own death that he would
kill the entire world. He thought, Father has never looked for others from Cliffhaven. Never tried to find out what happened
to the others. Only him.

Thegan stood very still, and smiled at both Sorn and Gabra, as if at children, then turned to the other warlords. “These things,”
he said, “are not to be decided here. Do you want this man to hold you ransom? To threaten that if you do not treat his people
well enough, he will raise another army? How well is ‘well enough’? If one of them gets a stubbed toe because your roads are
not smooth enough for them, will he blame you?”

They were frowning. Oh, he was so persuasive. So
reasonable
. Saker could see them listening to him, but didn’t know what to say to make them realise that they were listening to one
of the soul eaters in human flesh.

Then Ash stepped forward. “Right here, right now, we have seen this man strike down an innocent man,” he said loudly. “Is
this someone who should be
listened
to?”

The ghosts stamped their approval.

“Who are you to ask?” Thegan hissed.

Ash looked him straight in the eye. “I am the one who raised Acton’s ghost. I am the one who allows him to speak. Don’t you
think it’s time we heard from the real Lord of War?” The ghosts pounded their feet; the ground trembled. “Speak, Acton,” Ash
said. He looked around the waiting circle. “And remember, the dead cannot lie.”

Acton turned, slowly, giving each ghost in the circle a chance to look at him. The moon was coming up, and it painted him
silver, quicksilver.

“I am Acton, Lord of War,” he announced in the ancient language, but in the same voice his father and Safred and Ash had used.
The voice of the dead. The voice of power. A rustle went through the crowd. “But I am
not
a warlord!” Then he repeated himself in the common tongue. This time, there were exclamations from the parley group.

They gave way to a silence so intense that Saker felt the rocks themselves were listening.

“I opposed the warlord system,” Acton proclaimed, first in one language, and then in the other. “I wanted everything to be
run by councils, as it was in Turvite. And that is why they killed me, and hid my bones.”

Saker was dumbstruck. That couldn’t be true. But Ash said the dead couldn’t lie. The ghosts stared, openmouthed; the warlords
listened, their cheeks blanched, seeing their world crumbling. Ranny and the other Turvite councillors smiled.

But Owl came forward and shook his sword in Acton’s face, and spat on the ground at his feet.

Acton’s face changed, from challenge to compassion. “Yes,” he said gently, in the old language. “I led the invasion. And I
killed.” He turned to the ghosts. “I am your killer. Lo, I proclaim it: it was I who took your lives from you. I am here to
offer reparation — blood for blood.” He repeated it so everyone would understand.

“You have no blood to offer,” Thegan said.

Acton turned slowly to look at him. Thegan backed a pace.

“If
you
had not destroyed Saker’s village, Thegan,” Safred said, “none of this would have happened. It seems to me that it is up
to you to offer blood for blood.”

Saker couldn’t take in what Acton had said. Not responsible for the warlords? Did it make any difference? He’d said he
was
responsible for the invasion. Who was to blame? Who was
really
to blame? Saker spoke as if he were in a dream: “The blood must be offered freely.”

“I offer nothing,” Thegan said. “Anything you get from me you must take.”

I will take it willingly, Saker thought. This was one sacrifice he was happy to cut himself. Only the past knew who was responsible
for the warlord system. But Thegan, he knew for certain, was the killer of all he had held dear. He took a step forward and
Thegan bent, whipped a knife from his boot and struck out at him. Lightning fast, lightning sharp. One of the officers lunged,
Ash took a quick step and drew his own knife, but they were too late. As Thegan moved on him, Zel threw herself between them
with a tumbler’s litheness and the blade meant for Saker’s heart sliced into Zel’s neck. The two men each grabbed one of Thegan’s
arms, but he did not fight them. He simply turned his head to the blond officer and said, “You fool. You could have killed
him more easily than I, and this would be over.”

Saker made a wordless sound, feeling as if the knife had cut his heart open. He caught Zel as she fell, her blood pumping
out in spurts from the wound. Safred came to stand next to them then, as if compelled, she sank down to her knees and placed
her hand on Zel’s chest. Saker looked up in sudden hope, but Safred shook her head. Zel’s brother had dropped to the ground
and buried his face in his hands.

Zel’s blood slowed, and stopped. It was fast, Saker thought, fast and painless, and he clung to the thought to stop the tears,
which were hard in his throat, from bursting out.

Saker lowered Zel gently to the ground and stood up, his eyes blank. His hand were stained red and he stared at them, then
raised both so that he could smear his forehead and cheeks with streaks of her blood, willing her to rise and join him, willing
it as he had never willed anything before.

She rose instantly and stood beside him, smiling at Thegan.

“This crime was committed on Turvite soil,” Ranny said, hurrying her words to forestall him. “He will be punished. Hanged.”

Saker turned his gaze towards her, not able to think, barely able to feel. He took Zel’s cold hand and looked at Acton. “Blood
is not enough,” he said. He could hear that his voice was the voice of madness: flat, emotionless, empty. “You do not know
how much pain you have caused. You offer blood, but you do not offer sorrow.” He swung his hand in a wide arc and his heart
seemed to swell in his chest. He felt as if he were going to die, and he welcomed the feeling. He wanted to die. Wanted to
join her. Every ghost here had felt like that, had suffered as he was suffering. “Look at them!” he whispered. The silence
was so intense that the words reached the whole plateau. “Look at them. Each of them was hurt. Each of them died. Each of
them grieved.” His voice gradually took on feeling, each sentence louder and darker. Anger was building in him, as thunder
builds before a storm. He let it loose: “You cannot ask forgiveness when you do not know the evil you have done!”

He whirled on Ash, clutching him by the shoulders. “Make them speak!” he pleaded. “Make them all speak! Let them tell the
true story of what has been done. Let it all be remembered.”

The ghosts were listening hard. Saker let Ash go and went into the middle of the circle, turning so that he could see them
all.

“You must be heard!” he shouted. “You must be listened to! Your deaths were an evil which should never have happened, but
your stories can be told. Your stories can be
remembered
.”

The ghosts, hesitantly, stamped their approval.

“Come,” Saker said to Acton. “Come and hear.”

Acton walked to stand beside him, and Ash took a step forward. Ash, his first ever real ally.

“Speak,” Ash said quietly, fervently, turning on the spot so he could see every one of them. “Speak.”

As one, they opened their mouths and spoke, in the terrible voices of the dead.

T
HE NOISE
was so great, so huge, it sent Ash staggering to the ground. Saker, likewise, lost his footing. Acton held his arm to steady
him. The voices were stabbing into his head. This wasn’t what he had wanted; no one could hear anything in this.

“Quiet,” Ash called out.

The silence then was like the ringing after your ears have been boxed. Ash needed advice, and there was only one person who
could give it. Ash levered himself up and scanned the crowd for Doronit.

She saw him and came forward, smiling at him with malicious pleasure that he needed her.

“Doronit,” he said. “Do you know a way to give them back their voices?”

She indicated her own mouth, and Ash flushed. “Speak,” he said, expecting her to refuse to help him. But she was serious.

“All I know is what a wind wraith once told me,” she said. “To give them back their voices, you must find yours.”

“My voice
is
theirs,” Ash said, feeling stupid, as if he should see an answer in her words. But the thought had flung open a door in his
mind: Ash knew what to do, and it was something he could never have done before he met the River. He began to hum, the note
he and Baluch had used to summon the water in the cavern —
Her
note — and then to sing the single word “speak.”

He saw the others wince at the sound, and closed his eyes. This had nothing to do with them; and, in a way, nothing to do
with the River. The ghosts spoke with the voice of the dead because they had left behind all human contact, all links. They
were cold.

The way to his voice, to their voices, was through the simple warmth he could feel from Martine; the trust in Bramble’s eyes;
the memory of baby Ash sucking his finger on the day they had left Hidden Valley; Drema’s gift of the felt coat; Baluch’s
comradeship. Even the fellowship of drumming for his parents, the three of them united in music. And the River’s welcome,
the River’s acceptance.

He sang, thinking of these things, and felt a change in the sound, but it wasn’t enough. The words themselves had to be new,
he thought, as well as the voice. So instead of “speak” he began to craft a new song, a song about the most valuable thing
he knew in this world, the baby Ash. A song about new life. It wasn’t a song in the way his father’s songs were. It didn’t
tell a story. It didn’t have sentences. But into it he put all the words about life and love that he knew, from the three
languages the ghosts held between them: the language of the old blood, of the landtaken, and of his own time. He repeated,
mixed and merged the words over the notes and the music tied them together into something never heard before, never dreamt
of before, building in strength and sweetness and joy and the fear in the heart of love.

His voice changed.

It wasn’t trained, like his mother’s or Flax’s. It had cracks in it, and his breath control was terrible. But the notes rose
purely, a full tenor that carried to the furthest edge of the plateau. He began to include all the words for “speak” and “story”
he knew from the three languages, and he settled into a rhythm of calling, as the goatherds of the Sharp River call the goats
home at evening, their voices rising and falling on the evening air.