Full Circle (51 page)

Saker felt emptied, calmer than he had ever felt in his whole life. Listening to the stories had changed him, shown him how
much he shared with others. He was not a freak, an outcast. The stories had changed everyone there — he had seen it in their
faces. Everyone except Lord Thegan. And his father. They were the same, Saker thought, men who saw others only as servants
or enemies. He couldn’t be angry with his father; but he could pity him. And he could control him.

“I raised you, Alder, son of Snipe, and I can cast you back into the darkness beyond death,” he said.

“Hah!” Alder said. “Try it.”

Saker cast a quick look at the sky, which was already lightening, the short summer night almost over.

“Alder, son of Snipe!” he called. “I seek justice. I seek balance. And in their name, I banish you to the darkness you came
from.”

His father turned, livid, his bull shoulders pulled up and his fists clenched, ready to strike Saker down as he had many time
before.

Saker held out his own hand, palm up. “I strike you still!” he cried, a spell he had seen Freite use but never tried himself
before.

Alder slowed and stopped like a man caught in treacle, then gathered his strength and tried to forge on against the spell.

His will against his father’s. For a moment, Saker faltered. Then Zel came to his side, and Martine to his other like a mother,
like his own mother whom she looked so much like.

He firmed his voice. “Alder, I cast you out — I cast you out of this company, into the arms of Lady Death!”

His father’s ghost faded and was gone.

Now
, Saker thought, the others can go on to rebirth. He took a long breath and looked around, waiting for the circle of ghosts
to fade with the morning light.

But they did not.

The shapes at the corners of his eyes grew wilder and stronger.

T
HE SOUL
eaters’ constant whine was now an agonising shriek. Around them, others were beginning to hear it. Merroc and Ranny looked
around as if searching for its origin. The ghosts moved uneasily and formed small groups again, instead of the united mass
they had been.

“Something’s wrong,” Bramble said, barely able to see anything beyond the twisting shapes that blurred her vision. “The ghosts
have to fade, and soon, or the barrier will breach. Safred, can you ask the gods?”

Safred’s eyes glazed, as they had seen her do so many times before. This time, she shook her head. “They are not there. There
is no space in me for them any more. I am filled.” She paused, as if trying to decide whether she was glad or hurt, and then
seemed to choose. “I will never hear them again,” she said contentedly.

Bramble reached for the gods in her head, but they were so very far away, too far to hear clearly. “Can you cast, Martine?”
she asked.

Saker came up and reluctantly she moved back to let him join their circle. She had hated him for so long… she could kill
him now, and the ghosts would fade. This was her chance to take revenge, in a righteous cause. She drew her knife and looked
across at Acton. He was staring at Saker with a deep compassion, and somehow that allowed her to let go of anger. Pity for
Saker flowed through her, and a bemused understanding. She slid her belt knife back into its sheath, and the movement was
like a sigh.

“I think,” he said hesitantly, looking at the ground instead of meeting their eyes, “that they have lost their way. They are
ready to go, but they don’t know how. The spell has cut them off from the darkness beyond death, and they need to find a way
back.”

“Perhaps the soul eaters are concealing the way,” she said slowly.

Saker blanched and looked wildly around at the twisting shapes. “Soul eaters?” His hands shook. “What have I done?”

“If you could banish me the way you did your father, could they follow me?” Acton asked.

“I don’t think so. I sent him back to where he had been — which was not on the path to rebirth.” The words came haltingly.

Then Maryrose came towards them, and they moved back to give her room. She looked at Ash.

“Say what you wish to say,” he said.

“The door to rebirth opens at death,” she said. “I have seen it, and did not go through. But if someone were to die and go
through, we could follow, I think.”

“Is that my job?” Saker asked. “To die? I could do that, I think.”

That felt almost right to Bramble, but not quite. It was too easy, somehow.

“Ash,” Martine said, “remember that song you sang us, in Hidden Valley, about the prey?”

Ash said the words aloud:

The gods’ own prey is galloping, is riding up the hill

Her hands are wet with blood and tears and dread

She is rearing on the summit and her banner floats out still

Now the killer’s hands must gather in the dead.

“The gods’ own prey,” Bramble said, thinking of Sebbi, speared upon the Ice King a thousand years ago. It was hard to think
clearly, the noise was growing so loud. “That’s me. The prey is the Kill, and I’m the Kill.”

“The Kill Reborn,” Martine said. “Are you ready to die?”

“I’ve died twice already — third time counts for all.”

She wanted to laugh aloud. If she had any Sight — and she still wasn’t sure about that — it was telling her loud and certain
sure that this was the right thing to do. Acton looked at her sadly, but she smiled back with relief. No need to kill anyone.
No need for anyone else to die.

The shapes grew stronger and across the plateau exclamations came thick and fast.

Swords were drawn and swiped at thin air, people tried to bat the shapes away from them, Friede picked up her crutch, swung
it wildly and then stood stone still, realising she was hitting out at nothing solid. But the shapes grew stronger, fuller,
as though they were drawing strength from the reactions. From the fear.

Bramble looked with blurred eyes at the shapes twisting just beyond death. “Now you won’t have to wait at all for me,” she
said to Acton. “We can be reborn together, right now. And after all this, the gods owe us a good life!”

He laughed.

“I had a good life,” he said. “But one with you will be better!”

Everyone else was solemn, but Bramble was filled with elation. She knelt and fished out the red scarf from her saddlebags,
then hunted in the crowd of ghosts until she found a woman with a lance. She borrowed it and tied the scarf to the tip as
it was in the Spring Chase.

It was almost sunrise. The grey light before dawn showed them all clearly: the warlords and their men, the Turviters, the
wide circle of ghosts bedabbed with Baluch’s blood. Bramble met the eyes of those she had known and nodded.

She stood holding the lance, ready — but something was missing.

“Wait,” Martine said, her eyes blank with Sight. “Someone is coming.”

Someone on horseback, galloping. Bramble could hear the hoofbeats, growing louder. They seemed, impossibly, to come from across
the river. Closer now, but no horse in sight. Her heart started to beat in rhythm. She dropped the lance. As the sound seemed
to pass through the circle of ghosts, a figure condensed out of the air, a figure that she knew, of course, who else? A gift
from the gods — or may be he’d just decided to come back himself.

He came straight to her, trotting, his roan hide gleaming, his wise eyes welcoming her. She ran to him and threw her arms
around his cold neck, until he butted her side and whinnied. Then she pulled back and looked him in the eye.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

He butted her again, but this time impatiently, as if she were wasting time, so she swung up onto his back. He had only the
old blanket she had used in Wooding. No saddle, no bridle, no bit. Her heart was singing. Acton came over to them and handed
her the lance, the red scarf beginning to stir in the wind before dawn.

Then she touched the roan’s neck and brought him over to Maryrose.

“Come up?” she asked, reaching a hand down. Maryrose eyed the horse dubiously, but grasped her hand. Acton helped her to mount
behind Bramble, then stood with one hand on the roan’s shoulder. Merrick came forward to stand at his other shoulder.

“What are you going to do?” Ash asked.

She looked up to where the cliff ended abruptly, far above the waves. “He’s a jumper,” she said. “We’re going to jump.”

Their faces were so solemn, she wanted to laugh, but she could feel tears prick her eyelids, too. Each of them, in turn, touched
her leg in farewell: Ash, Martine, Safred, Leof, Sorn.

Even Saker. “Thank you,” he said.

The twisting shapes were moving faster, the gestures clearer, more violent, the shrieking louder; those who could hear it
clearly dropped to the ground clutching their heads, and others clapped hands uselessly to their ears.

They were trying to frighten her, she realised. Her death would only mend the Domains if she were not frightened. If she feared
as she died, it would open the door to them, and they would burst into this world to destroy, a greater plague than ever the
wind wraiths could be, because all of life was their enemy.

Then she let herself smile, the familiar pleasure she always felt before a chase rushing through her. She had never been on
good terms with fear, and she wasn’t going to start now, not with her love running beside her, not with the jump of her life
before her.

She raised the lance above her head and the ghosts fell in behind her, Cael and Owl at their head.

She clicked her tongue to the roan.

He moved forward, gathering speed, cantering up the hill into the morning sun. Maryrose held on tightly. In the last yards
he sped into a gallop and launched himself as he had from the edge of the chasm in Wooding, that vast, impossible leap that
felt so much like flying. They went up into a fractured world of light and air, the red scarf streaming out behind her, and
they were poised for a moment in space, waves beneath them, white water and cliffs beckoning, and she laughed as they fell.

A
SH’S BREATH
caught in his throat when he saw them outlined like shadows against the rising sun, and then saw the shadows fade in mid-air,
dissipating as a water sprite shreds itself on the wind.

The rest of the ghost army followed, Cael leading the way, Flax and Zel next, more and more, faster and faster, as those behind
realised what was happening and became urgent to move, to jump, to be released.

None of them looked back.

As each one jumped and faded, the shrill threat from the soul eaters grew a little less, the shapes moving across his vision
retreating.

They were gone by the time the sun was fully up, ghosts and soul eaters alike, and Ash slowly became aware of the normal sounds
of the headland. Cows lowed somewhere, waiting to be milked. The sea washed the rocks below. The dawn breeze wuthered gently
through the rocks.

Ash looked around the headland, at the weapons discarded by the ghosts lying like a tribute pile around Baluch, at the humans
left there. As he turned, he saw that they were surrounded by people: not just the parley group, but many more Turviters,
and others, people who’d been on the Road by the look of them. The folk from the countryside who had run to Turvite for protection
had finally arrived, including his parents. Rowan and Swallow walked towards him, smiling. He walked towards them stiffly,
knowing that if he tried to run he’d fall down. His mother said his name, and there was a sob in the word, as if she’d been
afraid for him. He fell into their embrace, exhausted but happy.

He turned to beckon Martine over, and saw that she was facing down a squad of the Moot staff from Turvite who wanted to arrest
Saker. Saker wasn’t resisting, but Martine held up a hand.

“Wait,” she said. She took Saker and led him towards the cliff. Was she going to give him the option of jumping off? That
didn’t seem like her.

The crowd started shouting curses and threats at Saker.

Arvid walked towards them, looking troubled. Ash agreed with him. Saker had to be arrested. Of course. It was a waste, in
a way, but… the River spoke sharply to him, more reprovingly than he had ever heard her.

We do not approve of waste
, She said.

The ground around Saker’s feet began to churn, just as the ground around the altar had churned.

“Martine!” Ash called, and raced towards her. She jumped back and took a few steps down the slope, but Saker stood still,
staring at the earth without understanding. He looked so tired it was a miracle he was standing at all.

Then the delvers burst from the earth and surrounded him.

The crowd was silent. Some were running away, others were praying. Ranny, to Ash’s admiration, walked forward. She stood next
to Ash and Martine. Safred joined them, looking helpless.

“I can’t stop them,” she called to Saker apologetically.

He will be taken for healing
, the River said to Ash.
And punishment
.

Then the ground flew up around Saker and he and the delvers disappeared, just as the altar had disappeared, as Cael had, leaving
only ploughed earth behind.

Ash cleared his throat and turned to the crowd.

“He has been taken for punishment,” he said. After a moment’s silence, the crowd started cheering. It made Ash feel sick,
which was stupid. These people had lost everything because of Saker, he told himself. Of course they want him punished. But
he remembered the inhuman power that had destroyed the Weeping Caverns, and the cold, beautiful eyes of the water spirits,
and shivered.

Sorn stepped forward and held up a hand and the crowd quieted, curious.

“Before witnesses on this last night, the spirit of Acton proclaimed that he had intended this land to be ruled by councils,
not by warlords.” She let the stir in the crowd die down before she went on, eyeing Thegan. “It is my purpose, as Lady of
the Central Domain, to honour his wishes. The warlords’ council is met here already. I suggest that it be made permanent,
so that the Eleven Domains can become truly united, and that each Domain establish an advisory council such as exists already
in the Last Domain, similar to the councils in the free towns. What say you?”