Silent Hall (7 page)

W
hen the sky turned dark
, Narky could not help himself. He ran, ran from the others, ran into the forest as if it could shield him. He did not even know why he ran, pointless as it was, but his unreasoning reasons were good enough for him. The sky blackened further, and he tripped and fell to his knees. Maybe the birds would content themselves with the others. Maybe they would forget him here.

He rose to his feet again, and ran some more. Where was the sun? Shouldn't some angry Sun God be coming to his rescue right about now? Why should Ravennis go after
him
like this? He knew no oracles, and had done nothing more to harm the God than to talk sarcastically to a bird. Still, he repented for that as he ran. If what the Gods wanted was repentance, They would have it. Gods, They would have it.

He tripped over roots and tore his way through brambles, but deep as he got into the forest, the darkness was always behind him. Behind and above. Behind and above, and coming closer. He repented for his callousness and his sarcasm. He repented for his rudeness to others. He repented for the murder, though he didn't see why Ravennis should particularly care about that. No, that was no good! He repented for the murder again, harder.

For a boy who had thought that getting killed by a mob was the worst thing that could happen to him, he was certainly having his eyes opened. The fear of that was nothing next to the primal, unreasoning fear of being torn to pieces by the Gods themselves. Or by Their messengers. Or by an Aspect of a God, or whatever they wanted to call it; it was beastly and horrifying. He ran, ran and wished that he could shed his skin, if it would let him run any faster.

“I'm sorry if I humiliated You,” he gasped as he ran. Or maybe he only thought it, but thought it so loudly that he could hear it in his skull.

I should have known what it was like. When they humiliated me, they laughed and stared and made me want to die. But when someone humiliates You in front of the other Gods, You actually do die, don't You? They sense Your weakness, and they kill You, sooner or later, unless You can prove Your strength. I'm so sorry. I'm so small and weak, and please, you don't need to kill me to prove Your strength. I'm so afraid, can that be enough? Please forgive me, I didn't mean any of it. I will never laugh at a friar again, or be sarcastic to a bird, or do anything to make You angry. Oh Ravennis, forgive me!

The air grew darker, darker than he knew it could be, and heavier. His chest burned and his limbs ached, but still he ran.

I'm sorry,
he thought,
sorry about the murder. I hated Ketch, but he didn't hate me. He thought I was nothing, just a rude nothing, and he was right. I didn't kill him on purpose, but I wanted to. I meant to. So what if it was a mistake? It was a mistake I wanted to make, or otherwise I wouldn't have taken the crossbow with me. Why did I need a crossbow? It's not like I thought Ketch would try to kill me, I just didn't want him to hit me again. To spank me, and make me feel like a stupid, weak child. I'm sorry. He didn't deserve to die, but I do.

Please, I repent! I know I deserve it, but I really, really don't want to die this way! Why can't I die an old fool in a bed, surrounded by foolish children? Oh, please let me die like that. What are another fifty years to you? Oh no, no, I'm sorry! I can't help thinking this way, I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry don't kill me please.

Could Ravennis hear him? Did the Gods only listen to prayers that were spoken over a sacrificial altar, with a bull's blood running down its sides? What wouldn't he have done to have an altar like that here in the forest! He would slaughter seven bulls and seven rams, and however many doves it took to feed a sky's worth of ravens. Bandu was so smart to have given her wolf to these ravens. Surely Ravennis would forgive
her
.

The darkness was closing in, he could feel it. The sound of millions of feathers, thousands of wings beating all at once. Every moment they were growing louder. Usually a flock of birds beat its wings in unison, but there was no unison in this, no pulse, just a chaotic roar of so many wings flapping as hard as they could. What was Ravennis a God of, other than ravens? Narky wished he could remember. Ravennis had a famous oracle, and crows were sacred to Him, and that was all the attention Narky had paid to the subject. Was He a God of mercy? No, Narky remembered now, He was the God of Fate. Cold and impersonal. Unavoidable, like the beaks and talons of so many birds. How long would it take them to tear all the flesh off his bones? It would happen much faster than Narky could repent for all his sins, that was for sure.

He was sorry for the disrespect he had shown his father, and for the dryness with which he had taken the news of his death. Of everyone's death, really. Eramia, and Tank, and the farmers and shepherds, the blacksmith and the fisherman's lads; even Mother and her ironmonger, who must also be hidden somewhere on the island with seawater in their lungs. Why had he not mourned them? Death was such a horrible thing; people needed to be pitied and mourned and forgiven, yes, forgiven! He forgave his mother, as well as he could. What had she ever done to him? Only left. She had not killed him, had not humiliated him on purpose, had never murdered anyone. She had only run off and tried to be happy. Surely she did not deserve to die for that! Why had he condemned her so quickly in his mind?

Any second now, any second. They were so close – they must be! But he was too afraid to turn his head and look.

Would he meet Mother again, in the afterlife? Would he have the chance to apologize for hating her so? Would he be able to apologize to Ketch? For the first time, he hoped so. He hoped he could apologize to his pa, for disrespecting him just like everyone else did, and to Eramia for misunderstanding her. She had never loved him, but she had never meant to lead him on. She was only being friendly, friendly! He had never had a friend before, and had not understood.

He should have been able to call the other refugees his friends by now, but he had never really been
their
friend. He thought they could become his friends, if he could stop being so rude to them all the time. Now it was too late though, wasn't it? People did not make friends in the afterlife, he was sure of that. They were too busy being dead.

What a wasted life! He wished he had more time to sort himself out. He could have been a really worthwhile person, he thought. He would learn from Criton and Hunter, who had killed others only to protect themselves and their friends, not out of anger or pride. He would learn from Phaedra, who was so interested in the Gods that surely
she
would know how to repent properly. Hell, he would even learn from Bandu, whose love for her wolf had been so much stronger than anything Narky had ever felt. For all her savagery, Bandu was far more human than he was.

How could he repent for all the harm he had done, for all the potential he had wasted so completely? Yet there was even more to repent for – there
must
be more to repent for! He repented for the dove that he had sacrificed without any meaning, and for being so useless both times that the others had fought for him. He repented for his inability to heal Four-foot, and for his suggestion of burning a wound that would never heal. He repented for his greed, and for his theft back in Atuna, and for… oh Gods! The necklace in his shoe! Narky fell to the ground and pulled his shoe off, and there it was: the silver bird symbol, upon which he had been stepping for some three weeks, all the way from Atuna. Stepping on it! It was not just any bird. It was a raven.

O Ravennis,
he thought, as the crows engulfed him.
I'm sorry!

A
fter the ravens
swept over them, Phaedra and her companions looked around in confusion. They were all unharmed, except for the one that was missing.

“Where's Narky?” Hunter asked.

The ravens had done such damage to the undergrowth as they flew through the forest that any trail Narky might have left by catching on brambles or pressing down on the moss was completely covered over.

“Birds,” said Bandu. “Everything smells like birds.”

When they finally found Narky, he was lying unconscious in a pool of clotted blood, breathing very faintly. His face was bruised, and his skin lacerated. By the looks of it, he had nearly bled out. Clutched in his hand was a silver necklace, adorned with a symbol of Ravennis. Phaedra took her spare traveling clothes out of her new pack, and she and Bandu did their best to bind Narky's wounds with them. In the meantime, Criton monitored Narky's breathing, and Hunter just stood and watched.

“How foolish,” Hunter said, out loud but clearly to himself. “I trained so hard for war and never thought to learn how to care for wounds.”

“Narky knows this better,” Bandu said sadly. “He helped the leaf man, on the water.”

Phaedra gave her a pat on her shoulder. “Nonsense, Bandu, you're a natural.”

They had to cut him out of his shirt to get at his chest lacerations, and there they found something very strange indeed. Amid the clotted blood and loose skin, a symbol had been burned onto Narky's chest, identical to the one on the necklace.

As they did their best to wrap one of Phaedra's longer skirts around his body, Narky moaned. He did not open his eyes.

“I think we'd better stay here tonight,” Phaedra said, “and let him wake up on his own. He's lost so much blood.”

“It's a good thing it's still dry,” Hunter reflected. “We have no tents and no shelter.”

“He needs to drink,” Bandu stated. “He needs more for blood.”

They coaxed some water down Narky's throat and then settled down around his body, as if by sitting on all sides of him they could protect him from further harm.

“What do you think happened?” Criton asked.

“I guess it was Narky Ravennis was after,” Phaedra said. “He must have repented for whatever it was he did. Ravennis wouldn't have let him live otherwise.”

Hunter looked down at Narky curiously. “Where did he get that necklace, I wonder?”

Narky woke up once during the night, while Phaedra was taking watch. He was mumbling deliriously, and seemed to be under the impression that he had died. He whispered that he wished he could have been their friend, and apologized repeatedly for something that he could not quite explain. If his eyes had not been open, she would have thought him to be dreaming.

The next day, they decided that it would be safe to move him. With Hunter on one side and Criton on the other, Narky staggered along until they came out of the forest at a small village on the edge of a plain. There were only some forty villagers in total, but they were kind and hospitable, and they let the islanders stay with them a whole two weeks while Narky recovered.

Phaedra was beginning to question whether she would ever become a weaver in Atuna. They had all been on the verge of parting ways when the ravens had changed their plans – could the timing really be a coincidence? She had the uneasy feeling that the Gods were watching all five of them a little more closely than They ought to be. Ravennis had clearly taken an interest in Narky for some reason, and His oracle was responsible for saving Hunter. When the fishing boat had been delayed over and over again, Phaedra had felt as if the Gods were conspiring to make her wait. Now she wondered if they really had been.

The Gods must still have been watching over Narky, because he recovered quite nicely, without any trace of infection. When he could once more walk independently, he recruited the others' help in building an altar.

Phaedra was going to offer to buy a goat from the villagers, but rather than sacrificing an animal, Narky placed his crossbow and his quiver of bolts upon the altar and set them ablaze. “Let my cowardice burn,” he said, and placed the silver symbol of Ravennis around his neck.

Toward the end of Narky's recovery, the villagers became noticeably nervous. The few elders seemed to be sadly shaking their heads every time Phaedra looked at them, and the

younger villagers whispered urgently to each other and looked often at their children. Phaedra asked one of the grandmothers about it, as the woman came to inspect Narky's final set of bindings. She was in her forties, her hair just starting to gray. Like the others of her generation, she shook her head sadly.

“The young ones want us to leave the village, before the Gallant Ones come back.”

“The Gallant Ones?”

The woman nodded. “You can ask old Garan about them, she knows all 'bout history and them things.”

Garan was the oldest woman in the village, a crone of seventy-some years who walked with a stick. When Phaedra found her, she was rendering a small pot of chicken fat.

“The Gallant Ones?” she repeated. “Eh, I can tell you 'bout them.”

She stirred her pot contemplatively. “Started in Atuna, some forty years ago. They had a king there once, just like the Ardismen did before they rose up and gave themselves a war council instead. Well, in Atuna the king was no good, the way kings is, and their people up and killed him and put a council in his place, like they have now. But there was a princeling got away with some half the king's hearthmen, and they been waging war ever since. They've got no chance against Atuna, of course, it being a walled city and all, and them being only thirty strong or so, but so long as the Atunaeans don't send out an army to find 'em, they keep riding round and making trouble.”

Phaedra had found a stool next to Garan's, and she now sat with her knees by her chin, her hands clasped around her ankles. “And these people have been here?” she asked.

“Well, the princeling was only fifteen at the time, but he's a reglar old bandit now, some forty years on. They come here 'bout a year ago, took our money and ate our lambs and said they'd be back next year. The young ones say we oughta leave and take up with that wizard fellow, but we older folks don't like the thought of saying goodbye to our village.”

Phaedra was not sure she had heard her right. “Did you say a wizard?”

“You heard me right. Psander, he calls himself, come here some two or three months ago, said he was settling in the area and wanted to offer us permanent shelter in his fortress. Said we could live in his walls and feed our livestock on the plains, and all he wanted was to share our food and maybe get some help 'round the house now and then.”

The old woman looked at her sharply, noting her excitement. “Oh sure, the others love that idea when there's Gallant Ones about, but it sounds far too good to be true to us as has brains.”

Phaedra did her best to look as though she agreed. She didn't mean to be rude, but an actual wizard! Living nearby! It was fair to worry about moving to live with him permanently, but for the curious traveler, it
was
almost too good to be true. Wizards were supposed to have knowledge and power beyond the realms of men – they were also supposed to be secretive and aloof. Here was one who actually invited visitors!

“I'm sure you're right,” Phaedra said soothingly. “I've heard that wizards are dangerous. But can you afford to feed the Gallant Ones next time they come?”

Garan shook her head. “We're lucky it's been a good year; no one starved this time. If they'd stayed longer…”

“If this Psander is offering protection –”

“I didn't say I liked going hungry, but won't no good come of trusting a wizard.”

When Phaedra told the others about her conversation with Garan, Criton became just as excited as she was. Narky did not. “Wizards are supposed to be evil.”

“You're just basing that on stories,” Phaedra said. “Doesn't finding out the truth interest you at all?”

“Not really.”

“If all the townspeople leave,” Hunter pointed out, “we won't be able to stay here anyway. Did she say when they were planning to make up their minds?”

“They're deciding what to do tomorrow. Hopefully they'll go, and we'll be able to tag along with them.”

The islanders were not invited to the next day's town meeting, but the final decision was hardly kept a secret: the younger townsfolk had won the day. The next few days were spent packing up everything but the houses themselves, preparing for the journey. Narky put up some resistance, but after his experience in the woods, he was too afraid of being left alone. Phaedra told him that they were all going, and that was that.

Nobody knew exactly where Psander's fortress was, but it was supposed to be somewhere upon the plain, and the wizard had apparently told the townspeople that those who sought him in peace could not fail to find it. At last they set off, driving animals in front of them and lugging their pots and pans, pushing barrows and pulling little children along beside them. Laden as they were, they had barely gone ten miles before the sun dipped below the horizon.

But as the sky grew dark, a path lit up before them. There was a new moon that night, and the stars were hidden behind clouds, yet ahead of them stood a moonlit path. The younger townspeople proclaimed it a miracle, but even through her excitement, Phaedra had to admit that the magic gave her an ominous feeling. It felt like a challenge to the Gods and a rebellion against nature.

They traveled another hour down the eerie path, while the young villagers slowly succumbed to their elders' anxiety. Their initial cheers were soon forgotten, and they plodded onward in silence. After a time, the clouds drifted on, and the stars could be seen above. Then the path abruptly ended.

Everyone stopped and looked around, but in the dark, this field was indistinguishable from the rest of the landscape. Each traveler looked to the others, weary and frightened, for answers. Criton was peering ahead into the darkness, as if staring intently enough could make a fortress appear. Narky shuddered, and put a hand on his chest where the burn was hiding underneath his shirt. Bandu only sniffed the air and kept walking, past the villagers and past the end of the path.

“Bandu!” cried Phaedra, chasing after the girl, afraid of losing her. She heard the clank of Hunter's armor as the rest of the islanders joined her, following Bandu into the darkness. Bandu hadn't gone far, but she did not stop walking until Phaedra caught hold of her arm. “What in the Gods' names do you think you're doing?”

Bandu looked at her silently and made a gesture with her other hand, palm upward. Phaedra followed her motion and stopped, gaping. A huge fortress stood in front of them where there had been none before, rising to the sky, blocking out the stars.