The Aware (The Isles of Glory Book 1) (13 page)

‘While I work for the Keeper Council, I can—at least unofficially—live in the Keeper Isles. I can buy a decent life. With money, with my Calmenter sword, with my Awareness, I’ve finally earned respect. It may be grudgingly given, but at least no one spits on me any more. Don’t ask me to turn my back on the Keepers and be noble, Tor. I can’t do it. I’d lose everything I have worked so hard to gain.’

‘You think I’m a self-righteous bastard.’

‘Something like that.’

‘Yeah. Sorry. It’s easy for someone like me to preach; I had it simpler. I just hate to see you working for Keeper sylvs. They are cold-eyed sharks.’

‘They’re not so very bad.’

‘They’re a lot more dangerous than you know. Blaze—marry me.’

‘What?’
The word was half laugh, half incredulity.

‘Marry me. I have well-placed friends in the Stragglers. Perhaps I could get you citizenship there by virtue of marriage. You are obviously half-Souther anyway. It’s worth a try.’

I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. It was hardly a romantic proposal, but he meant it, and not just because he wanted me to have citizenship either. I shook my head. ‘Tor Ryder, where have you been all your life. No one
ever
marries a halfbreed.’

‘It’s not actually illegal.’

‘No, but it’s damn foolish. A halfbreed spouse is a heavy liability. And you must know that—that there are…other reasons why a halfbreed makes a poor wife. And an even worse husband.’

‘Shit.’
The expression on his face was one of black rage. ‘The bastards made you barren?’

By way of answer, I slid the blanket down and showed him the savage brand on my shoulder blade, the mark that told what had been done to me. The deep scar had puckered in the years since I had received it, but the symbol was still clear enough: an empty triangle, a sign of barrenness, of infertility.

‘Keepers did that to you?’ he asked, his voice thick with loathing.

I nodded. ‘If it hadn’t been them, it would have been someone else.’ How many times over the years—in how many islandoms—had I been forced to show the brand, to show the proof that I was no longer whole, no longer capable of having children? It’d happened so often it had come not to matter; it was just part of being a halfbreed. Few people tried it with me any more anyway; a Calmenter sword and the look in my eye made the question seem unwise. I shrugged and added, ‘There’s not a nation in the Isles of Glory that will tolerate fertile halfbreeds. Unless they are royal-born, of course.’

Thirteen years old and held down on the physician’s table by Keeper doctors. Half-conscious, crazed with pain, ripped apart by their hands as they inserted the
cet
leaves that would cauterise my insides, make me less than I had been. Many girls didn’t survive. Perhaps male halfbreeds were luckier; their operation might have been more drastic, but few of them died of it.

And then, just when I thought I’d had all I could bear, they rolled me over on to my stomach with their foul hands, they held me down, they took up the branding iron— I still remember the sight of it: the dull red of the triangle just out of the coals. I still remember the smell of my own flesh burning. I still remember.

‘The Menod have been trying to have that practice outlawed for years,’ he said tightly. ‘I thought it was dying out.’

‘Officially perhaps. But there will always be fanatics around to perform the operation, even if it is ever made illegal.’ I shrugged. ‘At least I lived. And I don’t have to worry about bringing another halfbreed into the world to suffer as I did… But I couldn’t let you marry me, Tor.’

‘I wasn’t asking you to marry me because I want your children. I asked you because I love you.’

I gaped. We hadn’t spoken of love; the idea was ridiculous—far too soon, too rash. I wasn’t that kind of person. Neither was he. Finally I said, ‘You’ve only known me a day. Not even that really. Just an hour or two.’

‘I’ve known you my whole life. You are the other half of myself.’ He had never been more serious—and I could never love him more than I did at that moment.

‘Think about it. Promise me you’ll think about it.’

‘Yes,’ I whispered. ‘Yes…I will…think about it.’ The promise of a lifetime with him was a tantalising feast displayed to the habitually famished.
Impossible.
How could it have been otherwise?

The sail billowed as the wind returned at last. Tor rose to dress and steer the boat towards the fishing harbour.

It was daylight by the time we climbed the stairs of
The Drunken Plaice
. I thought we’d made it back without being seen, but who knew for sure?

Tor slipped into Ransom’s room to check on the lad; he was asleep, his breviary in his hand. I went on alone to see Flame. She was awake, lying on her back staring at the ceiling. A quick flicker of relief was the only indication she gave that she might have been worried for my sake; I appreciated her reticence. I hated people who made a fuss. I knew she had been worried; I knew she was grateful. I didn’t need telling.

She hadn’t slept and wasn’t likely to, not for quite a while if I read the signs rightly. I came and sat beside her and took her hand. ‘Are you all right?’

‘I try not to mind about what they did to my body. That, I will conquer. And I can heal the physical hurts…but not this.’ She indicated the arm. ‘A few days, Blaze. And then it’ll be too far gone to cure.’

‘I’ll go and see the Keepers as soon as I’ve cleaned up.’ In truth, it had been a long night, and I would have liked to go to bed.

Her expression was bleak. ‘Take care, Firebrand. He’s vicious. Inhuman. He enjoyed what he did to me. He likes to hurt. He enjoyed watching what the others did to me.’ She was silent for a moment, her eyes wells of dark memory. Then a whispered, ‘You’ve been raped too, haven’t you?’

I nodded.

‘I saw it in your eyes when you looked at me in that room— You
knew.
You read my soul with understanding…it helped. You didn’t say anything, but somehow you showed me something:
that it didn’t matter.’

‘It doesn’t, not once it’s over and you have survived.
You
didn’t do it—they did. I don’t know whether this will help too, but two of his henchmen are dead. The redhead and his brother, the one with the nose.’ The Menod would say that true justice for such crimes should come from God, not Man, and that revenge damages he who wreaks it. They are wrong. I knew first hand how cathartic a killing could be. I’d shed the last of my innocence as I drove the knife into the man who’d raped the child I was on Breth—but I’d never dreamed of him thereafter. He was dead, and I still lived.

Flame understood. She smiled grimly. ‘I’m glad. But I already knew: Ruarth told me.’

I looked across at the window. It was open, and sure enough, there were several of the dark birds just sitting there on the sill. They were preening themselves and in the morning light they were actually quite handsome. The iridescence gleamed, and each had a dark red band across the deep purple patina of the breast, rather like the ceremonial sashes bestowed on honoured courtiers in Brethbastion or Bethanyhold. I swallowed my disbelief. ‘Er, which one is he?’

Her smile was genuine this time; a reminder of the person she had been the day before. She turned her head to the window. ‘The one on the left.’

‘I can’t tell the difference between them. Can you talk to them all?’

She dragged her focus away from her fears to concentrate on me, then nodded. ‘That particular species, yes. Not birds in general. These understand us, you know. But their language is a mixture of everything: movement, chirps, stance, song. You could learn it, if you have the patience.’

I looked at them dubiously. ‘Would they mind?’

‘You are my friend,’ she said, as if that explained all.

Her breathing had steadied now and I wanted to keep her from thinking about what had happened to her, so I said, ‘Tell me about them.’

She didn’t answer immediately. Instead, she looked across at the birds. She didn’t say anything out aloud, but her expression made it clear she was asking for permission to talk to me. Apparently she received it, because after a minute or two she said, ‘They are Dustel Islanders. Their descendants anyway. You know the story?’

I nodded. To the south of the Stragglers were long lines of rocks now called the Reefs of Deep-Sea. Once, they had been a string of stony islands called the Dustel Isles, inhabited by typical Souther people: brown-skinned, dark-haired farmers and fishermen, with dark-blue eyes. There had been a war over royal succession, and then they’d fallen foul of a dunmaster called Morthred the Mad. They had tried to block his attempt to turn the islands into his own personal domain of enslaved subjects. Because there was an unusual number of Awarefolk and sylvtalents among them, they had managed to resist him—for a time. However, according to the tale, in vengeful rage and madness, Morthred had sunk the islands under the waves, drowning the inhabitants and obliterating the fishing villages and towns and even the city of Dustelrampart. All that remained now were a few reefs where the fishing was good but the waters treacherous. Morthred himself had disappeared. It was rumoured at the time that in his madness he had over-extended himself and as a result his powers had dissipated.

The story wasn’t entirely a seadream; there were still plenty of elderly people alive whose parents had known those southmost islands well. There were even small communities of Dustel people on the Stragglers, descendants of Dustel citizens who had been elsewhere when the islands had disappeared. No one questioned that the Dustel Isles had existed, but whether their disappearance was due to dunmagic or just to some natural disaster was more hotly debated.

‘I thought the only Dustel Islanders were those who now live on the Stragglers,’ I said doubtfully. ‘And they are human.’ It was
very
hard to believe in those birds.

‘No. At the time of the submergence, Morthred turned those who were on the islands into birds. Birds like these. And he contrived the spell so that they would have normal human lifespans, and a human intelligence. He thought to torture them with their memories of what they had been, of what they had lost. To Morthred, death comes as a release for the tormented, therefore he prefers to keep his victims alive.

‘With the Dustel Islanders he erred; they learned to accept their fate. Their descendants may dream of being human again, but they do not live in despair. They think that one day Morthred will reappear, and they will find a way of forcing him to retract his spell.’

I was startled. ‘Reappear? Wouldn’t he be a trifle
old
by now?’

‘If he had died, wouldn’t his dunspell have vanished? The Dustel Isles would have reappeared, a little worse for having been submerged, perhaps, but they’d be there. The Dustel birds would have become human once more. That has never happened because Morthred is still
alive.
There are many stories that say the really powerful dunmagickers don’t age like normal men. The Dustels believe that one day all Morthred’s magic will return to him, and he will try to seize power somewhere in the Isles of Glory once again. And then they’ll find him.’ She let that sink in, then added thoughtfully, ‘Morthred was very powerful. His spell against the Dustels has lasted almost a hundred years; that’s a long time for a spell.’

We exchanged glances, and she really did not have to add her next words for me to know what she was thinking. ‘The dunmaster who did this to me is also very powerful.’

‘Great Trench below, Flame. Even in the unlikely event that they are one and the same, and I don’t believe it for a minute, what could anyone do about it? Least of all a flock of—forgive me, Ruarth—mere birds?’

‘There are more than just a flock. And many of them have sylvtalent. Or Awareness. Didn’t you notice how Ruarth could fly through the dun-warded window?’ That point had escaped me at the time. Stupid. I sat there on the edge of the bed, doubtless looking as though I’d been slapped in the face with a wet fish. Until then I hadn’t
really
believed in birds with human intelligence, human abilities. Not really. But I couldn’t deny the proof: no living creature would have been able to pass that dunmagic ward—unless they had Awareness. And birds and animals didn’t have Awareness. Only humans did…

‘No,’ I protested, confused. ‘Wait a moment, if Ruarth has Awareness, he wouldn’t
be
a bird. Dunmagic doesn’t effect Awarefolk.’

She gave a bitter smile. ‘When Morthred cast the original dunspell, all the Dustel Awarefolk on the islands died. Every one. They were drowned because they couldn’t fly away.
They
didn’t become birds. Their very protection against dunspells was what killed them. Ordinary islanders and sylvtalents, however, were transformed to birds. Ruarth, and the others like him today, are their descendants. Ruarth’s parents are birds, as were his grandparents. But
their
parents were birds who were once human. Dustel Awarefolk are impervious to present spells, just as you are, but they are powerless against a dunspell which has been part of them since they were embryos in their eggs, long before their Awareness developed.’

‘So there are still Awarefolk and sylvs born to Dustel birds.’

She nodded. ‘You know what Awareness is like. It just pops up every now and then, even in families without Awareness. And being sylv often runs in families. It makes no difference that the families are now avian, rather than human.’

I nodded, understanding, and capitulated. ‘You had better introduce me, Flame.’

She beckoned and one of the birds flew from the window sill to land on her hand. ‘Blaze, this is Syr-aware Ruarth Windrider. Ruarth, this is Syr-aware Blaze.’ (The citizenless weren’t entitled to the Syr prefix, but I appreciated her bestowal of it on me anyway). Ruarth nodded solemnly and looked at me with a dark-blue eye, his head cocked on one side. The blue of his shoulders shimmered in the light.

‘How do you do?’ I said politely. ‘I’m sorry I cannot understand your language.’ I looked at Flame. ‘Perhaps, if Ruarth agrees, you could tell me a little about him?’

She nodded. ‘He is twenty-two years old. He is a member of the royal house of Dustelrampart and is one of the great-grandsons of the last human Rampartlord of Dustel. We more or less grew up together. He was born in a nest in a wall niche outside the window of my room; that’s how I came to know him. His mother has sylvtalent. She was like a mother to me when I was growing up…’ She looked down unhappily. ‘Ruarth is very upset over what happened to me today. He feels…impotent, and it is hard for him to deal with.’

Her words hinted at emotions too unbearable for me to want to think about. I could see how much she cared about him, but the depth of the attachment seemed weird to me. It made me feel uncomfortable. I asked, ‘Does Noviss know about him?’

She shook her head. ‘No one knows but you. No one, ever. We pretend he’s a pet. Lots of people know the Dustel Islanders became birds, but very few people know that they were
intelligent
birds. Still fewer know that they had intelligent descendants.’

And I was one of the very few. I inclined my head towards Ruarth and his companion, acknowledging the compliment that they had paid me. Ruarth bowed back. ‘
Was
that you on the boat, Ruarth?’ I asked.

He nodded.

I blushed.

And I learned what a Dustel looks like when he grins.

###

Before going to my room, I spoke to Tor and Ransom; I wanted to work out a way of concealing Flame’s presence in
The Drunken Plaice
. We decided that Ransom was to continue to pretend he was upset by Flame’s disappearance, and all of us were to smuggle up food to her. Ransom, of course, was close to total panic. With the dunmagic beginning to work its evil in Flame’s system, it was unlikely that she would be able to help him if he was attacked again. I had to admire the way that Tor soothed the boy; this lover of mine had three times my patience. He coaxed Ransom into calm, encouraged him to turn to his religion, quoted liberally from breviary prayers, and soon had Ransom hanging on his every word. The Holdheir was as gullible as ever; it never occurred to him to question just why Tor should be so helpful. I almost felt sorry for the boy—Tor Ryder could be every bit as devious as I.

I hurried back to my room, where one glance at my reflection in my hand mirror made me decide to wash my hair before visiting the Keeper ship. Duthrick valued appearances and he would be neither pleased, nor inclined to listen to me, if I rolled up at the
Keeper Fair
looking like a shipwrecked mariner. The clam shell washbowl didn’t hold much water and the pitcher contained well-water that was so hard it made the soap curdle—and I was expected to make the one pitcher last three days, or so the drudge had told me. However, I couldn’t bear the feel of salty hair, so I did my best with a couple of clam shells full. Of course, there was no question of washing my clothes; the only time that anyone did any laundry on Gorthan Spit was when it rained, which wasn’t very often at this time of the year. I changed into a set of clean clothes and hung the salty and blood-soaked ones out of the window to dry. I used the remainder of the water in the pitcher to wash my cuts, and then smeared them with some ointment I had brought with me from The Hub. It was expensive stuff, imported from Mekaté, and reputedly made of a special type of fungus mixed with honey from a particular type of flower, plus the ash of medicinal tree bark. Whatever it was, it worked. I always carried some and had done so since I had once discovered just how dangerous a septic wound could be. To remind me, I had a large scar on my leg which had started as a small wound I’d received when thrown against a marlin spike during a storm on a ship.