The Aware (The Isles of Glory Book 1) (35 page)

‘Besides, your association with me has already harmed you—you have fought and killed when your religion tells you it’s a sin to kill. You have bedded me, although there has been no marriage. You even offered to torture Sickle and Domino! Your love for me brought you into disagreement with a fellow patriarch.’ I meant Alain Jentel, of course. I knew now what I had previously only sensed: Alain had pressed Tor to forget me.

He gave a twisted smile. ‘I never thought I was perfect. And I’m no dogmatist. I’m no Alain Jentel. I’ve always been at loggerheads with the Council of Patriarchs on a score of issues. I probably always will be. I don’t hanker after sainthood; too often it goes hand in hand with being sanctimonious. I’ll never believe that something as beautiful as lying in your arms, as loving you, can be wrong. I believe that it’s important for the Council to have someone like me around—I challenge the rigidity of their thinking. I want to be the grain of sand that irritates the oyster into producing the pearl, as long as I live. I’m a very unconventional priest, Blaze. You wouldn’t find me so very hard to live with.

‘And you are too hard on yourself. You have risked your life for others, not for yourself. You are a better person than you think.’

‘Am I? Perhaps. But I fall way short of your standards, Tor. And I can’t serve your God. You are first and foremost a patriarch; I understand that now. You serve the Menod.
I
think the Menod pursue the right goals, but for all the wrong reasons and, for all your pragmatism, often in impractical ways. You do it for God, for a promise of heaven; you do it by love, by example, by unselfish service. How could you travel with a woman who would rather wield a sword against her enemies than love them? I serve myself first, Tor. But you—you adhere to a different set of values. And you follow the dictates of the Council of Patriarchs. That’s what you were doing here on Gorthan Spit in the first place, wasn’t it? It was the Council of Patriarchs, not the Bethany Holdlord, who sent you to keep an eye on Ransom. And, I suspect, to look for Alain Jentel as well. You go where your Council sends you. Your stewardship is to the lay Menod, your duty is to the Council of Patriarchs and your service is to God. And if I’m reading the signs rightly, the Council is dedicated to opposing Keepers and undermining Keeper power outside of their own islandom.

‘I don’t share your calling I don’t believe in your God. And if I’m going to risk my life, it wouldn’t be in opposing the Keepers. There are worse evils.
I simply don’t share your vision of the world, Tor
. How can we live together?’

He was silent.

‘It was just a dream, Tor. A wonderful dream, but no more than that. I think in my heart I knew it, even before I realised you were a patriarch. We are too different. Our goals are too diverse.’

His silence dragged on.

‘I’ll not go back to the Keepers,’ I said gently. ‘I’ve learnt that much. I’m going with Flame.’

He spoke then, and there was surprise in his voice. ‘But she’s going after Morthred, surely.’

I nodded, impressed that he had read her so well.

He said, ‘There’s hardly money or comfort in that.’

‘I care about Flame, about what happens to her. And if Morthred dies, I’ll be a citizen of the new Dustel Islands. You see, there is something in it for me. There always has to be.’

‘I would have thought there was something in it for you with me. Quite apart from the fact that the Menod are not entirely without influence when it comes to the citizenship and marriage laws involving its patriarchs and their families.’ He was trying not to be hurt, but he couldn’t hide it.

‘The possibility of citizenship was not the reason I wanted to go with you and you know it. I thought it was enough to love you, but it’s not, Tor. There has to be a common purpose. We wouldn’t even have children to bind us.’

He shook his head, in sadness, in resignation. ‘Every word you say makes me love you more, for what you are. You are all I lack.’

‘But I
am
right.’

‘Are you?’ he whispered. ‘Perhaps. But I don’t know how I will learn to live alone all over again now that I have met you.’

I stepped into his arms and we held each other for a long time. Then he moved back. ‘If ever I can help you, contact me through the Council of Patriarchs.’

I nodded. For someone who had once never cried, I seemed to be doing a lot of looking through blurred eyes lately.

He fumbled in his pocket and brought out a pendant on a chain of black coral. He put it over his head so that the badge of the Menod faith, a spiral inside a triangle, swung on his chest. It was a symbolic gesture, a public acknowledgement of what he was. He said, ‘You’ll be in my prayers as long as I live.’

‘It can’t do any harm,’ I told him.

We smiled at each other, empty aching smiles. ‘I won’t ever change my mind, Blaze. Remember that, if ever you need me,’ he said, and was gone.

###

Have I finished my tale? Why no, I haven’t really reached the end of the story as far as Gorthan Spit was concerned. Not yet.

And, of course, in many ways what happened there was just the beginning of a much larger story. As I said somewhere near the beginning of this tale of mine, the seeds of change, of
the
Change, were planted on Gorthan Spit. For the Change to occur, it was necessary for me to reject both the Keepers and Tor Ryder and join my future to that of Flame and Ruarth Windrider. For without me, without my sword and my knowledge of the Isles’ low-life, they would never have survived long enough to do what they did, and the Isles of Glory would never have been the place it was by the time you people arrived. You might have been greeted by Morthred the Mad when you sailed into The Hub.

And then if I’d stayed with Tor, he might have lacked the drive and the angry passion that impelled him to become the visionary leader he was, that turned him into the kind of man who could challenge both the Menod Council of Patriarchs, the power of the Keepers and ultimately the very nature of sylvmagic itself. Without my rejection of Tor, you might have been greeted by Keeper cannon-guns when you sailed into The Hub.

Oh yes, in the end we all played our parts in changing the Isles of Glory: Ransom Holswood who became the Holdlord of Bethany; Syr-sylv Duthrick who became Keeperlord of the Keeper Isles and Morthred the Mad who wanted to be monarch of us all; poor dead Eylsa who gave me the mark on my palm so that I could enlist ghemphic help when I needed it; even Seeker, Tunn’s mangy dog, played his part too.

But I digress. I haven’t told you the end of my tale of Gorthan Spit.

Duthrick, you see, in his desire to get the black powder for the Keeper Isles, had not done with us yet.

I didn’t go straight to the docks and Flame after Tor left me at the inn. There was still something I had to do. I wanted to find Tunn, to discover if he was all right. I had meant to ask Flame to look at him, to see if she could help heal his dunmagic whipping, but I’d forgotten and now I felt terrible about it.

I asked after him down in the taproom. The innkeeper, who now practically spat with fury each time he laid eyes on me, told me he hadn’t seen Tunn for days. At least, that was what I thought he said; he was actually hard to understand because his broken nose was still puffed up to the size of a sea- cucumber and his mouth was distorted by the dunmagic welts that criss-crossed his face.

I looked for Tunn in the fuel shed, but he wasn’t there, so I went to the place where he hid his pet, the place where I’d seen him last. He was still there, crammed into the space behind the fish boxes. Seeker was also there, whining miserably, tail drooping. His mange had improved, but he looked thinner than ever, if that was possible. You could count the ribs with a glance at his flank.

I thought Tunn was just asleep, but when I touched him he fell back out into the open and his eyes were staring, his arms and legs stiffened into a grotesque tangle. It had been a slow and painful death; he had not been dead long. The worst thing of all was the look on his face—proof of a fear so great that it had taken away all his trust in his own kind. He had died in terror and pain, alone save for his dog. I think it was there, kneeling by his side, that I first really reconciled myself to what Flame and Ruarth intended to do; I knew then that I couldn’t let Morthred roam the Isles leaving agony and death like this in his wake. It was there, on the fisherman’s wharf, that my anger became a thirst for revenge. Tor wouldn’t have approved of the emotion, but I was glad of it. It made my fear less important.

I picked Tunn up in my arms and turned to go back to the inn. Seeker looked up at me hopefully and thumped that huge tail of his. I was about to send him on his way when I noticed what I hadn’t seen at first—the animal had made a pathetic attempt to feed his dying master. There was a pile of uneaten scraps at my feet, fish most of it, and quite unappetising, but Seeker had done his best.

‘You stink,’ I said. ‘You’re probably the ugliest mutt I’ve ever seen. Your coat is a mess. If there’s one thing I don’t need, it’s to be lumbered with a pet.’ He swept his tail through the air with gusto, sending several fish boxes flying, gazing at me all the while with pleading brown eyes—and I had a pet I didn’t need.

###

The four or five customers in the taproom took one look at me and my burden and hurriedly left. I laid Tunn on one of the tables. The innkeeper was about to utter an outraged protest when he saw my face and changed his mind. I said, ‘I want the lad given a proper burial—no throwing him to the fish, understand?’

He nodded dumbly.

I gave him some money. ‘That’s for your trouble. And when I come back to Gorthan Docks next, I shall expect to be able to see the grave. Understand?’

He nodded again.

I don’t know why I bothered. What did it matter what happened to the boy’s body after he was dead? I should have done more while he was alive. I knew it was illogical, but I did it anyway. Guilt, I suppose.

‘And now feed my dog,’ I said.

The innkeeper looked down at Seeker, who was doing his best to hide under a chair. The chair was small and the animal was large.
‘That?’

I nodded.

I waited while the creature ate probably the best meal he’d ever had in his life. He would have eaten still more if I’d let him, but I was afraid something might burst. His stomach was as bloated as an inflated pufferfish.

Only then did I head down to the docks. Seeker lolloped after me, feet scattering the fish scales in all directions.

Ruarth Windrider and several other Dustels met me halfway and I didn’t need to understand their words to know something was wrong. Promising myself that one day—soon—I was going to learn their goddamned language, I hurried on to find the mullet boat that was sailing for Mekatéhaven.

Now that the tides and winds were right, the main docks of the harbour were busier than I’d ever seem them before. A motley assortment of drunkards and vagrants were earning a setu or two loading ships; chandlers along the seafront appeared to be doing good business. The only idle people were a couple of old men sitting on barrels outside one of the chandler shops, and they looked so decrepit I doubted they’d been capable of work in years.

When I found the mullet boat, tucked against the docks between a Gorthan Spit trader bound for the Cirkase Islands and an unmarked ship that had smuggler written all over it, there was enough sylvmagic dripping across its deck to light a mansion on a dark night (for Awarefolk anyway), far too much to have come just from any spell of Flame’s. ‘What the shit happened?’ I growled at Ruarth. He, of course, could not reply.

The only person on the deck of the mullet boat, leaning nonchalantly on the railing, was Garrowyn Gilfeather. He inclined his head in my direction and adjusted that extraordinary wool garment about his body. ‘Garrowyn,’ I said. ‘I’m looking for Flame—have you seen her?’

‘Oh, ay,’ he said casually. ‘She was here a while back. Her arm looks just fine. The stump healed beautifully.’

I blinked. How could he have seen her stump? He wasn’t one of the Awarefolk… I wanted to think about that, to think about how he could smell dunmagic, work out the implications, but there was no time.

‘What happened to her?’ I asked.

‘The Keepers came’n took her,’ he replied. ‘Luggage’n all. She’s not sailing on this boat any more.’

I remembered Duthrick’s threat:
I’d never let you leave this island
— He’d finally thought it all through, done all the adding up, including the presence of Ruarth. I’d underestimated him…

‘Are ye looking for passage to Mekaté too then, lass?’ Garrowyn asked. ‘The captain—’

‘No,’ I cut him off and I glanced at the
Keeper Fair
. It was also preparing to sail that night if the activities on deck were anything to go by.

I turned away to hide my whisper to the Dustels, who had lined up on one of the mooring lines. ‘Ruarth, if you can find her, tell her I’ll be with her as soon as I can. After dark sometime. Perhaps just after the ship sails.’

The birds flew away and I also turned to go, but Garrowyn spoke again. ‘I can smell fear,’ he said. ‘And she was scared.’ The look he gave me from under those unruly brows was dispassionate.

‘And you didn’t help her?’ I asked.

‘Against Keepers?’ His tone was deliberately incredulous. ‘Lass, I don’t mess with magic. Any magic, if I can help it. She’s already had more help from me than she had a right to expect.’

‘You’re all heart, Garrowyn Gilfeather,’ I said.

‘I’m a physician lass, no more, no less. Compassion I have no time for. Compassion does not heal the sick, but it does weaken he who feels it. I would have thought ye’d know that.’

I turned on my heel and headed for the main street. His voice echoed after me: ‘Hey, halfbreed—if ever ye come to Mekaté, head for the hills and ask for Garrowyn Gilfeather of the Sky Plains people, the selver-herders. Ye’ve not seen the best of Mekaté, till ye leave the lowlands behind ye.’

I ignored him and set off for the sea-pony pens on the other side of town. Seeker followed, his nose low to the ground, snuffling along as if he was tracking prey. The sea-pony livery kept their mounts in the sea of course, penned in with netting. The owner, a Bethany Isles man with a wooden leg, was in a black mood when I arrived. He had just been chasing away a crowd of dirty Spitter children whose one delight in life, if he was to be believed, was to tease the animals. He wasn’t inclined to listen to me when I said I wanted to buy a sea-pony. I suppose I could have hired one, pretending I was going to bring it back, but I’d been the victim of dishonesty often enough myself to have a distaste for robbing others—with the exception of slavers and suchlike; them, I’d steal from any time.

I haggled and pleaded and finally beat the price down to something I could pay—just. The amount wasn’t lessened by the fact that I had chosen the strongest and largest animal in the pens. I insisted that it be fed well and then I went into the town to do some shopping. I bought food (desiccated fish and seaweed cakes); several large drinkskins; four hide bags, their seams sealed with sea-urchin glue, to keep everything dry; some rope and a few other small items. When I had nothing left in my purse except a couple of small coppers, I went back to collect my newly fed purchase.

My parting shot to the Bethanyman was that he would do well to keep his mouth shut about my purchasing the animal. I tapped my Calmenter blade meaningfully and he gave me a scornful look. ‘On Gorthan Spit,’ he said, ‘everyone keeps his mouth shut about everything if he wants to keep his throat from being cut.’

That was probably true up to a point, but if the Keepers actually thought to question him, I doubted that he’d consider it a wise policy to lie, especially when they could use sylvmagic to check that he told the truth. However, it probably didn’t matter all that much; by the time the Keepers had found out exactly what I’d done, I’d be long gone.

I rode the sea-pony away, out to sea. The halfbreed children were back at the edge of the pens as I took the animal out through the boom the Bethanyman had opened for me, and they pitched a few rocks in my direction for no reason other than mischief. When I looked back, the Bethanyman was chasing them away yet again.

There’s one simple problem with sea-riding—a sea-pony loves to dive and, given the chance, will do so, with or without people on its back. However, there’s also a simple solution. The animal will only dive if it can close its airhole, so a special ring, made of animal hide and inserted into the lip of the hole, solves the problem. Naturally you have to keep a close watch to make sure the ring doesn’t pop out. I carried extras in case it did.

I also carried Seeker, who whined unhappily inside one of the hide bags. Every now and then he poked his snout out of the top and gave a dismal howl, a strange, undog-like sound that made the hairs on my neck stand up and probably did the same for every sailor in every ship anchored around the harbour. There’d be a lot of talk about sea-dragons, or sea-sirens and the like, on board ships that night. I cursed him. I might have known he’d be a pest. In the end I tied the top of the bag so he couldn’t look out and spoke to him softly until he quietened.

Nightfall found me swimming over to the
Keeper Fair
from the seaward side, in order to tether the sea-pony to the Keeper ship with a long rope. The animal was invisible against the darkness of the water; if anyone saw it anyway, well, there was nothing unusual about a sea-pony being in the sea. There were wild ones everywhere, after all.

Ruarth was there, flying about in spite of the dark, to show me where to go. There was actually enough warding on the
Keeper Fair
to make it light as day for the two of us. Fortunately everyone was busy preparing the ship for sailing and the lower deck seemed deserted. The worst of the damage seemed to have been repaired, although I could still smell an unpleasant mix of burned wood and dunmagic.

Ruarth showed me where they had warded Flame—a cabin, with a porthole, and on the lower deck too, seaward side. It couldn’t have been better. I asked him to make sure she was alone and he flew up, looked in and then flew back to me, nodding. Then he went back up to tap on the glass and attract her attention. A moment later the porthole was unlatched, and Flame had pushed it open using the handle of her hairbrush so as not to touch the warding. I flung up a hook attached to a rope and a little later still I was wriggling through the porthole, not the easiest of procedures for someone my size. I very nearly left most of my clothing in the sea, but at least I was still unseen by any Keeper.

‘This rescuing business is becoming a habit,’ Flame said mildly. ‘Although I see this time you did your best to leave your, er, habit behind, so to speak.’

‘Very funny,’ I replied, pulling my trousers back up.

‘Perhaps we ought to set up a proper business:
Spectacular Rescues Made. Surcharges where Dunmagic is concerned—’

‘Do shut up, Flame. You’re not rescued yet. Are you all right?’ In fact, in spite of her banter, I was appalled by her appearance. Her eyes seemed too large for her face and she looked as though she hadn’t slept for a week. It was only a few hours since I’d seen her last, and she looked as if she’d been shipwrecked in the meantime. Beside me, Ruarth was jumping around in that agitated avian way of his, quite obviously just as disturbed as I was.

‘That friend of yours has his methods,’ she said tightly.

‘
Duthrick?
What’s he been doing?’

‘Using sylvmagic to confuse me. He can make you think the world is upside-down, Blaze. He’s so much better trained than I am—I’m no match for him.’ Of course not. The Syr-sylv was, among other things, the chief teacher of sylvtalent use in The Hub Academy. The bastard. ‘He can make me lose track of who I am, where I am in space and time. It was like being bodiless, without senses. Lost in infinity…awful. I thought I was going mad. For a time, I
was
mad.’