The Copper Promise (30 page)

Immediately, the waters began to churn, and there was a ragged cheer from the watchers on the other side. Wydrin stumbled back, putting one hand up to her eyes – it was the sun in them, that was all – and she missed the violence of the offering. When she looked down again she saw the dappled grey hide of one of the Graces moving with beautiful silence under the water, and a few shreds of silvery gore that had once been the eel.

‘An interesting reading,’ said the priestess. She came over to Wydrin’s side with a smug look on her face. She still held the Bone Whisperer, and she shook it at Wydrin as she approached. ‘The sea brings you dark currents,
devoted one
.’ She raised her voice a little so the spectators could hear. ‘The tide has turned and left you behind, and when it comes back in it will bring death with it, so much death. That is your reading, daughter of the sea.’

Wydrin nodded politely. Jarath appeared in eyeshot, and she saw that he had one hand behind his back and a determinedly innocent look on his face. Time to leave.

‘Thank you, Lady of the Graces. I will adjust my sails accordingly, and so on.’

They left swiftly, merging into the crowds beyond the Temple. Jarath had hidden the stolen Bone Whisperer within his shirt.

‘I know for a fact that you got that tattoo when you were drunk,’ he said cheerfully as they weaved their way towards the drinking tents. ‘It was going to be that or a mermaid with giant barnacles. And what do you want one of these for anyway?’

‘I’ll tell you later. Come on, there’s a cup of wine with your name on it.’

The small boat moved at a crawling pace through the swirling mists. Every now and then a distant outcrop of jagged black rock would appear and vanish again, announcing the islands that lay hidden there like portents in a nightmare. The captain was taking them slowly, his eyes trawling the fog continually for hidden obstacles. He was a native of the Nowhere Isles, with pale skin and hair so blond it was almost white, but even the people who’d lived in these mysterious islands all their lives mistrusted the waters around Whittenfarne. It was a cursed place, they said.

In fact, they said it somewhat constantly and Frith was getting rather tired of it. His guide, another native of the Nowhere Isles called Jeen, was sitting on the deck filling his pipe. Frith went and stood over him.

‘How much further?’

Jeen glanced up at the white, featureless sky, and shrugged. His hair was darker than the captain’s, although Frith suspected that was largely due to the lack of soap and water it had seen lately.

‘As long as it takes, m’lord,’ he said, squinting up at Frith. He had a patchy little beard growing in fits and starts along a weak chin. ‘Can’t just go surging up to Whittenfarne. Good way to get scuttled, that.’

Frith sighed, and glanced towards the prow, where the captain stood staring out at the water. The boat’s figurehead was in the shape of a hideous, tentacled monster – Jeen had told him this was to scare away any restless spirits, which all seemed a little melodramatic for Frith’s tastes, but at least the captain looked like he knew what he was doing.

And really, the people of the Nowhere Isles could hardly be blamed for believing in spirits and ghouls. Frith looked out into the shifting whiteness and frowned. He’d arrived on the most populated of the islands a good fortnight back, and even that had been a bleak, unnerving place. The sand was black and the rocks were glassy, refracting the light oddly, while the grey and brown buildings the people had thrown up seemed to cluster together in desperation. Finding a boat and a guide to take him to Whittenfarne had proved extraordinarily difficult. He walked from tavern to tavern, tolerating the terrible smells and vapours of the tobaccos and powders being smoked in every den, and asked with extreme politeness for assistance, but every query got the same response; frowns, puzzled looks, or outright anger. Eventually though, as was always the case in these matters, the news that a man with a great deal of money was in town found its way to the correct ears, and Jeen had come sidling by. For the price of several fat bricks of tobacco the scruffy man had told Frith everything he knew about Whittenfarne.

And now he was his guide, too.

‘And this Jolnir is who I must speak to?’

Jeen nodded happily, clearly glad to be going over a subject he’d already exhausted.

‘If you want to know about the old mages that lived on the island, if you want to know about them, then Jolnir is the man. Mystic. He’s a mystical man, you see.’ Jeen took a pinch of the brown tobacco and held it under his nose for a moment. ‘There are other mystics on the island, of course – not many now, ’cause it’s such a nasty place to live, see – but everyone knows Jolnir is the real expert. Everyone knows that.’

I didn’t
, thought Frith, and resisted the temptation to stamp on Jeen’s pipe.

‘I need to know more than just stories,’ said Frith severely. ‘I need to know details. Facts. I need to know about the language they used.’

Jeen stuck the stem of the pipe in his mouth. A few puffs later he nodded with satisfaction.

‘That’s what they study, isn’t it? Jolnir is the biggest studier of that stuff. Everyone knows that.’

It was a start, at least. Once he had learned the words of power from this Jolnir, he would be able to control the mages’ powers and finally take his revenge on Fane and the Lady Bethan. Frith glanced down at his hands, half fearing to see them bright with green fire again. On the long voyage from Litvania to the Nowhere Isles the powers had become even more erratic, bursting into colourful life when it was least appropriate, even dangerous. It was becoming difficult to hide.

‘And do you know where this Jolnir—?’

There was a shout from the front of the boat, and an answering murmur from the crew. Frith thought he heard some of them muttering prayers.

‘Looks like we’re here,’ said Jeen, pointing. All of the cheer had evaporated from his voice.

Frith looked where he was pointing, and staggered backwards a step. An enormous, monstrous figure loomed out of the mists. It was dark and jagged, its arms held out to either side with fingers reaching as if to grasp at them.

‘And what,’ he said, keeping his voice steady, ‘is that supposed to be?’

‘A mage, m’lord.’

It was a man, Frith saw, although it must have been a good two hundred feet tall, so perhaps giant would have been more accurate, and it was carved from the same glassy black rock Frith had seen everywhere in the islands. Its face was a collection of severe lines and deep shadows, and there were long, straight lines coming down from its outstretched hands. Frith couldn’t quite decide what they were supposed to be. Ropes? Stylised streams of water? Beyond the enormous statue Frith could make out a suggestion of small, black hills, peppered here and there with stunted trees and shrouds of grey vapour moving across the land like skittish ghosts. He could see no sign of civilisation, or indeed any sign that people lived there at all. Whittenfarne, cursed island of the mystics. To Frith it looked like a great place to maroon someone and steal all their coin.

‘Come on then, m’lord,’ said Jeen. His face had gone milk-white, making his beard look like smears of dirt on his chin. ‘The sooner we find you Jolnir the sooner we’ll all be happier, eh?’

The captain left them on the beach with rather more haste than Frith thought was strictly necessary. He watched the little boat move rapidly back out into the steely sea, soon becoming spirit-like in the fog.

‘Should he not wait for you?’ he asked.

‘Nah, he won’t hang around the coast here, m’lord,’ said Jeen. ‘The weather is too, uh, flighty. I’ll signal him when I need to, with a fire.’

Frith nodded, and pulled his bearskin cloak a little closer around his shoulders. The beach was a bleak prospect, a place of black sand, jagged rocks, and little else. The statue of the mage loomed away to their right. Frith found he disliked it intensely. When he looked up at the brutal face he remembered the whispered voices in the lake under the Citadel, how they had taunted and tortured him. The man the statue depicted could well have been one of them.

He turned his back on it and faced the rocky hills inland. The sky was still bright and featureless, but he knew the daylight would not last for ever.

‘Let us go then.’

They walked hurriedly, neither of them happy to have the shadow of the statue lurking behind them. There was the strangest sense, Frith thought, that it was watching their progress. A handful of black birds flew up from beyond the nearest hill, diving this way and that and then disappearing again. Frith noticed Jeen watching them carefully.

‘Do you know any more about the statue?’

Jeen jumped, dragging his eyes back from the hills. Just ahead Frith could see a number of shallow impressions in the rocks where water had gathered. There were lots of these pools, and some of them appeared to be gently steaming.

‘Not me, m’lord, no. Your Jolnir will know all about them, yes.’ He seemed to brighten momentarily. ‘I know there’s three more of them, though! At the other sides of the island. North, South, East and West.’

Frith looked around, but the island was too shrouded in the mists to see any hint of other statues.

‘This was the Western statue,’ he said, hoping to prompt more information, but Jeen remained silent.

They came to one of the pools. Jeen walked round it, while Frith paused to look down into the water. It was cloudy, and a shiver of steam rolled off the surface in delicate curls. There were small, pale shapes moving in there, he was sure of it. Could fish live in an environment like that? Were the pools deeper than they looked?

There was a harsh cry from ahead; the black birds were back again. A few of them had landed in one of the bent trees that pocked the landscape, and as Frith watched Jeen circled widely around it. The birds did not seem especially fearsome – some species of scruffy crow, with wrinkled purple talons and yellow-black eyes – only as insane as your average bird. Frith jogged to catch up with his guide, noticing how the birds turned their heads to follow his progress.

‘A strange land,’ he said.

Jeen nodded without looking at him. He was sweating slightly, sticking his greasy hair to his forehead.

‘There are lots of stories about this place, m’lord. Stories about people coming here to find wisdom and not returning. Stories about
things
watching you.’

‘It also smells abysmal,’ noted Frith. As well as giving off steam, the shallow pools seemed to produce an oddly chemical stink. It reminded Frith of his father’s rooms in Blackwood Keep. ‘Do you know what causes that?’

‘I don’t know, m’lord,’ said Jeen. ‘But some people say Whittenfarne has paths that lead down beneath the earth, to places where demons sleep. They say that the mages found the paths and made the place evil and—’ His voice ended in a squeak as one of the black birds flew overhead. For a second Jeen was frozen in place, and then he moved forward with a lurch. ‘That’s what they say, anyway.’

After an hour of walking over the rocky terrain, Frith called a halt by one of the larger pools. A long, white lizard lay on a rock next to the water, its narrow tail dipping down into the pool. It was as bloodless as a toad’s underbelly, and its eyes were big black bubbles. It had teeth, too, long and needle-like, and there appeared to be slightly too many to fit in its head.

‘And what is that?’

Jeen sat down on the granular black soil and pulled the pack of tobacco from his back pocket.

‘Buggered if I know, m’lord,’ he said. ‘Place is full of them, ugly creatures. Don’t see them on—’

One of the scruffy black birds had alighted just next to Jeen, and as the guide turned to look, it hopped forward and pecked him on the hand. He shot up, screeching and clutching his fingers.

‘It’s marked me!’

‘Calm down.’ Frith scowled. ‘It’s only a bird.’

‘It
marked
me!’ There was a flurry of black wings and suddenly there were a dozen of the black birds, all perched around the pool and the two men. A few of them hopped towards Jeen, as though they would also like a chance to peck his hand, and with that the guide was up and running, back to the distant shore.

‘Hoy!’ called Frith, appalled. ‘Where do you think you’re going?’

‘Home! Keep your money!’ Jeen was a rapidly dwindling shape now, swerving every now and then to avoid the pools and stunted trees. ‘Cursed bloody place!’

Frith watched him go, uncertain whether to go after him or not. Running on this island seemed a good way to invite a broken leg, and he had no wish to experience that again. Besides, did he really need a superstitious peasant to show him the way?

He looked back down to see the birds all watching him, and then as one they flew up into the mists. For a moment their calls sounded like rasping laughter.

Frith walked on into the black hills.

The pools of stinking water became more frequent, so that at times he had to be very careful with his footing just to keep his feet reasonably dry. Every now and then the black birds would pass on overhead, and he saw several more of the fat white lizards lazing on rocks, so still that they looked to be made of bone. A part of him began to wonder if striking out alone had been such a wise choice, but he forced that thought from his mind.

The light in the sky was just starting to dim when he slipped coming down a slope and stumbled straight into a pool. The water was deep enough to come up to his waist and was shockingly cold. Frith cursed it, himself, and the whole island of Whittenfarne as he struggled back towards the edge, and that was when something with long needle-like teeth bit his foot.

Frith bellowed with a mixture of pain, surprise and anger, and as he did so his body was briefly shrouded in bright green flames. Almost immediately the water around him began to bubble, so he climbed out hurriedly, dragging his sodden body out onto the rocky ground. The flames flared once more, then faded.

Frith looked back at the water to see a number of white fish float to the surface with their bellies to the sky. After a few moments they were joined by one of the lizard creatures, also dead.