The Singer of All Songs (32 page)

BOOK TWO
and
BOOK THREE

Tremaris is a land divided. From the islands of Firthana,
across the deserts of Merithuros to the sinister Black Palace of Hathara,
the healing can only begin when the dark magic is unravelled.

Calwyn and her friends travel to the desolate Merithuran Empire
in search of kidnapped children. They must survive the vast and
unforgiving desert and the treacherous Palace of Cobwebs,
where they uncover the shameful secret that binds the Empire.

Meanwhile, Darrow has formed a dubious alliance with rebels and
is marching on the Black Palace. Can he be trusted now that he has the
power of the great Ring of Lyonssar? In a stunning climax, Calwyn’s
actions have greater consequences than she could ever have imagined.

one
The Serpent-headed Ship

D
AWN HAD NOT
yet broken over the Straits of Firthana. The sky was a pearly grey, and the three moons gleamed faint and silvery above the western horizon. The sea lapped on all sides, and the fading moonlight picked out tiny silver flecks at the peak of every wave. The boat
Fledgewing
rocked on the water; the dark bulk of the island of Istia lolled beside it, silent as a sleeping cat.

Already it seemed to Calwyn that they’d been waiting half the night. Her fingers twitched, for the hundredth time, toward the thick dark plait that hung over her shoulder. She forced herself not to fidget. Though it was the beginning of summer, there was a chill over the sea that wouldn’t disappear until the sun had risen. The air was so crisp, it seemed it might shatter. Calwyn shivered, and drew her cloak around her shoulders.

The wheel creaked behind her asTonno and Mica brought up the nets, heavy and slithering with fish.

‘No point sitting about, wasting time, when we can set the nets,’Tonno had said in his practical way. ‘Dawn’s the best time for silver-finned jacks.’ If their adventure this morning came to nothing, they would at least have a hold filled with fish to take home to Ravamey.

‘Steady, steady,’ growled Tonno. ‘Don’t spill em all over the side, lass.’

Mica snorted, and tossed her wild mop of tawny hair as she hauled at the nets. The two of them worked skilfully together; the burly fisherman and the young windworker, both born to the sea and at home on the water.

Not like Trout, Calwyn thought with a smile. The boy sat hunched uncomfortably in the bow, squinting out across the water, though it was still too dark to see much. And besides, he’d taken off the lenses he wore on his nose, and was polishing them on the tail of his grubby shirt. Without the lenses, Trout could barely see an arm’s-length in front of him.

Calwyn started as Halasaa’s warm hand fell on her shoulder, and his voice sounded in her mind.
Not long now.

Calwyn nodded to the east, where a line of light glowed at the horizon. ‘The sun is rising,’ she said in a low voice. ‘We should lower the dinghies.’

Halasaa smiled, and she could see the gleam of his teeth in his dark face.
The ship is coming.

Calwyn raised her head, all her senses alert. Yes, she could feel it now, the mixed flicker of lives, jumbled up together, like a buzzing murmur of indistinguishable voices. The ship was still some distance off, but it drew nearer at every moment. She stood up.

‘Tonno!’ she called softly. ‘It’s time.’

H
EBEN KNEW THAT
he was dreaming. He curled himself deeper into sleep, to make the dream last.

He was at home, on the lands of the Cledsec, in the north of Merithuros. The glorious curve of the sands swept out before him, sculpted by the wind, the same wind that whipped across his face as he spurred the
hegesu
into a gallop. The twins whooped with glee, crouched on their own beast: Gada in front, with Shada clinging on behind, her eyes shining.

They were racing to the top of the dune. Heben heard the soft
splat, splat
as the
hegesu
’s feet thudded into the sand, and the huffing protest of its breath as he urged it on, and he felt the matted woolly coat under his hands.

At the crest of the dune, Heben saw the whole of his father’s lands spread out below: the swell of bronze and golden sands, and the silver flashes of the water pools. Far off, a low cluster of tents and flags marked his family’s homestead, where they lived in the old way, under canvas. Flocks of
hegesi
, brown and milky dots, shifted slowly across the sands, and above it all spread the taut canopy of the silken blue sky.

The twins were just behind him. Gada stumbled up the dune, dragging the reluctant
hegesu
on its tether, and Shada ran up to tease him –

‘Out of the way, you stinking desert dog!’

A sharp kick in the ribs woke Heben. He cried out and tried to roll over, hunched against the pain. Except that he couldn’t roll over. He was roped to the prisoners on each side, and none of them could move. His neighbour, a heavy Gellanese whose red face dripped sweat, eyed Heben with displeasure.

‘Keep still, can’t you,’ he growled between clenched teeth. ‘You’ll have us all thrown overboard!’

Heben blinked, and struggled to sit up.

‘I beg your pardon,’ he said, from force of habit, but good manners were equally unwelcome. The Gellanese curled his lip contemptuously and turned his head away. Heben tried not to grimace at the stench of his companion. After five days without washing, he probably didn’t smell very sweet himself.

The pirate’s ship was a long galley, with a snake’s head for a prow, like all Gellanese vessels. But the pirates, rather than feed the hundred slaves they’d need to haul at the oars, preferred to move under sail, and the benches below the deck were packed with treasure and prisoners, not slaves. About a dozen captives were tied with Heben up on deck, roped at the ankles and wrists, and crammed into a space barely large enough to hold four men.

It was five days since the ship on which Heben had been a passenger was captured and sunk, and he had almost given up wondering what would happen to him. At first he’d thought he might be held hostage for a ransom from his rich father, the head of the Clan. The pirates weren’t to know that his father had disowned him, and forbidden him ever to return to the lands of the Cledsec. But the pirates had shown no interest in his parentage. Nor did they ever ask why a wealthy young Merithuran lordling might have gone to sea, when it was well known that highly born Merithurans loathed everything to do with the ocean, and never went near it except from dire necessity.

The pirates had taken Heben’s pouch of gold coins, and stripped him of his fine clothes, his curved sword with the gilded handle and leather scabbard, and his golden earrings. The small medallion, the size of his thumbnail, that identified him as a member of the Clan of the Cledsec, had disappeared with the coins. Then the pirates had bundled him into a corner with the rest of the captives on deck, and paid him no more attention.

‘They’ll sell us for slaves in DoryusTown,’ muttered one of the prisoners, but instead of turning to sail south, toward Doryus, the stronghold of all piracy in the Great Sea, the serpent-headed ship kept its course to the north. The mutterings grew darker. ‘Taking us to the tallow pits of Firthana . . .no doubt about it . . .’

‘What are the tallow pits?’ Heben asked.

The prisoner on his other side, a bald and bony sailor who had been the cook aboard Heben’s ship before it was scuttled, gave an ominous cackle.

‘Don’t they talk of the tallow pits in them deserts of yours? The tallow pits is where the pirates take them they don’t need, and them they wants to be rid of.’ He drew his finger across his throat. ‘Spit em, blood em, skin em, melt the fat down for candles. You never heard of a dead man’s candle? They can burn for a whole turn of the moons without losing the flame.’

‘They won’t get much fat off
you
,’ sneered the fleshy Gellanese.

The cook leaned over, dragging Heben’s arm across as he poked his fellow prisoner in the ribs.

‘They’ll be getting plenty off you though, won’t they! And plenty of hide, too, what’s more!’

‘Hide?’ Heben’s stomach turned.

‘They’ll tan your skin and make it into boots,’ growled the Gellanese. ‘Pirates all wear man-skin boots.’

‘They’ll make enough boots out of
you
to shoe the whole ship!’ cackled the cook. But the rest of the prisoners sank into despondency, and Heben too was sick at heart to think that his quest might end in such a horrible way.

The cook gave Heben a nudge and nodded over the side of the boat. ‘Looks like we might be nearly there.’

Heben strained to see. Sure enough, the ship was drawing close to one of the little islands that dotted the straits. It was a strangely beautiful sight to someone who’d never known anything but the desert. The sheer rock of the cliffs reared out of the sea, and the deep green of trees fringed the shore. A gull soared overhead, a white flash against the blue. It had rained in the night, and the morning was washed fresh, with a tang of salt that could be tasted on the tongue. The sky shone blue and unblemished, like a glazed bowl filled with clear light.

If this was truly to be the last day of his life, thought Heben, at least he would die in a place of beauty. He hoped he could face death as a Merithuran warrior should: unblinking, straight-backed, so that the ancestors who waited on the other side of the curtain to greet him need not be ashamed.

The other prisoners had fallen silent, their incessant grumbles and curses hushed at last. The brash voices of the Doryan pirates rang out through the clean morning air.

‘Boat ho!’

Heben saw a little dinghy bobbing on the water. A scruffy-looking boy was at the oars, and sunlight flashed on the two round glass lenses that he wore perched on his nose. A strange device, thought Heben.

There were two others in the little boat. One was a tall, thin young man who looked about seventeen, Heben’s age. He had dark burnished skin, and tattoos spiralled across his face and chest. And there was a young woman about the same age, with a long dark plait over one shoulder. The man with the tattoos was half naked, but the boy and the woman wore sturdy, plain-coloured shirts and trousers, the clothes of people who worked hard with their hands.

Fisher folk, thought Heben. This must not be the place after all; death would be postponed. He gulped in the cold air with relief. His ancestors would have to wait for him a little longer. To be honest, he was not looking forward to meeting them. They would probably disapprove of him, just as his father did, and the thought of an eternity spent with ancestors pursing their lips and shaking their heads was not a prospect he relished.

‘Hello!’ muttered the Gellanese, yanking Heben sideways as he craned to see what was happening in front of the ship. ‘Pirates won’t like this! Can’t they see where they’re goin?’

The boy with the strange lenses was rowing directly into the path of the much larger pirate ship. Sailors leaned over the rail, and shouted through cupped hands. ‘Out of the way! Hey, boy!
Out of the way!
’

‘That boy’d better look to his oars,’ observed the Gellanese. ‘This ship won’t turn aside for
him
.’

‘We’ll smash em like a twig!’ The cook rubbed his hands together in glee.

Heben stared. What were the three in the little boat thinking? Still the boy pulled steadily at his oars, without ever looking over his shoulder. He might have been alone on the whole wide ocean, from here to the coast of Gellan. The other two seemed equally oblivious.

The tattooed man sat quietly in the prow, and gazed off toward the horizon. Suddenly he lifted his head and stared up at the serpent-headed ship, up at the row of curious faces that peered over the edge, straight into the eyes of Heben. Startled, Heben stared back. For as long as three breaths, their gaze was locked. The stranger’s eyes were dark and serious, and he stared intently as if he were trying to find something he had lost.

Then, just as suddenly, he smiled. He tossed back his long dark hair, and looked over his shoulder at the young woman who sat behind him in the dinghy.