The Singer of All Songs (6 page)

Slowly she said, ‘Perhaps it’s easier for him to bear, since he’s had his whole life to grow used to the idea. Perhaps if it had come upon him suddenly, like this, he would have been as angry and unhappy as you.’

The stranger’s face became still. Only his grey eyes flickered as he stared out at the rain; the whisper of its falling filled the tiny room. He was bitter indeed, but she liked his bitterness; he was different from anyone she had ever known.

At last she ventured, ‘Perhaps it’s better to be angry and unhappy than to be mad.’

Darrow’s mouth twisted in a smile. ‘Is it? I wonder.’

After that they did not speak for a long time. Calwyn drew up another stool, and he did not tell her to go away. So they sat together and listened to the music of the rain.

The next time, she brought him one of Tuw’s sticks, and he sat, turning it over in his hands.

‘I know you’re not ready to use it yet. But I thought, if you had it waiting, it would be easier.’

‘It is a fine piece of work. I had some skill in carving, once, a long time ago.’

‘You talk like an old man whose life is nearly over!’

His face went still as he fingered the pattern of growing leaves and berries that Tuw had wound about the stick.

Calwyn could have bitten her tongue. She rushed on, ‘Tuw was glad to give it to me. He sits by the fireside all winter long, making them. He has too many to use them all for himself.’

‘Did you tell him it was for the Outlander?’

Her hesitation gave him his answer, and he smiled. ‘I thought not.’

‘If you like,’ she said, to change the subject, ‘I can bring you a knife, and some wood. It might pass the time for you, until . . .’

‘Until I am brought to slaughter?’

‘Until your foot is healed.’

‘Ursca says that it will never heal.’ His voice was light and bantering, but there was pain in his eyes.

‘In time, it will heal enough to bear your weight. And then I can show you the orchards, and the hives. I’m the beekeeper here.’

‘Yes, I know.’ She stared at him in surprise and he looked away, flushing. ‘I have been asking questions about you,’ he admitted shyly. ‘It seems I am indebted to you twice over: once for bringing me from the Wall, and once for supplying the jelly that restored my wits.’

‘You have the bees to thank for that, not me. And Ursca says your wits would have returned even without the jelly.’

‘In any case, I thank you,’ he said quietly, and he laid the stick carefully against the wall, like a precious thing.

Tamen would not permit him to have a knife.

‘If he wished to harm us, my Sister, he could do so easily enough without a whittling knife!’ exclaimed Calwyn.

‘I am aware of that. If I had my way, he would be bound and gagged even now. You will not give him a knife.’

Do not be her enemy. Do not be her enemy.
Calwyn took a deep breath. ‘What if I watch him all the time, and take back the knife when I leave?’

‘No,’ said Tamen curtly, and walked away, her heavy black-and-silver plait swinging down her back.

But in the end Calwyn did give him her own small knife. ‘It’s meant for taking wax from honeycomb, not for carving wood,’ she apologised. ‘I fear you’ll find it too blunt.’

‘No matter.’ He turned over the little knife in his long, thin fingers, and tested the blade. Then he sang from his throat, very quietly, so that Ursca, bustling about in the infirmary, should not hear. Calwyn felt her hands tingling and her head grow light. His chantment was brief, but when it was finished, Calwyn reached out swiftly and touched the blade. Its edge was so keen that she didn’t feel the cut until she saw the red line spring across her thumb.

‘Careful!’ said Darrow.

‘Too late,’ she said ruefully. ‘I’ll put some honey on it.’

And then he did something he had not done before: he threw back his head and laughed.

One day, not long into summer, but sooner than she had expected, she saw him limping slowly through the orchard toward the hives, balancing himself carefully with Tuw’s stick. She waved, but he was concentrating too hard to wave back; as he came closer, she saw that his lips were moving. He was using chantment to keep the weight of his bandaged foot from the ground, as he had done on the first day.

When he reached the tree closest to the hives, he used Tuw’s stick to lower himself painfully to the grass. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘that was a little more difficult than I expected.’

‘You shouldn’t have tried such a long walk for your first time.’

He waved his hand dismissively. ‘I have been shuffling around the infirmary for days already, it was time to give Ursca a rest from me. But my other foot is stiffer than I thought. And my voice also,’ he added.

Calwyn was silent, frowning.

‘What? You don’t approve of chantment? We were told always that Antaris was the one land where chantment was cherished and respected, not hidden away and feared as it is everywhere else in Tremaris.’

‘It’s not that. But we’re taught not to use chantment for trivial matters. Tamen tells us that every breath of cold that we make may grow and grow until it’s a storm in the Bay of Sardi, and a hurricane by the time it reaches Doryus.’

‘Perhaps it is true. There was uncommon bad weather last time I sailed through the Great Sea.’ He stretched his leg in front of him. ‘Sing up a snowstorm now, I pray you, and it might hinder Samis from pursuing me.’

Samis
. He had never before spoken the name of the one who hunted him.

She asked, ‘What is sailing?’

He looked startled. ‘Sailing – in a boat – a craft that floats on the sea.’

‘We have no – no
boats
here.’ She pronounced the word carefully. ‘How do you dare? What would happen if you fell into the water? You would die.’

‘I can swim a little.’ Seeing her blank stare, he made motions with his arms. ‘Swimming. Moving through the water.’

‘Can sorcerers breathe in water?’ Her eyes widened. This was a wondrous gift indeed, beyond all imagining.

‘Indeed,’ he said solemnly. ‘Shall I show you how?’ But he could not keep his face straight, and they both laughed. ‘Even without breathing water, it’s possible to keep afloat,’ he said. ‘Have you never learned to swim?’

She shook her head. The idea was incomprehensible. ‘Did you
sail
all the way from Merithuros?’

‘I have sailed all across the Great Sea, and back again, and north, too, as far as the Outer Isles.’

The names meant little to Calwyn, but she was impressed all the same.
As far as the Outer Isles.
The words were as magical as any chantment.

Darrow picked up a green apple from the grass, and frowned at it. ‘This is early fruit. In Kalysons, the trees bear apples only when the summer is nearly gone.’

‘Our summer is so short, perhaps our trees have to start the season sooner, or they wouldn’t have time to bear fruit at all before winter returns.’

‘Hm.’ Darrow unfolded Calwyn’s little knife, and began to carve patterns onto the small green globe, whistling between his teeth.

‘You’re very cheerful today.’

‘Travelling makes me cheerful always, even if it is only the journey from the infirmary to here.’

Calwyn watched as the point of the busy knife dug into the apple. Darrow took great care with his patterns, but they made no sense to her; the lines were not even, they meandered around the unripe globe. At last he was satisfied; he held up the apple on the palm of his hand. ‘Behold Tremaris!’

Calwyn dropped down eagerly beside him. ‘Show me!’

‘Where I had my schooling, they teach that Tremaris is a sphere, just as the moons are.’ He pointed at the lines he had carved into the apple’s green skin. ‘Here is the shoreline of Kalysons, and the Great Sea.’ He spun the fruit on its stalk. ‘Here is Merithuros –’

‘Where is Antaris?’

‘Here. At least, I believe so. And there are the Wildlands beyond, the forests and the untamed lands – all this half of the apple, blank and unnamed.’

Calwyn reached out for the apple, but Darrow held it away from her, and made as if to devour it with one bite. ‘Stop!’ she cried, half laughing, half in earnest, and caught at his arm. Their eyes met, then Darrow smiled a wry smile.

‘At least there is one Daughter of Taris who is eager to save the world.’ He tossed the apple to Calwyn. Her face was flushed; embarrassed, she fixed her gaze on the globe, spinning it around and around, tracing the carved lines and notches with her fingertip.

‘I’ve never seen a model of Tremaris like this before.’ She looked up. ‘If it is a question of saving the whole world, and not just your own skin, you should be even more determined to defeat him. Samis, I mean.’ She spoke the name lightly, not looking at Darrow.

‘I have explained to you already, I cannot defeat him. He is ten times the sorcerer I am.’

There was a flicker of pain in his eyes, but Calwyn was too impatient to see it. ‘Well then, if you can’t defeat him alone, there must be others who can help you. You could band together –’ ‘Band together!’ He roared with laughter. ‘A band of sorcerers, indeed! Have you never heard the saying, that shutting two sorcerers in a room is like locking up two wild roancats in a box? They would tear one another to pieces.’

‘No,’ said Calwyn crossly, ‘I’ve never heard that saying. But I know that here in Antaris the priestesses help one another with their chantments, and we make more powerful magic that way than one chanter ever could alone.’

‘The rest of the world is not like Antaris,’ he said flatly. ‘It’s a pretty idea. But it will never happen.’ He fell silent, and the sunlight dazzled through the leaves, dancing with every shift of the breeze. Calwyn put the carved apple gently on the grass.

‘Marna said that no one man’s voice could ever span all the forms of chantment. She said that no man could ever sing high enough for the spells of ice-call.’

Darrow’s mouth twisted in a smile. The gash on his forehead had healed now into a silvery scar that dragged across one eyebrow, giving him a quizzical look that made it difficult to tell when he was serious. ‘Your Marna is wise, but she does not know everything. The chantments of seeming are higher than yours, yet Samis can sing them. We were – he has learned tricks to stretch his voice. Like this.’ He sang a note in falsetto. Calwyn began to laugh at the unnatural sound, but at Darrow’s sober look, her laughter died. He said, ‘It is true, mastery of the Nine Powers has never been achieved by any sorcerer, but Samis is no ordinary sorcerer.’

‘What is he then?’ She sounded more flippant than she’d intended.

Darrow stared at her gravely. ‘He is a prince of the Merithuran Empire. Do you know anything about the royal court of Merithuros? No? I thought not. There is one Emperor, but there are many princes. Too many for them all to find favour. Samis is a minor prince. In spite of this, all his life he had thought that his gifts would earn him the title of heir to the Emperor.’

‘Do you mean his gifts as a chanter?’

Darrow shook his head. ‘No. Those powers he kept secret. I have already told you, chantment is not prized in other places as it is here. No, he set store by his wits and his strength of purpose. But that was not enough to win him the prize he sought. The Emperor chose another of his sons. So now Samis has decided, in his greed and his pride, that to be Emperor of Merithuros is a paltry ambition, not worthy of his talents. He has decided to make himself emperor of all Tremaris.’

‘All Tremaris?
All
the lands?’

‘Why not?’ Darrow’s voice grated harshly; there was no hint of teasing now. ‘It will be a simple enough feat for the Singer of all Songs. Already he has learned two crafts; why not three, or five, or nine?’ He plucked up the apple and tossed it high into the air, so that it spun in the dappled sunlight. ‘AllTremaris will become his plaything, to torment or destroy or enslave at his whim. He will work on the world as a child works on a lump of clay. And no one will be able to stop him. No one.’ He bent back his arm, and threw the apple in a high arc, so that Calwyn lost sight of it against the dazzle of leaves and sun. She heard the faint splash as it landed in the river. She could picture it, a small green bobbing globe, seized by the force of the current, dragged helplessly away, on and on, toward the distant sea.

Darrow saw her disappointment. ‘It would have rotted before long.’

‘And so might the realTremaris, if what you say is true.’ She sat up very straight, and stared at him. ‘Darrow, have you never thought, if this Samis is truly so powerful, then why would he bother to chase you?’

‘In Merithuros, he’s famed for his skill as a hunter. This time his quarry is a man, that’s all. It will amuse him to hunt me down, at the same time as he hunts down the forms of chantment.’

‘No, no! Don’t you see, he must be afraid of you – at least a little. There must be
some
way to overcome him. And he must know it.’

With painful slowness Darrow dragged himself to his feet, and stood leaning on his stick, staring down at her. Suddenly he seemed much older than the playful young man who had been bantering with her earlier. His grey-green eyes burned with a cold anger. ‘Calwyn, Daughter of Taris, do not speak to me again about this matter. You know nothing. Your ignorance shames you.’ He turned his back and limped away with slow, unbending dignity.

Stricken, Calwyn jumped up. ‘Darrow!’ She wanted to run after him, to shout, and argue, and shake him by the shoulders. But some force held her back; it was as though his chantment gripped her again by the scruff of her tunic and held her where she stood. At last she turned away.

The next day, Calwyn was at the hives not long after sunrise, glad that the novices would be busy at their lessons, and she would be alone. She would not go to see Darrow in the infirmary; she told herself that she’d be too busy, but in truth she was still angry with him for his stubborn determination to be defeated. If
she
had a mortal enemy, she would never give up. She tugged at her gloves and jammed on her hat. She would fight and fight, until the breath left her body.

The bees that had swarmed were not happy in their new hive; all day they buzzed discontentedly. Twice she was stung by a bee that crept under her veil. Perhaps it was as Damyr always told her, that the bees could sense their keeper’s mood. If she was restless, then so were the bees; if she was unhappy, then the hives would be unhappy, too, and unhappy hives did not make good honey.