The Tenth Power (19 page)

In the daylight, Calwyn saw that Darrow’s face was grey, and his hands shook. His eyes met hers.

‘I tried to sing you out of the water,’ he said in a low voice. ‘I tried, but I – ’ His voice cracked, and Calwyn moved to him, but he held up his hand.

Tonno laid Keela down beside one of several crackling fires, sheltered behind a screen of branches. There were about forty Tree People in the camp; they stared at the voiced strangers warily, but without hostility. All the travellers recognised on their faces the intent, preoccupied look that Calwyn and Halasaa wore when they spoke silently together.

Brother and sister knelt by Keela; she was breathing, but she was very cold. Halasaa turned her head and helped her to cough up the last of the water she’d swallowed. Together he and Calwyn restored the blood to her limbs, and made sure she was wrapped up warmly. Halasaa’s words were sober.
I do
not know if she will survive.

Calwyn smoothed the damp golden hair from Keela’s brow.
She has come close to death. Perhaps too close to return.

You saved her, my sister. Even though she tried to kill you.

Is that what she intended?
Calwyn stared down at Keela’s pale, beautiful face.
I don’t know.

Briaali watched closely as their hands moved over Keela. She was as old as Marna, perhaps even older. But where Marna had been soft and gentle, everything about Briaali was sharp-edged and glittering. Her small face was deeply lined, but her hair shone dark and glossy, barely shot through with silver, and her small black eyes were bright and shrewd.
You
are healers?

Halasaa stood, his body taut as he braced for rejection or abuse.
Yes
.

We are both healers.
Calwyn stood too, shoulder to shoulder with her brother, ready to spring to his defence.

You are welcome here.
Briaali wrinkled her eyes in an unexpected smile.
We have much to discuss.

By the big fire, Tonno pulled Calwyn into a bear hug. ‘Is it true, lass, what Darrow says?You’ve got your chantment back?’

‘Yes!’ Calwyn laughed as she returned his hug. ‘There was a deep magic in that pool, deeper than I can understand.’

When she heard Calwyn speak aloud, Briaali’s eyes screwed up sharply.
You are a Voiced One, my sister? But the Voiced Ones do not
have the gift of healing.

We were born together.
Halasaa answered for them both.
Our
mother was a chanter of the Voiced Ones, our father a healer of the
Spiridrelleen. Calwyn has inherited the gifts of both our parents.

Briaali nodded slowly.
Then you are blessed indeed.

‘Yes,’ said Calwyn simply. In the past, it had seemed a fearful burden to be able to sing so many kinds of chantment. But now, glowing from her immersion in theWaters, she was sure that she could carry that burden with grace. The exuberant certainty that she could do
anything
was still with her. She felt as if she had come awake after a long sleep. The numbness that had wrapped around her like a cocoon of ice for the last half-year was shattered utterly. She breathed the crisp, fresh air deep into her lungs, her heart skipping.

Your father was a healer?
Briaali peered into Halasaa’s face.
Was
he Halwi, of the Blazetree People?

For once in his life, Halasaa was startled.
You knew him?

Briaali nodded.
We were friends. He shared the old knowledge with
me, but I have no gift of Becoming, and could not use what he taught.
She gestured around the cave to her companions.
My brothers and
sisters here all wish the old wisdom had been preserved. We have suffered
among our people, for believing so.
She laid one wrinkled hand on Halasaa’s arm, and one on Calwyn’s.
I am glad Halwi fathered
children, so that his gift was not lost.

And now I must use that gift.
Halasaa moved toward the fire.
Darrow has waited too long.

Suddenly tears sprang into Calwyn’s eyes. ‘The Clarion! The Clarion is lost! I think I could have saved it – but I helped Keela instead.’

‘Mebbe we can fish it out of the pool,’ suggested Tonno, but the Tree People all drew back, frowning in disapproval.

‘It’s all right, Calwyn,’ said Trout. ‘Don’t cry. It’s worth losing the Clarion to have you back, singing.’

‘It’s worth losing the Clarion to have you alive,’ murmured Darrow. ‘Chanter or not.’

Again Calwyn had a wild urge to throw her arms around Darrow, to kiss his mouth and his hands. She didn’t care if she caught the snow-sickness; she felt invulnerable. ‘The Waters have healed me – surely they will heal you, too! Let’s try!’ She reached out to touch him, but Darrow pulled away.

Briaali’s voice sounded sharply in their minds.
Do not look for
such a gift to be given twice.
She turned to Darrow.
If you are ill,
drinking from theWaters will strengthen you. But no more than that.

‘Change your clothes, Calwyn,’ said Darrow in a low voice. ‘Before you catch a fever.’

While Calwyn hastily dragged on dry clothes, Halasaa laid his hands on Darrow’s shoulders and poured healing power into his body.The others began the formalities of hospitality: making introductions, and passing a cup of warm, sweet flower-wine from hand to hand. One by one, the Tree People scattered about the cave drew close and sat down. But as Calwyn rejoined the circle, she sensed that Briaali was impatient with the ritual. As if the Elder had heard her thoughts, her glittering eyes fixed on Calwyn.
I am old, and soon my time will
be over. I have no will to wait.
The light in her eyes went out.
The
trouble which faces us is too urgent.

‘This endless winter – ’ Darrow raised his head.

‘And the snow-sickness!’ Calwyn interrupted.

Briaali leaned forward.
Snow-sickness?

‘An illness that attacks chanters,’ said Darrow. He looked away. ‘I am infected.’

I am sorry, my friend.

The snow-sickness is beyond my healing
, put in Halasaa.
I do not
understand it.

Briaali nodded.
Something is eating at the fabric of the world. This
sickness may be a part of it –

A faint memory chimed in Calwyn’s mind, but she was so eager to interrupt Briaali that it vanished. ‘We know what caused the sickness, and held back the coming of spring! An object called theWheel holds dark magic, the chantments of the Tenth Power. TheWheel was broken, two years ago, and those chantments were released – ’

The Tenth Power?What magic is this?
Briaali spoke over Calwyn.

‘We don’t know – not exactly. But the chantments must be very powerful, to alter the seasons, and bring a plague on chanters all over Tremaris!’ Calwyn’s words spilled out faster and faster. ‘I have one half of theWheel. A sorcerer, Samis, has the other.We’re on our way to find him now.We must stop him before he releases more dark magic. If we can rejoin the Wheel, all the harm will be undone. Spring will come. All the chanters will be cured!’ Breathless, she smiled into Darrow’s grave grey-green eyes, brimming with confidence that their quest would succeed, and Darrow would be saved.

A powerful object indeed.
Briaali held out her hand.
May I see it?

Calwyn drew out the half-Wheel and passed it to Briaali. The Elder examined it carefully, but after a moment she shook her head.
There may be magic here. But what ails Tremaris did not come
from yourWheel. The troubles began long ago.

Calwyn snatched back the half-Wheel and cradled it protectively. ‘But – but Marna said –TheWheel and theTenth Power hold the answer!’ she cried. ‘And so didTamen – I know they were right!When we mend theWheel, we will mend the world. I
know
it!’

Briaali gave her a cool, hard stare.
You are the child of two peoples,
a singer of songs and a dancer of healing. TheWaters granted you a new life.
Do not waste it on broken rocks and idle prophecies.

Calwyn folded her lips as stubbornly as Mica. Briaali was an Elder and deserved respect, but she was wrong, wrong, wrong! It was Briaali who wasted time, sitting and talking, while Calwyn burned to seize back the other half-Wheel, to make it whole.
That
was the answer, no matter what Briaali thought!

And Samis knew that, too.

The realisation jolted through her. All through this journey, they had spoken of the need to stop Samis doing more harm. But why should he wish to damage the world he wanted to rule? Wasn’t it more likely that his quest was the same as their own, to repair the harm thatTamen had done? It was
power
that Samis craved, not destruction. Perhaps – perhaps they could work together? She was bursting to share this revelation with the others, but Briaali was still speaking.

I am old. You are all young. Too young to remember. The fruit hung
heavy from the trees, and in spring the new leaves burst with life. But every
year, the life in the forest weakens. The trees do not grow so high, the leaves
turn yellow before their season. And now this terrible winter. But it is not
the beginning of the trouble, and it is not the whole of the trouble. That began
long ago.

Tonno broke in. ‘When my grandpa was young, the fish swam so thick in the oceans, he could bring up a day’s catch in his two hands. Ain’t like that now.’

Darrow said, ‘The plants and the beasts have grown more feeble, and so has the power of chantment. Magic has faded all over Tremaris. I’ve seen it in my own lifetime. In Merithuros, there are fewer chanters than when I first went there, only twenty years ago.’

Trout said, ‘Mica always says, when her grandma was a girl, every woman in the Isles could sing up a chantment of windwork.Well,
that’s
not true any more.’

Halasaa looked at Briaali.
My sister and I are the last to know the
dances of healing. Is that part of this nameless trouble, too?

Indeed
. Briaali’s face was grave.
These things are all connected. The
pool of life and magic is not yet dry, but every year it becomes more shallow.

‘It’s the work of theTenth Power!’ insisted Calwyn. ‘It must be!’

Briaali held up her hand.
These troubles are dreadful indeed, but
there is another, more urgent danger that confronts us. We came here, as the
Wise Ones did in the old days, to seek guidance.The Knot of theWaters holds
the answer to every riddle, and the completion of every dance.

‘There’s another danger? What?’ Tonno scowled, and put his hand to the hilt of his knife.

Many young ones, young men, among my people believe that the seed of
the troubles was sown when the invaders came.

‘Invaders?’Trout was puzzled.

The Voiced Ones
, rapped out Briaali.
Your people!

‘Oh,’ said Trout feebly. ‘Of course.’

The young men call themselves warriors. They believe that the only way
to restore the life to our world is to banish the Voiced Ones from Tremaris.

‘War?’ breathed Darrow. ‘They want war?’

‘How can they hope to win a war against theVoiced Ones?’ cried Trout. ‘There’s no chance! Our weapons are superior – I should know, I used to build them! And there’s all the trained armies, Merithuros, Rengan, Baltimar, they’ve been practising fighting each other for years.’

Tonno shook his head. ‘Your warriors must have lost their wits, old one.We’ll wipe you out before the moons take half a turn.’

Briaali’s eyes flashed dangerously.
You speak of ‘you’ and ‘we’, as
if you were warriors yourselves! I will not say that the warriors are right.
She drew her tiny body up as straight as a sapling.
But the
Spiridrelleen have been driven from their lands, butchered and forced to live
in hiding. Our forests have been slaughtered. The Tree People have much to
win, and little to lose, by waging war on the Voiced Ones.

‘Then our quest is more urgent than ever,’ said Darrow in a low voice. ‘There is more at stake than we knew.’

Yes. Unless we can stop them, the warriors will attack the lands behind
the thicket of ice before next moondark.

Calwyn stared at Briaali in horror. ‘You mean Antaris, the Wall of Antaris?’ A lump of dread sprang into her throat. She felt as if she were being torn into pieces. Of course the Tree People should not have to live in hiding, in suffering and sorrow. But fighting with the people of Antaris would not set that right. For all their faults, at least they lived in peace within theirWall. In an instant, all her exhilaration turned to despair. What was the good of regaining her chantment, with so much misery everywhere?

Halasaa clasped her hand.
We will find a way to prevent this.
Her brother was reassuring as always, but Calwyn had to swallow hysterical sobs.

Prevent a war. Find Samis and mend theWheel. And all before the next
moondark! Oh, my brother, how can we do so much?

We must try
, said Halasaa simply.

‘I don’t understand why the Spiri – Spirideen hate us,’ said Trout doggedly. ‘It wasn’t
us
who killed the Tree People. That was all hundreds of years ago. It’s not
our
fault.’

‘Let what’s past, stay past,’ grunted Tonno.

Briaali fixed them with a shrewd look.
The tree bears the mark
of drought long past; the forest changes its form with the pattern of flood and
storm and fire. The shape of the present is created by the past. You do not
know the story of your people, yet you would give lessons to mine, to the
Spiridrelleen
who fell at the hands of your ancestors? You must learn to
listen, boy.

Trout looked shame-faced. ‘Tell me the story of my people.’

Briaali laid her hands on her knees and closed her eyes. Very gently, she swayed back and forth, and as she told her tale, she placed pictures into the minds of her listeners.
This
tale was told to me by Halwi, of the Blazetree People, and it was told to
him by his mother, Iaana. I tell it now to Halwi’s son and to his daughter.