The Waterless Sea (6 page)

He had not dragged out these old memories for many years. It was surprising to find them, fresh as ever, as if he' d opened an old forgotten trunk, shaken out some ancient garments, and found them scented like wildflowers. But there was an unhappy smell in the old trunk too, a dusty, suffocating smell. And it was that smell that pursued him into his dreams.

The ship comes to a port they' ve never visited. It' s a hot place, with a smell of spices, and Mouse sees people dressed in long robes. He sees strange woolly beasts, and tall thin towers, and golden sand.

Arram does not go ashore with the other sailors. He says he is sick with jaw-ache, and stays in his hammock with a cloth wrapped around his head. Mouse goes to visit him. Arram' s skinny hand shoots out to grab his arm, and the old man hisses at him. ‘Be careful, boy! This is Geel. In Geel, when they find little boys who are chanters, they steal them away to the middle of the desert and eat them up! Our secret, boy. Remember!'

Mouse shakes off his grip and goes away. On the ship, the sailors are always warning him not to do this or that, or they' ll tan his hide, or throw him to the fishes, or chop him up for stew.

Mouse runs up the rigging to watch the cargo being unloaded. They have big cranes and pulleys here, the biggest he' s ever seen. The crew of Mouse' s ship hook ropes around a heavy bale. But the man who operates the crane begins to lift the bale before the ropes are secure. The captain, Mouse' s father, is underneath, bellowing orders; he doesn' t notice as the bale begins to slip. The sailors shout and wave their arms, but the captain doesn' t hear.

Before Mouse has time to think, he is singing a chantment. He leans from the rigging and sings out as loud as he can. The bale hangs in mid-air; it dangles from one rope, impossibly suspended. The sailors and the men on the dock stare, openmouthed, faces turned upward. Mouse sings. The bale floats. The captain steps back, one step, then another, his face ashen. Mouse stops singing. The bale crashes to the deck, on the very spot where the captain had been standing.

The sailors cheer; they don' t understand what has happened but they are happy their captain is safe. The men on the dock seem frightened. They look up at Mouse who clings to the mast, and they make a sign with their hands to banish evil. And Mouse sees them steal glances at a man in black robes who stands in the shadows, watching the scene, watching the little boy.

Suddenly Mouse is afraid. He scuttles down the rigging and darts across the deck toward his favourite hiding place. He scrambles out onto the bowsprit and perches there. The man in black robes steps onto the ship. The captain strides forward, frowning, his arm raised. No one comes onto the ship without the captain' s permission. But the man in black robes sweeps the captain aside with a wave of his hand, like a fly. His eyes are fixed on Mouse.

The little boy inches his way to the very end of the bowsprit. He is more frightened than he has ever been. Arram' s warning comes back to him with terrible force. The man in the black robes stands in the bow. He stretches out his hand, and Mouse feels a rush of relief. The man cannot touch him, he' s safe.

Then the man begins to sing. Mouse is lifted by the loop of his belt. The bowsprit snaps off beneath him, and falls with a splash into the water. An invisible hand tosses Mouse roughly onto the deck, and the man in the black robes sweeps him up under one arm. The captain runs toward them, shouting. The captain' s wife throws herself at the feet of the man in the black robes, and tears at him with her fingernails, screaming. Mouse wriggles and bites and kicks. But the man in the black robes strides swiftly on, with Mouse under his arm, off the ship and away.

Mouse is smothered in the black robes. He will never forget their choking, dusty smell. He can' t see where they' re going; all he sees is the man' s calloused, sandalled feet. The feet move rapidly, down steps, through doorways, along streets and into buildings. He can hear his mother' s voice as she pursues them through the winding streets. Mouse wriggles and twists more than ever. The man raises his hand and clouts Mouse hard around the head. Mouse gives one little gasping sob.

‘You' ll thank me for this one day, boy,' hisses the man. Then he hits Mouse again, and he knows no more.

two
The Deadly Sands

M
ICA LEANED OVER
the side of
Fledgewing
, staring through a narrow tube. Heben came up behind her. ‘What is that?'

‘Trout made it. You can see far-off things like they was at the end of your hand. Here, look.'

She passed him the tube and he stared through it. At once the faint line on the horizon, the shore of Merithuros, sprang into sharp focus. Heben could see the dunes, like frozen waves whose shape echoed the waves that curled onto the beach. He swung the tube back and forth. For as far as he could see, the desert stretched away, fold after fold.

‘I thought Doryus were a bleak place,' said Mica. ‘All rocks and little stunted slava bushes. But this –' She shivered. ‘It' s so dead. Don' t nothin live there?'

Heben stared at her in amazement. ‘The desert is filled with life. There are all manner of creatures: flocks of
hegesi
, and
wasunti
, the wild dogs. Snakes and lizards, and birds and little
nadi
–' Seeing her blank look, he held his hands about one span apart. ‘Little burrowing creatures, about so big, with long snuffling noses. Every child in Merithuros, I think, has a
nadu
for a pet.'

Halasaa stared toward the shore, his tattooed face difficult to read.
So many creatures in such emptiness?

Heben laughed. Their voyage had lasted a half turn of the moons, and he was becoming accustomed to Halasaa' s silent speech, though it still startled him to hear that quiet voice inside his head.

‘Wait, and I' ll show you! The desert is far from empty. Not like this –' He gestured with a grimace at the sea that lapped all around them.

‘By the gods, you must be joking.' Tonno, at the tiller, had been listening to their exchange. ‘Why, you can' t put a bucket into the ocean without drawing out a dozen different kinds of fish and weed.'

Mica said, ‘There' s islands near Doryus where you can dive for shellfish, and there' s gardens all across the bottom of the sea. There' s beautiful corals taller' n a man, and flowers bigger' n your head.'

‘You dive – into that?'

Calwyn smiled. ‘You and I have something in common, Heben. We who were not raised by the shore have to learn not to fear the sea.'

‘My people do not trust the ocean,' he admitted.

‘But Merithuros has ports, and traders, and fisher folk, same as every other land. Except Antaris,' Mica said.

‘Yes. But the coast-dwellers are not true Merithurans. Once they leave the desert life, once they leave the sands, they turn their backs on their true heritage. Criminals and outcasts work in the mines on the coast, and only misfits and orphans, people without family, live by the sea.'

Calwyn shook her head. ‘Don' t forget you' re one of those orphans now,' she reminded him.

Half to herself, Mica sang a scrap of a song from her native island.

‘From the river, the sea;
From the sea, the rains;
From the rains, the river. . .'

Calwyn said, ‘The sea connects us all, it' s the lifeblood of Tremaris. You will have to learn, as I did, to embrace the ocean, and not to be afraid of it.'

Heben looked away. It was true, he had forgotten that he had no family now; he was no different from those outcasts he had always scorned and pitied.

‘Ho, Mica!' called Tonno. ‘Sing us a breeze, lass. This wind is slackening.'

‘Are you sure we' re far enough fromTeril? It would be a pity to be arrested as chanters at the very beginning of our quest!'

Calwyn' s tone was light, and Heben said with a slight bow, ‘My lady jokes, but I fear it is no joking matter. If anyone were to discover you were chanters, your fate would be no better than the twins' . Perhaps worse.'

Calwyn was contrite. ‘I' m sorry, Heben.' She and Mica exchanged a look, and when Mica sang up a wind for the sails, she sang so softly that Heben could barely hear the music weaving through the breeze.

The next day they came to Teril. At Heben' s insistence, they entered the port without the aid of Mica or Calwyn' s chantment.

Tonno grumbled, ‘It' s a long time since I had to rely on my skills alone to bring
Fledgewing
into harbour.'

‘It' ll do you good,' teased Calwyn. ‘We don' t want our chief sailor' s skills to get rusty.'

Halasaa moved about the boat in his deft, silent way, hauling in canvas and loosening ropes before Tonno could give the order. Tonno had taught him well, and he was almost as at home on the waves as he had been in the dense forests of the Wildlands. But as soon as they drew near the teeming jetties of the port, Heben asked him to go below. ‘Once we reach the Court, we will dress you as a foreign servant. There are many such there, and no one will look at you twice. But here you will be conspicuous, until we find you some proper desert dress.'

Halasaa merely bowed his head and disappeared into the cabin.

Once at dock, Heben did not want Calwyn and Mica to go ashore and help purchase the supplies they would need. ‘The ladies will find it dull and dusty work,' he said, with a bow. ‘And the town is too rough a place for women.'

Mica' s eyes flashed. ‘You can' t stop me comin, just you try!' ‘You expect me to carry all the parcels, do you? Like one of those beasts of yours?' Tonno glowered.

‘Surely it wouldn' t hurt if Mica and I came along,' said Calwyn. ‘We' re not so delicate that we can' t deal with a little dust.' Heben' s gallantry was beginning to grate on her nerves.

Heben pressed his lips together and gave another of his stiff bows. ‘Very well, my lady,' he said, but he was not pleased. He shepherded his small band of foreigners around the marketplace, relieved that they attracted less attention than he expected. The market was a shabby, depressing place, buzzing with flies, and inhabited by skinny dogs who slunk along the streets, tongues lolling. It was very hot. The stallholders were slumped beneath their drab awnings, and their goods were shoddy. There were beggars on every corner; one old man looked up pleadingly at Calwyn, and shook the stumps where his hands had been. Calwyn was horrified. ‘Heben! Look!'

Heben threw the old man a swift glance. ‘He must have been injured in the mines.'

‘Can we give him something?'

‘You give to one, they' ll all be crowding round us for the rest of the day. Leave him. They' re all thieves. Some of them cut off their hands on purpose, so they can have a lazy life as beggars.' And he hurried on.

Calwyn was sorry she' d asked to come. Even Mica was uncharacteristically subdued, and trailed behind while Heben doled out coins from his diminishing store to buy food, tents, waterskins and cooking pans, and long dust-coloured robes.

‘But what are these?' Calwyn said when Heben loaded a new bundle of cloth into her arms. She fingered the bright swathes of embroidered cloth, in every colour of the rainbow.

‘Court clothes, for you,' said Heben.

Calwyn slid the silken lengths between her hands. The cloths were beautiful, without a doubt, but she was not looking forward to wrapping herself in these heavy sheets.

There was one last thing to buy. Heben led them to a silversmith' s, and had the man make a copy of his Clan medallion.

‘When we come to the Palace, you must wear it all the time,' he explained to Calwyn. ‘Otherwise no one will believe that you are one of the Cledsec.' They had agreed that Calwyn should pose as an obscure cousin of the Cledsec Clan, come to the Palace to acquire some polish.

Calwyn held the small medallion to her forehead. The cool metal scratched uncomfortably between her brows. She sighed; it was one more thing she would have to get used to.