The Waterless Sea (9 page)

Heben cleared his throat, looking at her sideways, as if he had something to ask but was too shy to begin.

‘What is it, Heben?'

‘Can any sorcerer do what you' ve done, turning the storm aside, and making water out of the air? Could the twins learn to do as you did?'

She shook her head. ‘No. Only a daughter of Antaris can sing the chantments of ice. And the winds can only be controlled by one born to windwork, like Mica, a daughter of the Isles.'

‘But you sing up the winds just as she does. Weren' t you born in the mountains?'

For a moment Calwyn didn' t reply. She didn' t like to speak of the fact that she, like the dead sorcerer Samis, possessed the rare gift of mastery of more than one kind of chantment. Samis had thought that gift entitled him to rule the whole of Tremaris. Calwyn didn' t think that. She didn' t want to think about it at all; her mind shied away from the matter like a mackerel from a shark.

‘I was raised in Antaris, but not born there,' she said at last. ‘I' m not certain of my fathering. I must have some island blood too.'

Shock flashed across Heben' s face. ‘You are not certain? But –'

Calwyn gave a dry, forced laugh. ‘Fathers are important in Merithuros, I understand that already. But where I come from, it' s mothers who matter more. Any child born to a priestess of Antaris after the Festival of Shadows will always be a little uncertain of their fathering, though boy children, and the girls who have no gift of chantment, are often fostered by their fathers. But the girl children who can sing are raised as sisters together, and the High Priestess is mother to us all.' She fell silent, remembering Marna' s kindly blue eyes and her regal smile. Would she ever see her again, would she ever return to Antaris? Suddenly the mountains seemed so far away, they might have been on one of the moons. She shook herself. ‘My mother' s name was Calida,' she said briskly, to forestall his pity. ‘She bore me somewhere in the Outlands, and took me back to Antaris before she died. I was only a baby then. I don' t remember her.'

‘I' m sorry,' stammered Heben. To be a fatherless child in Merithuros was an unthinkable misfortune. Even though his father had cast him out, he knew who he was: Heben, son of Rethsec, son of Cheben, called the Quick, and so it went on, back and back. He said proudly, ‘I can trace my ancestry back to Cledsec himself, who was one of the Seven, the first warriors of Merithuros.'

Calwyn had to smile. ‘And who was Cledsec' s father, Heben?Who was his mother?'

‘The legends say that the gods sent the Seven from the sky in a silver ship.'

Mica had been listening. ‘Then you got sailin in your blood after all, same as me!'

‘It' s only a legend.' Heben frowned. ‘And after twenty generations in the deserts, I think we can claim to belong to this land.'

No!
Halasaa' s voice was savage inside Calwyn' s head. A quick glance at the others confirmed that they had not heard him; Halasaa' s words were for her alone. Halasaa was never violent, never anything but gentle and calm. But the words that tumbled from him now were harsh and disturbed.
This land does not welcome
his people any more than a corpse sits up and bids welcome to its murderer!

Calwyn stared at him. ‘Peace, Halasaa!' she murmured.

His face set, her friend strode ahead, and the subject of ancestry, whether it was Heben' s, Calwyn' s or Mica' s, was dropped.

But the image of the murdered land stuck in Calwyn' s head, and as the day went on, she found herself listening intently to the small sounds of the desert: the shuffling of the
hegesi
, the crunch of Halasaa' s footsteps, the scamper of a startled
nadu
. After a time, she fancied she could hear the breath of the land itself, as if the endless plain sighed like the ocean, or the whispering forests of theWildlands. But this land seemed to murmur of death and decay. The gnarled, stunted shrubs looked like bundles of dead twigs stuck into the dirt. She noticed tiny piles of
nadu
bones, heaped up like abandoned birds' nests. The scattered rocks and boulders lay inert and lifeless. The air was so dry in her throat that she couldn' t sing. At that, panic gripped her, for without chantment, she was no longer herself, and she stopped and took a gulp from her waterskin.

Despite the protection of the long robes and turban, Calwyn' s face was flayed by the sun. When at last night fell, the cold air was as welcome as a cool bath on her burnt skin. The others were all darker-skinned, and stood the fierce sun better; certainly she was the only one who glowed red at the end of every day. Halasaa laid his cool hands against her cheeks, and even before he began the subtle movements of healing, she felt better at his touch.

That night Calwyn slept badly, despite her fatigue. Cold and sore, she found no comfort on the hard ground, and every rustle of a night creature or crackle of the fire jerked her awake. When at last she did doze off, she was tormented with nightmares, and woke clammy with sweat, heart hammering, unable to remember her dreams.

On the fifth day they came through the hills, and saw it.

The Palace of Cobwebs lay along the top of a ridge. At first, except that the hills were too low, Calwyn might have taken the Palace for a snowcap: it was a glistening of white marble, the froth on a wave of red rock, a layering of light that burned across her eyes. That was all that could be seen at first: light, and whiteness, and a shining like glass.

As they drew nearer, she could see the texture of the whiteness, the shapes of the interlaced buildings with their curved and gleaming roofs, some high, some low. There were domes, and slender turrets, and towers as fine as needles; there was one tower that seemed to pierce the sky. Calwyn, who had visited the most ancient of all cities of Tremaris, the abandoned city of Spareth, felt her memory catch at those shapes. She wondered at the builders who had copied them, and the stories of their patterning that must have been passed from generation to generation until they flowered into being, here, carved from the white stone.

‘We' ll make camp here.' Heben led them down a narrow path, almost invisible, into a hidden place between two hills, where a small creek ran. There was shelter and shade beneath an overhang of rock, and green plants feathered the banks of the stream. ‘There is plenty of
arbec
here; the
hegesi
will be happy, and should not wander. And for us, these fruits are sweet, they are in season now.'

Halasaa smiled at him serenely.
This is the way all your lands used
to be, wild and green. In this place, the memory of the lost land still lives.

As if to prove his point, he threw back his head and gave a silent call, and after a moment a bird appeared, circling overhead: the blue flash of a kingfisher. It hovered above them for the space of a heartbeat, no more, then darted away upstream. But a few moments later it returned, with a silver fish in its beak, and it dropped the fish at Halasaa' s feet and flew away.

Supper for us all.
Halasaa looked at Heben' s astonished face and smiled his slow wide smile, but it was Mica who laughed on his behalf.

After they had pitched camp and eaten, Calwyn wrapped herself in her cloak and walked through the dusk back up the path to a place where she could see the Palace of Cobwebs clearly. As near as this, she could make out some of the intricate, lace-like patterns carved into the white stone walls. But no, they didn' t look carved; it was as though the Palace had somehow grown into being, a tangled mesh of silk and gossamer, light enough to blow away at a puff of wind, so delicate and fine that it seemed to shimmer and billow in the air.

The light of the setting sun stained the white walls in more colours than Calwyn could have imagined: deep and bloody reds, rich mauves and purples, blue and grey, pale as winter clouds, a bright flare of yellow, then rosy pink like the cheek of a sleeping baby. And as the colours of the Palace shifted, one blending into the next, so the sky behind it changed, flaring and fading, blue into purple into deepest indigo, then black. Then the stars and the three moons shone out, and the Palace was cold and sparkling against the black velvet of the night.

‘In the morning,' said Heben behind her, ‘you will see it gold and white and blue.'

‘It' s truly a marvel,' said Calwyn. ‘I never thought I' d see such a thing built by human hands. It' s a most exquisite sight.' ‘Wait until you' ve seen the walls up close. The carvings are so fine, so delicate, they could make you weep.'

‘And the people who dwell inside the walls?' Suddenly Calwyn felt nervous. It was not fear of the danger that lay ahead, though she felt that too; this was the same shy awkwardness that she' d felt before the village boys of Antaris. Tomorrow she would bind Heben' s medallion to her brow, and put on the robes they' d bought in Teril, and they would enter the Imperial Court of Merithuros. She would pretend to be an aristocratic lady, even though she did not know how to speak, or how to dress, or how to hold her spoon. She could not dance, nor flirt, nor play at dice.

Heben flashed her a grin, the first unforced, whole-hearted smile he' d given since they' d met.

‘Oh, have no fear,' he assured her. ‘The courtiers will make you weep more than the carvings.'

Calwyn smiled back at him weakly, and then they were both silent, gazing at the silver confection, and thinking their own thoughts, until at last they turned and made their way back to the camp.

D
ARROW 2

Pleased with himself, Trout stood back and wiped his lenses on the tail of his shirt. The bridge was coming along nicely; within the next day or two, the ends of the archway would meet above the stream. This bridge would stand for hundreds of years, he thought with satisfaction. Even after the stream itself had changed course, this bridge would still be here. Trout' s Bridge, they' d call it, long after everyone had forgotten who Trout had been –

A shout from below made him jam his lenses back onto his nose. He frowned. Fresca was coming up from the village, waving furiously. Surely it couldn' t be time for lunch already? Fresca shouted something. A few steps nearer and he could make out the words.

‘Trout! He' s back, Darrow' s back!'

Trout flung down his trowel and hurried along the muddy path to the harbour, with Fresca at his heels. Even without a looking-tube, he recognised
Heron
' s brown sail as it swayed to and fro across the mouth of the bay.

By the time Darrow' s little boat reached the jetty, half the village was there to greet him, and the children jostled to catch the rope that he tossed out.

‘He went away to rest,' Fresca murmured to Trout. ‘But he looks more tired than the day he left. Shoo, shoo, children!' She strode forward, clapping her hands to clear a path for Darrow. ‘Let the poor lad be! Can' t he have a breath to himself ?'

Darrow gave her a distracted smile, and he nodded to Trout, but his eyes travelled searchingly across the little crowd and swept up the hill. Trout knew who he was looking for, and so did Fresca. She laid a hand on his arm.

‘Come to my house,' she said. ‘I' ll warm you a cup of broth, and you can wash. Better than going up to that old hut of yours with no fire laid, and no welcome.'

Darrow hesitated, and Trout saw him glance swiftly to the cottage that Calwyn and Mica shared. He frowned at the fastened shutters, and the closed door, which the girls usually left flung open to weather and visitors alike.

‘They aren' t there,' said Trout. ‘They' ve all gone off in
Fledgewing
.'

Darrow' s face cleared. ‘Chasing pirates? So they' ll be back tonight?'

‘No. Not tonight.' Fresca hooked her hand beneath his elbow. ‘Come inside, and we' ll tell you.'

Darrow kept his hands wrapped tightly around the bowl of soup while Trout told the story. Darrow said not a word to interrupt, and he didn' t touch the broth until Trout was finished. His face was set like a mask; he looked more
foreign
than usual, Trout thought, and his grey-green eyes were unreadable.

He swung around and asked Fresca, ‘This Heben. What is he like?'

‘He' s just a boy,' said Fresca. ‘Trying to be brave like a man, but he' s a little boy underneath it all.'

Darrow looked relieved, which puzzled Trout. Wouldn' t Calwyn be safer with a man than with a half-grown boy? But Darrow had turned back to him. ‘And they have gone to the Black Palace? That' s what they said?'

Trout frowned. That didn' t sound quite right. ‘It was some Palace or other.'

‘But they have gone to find the chanter children?'

‘Oh, yes. Definitely.'

‘Then it must be the Black Palace.'

Fresca said, ‘Eat your broth before it' s cold.'

Darrow put the spoon into the bowl, and left it there. Then he pushed back his stool and went to stare out the window.

‘If only she had waited,' he said under his breath. ‘She doesn' t know what she' s facing. The Black Palace, by herself! She thinks she is equal to anything. And Tonno is worse. I told him to take care of her. I told him –' Abruptly he turned, as if he' d suddenly remembered that he wasn' t alone. ‘Forgive me,' he said. ‘I' m used to thinking aloud, day after day on
Heron
, by myself.'

Fresca and Trout exchanged glances. ‘Don' t mind me,' said Trout uncomfortably.

‘I didn' t hear a word,' said Fresca, unperturbed. ‘My hearing' s not what it was before the slavers came. Come back and eat your soup, Darrow, for the sake of Si' leth! You look as if you need some good food and some comfort.'

Darrow' s face closed as he returned to the table. It was true, he had come back to Ravamey in search of comfort, but he' d expected to find it in Calwyn' s cottage, not here. In Calwyn' s bright eyes and the warmth of her smile, he' d thought he might find the answers he sought, answers that months of solitude had failed to show him. He' d pictured their meeting a hundred times as he sailed back to the island. Would she run down to the jetty?Would he surprise her in Halasaa' s garden, or by the hives, with that absurd straw hat falling over her eyes? Or would he knock at her door and see the light come shining into her eyes as she leapt up to greet him?