Darkfall Read online

  ‘Myth offers truth in code,’ he had told her. ‘It reflects the world in a fantastically distorted mirror. A lot of people dismiss it because it does not obey the boundaries imposed by our consciousness, but myths rise from the unconscious and subconscious levels of our mind, where anything and everything exists.’

  Glynn shivered at the sound of Wind’s voice in her head, and became simultaneously aware of the vast stillness of the sea all around her. Oddly, she seemed to hear the song the old man had been playing in the restaurant; not the music but the vibration of it, as if it had dissolved into the water. He must be playing it again. No doubt he only knew one or two and played them over and over. Water carried sound a long way.

  An unexpected surge of icy water flowed up from the depths. Chilled to stillness, Glynn waited for the warmth to return, but the cold deepened and she realised that it was not just an errant current. The sea had grown cold.

  For some reason, this made her picture a shark, shadowy and lethal in the night depths, flashing up through the waves, opening its mouth to bare rows of teeth and sending out its cold dead aura. Glynn turned and began to swim back. She was startled to see how far out she had come. Ember was no more than a pale blur on the dark shore. Unlike the shadowy shark, the numbing cold of the water was real. It crept under her skin, sapping her strength and freezing her blood.

  Without warning, her stomach cramped violently.

  She curled instinctively into a ball, sucking water straight into her lungs. A split second before agony, she registered that the water tasted wrong. Then her lungs rebelled and she broke to the surface, coughing and gagging.

  Gasping in pain she looked to the shore through tear-blurred eyes, willing Ember to realise she was in trouble and go for help.

  Then a different kind of terror gripped her, because her arms and legs had grown completely numb. Unable to keep herself afloat by kicking, she sank beneath the surface. In those final seconds before she began to drown, Glynn felt hands closing around her wrists. At first she thought, with a burst of hope, that she was being rescued; but instead of being drawn up to the surface, she felt herself pulled down, deeper and deeper into the freezing water. She looked down and seemed to see a white face surrounded by a cloud of dark hair.

  Wind, she thought in terror, and opened her mouth to scream, but all that came out was a burst of shimmering bubbles.

  2

  From the Song of Making were made the seven planets:

  Aenid the flame, Dar the red, Keltor the mother, Zorik the bright,

  Lori iceheart, fractured Gard, Draakar the shadow.

  All the planets were set to whirl in perfect order about the star,

  Fiery Kalinda.

  Beyond these were other distant stars; the eyes of heaven.

  LEGENDSONG OF THE UNYKORN

  Glynn coughed and vomited what felt like litres of water, retching violently at the sour taste it left in her mouth. The world tilted nauseatingly.

  ‘She is fortunate that you saw her in the dark, Solen,’ a man said.

  ‘If I had not been hanging over the edge feeling curst ill, I assure you I would have seen nothing.’ The warmth of the speaker’s breath told Glynn he was leaning over her. She tried to open her eyes and could not.

  ‘She must have fallen from a ship,’ a third man said.

  ‘There are no other ships scheduled to cross this area today. She has to have been swept from Fomhika,’ the first speaker said authoritatively.

  ‘So far?’

  ‘The currents run this way. I suppose she was messing about in one of those fool coracles the Fomhikans weave for river casting, and was swept out of the mouth of the Nivian into open water. No doubt it carried her some distance before it sank on her. Probably she was drunk and knew nothing of it until she was in the water.’

  ‘A clever theory, Carick, only how could she have been in the water so long and have avoided being eaten?’

  Glynn felt indignant that they would assume she had been drunk. If only she could get up and walk coldly away. The trouble was she had no strength to move, let alone to stalk away. But what on earth had happened to her? Not only did she seem to be paralysed but there was a knot of queasiness in her stomach that did, in fact, remind her of the first time she had drunk too much. She had been twelve and had tried the sinister ruby contents of a cut-glass bottle in the drink cabinet. Funny thing was, she always tasted that rotten-fruit tang when she was angry.

  She tried again to force her eyes open and failed. It was as if they were glued shut.

  ‘How ever she came to be floating way out here, she does not look Fomhikan, shipmaster,’ one of the men was saying. ‘Look at the muscles in her legs. When did you ever see a Fomhikan work hard enough to get such muscles?’

  ‘And when did you ever see a spear maid with hair like that?’ the other snapped. Presumably the shipmaster.

  ‘I did not say she was a myrmidon, though she could be Myrmidori. But it still would not explain why she was in these waters …’

  ‘If she is on rhiad she may not have let it bind yet …’ a girl spoke for the first time and Glynn wondered how many people were standing about discussing her as if she wasn’t there.

  ‘She is Fomhikan,’ the shipmaster reiterated with finality. ‘Now take her below deck.’

  Glynn found herself being picked up none too gently by several pairs of hands.

  ‘She do weigh enough,’ one of the men growled. ‘We should make her people throw in a reward of her measure in Fomhikan cirul as well as regular passage.’

  The effort of trying to figure out what was happening to her was too much, and Glynn lapsed into torpor. She was carried unevenly downward, and registered the sound of heavy boots on wood. She was deposited on a hard mattress and the world continued to rock as one set of boots departed.

  ‘We will turn back to Fomhika,’ the shipmaster announced.

  ‘Here, I hate to remind you but we have a journey-bond.’ This was the voice of the man who had seen Glynn from the ship.

  ‘The ship code says that a journey-bond may and must be broken when a life is in the balance. You can have nothing of urgency to demand your return, Solen.’

  ‘You can hardly say the girl’s life is in the balance. And if she is not Fomhikan and you turn about now, not only will you have to refund my coin, but they will not let you leave her there. You will have to keep her aboard until you can return her to wherever she belongs and bear the expense from your own pocket. Why not let her recover enough to tell you who she is before you start altering your course?’

  Glynn began to wonder just how far she had been carried by the waves. She understood these people well enough, but she had no idea what they were talking about, and the lilting accent was completely foreign to her ears.

  Curiosity compelled her to make a supreme effort and she opened her eyes.

  She was lying on a small built-in bed in a cramped cabin, roofed and lined in a beautiful, smooth-grained wood. An unusual round brazier was suspended by a length of ornately worked chain from the roof, shedding flamelight. Glynn watched it swinging to and fro, baffled to think what sort of boat this could be.

  At the sound of a movement she tried to turn her head, but only her eyes responded to her will. Straining peripheral vision, she could see the door opening to wooden steps. By it were the two men and a girl shadowed dramatically by the brazier. Glynn gazed at them in disbelief.

  Both the girl and the older man wore a piratical attire of loose woolly tunics over sail-cloth trousers. The man was gnarled and rangy with shoulder-length, greying hair held in place by a thong of leather around his forehead, and a straggling salt-and-pepper beard bound into a cluster of minute braids. The slightly fleshy younger man was even more incredibly dressed in a tight-fitting, grey body suit, supple leather boots, and a long purple cape. His black hair, worn very short, accentuated the plains of an ascetic, rather hawkish face that seemed misplaced atop his soft body.

  Glynn thought how absurd i
t was to be thinking about such things when she was paralysed. Then it occurred to her that it didn’t matter, really, what she thought because she was clearly dreaming.

  ‘She has wakened,’ the girl said.

  The young man in the purple cloak drifted to the side of the bed and peered down at Glynn. She was startled to see that he had slanted oriental eyes the same colour as his cloak.

  ‘Are you all right, girl?’ His voice was that of the man who had seen her from the deck of the ship, Solen. She noticed that his hair was wet, and a drip of moisture ran down his cheek and fell onto her lips. She tried to speak but could not move a muscle. Another drip of water fell onto her forehead and she blinked.

  Solen turned to face the older man. ‘She is focusing and, if I am not mistaken, she can hear us, but she can neither speak nor move. I think that she has managed to swallow bittermute algae.’

  Lethe, Glynn thought groggily. I swallowed the water of forgetfulness and it worked.

  ‘In these rough waters? Ridiculous!’ The bearded man brushed past Solen whom he seemed openly to despise. ‘I am Carick shipmaster,’ he barked at Glynn. ‘Can you speak and tell us who you are and how you came to be in these waters?’

  She lay unmoving and his eyes narrowed speculatively.

  ‘Bittermute algae,’ the younger concluded, tapping his mouth to hide a yawn. ‘Never mind, I have thought of a solution to our dilemma. Eron isle is but a scantling out of our way, and Argon white cloak dwells there. He can see to the girl, and we can still reach Acantha before dawn.’

  ‘No ship has called at Eron isle in many seasons other than to drop supplies,’ Carick said slowly. ‘Many say that Draakar’s blackwind blows with the exile.’

  ‘You fear a white cloak?’ Lazy mockery in the question.

  ‘Argon is far more than a mere healer. You pretend otherwise in order to be aimlessly provocative. And you mistake me,’ Carick added coldly. ‘I do not fear any man, but it is a fool who puts himself deliberately in the way of the blackwind.’

  ‘For myself,’ Solen said, ‘I do not believe Draakar spawned a blackwind to torment us. We make our own luck – good or ill. I ought to know with all the gaming I have done. If a wind causes ill luck, then I must have my own personal tempest, for it spends far too much time with me to have the energy for anyone else.’

  ‘Wastrel,’ Carick snapped. ‘This is a serious business.’

  ‘Well truly I know that,’ Solen said in a mock-wounded tone. A thread of steel entered his tone. ‘If, as you say, the girl must see a white cloak, the closest it shall be. It is my right to insist.’

  Carick scowled, then went away up the steps.

  The girl glanced at Solen, then came to the bedside. Her eyes were compassionate as she smoothed the blankets. ‘I am Aris. All will be well, for surely the Song is with you, else you would have been eaten ere now.’

  Glynn heard the words as if from a great distance. She wanted to say she was tone deaf and could not hear any song, and that, anyway, she was dreaming; but she had no voice.

  She awoke with a lurch of fright to utter blackness, and someone pressed a cool cloth to her forehead. ‘Do not be afraid. We have just bumped up against the landing platform of Eron isle.’

  Glynn tried to get her bearings – she was on a ship and it was night. She registered that the sea was rougher than before. She could hear the wind outside now, whining and blustering like a dog wanting to get in, and the hull creaking in protest.

  Another shuddering thump and the ship groaned in its woody voice.

  Above, footsteps hammered back and forward with accompanying bellows.

  ‘Ho, the ship!’ called a harsh voice, muffled by the noise of the storm. The sound of feet again, and the banging of boards. Then more footsteps.

  Again the ship butted the landing and there were curses and yet more footsteps. In the cabin, light flashed backwards and forwards as the brazier swung about.

  ‘Ho, the shore,’ Carick shouted, his voice muffled against the keening wind. ‘Fortune brings you out on this wild eve to answer our need.’

  There was a murmurous exchange, the thump of wood on wood, and moments later the shipmaster descended the steps, followed by a tall, gaunt man with brown hair in a ponytail. His long face, severe in the flickering glow of the brazier fire, might once have been handsome, but was no longer. He looked like Heathcliff after Catherine’s death – ravaged and haggard and a little insane. He wore scuffed, leather knee-boots and a woolly cloak which belled out as he strode purposefully across to the bed.

  Alarmed, Glynn reminded herself that she was dreaming and wondered what a psychotherapist would say about all of these costumes. Dreaming about being naked in public meant anxiety, and water dreams were supposed to indicate birth, but what did it mean to dream of people in costume?

  Heathcliff looked taken aback when he was close enough to see her face, and for a moment his surliness vanished in confusion. ‘This is the girl?’

  ‘You expected another?’ Solen enquired dryly, examining with an expression of distaste whorls of salt rimed on the edge of his cloak.

  The newcomer ignored him pointedly.

  ‘I am curious, white cloak,’ Solen went on imperturbably. ‘How is it you were waiting on the landing when we arrived? I should have thought it a foul night to be out for a casual stroll.’

  The older man gave him a look of open dislike. ‘I did not take a casual stroll. I wove that you would come with an injured girl, and I was waiting for you. Just in case my curst soulweaving tendency proved to be reliable for a change. And it did. Or part way.’ He looked at Carick. ‘What made you bring her to me?’

  ‘You were closest,’ Carick said.

  ‘Ah,’ Argon said, with a certain sour amusement.

  The twisting smile faded as he turned back to Glynn. Greenish eyes bored into her face, and she watched a tiny nerve flickering furiously at the edge of his temple. A scar running down the side of his nose puckered the flesh there into an ugly knot. He touched it lightly and unconsciously with his forefinger, before laying one hand over the other, palms facing down, and holding them lightly against her throat. Glynn was startled to feel real heat where his hands rested. After a while he moved his hands to the centre of her chest and then to her abdomen, and each time, she felt a warmth penetrate deeply into her skin beneath his touch.

  At last he shifted his hands to her forehead. The calluses on his palm scratched Glynn and that startled her because it seemed too detailed for a dream.

  Withdrawing his hands, he rubbed them together as if her flesh had chilled him. ‘All of the chakra are clear except those of the throat and the prime, which are streaked with dark shades that will need some longer investigation,’ he said.

  ‘I will have some of my crew carry her to your dwelling,’ Carick announced.

  Argon laughed harshly and shook his head. ‘I think not, for when would you return to retrieve her, or to pay me for her care? Instead of coin, I will travel with you as payment for the healing, and treat her as we go.’

  ‘You would leave Eron isle?’

  ‘I have said so. I came here at my choice and I presume I may leave it the same way,’ Argon said coldly. The nerve at his temple was beating frantically.

  ‘Well, if that is settled to the satisfaction of all, we can put away at once,’ Solen prompted.

  Argon slanted him an ironic look. ‘We can – if your desire is to perish in a storming.’

  ‘You wove a storming?’ the shipmaster demanded.

  ‘You weave with great certainty for one who is not a Darkfall soulweaver,’ Solen said flatly. ‘You could be wrong.’

  ‘Aye, and so I might. It would not be the first time. But would you wager this ship and the lives aboard on that chance that I am?’ he asked.

  ‘He might,’ Carick sneered. ‘Fortunately this ship is not his to offer in some irresponsible wager. I shall not risk it in a storming. I am sorry, Solen,’ he added perfunctorily. ‘But it was your suggestion we come
here.’

  ‘Do not remind me,’ the younger man said and ran a tapered hand over his head. ‘Clearly I spoke too soon when I said I did not believe in the blackwind.’

  Argon gave him a sour look, then bent over Glynn. He pulled her bathers down, exposing her breasts, and laid his hands very lightly over them, closing his eyes. She would have protested violently at being handled so familiarly except that she was still completely numb and voiceless. Not that Argon seemed to enjoy touching her. She might just as well have been a fish. Nevertheless, her cheeks grew as warm as her breasts under his hands.

  After a while he shifted his hands to cup her throat again, and then to press them to the centre of her forehead. Finally Argon gave a deep sigh and opened his eyes. Pulling the blanket carelessly over her, he began to massage Glynn’s throat absently. ‘You are bound for Acantha, wavespeaker?’

  ‘Yes. That is unfortunate for you, truly.’

  ‘How so?’

  Carick spread his fingers. ‘It is no secret that your brother will not welcome you on Acantha.’

  ‘I have no intention of disembarking there.’ Argon looked down at Glynn. ‘She must be kept warm. This numbness of the flesh and her muteness are the result of ingesting bittermute algae, but they are only temporary conditions. There may be complications however. Her colours seem wrong to me and her prime chakra is oddly aspected. This could indicate mental confusion which can occur after the ingestion of a great deal of the algae. Fortunately it is also a temporary condition.’

  ‘Is she a myrmidon, Argon?’ the girl, Aris, interrupted from somewhere outside Glynn’s scope of vision. She seemed to be the only person aboard who saw Glynn as something other than an inconvenient bit of baggage.