Sorcery Rising (27 page)

The old woman came to stand over her grandson, though she was barely taller than he was. She peered over his shoulder at the crystal, but could see not a thing. The child was not usually fanciful, but it was true that there had been a number of odd occurrences at this Fair. And not just at the Allfair, either, she corrected herself. No: she had noticed something – something intangible, like a tension in the air, a stirring in the blood – some weeks before, as if the fundamental nature of the world was undergoing some strange and subtle metamorphosis . . .

‘Look: see there, in the midst of that great cloud of dust, two horses fighting – a brown horse with a big man on its back and a dark one, ridden by the boy who saved Guaya – oh! see, the chestnut horse has blood on its teeth and the dark horse has a wound on its shoulder—’

Fezack frowned. She pushed her grandson gently aside and leaned over the great polished rock – a piece of pinkish grey crystal that had been excavated with some difficulty from a cave in the western mountains, at that juncture where the Golden range met the sweep of sharp volcanic peaks known by the hill peoples as the Dragon’s Backbone. It had been her parents who had dug it out, with great exclamations of delight at its purity and size, for it was a valuable piece, and they believed still in the old magic, that such rocks channelled the earth magic that had waned almost from memory, all but inactive these two hundred years and more. Time blurred so much for her now: but she could remember that day with remarkable clarity – how they had been travelling away from a gathering of the hill tribes, celebrating their victory over an Istrian lord and his soldiers who had tried to take them into slavery, all of whom now lay shattered and dead beneath the boulder-fall the hill-women had engineered as their men led the unsuspecting enemy below the cliffs. The Wanderers did not condone such violence; but neither did they believe in the enslavement of others, so they had joined the celebrations without too many misgivings, and yet it had been with a sense of dread that Fezack had headed up into the mountains the next day with her parents and the other nomads, and the finding of the crystal had done nothing to alleviate her sense that there was something out of kilter. And indeed, they had met a troop of Istrians later that night as they came down through the col; soldiers who had found their slain comrades and heard tales of nomads who had caused the rockfall with their magic. Her parents were both killed; as were seven of the men. The women who survived were raped. Her daughter, Alisha, had been one result. She had no love of the southern peoples.

Placing her hands on either side of the great crystal, she felt its power thrum through her: a faint tingling in the palms and wrists, a slight numbing of the arms. She was used to this feeling, this faint hum of energy the rock generated – enough to cure a mild headache, to absorb the pain from a sprain or bruise. Far-seeing had always seemed beyond its capability though: so it was with some amazement that she felt the crystal take hold of her, reach through her, seeking its outlet. Waves of warmth began to travel up through her bony arms. She felt them suffuse her chest, her neck, reach up through the bones of her skull, where it powered through her like a pale white light. Where it burned the backs of her eyes. She saw: a chaos of fighting horses, their hooves churning the lava of the plain up into swirling dark clouds of dust; the terrified face of a man, not much older than a boy, his dark eyes wide with panic and something else – a knowledge, a horror – as another man, bigger, older, bearing a wicked-looking whip, reached out and caught him by the shoulder and brought the whip around in a swingeing blow. Other riders charged by in a whirl of movement and when their dust cleared she looked for the dark boy again but could see him nowhere. The man with the whip was on the ground, getting trampled by his own horse. She tilted the stone for a better angle, but as she did so, the scene blurred and changed and then everything went dark and she smelled the tang of blood.

She shrieked and withdrew her hands from the crystal.

‘You must not touch the stone,’ she said to her grandson with unaccustomed severity. Her voice was shaking, and not only her voice. She took down a woollen blanket from the shelf where she stowed her sleeping things during the day, wrapped the crystal tightly in its folds, hefted her burden and staggered down the steps of the wagon.

When she reached her daughter’s wagon she called her name.

‘Alisha!’

There was some commotion in the confines of the wagon, muted voices, a hurried rustling of fabrics. Then came the sound of footsteps and the door came open by half a foot. Her daughter stuck her head out. Her shoulders were bare down to a hastily-wrapped sheet; her cheeks glowed, and her hair was in disarray.

‘Mother?’

Fezack took in Alisha’s state of undress, the sudden conscious silence in the wagon, and smiled thinly.

‘Think you I would criticise your choice of man that you look so guilty, daughter?’ she asked gently, arms and back sagging beneath the weight of the great rock.

‘You might. He’s not one of us.’

‘Who he is, I know well.’

They both fell quiet. Then Fezack groaned. ‘Daughter: will you leave me struggling with this thing?’

Turning the end of the bedsheet tightly into the band she had made above her breasts, Alisha padded barefoot down the wagon steps and carefully transferred the weight of the crystal into her own arms. The sheet trailed behind her like a train as she followed her mother behind the wagon to the place where the low eating table was set up.

‘The crystal has begun to work, suddenly and with no warning. Falo used it to far-see. And then I looked, too. A shock, it was, Alisha: truly. I do not think I can bear to look again at what I saw there, and I know not whether my vision is true-sight, or false. Another opinion I would welcome.’ Gingerly, she unwrapped the rock, allowing the corners of the blanket to fall back over the table-edges. The crystal glowed still, even without a human touch, its gleaming facets still milky with the remnants of the vision.

Alisha pulled a face. ‘I have never seen it like this before. I’m not sure I want to have anything to do with it. Anyway,’ she folded her arms, looking mutinous, ‘I’m sure I don’t have the art.’

‘My mother, her sister, my grandmother and great-grandmother, and her mother before that, they all had the art. It was said that Arnia Skylark could true-see across two continents with the aid of a crystal far smaller than this one.’

‘Tales and nonsense, Mother! That sort of magic hasn’t worked for centuries.’

‘Something has changed. Please look, for me, Alisha.’

With a sigh, Alisha hiked the sheet up about her and sat crosslegged before the table. At the little round window in the back of the wagon there was a movement as a drape was twitched and Fezack glimpsed a white face and a shock of pale hair before the figure disappeared. Alisha, too, stared at the window, then looked away quickly as her mother’s attention came back to her. Dispassionately, she grasped the rock with both hands. And then her expression changed. Her eyes widened. The blood began to drain from her face and she started to shudder.

When she finally dragged her hands away from the crystal, she was shaking all over.

‘We must spread the word. We must pack up and leave, Mother: now, as soon as we can.’

Fezack Starsinger gave her daughter a wan smile. ‘You saw what I saw. Murder and blood and flames. The old ones are waking, daughter: I can feel them stir. The magic is back, and it brings death in its wake.’

Eleven

Affiliations

‘
Y
ou’ve done
what
?’

Too stupefied to do anything else, Katla sat down on the bench with a thump. It was as if her knees had absorbed the shock of her father’s pronouncement before any other part of her had had a chance to.

‘Finn Larson is a good man, and a wealthy man, to boot.’

All the colour had gone from Katla’s face, except for two burning spots just upon each cheekbone. Her eyes were as black and hollow as two fishing-holes in ice. All she could manage was: ‘But he’s an
old
man.’

Aran bridled. ‘He’s a couple of years younger than me—’

‘Why would I want to marry a man as old as
you
?’ Katla stormed. Against her will, tears started to well up. She gulped them down, furious at her own lack of control. ‘When I asked you if you’d brought me here to marry me off, you said you had other plans for me,’ she accused.

‘I did. I was going to take up Finn’s offer to foster you, have you attend court classes with Jenna. Your mother and I discussed it. We thought it might teach you to be more of a lady—’

‘So that you could marry me off for a better deal?’

‘For your own good, Katla. Take a look at yourself: you’re no better than a hoyden. You run and climb and fight with the boys; you can’t cook or sew or even wear a decent dress. It was Finn himself who made the suggestion to turn the fostering to a marriage offer, which certainly surprised me. But he seems remarkably keen.’

‘I won’t do it. I’ll run away.’

‘You’ll do nothing of the sort. I gave him my word. The promise is shaken on.’

‘Your word? What care I for your word? I’ll give you
my
word!’ Now Katla was on her feet. ‘And my word is
NO
. Never.’

She tried to run past him, out of the booth, but he stepped into her path and pushed her back down onto the bench. ‘Listen to me, Katla. It’s a good offer. He has three greathouses, the shipworks at Fairwater, and high standing with the King. And we’ll do it all properly. He’ll bring betrothal rings to the Gathering tonight and we’ll make a formal announcement. You’ll sail with Jenna back to Halbo on the
Mermaid
, and he’ll join you there for the blessing and bedding on the first full moon of Shoaling month.’

The bedding
. Katla shuddered. Shoaling. She made a quick mental calculation. Less than thirty days away. She turned wildly to Halli, standing behind their father’s left shoulder, looking almost as stricken as she.

‘Halli – you can’t let him do this! You were to marry Jenna and now you won’t be able to, for I’d be your wed-mother. Can’t you stop this?’

Halli dropped his head, would not meet her eye. ‘I’m sorry, Katla. Father’s pledged the honour of our clan on this. It cannot be gone back on.’

‘Honour? Is that all you care for? What about your
heart
, Halli? I thought you loved Jenna, that you were going to commission a ship and sail to make your fortune so that you and she could marry?’

At that, Halli looked up. His eyes were bereft. ‘All that’s gone now,’ he said flatly. ‘Father has other plans.’

Katla turned to Fent. ‘And what about you? You’ll stand by and let him do this to me, will you?’

Fent shook his head slowly. ‘He’s our father, Katla. He’s made the trade, and his word is law. I’m sorry.’

An uncomfortable silence fell over the group. No one looked at anyone else. It was Tor whose voice broke the lull. ‘Whatever Finn’s offered you for Katla,’ he said to Aran Aranson, ‘I’ll match it.’

Katla’s head shot up. ‘So now I’m a prize cow to be bargained over, am I?’ Her eyes shot sparks at him.

Tor shrugged. ‘I thought you might rather have a younger man than old Finn Larson. One with no belly and a bit of fire still inside him.’

‘I don’t want
you
!’ Katla spat back. She hugged her arms about herself as if feeling a sudden chill. Her entire family, it seemed, had betrayed her: those she thought would defend her to the death. Where, she wondered all at once, was Erno? Perhaps he’d rescue her. Surely he couldn’t love little Marin Edelsen: she couldn’t believe that. No. He loved her: she was sure of it. He could help her run away. The thought came out of nowhere, roiled around in her head, then took firm hold. Erno: he was the answer. She’d wait until the Gathering and amidst all that social chaos they could slip away unnoticed before the betrothal was announced. Erno could take an oar with her on one of the faerings: they’d row down the coast. She’d wear her breeches and tunic under her dress, pack her things and leave them somewhere convenient. She began to make a mental note of what she’d need: the dagger with the topaz set into the hilt; her best short sword; her leather jerkin – too heavy to wear beneath the dress – her boots . . .

Seeing his daughter with her face downcast thus, Aran felt his heart contract. He’d expected the fiery outburst, the denial, the fury. What he hadn’t expected was this sudden resignation, this surrender. She was a good girl, underneath all the high spirits and horseplay, and she was his favourite. It had been hard to make the trade, whatever she might think, hard emotionally, despite the potential rewards. He found he could not let himself think too closely on how she would fare with Finn. For all he seemed a decent man, there had been rumours about the demise of his first wife: in childbirth, for sure; but there were those who said she’d come to bed earlier than her full term as a result of a fist in the belly. She’d lost the baby first; and then her life when the blood refused to stop, for all the women could do with their lichens and hawkweed. Some said she’d made up her mind to go, and that the will was stronger than any herb in such cases . . .

He dragged his mind away. Katla would have Jenna there with her for some of the time at least, and they were such good friends.

But in the back of his skull the thought nagged on: that in promising Katla thus, and denying Halli all he had dreamed of, he had done a wrong thing indeed. His hand strayed to his tunic pocket and his fingers curled for a moment around the lump of gold he kept there until everything seemed right again. With a bark of command to his sons, he pushed back the flap of the tent and strode out into the light. Halli and Fent exchanged a brief, uncomfortable glance and went after him. Tor made a half-step towards Katla, but when she didn’t look up, he turned and followed the others.

It was only some minutes after they had gone that Katla realised she had not asked about why it was she had been traded. What on Elda could be so precious to her father that he would sell his only daughter?