Motherstone (12 page)

‘Means he’s a man,’ Jimmy said. ‘They got some ceremony where they hold ’em down and cut it in with bits of glass. Hurts like hell. Poor little sod.’

‘He’s not so little. If this is Osro’s army the Freemen have got no chance.’

‘It ain’t gunner be that sort of war.’

‘No,’ Nick said. He looked at the blue lightning on the boy’s chest. The Weapon, Osro’s Weapon, Kenno’s Weapon, meant that warriors – swords, spears, arrows – were out-of-date. He left Dawn working and Jimmy keeping guard and turned to the land. On the reef the Hotlanders stood in a circle. Even at a distance of several hundred metres they were threatening. They swayed in unison, a ritual of some kind, some working out of rage or frustration. They seemed like a giant sea anemone, waiting for prey. Further off, at the cliff, Yellowclaw was retrieving arrows while Silverwing kept watch. Ben, trusting Dawn’s sleeping potion, had slipped back into the sea and was chasing fish with Bess. The Varg were always hungry. Along the sides of the barge the Seafolk laboured. Others swam further off, waiting their turn. Already the nearest island was sliding by. Nick hoped that when Dawn had finished her doctoring they could stop and put the boy on an island, let him fend for himself. He was dangerous. Nick knew he would never forget the savagery – the Bloodcat savagery – with which he had gone for Soona.

He looked around for her, looked in the deck-house. She was not there. Then he heard her soft flute music from the front of the barge. It seemed to tremble – it was more than sad, it was afraid. He listened for a moment, then started forward. The bristling spears stopped him on one side, so he took the other. He found her sitting with her back to the deck-house. The flute notes were single and did not touch each other. Each seemed unbearably sad, and caught in each was that trembling fear. He sat down by her side and waited till she put her flute in her lap. She was the strangest girl he had ever known – stranger than Susan, and
she
was hard enough to understand. But Soona, with her darkness, her still face, her deep eyes, seemed to have some secret that could not be shared, something from the air and soil and stone and mountains of O. She was, he thought, as strange as Chinese must have been to the first men from the west, as strange as Tibetans.

‘Are you all right?’

‘Yes. How is the boy?’

‘He’ll survive. We’ll put him ashore on an island.’

‘No, no.’ Her vehemence startled him. She caught his wrist with fingers hard and strong – she was a fishergirl and had spent her life weaving nets. ‘We must keep him. Keep him with us.’

‘I don’t see why. We’ll have to guard him.’

‘It doesn’t matter. Nick, you must let me decide. There is a knowledge I carry. Do not ask. I carry it but don’t know what it means. Susan will tell me. And tell you.’

‘Sure,’ Nick said. He did not like this – especially he did not want the Hotlander boy on the barge. He would never trust him. He had felt that arm jumping in its passion to kill. ‘Why does he hate you? Why did he go at you like that?’

Soona relaxed, but kept her hand on his arm. She seemed to need the comfort of touching him. ‘He carries knowledge too. It must be that. He does not know it – less than I. But he recognized me. He saw me and knew. And tried to kill me.’

‘Why?’

‘I am an enemy. I will do something terrible to him. And he to me. And both of us to all Humankind. He tried to kill me to save himself.’

‘It doesn’t make sense.’

‘No, it doesn’t.’ She looked at him and smiled. Suddenly she leaned forward and kissed him. ‘I like you, Nick. And I like Jimmy Jaspers. And I love Susan. But above all I love O.’

‘Still doesn’t make much sense,’ he mumbled. He felt himself blushing, but wished that she would kiss him again. She let his hand go.

‘Listen, Nick. There’s an old song that’s come back to me. I used to sing it in Stonehaven as I mended nets. I learned it from my mother and she from hers. No one knew how old it was or who made the words.’ She played a few notes on her flute. Then she sang:

‘One is red and one is white
And they must go together.
Hand in hand with one who knows
They must go together.

In the night and in the dawn,
Fierce is one and gentle one,
In the dying and the birthing
They must go together.’

‘Yes,’ Nick said, ‘I see.’

‘Do you?’

‘I’m not dumb. You’re white. He’s red. You’re gentle and he’s fierce. I don’t get the rest of it. Is Susan supposed to be the one who knows?’ He was jealous that they must go hand in hand. ‘And what’s all this about night and dawn? And dying and birthing?’

‘I don’t know. It’s only an old song.’

‘You don’t believe that.’

‘All I know is, the Hotlander – the red one – recognized me. We’re strangers, but he knew, something spoke in him. It spoke in me. What the rest is we’ll learn in Furthermost.’

‘If we find it.’

The first island was astern. Others lay on the left and right, and stretched ahead as far as Nick could see. He got up and went to the rail. ‘Seafolk,’ he called, ‘do you know where Furthermost is?’

One of the seals, swimming with his head above the water, croaked in answer, ‘We know.’

‘Is Susan there?’

‘She is there. And her friend, Thief.’

‘Thief? Who’s he?’ But the seal was gone.

‘Too many questions, Nick,’ Soona said. ‘We’ll know in good time.’ She raised her flute and played a happier tune. He listened a while, then turned to leave.

‘Nick,’ she said.

‘Yes?’

‘Guard him when he wakes. He will try to kill me.’

‘We’ll guard him.’

‘Guard me too. If I grow afraid I will kill him.’

He went back to the stern. Jimmy and Dawn had shifted the Hotlander into the deck-house. He lay covered to his chin, with his head on a pillow of blankets. His cheeks had stopped twitching. He seemed no more than a boy in face-paint. If he scrubbed it off and let his hair grow he would be just a skinny kid.

‘Soona says we’ve got to keep him.’ The red one. The fierce one. He hoped that Susan would have answers. He went outside and spent the rest of the afternoon digging spears from the deck-house with his knife. He gave them to Silverwing and Yellowclaw to make into arrows.

The Seafolk kept the barge moving till nightfall. They beached it on an island and swam off to a reef to sleep till dawn. But their leader, a big old seal with grey fur and a voice like a saw, stayed with the band. His name, he said, was Watcher of Furthermost. He had watched all his life, hoping that in his time none would need to go there. But word had come that Humankind had made the Weapon, so he and his tribe had stolen a barge from a river town and waited at the appointed place for the legendary ‘One who knows’. Susan Ferris came. It seemed that she was woven into the history of O.

‘We carried her to Furthermost on the barge. Then she told us to return for you.’

‘And Thief was with her?’ Nick said.

‘Oh yes. Thief.’

‘Who’s he?’

‘A creature we had thought none could befriend. But while he stays with her she need not fear. Unless these painted warriors track her down.’

Yellowclaw spoke from the far side of the fire. ‘How can we reach this Furthermost tomorrow? The circle of islands is too wide.’

‘Ah,’ Watcher said, ‘Freeman Wells chose the name to deceive. He wished to hide his island. But you are friends, so I will tell you. Furthermost is not furthermost from shore. The islands are a circle, as you say, and Futhermost is furthest from the rim.’

‘In the centre?’

‘That is it.’

‘Clever sods,’ Jimmy said.

‘Just so,’ said the seal. ‘But I must go and eat some weed. These sounds of yours are spike-fish in my throat.’ He heaved himself down the beach and swam away.

‘I’ll say this for Susie, she gets around,’ Jimmy said.

Nick thought of her woven into O. Even though he would see her tomorrow she seemed far away, and strange to him, like a figure in a tapestry, from another time. He looked at the Varg ambling on the beach, with their fur shining silver-blue in the moonlight, and the Birdfolk in the shadows beyond the fire, great coloured eagles with faces half-human and half-bird, and he shivered and thought, What am I doing here? Soona played her flute. He wished she would play a tune he recognized.

Later Dawn went to the barge to look at the Hotlander. She left Bess guarding the deck-house door. Ben would take his turn later on.

‘How is he?’ Soona said.

‘Waking, but I made him sleep again. His wounds will heal.’

‘What are we going to call him?’ Jimmy said.

‘He has a name. He told me in his fever. He is Aenlocht of the Clohna tribe. He comes from the iron desert beyond a mountain that pours hot blood from the heart of O.’

‘Lava,’ Nick said.

‘With Bess to help I looked into his mind, I questioned him. Osro’s army is ready to march. He has warriors as numerous as the grains of sand. He has the fire weapon that eats up men and trees and stone. Aenlocht calls him Lord of Fire. He will take his army south, into the lands of darkness, but in his holy fire darkness will flee. The Hotlanders will enslave all living things – humans and Woodlanders, Birdfolk, and Seafolk and Varg. Enslave or kill. Osro will rule, and the tribes will be his spear and shield.’

‘Does he know the Freemen are making the Weapon too?’

‘He said nothing about that. He came south with a scouting party. They saw us and attacked.’

‘Did you ask about Soona?’

‘I tried. But I found only darkness and disorder. And dreadful fear. He knows who Soona is and does not know. He must kill her, that is all. She is enemy.’

‘We gunner have ter keep an eye on him,’ Jimmy said.

‘He will sleep the rest of the night. Tomorrow his fever will be gone. But his wounds will not heal for many days. And what is in his mind may never heal.’

They lay down to sleep. Once Nick woke and saw the Varg change guard. Jimmy snored, and Soona, mysterious, slept with moonlight on her face, and sighed and seemed to fight some battle with herself. Down by the water frogs were croaking.

In the morning the Seafolk launched the barge with only Dawn and Jimmy and the Hotlander on board. To make it lighter, Nick and Soona walked with the Varg. The island was a large one, growing trees similar to silver birch and pine. Green and pink lichens crusted the rocks. Little bushes growing at knee-height were laden with blue berries sweet as jam. Nick and Soona picked some for Dawn and Jimmy. And once they found a Shy, growing by itself in a little hollow. The even-shaped bush and the pale blue flower were disappointing. But Nick remembered how Shy had saved him from Steen, and he brought a handful of water from a spring and poured it on the roots before going on. They waited on a rock at the tip of the island and jumped on the barge as it went by.

The islands were smaller after that and they had no chance to walk again. The Birdfolk had flown ahead to find Susan. Jimmy loafed on the deck-house roof. Aenlocht was still sleeping, held in the web of Dawn’s medicine. Soona looked in at the door now and then, and came away with her eyes grown darker. The Varg swam, or loped over islands, keeping up easily with the barge. They reminded Nick of puppies playing games.

At midday Silverwing and Yellowclaw flew over the barge.

‘Susan is waiting. We are going to see how close the armies have come to each other. Our thanks to you, Seafolk. Fare you well.’ They flew on and soon went out of sight.

The islands were gathered close about and the barge seemed landlocked. But always channels opened, ways cut through. Nick began to watch ahead for Susan. All the islands were low and smooth – glaciated, Nick told himself – and grew only single trees or single copses, berry bushes, tufts of grass. It seemed an unlikely place for Freeman Wells to have made his home. Watcher of Furthermost raised his head. ‘There,’ he croaked.

The island was no different from the rest. Rocks pink and grey, berry patch, a stand of silver trees. Beside them, smooth-topped bed-rock rose in a hump.

Suddenly, he saw Susan. She came from the trees and walked to the water. She was wearing her Earth T shirt and shorts. He waved and yelled her name. She waved back. And then a Bloodcat ran from the hump of stone and charged towards her. It came like a red flash down the island, cleared the berry patch in a leap. Nick was yelling, the hairs on his head were standing up. Jimmy came lurching into the bow with his axe. But Soona said, ‘It’s all right. It must be Thief.’

The Bloodcat stopped at Susan’s side. She dropped her hand on its neck easily. She raised her other hand and waved again.

‘Nick. Jimmy. Soona,’ she cried.

He could not get used to the creature prowling round them as they ate. It went in a half circle, and turned and went back the other way, glaring at them, never blinking. The Varg watched it closely – one always watched. They understood, Dawn said, how shallow its control of itself was. The savagery underneath could break through at one wrong movement or wrong word. Only Susan was not afraid.

‘He’s not going to hurt you. He’s not used to people, that’s all.’ She told them how Thief had saved her from Slarda. ‘He knows you’re my friends. I’ve told him about you. He won’t come close but he won’t attack. Just don’t try to touch him, that’s all.’

‘He reminds me of Aenlocht.’

They told her about the Hotlander boy. A strange smile came on her face. ‘It all fits in.’

‘Fits in with what?’

‘There’s an old story, Nick, about three people.’

‘And a song,’ Soona said.

‘Lots of songs. Freeman Wells told me the words.’

‘Told?’

‘He left his voice for me in the house.’

‘What house?’

‘I guess we’re still a bit mixed up, young Susie,’ Jimmie said.

‘I’ll show you soon. But the story says One who knows – that’s me – ’

‘Knows what?’

‘I’m not sure. I’ll find out. And One who carries beauty. The Pale One –’

‘That’s Soona.’

‘Soona and her flute. Did you bring it, Soona?’

‘Yes,’ whispered the girl.

‘And One who carries fire in his mind. He’s the Red One. That must be the Hotlander boy.’