Seer of Sevenwaters (44 page)

The thing swam away; I breathed and stood upright once more. Thank the gods, it was going to let us reach the shore. In my mind I saw Svala on the beach at Inis Eala, making her great sand creature, touching him with loving hands, displaying him to me in all his splendor. Singing him songs. Sitting by his side as the tide came to claim him. Hard as it was to believe, it seemed the man-eating monster was her friend. It—
he
—was glad we had delivered her home.

The creature dived beneath the surface and was gone. The water settled, calm as before. There was no ripple, no disturbance, nothing to show it had been there. Only the blanched faces and shocked eyes of
Liadan
’s crew, and the thunderous beating of my heart.

“What are you, men or mice?” roared Gull. “Pull, you useless sons of vermin!”

They gripped their oars. They pulled. The shore drew closer.

I felt it a moment before it happened, as if fate tapped my shoulder with a cold finger. The water swirled, and like a missile from some giant’s catapult the creature leaped up, high into the air, right over
Liadan
, so close I saw the cunning pattern of interlocking scales on its belly, so close I thought the mast would snap, so close I was sure it would crush us. In a heartbeat it was down again, plunging head first back into the water on the other side of the boat. A surge of water crashed over
Liadan
, flooding into the hold. And where Gull had been standing on the walkway, now there was nobody at all.

A moment’s stunned silence. Then men moved, tearing off their boots and scrambling for the rail. A scream welled up in me.

“Wait!” yelled Gareth. “Nobody jump—that thing’s still in there! Man your oars!”

I was cold to the bone. What was he saying, that Gull should be left to drown? “We have to save him!” I shouted. “Gareth, someone has to go in after him!”

But Gareth was silent, jaw set, eyes on the shore. I didn’t understand. Had this mission made him into a different man, one who could let an old friend die without a second thought?

Be calm, Sibeal. Think of a solution.
Cathal. He was right here. He could calm the water, he could—I saw that he was already at the rail, arms outstretched, looking out over the place where Gull had vanished and speaking words in a tongue unknown to me. Thank the gods. Thank all the gods Cathal had come with us.

Gareth gave another order; the oars stilled. Time passed, time measured in the frantic drumbeats of my heart. In the water below us, nothing stirred. Cathal called again, his voice powerful and ringing. The only answer was silence.

He lowered his arms and turned toward us. His face was a mask in pale stone. “I can’t do it,” he said. “There’s a force here, a contrary force . . . something is blocking me.” His voice cracked. “I can’t save him.”

“But—” I began, then realized I had forgotten something. Svala was the monster’s friend. She had called and he had answered. “Svala, help us!” I grabbed hold of her arm, hoping she would feel my desperation as I had once felt hers. She turned her lovely gray eyes on me, but made no move. “Please, Svala! The sea beast is your friend, surely you can do something—” Oh, gods, this couldn’t be happening.

A flurry of movement behind me. “No!” shouted Gareth and Cathal together. I couldn’t move; I couldn’t breathe. For, of course, there was one man on board who was not a member of the crew, one man who might, at an extreme, disobey the captain’s orders. Felix was astride the rail. He steadied himself, brought his other leg over, then dived, straight as an arrow, into the bay. The waters closed over him, and he, too, was gone. Gone in a heartbeat. Gone between one breath and the next. Gone as if he had never been.

I rushed for the rail, scrabbling to climb up. If I jumped now I could save him, I had to, it wasn’t too late, he couldn’t die—

A pair of hands closed around my arms, restraining me firmly but gently. “No, Sibeal,” said Cathal. As I twisted and kicked and fought, shouting my rage, he held me firm all the way to shore.

I was on the beach.
Liadan
lay at anchor some little distance out in the water. Crewmen had conveyed me to shore in a small rowing boat. The pebbles were hard underneath me; the air was chill against my wet cheeks. I heard Gareth giving sharp orders, his tone forbidding comment. And someone was making a whimpering sound like the cry of a whipped dog. Maybe it was me. There was no druid here, no brave woman with the ear of the gods and a spirit honed to strength and wisdom by years of discipline. The last spark of that person had dwindled and died out there on the water. There was only a hollow where my heart had been ripped out. Cast away. Sunk deep as death.

“Sibeal?”

Cathal was crouching beside me, his tone unusually kindly. He put his hand on my shoulder.

“Don’t touch me!” I shrank into myself, hugging my anguish close.

“Sibeal, we need your help. Take a deep breath and look at me. Sibeal, look at me.”

“Go away.”

A crunch as he settled on the stones beside me. A silence. Then he said, “Being leader of a mission means certain responsibilities. That includes making decisions on the instant. Sometimes those decisions seem wrong. If you’re not a fighting man they may seem very wrong indeed. Sibeal, Gareth can’t afford to lose any more men. If our numbers drop below a certain level we won’t be able to get home. That could have been a trap, designed to draw one after another of us into the water in a vain rescue attempt. He had to do what he did.” After a moment he added, “Both of them vanished the moment they went under the water. We could go out in the small boat. We could search until nightfall, putting ourselves in the perfect position to be snapped up by that creature. Chances are we’d still find no trace of them.”

I tried to close my ears.
Gull. Felix. Gone.

“Gareth’s sending a search party along the shore, in case they’ve come in further up.”

“And then he’ll ask me to conduct a burial rite, I suppose.” My voice was someone else’s, someone bitter and furious.

“Sibeal, we haven’t a lot of time. I want you to answer a question for me.” When I made no reply, Cathal went ahead and asked it. “Why did we undertake this mission?”

Felix.
My whole body ached with sorrow.

“Answer, Sibeal. Or do you lack the courage?”

I turned on him. “Courage? Don’t talk to me about courage! There was only one man among all of you who had the courage to jump in after Gull, and that was a man who had more cause than anyone to be afraid of the water! Every night, when he closed his eyes, all he could see was the wave coming over and taking his brother! How dare you? How dare you talk to me about—”

The flow of words stopped. Now that I had lifted my head and opened my eyes, I saw orderly activity all around us: men bringing gear ashore in the little boat, others passing items hand to hand up the rocks to higher ground, Gareth and Sigurd scanning the hillsides and talking in low voices, a small group putting on packs and collecting spears from a stack of weaponry. And Svala, not prancing and singing and celebrating her return, but crouched up on the rocks as if waiting for something. She was looking directly at me. The waters of the bay were like fine glass under a clearing sky. The storm had passed. “All right,” I said. “We’re here because Felix believed in his cause.” I could hardly bring myself to speak his name. “Because he is—was—a good man, a brave man who knew he must do the right thing.”

“Mm-hm.”

“I can’t believe he’s gone, Cathal. And Gull . . . So quickly, like flames blown out in a draft. So quickly, as if they didn’t even matter.”

“I know.” He bowed his head. I realized that he, too, was grieving, mourning the loss of a beloved old friend and a fine new one. Through the fog of my own sadness I recognized what he was trying to tell me. “We must find those men,” I said. “Find them and bring them home. We owe it to Felix, and to Gull, to complete the mission.”

Cathal nodded. “If we don’t do it,” he said, “then Felix’s sacrifice was all for nothing.” He rose to his feet and offered me his hand. I stood. My legs were shaking. We were soaked; our clothing hung around us, dripping. “We’ll move up this slope to the shelter of those overhanging rocks, if shelter it can be called,” he said. “Gareth’s insisting on time for food and rest; the men are on their last legs. The only exception is the search party he’s sending along the shore. When they get back, a group of us will head out to look for these survivors. Some must stay here to watch over the boat, and . . . ” He glanced up toward the rocks where Svala was perched. “And her, I suppose. She’s shown no sign of wanting to bolt off to wherever she was living before. Knut’s still disturbed; he can’t be sent out foraging. If he’s to be left here with you and Svala, we need several men on guard.”

Knut was sitting on the beach, a short distance away. He had a rope around one ankle, tethering him to a slab of rock. He was hunched over, a picture of misery, his arms around his knees, someone’s cloak draped over his bent back. Two men stood at a little distance. One leaned casually on a spear; the other had knives at his belt.

“I’m not staying here,” I said, trying to dry my eyes on my wet sleeve. “I’m coming with you to find those men. Since Felix can’t do it, I must take his place.” I recalled those first divinations, cast after the waves brought Felix to my doorstep. Had I put too much trust in
Nyd
—fortitude beyond endurance? Had I placed undue emphasis on the beneficent power of
Os
? In Felix’s own choice of runes, he had included
Is
. In tying that to his loss of memory, had I failed to consider that
Is
could also signify a disaster that came from nowhere? And if I had seen it coming, could I have changed the pattern of this? Could I have saved him?

“Sibeal,” said Cathal.

I started, blinking. He’d been saying something and I had missed it completely. “What?”

“This could be difficult. Even Felix didn’t know where those men were. Nor did Knut. All we have to go on is my vision, and the only thing that showed was a cave. It may be a lengthy search.” He did not mention the monster, which, according to Felix’s account, could go on both land and water.

“I’m coming with you.”

Perhaps it was something in my stance, or in my eyes. Perhaps my brother-in-law thought anything was better than the whimpering wretch I had been not so long ago. I could not be that woman, not now. There was work to be done.

“So be it, then,” Cathal said. “See if you can find yourself some dry clothing—Garbh and Rian are sorting out the things from the hold, over there on the rocks.” He hesitated. “I think Svala wants to tell you something. Maybe she can help us. If she really does belong in this place, she should know the likeliest spot for folk to shelter in.”

Rian and Garbh found me a shirt and a tunic that had missed the worst of the water, and I went behind a protrusion in the rocks to change. No spare skirt. I took mine off, wrung it out and put it back on again, shivering. When night came it would bring a cold to freeze the marrow. My stockings were soaking and filthy. I thrust my bare feet into my shoes. I rolled my wet things up. Coming back out, I almost crashed into Svala, who was standing with legs apart and arms folded, waiting for me. The stance was not encouraging, and nor was the tight set of her mouth. I put down the bundle and reached to take her hands, and I felt a trembling running through her. I closed my eyes, hoping that here, with open space around us, her thoughts might come to me more clearly than on the boat. Was she scared? Angry? Cold? How could such wild elation be gone so quickly?

Don’t reproach her
, I told myself.
They were not lost because of her. They weren’t even lost because of the monster.
For though I wanted someone to blame, I had seen that the creature’s wild antics were no attempt to kill, only sheer exuberance. What had happened was mischance, no more. I breathed slowly; I made my mind open to Svala’s thoughts.

A wild jumble of conflicting images poured in. She was bursting with what she felt, what she wanted, what she needed from me. Something about getting dressed, getting undressed . . . The creature, its tail splashing on the water’s surface, the wave coming over . . . Now I was the one who was shaking. Her feelings welled into me, making me dizzy and nauseated. She was angry, scared, confused. She wanted . . . oh, she wanted, she needed . . .
Where is it? Where has he hidden it?
For a moment there was Knut in the image, and her hands ripping his talisman from his neck.
Give it! Give it back!
She pulled one hand from my grasp and thrust it down the neck of her gown, bringing out the twisted, fraying piece of cord she had taken from him. Her eyes were wild as she shook it in my face.
This! This! Mine!
The images in my mind were changing so fast that I could not understand any of them.

I couldn’t do this. I was too weak to withstand it, too small to hold her powerful feelings as well as my own grief. I had no idea at all what she meant.

“I don’t think I can help you any more, Svala,” I whispered, releasing her hand. In the back of my mind were thoughts that shamed me:
Why should I? You wouldn’t help me. You stood there and let them drown. And now Felix is gone, and if you think you love this place, monster and all, it is nothing to how I feel!

As I moved away she made her chittering sound, and I turned my head to see her miming the same idea her thoughts had suggested: putting on clothing, perhaps a hooded cloak or similar all-enveloping garment. She smoothed the imaginary cloak down, swirled it around her, nodded.
Now everything is all right.
When the odd performance was done, she stretched out her hands toward me and made the noise again. Now it sounded as much threat as plea. She pointed to the water.
Do as I ask, or I will make him come again with his sharp claws and his long teeth. Do it.
Beyond her, out in the calm waters of the bay, I thought I saw something rise just above the surface, the sleek suggestion of a great body, the ripple of a long tail. I blinked and it was gone.