Tales of Noreela 04: The Island (15 page)

“Thank you,” Kel said. He waited, expecting more, but the man went back to staring at his hands, as if waiting for them to act.

Kel considered asking whether he needed help, but the old man did not appear to be in distress. Not of the physical kind, at least. Emotionally… Kel was still too concerned about his own state of mind to start worrying about others’.

He went on, panting with familiar exertion, pressing down on his knees to help the climb. The path twisted and turned between buildings constructed at varying points during the village’s history. Stone houses stood between timber constructions, and here and there were old mud-and-seaweed homes, their thick walls still standing solid. The stench of the sea lessened so far up, and he realized how sickening the smell of mud and death was down in the ruins.

He passed people going down, glanced at them all, and saw a mixture of shock, concern and wonder in their faces that did not sit well with him. All were emotions strong enough to cause change, and change was always dangerous.

Here and there, where the spaces between buildings offered views down to the harbor, he paused to see what was
happening. Some of the visitors’ smaller craft had moored along the mole, and from so high the movement of people disembarking was little more than a blur. A few boats had passed around the end of the mole and entered the harbor proper, but they seemed to have anchored away from the harbor or mole walls. The harbor was full of debris and dirt, and it moved like thick soup instead of seawater.

The larger ship was moving closer under oar power. Waves broke against its hull as it headed in. As Kel watched, the huge booms started to swing around, the ship began its turn, and launches were lowered all along its port side. The launches were full of people.

How many?
Kel wondered.
A hundred? More?
Pavmouth Breaks had maybe two thousand inhabitants, both down in the harbor and valley, and up on the hills surrounding them. The waves had killed many, though it would be a long time before they knew the exact numbers. But the odds still seemed stacked in the Noreelans’ favor.

Is this the way I should be thinking?
Kel leaned against a wall to catch his breath.
Could they really be here to hurt us?
He closed his eyes and welcomed the cool breeze coming in from the sea, and he noticed a hint of something mysterious and unknown—a fruity scent he did not recognize. As he looked out to the island the idea crossed his mind, for the first time, that it was a place he had to visit.

A chill of anticipation went through him, a thrill of excitement.

He turned and started climbing again. The closer he drew to his rooms, the calmer he felt. There was even a selfish, dreadful part of him that still entertained the idea of escape.

No, not escape!
Retreat.
But only to come back stronger
.

Yet as he reached the door to his rooms, in the long, low stone building where eight others lived, he realized that he did not yet know enough to run.

He unlocked the door and entered, and inside, last night had not happened. The sculpture he was carving for Namior
sat covered by its blanket, and the unlit fire was speckled with wellburr shavings. He paused for a moment and breathed in deeply, relishing air untainted by the disaster beyond the door. Glancing at the voice carrier tucked away in the corner of his room, he thought of Namior, working at the Moon Temple to heal people injured by the waves, perhaps thinking of him, wondering where he was and what his intentions were. Wondering
who
he was. He had said too much, but not yet enough, and they had plenty to talk about when the time was right.

Kel sat at his carving table and pulled the cover from his latest work. The cliff hawk was beautifully wrought, yet it meant nothing. What was such a copy, when he could walk up to the top of Drakeman’s Hill and see the real thing? What was the purpose of trying to capture nature in art? Was it appreciation, or arrogance?

“So many dead,” he whispered, and the hawk stared back at him with unfinished eyes. He thought of the cries he had heard that day, the tears he had seen, and the sun was barely at its zenith.

Kel rubbed his face and looked at the dirt on his hands. There had been blood there many times before. As recently as that morning, he had been ready to spill some more. And if the situation called for it, he still was.

He had lost his knife, but no Core soldier was ever far from his or her weapons.

The floorboard beneath his carving table came up with a brief squeal. He drew out his weapon roll, the weapons wrapped in oilcloth, sharpened and cared for regularly since he had been there. Beneath the roll lay the bag of things he liked much less. He picked up the bag, opened the sealing string, and carefully pulled them out.

They were communicators, but far more effective than Namior’s voice carrier. Perfected by the Core’s greatest witches, they looked like small, thumb-sized nuts trailing long, sinewy tails. When the tails were breathed upon, they grew incredibly
hard and sharp, and their tips could pierce stone. Once plunged into the ground, the magic of the land flowed into the round head. Crushed, a signal would be sent to all Core members across Noreela, as though the nut itself had taken root and bloomed a desperate call for help.

None of the weird devices had ever been used, but every Core member was in possession of several of them.
Use one of those fuckers, and Noreela’s at war
, he remembered O’Peeria once saying. Even she had been afraid of them.

“I pray to the Black, the moon gods, the Sleeping Gods, and every cursed deity anyone in Noreela chooses to call their own that I don’t have to use one of these,” Kel said. But though faithless in religion, he had even less faith in himself. The prayers felt like nothing.

He rolled the tails away, tied the three objects back in their bag and slipped it into his pocket.

It took him a while to stow the weapons about himself. A knife into the sheath on his thigh, throwing knives tucked into the belt on the inside of his trouser waist so that their hilts were hidden, acid dust in leaf pouches in several pockets, and in his jacket pocket went the small crossbow he had used to kill his final Stranger. When he blinked, he saw O’Peeria dying beneath the thing’s disintegrating corpse.

The only weapon he could not hide was the short sword he hung from his belt. No one would question that. He had seen many people descending into the valley armed, and if questioned, he could claim a fear of what had been washed up with the sea.
I saw sea-wolf tracks
, he would say.

The final thing he picked up was the carving. It was not finished, and not quite perfect, but he liked that. It spoke of potential in a safe future to come.

As he closed his door and prepared to go down into Pavmouth Breaks once again, Kel thought of O’Peeria, and how she had never assumed any future at all.

HE’S ABOUT FIVE
hundred years old,” O’Peeria whispers. “He
must
be. He knows so much, and he stinks like a fucking corpse.”

Kel cannot help smirking. They have been drinking rotwine together all afternoon in a rough old tavern on Conbarma’s waterfront, on the northern shores of Noreela. Frequented by fishermen, rage-shell dealers and visitors from the islands of The Spine, the most essential item of clothing is a knife. O’Peeria draws a certain amount of attention because she’s Shantasi, but she is able to deliver a stare of such withering strength that they are left alone.

Somewhat drunk and tired and with Kel almost certain he will try to make love with O’Peeria later that night, they have to gather their senses to listen to the oldest Core member still alive.

They are sitting on the deck of a large, seagoing sailing boat. The old man lives on one of the distant islands of The Spine, so it’s said, and it’s alleged that he’s watching for Strangers from the north. He has stated that this is his last-ever visit to the Noreelan mainland, so the Core has brought as many members together as they can to benefit from his experience.

It’s the first time in his life that Kel has ever been on a boat, and the sea’s gentle movement does not sit well with a stomach full of rotwine.

“I’ll share your joke, Shantasi,” Verrin says. Rumor has it he’s changed his name sixteen times in his life, each change following his killing of a Stranger. He is bald, his scalp scarred with a network of fine, spotted wounds. His eyes are a piercing green. He claims to be over a hundred years old, and as Kel swallows his laughter, he can well believe that.

“My name’s O’Peeria,” she says, “and the joke’s on you.”

Verrin smiles. “I’ve suffered much worse. But I’m here, O’Peeria, because I know more about Strangers than all of you chunks of sheebok shit combined.” A murmur passes through the dozen Core soldiers sitting on the boat’s deck.
“No whispering,” Verrin says. “And nudging your neighbors. I’ve earned the right to call you all what I want, although … you know I don’t mean it.” He sits on an upturned box before them, like a teacher facing a room of unruly children, and holds up his hands. “There’s blood on these.” He points to his head. “Bitterness in here.” He sighs and looks down at his feet, and after a few beats Kel starts to think he’s fallen asleep.

The Core soldiers are completely silent. No sense of mockery remains, because Verrin has begun, and they all know his history. There are no books, no images, no poems or songs in print, because nothing can hint at the Core’s existence. They are people who all know too much.
Noreela is not alone…
The four words that would change their world forever. But word is always passed down, myths have their own impetus, and Verrin has become a legend among those Core members active across Noreela.

“You’ve all killed a Stranger,” he says—a statement more than a question. He can likely see the truth of that in the eyes of those before him. Kel says nothing. “How many?” Verrin points to a woman to Kel’s left.

“One,” she says. “And another I wasn’t sure about.”

“If you still weren’t sure after the killing, then he or she wasn’t a Stranger.” He points at O’Peeria. “How many?”

“Two,” she says. “Definitely Strangers.”

Verrin nods. Then he points at Kel and raises his eyebrows.

Kel thinks of lying, but Verrin is glaring at him, the old man’s eyes home to so much more than Kel will ever likely know. “None,” he says. “But my time will come.”

Verrin grins. “It will. It will come, soldier. And you already have the look of a killer.”

He laughs a little, then looks up over their heads, as though addressing someone much farther away.

“They look just like us, with their clothes on. Hide their gills and those cursed things on their backs, and sometimes you can spend days with them without becoming suspicious.
They’ll just seem like someone from a long way away, who perhaps isn’t aware of local customs, religions or laws. Noreela has many travelers and rovers, and this is not so unusual. But more often than not, a Stranger
will
give himself or herself away to those looking for them, even with the very subtlest of signs. You’ve all met someone you feel is just…out of place. Someone who unsettles you. They have a strange manner of communicating, gesticulating oddly as they speak. They look at you for too long after pausing in their conversation, or too intensely, or not for long enough. Their eyes can be cold, as though whatever unknown distance they’ve traveled to reach Noreela has affected their stare. And the one constant I’ve learned, the one thing that has kept me alive and killed so many Strangers, is this: trust your instincts.” He falls silent, still staring away over their heads.

“You
unsettle me,” O’Peeria says.

Verrin’s eyes droop, hooded by the threat of violence. He touches his collar and starts to pull it back.

The Core soldiers gasp. All of them. Kel can’t help himself, and he is instantly sobered. He reaches for the short knife on his belt, as yet untainted by a Stranger’s blood.

Verrin tilts his head to one side and shows them the side of his neck. It’s brown as an old saddle, and just as worn. No gills.

Verrin smiles, and the soldiers’ laughter is painfully nervous.

“Trust your instincts,” he says directly to O’Peeria. “Though also trust that sometimes, they might be wrong.”

Then he looks at the woman who killed someone she believed to be a Stranger but who evidently was not. “You can’t afford to take the chance.”

PEOPLE BEGAN TO
claim the bodies of their loved ones. They came singly, in couples or family groups, most of them dirty and disheveled, bloodied and bruised from digging through rubble or hauling mud by the bucket or shovelful. They approached the Moon Temple slowly, looking at that extravagant building with new gravity and uncertainty. For some it was a regular site of worship, for others simply a place they passed day after day without a second thought. In Pavmouth Breaks, as in most of Noreela, the choice of which deity to worship, or the decision to worship any at all, was still a free one.