The Silver City, page 19
Lightning, blue, forked, crackling, leapt from his fingers and arced across the room. Kefiri screamed, and Mellok dropped to his knees. The air was suddenly sizzling, full of power. Halthris felt the hair rise on her head, and sorcery prickled her skin. Ansaryon seemed to pulsate with an eerie, lambent glow: then, his voice hissing and unrecognizable, he spoke the terrible words of the Curse of Ayak.
‘May Hegeden forsake you, may Sarraliss forswear you, may Tayo forget you — may the wolves tear out your tongue, slaughter your heart, devour your soul: you have lived in evil, may you die in evil, in fear, in agony, in everlasting torment — you are Ayak’s, D’thliss, and to him may you return!’
Light flared up, a great sheet of cold fire so blindingly brilliant that Halthris covered her eyes. Then all the tension left the air, and there was silence: utter, deathly silence.
‘Halthris?’ Kefiri touched her hand. ‘Halthris, are you all right?’
She was shaking. Mellok was muttering a prayer. After that curse, Halthris thought grimly, it had better be an effective one. She realized that she was crouched on the floor. Slowly, stiffly, she removed her hands from her eyes and sat up.
The room was peaceful, as if that terrifying exhibition of raw sorcery had never taken place. But Fess, every hair stark on her back, her tail bristled and her eyes huge, cowered behind the brazier, gazing at the bed as if its occupant were about to transfix her with a lightning bolt.
Halthris rose to her feet. Her knees felt wobbly, and she was trembling. Hesitantly, dreading what she would find, she stumbled the few steps to the bed.
Ansaryon lay sprawled on his side across it, his head buried in the twisted blankets. She turned him onto his back. His face looked very young and vulnerable beneath the rats-tails of his sweat-soaked hair. It did not seem possible that he had unleashed such power, and yet she had not imagined it, nor the terrible hatred with which he had laid Ayak’s dreadful curse on someone named D’thliss.
Unbelievably, he was not dead. There was still a faint, staggering pulse, and he was breathing, just. Mellok finished his prayer, his face a ghastly grey, and examined his patient with shaking hands. ‘Yes, he is still alive — but not for much longer, I fear. This is the last stage. Soon he will slip peacefully away. The best we can do for him now is to watch over him as he leaves us.’
Quietly, nervously, avoiding each other’s eyes, they made him comfortable, renewing bandages, wiping the sweat from his face, laying him back gently on the pillows. It was now dark outside, and snowing hard, the flakes whirling against the windows. Kefiri summoned servants, who came with tapers and lit the wall lamps all round the room until it was almost as bright as day, though not with the brilliance of sorcery. Food arrived, but none of the three watchers could eat more than a few mouthfuls. The cups of hot kuldi, though, were very welcome: with every sip, Halthris felt a little strength returning to her numbed and exhausted mind.
Kefiri had fallen asleep in her chair, looking utterly drained. She was only seventeen: by comparison, Halthris felt immeasurably ancient. Mellok, too, seemed to have been aged ten years by what he had seen: his face was hollowed with fatigue, and his hands still trembled as he gulped down the kuldi. Halthris sat amongst cushions on the floor, her arms round Fess, who pressed close against her, both offering and receiving comfort.
‘Don’t worry,’ she said in her mind to the cat. ‘It is nearly over. Soon he will be dead, and I had rather he died than face such torment again. No one should have to endure such things, no matter how evil they are — and I know that he is not evil, whatever has happened in the past, whatever he has done.’
And Fess, in her own way, let her know that she understood, and somehow shared her grief.
Halthris slept at last, and woke to darkness, thick, cold, impenetrable. All the lamps must have gone out. She felt harsh warm fur beneath her cheek, and knew what had roused her. She sent her greeting to Fess’s mind in return, and found that the cat was fast asleep.
But something, someone, had summoned her.
It came again, the merest whisper inside her head. ‘Halthris, are you there?’
‘I am here,’ she said soundlessly. Her heart was beginning to pound, the rhythm of hope, or of fear, she did not know which. It was so faint, this tenuous communication of the spirit, that she could hardly discern it, and yet she knew with utter certainty who spoke to her.
‘I promised,’ he said. ‘I know I promised not to invade you. I’m sorry — I have no other choice.’ There was a pause, as if he were gathering strength, and then he went on. ‘Come to me — I need you — Halthris, will you come?’
‘I will,’ she said, and rose to her feet. Fess stirred, but made no sound: perhaps, in some strange way, she knew what was happening. It was only a few steps to the bed, but she misjudged the distance, and banged her knee painfully on the wooden frame. By now, her eyes were becoming accustomed to the dark, and she could make out, very faintly, the shape of his head on the pillow. She could not tell if he was looking at her, but she groped for his hand, and found it, and held on.
‘Thank you,’ said Ansaryon inside her head. She felt a slight movement of his fingers against hers: they were very cold.
Halthris said, wordlessly, ‘I thought you were dying.’
‘So did I.’ His tone was faintly, drily ironic. ‘But it seems that I am not — not yet. I think I need your help, though, Halthris of the Tanathi. Keep my mind here — keep me with you — can you do that?’
‘I don’t know. I can try. What do you want me to do?’
His answer was completely unexpected. ‘Can you sing?’
Halfway between a sob and a laugh, she spoke aloud. ‘Yes — yes, I can sing.’
‘In your mind,’ said Ansaryon, with a touch of exasperation. Already, his thought-voice seemed a little stronger. ‘Anything — one of those interminable Tanathi lampoons if you like, I don’t mind — rhymes, poetry, ballads, nonsense — anything.’
‘Why?’ she asked, bewildered. ‘How will it help?’
‘I don’t know — I just feel that it will.’ His hand gripped hers in a sudden spasm. ‘Oh, for Tayo’s sake, Halthris — sing!’
She had a good voice. Once, as a child before her Ordeal, and the realization that she desired only to be a Hunter, she had wanted to become apprenticed to the clan’s Singer, Umay. For over a year she had sat at his feet, learned his songs, remembered the tunes, and made up words of her own in emulation or parody. The Tanathi used music to celebrate deeds of courage, to deflate pretension, and to record and comment upon the life of the tribe and its members, so hers had not been a trivial ambition, and she knew that if her feet had followed that road, she would have made a good Singer. On hunting trips away from the clan, she still entertained her companions with songs, both her own and other people’s.
But this was utterly different. How could she sing without sound? For a few heartbeats, she was stabbed by cold spears of panic. Then, from nowhere, a fragment of rhyme entered her mind.
‘Cold the wind and grey the weather,
Hunters riding close together,
On each head an eagle’s feather,
Hegeden guards them all.’
‘It doesn’t make much sense,’ she said apologetically. ‘It’s just a children’s song — it’s all I could think of.’
‘I told you. It doesn’t matter. Anything.’
Mention of Hegeden had cleared her mind. She gave him the full chant, learned from Umay, of the Eagle’s lament for his mate Kin’gir, lost among the winter mountains. Then, to redress the balance, the story of Sarraliss, mother of all humans, and the creation of the First Horse, born of earth and wind and joy: and, descending from the sublime to the ridiculous, the song of Foolish Gan and the Bull-shaped Rock.
She felt his amusement as she finished, and it was a completely new sensation: Fess, being a cat and permanently on her dignity, had no sense of humour whatsoever.
‘We share the same stories, you and I,’ he said. ‘My nurse told me that one. Come on, Halthris of the Tanathi — surely you know more songs than those?’
So she sat there in the dark, holding the hand of a man whose body seemed to be lifeless, but whose mind, despite the suffering he had endured, was still, astonishingly, capable of this strange and soundless communication of thoughts and emotions. She sang the tale of Djama, the deer, and her faithful devotion to her beloved S’yar, the stag; a selection of children’s lullabies and scraps of song; the ballad called the Tragic Hunter, in which a Tanathi widow mourned her husband, slain by a leopard; and How Hegeden Made the World, which told of the Creation, and in its full form took five nights to relate.
Even ruthlessly pruned, she found it exhaustingly long. Towards the end, describing how Hegeden found two twigs for his nest, accidentally dropped them into a river and transformed them into the First Man and the First Woman, she realized that she was chanting aloud, and hastily switched back to thought-speech.
‘You’re very tired,’ he said, when she had finished. ‘I’m sorry — but if you can stay awake till dawn — keep me here — don’t let me go — ’
‘I won’t,’ she promised him, frightened by the sudden desperation in his silent voice.
‘Your mind is full of questions, Halthris of the Tanathi. I can’t answer all of them — not yet — but some of them I will. Tomorrow, perhaps?’
‘If — ’ she began, and he finished for her.
‘If I survive this. You are my anchor, Halthris of the Tanathi — you are holding me here. If the sun shines on my living face, I feel — I know I will not die.’ She sensed his dry irony again. ‘Not yet, anyway.’
‘Have you any songs?’ she asked him. ‘Are you strong enough to sing me some?’
‘I don’t know. All I can do is breathe, just, and speak to you silently, and listen. Not unpleasant, save for the darkness lurking. Almost like floating on an invisible sea, warm, comfortable — and dangerous.’
‘When we first saw Sar D’yenyi — what did you recite then? It was beautiful.’
‘That’s just a fragment of song — part of a very long poem written by a man called Sethearna, who lived a hundred and fifty years ago, in the time of Queen Zathti, when Zithirian was invaded by the Toktel’yans, and the Royal Family and the Court took refuge here in Sar D’yenyi. When the Toktel’yans had been driven out, he wrote a poem in celebration called “The Defeat of the Emperor”. It’s partly narrative, partly praise of the Queen, partly songs that can be sung separately, in their own right. That one is called “Sar D’yenyi in the Morning”.’
‘Can you recite it now?’
There was a pause, and she felt again the movement of his fingers in hers, and the smile he was too weak to make in reality. ‘I can’t remember all of it.’
‘Try.’
Softly, the words stole into her head, and she saw again in her mind the sharp, agonizing beauty of the towers soaring up out of the ice, the lances of blue shadow, the glittering walls.
‘Though skies may fall, and put an end to dawning:
Though seas run dry, and fiery mountains roar:
I once saw Sar D’yenyi in the morning,
And my heart is filled with joy for ever more.
My love has fled me, gone and left no warning,
My grief will walk beside me all my days:
But I saw Sar D’yenyi in the morning,
And the glory set my spirit all ablaze.’
It was growing light. She turned her head and saw his face on the pillow, whiter than the linen. His eyes were closed: he seemed asleep, or dead.
‘Don’t worry, I’m not,’ he said. ‘I’ve thought of another song. Listen, do you recognize this?’
It took her three lines to realize that this apparently commonplace children’s counting rhyme masked a very simplified version of ‘How Hegeden Made the Animals’.
‘Eagle on his eyrie sat
One by one the mountain cat.
Eagle winging high above
Two by two the gentle dove.
Eagle flying far and near
Three by three the faithful deer.
Eagle floating out of sight
Four by four the greedy kite.
Eagle filled with all our hope
Five by five the antelope.
Eagle hanging in the air
Six by six the running hare.
Eagle flies and does not sleep
Seven by seven the leopards creep.
Eagle never will forsake
Eight by eight the silent snake.
Eagle flies out of the sun
Nine by nine the wolf packs run.
Eagle always soaring free
Lord of men will ever be.’
‘I thought that the worship of Hegeden and Sarraliss was forbidden in Zithirian,’ said Halthris, when he had finished.
‘So it is — but they sing the songs, just the same. My nurse taught them to me. It was only later that I realized their significance. There are many songs which would displease the Priests of Tayo. This one, for instance.
‘Beware the horses of the night
Lest they thy sleeping soul affright
The Harper keep you safe till light,
And guard you from all harm.’
‘The Harper of the West,’ Halthris said. ‘The rain-bringer, the song-singer. Is he known in Zithirian too?’
‘All the children love him. The best, the most meaningful, the most beautiful songs are the children’s. And no one, not even the Priests of Tayo, can take them away.’
‘I don’t think I like the Priests of Tayo very much.’
‘I don’t blame you. Very few people in Zithirian do. Is it light yet?’
‘Yes, though I don’t think the sun has risen. Kefiri and Mellok are still asleep.’
‘And Fess?’
‘She’s looking at us. Can you reach her mind, too?’
The cat was staring at Ansaryon, her yellow eyes shining. Suddenly, without a sound, she rose to her feet and leapt lightly onto the bed. Her blunt, whiskery muzzle sought and found Ansaryon’s other hand, and began to wash it.
‘Yes. She despises most humans, but she’s prepared to make an exception for me. And for you, of course. Halthris?’
‘Yes?’
‘Kef and the Healer will wake soon. I think it’s best if he doesn’t know what has happened. Kef will understand — you can tell her later. For now, just say — just tell them that I am not dead. Once the sun comes, I shall be safe.’
‘How can you possibly know that?’
A pause. ‘I don’t,’ said Ansaryon. ‘I’m just guessing. But I do know that Ayak — Ayak doesn’t like to take his favourite victims in daylight.’
‘His favourite?’
‘Undoubtedly.’ His wry smile was clear in her mind, even if his face did not alter. ‘Ayak would love to get his fangs in me. I have used his name, but I am none of his, I promise you.’
‘I know you are not. I knew a long time ago.’
‘Did you? You surprise me.’ Once more, she felt the pressure of his fingers. ‘Is the sun risen yet?’
There was a fanfare of scarlet and gold beyond the eastern window. Halthris stared at the glory of it, and let him see through her eyes. As they waited, she said, ‘What about the night to come?’
‘I shall be stronger then. This weakness will not last for ever. And in any case, I have my anchor, my Harper of the West, to guard me from all harm.’
She knew that he meant her, and despite her weariness felt a surge of joy. Then her down-to-earth nature reasserted itself. ‘What’s an anchor?’
Again, the sensation of amusement. ‘I’d forgotten that you might not know. It’s a device — a very heavy stone, or a piece of metal — on the end of a long rope. You throw it overboard from a boat, and it stops it moving.’
With his mind’s eye, she saw one of the graceful Kefirinn ships, sleek, shallow, fast, floating on the wide sunlit stream of the river, its bright sky-blue and turquoise sail echoed in the still water beneath. A man stood in the bows, bare-legged, wearing the brief tunic of a Toktel’yan labourer. He picked up a strangely-shaped object, made of several pieces of iron with a rope attached to one end, and pushed it over the side. It sank with a splash, and the ship, which had been drifting dreamily with the current on a day almost windless, turned slowly round and stopped, tugging gently on the rope disappearing into the water.
‘You see? An anchor in use. That ship is the Golden Harvest — I sailed in her once, down to Toktel’yi. Have you ever been in a boat, Halthris of the Tanathi?’
‘Of course not. Tanathi prefer dry land, earth — we mistrust boats, and towers.’
She looked up, smiling, and saw that the sun, unseen behind the sharp spike of Mount Sargenn, had touched the distant peaks with amber and gold.
‘Sunrise.’ His voice in her mind was suddenly faint with relief and delight. Abruptly she realized the enormity of mental effort that had kept him conscious all through their silent conversation, although the effects of withdrawal from the drug had left him too weak even to open his eyes.
‘Thank you,’ he added. ‘I owe you my life; Halthris of the Tanathi, worthless though it may be. You can let me go now — don’t worry, it will only be sleep, I promise you.’
‘How can you know?’ she cried, feeling him slipping away from her into emptiness.
‘I know. Trust me. I will speak to you soon.’
He was gone. An irrational sense of loss, acute, agonizing, flooded her mind. She buried her head in her hands, and tried not to weep.
‘Halthris?’
Her name, spoken aloud, was almost unrecognizable. She looked up and saw Kefiri staring at her in alarm. ‘Halthris — what is it? Is — is he dead?’
