Tales of Noreela 04: The Island (31 page)

“Spells? I thought you sensed no magic here.”

“None that
I
know,” she said, “but we know they have their own.”

The closer Namior looked, the more she started to make out a few differently styled buildings. There were several two-story houses made of wood, their angles and edges lined with folded metal panels. Another building, close to the edge of the village, was a low, domed structure of mud and reeds, windows
carved through its thick walls and surfaces bleached almost white by sunlight.

“I can’t see anyone,” Kel said.

“No. I have the image of movement everywhere I look, but …”

“Those things surround the village. They never quite intrude… always built just out from the village’s edge.” He pointed, drawing an imaginary line between the tall structures.

“Strange.” Namior stared down the slope, across the rooftops to the sea. The ocean appeared as it always had, with no odd colors to confuse, no textures to scare. She concentrated on the swells and white-crests, taking comfort in the sea’s constant existence. Then she looked up slightly, and across the sea lay Noreela. Pavmouth Breaks was a smudge in the River Pav’s valley, and though she could pick out no individual buildings, still she could place her home. If she could see so far, perhaps she would meet her mother’s gaze returned her way.

“We should go,” Kel said.

“I thought—?”

“Down into the village. Just the edge. Go past those things, see what’s different, see if they cast anything across the village that might help us.”

“What if we’re seen?”

“We need to make sure we aren’t.” His eyes softened, and he leaned forward to plant a kiss on her lips. Namior closed her eyes, shutting out the alien place for a blissful beat. Then Kel pulled away, and when she looked again he was pointing down the grassy slope.

“From here to that boulder,” he said. “Then from there, through that long grass to the ridge just outside the village. Over the ridge, across to that domed mud-built building. Only a couple of windows pointing this way. Then we listen and watch, and try to get a feel for the place.”

“I’m not sure I really want to feel it,” Namior said. “It’s not a place for us, Kel. Not for Noreelans.”

“And Noreela is not for them,” he said firmly. “It never will be. I need to know more, Namior.”

She nodded slowly.

“You can wait,” he said.

“No.”

“Namior, I’m faster than you, and—”

“No! Someone’s got to look after you.”
And I don’t want to be alone
.

“Right. Follow me.”

Without any more talk, leaving no time for contemplation and doubt, Kel broke cover and ran.

TIME SEEMED TO
flex. It took a while to work their way carefully across the open ground, but it felt like a few beats. When they reached the ridge that ran around the perimeter of the village, Kel climbed, using rock outcroppings and exposed roots as hand-and footholds. Namior followed, and as she cleared the top it felt as if they were climbing into the village from underground.

Resting flat against the dried-mud wall of the domed Komadian building, Namior looked up at the black structure curving high above. She expected to see the strange, graceful metal machines gliding across its surface, congregating at one place and pointing steam-pipes, goggle eyes and grappling claws down at the intruders. But all was quiet, and she felt a comforting breeze on her face.

“I can’t hear anything,” Kel whispered.

Namior shook her head and shrugged. Not only were there no voices, but there were no other sounds that she would normally associate with village life; barking dogs, whistling sweet birds on their homely perches, the purr and crunch of machines, the steady beat of a village living through
its day. The sea was always a background, but Pavmouth Breaks was never silent.

Kel began edging along the wall toward one of the windows. Namior wanted him to stop, but curiosity also had her in its hold. That, and a sense of occasion. Her comment that they would sing songs about them in the future had been a joke, but this was truly something …

Maybe we’re not the first
, she thought.
Maybe the island has appeared many times before, as their emissary said, and had its visitors from Noreela, and they were caught and killed and
—

“Here,” Kel whispered. He waved her over, and she joined him looking into the window.

The glass was thick, and so clear that it almost wasn’t there. Namior had to reach out and touch its solidity to believe it. Beyond, the room was deserted, and she viewed the frozen moment of someone else’s life. A low table in the center was scattered with bowls and glasses, colorfully woven cushions were scattered across the floor, and several thin, flexible pipes hung from the ceiling. They ended in complex-looking metallic constructs, large as a fisted hand and glimmering. One of them swung gently as though only just touched. Another seeped a puff of steam. Beyond the table and seating area were several curtained rooms, and beyond that a door that led out onto a street. The door was wide open, and they were offered a teasing glimpse of a wide thoroughfare, planted with short trees on either side and curving out of view. They saw the face of a neighboring building through the door, partially clad in a subtle green metal, with flowers growing in a narrow trench along its base. This building’s door also hung open.

“Shall we go around?” Namior said, surprising herself with the suggestion. But the glimpse they’d had into the new world was so enticing.

Kel nodded and edged around the curved wall. They passed into shadows cast by a wood-clad house, and had to
walk through a vegetable patch planted between the two. They stepped carefully, conscious not to crush any of the blooming plants. None of the vegetables seemed completely familiar.

They moved slowly, exposing themselves to view from several buildings and a dozen windows. But though doors were open, nobody seemed to be at home.

Namior saw that many of the buildings—dwellings, shops, and others that seemed to be gathering places, with wooden seats lined up both inside and out—had metal pipes curving up from their walls and protruding through the roofs. From a few pipes rose a trickle of steam, but most seemed dormant. They reminded her of the tentacle things she’d seen emerging from the dying Stranger’s back. She shivered, and Kel looked her way.

“Seems like steam means a lot to them,” he said.

“Where
are
they all?”

And then above the gentle hush of the sea, they heard the sound of a crowd’s laughter. Like a wave it rose, broke and receded, leaving them awash with its humor.

“That way,” Kel said. “If they’re all gathered for something, I think it’s important we see.”

“Maybe it’s a progress report from someone who’s been to Pavmouth Breaks.”

“Maybe it’s a battle plan.” Kel looked so serious, so anxious, that Namior had the sudden urge to hold him and love the fear away.

“I don’t want to stay here much longer,” she said.

“Nor I. I hope we won’t need to.”

They set off along the tree-lined street, trying to keep to the shadows cast by buildings, moving slowly at first, then picking up speed the more certain they became that everyone was gathered in one place. A slight breeze blew up from the direction of the sea, carrying the familiar smell and the foreign sounds of unknown voices laughing, speaking, and providing a hum toward which they could aim.

Namior wanted to stop and look at everything, but she was following Kel. And he only had one thing in mind.

Streets opened up wide, and soon they entered a part of the village where there was no apparent order. Buildings sat here and there, paved paths twisted between them, clumps of trees provided spreads of random shadow, and well-maintained areas of vegetable and fruit bushes gave a splash of green, purple and yellow here and there. It would be easy to get lost, but Kel was homing in on the sound.

The crowd.

Namior wondered whether some of them would be blue.

They passed between two tall buildings, then skirted around the temple-like place they’d seen from the tree line. They tried not to look up at the disturbingly colored spire. It had all the trappings of a place of worship, but there were several double doors that stood wide open, and inside there was a spread of pools, some filled with water, others apparently with steam. More of the flexible pipes hung from somewhere too high to see, and a mist made their view inside uncertain.

A roar came from somewhere nearby, the sound of many voices raised. Namior frowned. There were whistles and hums there as well, and clicks and pops. Perhaps part of the sound was being made by another of their steam machines?

They walked past the temple building, and Kel held up his hand. Then he pointed at a low structure to their left, its door open, insides bare but for a round, cushion-covered bed.

“We can’t just—” she began, but Kel was already through the door.

For a moment she was alone. She turned her back on the building and looked around, past the tall-spired temple and back up the hillside to the tree line. She could not make out the exact place from which they had viewed the village, but she thought she saw a flash of movement, as though she and Kel were still up there.

“Namior!” Kel hissed from behind her. “Namior! We have
to go. Oh by all the
Black
, by all the fucking gods, we have to leave
right now!”

But he did not reappear, and when Namior ducked through the door she saw her lover standing by the far wall, a couple of steps away from a long, low window that looked out across a square.

He could not move. He seemed frozen, apart from a desperate, hitched breath that jerked his upper body.

Namior skirted past the bed and stood beside him, and looked out, and everything dropped out of her world.

THE SQUARE WAS
full. But not just with people.

At its center was a stone platform. A woman stood there, similar to Keera Kashoomie but even taller, hair shorter, and she waved her arms and smiled. She was speaking, but Namior could not hear her above the clamor of the crowd. And even had she been able to hear, the words would not have registered. Namior’s mind had shifted to allow room for wonder, and disbelief, and finally fear.

Fear for Noreela, and herself.

Fear for her sanity.

There were people present, but they did not matter. The things
between
them were what Namior concentrated upon, trying to make sense but finding none. She saw a tall woman with feathered wings clutched behind her, a man with four arms, a diaphanous spirit that swelled and shrank the air around it. A young child disappeared from one place and appeared again elsewhere, three women sat conjoined by a thick fleshy girdle hugging their waists, and two men pierced each other with sharpened hands, kissing at the same time. A young girl floating above the ground called colored lights into being from her eyes, a man walked on insectile legs, a woman glided on one moist foot, and an androgynous person walked on air. Several people were gathered around a normal-looking
woman riding a naked man, the couple reveling in their union, the audience darting reptilian tongues at their conjoined genitals. With each tongue impact the woman cried out, and the man groaned, and the people around them closed their eyes in shared ecstasy. A short person walked by, wiping at its beak with a clawed hand. A tall woman sat away from the edge of the crowd, her knees far higher than her head, and a hundred tiny crablike things were huddled across her back, suckling on red-raw teats on either side of the woman’s spine.

The woman on the central platform raised her hands again and the crowd roared, squealed and cried. A man ran through the throng, carrying something above his head. It looked like a block of uneven glass, throwing off a rainbow of colors that Namior knew and some she did not. She shied away from the window, afraid that if one of the unknown colors reflected upon her, it would hurt. People cheered and hooted, and when the man reached the stone platform, he placed the glass object gently on the ground. Namior could no longer see it. Something told her that was good.

And then there was Trakis, her friend, the big man with whom she had been drunk many times and who, when they were young teenagers many moons ago, had kissed her behind the harbor and told her she was his first and last.

Two Strangers had him, each holding an arm, and they marched him through the crowd. They were not wearing their metal armor. He looked terrified; his eyes were wide, face bloodied, clothes tattered.

“Trakis!” she hissed. Kel’s hand flashed out and grabbed her arm, preventing her from going too close to the window.

“We can’t help him,” he said quietly. “Whatever it is, whatever they’re doing …”

“But that’s
Trakis!
He was washed away, or buried!”

Kel said nothing, and Namior could hear his breath, fast and urgent.
He’s thinking of something, some plan, some way to rescue him
. But of course, he was not, because there was
nothing they could do. By coming there and witnessing the creatures at the gathering, they had made themselves Pavmouth Breaks’ final hope.

And Komadia’s greatest enemies.

The crowd parted for the Strangers. Trakis struggled, but one of them twisted his arm higher and he cried out, a human voice among the multitude.

They threw him down before the raised stone platform.

The crowd began to chant. Their voices were more serious, but still quite casual, as though they had seen such things many times before. The tall woman reached beside her for a long, flexible tube, and she pointed it down. Steam billowed out. A sharp crack rang out, and crystal shards speared through the steam.

What are they doing to us?
Namior thought.
Is this some torture? Is this some game?
She heard a brief, terrible scream.

“No!” she said, and Kel’s hand covered her mouth.

The observers stared down at what Namior could not see, wearing expressions of wonder and delight. Another scream came and it chilled her to her soul; they were doing more to Trakis than just killing him.