The Awakening (32 page)

‘And how would you describe the culture that let them?’

Nolin’s head snapped around to stare at Wyn. ‘You are no ordinary sailor, Wyn. That I know.’ He turned back once more to contemplate the Sea. ‘But you are right. We all stand condemned with Anwyn and her bitch whelp, Morag. They led us, true. But we followed them blindly to our destruction. And now we are so weakened by their wretched ideas that we cannot even defeat one lone Raider ship.’

‘And why has that led to you being in chains?’

‘Ah, that.’

‘Yes, that.’

‘There is a certain amount of shame in that, I must admit. You know that we of the Children know just about everything that happens in our realm.’

‘I thought we had already decided it wasn’t your realm any more.’

‘Your fine Captain may have decided that, but I think it is far from actually decided. No, we may not have all our powers, but in our knowledge of the Sea we are still unequalled. We would eventually win any conflict on the waters; do not be misled on that score. But it would take time and cost many lives. I wanted to avoid that.’

‘How so?’

Nolin looked at Wyn through narrowed eyes. ‘I feel I can trust you, Wyn. I don’t know how I know this, or why it is true. But true it is. So consider this: if I know Marek’s orders, don’t you think the High Priestess does too? And if I know that the whole Raider fleet will be gathering at the Wrested Archipelago, where do you think our whole fleet of attack ships will be waiting?’

It was cold on top of this mountain. No matter what the season was, it was always cold up here. Aldere knew why, he’d always known why, just as he’d always known that it was guilt that drove his mother to drink and bitterness. He understood why the village shunned the two of them, just as he understood why the world seemed to pass the village by.

Understanding lent him forgiveness. Despite the years of abuse and neglect he’d suffered at the hands of everyone he knew, he bore them no malice as he understood their reasons. He watched their lives and wondered why it was that no one else seemed to see or understand what he did. So much suffering, so much unnecessary alienation happened because those around him missed the obvious.

It took him longer to accept this than it had taken him to accept their treatment of his mother. She was drunk already. She had started drinking after lunch and was now snoring contentedly in her favourite chair in front of the fire that would smoulder all night. He knew she would be safe and warm until the morning.

Aldere felt no guilt about climbing up here, leaving her alone. On days like this his presence would just inflame her to guilty anger, and it pained him to see her like that. No, it was better for him to be away today, and up here he was free to think and to enjoy the world. He stood atop the mountain and looked down on the vista. The Great Fastness, the river, the village, the mighty volcanoes away in the distance, all were as they should be.

He frowned. There was another volcano alive today. There was something wrong about that. It was not its time to erupt. Again, he did not know how he knew, he just knew. As he concentrated, he realised that the wrongness was serious.

This should not be!

The thought ripped through him with a shocking intensity. It left him dazed and dizzy. Panting, he discovered he had fallen. He couldn’t remember falling. Aldere lifted himself up onto his elbows and stared at the volcano in the distance. As he did, an anger built within him. It rose from deep, down beneath his conscious mind, from somewhere base, somewhere primeval. It took hold of his emotions, leaving his mind cold and calculating. He saw the volcano, he felt its anger at being awoken from its slumber before its time.

I know, friend,
he thought.
Let me help.

Aldere sank his hands into the soil and sent his anger through the ground. As it surged away from him he was left with only the cold, hard knowledge that he had done right.

The volcano eased its rumblings and stopped, falling back into welcome slumber. Aldere sank
exhausted onto the ground, where he slept until morning.

Aldere awoke the next day feeling refreshed and well with all traces of yesterday’s anger gone. He stood and surveyed the world. All was well. Except…He sniffed. That smell wasn’t right. Fire? He looked down. No fire in the village that wasn’t supposed to be there.

He looked out to the Great Fastness. There it was. He watched the fire for a few minutes, but he had his suspicions about it long before he stopped watching. He knew that fires did not move like that. This one was heading directly towards the village.

Without thought he started running. He ran down the mountain as fast as he could, leaping over rocks and dodging trees in his headlong flight. By the time he reached the village, everyone was out with buckets of water or blankets to drive back the flames. He could hear the flames, feel the heat on his face as he continued running towards the river.

Merryk was there, shouting orders, directing the efforts to hold back the flames. Despite the width of the river at this point, the intense heat and sheer ferocity of the fire made it clear that soon it would jump the barrier and engulf the village.

Aldere stood for a moment, watching the wall of leaping, writhing fire. Like the volcano yesterday, this was wrong. It was not a natural fire. He stared into its heart, slowly seeing what no one else could. This was not a fire, it was a creature! This wall of fire was alive!

With a hoarse cry, Aldere strode towards the river. He glared in fury at the beast that threatened his home.

‘No!’ he screamed. ‘This is not for you! Go back!’ Impossibly, the fire flinched at his commands. Aldere stepped into the water and raised his arms above his head. ‘I said go back!’ he cried. The flame hissed in reply and surged to the very edge of the river. Aldere felt the hair on his head start to singe with the heat. He looked down at the water that swirled about his feet. An incredible idea came to him. He lowered his arms and sank to his knees. ‘Go,’ he murmured to the river. ‘Rise and go.’ To the shock and horror of everyone watching, the river rose from its bed and hurled itself at the fires.

Aldere stood in the suddenly dry riverbed, watching as the flames turned the water into a vast cloud of steam that wreathed about him like a cloak. Slowly the heat faded and the fire guttered and died with a gasp. He turned to see the people of the village staring at him, unable to move.

The strange tableau was held for a few silent minutes as the steam writhed and swirled about Aldere, then with a mutter, the villagers turned as one and walked away.

Morag stood in the prow of the
Kelpie
. Before her, the Sea reached out to an uncluttered horizon. Beneath her, the vessel gently heaved as it cut through the low swell. To either side, the white water generated by the
Kelpie
’s wake danced away merrily like a stream on the ocean’s depths. Behind her came the greater part of the Children’s fleet of fast attack boats. Hundreds of them stretched for miles across the Sea’s face. She doubted whether a larger, finer fleet had ever been assembled.

And they are mine to command!
she exulted. The thought of what she was heading to do filled her with a delicious sense of power. In a few days her fleet would fall upon the pride of the Southern Raiders like a school of ravening caruda fish. They would tear them apart like a rotting corpse and leave wreckage strewn for all to see. None would ever challenge her again.

Luxuriating in such beautiful thoughts, she closed her eyes. She felt the wind, cold from the south, as it cut through her robe setting her shivering. The taste of the spray was sharp, salt crusting slightly on her
face. Hovering on the very edge of the air was the tingling, elusive scent of the ice. It had been too long since she had ventured so far south and she had missed the thrill that only the fear of ice could bring.

Too rarely had she been able to revel in the inexpressible joy of terror. There was nothing to compare with the rushing surge that came with facing death on the Sea. Life for her was tedium, the endless round of petty squabbles and meaningless decisions. It seemed that no one could ever deal with their own lives. They all needed her to mediate, to adjudicate, to decide for them. Her only escape was the
Kelpie
. It was hers to do with as she saw fit. She sailed where she wanted, did what she wanted. But her moments of freedom were all too short. Too soon she was called back from the wide ocean, back into the drudgery of administering a fractious people.

Not today. There was no calling her back now. This time she would sweep down upon her enemies and nothing would stop her. She caressed the weathered face of Hwenfayre’s harp, feeling the intricate tracery of carving. The power it gave her, the freedom that came from its unrivalled voice was intoxicating. With just a few chords she could control the very Sea beneath her.

Or she would soon, with more practice.

That galled her more than anything. The fact that an uneducated child brought up on land could have used this wonderful device with such ease when she, the High Priestess, could still barely raise a breeze and ruffle a calm Sea drove her to anger. But soon it would all be hers. Despite what her mother had tried to tell her, Morag knew the power was still there. And
soon she, and only she, would wield it. No matter what kind of ship Hwenfayre was on, this fleet would crush them underfoot, sending Hwenfayre back to the Sea she claimed to love.

‘It’s as well the Raiders are such poor killers, is it not, High Priestess?’

Morag smiled. Without either opening her eyes or turning from the wind, she replied. ‘Indeed it is, Declan, my love.’

‘If it weren’t for their incompetence you would not have that harp, would you?’

‘True. And that fact alone makes up for having to deal with them in the first place.’

‘What would you have done if they had managed to kill her?’

At that Morag opened her eyes and turned to face Declan. ‘Rejoiced,’ she said simply. ‘And thanked them for the pretty harp.’

Declan smiled. ‘And they would have handed it over.’

‘They would have indeed. Idiots.’

‘I still wonder, Morag, why kidnap her at all? You could have left her on that island. The Raiders had found her. They would have killed her,’ Declan said.

‘The Danan dead is one thing. The Danan under my control would be so much better,’ Morag said.

‘And now she is neither,’ Declan observed.

‘True,’ Morag conceded. ‘But without her harp she is powerless.’

‘Another thing I have wondered about; was the plan yours or your mother’s?’

A cold, predatory smile crossed the High Priestess’s face. The intrigues, the plotting also made
her life bearable. And none more so than the longterm plot she had devised to deal with this dangerous child. ‘Mother’s at the start. But mine at the end.’

Declan raised his eyebrows quizzically.

‘She started it, but the business end was me.’

Declan frowned, still not understanding.

‘Mother was the one who first started to remove the Danan from the teaching of the young. As soon as she recognised you two for what you were, she knew the Danan was close. My task was to separate the figures of legend. That was you, my love, and your friend Wyn. You two are as much a part of the legend of the Danan as Hwenfayre is. You both had roles to play. You, as Finder, were able to locate her, no matter how well Feargus hid her from us. Wyn, the Protector, was easily driven from us, so that he never learned of his role. It was much easier than we’d hoped. With the two figures of legend separated and under control we were well underway. But the masterstroke was mine. Mother would never have considered involving the Southern Raiders, but they were easily duped.’

Morag had become carried away by the thrill of her plan, so that when she turned away from Declan to consider the Sea she missed the sudden change in him. His normally passive face flickered suddenly into anger, before relaxing back to normal. But left in the anger’s wake was a coldness that had never been there before.

Morag continued, blithely unaware. ‘Mother believed that simply removing the Danan from the people’s consciousness would be enough. But she had to be physically removed as well. Enough people
would remember her if she reappeared, so she had to disappear. And that’s where the Raiders were so useful. They hunted her down, thanks to you telling them where she was, lover.’

‘And yet Wyn still managed to find her, despite your best efforts,’ Declan reminded her.

Morag still did not turn from her contemplation of the Sea. ‘He did,’ she conceded. ‘That I still don’t understand, but it meant nothing in the end. You saw that storm Hwenfayre sent after him. He would never have survived. She did our work for us.’

‘Something the Raiders did not,’ Declan said.

Morag nodded. ‘How they let her escape that town I’ll never know, but their clumsiness drove her straight to me.’

‘And we dealt with her,’ muttered Declan.

‘Yes, we did. Although I imagine the Raiders could be confused about what happened to the men who followed her to that island.’

‘They might think we killed them,’ suggested Declan.

Morag shrugged. ‘It won’t matter what they think when we get to the Wrested Archipelago.’

‘No, it won’t,’ agreed Declan.

‘Not with our fleet awaiting them. And me with this harp.’

‘Indeed,’ said Declan.

Morag smiled again, believing the two of them to be in agreement, as they always had been.

The fleet had not been hard to assemble. The Children had been on attack readiness for months, ever since Declan had located Hwenfayre, although they did not know that that was the reason. Morag
had told them that the time had come for the final showdown with the Southern Raiders. Those weren’t the words she used, of course. She spoke with impassioned fire about the viciousness and casual brutality of the Reavers of the Sea, how they had terrorised the peaceful Children of the Raft for long enough. She implored, she exhorted and she goaded her people into a raging wave of righteous vengeance. It took her quite a while. She knew that her attack fleet would need her personal appeal, rather than the usual messages relayed mystically through the Priestesses.

And now that joy was close to being complete. She had the Finder, she had the harp and the Southern Raiders were soon to be crushed forever. Not long now before the Sea would be hers to rule and to command. Morag, High Priestess of the Children of the Raft, turned again to survey her realm. She lost herself in the wonder of all that was soon to be hers, unchallenged and unshared. She was so full of this joy that she did not hear Declan walk away. She did not hear his muttering nor sense his anger. She would not have understood if she had.

‘High Priestess!’

The call interrupted her reverie. She spun around, eyes flashing in anger. ‘What?’ she snapped.

The seaman cringed visibly under her glare. ‘We have news, High Priestess.’

‘Well?’

‘Nolin, the Navigator.’

‘I haven’t the time or the patience for riddles, man. Tell me what you are trying not to tell me.’

‘Priestess Audra is attacked, most likely dead. Nolin is probably captured.’

Morag turned away, looking out at the distant horizon. ‘By whom?’ she asked.

‘A Raider vessel, High Priestess.’

‘Do we know which one?’

‘No, High Priestess. Priestess Audra’s harp was destroyed before she could finish her message.’

‘Was there anything else in her message?’

‘Only that she knew the man who attacked her. He knew the significance of the harp and destroyed it.’

Morag frowned. ‘Who could that have been, I wonder?’ She fixed the seaman with a hard gaze. ‘What do we know about the
Merial
? And the ship that attacked her?’

‘The
Merial
is one of our fastest, High Priestess. And the Raider ship was a warship of some kind, fast and heavily armed.’

‘So it’s war, then,’ she said. ‘Good.’