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I’ve had to cut the original chapters up as they seemed a bit long for LJ, so that’s why some will have chapter headings and others not! Let me know if the format is okay.
Sue
FLYING SOUTH
Chapter 2
At least I was allowed outside, though with the weather so nippy, this wasn't a terrific favour. Later that day, I walked as far as the little orchard to look at the the bare branches of the fruit trees. I knew how they felt. From here I could get a glimpse of the road and know when the Inquisitor was here. When the carriage appeared a short while later, I decided I'd wander about out here until he left again. Mother Audryn could tell him everything, it wasn't like they really needed me there.
"Amber."
Mariel, Porteress and teacher of novices, had sneaked up on me so quietly you would think she'd used magic. Poor joke. She was looking at me as though she heard what I was thinking. "They want you," she said simply and no more.
Twice in one day was especially bad.
When I got back to Mother Audryn's study, there was a double shock. Catri was standing there, looking very uncomfortable and concentrating on her shoes. Geofrey of Garendon, Chief Inquisitor of Skarrel Town, was sitting in the guest armchair with a cup of tea. He was a tall, rather elegant man with iron gray hair and beard and the sort of face which made me think of a shapechanged wolf. In formal dark gray robe, he would have looked scary except for his eyes, the same brilliant blue as Audryn's, and the quick rueful smile he gave me when I came into the room.
"We meet again, Amber," he said. "Audryn tells me you still have bad dreams."
"Yes, my lord."
"I am not sure Audryn believes me, but my visit here has little to do with you.” He hesitated and a jolt of dread went through me. I looked at Audryn for reassurance, but she was casting a look of troubled inquiry back at Geofrey as though she had no idea what he meant either. I didn’t dare look at Catri. Finally Geofrey went on, speaking more slowly than usual. “Yesterday I received word from the Throne City that the Queen has issued an edict. The Order Houses of the Aradian Sorceresses are to be closed down and the Order disbanded. No magic is to be worked at all under pain of death."
Death. Not banishment, not floggings.
Geofrey and Audryn stared at one another as though Catri and I weren't there. There'd always been gossip among the novices that the two of them got on better than you'd expect, considering their vocations. Catri had passed the rumour on to me when I arrived. We still collected snippets of evidence whenever we could. I dragged my thoughts back to what Geofrey had just said, which didn’t seem quite real yet. “Do you have any information on the reason for this edict?” Audryn finally asked, in a voice that whispered like autumn leaves.
He shook his head. “Nothing. I haven’t been to the Throne City for at least a year and don’t know the current situation at court. Something could have arisen in the past few weeks – no one of my people has travelled there for two months – and we would not know. Perhaps Queen Varimonde has suffered bad dreams.”
Geofrey’s voice was perfectly calm and serious, as though he was saying a normal and logical thing. My mind whirled around and around like an eddy of wind, failing to catch on any meaning. How could someone’s bad dreams, even if she was the Queen, cause the wreckage of my entire life? I felt cheated, even angry. I had thought I was only being called up here so that Geofrey could make sure I hadn’t done something I shouldn’t, or to make sure I knew I shouldn’t go near any dragons again, or whatever Audryn had intended.
I opened my mouth to say something, not sure what was going to emerge, but Audryn looked at me. Only looked, but my throat seemed to freeze the words. That was what having the power of a Witch-mother did for you.
"What would you recommend we do?" Audryn asked Geofrey
"You should go to Harp Island," he said promptly.
"How do you know of Harp Island?"
"Never mind that. I know. So far the order is simply for the closing down of the House and dispersal of the occupants." He hesitated. "I do not believe it will end there, not when some of the more limited citizens find out. The Town Crier must announce it in the square at noon tomorrow. I can hold the information until then."
He didn’t say, or need to say, that after that time, he and the other Inquisitors would probably have to arrest us, as human restraints on our power. The town sheriff would not even try it; the approach of the local law would most likely be to burn us in the order House just to be sure.
"The sisters and I cannot leave so quickly,” Audryn said. “There are things to be done. The books must be . . . "
"The books or your lives," Geofrey said. "Send the most valuable with these two novices to Harp Island, and the rest I will store in the vaults of the Star Brother's temple."
She grimaced. "I should give the Order's most prized grimoires into the hands of the Inquisition?"
"Into mine. I swear, none shall touch them."
An oath means something from an Inquisitor, the same as it does from one of us. They are still priests, servants of the Star-Brother, sibling to our Goddess. If an Inquisitor swears an oath, the God stands behind that oath, so they tend to be careful what they promise. Geofrey's words seemed to roll with power within the stone walls of the chamber and Audryn nodded.
"Very well. These two can travel under concealment to the coast. Joanna is a recent novice, her name is not well known to the Inquisition. I think she can safely be entrusted to her family . . .”
"No," Geofrey said quickly. Audryn's eyes flashed with momentary outrage that she'd been interrupted, before she remembered it wasn't one of us. Geofrey continued more gently. “They must not use the spell. The edict is in force from this moment. Inquisitors will track them and nullify the spell. Amber and Catriona will not be protected by the fact that they have not reached their maturity. They will be taken and made into an example."
I was beginning to feel that I wasn't present, that the cold tight feeling in my stomach was somehow hiding me, whisking me away from their notice. Beside me, Catri stood still.
"Nicholas is below," Geofrey went on. "He will take them in the carriage. Can you inform those on Harp Island so that the girls will be expected?"
"Yes," said Audryn. She gave no more details, though he had to know she'd call them in fire or water. "Girls. Get your things, quickly, and go to the carriage. I'll contact you as soon as I may. No questions."
Catri stopped me on the stairs outside with a hand on my arm. "I'll pack your things," she said. "Go and talk to Nick."
I immediately forgave her for all the teasing and irritations and even for the pillow. "Thanks, Cat."
"Hurry."
A blond young man stood at the horses' heads. He was dressed in Inquisitor gray, which made him look rather washed out, but then, I knew what the Aradian trainee blue didn't do for me, so I forgave him. "Hello, Nick."
Nicholas Harnage and I had met at the last summer festival and I admit I'd been a bit surprised when I realised he was an Inquisitor-trainee, but no one could help being packed off to the Church by parents who would have been happy to stop at two sons; the heir and the spare. We had continued to meet until the dragon episode. The last time I’d seen Nick, I had been astride the neck of a jewel-coloured dragon and he'd been on the ground beside Geofrey, staring in shock and not a little envy.
Nicholas continued to pet the sleepy-eyed horses for a moment. “Hello, Amber.”
"Why didn't you come and see me sometime in the past three months?" I asked.
"I wasn't allowed," he said.
"You mean you were grounded?"
"I'm a full Inquisitor now," he said reluctantly. "I've hardly been let out to go to the outhouse, there's been so much to study. Geofrey thought I didn't need the distraction."
Well, I supposed that was a compliment of sorts. The Weaver women run to muddy-brown hair, skinny outlines, brown eyes and rather ordinary looks. For one of us to get the title "distraction" was rather a promotion. "So now you’ve passed the examinations, will you at least write me letters in my exile and promise to come see me when I get home?"
Finally he grinned and looked properly at me. "I think Geofrey will allow that. Are you staying in one of the fishing villages?”
“No. Catri and I are being sent to Harp Island till things calm down.”
Nicholas looked a bit confused. "What island? I’ve only been told to take you north of Gartree Village on the western coast.”
"Harp," I said clearly.
"Where's that?"
"Off the coast somewhere. How should I know? You should know more geography than I do, you tell me."
"I can't," Nick said, nonplussed. "I never heard of the place."
Someone cleared his throat and I realised we were no longer alone. Nicholas had been moving towards me. He pulled back and bowed slightly to his superior. My superior was giving me a warning look. Catri clattered down the front steps of the Order House, her arms full of bags, and I gratefully took the chance to help her. We found ourselves piled into the carriage like baggage ourselves, with no chance to say any more to Audryn. Geofrey spoke quickly and urgently to Nicholas, who wasn't smiling any more. He looked scared.
Catri grabbed my hand as the carriage lurched on the cobblestones, through the tall gates and out on to the road. "We have to change."
"Change?"
"Not shapechange. Change clothes! They're in this bag."
"What for?"
"We're Aradian nuns as of this moment," Catri said. "Nicholas is formally prohibited from speaking to us. It's something to do with making it easier for him if he gets questioned about this after, that's all I know. Come on, Amber. Audryn explained all this to me while you were doing whatever you were doing." She pulled open a bag and extracted a gown of dull gray material, then a hood, before pulling her trainee blue over her head. The windows of the carriage had drawn curtains but they flapped a lot and daylight was showing through. No help for it, I supposed, and did the same. We helped each other adjust the hoods. A nervous giggle broke from the depths of Catri's.
"I must look awful if I look like you."
"Thank you so much. Cat, did she tell you, what's Harp Island? I never heard of the place."
"The first settlement of the Order," Catri said. "I think they can protect it better because it's an island."
The way she said it, "protect" sounded something more than armed guards at the gates. "Protect it how?"
"Well, concealment magic. The I'm-not-here spell."
"That's for a person, how can you possibly do it for a whole island, even if it's quite small? If it was that easy, I should think they'd hide the Order House so we could stay where we are."
"I don't know how they do it. But I know Mother Audryn was surprised that Geofrey knows about it, didn't you see? And they probably can’t make the entire town forget the Order House was ever here.”
I let it go. Maybe the sorceresses on the island itself would be able to explain it so it made sense. The gray nun's garb was colder than what I'd taken off. I folded my arms in a vain effort to get warm. No magic meant no comfort, and so it was, the whole jolting, chilly, unsettling journey to the coast. We were on the north-western highway to the Throne City for the rest of that day – talk about hiding under the noses of your enemies! – and then turned west along a road which was no more than a cart-track, through farmlands and stretches of forest, travelling well into the night despite the weariness of the horses and our own fatigue at so much bumping and discomfort of cold and hard seats.
We halted overnight in a barn. Catri and I didn’t leave the carriage, at Nick’s order, but he must have gone to the farm-house and told them something for he came out with a couple of bowls of stringy rabbit stew for us which we bolted like the starving. “Get some sleep,” was all Nicholas said, and we dozed for four or five hours before being woken at dawn to continue on to the coast.
We got there midmorning and found a fishing boat, belonging to the Harp Island branch of the Aradian sorceresses, waiting to bear us to safety. Nicholas helped us out of the carriage but true to his role, he didn't speak to us. He pointed towards the shore. There was no village, no harbour, only a bleak beach and gray, white-topped winter waves rolling in. The sun was hidden behind heavy clouds. Nick bowed and turned away to climb back on to the driving seat. I almost screamed at him to turn back and talk to me, how could he just shrug me off like this?
Catri tugged at my hand. No magic, I thought. No flying. I looked over the water but could see no blur that might be an island. Maybe it was too distant for my eyes to see?
I had thought it was men waiting for us with the rowboat but it was women, sorceresses, though they wore men's clothing, not the green robes and hoods. One of them, with iron-gray hair held back in a ponytail, shouted at us to hurry up. "We'll miss the tide if you don't move yourselves. You're late!"
It was a strange place, this space between land and sea, a sort of no man's land which no one could claim. Waves broke upon the wet pale sand and slithered over it, the freezing water vanishing as it touched our feet, soaking our leather shoes. We were completely exposed, no shelter at all within reach. The coastal trees were scrubby and small. Maybe it was that which gave me the feeling of being observed from a great height and made me peer up into the partially overcast sky to see whether a hawk floated there. It was distinctly creepy. I would not have thought magic would hold upon the beach, which was halfway into the realm of the sea, where our spells could not hold.
A scry would work, I thought, a scry from somewhere inland; some stranger’s eyes bent upon me. To be aware of such wasn't impossible, but it was unusual. Despite the woman's yelling, I hesitated. Perhaps someone was spirit-travelling, hanging about like a ghost to observe us?
No, the strange presence was more aggressive than that. It wanted to do something. It watched us and was hungry, smelling us out and hating us. Hating me, Amber Weaver, nearly sixteen years old, standing open-mouthed on a freezing beach. Catri had to drag me into the boat, which the women pushed into the waves so hard that I fell over in the bottom and stayed there as the water took us. "Is she feebleminded then?" one of the women yelled at Catri.
I moaned and closed my eyes. It was still hunting us, casting about for our scent and the water was not protecting us. No barrier to the thing that sniffed behind sight and sound, that hid in the growing night and the rumble of thunder overhead. I dragged myself to a sitting position between the rowing benches.
"We have to conceal ourselves . . . "
"Not on the sea, you fool," the iron-haired woman said. She was very close, bending down to shout at me over the noise of the sea. "Even if we could, we don't dare until we're safe on Harp. Sit there and shut up."
"But something's looking for us."
"Something will find you and it'll be the end of this oar if you aren't quiet."
We were passed hand to hand like bundles, Catri and I, up on to the pitching deck of the little fishing boat.
Someone stowed us below but the stench of fish drove us up again into the cold where I hoped to control my stomach. It would take us two hours to cross to Harp Island, someone had said. Perhaps I could die before then and stop being sick. That would be nice.
The seeker had not been fooled by the switch from rowboat to larger vessel. I had no idea what it was, but it was power, tracking us, tracking me in defiance of Queen Varimonde's edict. So strong, stronger than any Aradian, but it had a strange flavour about it as well which told me it wasn't a sorceress. What else was there? The wizard lords were dead or exiled and what would they care about me even if they were still here? What had I ever done to attract their attention? Not so very much. Only used a spell which had been one of theirs, a spell which had its own unique flavour, or signature which a mage could read. Not so very much at all.
I held hard to the rail, staring fixedly out over tossing gray water, darkening rapidly to black as the last rays of sun disappeared. "It's my dream, Catri," I cried to her. "Only I'm awake. I remember now, he's looking for me, he's always looking for me."
"What are you talking about, Amber? No one's looking for you, not you alone."
"Catri, someone is. Someone using magic and it feels male. I think he's been looking for me since I cast the spell to banish the ravens from Dampenrook. He might've given up but when I helped the dragon, he noticed me again and I think he tracked me through my dreams."
"So talk to the Witch-mother when we get to Harp Island.”
Arrogance, her tone said, to think I was that important. She was half angry with me and very scared. None of the escort sorceresses had come near us. They had more work to do tonight, I realised, there would be others coming to the coast for ferrying. We were only the first, the closest. When I closed my eyes, I didn't see ocean. I saw black feathers, thousands of them, closing around me. Heard the harsh cark of the ravens cry.
Catri screamed.
A great wind blew into the sails of the little trawler, which rolled violently, sending icy waves crashing into us. We clung to the rail as the ship swung rightside again. I looked up but with water in my eyes, I couldn't see. "Get below," someone shrieked at us, and I felt hands grabbing at me, pulling . . . and then something that wasn't hands seized me bodily, closing a grip right around my body, and lifted me into the air. It was not my seeker, not that dire flavour at all.
I couldn’t hear Catri screaming any more and I was being hoisted up in the killing cold winds. I twisted my head, trying to see upwards into the night, but I couldn't even see what held me like a toy. What I could and did do was faint.
As swiftly as I had lost consciousness, I woke with a gasp of fear, realising none of this was a dream, that I was in the air, nowhere near the boat or my sisters and no longer cold. My clothing and my body had dried out, my hair crackled crazily about my head. A daylight fiercer and brighter than any I had ever seen blazed around me and showed me that what held me so carefully was a talon, and the thing attached to the talon, alternatively beating great wings and gliding with the air currents, was a dragon. My dragon. Or Sir Ranald's.
Sue
FLYING SOUTH
Chapter 2
At least I was allowed outside, though with the weather so nippy, this wasn't a terrific favour. Later that day, I walked as far as the little orchard to look at the the bare branches of the fruit trees. I knew how they felt. From here I could get a glimpse of the road and know when the Inquisitor was here. When the carriage appeared a short while later, I decided I'd wander about out here until he left again. Mother Audryn could tell him everything, it wasn't like they really needed me there.
"Amber."
Mariel, Porteress and teacher of novices, had sneaked up on me so quietly you would think she'd used magic. Poor joke. She was looking at me as though she heard what I was thinking. "They want you," she said simply and no more.
Twice in one day was especially bad.
When I got back to Mother Audryn's study, there was a double shock. Catri was standing there, looking very uncomfortable and concentrating on her shoes. Geofrey of Garendon, Chief Inquisitor of Skarrel Town, was sitting in the guest armchair with a cup of tea. He was a tall, rather elegant man with iron gray hair and beard and the sort of face which made me think of a shapechanged wolf. In formal dark gray robe, he would have looked scary except for his eyes, the same brilliant blue as Audryn's, and the quick rueful smile he gave me when I came into the room.
"We meet again, Amber," he said. "Audryn tells me you still have bad dreams."
"Yes, my lord."
"I am not sure Audryn believes me, but my visit here has little to do with you.” He hesitated and a jolt of dread went through me. I looked at Audryn for reassurance, but she was casting a look of troubled inquiry back at Geofrey as though she had no idea what he meant either. I didn’t dare look at Catri. Finally Geofrey went on, speaking more slowly than usual. “Yesterday I received word from the Throne City that the Queen has issued an edict. The Order Houses of the Aradian Sorceresses are to be closed down and the Order disbanded. No magic is to be worked at all under pain of death."
Death. Not banishment, not floggings.
Geofrey and Audryn stared at one another as though Catri and I weren't there. There'd always been gossip among the novices that the two of them got on better than you'd expect, considering their vocations. Catri had passed the rumour on to me when I arrived. We still collected snippets of evidence whenever we could. I dragged my thoughts back to what Geofrey had just said, which didn’t seem quite real yet. “Do you have any information on the reason for this edict?” Audryn finally asked, in a voice that whispered like autumn leaves.
He shook his head. “Nothing. I haven’t been to the Throne City for at least a year and don’t know the current situation at court. Something could have arisen in the past few weeks – no one of my people has travelled there for two months – and we would not know. Perhaps Queen Varimonde has suffered bad dreams.”
Geofrey’s voice was perfectly calm and serious, as though he was saying a normal and logical thing. My mind whirled around and around like an eddy of wind, failing to catch on any meaning. How could someone’s bad dreams, even if she was the Queen, cause the wreckage of my entire life? I felt cheated, even angry. I had thought I was only being called up here so that Geofrey could make sure I hadn’t done something I shouldn’t, or to make sure I knew I shouldn’t go near any dragons again, or whatever Audryn had intended.
I opened my mouth to say something, not sure what was going to emerge, but Audryn looked at me. Only looked, but my throat seemed to freeze the words. That was what having the power of a Witch-mother did for you.
"What would you recommend we do?" Audryn asked Geofrey
"You should go to Harp Island," he said promptly.
"How do you know of Harp Island?"
"Never mind that. I know. So far the order is simply for the closing down of the House and dispersal of the occupants." He hesitated. "I do not believe it will end there, not when some of the more limited citizens find out. The Town Crier must announce it in the square at noon tomorrow. I can hold the information until then."
He didn’t say, or need to say, that after that time, he and the other Inquisitors would probably have to arrest us, as human restraints on our power. The town sheriff would not even try it; the approach of the local law would most likely be to burn us in the order House just to be sure.
"The sisters and I cannot leave so quickly,” Audryn said. “There are things to be done. The books must be . . . "
"The books or your lives," Geofrey said. "Send the most valuable with these two novices to Harp Island, and the rest I will store in the vaults of the Star Brother's temple."
She grimaced. "I should give the Order's most prized grimoires into the hands of the Inquisition?"
"Into mine. I swear, none shall touch them."
An oath means something from an Inquisitor, the same as it does from one of us. They are still priests, servants of the Star-Brother, sibling to our Goddess. If an Inquisitor swears an oath, the God stands behind that oath, so they tend to be careful what they promise. Geofrey's words seemed to roll with power within the stone walls of the chamber and Audryn nodded.
"Very well. These two can travel under concealment to the coast. Joanna is a recent novice, her name is not well known to the Inquisition. I think she can safely be entrusted to her family . . .”
"No," Geofrey said quickly. Audryn's eyes flashed with momentary outrage that she'd been interrupted, before she remembered it wasn't one of us. Geofrey continued more gently. “They must not use the spell. The edict is in force from this moment. Inquisitors will track them and nullify the spell. Amber and Catriona will not be protected by the fact that they have not reached their maturity. They will be taken and made into an example."
I was beginning to feel that I wasn't present, that the cold tight feeling in my stomach was somehow hiding me, whisking me away from their notice. Beside me, Catri stood still.
"Nicholas is below," Geofrey went on. "He will take them in the carriage. Can you inform those on Harp Island so that the girls will be expected?"
"Yes," said Audryn. She gave no more details, though he had to know she'd call them in fire or water. "Girls. Get your things, quickly, and go to the carriage. I'll contact you as soon as I may. No questions."
Catri stopped me on the stairs outside with a hand on my arm. "I'll pack your things," she said. "Go and talk to Nick."
I immediately forgave her for all the teasing and irritations and even for the pillow. "Thanks, Cat."
"Hurry."
A blond young man stood at the horses' heads. He was dressed in Inquisitor gray, which made him look rather washed out, but then, I knew what the Aradian trainee blue didn't do for me, so I forgave him. "Hello, Nick."
Nicholas Harnage and I had met at the last summer festival and I admit I'd been a bit surprised when I realised he was an Inquisitor-trainee, but no one could help being packed off to the Church by parents who would have been happy to stop at two sons; the heir and the spare. We had continued to meet until the dragon episode. The last time I’d seen Nick, I had been astride the neck of a jewel-coloured dragon and he'd been on the ground beside Geofrey, staring in shock and not a little envy.
Nicholas continued to pet the sleepy-eyed horses for a moment. “Hello, Amber.”
"Why didn't you come and see me sometime in the past three months?" I asked.
"I wasn't allowed," he said.
"You mean you were grounded?"
"I'm a full Inquisitor now," he said reluctantly. "I've hardly been let out to go to the outhouse, there's been so much to study. Geofrey thought I didn't need the distraction."
Well, I supposed that was a compliment of sorts. The Weaver women run to muddy-brown hair, skinny outlines, brown eyes and rather ordinary looks. For one of us to get the title "distraction" was rather a promotion. "So now you’ve passed the examinations, will you at least write me letters in my exile and promise to come see me when I get home?"
Finally he grinned and looked properly at me. "I think Geofrey will allow that. Are you staying in one of the fishing villages?”
“No. Catri and I are being sent to Harp Island till things calm down.”
Nicholas looked a bit confused. "What island? I’ve only been told to take you north of Gartree Village on the western coast.”
"Harp," I said clearly.
"Where's that?"
"Off the coast somewhere. How should I know? You should know more geography than I do, you tell me."
"I can't," Nick said, nonplussed. "I never heard of the place."
Someone cleared his throat and I realised we were no longer alone. Nicholas had been moving towards me. He pulled back and bowed slightly to his superior. My superior was giving me a warning look. Catri clattered down the front steps of the Order House, her arms full of bags, and I gratefully took the chance to help her. We found ourselves piled into the carriage like baggage ourselves, with no chance to say any more to Audryn. Geofrey spoke quickly and urgently to Nicholas, who wasn't smiling any more. He looked scared.
Catri grabbed my hand as the carriage lurched on the cobblestones, through the tall gates and out on to the road. "We have to change."
"Change?"
"Not shapechange. Change clothes! They're in this bag."
"What for?"
"We're Aradian nuns as of this moment," Catri said. "Nicholas is formally prohibited from speaking to us. It's something to do with making it easier for him if he gets questioned about this after, that's all I know. Come on, Amber. Audryn explained all this to me while you were doing whatever you were doing." She pulled open a bag and extracted a gown of dull gray material, then a hood, before pulling her trainee blue over her head. The windows of the carriage had drawn curtains but they flapped a lot and daylight was showing through. No help for it, I supposed, and did the same. We helped each other adjust the hoods. A nervous giggle broke from the depths of Catri's.
"I must look awful if I look like you."
"Thank you so much. Cat, did she tell you, what's Harp Island? I never heard of the place."
"The first settlement of the Order," Catri said. "I think they can protect it better because it's an island."
The way she said it, "protect" sounded something more than armed guards at the gates. "Protect it how?"
"Well, concealment magic. The I'm-not-here spell."
"That's for a person, how can you possibly do it for a whole island, even if it's quite small? If it was that easy, I should think they'd hide the Order House so we could stay where we are."
"I don't know how they do it. But I know Mother Audryn was surprised that Geofrey knows about it, didn't you see? And they probably can’t make the entire town forget the Order House was ever here.”
I let it go. Maybe the sorceresses on the island itself would be able to explain it so it made sense. The gray nun's garb was colder than what I'd taken off. I folded my arms in a vain effort to get warm. No magic meant no comfort, and so it was, the whole jolting, chilly, unsettling journey to the coast. We were on the north-western highway to the Throne City for the rest of that day – talk about hiding under the noses of your enemies! – and then turned west along a road which was no more than a cart-track, through farmlands and stretches of forest, travelling well into the night despite the weariness of the horses and our own fatigue at so much bumping and discomfort of cold and hard seats.
We halted overnight in a barn. Catri and I didn’t leave the carriage, at Nick’s order, but he must have gone to the farm-house and told them something for he came out with a couple of bowls of stringy rabbit stew for us which we bolted like the starving. “Get some sleep,” was all Nicholas said, and we dozed for four or five hours before being woken at dawn to continue on to the coast.
We got there midmorning and found a fishing boat, belonging to the Harp Island branch of the Aradian sorceresses, waiting to bear us to safety. Nicholas helped us out of the carriage but true to his role, he didn't speak to us. He pointed towards the shore. There was no village, no harbour, only a bleak beach and gray, white-topped winter waves rolling in. The sun was hidden behind heavy clouds. Nick bowed and turned away to climb back on to the driving seat. I almost screamed at him to turn back and talk to me, how could he just shrug me off like this?
Catri tugged at my hand. No magic, I thought. No flying. I looked over the water but could see no blur that might be an island. Maybe it was too distant for my eyes to see?
I had thought it was men waiting for us with the rowboat but it was women, sorceresses, though they wore men's clothing, not the green robes and hoods. One of them, with iron-gray hair held back in a ponytail, shouted at us to hurry up. "We'll miss the tide if you don't move yourselves. You're late!"
It was a strange place, this space between land and sea, a sort of no man's land which no one could claim. Waves broke upon the wet pale sand and slithered over it, the freezing water vanishing as it touched our feet, soaking our leather shoes. We were completely exposed, no shelter at all within reach. The coastal trees were scrubby and small. Maybe it was that which gave me the feeling of being observed from a great height and made me peer up into the partially overcast sky to see whether a hawk floated there. It was distinctly creepy. I would not have thought magic would hold upon the beach, which was halfway into the realm of the sea, where our spells could not hold.
A scry would work, I thought, a scry from somewhere inland; some stranger’s eyes bent upon me. To be aware of such wasn't impossible, but it was unusual. Despite the woman's yelling, I hesitated. Perhaps someone was spirit-travelling, hanging about like a ghost to observe us?
No, the strange presence was more aggressive than that. It wanted to do something. It watched us and was hungry, smelling us out and hating us. Hating me, Amber Weaver, nearly sixteen years old, standing open-mouthed on a freezing beach. Catri had to drag me into the boat, which the women pushed into the waves so hard that I fell over in the bottom and stayed there as the water took us. "Is she feebleminded then?" one of the women yelled at Catri.
I moaned and closed my eyes. It was still hunting us, casting about for our scent and the water was not protecting us. No barrier to the thing that sniffed behind sight and sound, that hid in the growing night and the rumble of thunder overhead. I dragged myself to a sitting position between the rowing benches.
"We have to conceal ourselves . . . "
"Not on the sea, you fool," the iron-haired woman said. She was very close, bending down to shout at me over the noise of the sea. "Even if we could, we don't dare until we're safe on Harp. Sit there and shut up."
"But something's looking for us."
"Something will find you and it'll be the end of this oar if you aren't quiet."
We were passed hand to hand like bundles, Catri and I, up on to the pitching deck of the little fishing boat.
Someone stowed us below but the stench of fish drove us up again into the cold where I hoped to control my stomach. It would take us two hours to cross to Harp Island, someone had said. Perhaps I could die before then and stop being sick. That would be nice.
The seeker had not been fooled by the switch from rowboat to larger vessel. I had no idea what it was, but it was power, tracking us, tracking me in defiance of Queen Varimonde's edict. So strong, stronger than any Aradian, but it had a strange flavour about it as well which told me it wasn't a sorceress. What else was there? The wizard lords were dead or exiled and what would they care about me even if they were still here? What had I ever done to attract their attention? Not so very much. Only used a spell which had been one of theirs, a spell which had its own unique flavour, or signature which a mage could read. Not so very much at all.
I held hard to the rail, staring fixedly out over tossing gray water, darkening rapidly to black as the last rays of sun disappeared. "It's my dream, Catri," I cried to her. "Only I'm awake. I remember now, he's looking for me, he's always looking for me."
"What are you talking about, Amber? No one's looking for you, not you alone."
"Catri, someone is. Someone using magic and it feels male. I think he's been looking for me since I cast the spell to banish the ravens from Dampenrook. He might've given up but when I helped the dragon, he noticed me again and I think he tracked me through my dreams."
"So talk to the Witch-mother when we get to Harp Island.”
Arrogance, her tone said, to think I was that important. She was half angry with me and very scared. None of the escort sorceresses had come near us. They had more work to do tonight, I realised, there would be others coming to the coast for ferrying. We were only the first, the closest. When I closed my eyes, I didn't see ocean. I saw black feathers, thousands of them, closing around me. Heard the harsh cark of the ravens cry.
Catri screamed.
A great wind blew into the sails of the little trawler, which rolled violently, sending icy waves crashing into us. We clung to the rail as the ship swung rightside again. I looked up but with water in my eyes, I couldn't see. "Get below," someone shrieked at us, and I felt hands grabbing at me, pulling . . . and then something that wasn't hands seized me bodily, closing a grip right around my body, and lifted me into the air. It was not my seeker, not that dire flavour at all.
I couldn’t hear Catri screaming any more and I was being hoisted up in the killing cold winds. I twisted my head, trying to see upwards into the night, but I couldn't even see what held me like a toy. What I could and did do was faint.
As swiftly as I had lost consciousness, I woke with a gasp of fear, realising none of this was a dream, that I was in the air, nowhere near the boat or my sisters and no longer cold. My clothing and my body had dried out, my hair crackled crazily about my head. A daylight fiercer and brighter than any I had ever seen blazed around me and showed me that what held me so carefully was a talon, and the thing attached to the talon, alternatively beating great wings and gliding with the air currents, was a dragon. My dragon. Or Sir Ranald's.
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(Anonymous) 2005-10-15 04:31 pm (UTC)(link)--leece
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