He took the pack from his back, unfastened the cords at the top, reached in and took hold of it.

  Talorc glanced around. None of the silkies were pretending to ignore him now. Most had left their fires and joined the throng surrounding him. They whispered, pointed, drawn perhaps by the spirit of the famous diver. Rugi and Skeen sat motionless, while Nalga fingered her death-stone.

  To the distant music of the raging sea, Talorc lifted Mordak’s skull and placed it on the rock floor.

  Firelight danced upon it as the assembly silently stared. The white, gleaming skull somehow seemed to know it was being watched.

  A child darted forward, reaching to touch it. Nalga snarled and lunged at the child, whose parent pulled the girl away as she screamed in terror.

  ‘Are you ready?’ said Loth to Runa.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, her eyes narrowing. She raised her hands, flinched and lowered them again. ‘Talorc?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Take off my amulet.’

  He found the cord around her neck and pulled it off, as delicately as he could, laying it down on her wet cloak beside her.

  Runa put her hand upon Mordak’s brow and closed her eyes.

  Chapter Thirty One

  ‘At last,’ said Runa, in a voice not her own.

  ‘I must thank you,’ she continued. ‘Whatever happens, I am glad to be free of her.’

  ‘Are you Mordak?’ asked Talorc, his eyes upon the skull.

  ‘Yes,’ said Runa. ‘Not every word Sariad spoke was a lie. I am Mordak. I was her master, before I became her prisoner.’

  ‘But you are a diver,’ said Talorc. ‘You were the katra’s most powerful diver, and Sariad was your slave. How did she –’

  ‘She was not my slave,’ said Runa. ‘She served me, yes. But I did not rescue her because I needed a servant. I rescued her because I could not bear her pain.

  ‘Your gift came to you late. Even now, you do not know what it is to be a diver. Sariad was one of the few who needs no ordeal for their power to awaken. She was born with the gifts of both diver and spey. Her own mother guessed it before her child was born; when carrying Sariad within her she dreamed of the things Sariad saw. The deep sea; the past; the dead.

  ‘They hadn’t the courage to throw the child into the sea, so instead they tried to beat the gifts out of her. She would run and hide in bone-houses, as you did; her parents would find her and drag her away but, of course, it did no good.

  ‘It was during one of her beatings, while I was diving in what you call the Ancestor Circle, that I heard her cries. I found her, I felt her pain and I decided to take her.

  ‘I took her from the bone-house where I found her hiding and brought her back to live with me. She served me, fished for me and tended my fire, giving me time to attend to my work. All the while I watched her. Studied her. Why had a dry been born with our gift? What did it mean? I saw the hand of the Sea Mother in the child’s birth and in her coming to us. I knew there was a purpose to it all.’

  ‘So you didn’t beat her?’ asked Talorc.

  Runa laughed. ‘Oh yes. I beat her. I’m not proud if it, but I find it hard to be sorry for it.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You can’t understand how deeply our kind hates yours. Neither can my young kin who sit listening to me now. Only a diver, one who can sit within the Ancestor Circle and dive into the memories that flow through the sea, can know our pain. You are not yet a true diver, Talorc. I am. I have seen the island city where men and katra once lived side by side. I witnessed the war in which men turned against all their brother races. Most of the races perished, gone from this world forever; the katra who survived crossed the world to escape the dries. Yet wherever we made a home, your kind eventually came and drove us from it; all the way to these islands that we call Nuna, and you call Orka.’

  ‘But Orka was our home first! You tried to take it from us!’ said Talorc.

  ‘No. We came here first. Where do you think your people learnt to build circles of stone? This was our home, and we shared it with you when you arrived. But it went the way it always goes with your kind. Times turned hard, you turned on us and because of your metals you defeated us. We made the pact with Valdar and have kept to our island of Doggor ever since.’

  ‘And that’s why you beat a child?’

  ‘I told you I am not proud of that, boy. I have cruelty in me, and violence. I restrained myself, but sometimes, after diving and witnessing the suffering of my people, my restraint broke. So she came to hate me, and to do what she did, and I blame myself.’

  ‘I blame you too.’

  ‘You are bold when talking to a skull, boy. You would not be so bold had I still teeth and claws.

  ‘You won’t believe me,’ continued Mordak, ‘but as the years passed I grew fond of Sariad. Yes, even though I beat her. She was a prodigy. As I trained her I saw that in time she would far surpass me. She attained a level of skill no other among my pupils could reach, forcing me to work harder. We delved into one another’s minds, played tricks, planting memories and ideas and challenging the other to identify them. We would spar with spears, sending thought-signals to mislead the other. Eventually I had to give up; she was winning every time.

  ‘I had long since forgotten my distrust of her. The days when I beat her were, to me, a hazy memory. You must understand that I was growing old. I wanted to make my mark upon the world before I went to join my ancestors, and saw in Sariad my chance to do so. I believed the Sea Mother had sent her to bring our two kinds together. That was why she had both magics. I thought that through her we might broker some kind of peace. I even dreamed of her ruling the two races, a spey and diver-queen. I told her of how, in the earliest times, the clans of the katra did not have both a chief and a diver; the diver was the sole ruler of the clan. I liked the idea. She liked it too.

  We agreed to present my ideas to the clan. Yet Sariad, as she revealed to me after my death, had a different plan. She knew that I carried the spell that would summon an Azawan. I had learnt it on the Fire Isle and dreamed of using it against your kind, but my master forbid me to do so, even to aid our people. I guarded that spell, deep in the locked chambers of my mind. Yet as I grew older, and my mind weaker, I could guard it no longer. Sariad stole into my mind and stole the spell. And then…’

  ‘…She murdered you,’ said Talorc.

  ‘And our parents. And all the Nuna katra, but for us,’ said Rugi.

  ‘But why the sacrifices?’ said Talorc. ‘Why did she show herself to me? Why not just kill all of our kind too?’

  ‘Because she didn’t just want you dead. She wanted to rule you. Sariad knew that she couldn’t just use the Azawan to terrorise you into giving her the crown. When the Azawan was gone you would turn against her. So she insinuated herself, first with the spey woman, then with you both, and then with King Anga. After that she would begin picking off the people who could challenge her by naming them as sacrifices, slowly, amongst people of no consequence, so none would notice. Over time you would come to rely on her more and more, until when the king was named and sacrificed she could step into his place. Of course, Princess Runa would be dead by then. Sariad would banish the Azawan, name herself queen and none would oppose her. It might have worked, if the boy she chose to show herself to hadn’t been you.’

  ‘Yet Sariad is out there,’ said Runa, this time in her own voice. ‘My father trusts her, and he is hunting me. How can we stop her?’

  ‘I shall give you what you want,’ she said in Mordak’s voice. ‘A spell to banish the Azawan. But it will require both of your powers. You, Runa, must spey so that I may provide the words. Talorc, you must speak them. And it cannot be done here. You must take me to a place of power. One of the First Fathers, the rock pillars your kind call the Spey Kings.’

  ‘Can you not give them now?’ asked Runa. ‘I may not live that long.’

  ‘You are strong, boar-child. You must cling on to life a little longer. Loth. Ogluk. Nalga, Rugi, Skeen. Help them to reach a First Father. Keep them alive until the Azawan is banished. Go now.’

  Runa raised her hand from the skull and opened her eyes. Talorc shivered as the fire spat.

  ‘He’s gone,’ said Runa, her voice faint and sluggish.

  She collapsed.

  Chapter Thirty Two

  Ogluk knocked Talorc aside and put her hand to Runa’s brow.

  The silkie woman muttered words Talorc didn’t recognise. Faster and faster she spoke, her speech leaping and twisting, her eyes closed and her expression grave.

  At last she fell silent, opened her eyes, looked at Talorc and shook her head. She spoke some words in her tongue to Loth.

  ‘Runa’s spirit is letting go,’ said Loth. ‘She has not long left.’

  ‘Then get me to a Spey King,’ said Runa, her voice almost inaudible.

  ‘But she could die if we move her –’ said Talorc.

  ‘She will die,’ said Loth. ‘You know this.’

  Talorc looked around the group. All eyes were on him. Be like Runa, he told himself.

  ‘Where is the nearest Spey King?’ he asked Loth.

  ‘There is one west of here. Close by.’

  ‘We shouldn’t use the nearest one,’ Nalga interjected. ‘Your people will be searching for us in this area.’

  ‘You’re right,’ said Loth. ‘We need to head to the west of Ork. There are two Spey Kings there we could use.’

  ‘But Runa won’t make it that far,’ said Talorc. ‘The water will finish her.’

  ‘Then we will go by another way,’ said Loth.

  He spoke to Ogluk again, Talorc watching Runa’s stomach rise and fall as he did so. They were arguing, their voices growing louder, Ogluk gesturing wildly.

  Eventually their voices calmed. Loth turned to Talorc and the katra.

  ‘Lucky for us that Ogluk is less stubborn than most silkies,’ he said. ‘She has agreed to let us pass through her caves and into the Trowie Tunnels.’

  ‘The Trowie Tunnels?’ said Talorc.

  ‘Yes,’ said Loth. ‘There is a honeycomb of tunnels running from one end of the island to the other. The outer caves mostly belong to the silkies, the inner caves to the trowies. If we use them then we should be able to get Runa to the Spey King in time.’

  ‘Are they safe?’ asked Talorc.

  Loth laughed. ‘Of course they’re not safe. But there is no other way.’ He stood, slipped Runa’s death-stone back around her neck, picked her up and placed her over his shoulder. Ogluk disappeared into a hidden corner of the cave, returning with a shell full of paste. She indicated for Talorc to put Mordak’s skull back in his sack and then smeared the paste over the sack.

  ‘It works like a death-stone,’ said Loth. ‘The skull gives off a magical scent that the trowies will smell; the mixture will dull it. Ready?’

  Talorc and the three katra stood. ‘How will we find the way?’ asked Talorc. ‘Have you been through the tunnels before?’

  ‘I am a Silver, Talorc,’ said Loth. ‘I have gifts that you do not.’

  ‘Is Ogluk coming with us?’ asked Talorc.

  ‘The silkies and the trowies do not enter one another’s territories.’

  ‘But shouldn’t they be helping us?’

  ‘You do not know how lucky we are that they have helped this much,’ said Loth. ‘It goes against all their ways to intervene in a war between dries and katra, even if the Sea Mother commands it. It is only because Sariad is using an Azawan that they lend their aid. An Azawan means death to all sea-creatures.’

  Loth and Ogluk exchanged a last few words before Ogluk came to stand before Talorc. She spoke to him, waving her hands back and forth before touching his brow, then did the same to each of the katra. Afterwards she stood back and a young, bare-chested, black-haired silkie man came forward with a torch in hand.

  ‘We have Ogluk’s blessing,’ said Loth. ‘Now we depart.’

  Through dark, dripping, red rock tunnels they followed the silkie man. Their footsteps echoed off stacks and sharp needles of stone as they burrowed deeper into the flesh of Ork Island.

  At the end of one tunnel the silkie man stopped and stood aside, revealing a small, natural archway in the stone. Markings had been gouged into the rock above, how long ago Talorc could not guess.

  ‘The Trowie Tunnels,’ said Loth. He raised a hand to indicate that the silkie man should stay while he addressed the others. ‘Our guide will leave us here. I will take you through the Tunnels in darkness.’ He handed each of them what appeared to be a tiny lump of black clay. ‘Use this to seal your ears. It will stop you from hearing their music. If you do hear the music, ignore it, or you will be drawn to them, and they to us. Empty your mind and do not speak until we reach the sea.’

  With that, Loth stooped and passed into the trowie tunnels. After they had plugged their ears, Nalga followed, then Skeen, then Rugi. ‘Take hold of my tail,’ said Rugi to Talorc.

  He took hold of it, bent his knees and passed through, his back scraping against the jagged stone of the doorway. When he stood, the light of the silkie’s torch was gone. There was only Rugi’s scaled tail in his hand, and the darkness.

  Darkness.

  Talorc had thought he knew it. He’d met darkness on midwinter nights on Odhran, creeping into the skull-chambers of the bone-house. But the darkness under the earth was deeper. It was inside him, trickling through his blood and bones.

  Cold came with it. In the cold and darkness and silence, Rugi’s tail was his only source of warmth, safety and certainty. It moved from side to side as she walked; he tried to hold on gently, not pulling it this way or that. He walked as quietly as he could, but the soft tread of his feet felt deafening. None of the others made a sound.

  On they went.

  The path rose and fell, gently. They never had to lower their heads. Talorc imagined grand tunnels, carved over centuries to make elegant passageways for the trowies to pass through. If only he could see what was about him. Somehow Loth could see; could the katra? Maybe his diving powers would help him to see in the dark. If he took off his death-stone… he laughed softly, breaking the silence. He wouldn’t make that mistake again.

  The trowies were out there. They could be nearby. Wherever they were, he was supposed to keep his mind clear. He returned his attention to Rugi’s tail, its undulating rhythm, and to treading softly through the silence.

  No good. His thoughts slipped like smoke out of his grasp. Runa. It seemed that it was only by the force of her will that she was still alive. She will die, Loth had said. You know this. But he didn’t know it. Despite all the death he had seen, he couldn’t accept that Runa would join his family and the unnumbered dead in the Sea Mother’s caves. Runa was too strong. She was Orka’s princess; she would be Orka’s queen. He imagined her on a distant day, stood tall at the gates of Gurn, the Orkadi gathered to kneel before her and swear loyalty. It was a knife in his chest to think that such a day would not come.

  She would be a queen like no other; it was plain to see. Runa would make peace with the silkies and katra, winning their trust and forging alliances that would not break. Over the sea she would go to Skoll, where she would ride with her husband to far-off halls and renew friendships with the Skollish kings and queens. He saw her stood in a great hall lit by many torches, exquisite tapestries on the walls, the light of a hundred lanterns illuminating tables loaded with dripping meat. Throngs of Skollish men and women gazed at her in wonder, or danced to the tunes of the pipes and flute and drum. He saw them dancing, heard the music more clearly as his gaze roved across the hall, marvelling at the fine clothes and ornaments of the Skollish folk.

  Then the Skollish folk seemed to shrink.

  Their beards grew long, past their knees, while their skin folded and sagged, their eyes growing wider, their noses longer and ears taller. They danced faster and faster as the music in his mind grew louder; Talorc searched his vision for Runa but couldn’t see her. He could only see…

  Trowies.

  They had him.

  It was no longer a hall in distant Skoll that Talorc stood in. It was a cavern, the ceiling lost far off in the darkness, so vast he could barely make out the end of it.

  The cavern was full of trowies. Men, women and children, all leering at him and laughing at one who could be snared so easily.

  Empty your mind, Loth had said, and Talorc had not listened.

  Walking among the trows, bearing trays of drinks, were people of his own kind. They were wretched; bone-thin, dribbling, idiot-eyed, some in chains. None looked at him; they kept their eyes down. At a distant table he spied another non-trowie: a woman with hair black as raven-feathers, wearing a cloak of black fur, watching him with a wide smile as if his plight were entertainment.

  The music stopped. The cave fell silent.

  An old trowie man walked towards Talorc and looked up at him.

  ‘You were not bidden to enter here,’ said the trowie man, his lips almost concealed by a thick white moustache.

  ‘I need to pass. Orka is in danger,’ said Talorc. He scanned the crowd again. There was no sign of his companions.

  ‘To pass, you must pay,’ said the trowie.

  ‘What can I pay you with?’ asked Talorc.

  The trowie grinned, candle-light dancing in his eyes.

  ‘You can play,’ he said.

  Talorc looked down. He held in his hand his flute.

  ‘Play,’ said the trowie.

  ‘I can't stay long,’ said Talorc. Only too well did he remember Grunna and Skelda’s stories of the mad ones that emerged from the caves after years of playing for the trows.

  ‘In a hurry, are you, lad?’

  ‘My friend is dying.’

  ‘Well, that’s a shame. You wouldn’t rather forget about her? Stay here with us?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well then. If you’re so keen to go. Impress us, give us a good tune, one we’ve never heard before, and we might let you away early.’

  So Talorc played a tune his Grunna had taught him.

 

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