The Night of the Swarm

The selk looked at Dastu in silence. A few wore expressions of sorrow; many more of rage. Thaulinin’s eyes held both.

‘Our people do not think in this way,’ he said. ‘We have no permanent home, it is true. But that is only because everywhere is home. When the Platazcra burned the forests of Ibon, we mourned those trees. When madmen poisoned Lake Elsmoc, we wept. Harm elsewhere is harm to us, a despoiling of our home. There are in truth no countries. There is only Alifros: one land, one ocean, drowned in a common sea we call the air. You may say we pass through a place, but we never truly leave it. Nor do you, though a part of you ceases to believe in what you cannot touch. An endearing quality, perhaps — but only in the very young.’

‘We are all young beneath the watchful stars,’ said Pazel.

Every selk head turned. Pazel was almost as startled as they: he had spoken without a moment’s forethought.

‘Where did you hear those words, human?’ asked Thaulinin.

‘From one of your people, in Vasparhaven. He said the stars would wait out our errors, and perhaps even forgive them. Those were his last words to me. But he gave us a written message, also: he told us there was hope downriver, between the mountains and the sea. I think he wanted us to find you, Thaulinin. His name was Kirishgan.’

‘Kirishgan!’ This time surprise contended with a joy the selk could not disguise. Kirishgan was in Vasparhaven Temple? Why, how, when had Pazel seen him? To the latter question Pazel replied that it had been little over a week.

‘He expected to leave the temple the day after my visit. He’d been there for nearly three years. He said he’d learned Spider-Telling. But I know he was eager to return to the outer world.’

‘A world that has missed his wisdom,’ said Thaulinin. ‘This is a heart’s prayer answered. Forty full moons have come and gone since our brother departed. We feared the worst. He has been marked for death by the Platazcra.’

Then his face turned stern once more. ‘I do not doubt that Kirishgan hoped we would meet — but not, I think, for the reasons you imagined. We will feed you, treat your wounds, even guide you from this wilderness. But we will not return your death-bundle. And you will not take it by force.’

At that Cayer Vispek drew his sword as well — and instantly, twenty selk blades whistled from their sheaths. Thasha, wet and shaken as she was, groped for Arunis’ knife but found it gone.

‘We may surprise you,’ said Hercol, ‘though Death alone will smile on what we do here today.’

‘Death and the maukslar searching these hills,’ said a voice from above.

It was Ramachni, curled on a high pine branch, ten feet overhead. ‘Never fear,’ he added quickly, ‘the demon is still far from us. I have been keeping watch by the clifftops; I caught his reek upon the breeze.’

Thaulinin glanced sharply at his people. ‘Eyes forward! Do not let the creature distract you from the fight!’

‘Ramachni, what are you doing?’ cried Thasha. ‘How long have you been watching us?’

‘Long enough for both sides to show their firmness, as I hoped they would,’ said the mage. ‘Be at peace, one and all: you may trust each other now.’

‘I tire of these pleas for trust,’ said Nolcindar. ‘Keep to your tree, little mink, and spare us your fibs and fantasies.’

Ramachni rose to his feet. His black eyes bore down on them, and no one below dared look elsewhere.

‘You have all shown your readiness to die for Alifros,’ he said, ‘but to serve it you must live. Away with your weapons! If you shed blood here there will be no one left to remember, no songs about the second tragedy of the Torr. There will be only darkness, the last pall of death drawn over this world. You know of what I speak, Thaulinin Tul Ambrimar. Shall I give it a name?’

The selk leader waved urgently. ‘Not here!’ he said. ‘But I think I can name you, now, trickster. You have taken a body unknown to me, but your voice is another matter. It is little changed since the Battle of Luhmor, my lord Arpathwin.’

Ramachni’s ears twitched. ‘Arpathwin,’ he said, ‘“Still Flame”. So your people cheered me that morning, over the howling of the Demon Prince we had subdued. No, my voice has not changed, but how your world has, in twelve swift centuries. Arpathwin. I am glad to hear it on a selk tongue once again.’

He descended the tree, and when Thasha bent down he sprang to her shoulder, where he curled like a living scarf about her neck. ‘But why did you not speak at once?’ said Thaulinin. ‘You have walked with us in the Sabbanath Fields, brought us hope in the Twelve Years Winter, built the trap with your great mistress that holds the arch-demon even today. Can you be in doubt of your welcome here?’

‘Had I spoken sooner,’ said Ramachni, ‘you would not have learned that my friends are equally deserving, and equally without fear. But I might pose the same question to you, master selk. For you have shadowed us, I think, since before we left the confines of the Forest.’

Thaulinin was startled; but he nodded briskly. ‘You were not difficult to follow, being blind within the wood. Yes, we watched you from afar.’

‘And from afar you raised the commotion that made the maukslar turn away?’

After a brief hesitation, the selk said, ‘That was not our doing.’

He made a small gesture of his hand, and his warriors stood down, sheathing their swords. ‘But Arpathwin: must we hide? Is the demon approaching?’

‘No, it has flown east,’ said Ramachni. ‘to scour the Ghelvi Marshes. Return it may, but now that I have its scent I may hope to give us fair warning. Nor will the hrathmogs find you on these heights, as I expect you know already.’

‘Then draw near, friends — and no more questions until you are warm and well fed.’

The selk pressed the newcomers close about the fire. They gave them the entire hare, along with handfuls of nuts they had roasted on the coals, and small, delicious fruits one could eat whole, and more bread and wine. Pazel was amazed at how quickly their friendliness returned. They smiled, took delight in watching the humans eat, rushed for new provisions as they thought of them. How was it possible that just minutes ago they had come so close to killing one another?

While they ate the selk brought instruments from within the keep — curious fiddles, wooden pipes, a small silver harp — and played softly, while those at the edges of the fire matched their voices to the music, very low. Pazel strained to catch the words, and was amazed that he could not: the language refused to be named, to be captured by his Gift. For a moment he panicked: when his Gift stopped catching languages it meant his terrible fits were about to descend, maiming him with noise. He went rigid, fighting the urge to leap up and run from the circle. Music was torture at such times.

But the attack did not come. And as he calmed himself, Pazel realised that the music was of a beauty such as he had never heard in life or dream: swift, gentle and elusive, the song of a child that runs alone through a wood at sunrise. But no, he thought, that’s not right, it’s more the music of the very old, in their last or next-to-last summer of life, but so adept at memory that they could still hear and see all that such mornings had revealed to the children they had been, so many centuries ago. And yet he still had it wrong, for something in the music told Pazel that the selk knew neither childhood nor age as humans did. They knew loss, however: every quiet phrase evoked the memory of something fine that had perished or departed, moments of bliss that shattered as soon as they were felt, loving glances that pricked the heart like a needle and were gone.

The food was soon exhausted, but their cups were refilled, and the musicians played on without a moment’s pause, as though the song they were immersed in had no true beginning or end. The stars appeared among the trees. By their faces Pazel knew that the others were caught up in deep and private emotions, but whether of sadness or joy he could not tell.

The music ended the only way it could: suddenly, in the middle of a phrase. In the abrupt silence, Thaulinin said, ‘Your death-parcel lies within the mountain. I will have it brought out to you now.’

‘Let it stay there,’ said Ramachni. ‘When I show it to you in the morning, you may wonder that we did not beg you to keep it.’

‘I start to wonder that already,’ said Thaulinin. ‘Whatever help I can offer shall be yours. If you wish to resume your journey on the morrow, I will send guides with you, that you may find the safest paths. But I warn you that the way is long. The selk run quickly over field and marsh and mountain, but even for us it is twenty days to the