The Night of the Swarm

blue selk eye opened here and there — single eyes, not pairs — and glowed briefly, firefly-bright, before drifting shut again.

Keeping watch in their sleep.

Then more than ever, Pazel understood that they were among beings unlike themselves, far stranger than dlomu or flikkermen, or any other race he had encountered.

Dawn brought driving rain. The selk were awake and afoot, and they fed the company and brought them cups of steaming tea — and yet something in their eyes had changed. The hostility had not returned, but in its place had come caution and amazement, and perhaps a hint of fear. Pazel was unsettled. Had they unwrapped the Nilstone? Had one of them, Rin forbid, been so mad as to touch it? Or was his glimpse of Kirishgan somehow known to them, and for some reason forbidden?

Ramachni and Thaulinin arrived just after breakfast, and the mage looked pleased, but Thaulinin’s face was drawn like that of all his people. ‘We have ranged the hills all night, Arpathwin and I,’ he said, ‘and we have travelled even further in our speech, and into darker realms. I know the task you are about, and repeat my offer of help.’

‘And I repeat: we ain’t fit to march,’ said Mandric. ‘Twenty days! I’d give us two, before someone goes lame outright — provided you let us rob you of all the food in your larder, Mr Thaulinin.’

‘I can see your wounds for myself,’ said Thaulinin, ‘and they are not to the flesh alone. No, you cannot march to the sea — not yet. And you cannot wait here for the hrathmogs or the Ravens to find you. But there is a third choice, if you will take it.’

‘What choice is that?’ asked Thasha.

‘Shelter and healing, until you are fit for travel, and your scent goes cold,’ said Thaulinin. ‘More than that I cannot say. But I think you will be satisfied, if you place yourselves entirely in my hands.’

The party stirred uneasily. ‘What would you require of us?’ asked Hercol.

‘Sleep,’ said Thaulinin. ‘A profound sleep, aided by a plant I have gathered this evening with Ramachni. It will not harm you, but it will allow us to do a thing we may not do in the waking presence of any non-selk, ever, by an oath as old as these very hills.’

Now there were open grumbles. ‘Last night you drew swords against us,’ said Cayer Vispek. ‘Now you ask for blind trust.’

‘I do not ask for it,’ said Thaulinin. ‘I merely name it as a condition of my greater help.’

‘And you should agree,’ said Ramachni, ‘for I guess already what it is that our host offers but cannot name, and it is a distinction offered to few in the history of this world. And what Thaulinin has not mentioned is the grave risk that he would take on our behalf. By helping us he will face the judgement of his own people, and should they find him in the wrong he will be imprisoned to the end of his days. For a selk, such punishment is worse than death. Indeed many take their own lives rather than be kept from walking freely over Alifros.’

Pazel looked sharply at the crowd of selk. That was it; that was the reason for those chilly, fearful eyes. It’s not just Thaulinin. All of them will be held responsible, all of them will be judged.

Thaulinin looked down at Ensyl. ‘The plant does not work on the little folk,’ he said. ‘You will not sleep, but must be kept from seeing us, and confined.’

‘Caged?’ Ensyl bristled, backing towards the wall. ‘For an ixchel that is a vile proposal. Few of us who enter cages have ever left alive.’

‘Didn’t stop you from caging us,’ growled Mandric.

Dastu crossed his arms. ‘I say, no thanks. I say we’ll take our chances on the trail.’

‘Then you getting die,’ said Neda, ‘like stupid Alyash, like so much crew on Chathrand ship.’

‘Don’t lecture me, girl,’ snapped Dastu. ‘How many Black Rags getting die when Rose blew your fancy ship out of the water?’

‘Peace, Dastu!’ said Hercol, stepping between them. ‘Thaulinin, we must speak apart before we answer you. Be patient with us, pray.’

‘Go and speak, then,’ said Thaulinin, ‘but it is your fate that begs a swift decision, not the selk.’

The party withdrew to their sleeping-chamber to debate, and soon their voices rose in argument. Dastu did not wish to have anything more to do with the selk, and Mandric and Lunja rejected the leap of faith Thaulinin demanded. Big Skip and Ensyl seemed torn. The shouts grew heated. Only Ramachni stood silent. Pazel looked at him in frustration. Why doesn’t he say anything?

‘I do not like blind choices either,’ said Hercol, ‘but we will not heal our wounds on a death march, nor fill our stomachs crouching here underground.’ He looked at Mandric and Lunja. ‘You are both soldiers, trained to trust in weapons more than words. So are Neda and Cayer Vispek. But self-reliance is not always the wisest path. When they surrendered to us — to their arch-enemies — it was an act of courage.’

‘It was the only choice, save starvation and exile,’ said Vispek.

‘And that is exactly where we stand today,’ said Bolutu.

‘Nonsense!’ said Mandric. ‘You might as well say that them two were fools to surrender — they’ve ended up starved and exiled anyway, and in a worse fix than if they’d stayed on the Sandwall.’

‘Worse?’ said Vispek. ‘You did not see the shipwreck near our camp, full of dlomu with their throats slit, and the word Platazcra scrawled in blood across the deck.’

‘And you’re exaggerating anyway, Corporal Mandric,’ said Thasha. ‘The selk have already fed us, and given us shelter.’

‘And played pretty music,’ scoffed Dastu.

Lunja glanced at him curiously. ‘We have a saying in Bali Adro: The singer is more truthful than the talker, and the harp more truthful still.’

‘Very nice,’ said Mandric, ‘but I still don’t fancy getting poisoned.’

‘I’m with you there,’ said Big Skip. ‘We’d wake up confused, he says? Pitfire, we went through that with the mushroom-spores in the Forest! It was blary unnatural.’

‘These creatures aren’t natural either,’ said Dastu, ‘and they’re shifty as midges, by damn. Anyone who trusts them is a blary fool.’

‘I’ll trust them,’ said Neeps.

Everyone stopped talking and looked at him. ‘They know a lot,’ he said. ‘Maybe they can help me. And maybe some of you have the mind-plague too, and don’t know it yet. I doubt they have a cure, or they’d have used it before the humans died out. All the same, I’ll stay with them. I’m no use to anyone if I turn into an animal, and-’ he looked at Pazel and Thasha, blinking ‘-it’s getting harder to think.’

His friends rushed to embrace him. Pazel had to turn his face away, lest Neeps see his tears. Hercol said, ‘Trust is dangerous, but less dangerous than acting in fear. Come, we must decide. Will you not take the hand extended?’

‘No!’ said Dastu. ‘Have you all gone soft? They want the Nilstone! Last night they were on the verge of gutting us over it, like so many fish. They found out we had a mage and decided the fighting-odds weren’t as good as they’d figured. Now they’re counting on desperation to make us walk into their trap.’

‘Did you hear nothing in the music?’ asked Ramachni.

Dastu turned to him, startled. ‘You too? What’s so special about that blary music?’

‘Almost everything,’ said the mage. ‘It was a part of the Cando Teahtenca, the Creation-Song of the Auru, First People of Alifros. It was the Auru who built the tower where we fought Arunis, to guard the River and issue warnings; the Auru whose final charge in the Dawn War drove the Gorgonoths back into the Pits; the Auru whose spell of beauty still rings in certain hearts, like the note of an enchanted bell struck ages ago. They have all gone from the world, but it is said that among the most ancient selk there are a few who walked with them in their twilight, and heard their songs entire. Perhaps Thaulinin erred with us in the matter of the Nilstone. But the selk apologise with gifts, not words, and that rare music was a gift given to few.’

Another silence fell. Then Lunja said, ‘I will trust them. To do otherwise is folly.’

Mandric looked at her, wrathful. ‘You’re right, Otter, damn your sweet eyes.’

Dastu laughed scornfully, but he knew he stood alone. ‘We’ll regret this,’ he said. ‘If we’re lucky enough to do any regretting, that is. If those monsters let us wake up.’