The Night of the Swarm

it started to heal.

‘I regret the pain I have caused you,’ said Ramachni.

‘You did not cause it,’ said Ensyl. ‘It was there already. Don’t you understand that much? Ramachni, do mages take no partners, ever?’

‘We do not, unless we cease to be mages.’

‘And before? Were you never in love?’

When Ramachni answered her his voice was oddly hesitant. ‘I will tell you this much. The life I lived before is gone, irretrievably gone. It is like the memory of a story — or a sailor’s journal, perhaps. It resides whole and complete in my memory, but behind a wall of crystal through which no heat or sound may pass.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Yes, but I am not. My road has led far from that quiet beginning. I am myself. The life before was another’s.’

He said no more, and Ensyl closed her eyes. Mercifully, oblivion found her again. This time it was far deeper and longer. She had many dreams, many half-wakings, and behind them all was a strange feeling of forgiveness, of sympathy for the folly of her kinfolk, even deluded Lord Taliktrum, whom Myett had loved with as much ferocity as she, Ensyl, had loved Taliktrum’s aunt. Foolish Myett. But in the end, less foolish than Ensyl herself. She had at least confessed her love; Ensyl had hidden, smothered, her own. What if Ramachni was right to doubt the ixchel way? What if the one unforgivable thing was not her love for Dri, but her silence?

I will become a mage. I will transcend this life, set it in crystal, place it on a high shelf where it need never be touched.

Stillness. Ensyl rubbed her eyes. The selk were talking; the palanquin was resting on the ground. A moment later the thongs were loosed and sunlight poured through the opening. ‘Come out, travellers,’ said Thaulinin. ‘You have missed all the rain.’

Out they climbed, stiff and dazzled. They were in a stone tunnel, low and round and stretching away in two directions as far as Ensyl could see. The tunnel was unlit, but its roof was pierced at regular intervals by smooth holes, and it was through these that the sunlight poured. About half the selk from Thaulinin’s band were here. So was their party, though they yawned, and looked unsteady on their feet.

‘Have we. . arrived?’ asked Pazel.

‘Almost,’ said Thaulinin, ‘and that is good, for you were starting to toss and turn inside the slings by which we carried you. Can you manage these last three miles?’

The travellers assured him that they could, although Ensyl had her doubts. Thaulinin gestured to Nolcindar, who held up a bundle of green cloth, tied firmly with a rope. ‘That is your special burden,’ said Thaulinin. ‘It is surprisingly heavy, for such a small thing. Who will carry it?’

The travellers looked at each other uneasily. The question had yet to arise. ‘Be so good as to bear it these last miles,’ said Hercol finally. ‘We are. . not quite ourselves. I for one am dizzy, and have the feeling that I have forgotten something, or several things perhaps. You drugged us, did you not?’

‘With your consent,’ said Nolcindar, ‘though you were reluctant, truth be told.’

The hunting dog leaned wearily against Lunja’s calf. ‘You even drugged poor Shilu,’ said Lunja, bending to caress the animal.

‘And carried him,’ said Thaulinin. ‘He is not woken, but any animal can become so. And those who do retain their earlier memories, animal though they are. We can take no chances, in this troubled age.’

‘I feel like I’ve slept for weeks,’ said Thasha. ‘How long was the journey, really?’

‘Not weeks,’ said Thaulinin, and his tone made it plain that he would say no more.

‘But Thaulinin, where is Dastu?’ asked Ramachni suddenly. ‘I hope you did not forget him back at Sirafstoran Torr?’

A dark murmur passed among the selk. ‘Do not jest,’ said Thaulinin. ‘The youth deceived us. He only feigned swallowing the mushroom, and the sleep it should have brought. When darkness fell on the first day of our journey, we rested atop a deep defile, and laid you all down in rows. He must have been watching through slitted eyes. As we lay there we heard the maukslar bellowing, far behind us on the Torr. We all turned, fearing the demon might come hurtling out of the peaks, despite the care we took to hide our trail. And it was while we were thus distracted that your companion rose and slipped away. We gave chase, but the defile branched into many chasms, and the bottom-lands were wooded and black. All the same I marvel that he escaped us. He must have run almost as fast and silently as one of my people.’

‘What will you do?’ asked Big Skip. ‘Let him run?’

‘By no means!’ said Thaulinin. ‘He can only work mischief, if he manages to stay alive. We will seek him high and low. This is my failure, and his capture will be my charge.’

‘You may hunt long for him,’ said Hercol. ‘Dastu has great talents as a spy.’

‘But no talent for trust,’ said Nolcindar. ‘He would have found only healing and friendship among us. I wonder where his suspicious nature will lead him. To our enemies? Can he have more faith in their mercy than our own?’

‘The Secret Fist does not teach mercy,’ said Hercol. ‘Only power, and sometimes power means striking a bargain. Dastu has just one thing to bargain with: his knowledge of our mission. If he chooses to betray us to our enemies, he can.’

‘There will be no choosing, if the Duirmaulc- Dweller⁹ seizes him in its claws,’ said Nolcindar. ‘His mind will be shorn open, and his knowledge taken as a bear takes honey from the comb.’

‘I think I want to go back to sleep,’ muttered Pazel.

Thaulinin looked at him. ‘Take heart,’ he said. ‘Twice before in my life I have seen Alifros brought to the edge of ruin, and twice before we clawed away from the precipice. And no matter what is to come, there remain the stars.’

‘I just can’t work out how that’s supposed to be comforting,’ said Pazel. ‘The stars business, I mean.’

Thaulinin smiled. ‘Perhaps one day you will. But whatever the future brings, you will be safe for a time in Ularamyth.’

Ularamyth! The word struck Ensyl like a thunderclap. She had heard it before, hadn’t she? Where, when? She could not place it at all, and yet it felt intensely familiar, suddenly, like the name of some home or haven visited as a child, a place where she had been happy; a place lost early in life and never glimpsed again. The name had stirred a response in the others as well, she saw: there was a sudden radiance about them. She might almost have called it hunger.

‘Ularamyth,’ said Ramachni. ‘You have freed my tongue to speak the name. And to think I feared never to see it again.’

‘You’ve been there?’ said Corporal Mandric, shaking his head. ‘Any place you haven’t been?’

‘I have been there, also,’ said Thasha.

The others looked at her, startled, and Ramachni’s dark eyes gleamed. ‘Not you, Thasha,’ he said.

A look of distance and distraction had come over Thasha. Pazel and Neeps drew close to her: they were all too familiar with that look. Thasha did not even glance at them. ‘I’ve been there,’ she insisted. ‘With you, Ramachni; don’t you recall?’

The mage said nothing. Doubt flickered suddenly in Thasha’s eyes. ‘No,’ she said, ‘I’m just confused. Forgive me.’

‘Some know the place with their hearts, before their feet ever touch its blessed soil,’ said Thaulinin. ‘But come and see for yourselves.’

Hercol knelt, offering his shoulder, and Ensyl bounded onto it, steadying herself as always with a fistful of his hair. The tunnel rose gradually, winding like a snake. They moved from one pool of sunlight to the next. She saw that each roof-hole was in truth a shaft leading upwards some ten or twenty feet, and ending in a riot of greenery: ferns, flowers, trailing vines.

‘I know what this tunnel is,’ said Bolutu. ‘It is a lava tube. Is that not so?’

‘Well guessed!’ said Thaulinin. ‘Yes, the blood-fire of the mountain formed this entrance-road, and others. We have been walking it in darkness for some hours already, carrying you. The shafts illuminate only the last few miles, where the jungle above is guarded. Soon we will pass under the mountain, and be in darkness again.’