up and down. Only when she stood right before him, lovely and alien and severe, did Pazel realise the extent of her unease. Her face was rigid. Forcing herself, she reached out and placed a wet, webbed hand upon his cheek. She held it there, silently, studying his face. Just when Pazel was about to demand that someone explain, Lunja turned and marched swiftly past Lord Arim and into the tunnel. There she paused, and spoke without turning back.
‘Forgive my selfishness. He is my comrade too, and I will do what I can to save him. Only do not force me to speak of this idly. I will tell you when it is done.’
She vanished, a shadow among shadows. Pazel and Thasha looked at the others, amazed. ‘What in the bubbling Pits was
‘As Sergeant Lunja is one of just two dlomu in Ularamyth, she has
‘There is no time,’ said the old selk. ‘We make the crossing tonight.’
Ramachni nodded, but Thaulinin looked gravely concerned. ‘Tonight!’ he said. ‘My lord, I fear the youths are not ready.’
Arim came slowly forward, gazing at Pazel and Thasha in turn. ‘Pazel Pathkendle is stronger than you know, and Lady Thasha will not benefit from delay. In any case it must be tonight.’ He raised a trembling hand and pointed. Nearly invisible (for there was light yet in the evening sky), the little Southern moon gleamed over the mountains. ‘The Candle passes through the horns of its mother-moon, and will not do so again for ten years. I must prepare, and you should rest while you can. After your meal we will find you.’
That evening the youths had little appetite, but others in their party were eager to talk. Myett had spent two days on the far fringes of Ularamyth, riding Valgrif’s broad shoulders. Big Skip, traces of sawdust in his beard, described the skills he was learning from his artisan friends. Neda and Cayer Vispek were in foul spirits, however, and ate apart. Lunja and Neeps did not come to dinner at all.
When Pazel, Thasha and Hercol stepped outside, the night was distinctly cold. Above was a sky full of brilliant stars, and a sliver of the yellow moon. A selk in dark robes was waiting for them beside a carriage. The two horses were black and solid as rhinos, but their eyes were the shining blue of the selk.
They set off. The roads of Ularamyth were empty, and for three dark miles no one spoke. Pazel was afraid for Thasha: the distance was back in her eyes. He glanced at her now, gazing from the carriage window, breath puffing white as smoke through her lips. A haunted face. He thought suddenly of the girl who had climbed atop another carriage, in the bedlam of the Etherhorde waterfront, to gape at him with a child’s mischief. The admiral’s daughter. He had never expected to so much as speak to her.
The driver spoke softly to the horses. The carriage stopped, and the three humans climbed out upon the barren shores of Osir Delhin, the Lake of Death.
It was a chilling place. The wind moaned like a voice from a melancholy dream. Both moons had cleared the horizon, and by their light Pazel saw driftwood and black stones, and small waves lapping the shore. The island too was dark.
‘We have to wait here,’ said Thasha.
‘Yes,’ said the driver, climbing down from the carriage. ‘A boat will come for you. If you like you may wait in the carriage, out of the wind.’
Thasha began to walk towards the water. ‘Beware!’ called the driver. ‘The lake has a curious property: it cannot be swum. If you try, you will sink to the bottom as though wrapped in chains.’
Thasha kept moving, and Hercol and Pazel rushed after her. Pazel had a growing sense that the night held something terrible for Thasha. She had been distant so many times, but this would be something else, something altogether more drastic. There was no telling what she might do — or what might be done to her.
A few yards from the water they seized her arms. ‘Far enough,’ said Hercol gently. To Pazel’s immense relief she made no objection, but merely folded her legs and sat. Pazel and Hercol did the same on either side of her. Thasha laid her head on Hercol’s shoulder, and put her arms around her chest. She did not glance at Pazel at all.
‘I could do it,’ she said. ‘I could walk right into that lake.’
‘I doubt that you are immune, Thasha,’ said Hercol. ‘There is magic here as old as Alifros itself.’
Thasha closed her eyes and smiled. ‘Of course I’m not immune. I’d drown like anyone. Otherwise, what would be the point?’
‘Don’t talk that way!’ hissed Pazel. But Thasha just clung tighter to Hercol. ‘The boat is coming,’ she said. ‘You have to stay here.’
She hadn’t looked, but it was true: a small, lightless craft was approaching from the island. Pazel could see neither oars nor sail. Strangest of all, the boat appeared to be empty. But as it drew nearer he saw that that was not quite true. Ramachni stood upon the bow, like a dark figurehead. When at last the boat struck ground he flicked his tail.
‘Come,’ he said.
They were on their feet now. Hercol took Thasha’s hands in his own. ‘Be strong, Thasha Isiq,’ he said. ‘I will be here when you return.’
She raised her head and kissed him briefly on the lips. ‘Someone will return,’ she said.
Pazel watched her climb into the boat. He raised a hand as if to touch her, then let it fall to his side. He couldn’t speak, couldn’t choose among the thousands of words he needed to say. ‘Thasha, wait!’ he managed to croak at last.
Only then did she look at him. In her face he saw alarm for the first time, indeed shock, to find him still ashore.
‘We
Speechless, Pazel scrambled into the boat. Thasha had been telling Hercol goodbye, but not him. Not yet. ‘What a fool I’ve fallen in love with,’ she said, touching his arm. Her voice ethereal, a distant echo of the one he knew.
The crossing was swift and frigid. Ramachni stood at the bow as before, and Pazel wondered if the force that moved them was his doing or some magic of the selk. Thasha’s mind cleared briefly: she looked at Pazel and told him plainly that Erithusme’s memories were trickling into her mind.
‘A drop here, a drop there. Like a leaky tap.’ Thasha tried to smile.
‘What does that mean? Is she waking up?’
Thasha considered the question, then shook her head. ‘I don’t think she’s ever been asleep.’
The island drew near. It was stark and forbidding, and larger than Pazel had supposed. Ancient trees, vast of girth but bent low to the ground and twisted into writhing dragon-shapes, stood scattered over the dry earth, their roots clawing among paving stones and broken columns and the remains of tumbled walls. The wind was tearing the first leaves of autumn from their boughs, hurling them like playing cards into the night.
The boat ground ashore. Ramachni leaped out, and the youths followed, and soon they were marching up a dusty trail onto higher ground. They had not gone far when Thaulinin appeared, running sure-footed and soundless.
‘You’re here!’ he said. ‘Very good, it is time.’ He took a wine skin from his shoulder and filled a cup. ‘Have a sip to warm you — and then follow quickly. We dare not arrive too late.’
Pazel drank when his turn came, and felt the night’s chill retreating to his fingertips. Thaulinin led them on, over hills, up staircases of shattered stone, among the shells of ancient halls and towers. The trees cast twin shadows in the double moonlight. A great number of them, he saw now, were dead.
‘Why is this place so miserable?’ Pazel asked Thaulinin. ‘When did your people abandon it?’
‘You ask questions that would take all night to answer,’ said Thaulinin. ‘The selk never dwelt here, and the fall of those who did was a great tragedy, which some name as the moment this world lost her innocence. They were defeated in a war before the Dawn War, and Ularamyth became the seat of a demonic power.
He glanced quickly at Pazel. ‘If Dastu had come here, all Ularamyth might have looked this way to him. Few persons have ever come to our realm against their will, but those who do find themselves in another place altogether — a deathly land, poisoned by the fumes of the volcano, where all that lives becomes rapacious and foul.
