The Night of the Swarm

did try to sleep. Thasha tried as well, and failed: she had never been able to sleep when the sun was high. She wanted to take Pazel back to their green field one last time, but he was deeply asleep; she did not have the heart to wake him. She took a swim with Bolutu instead, and he showed her river eels that flashed golden in the sunlight, and clouds of freshwater squid no larger than coins. Across the river she saw Lunja and Neeps walking close together among the trees. They were talking quickly, gesturing, and for the first time Thasha heard the soldier laugh.

At sundown they ate a light meal and returned to their beds. This time Thasha dropped into sleep as though falling into a well. She dreamed of stone breaking, a crack that spread like ivy on a granite wall. She pressed her fingers to the crack and sensed a hand on the far side doing the same, heard a woman’s voice berating her, Let me out, selfish girl, you claim to love them, when will you prove it, who will save them if not me? and then a ghost passed through the fissure and her hand caught fire. She examined it: that blazing hand, that power. The flames were bright and sulphuric and she could not feel a thing. She was invulnerable; she had ceased to be herself.

18

Blood Upon the Snow

At midnight the party filed out of the snug little house, packs on shoulders and the dog Shilu at their heels. Pazel had expected a lonely walk through a sleeping Ularamyth, but what he found was quite different. Some two dozen selk had gathered outside. Each one carried a staff that curved at one end like a shepherd’s stick, and at the end of each hook dangled a pale blue lamp. The light danced in the sharper blue of the selks’ eyes. There was no other light from any quarter, save the heavy brilliance of the stars. But Pazel could see a line of the blue lamps, marking the path through the village and beyond.

As the travellers emerged the selk began to sing, their voices so soft that they merged with the night wind. As before the words defied Pazel’s understanding, but it did not matter; the feeling in them was clear. A nomadic people had come to witness another departure, another leave-taking, the very stuff of their lives.

When they started walking the crowd of selk went with them. They passed the workshop where Skip had become so enthralled with selk craftsmanship, the tree where the tortoise slumbered in his burrow, the little volcanic hill. Each selk they came upon fell in with the rest, taking up the melancholy song. But when they reached the great hall the singing ceased. Lord Arim stood among the pillars with his hand on Valgrif’s shoulder. Thaulinin too stepped from the shadows, and the three figures approached without a word.

Now the procession walked in silence, so that Pazel could hear the night birds, the autumn crickets, the gurgle of the streams. In this way the miles passed, and the hours. Lord Arim walked as swiftly as any, though now and then a look of pain creased his face.

They reached the end of the crater floor and began to climb. There were by now several hundred selk with them, and the lamps swayed close together like a school of deep-sea fish. Up they went, by stair and switchback. Pazel walked beside Thasha, now and then touching her arm, or holding her hand for a few paces. He noticed that both Neeps and Lunja, though they walked some distance apart, looked often for the other, as thought to be certain the distance between them had not changed.

By the time they reached the North Door it was very cold. Here the path broadened into a great stone shelf, large enough for all the selk who had joined the climb: and surely almost the whole thousand were here, Pazel thought. The black triangle was just what it had seemed from below: a tunnel mouth, framed with great blocks of stone, and richly carved with both figures and words. An icy wind issued from it, much colder than the air about them. Pazel squinted at the carved words, but it was still too dark to read them. There was also a smaller door at one end of the shelf, and several windows carved into the stone: the Way-House, Pazel guessed.

Thaulinin called the travellers together and presented the ten warriors who were to join them. He told a little of their deeds and life-stories (a very little; the youngest was two thousand years old) and voices in the crowd called out with contributions of their own. Then the selk gave each traveller a folded cloth, silver in colour but woven of some rough, sturdy fabric.

‘Tie back your hair with these,’ said Thaulinin, ‘or wash your face, or bundle them about something you do not wish to lose. They do not look like much, but they were woven by Arim’s mother, Irehi, before the journey from whence she never returned. And this week they have been soaked in the five sacred springs, and touched and blessed by every selk in Ularamyth. Still you need not handle them like relics: they are strong, and meant for use.’

Then Pazel felt a hand on his shoulder. Lord Arim himself stood beside him, and his old lips formed a smile.

‘You tried to read the words above the threshold,’ he said, ‘and well you should: they are a parting wish for travellers. Shall I recite them for you?’

He spoke then in Sabdel, and Pazel was moved by the beauty and simplicity of the verse. Then Arim repeated the lines in the language of Bali Adro, for all to hear:

Behind you dieth a dreamland, ahead is the blinding day.

Still thy song is in all tongues and on all voices lifts,

And even the white range declares it to the skies.

Never but by you is it forsaken, no silence but thine own is its decay.

Go not mourning what is ended.

Go not with winter in your eyes.

‘That is our hope for you all,’ he said. ‘But come: we must rest in the Way-House. Your true journey begins at sunrise.’

Then the selk came forward in groups, touching their arms, whispering words of farewell. Pazel had come to know some by name, and dozens by sight, and felt a great sadness at this leave-taking. Very soon it was done, however, and Arim led the travellers into the Way-House, and a simple room where they could sleep.

Most did so quickly, but once more Pazel found himself wide awake, and unable to be otherwise. This is crazy, he told himself. Sleep, fool, or you’ll be useless at dawn. At last he gave up, as he had done on Sirafstoran Torr, and found his way back outside. He crossed the wide shelf, and saw a ribbon of blue lamps snaking down into the darkened Vale, and dispersing by many paths along the crater floor.

An hour later the party was on its feet, and the sun was gleaming on the crater wall. They glanced a last time at Ularamyth, and Prince Olik knelt on the trail where it began its descent into the crater, and kissed the earth. Then they all turned away, and followed Lord Arim into the tunnel, and not one of those travellers ever again set foot in the Secret Vale.

It was dark in the tunnel, but the selk still had their lamps. Pazel tightened his coat against the biting wind. Very soon he saw ice slicking the walls, felt his boot crunching a thin crust of snow. Every five or ten minutes they would climb a long, steep staircase. They were still ascending the mountain, only this time from within.

After an hour’s march they reached a gate very much like the one in the tunnel by which they had entered Ularamyth. Thaulinin opened it with the same key he had used before, and when they had passed through he locked it behind them. Shortly thereafter Neda remarked that the air was growing warmer, and so it was: decidedly warmer, until they were all loosening their coats. Walking beside Valgrif, Pazel asked what was happening, but the wolf said only that he would see soon enough.

Then the tunnel widened abruptly, the walls falling away left and right, and Pazel realised that they had stepped into a natural cave. The air here was dry and hot. By the dim lamplight he could just make out the ceiling, where stalactites hung like rows of teeth. Fifty feet or so ahead, a staircase climbed the left-hand wall. As they moved nearer he saw that it led to a large, round archway overlooking the cave below.

‘Now,’ said Lord Arim, ‘I must speak to the guardian of the North Door. You may come with me, Arpathwin; but the rest of you must wait for us to return. Do not approach, no matter what you see or hear! You cannot go on without the guardian’s consent.’