Lucien Read online

  Tamlyn slipped away, and I saw him soon after in hard-faced conversation with our ship’s captain. He was asking how quickly the ship could get under way, most likely. I didn’t like it. He had lost faith in Geran and perhaps in our entire plan.

  ‘Keep an eye on Lucien,’ I said to Ryall, but as I approached the two men, the captain walked off, pretending that he hadn’t seen me. From the look on Tamlyn’s face, I guessed he’d told the captain to stay out of my way.

  ‘You’re not sure about Geran, are you?’ I said.

  His answer was bold and to the point, as always. ‘I came here to be free of my Wyrdborn nature, not to die because of it, Silvermay.’

  ‘We have to keep our nerve,’ I said.

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with being prepared, and it’s not just our small band. If the Felan turn on us, the crew will die, too, and they know it.’

  After a quick scan of the deck, I saw it was true. Barely a man could stand still. A few had climbed into the rigging for a better view of the boats. At a nod from the captain, they began to loosen ties along the yardarms, ready to unfurl the sails. What worried me more were the looks on their faces. Hard men to begin with, their fear of the approaching flotilla was making them desperate, and there was nothing more unpredictable than a man afraid for his own life.

  ‘What if these sailors start something, Tamlyn? If one of them draws his sword when the first Felan come aboard …’

  ‘They won’t do anything without a command from the captain, and he’s agreed to wait for my signal.’

  ‘So it’s you I have to convince?’

  ‘Are you even convinced yourself, Silvermay?’ He stared towards the Felan ships, which would be alongside our vessel at any moment. ‘Why are there so many of them? We’re not dignitaries sent by a king. And have you seen the weapons hidden among their robes?’

  I had seen the glint of swords and the shimmering touch of sunlight on the armour that some wore beneath their cloaks.

  ‘I wish there was some way to …’ My voice trailed off weakly. I had almost said to read their minds, but that was pure foolishness. Such a feat needed magic that neither the Wyrdborn nor the Felan possessed. Still, it was tempting to drift away on a dream of such power. Was there a wizard somewhere who had mastered the art of mind-reading, who could let me know what Geran was thinking?

  While I wallowed in useless wishes, it occurred to me that I was thinking of the wrong people. The Wyrdborn and the Felan might have powers that commonfolk like me could only stare at in wonder. Yet we commonfolk had powers of our own, too; powers I could put to good use.

  I rushed to the ship’s rail for a clear look at Geran’s face. She was staring up at me, making my task easier — her eyes, her mouth, the tilt of her head, provided the clues I was looking for. I noted the posture of her body inside the velvet dress and the movement of her hands as she turned and spoke to a man beside her. A moment later, she pointed up at the ship — at me — and in that instant I knew. I had read her face and her bearing and there wasn’t the slightest trace of betrayal in either. What magic did I need when I’d been reading a person’s heart since I was a little girl?

  ‘Hold fast,’ I cried. ‘They mean us no harm. I’m sure of it.’

  Every man on board the ship continued to stare at the approaching ships, and some kept a hand on the hilt of their swords, but all had heard me and, to my relief, the fear seemed to recede from their eyes.

  ‘Well done, Silvermay. They believe you and so do I,’ said Tamlyn, taking my hand. ‘We’ll soon know.’

  It was his right hand that held mine, his sword arm. There was no better way to show he trusted me.

  A rope ladder was dropped from the ship’s rail and, despite her cumbersome dress, Geran was the first to climb it. She sprang onto the deck as lightly as a cat and made straight for me. The Felan followed — two, three, six of them. By the time she reached me, they stood at her back, every one of them young and well armed.

  ‘All is well, Silvermay,’ Geran said. ‘My people have agreed to help you.’

  She placed her hands on my shoulders and leaned forward to kiss me on the cheek. It was an excuse to bring her lips close to my ear.

  ‘They don’t suspect a thing,’ she whispered. ‘You must make sure it stays that way.’

  3

  The Wyrdborn

  Coyle Strongbow stared out of the only window in his chamber. Grey walls and silence gave the room a chill that made his servants shiver on even the warmest days. None spent longer inside it than they needed to when the chamberlain sent them to mop the bare floors or dust the hardwood table with its map of Athlane carved into the surface. One maid had refused to enter the room, only to find this was not a house that tolerated disobedience. Rather than dismiss the frightened girl, the chamberlain had made her take Coyle’s meals to him every day for a week and she still wept at the memory of her own fear. That act of cruelty had occurred months earlier, and now it seemed the gods had evened the score because that same chamberlain had not been seen for many days.

  Coyle didn’t give a damn where the fellow was, or whether he was still alive, if it came to that. No, his eyes were drawn to a scene so remarkable the people of Vonne still couldn’t believe it had happened. Beyond the forbidding iron gates that guarded Coyle’s fortress home lay a wide square that was usually lined with stalls and bustling with bodies. Today, a black and brooding chasm filled the space, a crowd standing in awed silence around its edge.

  In places, the sun picked out the stone of broken columns rising up from the darkness. Few had known it before the calamity took place, but the square stood on ground supported by such columns. Lord Coyle had been one of those few; more than that, the force of his muscles and the impact of his own body being thrown against those columns had helped to bring them down.

  Coyle’s cold gaze fell on one figure in particular in the square. The splendour of his robes stood out amid the homespun cloth of the townsfolk and even alongside the better-dressed ministers who had accompanied him. King Chatiny had come to see the damage for himself, although the coward had waited more than a day before venturing out of the palace, Coyle noted. His guards formed a loose circle around him, watching the commoners warily as they stared at the king with a hatred Coyle could feel like the heat of a fire, even at this distance. Over the years, the people had come to despise Chatiny’s extravagant ways, especially when they had so little themselves. Not that Coyle cared. When he was king, the commonfolk would have even less.

  When he was king … The thought made his mouth wrinkle into what might be mistaken for a smile if it appeared on any face but his own. Coyle never smiled. Like other Wyrdborn, his muscles didn’t know how to form a shape that represented happiness. He had never known that emotion. Chatiny would lose all memory of it, too, once Coyle was finished with him. The fool had no idea how lightly the crown rested on his head, nor did he understand how the gaping hole in the square below had saved him. For now, Coyle’s plans had collapsed into that same abyss, but he would wear the crown yet. Once he’d regained what had been snatched from his grasp, there was no power on earth that could stop him.

  Movement in the doorway made him turn away from the window. He hoped it was a servant he could growl at, so when he saw his son Hallig enter the room, he felt cheated.

  ‘Have you found the boy?’ he snapped.

  ‘Can you be sure I’d tell you if I had?’ replied Hallig in the same disdainful tone.

  Coyle didn’t trust Hallig, but he knew his son lacked the wit to trick him. He grunted and motioned for him to make his report.

  ‘I didn’t find Lucien, but some townsfolk have come across a tunnel under the city walls,’ said Hallig, halting a few paces short of his father. He knew to stay out of reach when Coyle had a certain look in his eye. ‘It’s rough and it’s newly made. Only a Wyrdborn could break through the foundations so quickly.’

  ‘Tamlyn,’ Coyle sneered.

  Hallig nodded. ‘This was stuck in the n
arrowest part of the tunnel.’ Opening a hand, he showed his father a thin strip of steel as wide as a finger. From one end two wires dangled free. ‘Do you recognise it?’

  ‘The lad with Tamlyn. He had a strange device on his arm instead of a hand of flesh and bone.’

  ‘He lost his arm after the little games I played with him some months ago,’ Hallig said. ‘His mechanical arm must have caught in the rock as he squeezed through.’

  ‘They have the boy, then, or they wouldn’t have fled the city. Have you sent men to search the roads? Four adults, with a youngster to carry would stand out.’

  ‘I’ve already given the order, and the women will slow them down.’

  ‘One of them, perhaps. The other was surely a Felan.’

  Hallig sniffed. ‘No woman could fight the way she did without magic in her bones.’

  ‘I’ve always wondered whether the Felan sent spies to keep an eye on us. Despite their magic, they fear the Wyrdborn more than the commonfolk do,’ Coyle said, thinking out loud. But those were the last thoughts he shared with his son. Mention of the Felan made him suspect where the fugitives were taking the child. Hallig would work it out for himself soon enough, but by then Coyle would be well ahead and once he had the boy …

  That was his plan, anyway, until Hallig delivered the rest of his news.

  ‘Kemper Boreman was in the square yesterday, asking questions about the strangers the townsfolk hauled up on ropes from below. Then he turned up at the tunnel this morning, only minutes after I arrived. He suspects something, Coyle, I’m sure of it. He was asking about a little boy, too, a special boy, who’d been seen wandering the streets the day Lucien disappeared.’

  ‘What are you telling me?’ demanded Coyle.

  ‘The story is out, that’s what I’m telling you. The secret isn’t a secret any longer. If Boreman knows it, other Wyrdborn probably do as well. The Wyrdborn spy on each other all the time — you know that. You have more spies than anyone. How long before everyone knows that the Felan’s tales are true, after all — that there’s a great power waiting for whoever can command it?’

  ‘Damn the gods!’ roared Coyle and he slammed a fist into the wall, dislodging mortar. ‘This is Tamlyn’s fault and that interfering girl’s. I should have killed her myself when I took the baby from her arms. When we find them, she’ll be the first to die.’

  ‘Killing her won’t stop word from spreading across Athlane. In days, every Wyrdborn from north to south will be hunting for Lucien.’

  Hallig might be a fool, but he was right about the rest of their kind. Only one Wyrdborn could command the magic waiting to be unleashed from the boy, and those who lost the race would be as helpless as the commonfolk. The mosaics in Nan Tocha had shown that. Coyle quickly set aside his plan to leave Hallig in his wake. His son would be useful in the days ahead.

  ‘Go down to the harbour,’ he said. ‘Find the sturdiest ship in the port.’

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘To a land that lives only in legend,’ said Coyle. ‘Or at least that’s what the commonfolk believe.’

  ‘Erebis Felan,’ murmured Hallig, and he hurried from the room to obey his father’s order.

  4

  The Great Hall of Erebis

  Just as Tamlyn had suggested, I avoided holding Lucien in my arms while the captain was paid the gold Geran had promised him, but I couldn’t leave him to fend for himself once we’d been helped down the ladder and onto the largest of the Felan’s boats. I was supposed to be his mother, and what mother wouldn’t comfort her child when he was frightened by so many strangers staring and crowding close for a better look.

  ‘Someone must carry him,’ I whispered to Tamlyn, who solved the problem by taking Lucien into his own arms for the journey to shore, and then the walk through the city’s streets.

  That left me to follow behind with Ryall, which was a strange freedom for me. Since we had escaped from Vonne, I had kept Lucien close, purely for the pleasure of feeling him in my arms again after the weeks he’d been the prisoner of Coyle Strongbow. I couldn’t bear to leave him vulnerable, even for a second, but my care had taken its toll. He was a heavy lump, to be honest, and as demanding as any child can be. With a few minutes to myself, I could look around for a change.

  What a city this was. Up close, the houses were even more colourful, adding a lively air to the street. With so many guarding us, in front and behind, I felt we were part of a festival parade, and the people who came out of their houses to watch us pass swelled the numbers. I looked up and found curious faces staring down from balconies and windows — women mostly, too busy, or perhaps too frightened, to come out. Before this, the only city I’d seen was Vonne. Aside from King Chatiny’s grand palace and the fine houses belonging to the religos and their Wyrdborn protectors, its streets were lined with row upon row of shabby tenements. Paint was a stranger to their weathered timbers, and the few doors that had once been blue or red were slowly shedding their colour flake by faded flake. This town was so different it might have existed only in legend, after all.

  The biggest difference I noticed was the city wall — there wasn’t one.

  A grey-haired man was keeping pace with Ryall and me, but leaving a distance between us — out of respect or fear, I couldn’t tell. He had an honourable, if rather solemn face, and it was worth a try.

  ‘Tell me, why is there no wall around the city?’ I called to him.

  ‘Because we are not under threat from attack,’ he answered simply.

  ‘But how do the city’s rulers control who comes and who goes?’ asked Ryall. ‘How can they collect the taxes from merchants bringing supplies in from the countryside?’

  Our companion seemed astonished by this question. ‘Taxes? In Meraklion, everyone is free to come and go.’

  ‘Meraklion? Is that the name of this city?’ I asked.

  The man changed course a fraction and came close enough to speak without raising his voice. ‘The full name of our capital is Erebis Meraklion. It means “first place in a land of hope” because this was where the Felan came ashore to make our new lives. It’s rather a mouthful,’ he conceded, ‘so, like all people in a hurry, we shorten it.’

  ‘Weren’t there people living here already?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh yes, but our ancestors came in peace and the locals welcomed them. Our peoples have long since intermarried so it is impossible now for any of us to say we are descended solely from the original inhabitants or from the Felan who came here centuries ago.’

  ‘Didn’t that dilute the magic the Felan carry in their blood?’ I asked.

  ‘Perhaps,’ he replied, staring ahead at Tamlyn and at Lucien’s face visible above his shoulder. ‘It is difficult to judge, and it doesn’t matter. We use magic mostly for ceremony. It is a gift best honoured by using it only when necessary and in the company of other Felan.’

  The man explained all this so freely and in such a humble tone that I found myself liking him. He seemed to sense this and introduced himself.

  ‘I am Delgar,’ he said with a bow. ‘You may hear people call me Delgar the Wise, which I do not deserve. Others call me Delgar the Jester. It is the kind of joke the Felan enjoy.’

  ‘Because you don’t laugh very often?’ I asked.

  He bowed again. ‘Precisely.’ And despite the perfect opportunity, he didn’t offer even the hint of a smile. ‘You are Silvermay?’

  ‘How did you know?’

  ‘Oh, the four of you are a great curiosity for us all. Haven’t you noticed the people staring?’

  ‘They all seem to be looking at Tamlyn and Lucien,’ I noted, feeling uneasy.

  ‘Word spreads quickly, especially when the Wyrdborn are mentioned,’ said Delgar. ‘Normally, the arrival of a Wyrdborn would be a call to arms. This time, we are told, two have come asking to be stripped of their powers — or the man, at least, since the boy is too young to know what is going on.

  ‘It seems strange to us that a Wyrdborn might choose good o
ver evil. Why would one of their kind swap his powers for the paltry strength of the commonfolk?’

  ‘Because he loves Lucien and me,’ I answered bluntly.

  ‘A Wyrdborn who feels love. This is indeed a strange day,’ said Delgar, and he paused a moment to consider what it meant. ‘You must love your son very much to bring him all this way.’

  ‘To free him from his Wyrdborn nature, I would take him to the end of the earth,’ I said.

  Delgar fell silent for a second time. When he did speak again, it was to Ryall.

  ‘Tell me, young man, why do you wear the sleeve of your shirt down over your hand?’

  ‘Because I have no hand,’ Ryall answered with typical pragmatism. Raising his arm, he bent it at the elbow to reveal the damaged contraption, which he still hoped to repair.

  ‘An amazing device,’ said Delgar, inspecting it with interest. ‘I did not mean to embarrass you. The loss of your arm must be a heavy blow for one so young. How old are you?’

  ‘Seventeen,’ Ryall responded. We had agreed to keep our story as close to the truth as possible.

  ‘And you are brother and sister?’

  For Delgar to know so much about us, he must have been present when Geran put our case before the Circle. I was beginning to suspect he was one of the Elders and told myself to be careful.

  ‘Yes, Ryall is my big brother,’ I said, pushing a smile onto my face and trying to sound casual.

  Delgar’s eyebrows twitched, just enough for me to detect the movement. What had I said? I went back over my words and Ryall’s, too. It was all just as we’d decided, so why had Delgar reacted like that.

  Geran had told us earlier that we would be taken to the Great Hall on our arrival in Erebis Felan, but there were many halls in Athlane and, in truth, few of them deserved such a title. The Felan, it seemed, didn’t use words so loosely, because their Great Hall was like nothing I had ever seen before. It stood alone at the centre of an enormous square; in fact, it was the centre of the entire city, I realised, when I saw how many streets led off from the square, all of them aligning themselves with the Great Hall and then running straight as an arrow between the rows of houses for as far as my eye could follow.