Deep Water (14 page)

Safred, Martine and Bramble walked slowly down to the rim almost an hour after sunset, moving toward darkness, with a sky
of red and gold and purple clouds behind them. The evening breeze had picked up and whipped the water into small waves. It
was chilly but not cold, breezy but not windy, dim but not dark, although the pale spring moon was hidden behind the clouds.

Bramble felt her spirits rising as the night grew wilder, felt a lifting of the heart that was as familiar to her as the beginning
of a chase. She went first. She thanked Gorham for making her wear tough boots as her feet would have been cut to the bone
at the first step up onto the rim. She found her balance and then stepped toward the next rim of rock. If she fell, she would
die. She was quite certain of that, sure beyond words or reason. The gods confirmed it:
Walk carefully,
they said.
Come to us.

Each step was precarious, and each grew harder as the light faded away. After a handful of steps, she looked back. Safred
and Martine were poised on the ridges behind her, reminding her of the Wind City legend, the Sea Woman who walked on water.
Bramble shivered a little. The Sea Woman was a nasty spirit, no friend to humans. She shook off the thought and started to
enjoy herself, enjoy each moment her foot found the next stepping place and the quick excitement of shifting her balance with
a hop so that she moved firmly onto the ridge and still kept her balance. The water was cold in her boots, and her feet began
to go numb.

Halfway across, the moon emerged from the clouds and the lake became a bowl of silver, cupping them, the Forest beyond a dark
wall. She had the sense that the water itself was curved upward, that the island truly lay in the bottom of a bowl. It felt
dangerous, and Bramble was glad of it. The promise of danger gave her relief from mourning.

She was only three paces from the island, then two, and one — she stepped onto the darker surface of the island expecting
to find dirt and grass. Instead, she slipped and fell as her feet slid out from under her. The island was made of the same
smooth, dark green glass as the lake bowl. She looked up at the altar; it was fused into a spire of the rock so that she couldn’t
tell where the lake rock ended and the altar began. That felt unchancy. Wrong. She struggled up and planted her feet firmly
on the rock, then helped Safred and Martine across safely.

She began to move toward the altar, but Safred stopped her with a hand on her arm.

“I don’t know what will happen,” she said, her voice low. “You will see the past, the gods say, but they don’t say how.”

Bramble shrugged. “Guess I’ll find out soon enough.”

Safred smiled tightly, and motioned her toward the altar. Breast-high, it was larger than any Bramble had seen. She came toward
it with another familiar sensation. The gods were waiting. The pressure on her mind was there, as it always was at an altar;
the hair-raising, spine-chilling stroke along the skin,
beneath
the skin. She took a breath with difficulty, like breathing under water, but before she could lay her hand on the rock, mist
began to rise from the altar’s surface.

Gentle wisps at first. Then deepening to fog, swirling upward in a column which flattened out to spread in a dome over them,
coming down onto the water and moving outward, until the sky was blocked, and the land was invisible, and they were encased
in a brilliant, moon-lit cloud. Bramble shivered with a simple chill as the mist droplets settled on her skin.

The mist was unchancy, no doubt, but the gods were there, solid in her mind, and she knew the fog was to protect her. She
just didn’t know from what. They could hear the wind in the Forest, and the waves on the lake, but inside the mist everything
was still. Gradually, the stream of mist died away and the altar was left bare, not even damp. She reached out and placed
her hand on it.

“Martine,” Safred said quietly. Safred had her listening look on, and Martine’s face mirrored hers. She placed the brooch
on the altar next to Bramble’s hand. It clinked, softly, as she set it down and immediately the wind died in the Forest, the
waves subsided, the trees ceased to whisper. There was complete silence as she spoke.

“This is mine by right, by gift. I cede it to you, to the gods of field and stream, of fire and storm, of earth and stone,
of sky and wind.” She paused then, and as though prompted further, added, “I cede it to the gods of water and memory, that
good may come of evil, that life may come from death.”

She took Bramble’s hand and placed it over the brooch.

For a moment Bramble’s hand was caught between the warmth of Martine’s hand and the cold of the brooch, then Martine lifted
her hand and Bramble’s fingers curled around the heavy circle.

“Gods of water and memory, aid your daughter,” Safred said, her voice very gentle. Then she began to speak in the guttural,
screeching voice of the dead.

The world grew darker and the land rocked beneath Bramble’s feet. The waves were rising. The mere was turning against them.
In her head the pressure of the gods intensified. She didn’t feel fear, because the pressure didn’t leave any room for fear,
but it did leave room for action. She turned from the altar and tried to warn the others but as she opened her mouth to tell
them to run the waters rushed over them and she was drowning.

I
N THE VERY
early morning, Leof woke in the officers’ tent with his mother’s voice whispering in his ear: “Go home, little one, go home . . .”
His face felt surprisingly cold; when he raised a hand to his cheek he found that he had been crying, but he didn’t know for
what. His drowned men? His mother? He scrubbed all traces of the tears away, as embarrassed as a child might be, and rolled
out of bed. The men around him were still asleep.

Even so early in the morning the latrine pits were busy. He made his visit and went to stand by the edge of the camp, looking
toward the Lake, where the houses of Baluchston showed their roofs as black triangles against the paling sky. It was going
to be a beautiful spring day. A good day for attacking a town, he thought wryly. A good day for destroying a thousand years
of tradition. A thousand years of freedom.

He knew he had to talk to Thegan, and knew also that it would make no difference.

As a rider in the chases, he had loved it when the chases were held at the free towns, because they brought competitors from
all over the Domains, all keen to see if their horses were the fastest. That was how he had met Bramble, at a chase in Pless.
One of the most prestigious chases, because Pless was a horse-breeding area and had a strong local field as well as the riders
like him who brought their horses from far and wide.

He liked the free towns. He liked the sense of purpose in them, even if the purpose was mostly about making silver. He liked
the casual warmth of their people, the way they walked with heads high, unafraid. Since he had come to Central Domain he had
noticed how few people looked up, in case they met the eyes of a warlord’s man and were — what? Beaten for insolence, perhaps?
It was not like that in Cliff Domain, where the warlord’s men were a disciplined fighting force, respected for protecting
their people against raids by the Ice King’s men.

Perhaps my lord Thegan is right, he thought with a kind of despair. Perhaps what this country needs is to be brought together
under the rule of one overlord, someone who knows how to keep discipline among his men, someone who could protect the rights
of the ordinary people. But whether Thegan was the right person to do that, he did not let himself consider.

Leof knew that no matter what he said to Thegan, Baluchston’s freedom was over. The best he could do was prevent the sacking
of the town. There were lots of stories about the sacking of towns from earlier wars between Domains — Leof didn’t want to
be part of one.

He left the gradually lightening sky and went to Thegan’s command tent. Dawn was usually a good time to catch Thegan alone.

Thegan looked up from a pile of papers as Leof entered, and smiled at him.

“Just the man I need,” he said. “I want a thorough tally of who we have lost so that the families can be informed. You know
most of the men, don’t you, even the Centralites?”

“Yes, my lord,” Leof answered by rote. Then he took a breath and plunged in. “But there is another duty I would prefer.”

Thegan leaned back a little from his table and pushed the papers away, his eyebrows rising. He looked mocking and suddenly
older, as if Leof were an importunate child.

“Prefer? I don’t remember asking your preference, officer.”

There was a lump in Leof’s throat, which he had to swallow down.

“My lord, I would ask that you let me parley with Baluchston. Let me convince them to surrender.”

“To surrender the enchanter?”

Leof paused. He had to say this just right, or Thegan would take offense. “My lord, if I were that enchanter, I would have
left the town long ago. The town may not be able to produce him.”

“Then —”

“Then they must surrender to us, to prove their good faith,” Leof said hurriedly. “It seems to me that no matter what they
do, only the surrender of the town will prove their good intent.”

Thegan smiled slowly. “That is very well thought out, Leof. Yes. Good. You may put that argument to the Baluchston Voice.
I think they have kept the custom of a Voice, rather than a Mayor.” He paused for a moment, considering that. “In fact, it
could be argued that Baluchston is not, and never has been, a free town. It was not founded by Acton or his son. It keeps
the customs of a village. It has no charter with any warlord.” He smiled with genuine pleasure, seeing potential problems
with other warlords disappear with that argument. “It has no claim on anyone’s protection. Go and tell them so, and tell them
that they have until noon to make up their minds.”

Leof nodded and turned to go, his stomach churning. But he should have known Thegan would not let him go so easily.

“Leof?”

He made sure his face showed nothing as he turned back. Thegan was smiling, but it was the dangerous smile, the one that tightened
the corners of his mouth but didn’t reach his eyes.

“After you have parleyed, I want that list of the dead by noon.”

Leof nodded. “Of course, my lord.”

He left the tent with a sense of overwhelming relief, and realized that for a few moments he had been in as much danger as
Baluchston.

“Hodge,” he called as the sergeant went past. “My lord wants a tally of the dead. Get three of the men who can write to make
a list. Then come to my tent with an honor guard. We’re going to Baluchston.”

He rode in on Thistle, with Hodge and three others on matching bay geldings, Thegan’s honor guard horses which had somehow
escaped the wave. Men and horses were as polished as a quick brushup could make them and the Baluchston people stopped in
the street to look at them. Their expressions were odd: a mixture of fear and surety, as though they believed that, though
the soldiers could try, nothing could hurt them. But the trying would be painful.

Leof had been an officer of one kind or another since he was eighteen, carrying the burden of ensuring his men’s safety, but
he had never felt responsibility weigh so heavily before. Not soldiers but townsfolk at risk… Riding through the town
with everyone looking was like the beginning of a chase, when the competitors lined up in front of the crowd. He tried to
feel some of the same exhilaration chasing brought, but the stakes were much too high.

Leof knew, theoretically, how to handle this. He could not stop and ask for directions to the Voice’s house. Thegan would
say that would show weakness. So they rode to the market square, which led directly onto the Lake shore and the ferry wharves.
It was disconcerting, to have an open side to a town square, a side which moved and glinted as the current sent the Lake water
downstream toward the high, impassable falls that plummeted to the Hidden River. The open side made him uneasy, as though
the Lake were watching, as though the ground were shifting under his feet.

He stopped the small troop in the middle of the square and simply waited until, some minutes later, a fat old lady tramped
out of one of the shops and came to stand in front of him.

“I’m the Voice,” she said simply. “My name’s Vi. What can we do for you?”

Her voice was dark and somehow comforting, the voice of the wise old women of the fireside stories. Wise old women are sometimes
enchanters, Leof reminded himself. He gave the signal to dismount, swung down from Thistle and handed her reins to one of
the men, patting her absently on the flank.

“I speak for the Lord Thegan,” Leof said formally, bowing. “I would have speech with you on his behalf.”

She nodded and led him toward the draper’s shop from which she had emerged. A number of other townsfolk watched. Vi looked
at them as though to invite them to join the discussion, but they shook their heads.

“Best you handle it, Vi,” one called. She nodded and ducked into the dark interior of the shop.

Hodge began to follow them, but Leof signaled him to wait with the horses. Hodge didn’t look happy but he obeyed. Leof relaxed
a little. Better to have no witnesses to this.

“We don’t bother with a Moot Hall,” she said as she threaded her way past bolts of fabric, skeins of wool and a pile of cured
sheepskins. “We generally have our meetings in here.”

The room beyond was a light-filled kitchen, smelling of fried fish, centered around a large pine table, scrubbed white. Leof
stood, unsure. The protocol of a warlord’s fort he understood, but not that of a kitchen!

“Sit you down, lad.” Vi smiled with real humor, as though enjoying his uncertainty.

Suddenly Leof laughed. Solemnity wasn’t natural to him, and Vi’s casual welcome suited him much better than it would have
suited any of the other officers. Better to parley with humor and wisdom than with protocol and hostility. He sat down, not
at the head of the table, but in the middle, and Vi, as though appreciating his tact, sat opposite him and poured them both
some cha from a jug standing ready. Equals. His mouth twitched, imagining Thegan’s reaction to that. That sobered him.