Deep Water (4 page)

Leof put the thought away from him and concentrated on getting this sortie right for his lord. The archers lined up a short
distance back from the shoreline and set arrows to their bows. Broc, a boy barely old enough to fight, ran along the line
with a blazing torch, setting each arrow alight, then stood well back from the horses so that none would be spooked by the
flames.

Leof raised his hand and dropped it again, and the arrows flew, bright as shooting stars, into the air and onto the reed beds.
It was a beautiful sight, the bright flame against the still-dark sky. They waited with all senses fully alert for response,
waited for the reeds to catch, waited for the flames to rise, licking, into the sky.

At first it seemed that nothing was happening. The fire arrows burnt among the reeds, throwing writhing shadows over them.
Then slowly, slowly, the reeds began to catch. Leof braced himself for the Lake’s response. Lord Thegan had warned him that
they had to stand firm against illusion. He had warned his men likewise and they were ready.

A deep vibration came from the Lake and the still water between the reeds began to whisper as though it were a quickly moving
current. Leof felt the ground shake beneath him. His horse reared and only his long experience in chasing allowed him to anticipate
the movement and jump off safely. Thistle tore the reins from his hand and bolted. Behind him, the other horsemen were falling
as their mounts reared and then raced away to the forest. The archers, confused, stepped back, away from the Lake. Then, from
beyond the reeds, there was a rushing sound, loud, sibilant, like wind through trees, like breath through giant lungs. It
was moving closer, and it was nothing human. The archers broke and fled into the trees, followed by the horsemen, some limping,
leaving only Leof standing firm; and Broc, behind him, clutching his torch.

“What is it, lord?” he asked.

The sound grew too loud to make a reply.
Illusion
, Leof thought,
to make us run away. I trust my lord. It’s only illusion.
Before him, out of the darkness, roared a wave mounting higher than a house, higher than a tree, a hill of a wave that loomed
above them. Broc screamed and ran, dropping the torch.

Illusion
, Leof told himself, just before the wave hit.

T
HE CEILING WAS
dark green, with wooden beams. Bramble had never seen a green ceiling before. She was more tired and more hungry than she
had ever felt in her life, and she was disoriented by waking in a room with a green ceiling.

Then she remembered, and her body of its own accord curled into a tight ball of misery, head on knees, trying to shut out
the world. Maryrose. Maryrose was dead.

She lay and shook for a while, remembering. She had died again, only this time it was her body that had died. She remembered
lying on the Well of Secret’s table, body in flames, arm hurting almost past her ability to bear it. Then she had — fainted?
Died.

But instead of being in the Well of Secret’s house she had been in Maryrose’s front room, and Maryrose was lying dead, with
Merrick next to her, dead, and she knew it wasn’t a dream. She had been glad she herself was dead, and she called out, “Wait
for me!” to Maryrose, so they could go on together to rebirth. She was glad to be out of it all, glad to be set free of whatever
destiny the gods had planned for her.

She called out again, “Wait for
me
, Maryrose!” in exactly the same way she had called out to her big sister when she was tiny and Maryrose walked too fast on
her longer legs.

And just like then, Maryrose heard her and came back for her. She — her spirit — appeared somehow, as though she had walked
in from another room through a door that wasn’t there, and stood looking at Bramble with the same loving annoyance as when
they were children.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

Bramble felt a moment of surprise. Ghosts weren’t supposed to be able to talk. “I’m dead,” Bramble said.

“Nonsense.”

“I am so!”

“Well, you shouldn’t be. Not yet. You’ve got work to do.” She pointed to her own body, lying limp on the floor. “You’re supposed
to stop all this.”

She put out her hands and turned Bramble so that she was facing the door, although ghosts were not supposed to be able to
touch anything, not even each other. “Go on, then. Get back there.”

Bramble hesitated, looking back to her. “Mam and Da? Granda?”

“They’re fine. They went back to Wooding for Widow Farli’s wedding to the smith. They missed all this.”

“Mare —”

“Oh, don’t worry,” Maryrose said, the exasperated big sister. “I’ll wait for you. We both will.” Bramble smiled and she smiled
back, exasperation melting into love. “You do what you’re told and go back.”

Then Maryrose pushed her between the shoulder blades and she took two steps and was through the doorway before she had finished
saying, protestingly, “Oh, Maryro-ose.” Then — nothing, until she had woken here, under this green ceiling.

She forced herself to uncurl. Maryrose was dead. Someone had killed her. It was Bramble’s job to stop whoever it was. So.
If that was the destiny the gods had in mind for her, she would embrace it. She would find the murderers, and disembowel them.

She lay for a moment, staring up at the ceiling, and then lifted her left hand, gingerly, to touch her shoulder. Her mind
remembered the pressure, the pain, the burning and nausea and sheer
wrongness
of that swollen arm. But her body didn’t. It was all gone. Cautiously, her head spinning, she sat up and examined her body.
Not even a scar. She was starving, her body clamoring to replace the energy she had lost.

Suddenly, her hunger was gone, replaced by awe. What kind of person could do that, heal without leaving a scar? To heal was
one thing, but to knit the flesh back to a state where it did not even remember being injured… that was tinkering with
powers deeper even than the local gods.

The room had three beds, covered with green blankets matching the light color of the walls. It was like being inside a forest.
She should find that comforting. She should be happy to be alive. Again. Twice she’d been pulled back from death by the power
of the gods; and this time, by Maryrose.

The first time, when the roan had saved her in the wild jump across the chasm outside Wooding, she had entered a living death,
her spirit split from her body, her senses dull, her heart empty except for love for the roan. It had only ended when she
became the Kill Reborn, truly reborn by some power in the running of the Spring Chase.

Would she go back to that death in life again? It didn’t feel like it. All her senses were sharp. She could hear footsteps
outside, climbing the stairs. She felt the bed linen under her thighs, the warmth of the late afternoon sun that slanted through
high windows to fall across her shoulders. Saw each individual dust mote as it danced in the sunbeam. Each beautiful detail
of the day filled her with grief and anger that Maryrose had been cut off from the world so viciously.

She was so weak she couldn’t even stand up. And she stank with old sweat. At that realization, her mouth twisted with amusement.
At least the Well of Secrets couldn’t bespell that away — she stank of the last few days and was glad of it.

Martine put her head around the door and smiled at her. “Hungry?”

Bramble nodded. If she was going to live, and find out what had happened to Maryrose, she had to eat. Martine came in with
a laden tray, followed by Ash who carried a basin and ewer, the water steaming from the top.

Bramble sniffed. “It’s true, I need that. One thing she couldn’t take away was the stink.”

Martine’s eyes crinkled with laughter and understanding as though she, too, found the Well of Secrets daunting and was glad
to make a little joke about her.

“Food first, though,” she said, handing Bramble a warm roll dripping with butter. It disappeared in two bites.

“That was the best thing I ever tasted,” Bramble said, wondering, feeling guilty that she could enjoy food knowing that Maryrose
was… she couldn’t think about that now. Her body was ravenous, demanding food, and she had to feed it. She had work to
do.

“Near death lends spice to living,” Martine replied.

“Not always.”

The young man, Ash, was busying himself tidying the two other beds. Bramble realized he was trying not to look at her in her
breast-bands. That was both endearing and a bit worrying. The last thing she needed was a youngling yearning after her. She
pulled the sheet up to cover herself. He had, after all, saved her life. Both of them had.

“I have to thank you,” Bramble said, pausing before devouring a mug of soup. It was hard to pause, she was so hungry. She
took a tiny sip. Asparagus and cream. Wonderful. “I owe you my life.”

Ash turned at that and Martine shrugged. “That’s what happens when you travel with a safeguarder,” she said, waving her hand
at Ash. “People get safeguarded.”

Bramble looked at Ash with new eyes and he flushed. Under his shaggy black hair, he was a bit older than she had thought,
and strong with trained muscle. He smiled at her tentatively and she realized that he was unsure of himself despite his strength
and agility. She smiled back.

“Thank the gods, then, that you came at the right time.” And the Lake, she thought, that sent me there right then. She remembered
leaving the Lake and being transported through time, late autumn becoming spring in a heartbeat. She shivered with remembered
awe. That was true power.

“Mmm,” Ash said. “It was their fault, all right.”

Ah, Bramble thought, so it’s not just me the gods have been ordering about. I’m not sure if that’s good or bad.

“After you’ve washed,” Martine suggested, “we should go to see Safred. The Well of Secrets.”

“The Well of Secrets,” Bramble echoed. “Yes. I suppose we must. After I’ve seen the horses.”

Fed, washed, dressed in clean clothes and with her horses well cared for in the rooming-house stables, Bramble walked around
the corner of an ordinary looking street to meet the Well of Secrets. She didn’t pause, or knock. If this Safred was a prophet,
she should be expecting them.

As she pushed open the big double doors, they were met by a tall, good-looking older man.

“Ah, you’re on your feet!” he said. “Good, good.”

It was odd to meet someone who clearly knew her but of whom she had no recollection. Bramble forced a smile. “Thank you for
your help.”

He waved that away and moved back from the door. “Come in, come in. I’m Cael, Safred’s uncle. They’re waiting for you.”

Sitting at a table were two women and a boy of about fifteen. The younger of the women, a girl really, had the dark, lean
looks of the Traveler and the flexible body of a tumbler or dancer. She sat with her legs drawn up on the chair, one arm around
a raised knee. She reminded Bramble of Osyth, though Osyth would never have sat so casually. Pless, where she had worked for
Osyth’s husband Gorham the Horsespeller, seemed a very long time ago.

The boy had light brown hair and was taller, gangly with the swift growth of youth.

Then there was the other woman. Red-headed, older than her, around forty, stout but not fat. Bramble forced herself to look
Safred in the eyes. Oddly, where she had expected to find something strange, something foreign, she found someone much like
herself. Not an ordinary woman, but a woman nonetheless, beset by the gods and carrying a destiny unasked for. There was humor
in the folds of her mouth and the lines around her intense eyes.

Bramble had no time for humor. “My sister’s dead,” she said. “Who killed her?”

Safred sat up straight, astonished. “How do you —” she began to ask.

Bramble cut across her. “Never mind how I know. Who killed her?”

Safred’s face sharpened with interest; with a kind of hunger. “Tell me how you know,” she asked again.

“Tell me who killed her.”

The Well of Secrets wasn’t used to being resisted. She swallowed and sat back in her chair, mouth tight. “His name is Saker.”

“Saker?” Martine asked. Bramble had almost forgotten she and Ash were there.

“That is his name, the enchanter, the one who raises ghosts. Saker. A bird of prey. He has a flock of falcons at his command.
Last night, he loosed them onto new victims. In Carlion.”

Martine and Ash looked shocked.

“Ghosts?” Bramble asked. “Maryrose wasn’t killed by ghosts. She was almost cut in two. Ghosts can’t do that sort of thing.”

“These can.” Safred looked at Martine and Ash. “Tell her.”

Martine described the attack on Spritford. The maimings, the deaths, ordinary people cut down in their homes and on the street
by ghosts who could hold a weapon and use it against the living. An unstoppable force, because they could not be killed themselves.

The young man and woman listened with appalled interest, but it was clearly old news to the big man, Cael, although he asked
several questions about the ghosts and the way they had looked and spoken. Bramble was astonished that anyone could make ghosts
speak. Ash looked fixedly at the table at that point, as though he were not proud of the ability.

Bramble sat for a moment after Martine finished. “What does he want?” she asked finally.

“He wants the Domains,” Safred said.

“Why?”

Safred picked up a jug of cha and began pouring out cups and handing them around. She gestured to Bramble and Martine and
Ash to sit down, and they did.

“We don’t know,” she said reluctantly. “Yet. All we know is that the ghosts are those who have been dispossessed and are still
angry. Perhaps they are taking back what was theirs before the invasion.”

“Do we know where he is, so I can go and kill him?” Bramble asked. There was silence. She looked around the table at the mixture
of surprise and shock in the others’ faces. “What? It’s the simplest solution.”

Ash nodded agreement, and then looked unsure. He took the cup of cha and sipped, staring at the tabletop.