The Waterless Sea (31 page)

Calwyn spun around in horror, clutching her ears. It took her a moment to comprehend what she saw, so extraordinary was the sight. The Palace was moving, gliding silent and ponderous as an armoured ship across a dry sea of sand. And it was moving toward them – Tonno grabbed Mica by the arm and pulled her away, his eyes wide with disbelief and horror. Calwyn swayed, frozen to the spot, as her mind whirled. The engine, the demonic engine – only Darrow knew the secret – Darrow must have set it off – ‘
Calwyn!
' Faintly Mica' s desperate scream reached her, and at last she found she could move her feet, and she ran.

Breathless, she stumbled after Tonno and Mica, feet pounding across the dirt. Clouds of red dust swirled around them until they coughed so hard they could no longer run. ‘It' s all right,' gasped Tonno at last, tears streaming. ‘It' s not coming after us –' Calwyn spun round: he was right. The three had run to the west, toward the setting sun, and their shadows stretched back to where the Palace loomed close to the edge of the plateau, scattering the troops who had scaled the rise. As they watched, the vast war-engine halted, then changed direction, gliding back across the plateau, crushing the sorcerers' gardens to pulp.

The procession of courtiers had almost caught up to the soldiers on the plain, but the sight of the moving Palace had thrown them into bewildered chaos. Curtained litters were dropped, and courtly ladies and gentlemen peered out, covered in dust, and exclaiming in distress. Servants fled in every direction, and laden
hegesi
bolted, bleating. Through it all, Calwyn could hear the shouted orders of the Army commanders, the clash and clatter of arms, and the hiss of swords being torn from their sheaths.

‘There must be war now!' she cried in despair. ‘What' s Darrow thinking?'

‘Darrow? Darrow never done this!' said Mica vehemently.

‘But he must have!' Calwyn was almost in tears. ‘No one else knows how!' With her heart in her throat, she stared up at the roof of the Palace. Was that movement there, a small dark shape darting? She squinted in the thick light of sunset.

The Black Palace, engine of war and destruction, sailed inexorably onward. ‘Release!' yelled the soldiers, and another huge boulder smashed into the Palace. Black splinters showered Calwyn, Mica and Tonno, and they flung up their hands to protect their eyes.

Calwyn gasped. With that impact, she' d seen movement again, at the very edge of the roof, and this time a dash of colour too: pink. She stared, and blinked, and stared again. ‘Mica, look! The roof! I think – I can see Keela!'

Mica peered upward. After a moment she said, ‘That' s her all right. You think
she
set it goin?'

‘It' s impossible,' said Calwyn. ‘Only a sorcerer –' She stopped. There was that splash of pink, and beside it, another, smaller figure, difficult to see in the fading light. The one in pink was Keela, she was sure of that. How did
she
get here? And who was that with her, that small figure – small enough to be a child – Mica jumped, and gave a little scream. ‘Calwyn! It' s
Oron
! Ain' t it? Can you see?'

‘Yes,' breathed Calwyn. Oron and Keela, in league together, somehow. . . It was Oron who had set the Palace going, not Darrow. She felt as if a great weight had lifted from her.

The soldiers loaded the catapult on the plateau, but before they could release the cup, the Palace swung around again, and they were forced to scatter. The sharp polished corner of the cube crunched down onto the catapult, splintering it into a thousand pieces, and grinding the boulder into dust.

What must it be like inside the Palace? Calwyn had been on a boat tossed by a fierce storm. She remembered her terror as she' d slid helplessly along the deck, not knowing which way the ship would pitch next. She pictured how the Palace' s inhabitants would slip on the polished floors, how their heads and limbs would slam into those unforgiving marble walls. Halasaa, Darrow, Heben, the twins –
Goddess, let them be safe!
She put her hands to her head. Was that a voice in her mind, pleading for help?
Halasaa? Is that you?

‘Calwyn, can' t you do nothin?' begged Mica.

Calwyn swayed, and clutched at Tonno' s hand. She whispered, ‘I don' t know – perhaps –' ‘What are you planning, lass?' asked Tonno quietly.

She couldn' t reply. The silent cry for help was all around her, vibrating up through her body, pulsing in her blood. It was not Halasaa; it was a greater force, a shapeless power that called to her.
Halasaa! Help me, help me!
But there was no one who could help her. Whatever she did, she must do it alone.

Abruptly she let go Tonno' s hand, and sank to her knees in the red dust. She pressed her palms flat down through the thick red dirt to the rock beneath. Just as when she' d sung to the
wasunti
, she felt the power of the land flow into her. The land, the sand, the rock, the desert. Merithuros. The wounded land, the suffering land.

‘Calwyn?What are you doin?'

Mica' s voice came to her, faint and dream-like. The clamour in her mind, the call for help, was more insistent: she must answer.

She closed her eyes.
I will try. I will try.
The power flowed through her hands, into the land, and from the land back into her, a seamless circle, a looping river.

From the river, the sea;
From the sea, the rains;
From the rains, the river.

Her lips moved, but she did not know what she sang. Halasaa' s voice came back to her.
Breathe.
And she breathed. The rhythm of the land' s breath was infinitely slow, as slow as a generation passing. Calwyn could not match that rhythm, but she could begin to sense the immeasurable respiration, a gentle wind that blew past her, around her, through her, an infinite slow
aaah
. In response, her own breath slowed, her heartbeat slowed. Now she was infinitely heavy, connected to the sorrow of the land, and she was infinitely light as she rested there, a dandelion seed, a speck of dust.

Down she reached, deeper and deeper still, through the layers of rock, through seams of gold and emerald, through underground lakes and seas, through rock that crumbled like cheese, and rock that was hard as flint, and, at last, the roiling, unquiet liquid rock that flowed beneath all the lands and united them, as the sea flowed and united the surface of Tremaris. That was where Merithuros ended, the land floating like a raft on that red-hot sea. Calwyn held the land beneath her dancing hands as she had held Oron' s wounded leg, aware of the whole, aware of the injury to the whole.

But holding onto that awareness was like trying to ride a furious tempest. Oron had been one small being; the life that pulsed through the lands of Merithuros was vast and seething. Trying to grasp its immensity, Calwyn was as helpless as a straw in a gale, as fragile as a scrap of snow in a blizzard. Terrified, Calwyn struggled for control.

But at the next moment, the tumult ceased. Suddenly, miraculously, it was as if she herself had become the storm; the wild, surging power was part of her, as she was part of it. Seamlessly, joyfully, she flew, soaring on the currents of becoming, and she saw it all, understood it all, as the power surged through her. In that single instant, she comprehended the whole.

Effortlessly her attention rose, up through all the layers of the land, up again to the surface, and travelled out across the spreading sands. This was where the wound lay, on the land' s skin. She saw, she grasped it all. Near the Palace, the troops, the scattered courtiers: fear and confusion. Beyond, in the mountains, the herders and
hegesi
, tracing their wandering tracks across and across the barren plains. And beyond, far beyond, the Clans, and the townsfolk, and the miners, the depleted lands,
arbec
and dry-grass, scuttling
nadi
and eagles that swooped, across and across the empty sky.

Halasaa' s voice echoed from deep in her memory.
Let your
strength flow – make it whole!
Exhilarated, she felt the power stream through her. She would, she could knit up this wound!

But even as she allowed herself to form the thought, the thought itself unbalanced her. Her attention slipped. She lost her vision, and all her confident sense of power. With a sickening wrench, she was helpless once more, hurled into the teeth of the storm, choking in a boiling cloud of dark poison gas: hatred and fear, the poison that steamed like sulphur from the wounded land. Thrashing panic rose, a part of her, inside and out; she breathed it with every choking breath.

Helpless in the grip of the deep magic she had called up, she knew she could not control it. The hurt that drained the land was too vast. Such a wound could never be healed, the Power of Becoming could never knit up such an injury. She was not strong enough, her gift was too small, and she was alone. Just like Samis, who had tried to summon up chantment greater than he could master, she was overwhelmed.

‘Calwyn! Are you all right?' Tonno' s voice was warm and urgent in her ear. ‘Calwyn! The Palace! We have to run!'

Briefly Calwyn returned to herself. The Black Palace loomed above her, the shriek of the pipes piercing her skull. Everywhere people were shouting and screaming. She tried to stand, but she couldn' t move.

Black panic engulfed her again, and as she lost herself in her own terror, all the pain of Merithuros entered into her. Unknowing, Calwyn gave a shuddering scream that pierced through the tumult that surrounded her. All her strength, all the light of her being, all the power of her magic, was pouring out of her, through her open hands and out, down into the ground. In that moment, there was no Calwyn; she was part of the land, part of its pain. The magic flowed from her, and through her, in an ever-changing, endless circle.
From the river, the
sea; from the sea, the rains; from the rains, the river.
She was the river, and the sea, and she was the rains, the black deluge of suffering, the roar of blind rage, the endless weeping of oblivion.

‘Calwyn!' Mica screamed. The Palace had changed direction. That uncanny music moaned across the plain as the engine bore down on them. The two tiny figures, one in pink, one in black, were at the very edge of the roof now. Both gestured frantically, flinging out their arms in helpless despair. ‘They can' t stop it!' gasped Mica. ‘Reckon they can' t steer it neither!'

As if to confirm what she said, the Palace swayed off-balance as it careered toward them. Calwyn still knelt on the ground, blind, deaf, paralysed. In desperation, Tonno seized Calwyn' s arm and tugged at it.

‘Don' t!' screamed Mica, sobbing. ‘Don' t you see, she
can' t
! It' s chantment – it' s
swallowin
her!'

Calwyn' s hands had sunk deep into the rock, and she gazed straight ahead, with unseeing eyes, like a statue. Her face was dead white.

‘She' s not breathing!' shouted Tonno, white with panic himself, and he shook Calwyn' s rigid body by the shoulders.

The sun had all but disappeared. There was a line of vivid red along the western horizon, but that was all. Directly above them, the sky was deep blue-black. It shaded down to the edge of the plain, paler and paler, bleached bone-white where it met the desert sand. The Palace, sleek and inexorable, loomed only three hundred paces away.

Suddenly Calwyn gasped a deep, shuddering breath, as if she had swum up from the depths of the ocean and sucked in the life-giving air as it burst over her head. Dazed, she stared at them, terror and bewilderment in her eyes. Her hands were trapped up to the wrists in the solid rock.

‘Calwyn, your hands, free your hands!' shouted Tonno. The Palace was within two hundred paces.

Uncomprehending, Calwyn stared down at her arms, at the rock that had closed over her hands. She moved her lips without a sound, swallowed, and moved them again. A faint croak issued from her throat, and she shook her head.

‘I can' t,' she murmured faintly. ‘I can' t sing... ' Limp as a rag doll, she swooned forward into Tonno' s arms.

‘Calwyn, Calwyn!' cried Mica.

‘Like Halasaa,' muttered Tonno, his face creased with concern.

As they bent anxiously over Calwyn' s slumped body, a lean figure sprinted toward them across the red dust from the Palace. Before they knew it, Darrow was at their side. He threw himself onto his knees beside Calwyn.

‘What happened?' he demanded, laying his hand on her pale forehead. Her eyes were closed, her breathing shallow.

‘She done some chantment, it were some chantment like Halasaa' s, but now she' s all sung out, and all for nothin, and the ground' s eaten her!' Mica wailed, barely coherent. ‘And that
thing' s
still comin!'

Darrow stood up. The vast engine leaned toward them, slowly sliding across the red dirt, obliterating garden beds and low stone walls, closer and closer. The soldiers had ceased their attack; they circled the Palace warily, but held their fire. And the sorcerers inside the Palace were silent, their chant-ment hushed. Courtiers hovered, unsure whether to stay or run. The Palace reared above them, only a hundred paces away. ‘Mica!' Darrow' s voice was quiet, but firm as steel. ‘Stop the winds above the Palace. Hold the air still.'

Then slowly, calmly, Darrow raised his hands, and sang. Puzzled, but obedient, Mica sang too, and as she held back the desert winds that drove the engine, one by one, invisibly, the blocks that had sealed the pipes on the roof of the Palace slid back into place. There were pipes as wide as the trunks of spander trees, and pipes as slim as Darrow' s wrist, and every size in between. He knew them all, and one by one, unhurriedly, he sang them shut.

Still the immense cube of the Palace came on, its razor-sharp edge only fifty paces away.

‘It' s still movin!' screamed Mica, abandoning her chantment. She flung herself down beside Calwyn and scrabbled with her bare hands at the rock that trapped her friend.