The Ferrymen

  * * *

   

  “Stroke.”

  A slight splash as six oars touched the surface of the lake in perfect unison. A ripple as the boat surged forward at the behest of powerful arms.

  “Ship oars.”

  The boat drifted, slowed, and touched gently against the dock. The oars were already lying along the side when an insubstantial voice emerged from the Mist. “We have much to stow– get the ferrymen to help.”

  Ufoo watched as Martin, at the rear of the boat, took a rope and tied off. He danced knots with Gallio in the bow– a loop and over, back and through and pull– without missing a beat.

  The wizard was already scrambling over the wale, holding his robes and concentrating. Ufoo followed at a more leisurely pace. His robes were as long as the wizard's but he did not have any trouble. Five hundred years could do that to a man, he decided, mind-mesh or no.

  The ferrymen walked down the dock together, one line. Ufoo at the front, the oldest, though that did not mean much. Then Tynon, Ledat, Martin, Gallio and Barosta. In the whiteness, hoods up, they might have been the same man, repeated, a stutter in time. They swirled the Mist like the boats never did.

  The Mist must be thinner here, Ufoo said in his mind. It was the first time he had communicated through the mind-mesh. It was the first time he had thought to try.

  Martin, youngest of them all, a ferryman for but a century, answered as if this speech were an everyday occurrence. It must be that it is nearer the edge.

  How far, do you suppose? Gallio asked silently.

  But who could tell? Ufoo stared into the Mist, as if he might see where it ended.

  Where the dock met the land a dozen large boxes had been piled haphazardly on the bare earth. Canvas bags were scattered about this shoal like walruses. A dozen people huddled at the base of a crumbling, solitary wall. A handful of wizards loitered.

  “Get started then.” Another wizard emerged from the Mist. He was much more impressive than the others– tall and lean and fierce of countenance. Magnifico Sarquill. His purple robes announced his supreme position even if his manner had not. He dominated the scene like a whale dominated a tide-pool.

  The men and women by the wall leapt to their feet and rushed forward to take up the burdens. Barosta had already taken one end of a box and a woman, unthinking, stooped to take the other. Ufoo watched as she strained at the weight for a moment.

  Perhaps you would like me to help? he asked Barosta silently, with a slight smile that could not be seen outside his mind. He moved slowly forward and placed a hand on the woman's bare shoulder.

  She started, and Ufoo did the same. He could feel her life through his hand, pulsing like the tides of an ocean of fire, even as he passed though into her. She spun to look at him and he looked into her eyes, dark, and at the crescent scar on her cheek. Then, but a moment after it had all started, she smiled slightly and stepped away. The contact was broken. The reciprocal flow ceased.

  Ufoo breathed deeply, continuing to watch the woman's face, still seeming to feel the life of her in his hand. He wondered if all life felt like that– Galley Island had been so long shrouded in Mist that nothing lived there. No plants. No animals. Just the ferrymen. And they, it seemed, were hardly alive either.

  With the tips of his fingers tingling and his attention locked on the woman's face, Ufoo bent his back and took up the burden of the box. Reluctantly he broke eye contact as he shuffled down the dock toward the boat, pushme-pullyou with Barosta.

  We will need two trips if all of the boxes weigh the same, Ledat said, close behind with Tynon, lugging a box.

  Yes. The memory clinging to the tips of Ufoo's fingers sent fanfares of excitement through his body. Her dark eyes...

  Gallio was seeing to the loading of the boat; stowing cargo out of the way beneath and between seats, making sure the balance was held; and when their burden had been set down, Barosta silently went to help.

  Ufoo turned about and started to make his way back to shore, Ledat and Tynon close behind. His sandalled feet thudded on the aging timbers and swirls of Mist clung to him like seaweed. Ahead of him the Mist danced to mark the passage of another person. He cast out the mind-mesh to catch the person's essence. And he watched in his mind as the she came nearer.

  “Thank you, ferryman.” Just like all those years ago. How long had it been? She did not slow her stride. With one of the bags over her shoulder, the woman used her free hand to touch at his arm for a moment. And then she was past him and lost to the whiteness.

  Ufoo did not know how she had been sure of his identity. Perhaps, to the world, all ferrymen were as good as the same man– one mind in half a dozen bodies. And perhaps now, with the mind-mesh, they might just be right. But he did not think the woman believed that– she had looked into his eyes, whether she had seen or not. The ferryman stared at the place on his arm where the woman's hand had momentarily rested. Droplets of Mist were gathering there, quickly replacing the sheen of moisture the contact had dispersed.

  How long since another human has touched you? Ledat asked, sliding past Ufoo's distraction.

  Four hundred and... eighty years. Ufoo shrugged. Perhaps.

  It is a long time.

  Suddenly, Ufoo stopped and his two companions continued on, gliding silently into the whiteness. The ferryman waited alone, looking out along the dock towards where the boat was tied. He watched in his mind as a man, sack slung over his shoulder, approached from landward and moved by without comment, without even looking away from his bare feet. And a moment later Martin went by as well, a bag over each shoulder.

  Eventually, the woman returned.

  “You waited for me?” She smiled, pushing a tangle of dark hair away from her face, hooking it behind her ear. Ufoo nodded.

  “Can you not talk?” Her eyes searched the shadows created by his hood.

  The ferryman shook his head, but even as he did he felt his companions tangling the weaves of the mind-mesh. “I can not speak,” Ufoo said after a moment. “But this is close enough that it will not matter.”

  The woman started to walk again, pausing after a few steps to see if Ufoo was coming. He strode forward to catch up.

  “I feel like I have know you all of my life ferryman.”

  “You have. I saw when you were first brought to the Isle. A child. You almost fell when you boarded the boat.”

  “I cannot even remember that.”

  Tynon and Ledat passed silently by. Ufoo could feel them in his mind, helping hold together the web that let him speak.

  “I can.”

  The two of them stepped from the timber of the dock onto the cold lifeless earth. Two men stumbled by, one on each end of a wooden box, faces red with exertion.

  “You two,” a wizard said, emerging from the Mist. “Get the boxes to the boat first.”

  Ufoo looked at the box and knew that the woman would not be able to carry it. He had no idea how the others had managed. The woman stepped forward, regardless, but he did not move. She turned to look back at him.

  “We will need two trips,” Ufoo said softly. “The boxes will not all fit in the boat.”

  The wizard stared. “Did you just...?”

  And Magnifico Sarquill appeared by the first wizard's shoulder, whether by magic or a trick of the Mist was not clear.

  “Did you speak, ferryman?”

  Ufoo said nothing.

  “You did, did you not?”

  “Yes, Magnifico, I spoke. In a way.”

  “Your tongue should have been cut out, ferryman, for good reason.” The Magnifico strode forward until he was just a yard from Ufoo. “How do you speak? And why do you think you have the right to speak?”

  Ufoo pushed back his hood. His head was bald, his skin pale. A crooked nose arched out over a square jaw like a figurehead on a barge. He kept his dark, sunken eyes lowered. “My tongue was removed– I do not know how I speak.” The words were clear, but his lips did not move.

  “You speak with magic,
that is how you speak.”

  Ufoo suddenly felt the other ferrymen in his mind like never before, empowered by his moment of rebellion. Threads of consciousness overlapped his, weaving complicated patterns, forming knots.

  I would like to see a tree, Gallio said softly through the link.

  I would like to catch a fish. Martin wove tighter strands, dancing magic with Gallio like they had danced knots earlier. I used to be a fisherman, you know?

  And they were all there, speaking of memories long buried beneath the Mist of Minyon Dar. Fresh bread and honey. Butterflies and foxes. Sunshine and dry clothes. Laughter and music.

  Ufoo had owned a tin whistle, he remembered. As a boy living with his parents at the edge of a village he had played 'The Mesden Maid' and 'Coldshank's Three'. His mother had told him he played very well. His mother was... a small woman? Ufoo hung a baited hook in the past, but the memory would only nibble– it would not bite.

  He raised his eyes with the strength of his companions. “Very well then– I speak with magic. But what makes you think you have the right to stop me from speaking?”

  “What makes me think I have the right? I have earned the right to do whatever I please, ferryman. I have spent my life earning the right. Now, complete the loading of the boat, or be prepared for the punishment.”

  “Two things, Magnifico. One– we will need two trips, for the boxes will not all fit in the boat. And two– what makes you think you can punish me?”

  “I can kill you, ferryman. Unfortunately, there are plenty more where you came from.” The Magnifico raised a bejewelled hand to fling a magic bolt.

  Ufoo could feel it building, a storm on the horizon, as the wizard muttered under his breath. He was unconcerned. He could feel the others; Tynon, Martin, Ledat, Barosta and Gallio; they were all unconcerned. They were weaving and knotting and twisting, nudging their minds into different shapes. Shifting focus. Honing thoughts.

  “How old are you, Magnifico?”

  The wizard's incantation was suddenly suspended, but Ufoo could still feel it hanging in the air.

  “What?”

  “How old are you?”

  The wizard pecked at the edges of the question like a curious seagull. He wanted to know where it was leading. “I am three hundred years old.”

  “And how long have you been Magnifico?”

  “A hundred and fifty years.”

  “And how many ferrymen have you appointed in that time?”

  “I... One.”

  Ufoo felt the Magnifico's shock as he grasped the point.

  “There are six ferrymen now. And in the past five hundred years, six have been appointed.” Ufoo smiled. “Magnifico, what makes you think you can kill me when time can not?”

  The wizard completed the incantation. Ufoo watched as the bolt travelled, unseen, through the air. He heard it crackle and sizzle in his consciousness and stood calmly as it struck the mind-mesh and dispersed.

  “It is... ironic... really,” Ufoo said. “For centuries the growing power of the wizards has been shown by the spreading Mist of Minyon Dar. And because we have lived in that Mist for centuries we now have the power to defeat you, for it is filled with magic itself. All of our years are stitched together with magic.”

  Sarquill threw another bolt of energy that proved as harmless as the first. The other wizards started arriving, a silent call gathering them. But eight would never be enough. Ufoo knew that eight hundred would never be enough. He did not move. The ferrymen were in his mind, weaving patterns that they had not understood a moment before, building defences and weapons, the six of them working as one.

  And through Ufoo, they struck.

  It was over in a moment. The wizards attacked individually, unable to join their powers. And each one was struck down where he stood. A nudge of the weft. A touch of the weave. Ufoo did not move as he watched the wizards fall, tangled up in the net of magic, the sparks of their lives dragged to the surface of mortality.

  And then there were none.

  Ufoo looked at the bodies for a moment, then crossed slowly to where the woman lay. She was on the ground, hands covering her ears though not a sound had been made.

  He crouched by her side. “It is all right. It is over.”

  She did not speak, merely looked into his eyes. He stared back and for a moment was drowning in her depths.

  “It is over,” he said again, when he had struggled back to the surface.

  “Over? What do you mean?” She looked about, saw the bodies and blanched slightly. “They are dead?”

  The ferryman rose to his feet.

  The Mist was receding, the edge shredding on a breeze that came from the west. He could see the other ferrymen, returning from the boat with the mortals slinking along behind.

  My mother was a small woman, Ufoo said silently, the memory suddenly returning. She had golden hair, twisted into one long plait. She had fine, long fingers. She had laughed often. The mind-mesh did not reach into the deeper recesses of his consciousness, so the other ferrymen could not understand, but Ufoo thought that he could see them grasping at memories of their own.

  “My name is Marnee,” the woman said in his present, reeling him back to the shore. “I come from Dalasha.” She slipped a shaking hand into his and the flow of life resumed.

  “I am Ufoo. I come from...” He looked about. With the shredding Mist, the landscape was coming into view like the memories. But he could not seem to concentrate on anything more than an interlocking of fingers. “There is a small village about ten miles from here... at least there was. I lived with my mother and father.”

  “Hogas?”

  “Yes, that is it. Hogas.”

  “It is still there.” She pointed with her free hand. “Beyond that hill, in a valley by a stream.”

  “Yes, I remember.” Ufoo smiled. “I used to play with... Alat and his sister, Vari. We built rafts and castles, and spent days in the forest.”

  “That must have been a long time ago, Ufoo. There is no forest now, just fields.”

  “Yes, Marnee, a long time ago.”

  She leaned against him.

  A dull, grey landscape was opened up for view. Not twenty yards away denuded trees, arthritic fingers grasping for the cloud-striped sky, stood watch over the bones of a dozen buildings. The waters of the lake, touched by the wind for the first time in more than a century, rippled and danced, rushing away from the land like a child from strangers. Out beyond the end of the dock the mist was still there, seemingly as solid as it had ever been. Ufoo smiled– there were still wizards in the world, but they could be defeated. The Mist could be dispersed on the wind.

  Ufoo turned and led the way through the ruins of the village, skirting around the stone boxes that had contained people's lives before the wizards had come. They followed grooves worn by the passing of feet in the years before the time of those feet had passed. Ufoo clung to Marnee's hand like a captain to the helm during a storm, beyond the village and up a hill.

  At the top, a ship on the crest of a wave, he took a moment to get his bearings. While he stood, Marnee took his arm and draped it over her shoulder.

  Ufoo looked down at her, and was surprised when she stepped around in front of him, laid a hand on his arm, and stood on her toes to kiss him. She seemed surprised herself.

  The kiss lingered and the ferryman thought he felt the world pause for a moment.

  “You smile well, ferryman,” Marnee said softly.

  The sun broke out into the clear for the fist time.

  “There is much to smile about.” Ufoo looked about again, marvelling at the colours of sky and water. Revelling at the touch of the wind, at the touch of her body against his. “The anchor of the world will soon be cut free. The sky is blue overhead and your hand is warm in mine. What more could I ask for.”

  “The anchor...?” Marnee gave a slight, bemused smile. “Ufoo, if the wizards are an anchor, then they stop us from crashing against the rocks, they do not hold us back.” She
kissed his cheek. The gentle wind of her breath ruffled a memory in Ufoo's mind as he considered her words.

  Vari, from Hogas. The girl he had played with as a child. He could remember kissing her, as well, could remember holding her in his arms. His first love. And centuries later– his second love? He kissed Marnee, and her life danced under the tips of his fingers, in the touch of his lips, keeping time with his heart.

  They stop us from crashing against the rocks, he thought. And as he lingered, more memories swam into his mind.

  Vari again. He was with her by the river, kissing. But she was not as willing as Marnee. The girl of his past struggled, screaming and pushing him away. But he continued to kiss her, forcing her back onto the ground and tearing away her clothes. She was so much smaller than he, and could not stop him.

  At the top of the hill, Ufoo surged away from the Marnee, wiping at his mouth with a shaking hand. He was crying, for the first time in generations.

  What have I done? he asked, unintentionally speaking for the ferrymen to hear and bringing the memories to the surface like a sea-monster not made for the eyes of the world. His crime was there for them all to see, and the wizards handing down the punishment.

  The other ferrymen stood in a line, silent, watching Ufoo, seemingly unperturbed by these revelations. And he could then see their crimes, as bad as his or worse. He took another step back.

  Marnee was obviously distressed by the sudden rejection and Ufoo thought his heart, newly discovered, would break. He looked into her eyes again, wanting to wipe at a tear as it broke over the scar.

  Help us take back our lives. Barosta took a step forward. We committed crimes, all of us, but surely we have paid the price and more.

  “Evil is not so easy to banish.” Ufoo said softly, ignoring the ferrymen and examining the details of Marnee's face. “But we all must do our bit.”

  You are one of us, Ufoo.

  “What are you saying? What do you mean?” Marnee took a hesitant step towards him, one hand hovering.

  “The ferrymen, my brothers, wish to be rid of all the wizards.”

  The world is ours to take, and you worry about a woman!

  The memory of Vari's blood stained face haunted him. And the vision of Marnee's face, similarly marred, intervened. If he had done such a terrible thing once, in a moment of misplaced passion, could he not do the same again? He halted the passage of her next tear. Marnee let her fluttering hand settle on his forearm, an albatross coming in to land, a burden he could not bear.

  Ufoo shook his head, still ignoring his companions, still staring at the woman. Thinking. “Without me, Marnee, the ferrymen are merely men. It takes six of us to work the magic of the mind-mesh. All six.”

  Do not deny us, Ufoo.

  But to Ufoo the whole world was not as important as the one woman standing in front of him.

  “Power is shaped by the person who wields it,” Marnee said. “If you desire peace and happiness, Ufoo, then make it happen. The wizards try but they are not all powerful.” She held his gaze. “There are evil individuals among them, like these today who would have harmed you.”

  But she did not know what he had done. She thought him a saviour, when he knew differently. She saw only the calm of his face, and not the dangerous currents that lay below the surface.

  “Power is what you make of it,” she said.

  And Ufoo knew she was right. And he knew how he had wielded power in the past– Vari screamed in his mind, begging for mercy under the trees beside the stream. “But the past can not be forgotten.” The ferrymen could destroy the wizards, that much was obvious, but who else would they destroy along the way? And when would they stop?

  “It can not be forgotten, you are right, but it can be forgiven.”

  Ufoo leaned forward and touched his lips to the scar on Marnee's cheek as he gently worked at the mind-mesh. He kissed the beach of her forehead and the wave of hair that broke there, weaving and shaping. And the promontory of her nose as he knotted and twisted. “Evil is not so easy to banish, Marnee, but we must all do our bit.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I can reshape the world Marnee, but if you were hurt because of me...” Ufoo had finished his weaving.

  His companions realised what he was doing, but too late.

  The ferryman snapped one of the threads of the mind-mesh and the tension was so great, the pattern so intricate, that everything unravelled in an instant. Ufoo collapsed, going down like a broached barge. The other ferrymen went with him.

  Marnee dropped to her knees by his side, a horrified look on her face.

  “Don't do this to me,” she shouted as the last of his consciousness started to slip away. “Don't do this to me.”

  “But I do it for you, so that you can be truly free.” Ufoo smiled weakly, the energy draining from he.

  “I am free now, you fool.” But he was gone already.

  The ferrymen were all gone.

  Marnee knelt by his side and cried. “Love is not something you die for,” she said softly. “It is something you fight for.”

  And as the sun sank in the west, a wizard rode to the top of the hill. He rushed to the woman's side and gently helped her to her feet so that he could lead her away from the bodies.

  “What happened?” he asked. “Did they hurt you?”

  “Yes, they hurt me,” Marnee replied. “They hurt me terribly.”

  The wizard shook his head. “Some things never change.”

   

  Excerpt from

  Tribes of the Hakahei 1:

  The Space Between

   

   

  Prologue