Brinlin Isle

  Robin Stephen

  Prelude

  Marim stumbled down the hill, her sea bag heavy on her shoulder and her thoughts a wild scramble. Kix’s emotions, intense but muddled, made her own blood boil with a directionless thirst for revenge. Why is he so angry? Revenge for what?

  She had no time to sort it out, no time to try to understand. The sight of the ship drifting slowly away from the quay seemed to replay in her mind, the captain staring down from his place at the rail. He’d seen her, and it had made no difference.

  She was stranded. But worse, according to Cockram, the mob she’d seen on her way up to the harbor was hunting her.

  The smart thing to do would be to get out of Lan Dinas. She had her bag back now, her tablets, spellbook, food, extra clothing. She could go to the forest everyone was so afraid of. Kix could learn to hunt rabbits and small game. She could carve out an isolated life beneath the trees, at least until the simmering hatred in this place came down from a boil.

  But Marim had a bad habit of not doing the smart thing.

  Cockram was heading for Embriem’s. The woman in the shifting cloak was following him. Marim was following the woman.

  In the darkness, hurrying down the narrow track, Marim tried to make a complete list of facts – things she knew about her situation without a doubt. I am stranded among people who believe I am an abomination.

  It was not a promising start to her list. Before she could get any further, Embriem’s house came into view. Marim stopped short, arrested with the force of her surprise.

  The mob was there, filling the space between the road and Embriem’s stately mansion. Many carried torches. Others carried primitive weapons, like pitchforks and the strange, barbed hooks used to harvest reeds. She remembered the angry muttering she’d overheard, the dark energy that seemed to writhe and coil among these people, pushing them on. There are so many of them, she thought. So many people who hate me.

  If these people were here on Embriem’s doorstep, angry, looking for vengeance, it was because of Marim. She stood in the shadows on the other side of the road, quivering with uncertainty. If any one of these people saw her, that dark energy would take over. Would they kill her? Did they hate her so much as that?

  She remembered the spark in Cockram’s eyes, the way he’d tried to stop her on the road, Kix’s sudden thirst for revenge. Revenge for what?

  Marim’s body seemed to remember what her mind could not. Her throat felt suddenly tight, her breathing growing shallow and laborious. She seemed to remember kneeling in the wet fog, listening to the sound of a scuffle. Kix’s angry cry, a man’s scream.

  The thoughts faded. On the edge of the crowd, Marim saw the two figures she’d been following. The man, Cockram, had stopped to stare at the assembled group of people as well. The woman, with her carved staff and shifting cloak, stood behind him. Up on the road, she’d thought them enemies. Now, she noticed a certain similarity between them – the way they both stood with their weight on their heels, the lift of the chin, the set of the shoulders.

  Even as she puzzled about this, the man suddenly surged to life. He spun on the woman, holding something small and silver in his hand. Is that a stunrod?

  Black memories rose up from the depths of Marim’s mind. She seemed to feel again the blank shock, the fuzzing pain that made her whole body seize into paralysis.

  Before, Marim had been confused and scared, but also a little bit curious.

  Now, she was terrified.

  As she watched the man’s quick, lashing blow, she saw the woman was not ready. She’d be hit, for sure, and she would fall just as Marim had fallen so often beneath the stunrod Nylan had used against her.

  Who is this man? The fear had a sharp grip on her stomach now. What have I overlooked about this place?