“Ah,” said the Hag, drawing a breath like a sigh, as if she had witnessed it all at first hand. “It gets no easier, lassie. But you’ll have the strength for it. When the time comes, you surely will.”
I learned to summon the small strange creatures of rock shelf and skerry. I learned to call the beings of shore and cliff face. A sizable clan of uncanny folk lived there, concealed in chinks and crannies, existing alongside the roosts of seabirds. Gulls would rise, startled, as a stony visage or mossy head poked up out of the rocks to look about.
Sometimes Herself would take me out in the boat and make me call beings of the deep, fey ocean creatures with long fronded tentacles that would swim alongside us awhile, moving with their own stately grace. I learned to control my seasickness. I learned to keep my breathing steady, though the boat still scared me. I learned to concentrate on the call and block out everything else. Sometimes creatures died because of what I did, though only in the natural way of those that live in the ocean or on the shore. I was not sure she understood what this cost me. But sometimes I thought perhaps she knew all too well, since I had done the same when I bid the stanie mon fall, and when the river being drowned one man and turned two into fish at my request. I learned that in the end, only I was responsible for my actions.
Herself was good at springing surprises—the sudden appearance of the selkie on the boat, come from nowhere at all; an abrupt change from calm to storm, so I nearly fell overboard; a flock of gulls swooping down to circle me, squawking, as I attempted a particularly difficult call.
“You must be prepared for anything,” she told me. “The expected, the unexpected. The sudden shock; the betrayal that creeps up on you with gradual pace, so it’s at your back door before you recognize it.” She reached out to take my hands in hers. “Be as fluid as water, and as strong. Nothing stops water. Water is eternal.”
When Tali’s rock was covered in a forest of scratches, there came a day when my teacher made me stand at the cave mouth with my eyes shut from early morning until the sun was in the west, its rays warm on my face. A long vigil: I knew I was being tested.
Her instruction, when it came, was familiar. “Find a shoal of fish, swimming northward now beyond the headland there. All are fey. Among them, find one with a red dot below its left eye.”
Far quicker now from daily practice, I had it soon enough. The glittering shoal, and the tiny minds quite alien to my own. One among the many had a slightly greater space around it, as if its fellows shrank a little from it. The small red mark.
“Follow this creature as the others leave it.”
They swam off, sunlight through the water catching their movement and turning it to a shining streak before they vanished. One fish left alone, a tiny speck in the immensity of the sea.
“Follow him.”
This was harder; the creature was so tiny, and he swam in short, panicky darts, now here, now almost out of sight. I bent all my will on tracking him as he moved through the water. I was the water. I was his terror, his need for survival.
He swam up to the surface, the sun lending him a sudden brightness. Above, the dark shadow of a gull, hovering.
“My creatures are efficient hunters,” came the Hag’s voice from beside me. “Keep your wee one safe. Keep him alive.”
It was the hardest call I had yet attempted. The small one was in a panic, every sense attuned to flight, deafened by fear. He darted one way, then the other, deeper, shallower, in and out of the light. The gull was in no hurry; it kept pace, beating its wings a few times, then gliding above the prey, waiting for the right moment to snatch. My call had no words in it. I was the sea current washing the small one toward the concealment of the reef; I was a wavelet moving a tiny raft of floating debris over to hide him. I was a watery embrace, cradling him, bearing him to safety. Not much farther. Come, come on.
“Your wee one is flagging. Do not let him die.”
He was exhausted. His mind was blank with terror, adrift and helpless. The gull hovered, ready for the strike.
I was not aware of making a choice. I called Come up! and in my mind was Himself, a powerful and ancient island presence, grave and good and kindly. Come up and save this wee one from death. All that I had learned, all that the Hag had taught me, and all that I knew before, I put into the call. The words in my mind were simple, but my intention included far more: Do no harm as you come, to yourself or to any creature. I hope you will see this as an amusement, not as an imposition. I tried to hold both selkie and fishling in my mind: great and small, strong and weak.
I did not see what happened, exactly. Even if my eyes had been open, we were too far away, too high up. But I felt it. The water moving, the selkie cleaving a powerful path through the waves, the little fish finding itself washed sideways under a projecting shelf of rock, where it sheltered in a minuscule cavern. The selkie passing by to surge up from the water and plunge down again in play, and the gull in its neat boots flying high, swooping low, until it became quite obvious the whole thing was a game. I opened my eyes to find that both selkie and gull were indeed visible, down below us in the sun-touched waves, dancing about as if mightily pleased with themselves.
I swayed, suddenly dizzy.
“Sit down.” The Hag took hold of my arm, moved me back from the cave mouth, and helped me sit. “Eat, drink, rest awhile.” She fetched the food herself, making sure I drank from the waterskin, dividing the supplies into two portions. I could hardly summon the strength to pick up a piece of bread, let alone take a bite of it.
“Eat,” she said again. “You surprised me. Took a harder path. You could have called the bird. What if Himself had decided not to cooperate?”
“Then I would have made an error in thinking I had learned enough to summon him.”
Herself smiled, revealing her sharp white teeth. “None of those tricky answers, lassie. It’s not the Master of Shadows you’re dealing with. Say plainly why you made that choice, and don’t mince your words.”
“I thought you were testing me. It seemed a good time to try … another step.”
“Testing yourself, aye?”
I could not tell if she was pleased or offended by what I had done. “I meant no disrespect. Even though Himself does not talk to me, not in words, I sense he is very wise. And I think he enjoys a joke. If I had not known that, I would not have called such a powerful being when this was only an … exercise.” I hesitated. “No, that’s not quite right. There was a life in the balance, and every life matters. It burdens me that some were lost along the path of my learning. Every life is precious, from the smallest to the most powerful. From a wee fish to … yourself.” The only thing I did not add, would not, was that I thought maybe she and the selkie were a team in more than one way; that perhaps he moderated her magic and her choices, even to the extent of being her equal in power and influence. This was a deep kind of knowledge, one that lay beyond words.
“Aye,” was all the Hag said. “Oh, aye.”
We shared the food in silence, then she made me rest awhile, lying on the cave floor breathing in slow patterns until I had recovered my strength. It was a long time before she spoke again.
“Do not be concerned about overreaching yourself. You understand the natural order of things; you’re in no danger of forgetting it. If you were, I would not be teaching you. It’s a balance you must always keep, Neryn, for a Caller must on the one hand be sure and confident in the use of the gift, and on the other hand have no desire for personal power, no ambition to rule or to dominate. You know the perils that could lead to.”
“I do.”
“You understand, don’t you, that if you should fall into the hands of the king, he’d likely not want to destroy you, but to use your gift for his own ends?”
“Yes. We’ve known that from the first.”
“Then take the greatest care on your journey, for although your gift is not yet fully developed, it is strong. The risks are high. You carry within you the power to save Alban from this
king’s tyranny. You carry also the potential for great harm, should others seek to turn you to their will.”
“I understand.”
“Well, then,” she said. “You’ll be off to the north, and good luck to you.”
It took me a moment to understand. “You mean … I am finished here?” And on my lips was the word Already? though that was quite the opposite of what Tali would have said. It did not seem possible that I had learned all the Hag had to teach me.
“For now. I think we will see you in the isles again someday. But you’ve a long journey ahead of you before that time comes. The Lord of the North … they say his folk cannot wake him from sleep, for he’s sunk deep in sorrow. They may welcome you, if they believe you can rouse him. The White Lady has long kept her light veiled; she will be hard to find. As for the Master of Shadows, he is a wayward creature. There’s no knowing what to expect from him.”
I was still recovering from the startling fact that I was released from training and free to go. I knew these were good tidings. If we moved quickly, we could be at Shadowfell in time to see the others; with luck, I might complete my training with the Lord of the North before winter. But …
“You look less than delighted,” the Hag observed dryly.
“I am … pleased. Surprised. And sad that I will be leaving the isles. You’ve given me a rare gift. The learning has been hard at times. Testing. Different. But I will miss it, and I will miss you.”
She grinned. “Now, that does surprise me. Should I have been harder on you, I wonder? Crueler? Or is it not me you’ll be missing, but Himself, with his quiet way of getting into folk’s hearts?”
“I will miss both of you, and I will miss the isles and the fine people who live here. This place is like the Alban of old, Alban as it should be. I never lived in that Alban; Keldec became king in the year of my birth. If we win our war, if we restore peace and justice and ordinary lives for everyone, I would like to settle here. With … with my man. But I shouldn’t say that. I shouldn’t even think it. That’s perilous. It’s forbidden.”
Her grin had faded. “You need your dreams,” she said. “You need hope. Go on now, tell your friend the good news, for it is good, and say your farewells to the folk who have helped you.”
“We’ll have to arrange a boat—”
“One of the lads will ferry you over. We’d best send a bird to eye out the situation at Pentishead, make sure it’s safe for you. Tell your guard not to rush into anything. Wait for my word.”
“Of course. And thank you. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.”
“Ach, away with you! Be brave, be strong, be wise. That will be the best thanks for me.”
On the shore at Pentishead, a boat was burning. I saw the smoke as we headed northward on a fishing vessel crewed by a pair of taciturn islanders, and Tali with her sharp eyes told us what it was. There were Enforcers in Pentishead, so our boatmen would be dropping us at Darkwater instead. I sat in the stern, keeping out of the way, my mind full of the night my father died. In a boat moored at the Darkwater jetty. A boat all aflame. As my belly churned with sick memory, I told myself, Be brave, be strong, be wise.
Tali had not offered to help sail the boat, but sat beside me wrapped in her own thoughts. I could guess what was troubling her. From Darkwater our path would be longer. Every delay made it less likely we could reach Shadowfell by midsummer. I imagined she was revising her strategy, calculating what paths we might take, perhaps whether we would risk crossing Keenan’s land again to win ourselves a few days.
Far Isle slipped away behind us; the plume of smoke became a ribbon, then a thread picked apart by the wind. Grim-faced, the fishermen kept their gaze northward. Particles of ash floated in the air around us.
The boat moved on through sea mist and smoky shadows, bearing us to Darkwater. We left the isles behind.
OUR BOATMEN PUT US ASHORE NEAR THE MOUTH of Darkwater Loch, some distance from the settlement. As soon as they had unloaded us and our belongings, they turned the boat and headed back out to sea in the gathering dark.
We made camp in the remains of a ruined croft. We had supplies, thanks to the kindness of the islanders, and if we could avoid people’s notice on the way, so much the better. As it was, when I rose next morning, it was to find Tali gazing eastward along the loch and muttering to herself.
“What?” I asked, trying not to snarl. My back was aching; I had become used to the comfortable bed on Far Isle.
“Enforcers. Rode into the settlement at first light. At least three of them; I can see horses that don’t belong to any local farmer. We won’t be going that way either. Pack up quickly, let’s be gone before anyone decides this would be a nice spot for a morning walk.” Her tone softened a little as she looked at me. “It should be safe to go down to the water and wash your face, wake yourself up a bit. I’m sorry if you wanted to go up there and say your goodbyes. It’s not to be.”
It was less than a year since the night my father died. It felt as if an age had passed. “I’ve said my goodbyes,” I told her. “He’s with me wherever I go. Tali, there is no other path. Only the main track, and the little one that goes up the hill right behind the settlement, the one Flint took me on last time.”
“I’ll find a track. Get moving, wash, and pack your things. We’ll eat later, when we’re safely away from here.”
She did not say it, but it was in my thoughts as I splashed my face in the salt water of the shallows, threw on the rest of my clothes, and stuffed my belongings in my bag. There were Enforcers in Pentishead; there were Enforcers at Darkwater. Might they not have a presence all the way from here to Summerfort?
There was no going by the main track. The king’s men were everywhere. Tali took me north, then inland, planning to come back southward to the track Flint and I had once used. But the way was all steep rocky climbs and sudden treacherous drops, a landscape full of perils even for the most seasoned wayfarer, and painfully slow to traverse.
Days passed, precious days, with little ground gained. Our supplies ran low again. What woodlands existed here were small and sparse, not like the forested hills farther east, where a skillful person could trap rabbits or forage for herbs and roots. Any creatures who survived in this place were fast runners and expert hiders. We rationed what we had, refilled our waterskins whenever we could, and kept on going.
Tali did not like admitting she had made a mistake. She was seldom wrong, and to err on such an important matter was galling to her. But the path she chose, at some points the only possible path, led us farther and farther north and became harder and harder. One morning, after a night spent sleeping among barren hills, we climbed to a vantage point and looked out over a landscape of daunting wildness: high mountains to the north, a deep valley to the east with more mountains beyond, lower hills to the west, and beyond them the gray expanse of the sea. As the raven flew, we had not come far at all. And there was no way ahead.
“All right,” Tali said, as if the thing had been settled between us already, though I had held my tongue and let her lead me, believing that if she said she could find a path to the Rush valley, she could do just that. “We’re going back. If I thought there were a way to get straight to your Lord of the North from here, I’d suggest we change the plan and do that. But there’s no way we can cross those mountains.”
“Going back. You mean back to Darkwater.”
“What do you think I mean?” It was a snarl. I knew her well enough to realize her anger was not directed at me.
“The Enforcers might be gone by now, I suppose.” I offered this tentatively, wondering if silence might be a wiser option.
“I’ve no intention of taking you right through the settlement, Neryn. I’m not stupid. I’ll find another path.” A silence. Perhaps she was waiting for me to say, I’ve heard that before.
“We’d better be moving, then.” This was a disaster either way. Make good time, and we would arrive on the road to Summerfort when everyone was heading for the Gatheri
ng. Be slow, and we would meet them coming back. Go to ground somewhere until they had passed, and we had no chance of reaching the Lord of the North before winter.
It was much later, when we had been walking all day and were starting to look for a place to settle for the night, that she said, “I’m sorry, Neryn. I was sure I could do this.” When I did not reply, she went on, “Thank you for not saying what you might have said. I’ll get you to the Lord of the North in time. I promise.”
“Don’t promise,” I said. “You can’t control the Enforcers. Or the weather. I know you’ll do your best, and that’s enough. Now let’s find somewhere to camp before my legs give up and you have to carry me.”
By the time we reached the Darkwater area again, we had stopped talking about getting to Shadowfell by midsummer. Quite clearly that was now impossible. Looking down on Darkwater settlement from the concealment of the forested hill behind, we saw Enforcers patrolling there, masked figures on long-legged dark horses. Signs of last autumn’s raid still marked the place: the jetty was half-burned, and there were houses with patched-up doors and shutters. I whispered a prayer for my father, whose bones lay down there in the bay somewhere, washed by the endless tide. We hastened away, turning our steps eastward.
For the next two days we made good progress, following a snaking path through the hills. At night we camped without fire, for although we were off the main way, this region had more farms and settlements than the north, and we did not want to attract attention any sooner than we must. On the third day, as we drew closer to Silverwater, it became impossible to go unnoticed even in the forest. Folk were on the move and headed in one direction only: toward Summerfort. They went mostly in small groups, carrying bundles on their backs. Here and there we saw a child in arms or a dog running alongside. The travelers’ faces were not bright with the anticipation of feasting and entertainment, but wary, as if we were not the only ones wishing to avoid attention.