Clouds End

  “We know, we know,” Foam said soothingly. “Look at your father there, just behind the Witness. He wasn’t clapping, was he? He knew you would prefer—Ooh!”

  “Sorry!” Shale said. “Foot slipped while I was shifting position. Small boats, eh?”

  “Curse these small boats,” Foam growled. “Anyway, they gave you a place to sleep and food to eat; called you the spirit of the Gull Warrior; gifted you a boat—and all you had to do was tell a few stories!”

  “Which we mostly did, anyway,” Shale added. “You weren’t much use. Too much squirming.”

  “Easy, Shale.”

  “No. She is right.” Seven swung their bow to windward. “This is a war, not a duel. My real skills matter little now. I must lead. If the people believe me to be”—he grimaced—“a Hero of Legend, then so be it. I know the difference, and you know it too.”

  “On the contrary!” Foam cried. “To my mind you are the very image of a legend: a great man with a great bard. The Gull Warrior’s great advantage is that the Singer tells his stories. No offense to Reed, but who can compete with that?”

  “Hush!” Seven said uneasily. “I have no wish to anger the Heroes. I do not want to find myself tangled in this story Reed is making, like a fisherman fouled in his own lines. If people have to believe it to have hope, to give us boats and men, then so be it. But Reed’s tales are not truth. Keel is. Keel and Shoal and Perch and Brine and Rose. The dead speak the only true stories of war.”

  Half a day later they found that Thumbtip had fallen. Well-organized soldiers moved along her beaches and a fire-sling looked out over the harbor where only a few days before the rebel ships had been anchored. Wearily, Seven turned his tiller and set course for Hookfeather.

  The sun was setting by the time they arrived. Sentinels must have spotted them far out, for the whole rebel camp was waiting as they made their ship fast. Foam and Shale knew the Deltans were looking for friends and family who would not be coming back. They were hugged all around as they came ashore, but many of those waiting wept and would not meet their eyes.

  Pond did her best to keep her voice calm, but relief showed in every line as she hugged Seven. When they broke their embrace, her hand quickly sought his. “Lookouts spotted Twist’s raft army early, so—Your hands!”

  “A little burned,” Seven said softly. “It is nothing. Show us where we will sleep tonight.”

  Pond nodded and led them up a narrow path to a small clearing, gloomy and dim. A little red fire crawled over a few logs in the ash pit, throwing out sparse licks of heat and a welter of shadows. Cedars with drooping arms swayed sadly overhead. “We had more than enough time to make sail for here. But it galled me to see Twist’s men take the very barracks we worked so hard to build.” Pond shrugged at the meager foundations behind her. “We have begun again, but the going is slow. Such is all our tale. Now tell us yours.”

  Foam told the story of the raid to a somber audience, stopping more than once to blink and fight off sleep.

  “I told that primping jigger Brine it would be his death,” Catch muttered, stabbing the fire with a greenwood prod until it spat red sparks at him. “Idiot.”

  “At least he tried,” Shale snapped.

  Glint spread marigold ointment on Seven’s burned hands and then wrapped them in a strip of bandage. “Quarrelling, are we? Good! Let us kill ourselves, and save the woodlanders the trouble!”

  Brace the carpenter sighed. “The question is, what next?”

  “Sleep!” Pond said quickly. “Sleep, until Seven and Shale and Foam have rested. Let us take our decisions tomorrow, when we are less weary. Nightfall always brings despair.”

  Foam nodded his agreement. “We have enough of that cargo in our holds already.”

  Foam’s sleep was long and troubled by dreams of burning. It was almost noon before he awoke. After lunch Seven asked him to come explore the island. “If I remember right, there is a sandy beach just to the north of us. Not so long a walk.”

  Foam agreed, glad to avoid the hard work of barrack-building.

  “They have made good progress here,” Seven said as they walked. “Pond has them working well.”

  “They respect her.”

  “Who could not? She is a lady, Foam. A lady of Delta. I struggle to be worthy of her.”

  “Now that’s a funny business, isn’t it?” Foam smoothed his braids and straightened the ivory pins in them, fingers deft and thoughtless as the paws of a grooming cat. He frowned. “Trying to be worthy of someone. What does she respect? Should you be only what you are, or change yourself to be better—or at least more like her? Or would that make you seem false, or fawning?”

  “These are abstract questions only,” Seven said, smiling.

  “Of course. Purest philosophy.”

  Their path now wandered along the top of a small ridge. A light wind blew through the poplars, whose leaves blurred to smears of moving green, covering and uncovering glints of a grey-blue sea. Seven stood a moment, looking down at the ocean. “I was lonely before I met her, but I did not know it. That was all that gave me the strength to endure it, I think. I no longer have the courage to live with my heart so empty.”

  He looked at Foam, who was also past twenty-five and unmarried and scorned by the good, sturdy, respectable people of the sea. “We are very much alike, you know. In another story, I would have been you.”

  Foam studied Seven’s deep chest and arms corded with muscle. “I’d have to eat better, I think.”

  Seven laughed.

  Later he said, “I love the smell of the islands. Trees and rocks and water all jumbled together. And the sound of the waves and the wind.”

  “Mm-hmm.”

  A pair of blazing ships staggered through a darkling bay in Seven’s heart, burning. “Brine died for these islands.”

  He started down the fork in the path. “There it is. That sandy stretch there. Just where I remembered it.”

  “Have you been here often?”

  “Betimes. Switch and I would come out and camp for a few days. I needed to practice where nobody would be scared by the sword.”

  Foam followed Seven down to the beach. He wore an extra pair of soft boots salvaged from Brine’s yacht, but they were small and pinched. When he got near the water line he took them off and revelled at the feel of the heavy sand squishing between his toes.

  Seven stood like a young god with the surf foaming around his ankles. “I should practice.”

  “Did Switch tell you how to fight men with sprayers?”

  Seven grimaced. “I don’t like those. A coward’s weapon that takes no skill to use.”

  Foam squinted. “In other words, the only people who should be killers are people who really want to be killers.”

  Seven frowned. “Well . . . yes. It takes discipline to learn a skill, and discipline is the brother of self-control. With one of these sprayers, any man can kill on the whim of the moment. Or maim, which is worse.”

  “You prefer murder to mutilation?”

  “There is a certain purity to it. No lingering on, useless and in pain. Either triumph or oblivion. It is a very clean distinction, don’t you think? There is something better about that. More wholesome.”

  “Wholesome!”

  Foam stepped back from the water line and lay on the warm, dry sand. “The story of your master, Switch, has always puzzled me. What was a woodlander doing in Delta?”

  “He killed a Bronze. It was self-defense, so the penalty was exile rather than death.”

  Seven walked up from the water and lowered himself to the sand, stretching gently. “The remarkable thing about killing people, Foam, is that the more times you do it the easier it gets. Hard at first, of course.” With his legs spread wide apart he reached for one toe, and laid the whole length of his torso easily along the leg.

  Foam shuddered. “My tendons would snap like stretched seaweed if I did that.”

  Seven stared absently at the rain clouds building in the east. “The
first time, I just stood there for the longest time. Then he raised his sprayer. I had never seen one before and I was frightened. I was not prepared for it. I lost my technique, I forgot to cut cleanly, I forgot to make it count. I swung wildly for his hand. Split it in half. There was a great deal of blood. I can remember feeling angry because there was blood on my sword. I always take particular care to keep it clean. And he was screaming and there were others coming up. He must have known I was going to kill him, but instead of defending himself he just kept staring at his hand and screaming. I have never been so afraid. Not afraid of him, you understand. Afraid of killing. I almost did not dare. But my second cut was better.

  “That was a lesson I had nearly thrown my life away learning, so I paid close attention. The next time, I felt sick afterwards, but at the time I was very cool. The third time, when we rescued you and Shale, there were too many of them to think about anything. I was calm, calmer than I think I have ever been in my life. The louder the shouting got, the calmer I became. The woodlanders were going so slowly. Still, there were too many of them. They would have started spraying their own men from behind for the sake of getting me. My people were falling back to the boats, so I went after them. But by the time I killed the guards outside my father’s place, I hardly felt their deaths at all.”

  He paused, looking at Foam, and shook his head. “No. That is a lie. I still felt the excitement and the risk. But the dread was gone. Like any other fear, the fear of killing a man goes away when you have done it a few times.”

  “I do not think I want to lose that fear,” Foam said.

  “Then I hope you won’t,” Seven said. “But I fear you will.”

  That afternoon Foam found Pond in a clearing just beyond the campsite, stripping leaves from a young elder bush. Her silver bracelets glinted between the elder’s frothy white flowers. “Personal enemies?” he asked, as she tore off another handful of leaves. “Or was it a family quarrel?”

  Pond laughed softly without looking up. “These poor things are too pliant to make good foes. Glint needs them. She boils elder leaves in a mix of fat and fish oil to make a salve that heals cuts and bruises. We ran out yesterday. Shale is down at the docks, if you are wondering, teaching the others how to gut fish.” Pond grimaced prettily. “I volunteered to harvest elder.”

  “A mistake! Shale is a wonderful fish-gutter. Why, people all over the Edge sail to Clouds End just to watch her. She pops out the eyes with her thumbs like nobody—”

  “Spare me! What do you want?”

  Foam’s grin faded. “Oh. Well. Actually, I—that is, I was wondering if . . . You see, I’m in need of a woman’s opinion.”

  “Ah. An affair of the heart.”

  “How did you know?”

  Pond plucked another handful of blade-shaped elder leaves. “Men rarely ask a woman’s advice on anything else. Here, harvest with me.”

  “Perhaps I should just—”

  “Careful not to snap off the twigs. They are delicate.”

  Foam joined her. They stood side by side, picking, as he became more and more certain that this was Not a Good Idea. “Ahem. Uh. Well. The, the, the fact of the case, of the matter, really, is that, that I have, have become rather—fond—no, fond is the wrong word . . . maybe—no, that isn’t . . .”

  “You have feelings for a woman,” Pond said gravely.

  “Y-e-e-s. Yes, I guess that is—Anyway, the problem is, I become quite idiotic when talking about this sort of thing.”

  Pond didn’t meet his eyes. “Really?”

  “Er—well. Anyway, there it is. I have these . . . feelings for this woman, but I’m not quite certain if she, that is, whether she is really aware of it. Them. The feelings, you understand. And I wonder, if I said something, would it, you know, seem threatening? Or would it, would it induce some, some response. Perhaps.”

  Pond suppressed a smile. Poor Foam was not even pretending to pick anymore, just weaving leaves together with nervous, nimble fingers. “You are not sure how she feels about you, and you are uncertain as to what you should say to her. Is that right?”

  Foam nodded, feeling like an idiot, blushing hot and red up to his ears, five years older than his friends and stupid about everything that really mattered. “She’s, she’s rather an independent sort of person, you see. She could certainly cut a finer jib than myself, you understand. That’s one of my—a problem. And yet, there have been some signs that she, you know, likes—I can’t say, has feelings—that she likes me. I have, I think I could be good for, good to have. Around. For her . . . Grr!” Foam tore a twig off the bush. “Listen to me! This is unendurable.” He turned to Pond. “Never mind. I shall retire to the Mist and dive for pearlweirds. If you will excuse me, I shall take my humiliation for a walk.”

  Pond nodded meekly. “I shall think on your words. And Foam, remember that women, too, find it difficult to remain poised in such situations.”

  “Not mine,” he said grimly. “That’s part of the problem.”

  Pond waved goodbye with a sprig of white flowers in her fingers. “Work hard! Think of Delta! Be patient, and I expect you will hear something to clarify the situation.”

  Foam wanted to dip his face into a pool of cold water. There were a few other parts of him that could use the same treatment, he thought savagely.

  Pond waited until he was safely out of sight and then, though she knew a real Witness wouldn’t, she laughed until tears sprang to her eyes.

  She cornered Shale during the bustle before dinner, stirring their biggest pot with a stripped branch. “Fish stew. Magnificent. And so wonderfully gutted!”

  Shale looked at her warily. “Complaining?”

  “Mm. On the contrary.” Pond sniffed the rich stew, made aromatic with wild thyme. People were gathering in the half-built barracks as supper approached. Brace and a helper were shoring up a wall, squinting into the sunset. Seven was demonstrating a wristlock on Foam for a small group of interested Deltans; Foam smiled gamely until Seven turned his fingers a fraction, driving him to the ground. Catch loitered nearby, scratching his side and looking hungrily at the stew.

  Pond lowered her voice. “You have a suitor.”

  Shale recoiled in horror. “Oh no! Is it someone odious?”

  “Not at all.”

  “Worse and worse! What have I done to deserve this?”

  “Perhaps you misheard. Not odious.”

  “I know, I know. That means I can’t do something quick and painful to end the matter. Of course, why scruple . . . ?”

  “Hard to do in good conscience,” Pond said quickly.

  Shale sighed. “I suppose.”

  “Ready yet?” Catch called to the cooks. Shale’s scowl drove him back three paces. “N-nope,” he stammered. “Not ready yet.”

  Shale slammed her wooden spoon around inside the big fuseware pot. “Where do they get the nerve!” she demanded. “Have I given anyone any encouragement? No. Have I been ‘womanly’? No. But does it matter? No! They decide to feel smitten without so much as a by-your-leave.”

  Pond wrinkled her brows. “I am beginning to think this suitor may be out of luck.”

  Shale sighed. “Is he intelligent?”

  “Very.”

  “Handsome?”

  Pond shrugged. “In a gawky kind of way.”

  “Funny?”

  “Frequently.”

  “Impotent?”

  Pond glanced up in surprise before she could catch herself. “I have no reason to believe so.”

  “Spit!” Shale swore. “For a moment he sounded like the perfect man.”

  Evening light hung gently in the sky, and the birds were settling. A gust of laughter came from the main camp beyond a stand of jack pines. Seven and his counsellors had slipped off to a small fire pit by his tent, though they had not yet taken a branch to be lit at the big central fire. Glint, Catch, Seven, and Pond sat together. Foam was also by the fire pit and Shale sat facing him, with her back against a young poplar.

  ?
??We should discuss strategy,” Seven said when the dinner was finally ready.

  “Oh, at least let us wait until our dinners settle,” Foam said wearily. “If you can ever get Shale to stop eating.”

  “I wish Reed weren’t gone,” Catch said. “He always had a song or a story.”

  Suddenly Shale said, “I’ll tell a story.”

  Foam grinned at the Deltans. “Listen up! She’s a Witness’s daughter, and can trim a story’s sheets as well as any wisewoman.”

  Shale laughed, rapidly inventing the beginning of her tale. “This is a story of the Mist-time,” she said, leaning forward and grinning at the company, “where everything is true and nothing is what it seems. It is a Rolling Hitch story, told of Queen Lianna’s Court, and it goes like this . . .”

  * * *

  Shale’s audience clapped softly in the gloom when she had finished.

  “I’ve never heard you tell that one before,” Foam said.

  Shale laughed. “There are still a few things you don’t know about me.” Full dark had fallen as she stood up. “I need to stretch!”

  “I’ll get a branch from the big fire,” Catch said.

  Shapes had faded with the dusk, leaving only a play of voices in the night. Shale walked barefoot over leaves and roots and dirt. She felt as if she too had become less real, ghosting along the path to the shore. She was feeling her way as much as seeing it, following the empty places where the trees weren’t. She slithered down a steep hill with one leg outstretched. At its bottom lay a slab of cooling stone; piles of weathered granite; the sound of the sea. She slid over the big curve of the first rock. Dried lichen flaked to powder beneath her fingertips.

  Starshine glimmered on the water. Gulping fish jumped after invisible insects. A black wall had come in from the east, drowning those stars caught below the cloud line.

  A peeved clam squirted at Shale. She laughed and splashed her hands in the cool water. She rose up with the sea foaming about her ankles and laughed again, big as the islands. Big as the sky. She rolled up her sleeves and washed the wood smoke from her arms. She bent down again and splashed water over her head, gasping with the shock of it, wringing the grime out of her hair, slicking her bangs back and grinning.