‘We have steel knives,’ said Calwyn, dragging her thoughts from her own misery. ‘But metal’s very precious in Antaris: the traders have to carry it to us all the way through the mountains. We use bone blades for skating.’
It felt strange to Calwyn to say we of the priestesses of Antaris. Almost two years had passed since she had run away with Darrow, the Outlander who had breached the ice Wall. So much had happened in that time. She had travelled across oceans and through deserts. She had seen the fabled Palace of Cobwebs, and walked the desolate streets of Spareth, the city abandoned by the Ancient Ones. She and her friends had fought Samis, the most dangerous sorcerer Tremaris had ever seen, and they had defeated him – or so they’d thought.
There were reports that Samis was alive, and hiding in Gellan. Certainly his half-sister, Keela, believed so; she had fled from Merithuros to join him there. Now Darrow, with Tonno and Halasaa, had travelled north to the Red City.
The thought of Darrow was, as always, bittersweet. Darrow had carved the little wooden hawk that Calwyn wore at her throat. He had become her friend, then more than a friend. But now she was not sure what they were to each other.What had happened to Calwyn in the deserts of Merithuros had changed everything. Darrow was Lord of the Black Palace, the ruler of all Merithuros. And she, Calwyn, was nothing.
After the loss of her chantments, she had pushed Darrow away. She knew that had hurt him deeply, but her despair and her misery were so great she couldn’t bear anyone near her. Sometimes she thought she almost hated Darrow; at times, she hated herself. She wouldn’t have blamed Darrow if he’d begun to hate her, too. It might even be a kind of relief if he did. But mostly she was numb, beyond feeling.
Now Calwyn was returning home, as an injured animal crawls back to the safety of its den. She was sure of only one thing: Marna, the High Priestess, would be glad to see her. Remembering Marna’s smile, the twinkle in her faded blue eyes, and the gentle touch of her hand, Calwyn spurred herself to go faster. Her skates bit smoothly across the ice, one long stroke after another.
In one way, it was lucky for the travellers that this fierce freeze had lasted so long. They had skated upriver across the plains and through the mountains, making their journey much quicker than if they’d walked all the way. Calwyn had never known the rivers to freeze so hard, nor so late in the season.
‘Cal! Cal!’ Suddenly Mica swooped past them. ‘Come on! Can’t you feel it?’
‘Mica, wait! For the sake of the Goddess!’ shouted Calwyn, but as she andTrout rounded the bend, she saw why Mica was so excited.
Ahead, spanning the width of the river, shone a steady, impervious gleam, a shimmer like a vast mass of diamond. The greatWall of Antaris reared over them.
Calwyn’s breath caught in her throat. How many times had she stood beside this towering barrier? How many days had she walked along it, singing it into being with chantments of ice-call? She knew it better than she knew the shape of her own face. She knew the Wall in the hot sunshine of high summer, and the mellow dusk of autumn, in the clean fresh light of spring, and as it appeared now, in the blue shadows of winter.
But something was different. It wasn’t just that she viewed the Wall from the outside now. What was missing was her awareness of the magic that had built and sustained the mighty rampart of ice, the living power that hummed through it and crackled all around it. Mica was a chanter: Mica had sensed strong chantment even before theWall came into view. Once Calwyn, too, would have known that they were close to the Wall. It would have called to her, just as it had called to Mica.
But Calwyn felt nothing.TheWall appeared to her as it did to Trout, who stood gazing up beside her, open-mouthed. It was a marvel, yes, a wondrous sight. But it was dead, lifeless, no more than a slab of frozen water. It was Mica who shivered, Mica who heard the call of the Goddess, Mica who shied instinctively from the shimmering surface. ‘Anyone’d feel safe, with that protectin em,’ she murmured in awe.
Trout reached out to the Wall, but Calwyn struck his hand away. ‘Don’t! It’ll kill you! It’s death to touch the Wall, the chantments that flow through it are so strong.’
Trout shook himself. In Mithates, chantment had been outlawed generations ago. And thoughTrout had been the unwitting finder of the Clarion, the only relic of the Power of Fire, which the people of Mithates had renounced, he still had to be reminded of the possibility of magic. He had a practical mind, interested in how things worked, and making them work better; he had built the direction-finder that they’d used to steer their course. (Mica called it his ‘which-way’, and the name had stuck.)
Calwyn stood staring at the Wall. Then she curled her thumb and forefinger into a circle, as the villagers of Antaris did when they approached the immense shining barrier, and she made the sign that they made, touching the circle to her forehead, her throat, her heart. This was the way the common folk made reverence to the Goddess Taris, Mother of the priestesses. Calwyn could no longer count herself as a Daughter of Taris. She had lost the most precious gift the Goddess had given her.
‘Cal?’ asked Mica timidly. ‘We goin in?’
‘Yes,’ said Calwyn, without moving, and the two girls remained motionless, side by side, gazing upward. Trout waited for a breath or two, then, still balanced on his skates, he tottered up onto the riverbank to explore theWall as it curved further into the forest.
A moment later the girls heard a shout. They hurried to where Trout stood by theWall with his eyes averted, pointing mutely.
Mica and Calwyn didn’t scream; they had seen enough horrors to prevent that. But Mica turned away with a shudder, and bile rose in Calwyn’s throat.
There was a body inside the Wall. It was a woman; long reddish hair swam around her like a gossamer scarf. Her back was to them, her face hidden, but she wore the yellow tunic and shawl of a priestess. Shafts of blue light trapped the body like the bars of a cage; brilliant diamond cracks in the ice seemed to target the bloodless flesh like arrows.
‘You never told us you put dead people into theWall,’ said Trout accusingly.
‘We don’t!’
‘Then how did she get there?’
‘It must have been an accident – ’ Calwyn faltered. ‘Quickly, Mica, the Clarion!We have to set her free!’
‘She’s dead, Calwyn,’ saidTrout bluntly. ‘It’s too late to help her.’
‘We don’t know that!’ cried Calwyn. ‘A little village boy lost his way in a snowstorm, and we found him, blue and cold, not breathing. But the sisters brought him back to life. Mica, quick!’
Mica pulled out the Clarion and breathed through it as gently as she could. She was the only chanter among them; only she could call forth the power that the Clarion held. As she played, a clear note rang out, and the golden Clarion glowed brighter.
Slowly the ice of theWall began to melt. Chantment met chantment, fire breathed to ice, as the music of the little horn unfurled. The thick, curdled ice became transparent; puddles of water formed around their feet. ‘Careful!’ cried Calwyn. ‘Don’t burn her!’
They were not skilled at using the last artefact of the Power of Fire; the Clarion’s power was far greater than their ability to control it. Mica had grumbled that it was ‘like tryin to ride a sea serpent’.They had learned through trial and error which notes made heat and which made light, when to breathe through the Clarion gently and when to play a fiercer blast. Calwyn tried to guide Mica, and Trout observed, and remembered. Sometimes the Clarion did as they intended; often it did not. After one or two nearly catastrophic accidents, they had learned to be cautious.
‘Play it like when you’re starting a campfire,’ suggestedTrout.
Mica blew a succession of rapid, staccato notes. Calwyn watched in an agony of impatience as the ice dripped and melted, until the thinnest possible crust of ice remained around the body. ‘Stop!’ she shouted, and simultaneously Trout yelled, ‘Watch out!’
The head lolled, and the woman’s body smashed to the ground, stiff as a wooden doll. A faint blue traci
ng of veins was visible beneath her pale skin, and her calloused hands were large and strong. Calwyn rushed forward, dragging off her mittens with her teeth. ‘Give me the Clarion!’The trumpet still pulsed warm with the afterglow of chantment, and Calwyn held it to the woman’s breast, her hands, her belly, as she would have held a hot poultice. The priestess’s hazel-green eyes stared up unseeing; her mouth was wide, stained with something dark, and one strand of hair was caught between the cold lips. ‘It’s Athala,’ said Calwyn as she worked frantically over the body. ‘She’s our shoemaker.’
Trout looked at Mica and shook his head. Mica, who still had great faith in Calwyn, set her mouth stubbornly. She picked up Athala’s cold, stiff fingers, and rubbed them between her gloved hands.When Calwyn placed her cheek close to the cold face, she felt no stir of breath or pulse; when she breathed into the blackened lips, there was no quickening response. When she lifted her mouth away, her own lips felt numb, and she tasted the unmistakable aniseed flavour of bitterthorn. So Athala had been drugged, or drugged herself – perhaps the bitterthorn was disguising the presence of the spark of life.
Along with her chantment, Calwyn had lost the special awareness she’d gained with the help of her friend Halasaa. He was one of the Tree People, the first inhabitants of Tremaris, and he was gifted with the Power of Becoming. He could heal injuries and illness, and speak with animals.
Half a year ago, Calwyn would have known, without this blind, desperate groping, whether this woman was alive. She folded Athala’s hands around the Clarion and held it to her throat, willing the blood to pump again through the ice-cold body.
She couldn’t have said how long they crouched there while the early winter dusk gathered around them. At last Trout touched her shoulder. ‘It’s no use, Calwyn. She’s dead.’
‘It ain’t your fault, Cal.’ Mica slipped an arm around her friend’s waist. ‘You tried your best.’
Calwyn shook her off. ‘I could have done better than that, once,’ she said bitterly.
‘Not even Halasaa could have helped her,’ saidTrout. ‘She was dead, Calwyn, dead a long time, I’d say. She was past healing.’
Calwyn closed the hazel-green eyes and drew the yellow shawl over Athala’s face. ‘Her body should be burned, and the ashes scattered under the blazetree in the sacred valley.We can bring her inside the Wall ourselves, but we’ll have to send people to carry her back to the Dwellings.’ Calwyn pulled on the mittens she’d discarded while she tried to revive Athala; her hands were stiff with cold. ‘It’ll be dark soon.We should go in.’
Trout examined the breach dubiously. ‘Is that gap big enough?’
‘Yes,’ said Calwyn shortly. Part of her was horrified at the blasphemy of melting a hole in the sacredWall. The voices of her childhood echoed in her mind: the first duty of every priestess is the care of theWall. And now she had mutilated it.
Trout and Calwyn dragged Athala’s body inside the Wall and laid it gently down. Mica threw the packs one by one through the gap. Once they were all safely inside, they trudged back to the river, and skated on. For some distance, the river and theWall diverged, but after a time the river veered toward the rampart again. It was so dark now that Mica held the Clarion to her lips. A stream of golden light, warmer than any lantern, flowed from the mouth of the little trumpet, and cast a pool of brightness around the travellers.
Suddenly Trout gasped, and put out his hand to halt the others. The three huddled together, staring.
Body after body was ranged inside theWall, a line of the dead as far as the light of the Clarion could reach. Perhaps three dozen of the sisters were held upright in the ice, all robed in yellow, their unbound hair swirling about their frozen bodies.
‘Oh, no – no!’ whispered Mica.
Calwyn covered her face with her hands.
Trout said, ‘What’s happened, Calwyn?Why?’
‘How should I know?’ said Calwyn sharply. ‘There must be a reason. Perhaps – perhaps the way to the sacred valley is cut off, and Marna decided to keep the dead bodies here until they could hold the proper rituals.’ Even to her, that sounded absurd.
‘But why so many?’ Trout persisted. ‘Didn’t you say about two hundred sisters lived in the Dwellings? There must be thirty or forty here.’
Calwyn shivered. ‘Perhaps it was Samis. Darrow and I escaped, but maybe the sisters …’ She swallowed. Never in her darkest thoughts had she dreamed that Samis might have destroyed Antaris; never had she imagined returning home to a wasteland.
‘Samis done this?’ whispered Mica.
‘I don’t know. Perhaps. It might have – amused him – ’
Calwyn turned away, too afraid to examine the faces of the dead. ‘Take off your skates. We can walk to the Dwellings from here.’
None of them wanted to skate past that silent, dreadful file.They thrust their skate-blades into the packs, then turned their backs to theWall and crunched across the hard-packed snow toward the Dwellings.
two
Snow- sickness
DUSK HAD DARKENED into night before they reached the stone bridge at the foot of the orchard. As the three trudged uphill through the snow, struggling under the weight of the packs, Calwyn pointed out a cluster of domed shadows near the riverbank. ‘Those are the beehives.’
Mica and Trout both knew that Calwyn had kept the hives in Antaris; she had spoken of it often. ‘These are our apple trees, the sweetest apples in Tremaris. There’s the Bee House.That’s where I – where the beekeeper stores the frames for the hives, and the smoke-lanterns.’ This stream of talk about safe, ordinary things did not reassure her companions; Calwyn’s voice was nervous. ‘There are the Dwellings. That building with the tall windows is the great hall. That’s where the sisters eat, all together. And we sing there after dinner every night, in winter.’
‘There ain’t no singin now,’ whispered Mica.
Calwyn paused. The looming hall was dark and silent. No lamplight glowed in the windows, and no clatter of plates or murmur of voices floated into the night. A cold hand clenched Calwyn’s heart.
‘Dinner must be over,’ she said abruptly.
‘Think they’ll find us some leftovers?’ said Mica. ‘Ain’t you hungry, Trout?’
Trout grinned briefly; they had all been hungry for days. But his voice was serious. ‘It’s awfully dark, Calwyn. And quiet.’
‘Somethin’s wrong, ain’t it? Somethin big.’ Mica coughed violently, and clutched the Clarion to her chest.
‘Marna will explain everything,’ said Calwyn, too quickly. ‘Let’s find her, before we see anyone else.’ She bent her head and trudged off across the snow.
Mica trotted after her. ‘You ain’t shy of em, Cal?’
‘It’s not that. Marna will understand when I tell her who you are, but the sisters don’t welcome strangers.’ That was an understatement. ‘They’ll be very suspicious of you two.’
‘But we ain’t strangers,’ said Mica. ‘We’re your friends.’
‘You can’t blame the sisters for being careful,’ Trout said. ‘The last person who came across theWall was Samis, after all, and who knows what he did while he was here – ’
‘But there ain’t no need to be scared of us!’
‘Come on!’ urged Calwyn. Even if they couldn’t find Marna first, she wanted to avoid Tamen, the Guardian of the Wall, second in rank to the High Priestess.When Darrow arrived in Antaris, Tamen would have sacrificed him to the Goddess if she’d had her way.
Calwyn’s heart was beating hard as they skirted around the jumble of outbuildings that clustered near the Dwellings: the milking-sheds, the duck-houses, the goat-pens and woodpiles. With every step, Calwyn’s sense of foreboding grew stronger. She could smell the familiar rank odour of the goats, and hear faint bleats and muffled bells. But there was no lantern-light, no muttering from the sheds. Goats must be milked, eggs collected, clean straw forked into the pens. Where was everybody?
‘Stay close,’ said Calwyn softly. ‘In case we meet any
of the sisters. And Trout, cover your head. The men of the villages never come so close to the Dwellings.’
Near the kitchens lay the walled gardens where the herbs and vegetables grew.They were fallow now, and blanketed with snow. And beyond that –
Calwyn drew in a sharp breath. She had forgotten. She had seen the collapse of the infirmary herself, from high in the branches of an ember tree, as she and Darrow fled. But it was a shock to see the blackened ruins, the fallen beams and toppled stones, all thick with snow. One lone wall stood, with a row of bare hooks where Ursca had hung her bunches of healing herbs.
‘Was there a fire?’ asked Trout in a hushed voice.
Calwyn nodded. ‘Samis destroyed it, so we could see the power of his chantment. I thought they would have rebuilt it by now.’
They were standing in the open yard bordered by the ruins of the infirmary and the rear of the Middle House, where the sisters and the older novices slept. From high inside the building came the sound of a racking cough, quickly suppressed. At least someone was alive, thought Calwyn, allowing herself to admit her worst fear only as it was proved false.
But as the muffled coughing stopped, another sound began: a desolate sobbing. On and on, the lonely crying echoed around the yard, fading at last into the darkness.
Mica clutched Calwyn’s hand. Trout wrapped his arms around his body. His eyes were hidden behind his lenses, but his mouth was set in a firm line, as if he was trying to stop himself from crying too.
Calwyn grippedTrout’s elbow and squeezed Mica’s fingers. ‘Marna’s rooms are this way. She’ll explain everything, you’ll see.’
The High Priestess would send for food, and a basin of warm water so they could wash, and Calwyn would sit on the low stool by the fire, with her Lady Mother’s hand resting on her head as if she were still a little girl. Marna’s eyes would crinkle with that serene smile. There’s nothing wrong here, little daughter. Nothing but a long winter. Yes, Samis was here. It was a terrible time. But he is gone. Perhaps Marna had given her up for dead, just as she’d grieved for Calwyn’s mother, Calida. Calida had run away from Antaris too. She’d returned in the depths of winter, bringing her baby daughter Calwyn to be raised by the sisters. But Calida had caught a winter fever and died before dawn on the very night she’d returned.