The darkness cradled him, held him in its bosom, protected him. Pain was just a breath away, a hulking monster ready to sink its claws into his head and rend his body; the darkness kept it at bay, and he clung desperately to unconsciousness.
Then the song began - no more than a whisper at first, a thread of murmuring tune that swelled and grew little by little. It called to him, tugged at his senses, cajoling until at last he relented and opened his eyes.
Or tried to. One eye opened, but the darkness barely yielded - all he could make out was the faintest glimmer. The other stayed stubbornly shut, some substance gluing his eyelids together. He tried to lift a hand to clear it away, but they were tied behind his back, even more tightly than before.
Pain shot through him, sparks exploding in his eyes as the monster leapt and attacked him viciously. Spasms wracked his body, lighting fires along his arms and legs as more bruises made their presence known. He couldn't lift his head - the same stuff that kept his eye from opening seemed to have congealed on the floor, trapping strands of hair and sucking wetly at his temple as his weak muscles strained against it.
A cool hand on his forehead, calming his shudders. "Ssh now. Try and lie still."
He opened his mouth, trying to reply, but could manage nothing above a croak that failed to penetrate his gag. A rough cloth rasped its way across his cheek, trailing water behind it - water that stung so badly that he caught his breath. Fresh seawater. Was this another cruel torture?
"Sorry," the voice murmured, true apology in the word. "It's all I have. At least it'll keep infection from those cuts."
Realisation dawned cold over Kell - that metallic taste seeping through his gag was his own blood. He was lying in a pool of it; it clotted on his eyelashes and solidified in his hair. The salt water seared gashes on his cheek and forehead, and his lip tingled dully where it had split under a particularly vicious blow. One ankle was already swollen, one wrist afire with the hot ache of a sprain.
He forced his other eye open at last, blinking away the coagulated blood and burning seawater. Focusing with difficulty, he made out a young woman kneeling less than a span away, a faint, bleached werelight glimmering off her brow and fingers as she sponged his cheek.
Then he caught sight of the night-black cloak around her shoulders, and terror swept over him like a great wave.
She sat back quickly, drawing her hands away as if his fear burned her. The werelight flickered, faded, then rallied, throwing the desolate expression on her face into sharp relief.
"You needn't be afraid." Her voice was a thread in the darkness, barely audible. "I don't intend to hurt you."
Suspicion must have shown in his eyes, because she sighed and pushed her cape off her shoulders. "I'm not really one of them, you know. Although my story might be a little...difficult to believe."
Right now Kell wasn't about to believe anything said by anyone wearing a black cloak, but she had a captive audience. He wasn't going anywhere. She resoaked the rag and passed it over his cuts again, wincing in sympathy every time he grimaced.
"I used to be a sorceress, you know. Not a very good one. I could do a little finding, a little weatherworking, a little healing - nothing special." Kell's lips curled wryly under his gag - she had named two of his weakest talents. "The one thing I could do was sing, and weave magic in my songs; it was how I cast all my spells, right from the beginning. I would sing the words to myself, sometimes out loud, sometimes under my breath. The witch who taught me didn't know how to teach a spellsinger; she taught me all she knew, but it was never enough, and many of her spells didn't work when I tried to sing them. I worked out how to make some of them work - the words needed to be changed somehow, sung differently to how they were spoken, but most of them I couldn't do. So I went to Roke to learn that art." She looked at the surprise in Kell's face and smiled bleakly. "Oh, yes. I was young enough and stupid enough to think that if I sang well enough, they'd let me in. I thought I could charm the Doorkeeper just enough to get past him, and then, well, that would have been it. I wanted it so, so much; I wanted to be able to do with my voice what all the other witch-kids could do with just a flick of their fingers."
She shook her head, dipping the cloth again and squeezing it out before mopping Kell's brow. "Well, it turned out that the Rule of Roke doesn't fall so easily. I made it to the door, just like anyone with a bit of talent to call their own, and the Doorkeeper came out to meet me. I expected him to be surprised, but he just stood there and asked me mildly what I wanted.
So I started to sing. I wove a charm into the song, the most powerful one I knew, trying to sing him under my control and make him let me in." She wrung the cloth between her hands, a wry expression on her face. "It didn't work. I tried everything I knew - I tried to make him sorry for me, make him like me, make myself invisible to him, but nothing happened. He just stood there, while my song washed over him like water over rocks and moved him not in the slightest.
Then he lifted a finger, and I had to stop singing. It was as if the notes just died on my lips. All the power went out of me, and I was left standing, staring, as he smiled at me.
'Thank you,' he said gently, 'but you cannot enter here.'
And that was that." Her voice rose; her hands twisted; her eyes stared at nothing. "Everything I ever wanted, just a few metres away, and I couldn't pass him. I wasn't good enough."
Then she came back to herself, smiling sadly down at Kell, dropping the cloth back into the shallow bowl of seawater. "I walked away, away from what I wanted most in the world; I had just enough money left to pay for passage on a ship. I didn't care where to; I just had to get away from Roke.
I ended up wandering the streets of O-tokne, singing to the passers by for a few coins to pay for food and shelter for the night. The innkeeper at the local tavern let me have a bed at first, and then when he noticed my talent he'd have me sing every night for his patrons. I learned to weave simple spells into my songs to keep the audience happy, encourage them to drink a little more or stay a little longer - just small things like that. Enough to make sure the innkeeper's pocket was full and the customers went away cheerful." Again the rueful smile. "Not quite the marbled halls of Roke, but it kept me alive."
Then her expression grew cold, distant; she seemed to shrink, drawing into herself as she had done in response to Kell's fear. Her hands flickered, running one over the other as if she tried to wash the memory away. "Then, one night, he came into the tavern, with his four lackeys behind him."
Four? Kell's mind was instantly afire with questions. If there were five of them then, without her, what happened to the other?
Again the smile, no more than a brief, emotionless twist of the lips. "Oh yes, you heard me right. Five there were then, and five now. And yet not a face amongst us has changed, from that five to this."
How? How is that possible? She was with them before?...no, only her face...
* *
Arren tried to roll with the punches and the kicks, but the ropes that held him restricted his movement; what force his momentum could not absorb was left to his already-bruised body. His whole head ached from his rude awakening back to consciousness; his temple sent spikes of ice and fire through his brain. His nose was bleeding copiously, his left eye swelling; his shoulder-blade screamed with the force of the most recently-landed blow.
He bit his lip to keep from crying out, refusing to give them that satisfaction; his mouth was already full of blood, so he could not tell whether or not he had bitten through his lip.
Then the dark mage's boot crashed into his chin, and he no longer had to wonder.
Someone - it was impossible to tell who, since at least three people were administering this beating and they shifted positions constantly - landed a boot squarely in his groin, and he curled up around the screaming pain, vomiting over the surface of the deck.
"Stop." It was that hateful voice, the leader's venomous, contemptuous hiss. "We don't want him permanently damaged; after all, we need him to give up his crown willingly, don't we?" There was a vicious chuckle at the end that left Arren in no doubt whatsoever; he would be given no choice, and once he had done so they would have no qualms about murdering him.
Still, the one remaining part of his mind that was not drowning in an ocean of incandescent pain managed to assimilate this, the reason for his capture - they want Havnor, they want my throne...
And without magic, there is nothing I can do to stop them...
The blind stormcaller knelt down by his head, deftly avoiding the spreading pool of vomit and blood on the deck, and spread his fingers above Arren's head; the king looked up, his heart rising into his mouth as he saw sparks crackling between the wizard's fingers.
"Say the word," the wizard giggled, "and I can have the lightning strike him...just say the word, my friend..." He sounded almost imploring, like a child begging to be allowed on an outing - except for that strange half-mad laugh.
"No." The leader's tone was final. "We do not want him dead - at least," he spat on Arren's face, his spittle cold on burning skin, "not yet." Then he turned on his heel and stalked off, leaving the king lying there on the deck, blood trickling slowly across the rough wooden planks.
* *
"I don't know why he was there, nor the others, but there they were. And they looked rich - if I made them happy, if they paid well, it might be my keep for a month and some over. So I sang to them; I sang the best I could, the best I had since the Doorkeeper. I wove my best charms, my finest enchantment into that song; I painted pictures, told great stories." For a moment a fierce pride shone on her face, transfiguring her pinched, lifeless features. "I had that room in the palm of my hand. No-one moved, or spoke; I could have held them there forever."
Then the light in her face faded, replaced by anger; he saw the muscles tense beneath the skin of her arms.
Kell could see the scene in his mind's eye as she described it - the songbird stepping from her perch, making for that table, intending to give them the full benefit of her voice. That voice dying on her lips as the leader whirled and flung out his hand, icy fingers of power meeting in her throat, choking off her enchanted song.
She was weeping, quiet tears falling into her lap, and he sensed that this sadness was but an echo of some other unceasing sorrow, that held her every day of her life.
"I was so afraid; I thought he was angry with me for trying to enchant him. His lackeys looked murderous enough, but he just laughed, low and long. I couldn't move; neither, from the looks of it, could anyone else in the room - his power had taken over from mine, holding them still.
Then he rose, and came to me, and cupped my cheek in his hand. I wanted to scream; the power I felt there was evil through and through, like a freshly-bloodied blade. He tilted my chin up, examining me, like holding a glass of wine up to the light. I couldn't pull away, though I tried and tried.
He turned to his men and beckoned them around him - and I saw they weren't all men, after all. In the depths of one of those great black hoods was a woman's face, bronze-skinned, framed with dark hair. I wondered what she was doing with a company like them - she looked so slender, so delicate, as if she'd blow away in the wind."
Kell looked at her, at her dark hair and bronze skin, her fragile, bird-boned frame, and a dreadful suspicion began to dawn in his mind.
If she noticed, she ignored it. "He laughed again," she went on, "and I shuddered to hear it. He called me a pretty little song thrush, and asked me what I was doing so far from my nest. I couldn't speak, of course, and that just made him laugh the more.
She drew a sharp breath, as if in sudden pain; Kell suddenly saw, ghostly and indistinct around her, thin grey lines that tightened and bit into her flesh, and he knew them for what they were - coercions, spells laid - no doubt by the mage leader - to prevent her from helping him, or from telling him too much. The oblique way she had approached the subject of her capture had saved her a lot of pain - had she attempted to tell him outright it would be much worse, but they were constricting now, and it might not be long before she could not continue.
She drew a breath, carefully, and continued. "Then he said, 'We can use you', like a man deciding to buy - or steal - a tool. They threw a hood over my head and someone hit me, and that was all I knew for a long, long time."
She let out the rest of her breath in a rush, slumping down as if tired beyond belief. Despite himself, despite his hatred for the ones who had harmed Arren, Kell was gradually warming to this woman - his revulsion was directed, not towards her, but towards the cloak she wore. If it turned out she was lying, and had chosen that cloak willingly, it would go hard with her; if it had been forced upon her, she had his sympathy.
Then she raised her head, and the sorrow and anguish in those dark eyes removed the last shadow of doubt from his mind - this woman was telling the truth.
"They took me over land and over sea, in a ship that travelled faster than any I had ever seen. To Paln, to their own land. He," the compulsions were biting down now, but she fought them, forcing out the words through tight-clenched lips, "he told me they'd...they'd," she could not say the word, avoiding it instead, "that the lord of that island was theirs, and that they needed me to help them against..." Again the word was forbidden to her lips; her face twisted and she stabbed a finger out, pointing first at the bulkhead behind Kell, then to the tattered, bloodied remnants of his cloak. Her meaning was obvious - Roke.
"They..." Her breath was coming in shallow gasps now, the binding spells causing her obvious pain; still she fought to form her words despite them. "They wanted...him," jerking her head upward and circling her head with a finger - circlet, king - Arren... "so that between them they could rule the Archipelago. They," she was almost crying now, but her will drove her onward, "they see it as their right; they are all of the line of the Kings of Paln - they say they are taking back...what is...rightfully theirs..."
Her breath choked; for one terrible moment her eyes rolled in panic, then the grey lines loosened slightly, and she could breathe again - though they did not return to how they were before. Then they had been dormant, so close to invisible that Kell had overlooked them; now they thrummed with power, awake and very much alert. He closed his tired eyes and hoped against hope that they had not roused the dark mage.
* *
For a long time Arren simply lay there, surrendering to his hurts, wishing for the painless dark of unconsciousness that would not come.
He had felt worse, it was true; as a child he had broken his arm during sword training, and the pain had made him almost bite his tongue in two, but that had been pain like two great waves crashing upon the shore - one for the breaking, one for the setting, with nothing but a dull ache between. This was constant agony, with no respite. There was nothing he could do to make the pain go away, and that impotence made it a thousand times worse. The knowledge that something could be done, that eventually suffering could be made finite, was be a great buffer against pain; without it, there was only hopelessness.
Yet he clung on, forcing himself to think, to try and find a way out, though he knew it to be impossible.
A half-grown boy against five dark mages, without even a sword. I wouldn't last a minute.
One question plagued him, flooded his thoughts - where was Kell? If the mages were to be believed, he was somewhere aboard ship - below decks, most likely. No doubt he, too, was bound, and prevented from casting any spell - and if they had done this to him, who knew what they had done to the wizard, useless to them and helpless against them. In his mind's eye he saw his lover, broken and bleeding on the floor of some dark cabin, and it was all his fault...
I should've known better; I should've protected him better. I should've...
Oh, Kell...
Despite himself, tears welled up hot and stinging into his eyes; the physical pain he could resist, but this was beyond him. His heart ached till all his other hurts were almost drowned out; he doubled over again, sobs racking his body, guilt and fear and loneliness overwhelming him like never before. In that moment, he realised that he had come to rely upon Kell - for counsel, for companionship, for closeness. Not just as a lover, but also as his dearest - and closest - friend.
And now, who could tell where he was...
* *
Kell felt his heart sink ever further as the woman before him continued her story. As she spoke he compared it with one he had heard - a tale shared with him by the Master Patterner during his time in the Immanent Grove. A mage called Irioth - the Patterner had used his true name, saying that it no longer mattered, that he had gone beyond his name - had sought to take the power of others by perilous use of the Art of Summoning. He had used it to call, not the shades of the dead as the Master Summoner did, but the spirits -and bodies - of the living; he took their power, and bound them that they could say naught of it.
He thought of Irioth, who had been fought and overcome by the Archmage, and who had gone beyond his name; and he saw in that tale the truth of what had happened to the woman.
By spells can men be forced to do many things - though that art was forbidden on Roke, and was taught only in the teaching of defence against it. But one thing could not easily be compelled - the use of a gift of magic against the gifted's will. That spell was the hardest of all coercions to weave, and the least successful; and it became harder and less successful as the gift compelled became rarer and stronger. Patterning, the rarest and most powerful gift, could not be compelled at all.
When she had refused to help them willingly the black mages had tried to compel her to their service, but her gift of spellsong, though not the greatest gift, was too rare, and they did not know how to control it. Her voice could be made to sing, or to speak the words of the spell, but the two would not come together unless she chose.
So they had found another solution - an even worse perversion of the Summoner's Art than that used by Irioth, and one that made his skin crawl to think of it. When a live person was summoned in the flesh, it was a battle of power and of will; if the one summoned was weaker than the summoner, their will and their power became his tools. However, the spell for such live-summoning was a difficult one to work, and very tiring - it could not be maintained for long.
Instead - his mind still refused to believe it, rejecting the thought as too terrible - they had summoned her spirit into the body of one of their number, the woman whose face he now saw before him, and trapped her there. She had fought them, managing to keep control over almost everything bar her gift - hence the need for the coercions. But now she could not resist - she would sing at the will of the lead mage, with no more control over her voice than a hawk had control over the winds.
He had even managed to glean a little of how they intended to use her - that had slipped past the compulsions, though it had cost her. They thought to use her talent to surprise any who opposed them - spellsong was such a rare, wild talent that few opponents would be warded against it. Already she had been their tool in several such battles - the most recent being that against the chief wizard of the Lord of Paln. She had - at their behest - insinuated herself into the court of Paln, then used her talent to lull the wizard into an enchanted sleep, allowing the others to dispose of him easily.
Abruptly, he was roused from his contemplation by the conclusion of her tale.
"...I have to ask: can you break these spells they have set?"
She looked at him with pleading eyes; he could see the bonds around her, thin as thread, grey as smoke, but with a hold stronger than iron. To break them was beyond him, far beyond him, but it was possible to loosen them slightly. Coercions were often highly specific; she would be forbidden from freeing him outright, unbinding his hands or unstopping his mouth - anything that allowed him to cast a spell - but he might (if he were able to cast) be able to bend the restraints sufficiently to allow her to unbind his legs and help him walk, help him find some other way to free his hands.
The paradox, then - how to open the box with the tool that was inside? How to loosen the coercions, when he could not cast the spell allowing her to help him? There had to be some way - he must get free, must find some way to help Arren...
She leaned forward eagerly, obviously encouraged by what she saw in his eyes. "Can you do it? Can you free me? Can you," her voice caught on a sob of hope, "can you set me free?"
His mind cried out at the desperation in her voice, and he hoped his eyes did not say too much, did not tell her what he could not risk, could not bear to say - that that was impossible. That she was trapped. That her abandoned body had given up its life when she left it, and now lay rotting in the grave. That the other person in her head, the mage whose body she had been forced into, would never leave her - she would ever hear its voice whispering in her ear, ever have to fight it for control of a body that would never be truly hers. That even if the Masters of Roke lifted every coercion, every spell from her, she would never be truly whole again.
She did not see, or perhaps did not want to see; instead, she looked aside, her lips moving as her mind began to race. "If you...if you could tell me the words of the spell somehow, I could say them for you. He's stopped my singing voice, but I can still speak; they're so different, song-spell and spoken-spell, and I only ever had the gift for one. But if you can give me the words..." She tailed off, chewing her bottom lip, then sat forward again. "I heard...I heard that wizards can talk without speaking, if they have to. Talk without moving their lips, and the listener would hear them even if their ears were stopped. Even if," she ran a finger over the fabric of his gag, but pulled it back with a soft cry when the coercions stung her, "even if the wizard's mouth were stopped."
Kell considered this for a moment. He could speak mind-to-mind, but that route would be closed to him - the gift worked, it was true, as long as the recipient was willing, but the coercions would surely block her from hearing him.
However, he sent out a tentative whisper to check - and found the channel was not completely blocked. She could not speak to him in return, but she could hear him - or so he thought. With her 'voice' silenced, it was almost impossible to tell whether she could hear his - like speaking to a dumb person, unsure of whether they were also deaf.
But she had two voices, mind-voice and speech-voice, and with one she could tell him whether she could hear the other.
He extended a questing tendril of thought - can you hear me?; her face was all the answer he needed.
"Yes!" she gasped, her eyes widening, one hand flying to her mouth.
I can tell you the words; you must speak them exactly as I tell you. Do you understand?
"Yes," she said again, calming herself visibly; her face assumed an expression of grave concentration.
Very well. Speak thus: Solve catena, tolen viss. You must say it twice.
Her voice shook slightly as she pronounced the words, carefully and accurately; he relaxed his mind, letting his gift work through her as her lips shaped the words. He saw the bonds flare up, and shut his mind against the danger - the dark ones were sure to have been warned by now. He only hoped that he could find some way to free his hands before they came.
"Solve catena, tolen viss." As she spoke the spell a second time, he saw one loop of the compulsion spells fade, its light diminishing, its tension lessening, and he knew that the spell had worked.
So did she; the look of relief on her face told him that, but it was tempered by suspicion and disappointment.
"That's only one; the others are still there." Her voice was plaintive, like that of a child; he closed his ears to her distress, hating the lie even as he mind-spoke it.
I know. That's all I could do; it'll let you untie my legs. Then we have to find something to cut my wrists free; I can't allow you to undo them. Once I can cast spells myself, I can take the rest away.
Her face shone with hope, and she leapt forward to untie the ropes around his legs; he averted his eyes, unwilling to see the false hope he had created, focusing on the end rather than the means - I must help Arren...
The sudden flow of blood to his legs took his breath away; he almost collapsed again when she helped him to his feet. Walking was hard enough with his hands bound; with the pins-and-needles shooting through his numbed legs, it was all but impossible. She supported him, and together they were halfway to the door - when it was flung open by the chief mage, his face murderous.
* *
Eventually Arren managed to choke off his tears, blinking to clear them from his eyes; he lifted his head from the deck, and in that moment saw a shaft of sunlight spear down through the thunderheads, striking golden shimmers from something that brought his heart into his mouth and sent a great surge of hope through him.
A white ship, heading towards them under full sail, its bow cleaving through the waves and sending up vast showers of spray to sparkle in the sunlight.
Roke has been roused! The Masters are coming!
The mage at the stern had seen it too; he spat into the water and turned to the blind weatherworker, calling, "More wind, you fool! They're coming!"
The leader turned in the bows, his cloak flying out around him, snapping in the already strong wind; he made as if to go astern, but stopped, head raised like a questing dog.
Then he spun on his heel and headed for the hatch to below decks, boots ringing on the deck, spitting curses as he did so. "That bitch is helping him! To me!"
As one, two of the mages - the stern lookout and another, young-looking with long black hair - left their posts and followed him.
Arren closed his eyes and shouted inside his head, praying that Kell would hear - they are coming!
* *
His arm shot out, pointing straight at her; she was flung back against the bulkhead like a doll, collapsing to the floor, covering her head with her hands. Without her, Kell could not stay upright; he stumbled, falling awkwardly at the mage's feet.
"Traitorous bitch!" spat the mage, towering over her as she cowered on the floor. "Did you think I wouldn't hear? Did you think you could just let him go?" He drew back his foot and kicked her hard, catching her in the throat; she rolled over, choking. "Were you planning to run away? Take him with you, maybe?" He kicked her again; two more of the mages appeared in the doorway, dragging Kell roughly to his feet, forcing him to watch as she was beaten. Each sentence was punctuated by another kick, more vicious than the last. "Didn't you know? The boy isn't interested in you, you pathetic whore. He prefers his own sex, don't you?" The mage whipped round, hitting Kell hard across the face; beneath his gag, the wizard felt his split lip reopen, blood trickling hot and metallic onto his tongue. "Enjoys playing woman for the king." Another blow; behind his tormentor, Kell could see the singer moving feebly, massaging her bloody throat. All his hopes had been dashed; even had his hands been freed, he could never have stood against one, much less three of them.
I was such a fool - Arren, Arren, forgive me...
The third blow sent him falling into darkness.
"Kell!" The shout burst from Arren's lips before he could prevent it; the sight of his lover, beaten and bloodied, being carried unconscious between two of their enemies, was too much for him.
"Quiet." One of them dealt a kick to him in passing, and sneered down at him.
He ignored the threat, rolling over and pushing himself to his knees. "What are you doing with him?"
The mage dropped his burden, leaving the other to drag the lifeless wizard across the deck. "That bitch managed to get his legs untied, so we thought we'd put them to good use. He's going to walk right over the stern."
"NO!" Arren's chest felt as though it might burst.
"Oh, yes," the man leered. "He'll drop right into the path of your avenging angels. That ought to give them something to think about - one of their own, drowned like a rat."
Arren threw himself at the man, but though he wrenched at his bonds he could not tear his hands free; the man simply stepped back out of range and dealt him a stunning blow to the temple, then dragged him upright.
"Come, your majesty," he mocked, "come and watch your whore go overboard."
Though Arren struggled and kicked with all his might, he had no choice. The mage in front of him dumped Kell's limp body on the deck and dashed seawater into his face until the wizard came round, then hauled him up by one arm and shoved him towards the stern, where the chief mage was laying a plank up to the stern railing. As Arren watched in horror, the leader spoke a few words and Kell's legs began to move in a horrible parody of walking. He stumbled and staggered to the bottom of the plank, then, fighting with every shred of will, placed first one, then the other foot on the plank and began to lurch along it.
Desperately, Arren fought his captor, lashing out with feet and with his bound hands, but to no avail; the man merely held him tighter, and every movement earned him another blow. His efforts became more and more violent as Kell neared the end of the plank, but he could not get free, and had to watch as the wizard, looking back with his green eyes beautiful and sorrowful and afraid, stepped out onto empty air and fell towards the heaving ocean, both hands still tied tightly behind his back
Then the song began - no more than a whisper at first, a thread of murmuring tune that swelled and grew little by little. It called to him, tugged at his senses, cajoling until at last he relented and opened his eyes.
Or tried to. One eye opened, but the darkness barely yielded - all he could make out was the faintest glimmer. The other stayed stubbornly shut, some substance gluing his eyelids together. He tried to lift a hand to clear it away, but they were tied behind his back, even more tightly than before.
Pain shot through him, sparks exploding in his eyes as the monster leapt and attacked him viciously. Spasms wracked his body, lighting fires along his arms and legs as more bruises made their presence known. He couldn't lift his head - the same stuff that kept his eye from opening seemed to have congealed on the floor, trapping strands of hair and sucking wetly at his temple as his weak muscles strained against it.
A cool hand on his forehead, calming his shudders. "Ssh now. Try and lie still."
He opened his mouth, trying to reply, but could manage nothing above a croak that failed to penetrate his gag. A rough cloth rasped its way across his cheek, trailing water behind it - water that stung so badly that he caught his breath. Fresh seawater. Was this another cruel torture?
"Sorry," the voice murmured, true apology in the word. "It's all I have. At least it'll keep infection from those cuts."
Realisation dawned cold over Kell - that metallic taste seeping through his gag was his own blood. He was lying in a pool of it; it clotted on his eyelashes and solidified in his hair. The salt water seared gashes on his cheek and forehead, and his lip tingled dully where it had split under a particularly vicious blow. One ankle was already swollen, one wrist afire with the hot ache of a sprain.
He forced his other eye open at last, blinking away the coagulated blood and burning seawater. Focusing with difficulty, he made out a young woman kneeling less than a span away, a faint, bleached werelight glimmering off her brow and fingers as she sponged his cheek.
Then he caught sight of the night-black cloak around her shoulders, and terror swept over him like a great wave.
She sat back quickly, drawing her hands away as if his fear burned her. The werelight flickered, faded, then rallied, throwing the desolate expression on her face into sharp relief.
"You needn't be afraid." Her voice was a thread in the darkness, barely audible. "I don't intend to hurt you."
Suspicion must have shown in his eyes, because she sighed and pushed her cape off her shoulders. "I'm not really one of them, you know. Although my story might be a little...difficult to believe."
Right now Kell wasn't about to believe anything said by anyone wearing a black cloak, but she had a captive audience. He wasn't going anywhere. She resoaked the rag and passed it over his cuts again, wincing in sympathy every time he grimaced.
"I used to be a sorceress, you know. Not a very good one. I could do a little finding, a little weatherworking, a little healing - nothing special." Kell's lips curled wryly under his gag - she had named two of his weakest talents. "The one thing I could do was sing, and weave magic in my songs; it was how I cast all my spells, right from the beginning. I would sing the words to myself, sometimes out loud, sometimes under my breath. The witch who taught me didn't know how to teach a spellsinger; she taught me all she knew, but it was never enough, and many of her spells didn't work when I tried to sing them. I worked out how to make some of them work - the words needed to be changed somehow, sung differently to how they were spoken, but most of them I couldn't do. So I went to Roke to learn that art." She looked at the surprise in Kell's face and smiled bleakly. "Oh, yes. I was young enough and stupid enough to think that if I sang well enough, they'd let me in. I thought I could charm the Doorkeeper just enough to get past him, and then, well, that would have been it. I wanted it so, so much; I wanted to be able to do with my voice what all the other witch-kids could do with just a flick of their fingers."
She shook her head, dipping the cloth again and squeezing it out before mopping Kell's brow. "Well, it turned out that the Rule of Roke doesn't fall so easily. I made it to the door, just like anyone with a bit of talent to call their own, and the Doorkeeper came out to meet me. I expected him to be surprised, but he just stood there and asked me mildly what I wanted.
So I started to sing. I wove a charm into the song, the most powerful one I knew, trying to sing him under my control and make him let me in." She wrung the cloth between her hands, a wry expression on her face. "It didn't work. I tried everything I knew - I tried to make him sorry for me, make him like me, make myself invisible to him, but nothing happened. He just stood there, while my song washed over him like water over rocks and moved him not in the slightest.
Then he lifted a finger, and I had to stop singing. It was as if the notes just died on my lips. All the power went out of me, and I was left standing, staring, as he smiled at me.
'Thank you,' he said gently, 'but you cannot enter here.'
And that was that." Her voice rose; her hands twisted; her eyes stared at nothing. "Everything I ever wanted, just a few metres away, and I couldn't pass him. I wasn't good enough."
Then she came back to herself, smiling sadly down at Kell, dropping the cloth back into the shallow bowl of seawater. "I walked away, away from what I wanted most in the world; I had just enough money left to pay for passage on a ship. I didn't care where to; I just had to get away from Roke.
I ended up wandering the streets of O-tokne, singing to the passers by for a few coins to pay for food and shelter for the night. The innkeeper at the local tavern let me have a bed at first, and then when he noticed my talent he'd have me sing every night for his patrons. I learned to weave simple spells into my songs to keep the audience happy, encourage them to drink a little more or stay a little longer - just small things like that. Enough to make sure the innkeeper's pocket was full and the customers went away cheerful." Again the rueful smile. "Not quite the marbled halls of Roke, but it kept me alive."
Then her expression grew cold, distant; she seemed to shrink, drawing into herself as she had done in response to Kell's fear. Her hands flickered, running one over the other as if she tried to wash the memory away. "Then, one night, he came into the tavern, with his four lackeys behind him."
Four? Kell's mind was instantly afire with questions. If there were five of them then, without her, what happened to the other?
Again the smile, no more than a brief, emotionless twist of the lips. "Oh yes, you heard me right. Five there were then, and five now. And yet not a face amongst us has changed, from that five to this."
How? How is that possible? She was with them before?...no, only her face...
* *
Arren tried to roll with the punches and the kicks, but the ropes that held him restricted his movement; what force his momentum could not absorb was left to his already-bruised body. His whole head ached from his rude awakening back to consciousness; his temple sent spikes of ice and fire through his brain. His nose was bleeding copiously, his left eye swelling; his shoulder-blade screamed with the force of the most recently-landed blow.
He bit his lip to keep from crying out, refusing to give them that satisfaction; his mouth was already full of blood, so he could not tell whether or not he had bitten through his lip.
Then the dark mage's boot crashed into his chin, and he no longer had to wonder.
Someone - it was impossible to tell who, since at least three people were administering this beating and they shifted positions constantly - landed a boot squarely in his groin, and he curled up around the screaming pain, vomiting over the surface of the deck.
"Stop." It was that hateful voice, the leader's venomous, contemptuous hiss. "We don't want him permanently damaged; after all, we need him to give up his crown willingly, don't we?" There was a vicious chuckle at the end that left Arren in no doubt whatsoever; he would be given no choice, and once he had done so they would have no qualms about murdering him.
Still, the one remaining part of his mind that was not drowning in an ocean of incandescent pain managed to assimilate this, the reason for his capture - they want Havnor, they want my throne...
And without magic, there is nothing I can do to stop them...
The blind stormcaller knelt down by his head, deftly avoiding the spreading pool of vomit and blood on the deck, and spread his fingers above Arren's head; the king looked up, his heart rising into his mouth as he saw sparks crackling between the wizard's fingers.
"Say the word," the wizard giggled, "and I can have the lightning strike him...just say the word, my friend..." He sounded almost imploring, like a child begging to be allowed on an outing - except for that strange half-mad laugh.
"No." The leader's tone was final. "We do not want him dead - at least," he spat on Arren's face, his spittle cold on burning skin, "not yet." Then he turned on his heel and stalked off, leaving the king lying there on the deck, blood trickling slowly across the rough wooden planks.
* *
"I don't know why he was there, nor the others, but there they were. And they looked rich - if I made them happy, if they paid well, it might be my keep for a month and some over. So I sang to them; I sang the best I could, the best I had since the Doorkeeper. I wove my best charms, my finest enchantment into that song; I painted pictures, told great stories." For a moment a fierce pride shone on her face, transfiguring her pinched, lifeless features. "I had that room in the palm of my hand. No-one moved, or spoke; I could have held them there forever."
Then the light in her face faded, replaced by anger; he saw the muscles tense beneath the skin of her arms.
Kell could see the scene in his mind's eye as she described it - the songbird stepping from her perch, making for that table, intending to give them the full benefit of her voice. That voice dying on her lips as the leader whirled and flung out his hand, icy fingers of power meeting in her throat, choking off her enchanted song.
She was weeping, quiet tears falling into her lap, and he sensed that this sadness was but an echo of some other unceasing sorrow, that held her every day of her life.
"I was so afraid; I thought he was angry with me for trying to enchant him. His lackeys looked murderous enough, but he just laughed, low and long. I couldn't move; neither, from the looks of it, could anyone else in the room - his power had taken over from mine, holding them still.
Then he rose, and came to me, and cupped my cheek in his hand. I wanted to scream; the power I felt there was evil through and through, like a freshly-bloodied blade. He tilted my chin up, examining me, like holding a glass of wine up to the light. I couldn't pull away, though I tried and tried.
He turned to his men and beckoned them around him - and I saw they weren't all men, after all. In the depths of one of those great black hoods was a woman's face, bronze-skinned, framed with dark hair. I wondered what she was doing with a company like them - she looked so slender, so delicate, as if she'd blow away in the wind."
Kell looked at her, at her dark hair and bronze skin, her fragile, bird-boned frame, and a dreadful suspicion began to dawn in his mind.
If she noticed, she ignored it. "He laughed again," she went on, "and I shuddered to hear it. He called me a pretty little song thrush, and asked me what I was doing so far from my nest. I couldn't speak, of course, and that just made him laugh the more.
She drew a sharp breath, as if in sudden pain; Kell suddenly saw, ghostly and indistinct around her, thin grey lines that tightened and bit into her flesh, and he knew them for what they were - coercions, spells laid - no doubt by the mage leader - to prevent her from helping him, or from telling him too much. The oblique way she had approached the subject of her capture had saved her a lot of pain - had she attempted to tell him outright it would be much worse, but they were constricting now, and it might not be long before she could not continue.
She drew a breath, carefully, and continued. "Then he said, 'We can use you', like a man deciding to buy - or steal - a tool. They threw a hood over my head and someone hit me, and that was all I knew for a long, long time."
She let out the rest of her breath in a rush, slumping down as if tired beyond belief. Despite himself, despite his hatred for the ones who had harmed Arren, Kell was gradually warming to this woman - his revulsion was directed, not towards her, but towards the cloak she wore. If it turned out she was lying, and had chosen that cloak willingly, it would go hard with her; if it had been forced upon her, she had his sympathy.
Then she raised her head, and the sorrow and anguish in those dark eyes removed the last shadow of doubt from his mind - this woman was telling the truth.
"They took me over land and over sea, in a ship that travelled faster than any I had ever seen. To Paln, to their own land. He," the compulsions were biting down now, but she fought them, forcing out the words through tight-clenched lips, "he told me they'd...they'd," she could not say the word, avoiding it instead, "that the lord of that island was theirs, and that they needed me to help them against..." Again the word was forbidden to her lips; her face twisted and she stabbed a finger out, pointing first at the bulkhead behind Kell, then to the tattered, bloodied remnants of his cloak. Her meaning was obvious - Roke.
"They..." Her breath was coming in shallow gasps now, the binding spells causing her obvious pain; still she fought to form her words despite them. "They wanted...him," jerking her head upward and circling her head with a finger - circlet, king - Arren... "so that between them they could rule the Archipelago. They," she was almost crying now, but her will drove her onward, "they see it as their right; they are all of the line of the Kings of Paln - they say they are taking back...what is...rightfully theirs..."
Her breath choked; for one terrible moment her eyes rolled in panic, then the grey lines loosened slightly, and she could breathe again - though they did not return to how they were before. Then they had been dormant, so close to invisible that Kell had overlooked them; now they thrummed with power, awake and very much alert. He closed his tired eyes and hoped against hope that they had not roused the dark mage.
* *
For a long time Arren simply lay there, surrendering to his hurts, wishing for the painless dark of unconsciousness that would not come.
He had felt worse, it was true; as a child he had broken his arm during sword training, and the pain had made him almost bite his tongue in two, but that had been pain like two great waves crashing upon the shore - one for the breaking, one for the setting, with nothing but a dull ache between. This was constant agony, with no respite. There was nothing he could do to make the pain go away, and that impotence made it a thousand times worse. The knowledge that something could be done, that eventually suffering could be made finite, was be a great buffer against pain; without it, there was only hopelessness.
Yet he clung on, forcing himself to think, to try and find a way out, though he knew it to be impossible.
A half-grown boy against five dark mages, without even a sword. I wouldn't last a minute.
One question plagued him, flooded his thoughts - where was Kell? If the mages were to be believed, he was somewhere aboard ship - below decks, most likely. No doubt he, too, was bound, and prevented from casting any spell - and if they had done this to him, who knew what they had done to the wizard, useless to them and helpless against them. In his mind's eye he saw his lover, broken and bleeding on the floor of some dark cabin, and it was all his fault...
I should've known better; I should've protected him better. I should've...
Oh, Kell...
Despite himself, tears welled up hot and stinging into his eyes; the physical pain he could resist, but this was beyond him. His heart ached till all his other hurts were almost drowned out; he doubled over again, sobs racking his body, guilt and fear and loneliness overwhelming him like never before. In that moment, he realised that he had come to rely upon Kell - for counsel, for companionship, for closeness. Not just as a lover, but also as his dearest - and closest - friend.
And now, who could tell where he was...
* *
Kell felt his heart sink ever further as the woman before him continued her story. As she spoke he compared it with one he had heard - a tale shared with him by the Master Patterner during his time in the Immanent Grove. A mage called Irioth - the Patterner had used his true name, saying that it no longer mattered, that he had gone beyond his name - had sought to take the power of others by perilous use of the Art of Summoning. He had used it to call, not the shades of the dead as the Master Summoner did, but the spirits -and bodies - of the living; he took their power, and bound them that they could say naught of it.
He thought of Irioth, who had been fought and overcome by the Archmage, and who had gone beyond his name; and he saw in that tale the truth of what had happened to the woman.
By spells can men be forced to do many things - though that art was forbidden on Roke, and was taught only in the teaching of defence against it. But one thing could not easily be compelled - the use of a gift of magic against the gifted's will. That spell was the hardest of all coercions to weave, and the least successful; and it became harder and less successful as the gift compelled became rarer and stronger. Patterning, the rarest and most powerful gift, could not be compelled at all.
When she had refused to help them willingly the black mages had tried to compel her to their service, but her gift of spellsong, though not the greatest gift, was too rare, and they did not know how to control it. Her voice could be made to sing, or to speak the words of the spell, but the two would not come together unless she chose.
So they had found another solution - an even worse perversion of the Summoner's Art than that used by Irioth, and one that made his skin crawl to think of it. When a live person was summoned in the flesh, it was a battle of power and of will; if the one summoned was weaker than the summoner, their will and their power became his tools. However, the spell for such live-summoning was a difficult one to work, and very tiring - it could not be maintained for long.
Instead - his mind still refused to believe it, rejecting the thought as too terrible - they had summoned her spirit into the body of one of their number, the woman whose face he now saw before him, and trapped her there. She had fought them, managing to keep control over almost everything bar her gift - hence the need for the coercions. But now she could not resist - she would sing at the will of the lead mage, with no more control over her voice than a hawk had control over the winds.
He had even managed to glean a little of how they intended to use her - that had slipped past the compulsions, though it had cost her. They thought to use her talent to surprise any who opposed them - spellsong was such a rare, wild talent that few opponents would be warded against it. Already she had been their tool in several such battles - the most recent being that against the chief wizard of the Lord of Paln. She had - at their behest - insinuated herself into the court of Paln, then used her talent to lull the wizard into an enchanted sleep, allowing the others to dispose of him easily.
Abruptly, he was roused from his contemplation by the conclusion of her tale.
"...I have to ask: can you break these spells they have set?"
She looked at him with pleading eyes; he could see the bonds around her, thin as thread, grey as smoke, but with a hold stronger than iron. To break them was beyond him, far beyond him, but it was possible to loosen them slightly. Coercions were often highly specific; she would be forbidden from freeing him outright, unbinding his hands or unstopping his mouth - anything that allowed him to cast a spell - but he might (if he were able to cast) be able to bend the restraints sufficiently to allow her to unbind his legs and help him walk, help him find some other way to free his hands.
The paradox, then - how to open the box with the tool that was inside? How to loosen the coercions, when he could not cast the spell allowing her to help him? There had to be some way - he must get free, must find some way to help Arren...
She leaned forward eagerly, obviously encouraged by what she saw in his eyes. "Can you do it? Can you free me? Can you," her voice caught on a sob of hope, "can you set me free?"
His mind cried out at the desperation in her voice, and he hoped his eyes did not say too much, did not tell her what he could not risk, could not bear to say - that that was impossible. That she was trapped. That her abandoned body had given up its life when she left it, and now lay rotting in the grave. That the other person in her head, the mage whose body she had been forced into, would never leave her - she would ever hear its voice whispering in her ear, ever have to fight it for control of a body that would never be truly hers. That even if the Masters of Roke lifted every coercion, every spell from her, she would never be truly whole again.
She did not see, or perhaps did not want to see; instead, she looked aside, her lips moving as her mind began to race. "If you...if you could tell me the words of the spell somehow, I could say them for you. He's stopped my singing voice, but I can still speak; they're so different, song-spell and spoken-spell, and I only ever had the gift for one. But if you can give me the words..." She tailed off, chewing her bottom lip, then sat forward again. "I heard...I heard that wizards can talk without speaking, if they have to. Talk without moving their lips, and the listener would hear them even if their ears were stopped. Even if," she ran a finger over the fabric of his gag, but pulled it back with a soft cry when the coercions stung her, "even if the wizard's mouth were stopped."
Kell considered this for a moment. He could speak mind-to-mind, but that route would be closed to him - the gift worked, it was true, as long as the recipient was willing, but the coercions would surely block her from hearing him.
However, he sent out a tentative whisper to check - and found the channel was not completely blocked. She could not speak to him in return, but she could hear him - or so he thought. With her 'voice' silenced, it was almost impossible to tell whether she could hear his - like speaking to a dumb person, unsure of whether they were also deaf.
But she had two voices, mind-voice and speech-voice, and with one she could tell him whether she could hear the other.
He extended a questing tendril of thought - can you hear me?; her face was all the answer he needed.
"Yes!" she gasped, her eyes widening, one hand flying to her mouth.
I can tell you the words; you must speak them exactly as I tell you. Do you understand?
"Yes," she said again, calming herself visibly; her face assumed an expression of grave concentration.
Very well. Speak thus: Solve catena, tolen viss. You must say it twice.
Her voice shook slightly as she pronounced the words, carefully and accurately; he relaxed his mind, letting his gift work through her as her lips shaped the words. He saw the bonds flare up, and shut his mind against the danger - the dark ones were sure to have been warned by now. He only hoped that he could find some way to free his hands before they came.
"Solve catena, tolen viss." As she spoke the spell a second time, he saw one loop of the compulsion spells fade, its light diminishing, its tension lessening, and he knew that the spell had worked.
So did she; the look of relief on her face told him that, but it was tempered by suspicion and disappointment.
"That's only one; the others are still there." Her voice was plaintive, like that of a child; he closed his ears to her distress, hating the lie even as he mind-spoke it.
I know. That's all I could do; it'll let you untie my legs. Then we have to find something to cut my wrists free; I can't allow you to undo them. Once I can cast spells myself, I can take the rest away.
Her face shone with hope, and she leapt forward to untie the ropes around his legs; he averted his eyes, unwilling to see the false hope he had created, focusing on the end rather than the means - I must help Arren...
The sudden flow of blood to his legs took his breath away; he almost collapsed again when she helped him to his feet. Walking was hard enough with his hands bound; with the pins-and-needles shooting through his numbed legs, it was all but impossible. She supported him, and together they were halfway to the door - when it was flung open by the chief mage, his face murderous.
* *
Eventually Arren managed to choke off his tears, blinking to clear them from his eyes; he lifted his head from the deck, and in that moment saw a shaft of sunlight spear down through the thunderheads, striking golden shimmers from something that brought his heart into his mouth and sent a great surge of hope through him.
A white ship, heading towards them under full sail, its bow cleaving through the waves and sending up vast showers of spray to sparkle in the sunlight.
Roke has been roused! The Masters are coming!
The mage at the stern had seen it too; he spat into the water and turned to the blind weatherworker, calling, "More wind, you fool! They're coming!"
The leader turned in the bows, his cloak flying out around him, snapping in the already strong wind; he made as if to go astern, but stopped, head raised like a questing dog.
Then he spun on his heel and headed for the hatch to below decks, boots ringing on the deck, spitting curses as he did so. "That bitch is helping him! To me!"
As one, two of the mages - the stern lookout and another, young-looking with long black hair - left their posts and followed him.
Arren closed his eyes and shouted inside his head, praying that Kell would hear - they are coming!
* *
His arm shot out, pointing straight at her; she was flung back against the bulkhead like a doll, collapsing to the floor, covering her head with her hands. Without her, Kell could not stay upright; he stumbled, falling awkwardly at the mage's feet.
"Traitorous bitch!" spat the mage, towering over her as she cowered on the floor. "Did you think I wouldn't hear? Did you think you could just let him go?" He drew back his foot and kicked her hard, catching her in the throat; she rolled over, choking. "Were you planning to run away? Take him with you, maybe?" He kicked her again; two more of the mages appeared in the doorway, dragging Kell roughly to his feet, forcing him to watch as she was beaten. Each sentence was punctuated by another kick, more vicious than the last. "Didn't you know? The boy isn't interested in you, you pathetic whore. He prefers his own sex, don't you?" The mage whipped round, hitting Kell hard across the face; beneath his gag, the wizard felt his split lip reopen, blood trickling hot and metallic onto his tongue. "Enjoys playing woman for the king." Another blow; behind his tormentor, Kell could see the singer moving feebly, massaging her bloody throat. All his hopes had been dashed; even had his hands been freed, he could never have stood against one, much less three of them.
I was such a fool - Arren, Arren, forgive me...
The third blow sent him falling into darkness.
"Kell!" The shout burst from Arren's lips before he could prevent it; the sight of his lover, beaten and bloodied, being carried unconscious between two of their enemies, was too much for him.
"Quiet." One of them dealt a kick to him in passing, and sneered down at him.
He ignored the threat, rolling over and pushing himself to his knees. "What are you doing with him?"
The mage dropped his burden, leaving the other to drag the lifeless wizard across the deck. "That bitch managed to get his legs untied, so we thought we'd put them to good use. He's going to walk right over the stern."
"NO!" Arren's chest felt as though it might burst.
"Oh, yes," the man leered. "He'll drop right into the path of your avenging angels. That ought to give them something to think about - one of their own, drowned like a rat."
Arren threw himself at the man, but though he wrenched at his bonds he could not tear his hands free; the man simply stepped back out of range and dealt him a stunning blow to the temple, then dragged him upright.
"Come, your majesty," he mocked, "come and watch your whore go overboard."
Though Arren struggled and kicked with all his might, he had no choice. The mage in front of him dumped Kell's limp body on the deck and dashed seawater into his face until the wizard came round, then hauled him up by one arm and shoved him towards the stern, where the chief mage was laying a plank up to the stern railing. As Arren watched in horror, the leader spoke a few words and Kell's legs began to move in a horrible parody of walking. He stumbled and staggered to the bottom of the plank, then, fighting with every shred of will, placed first one, then the other foot on the plank and began to lurch along it.
Desperately, Arren fought his captor, lashing out with feet and with his bound hands, but to no avail; the man merely held him tighter, and every movement earned him another blow. His efforts became more and more violent as Kell neared the end of the plank, but he could not get free, and had to watch as the wizard, looking back with his green eyes beautiful and sorrowful and afraid, stepped out onto empty air and fell towards the heaving ocean, both hands still tied tightly behind his back