Then the Suhl began to sing. Their words seemed to seep from the trees themselves, filling the valley with a mournful chorus:
In far lands of dark and high lands and low,
I hear songs of a place where none ever go;
Locked in the hills, ’midst green velvet folds,
A treasure more precious than gem-furnished gold,
For there dwell the Suhl, the last broken band,
There dwell the lost and there dwell the damned …
The thing throbbed and quivered, its glistening flanks oozing a sickening slime. It was a formless shape, a mess of organic sludge that barely cohered into a single thing. The tiny chamber in which it lived dripped the same oily filth and pulsed to the same quickening rhythm, as though it and the thing were one and the same: one sustaining the other. The air was thick and hot and wet. Trails of vapour rose and formed swirling, putrid clouds beneath the cave-like ceiling.
Suddenly there was silence.
The half-formed heart halted. The vapours ceased their constant movement.
The thing trembled. And then …
THUMP … THUMP …
THUMP-THUMP … THUMP-THUMP … THUMP-THUMP …
The thing swelled and receded. Something inside tensed and then a bulge moved beneath the glutinous surface. Then another: this time distinct and pointed.
The pulse accelerated, gaining volume, building and building, faster and faster until soon it was no longer a heartbeat but a rush of sound, a deafening percussion of panic.
Suddenly the thing erupted in frantic motion, twisting and stretching, turning and bulging. As the jelly was breached, more black mucous flowed down its sides and new vapours palled in the chamber.
And then, with a sudden surge, something forced itself upwards, striking the ceiling with a thud. It slewed to one side and then collapsed, slapping down into the ooze.
The heartbeat steadied and began to return to a measured pace. The walls ceased their throbbing altogether, for their work was done.
Something had been born.
It was partly submerged in the oily mire, so that it could almost not be seen. But in some strange contortion there was an arm and a hand – a human hand – and that hand rested against a human cheek. A woman’s cheek. It twitched, the little finger tapping against the fine dark skin.
And then, slowly, the hand began to clench. The fingers curled, and as they did so there was movement at their tips, beneath the fingernails. Slow and slick, the points of rapier talons emerged into the gloom. They grew and grew, until they were almost half the length of the fingers. Until they scratched the woman’s cheek.
The figure arched in a spasm of pain. She shrieked, her eyes wide and staring, the pupils drawn into narrow slits.
It was not a woman’s shriek. It was the screeching wail of an animal.
(#ulink_8fba74d0-3a54-51f2-b719-a76e1adea157)
“Ifsorceryitself has form, it is the Black. The Black is all we cannot know; it is enchantment and it is despair.”
IT STARTED BEFORE THE first warming rays, in the darkness: a playful chirrup from a nearby branch, followed by an answering call. Then another, even nearer at hand, and another, building on the first, clamouring to be heard. Soon a mounting chorus filled the forest. Thousands of sparrows and swifts, finches and wrens, kites and kestrels, all raising their heads towards the crowning sun to welcome the new day.
And yet to Naeo, it was a strange, unwelcome sound – even now, even days after her escape. It was too clear and loud and shrill. In her slumber, she pushed at her heels and pressed herself even further back between the two rounded rocks, retreating into the shadows. And as the rays crept down the steps into her cave she coiled into a ball, wrapping her arms around her head, yearning for silence and darkness.
Silence and darkness were what she knew. They were her friends. They kept her safe.
She pulled her knees up a little further, murmuring as she turned her face into the cold stone.
“Naeo?”
It was a gentle, soothing voice.
“Naeo? I’m afraid I must wake you.”
She groaned and twisted between the rocks, grazing her cheek. Her eyelids fluttered and she drew in a lungful of fragrant air.
Suddenly her eyes flew open. She sat up and pressed her narrow shoulders further back into the crevice. She glanced about the room, squinting into the shaft of sunlight, searching for the owner of the voice. But the light was everywhere, zigzagging between a dozen mirrors mounted on the walls, lighting the whole chamber. She covered her face with her hands.
“You’re with friends, Naeo!” came the voice again, calm and warm. “Remember? You’re in the Valley of Outs.”
The beams shifted, turning away from the rear of the cave where Naeo lay, leaving her in shadows. She blinked as her eyes adjusted and then she saw Filimaya, kneeling only a few paces away, her aged face creased with concern.
“Have you slept here all night?” she asked, looking at the made-up bed in the corner of the cave.
Naeo shrugged. “I prefer the floor,” she said. “I’m used to it.” She pushed herself up, rubbing her eyes.
“Was it like that in the Dirgheon?”
“I suppose …” said Naeo, indifferently.
“Of course it was,” said Filimaya. “I should have—”
“What’s going on? Has the Say-So started?”
Filimaya frowned. She wanted to ask more, but thought better of it. “No, but it will be almost under way by the time we get there. We should go.”
“Fine. I’ll just change,” said Naeo. She turned and walked to a driftwood shelf, pulling down the fresh clothes that had been laid there.
Filimaya was about to step outside, but as Naeo pulled off her top she froze.
She raised her hands to her mouth. The girl’s back was terribly disfigured by a single scar, which ran all the way down her spine and across her shoulders. It was shapeless and mottled in the manner of burns, but marked out in greys and an inky black. In places the lifeless pigments seemed only to have stained her flesh, while in others they had pinched and raised the skin in a manner that could only have caused extreme pain.
“For the love of Isia!” breathed Filimaya. “What happened to you?”
“It’s nothing,” said Naeo, pulling down her tunic and turning abruptly. “Are we going?”
“Naeo, tell me what—”
“It’s nothing,” said Naeo, emphatically, walking to the steps. She reached down and picked up two short twigs, which she brushed off and then pushed into her hair in a cross, holding her long locks high above her shoulders. She looked back. “Really, I’m fine.”
