《The Herald of the End》


 Eels

    I''m out of joint again. I''m here, sitting on the damp, rough stone jetty amongst the fish guts and screeching sea-birds and the men unloading the catch, with my bare feet dangling above the gentle slap-slap of sea water against the rocks, and at the same time I''m there, enveloped in moist soil, forgetting how to breathe, becoming less human and more like something soft and organic that spins hair thin roots like an earth-bound spider. Worms glide across my skin, waiting for me to decay. Burrowing insects gnaw at my body, lay eggs in the chewed holes. Pupae emerge, and eat me from the inside. I¡¯m yellowing and mould-ridden, flattening and defleshing, my blood all soaked away. Darkness spreads inside me, and silence. Then my nerves awaken once more to minute pin-pricks that ripple across the rotten stain of my hollow carcass. The gods of the soil have found me, and their hair-like fingers invade me, spreading and splitting and multiplying until I am suffused with their hyphae. I am woven in their embrace once more. I listen, straining to hear their words.


    ¡°Toren¡­¡±


    The sensation snaps away and I''m back, a whole body in the hard, cold world once more. The shrieking of the birds is somehow more strident, and the painted reds and blues and yellows of the fishing boats are garish and painful to my eyes. The fish guts stink just the same. There''s something about fish guts that cuts through any trance. I draw in a deep breath all the same, to make sure I haven¡¯t forgotten how to breathe.


    The tide is on the turn. A chill onshore breeze shaves the peaks off the waves and blows the water into a mess of confused interlocking patterns.


    ¡°Tell us a story!¡± The women mending the nets sing as they work, their shuttles flying like a wooden fish, in and out and around, knots springing into existence in their expert hands. ¡°Tell us a story! Tell us a tale!¡±


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    Their language is not my language. It''s like no language I''ve heard, and I''ve heard a few. Every sentence is a rhyme, every phrase a song, every conversation a chorus. Don''t try to learn it, just sing along.


    I felt understood by these people long before I understood them. I arrived in the cold part of the year clad in furs and bone-thin, and they fed me and let me sleep beneath an upturned skiff in a nest of blankets and old sail fabric while they just carried on with their lives.


    Even now, with the long hot days of mid-year well behind us, with the sun rising later and climbing only halfway into the dark blue sky each day, I know them only a little more. Their words are clear to me, just as the words of any language become clear in my mind without any apparent effort on my part, a skill that has been bestowed on me for no purpose I can divine. But knowing the words of a language doesn¡¯t mean you understand the people any more than feeling the roughness of a road beneath your feet reveals what lies beneath the ground.


    ¡°Eels a-plenty,¡± sings a man, ¡°eels by the river-mouth.¡± He¡¯s old and lean, skin coarsened by cycles of salt water, wind, sun, and rain, but he smiles as he sings and the skin at the corners of his eyes crinkles. They¡¯re like a map of his happiness, those lines.


    Another few fishermen repeat the song. Their intonation tells me that they''re challenging him. ¡°Eels a-plenty? Eels by the river-mouth?¡±


    The old man sings the line again, and makes a flat palm-down gesture with both hands that means ¡°Yes, I swear it.¡± He has to drop a fish knife in order to make the gesture, which only adds emphasis to it. The knife is polished and bright, with an elegantly carved bone handle. Valuable, maybe a knife that was made by an ancestor. Maybe an Old Earth knife. All the same, he drops it and makes the gesture. The other men repeat the line once more, but this time the tone is one of agreement. At least, I think they¡¯re agreeing with him. They¡¯re not quite in harmony. I wonder if this means most of the men are convinced about the eels but one of them is still uncertain. I can¡¯t quite unpick the nuances in their song. Another year here by the waterside drinking in their songs, and I¡¯m sure I¡¯ll understand everything. But I¡¯ve been here too long already.

 The Stone Ship

    The sea is the land and the land is the sea. These people, when they step onto the shore they¡¯re counting the moments until they¡¯re on the water again. Their houses are afterthoughts, ramshackle wattle and daub cells that lean one next to the other like a hive made by drunken bees. I¡¯ve seen inside, there¡¯s little more than bedding, hearths, and a few drying herbs hanging here and there. They don¡¯t even sleep in the same bed from one day to the next, but just drop into a convenient space when they grow tired of weaving nets and mending sails.


    They sing one another to sleep. Parents sing stories of the great sea-farers of Old Earth for the children, then when the little ones are asleep they sing the currents and the tides to one another. They¡¯re never all asleep at the same time. There¡¯s always one or more standing watch, singing a breath-song that sounds like waves lapping slowly against shingle.


    Their boats are brightly painted marvels, elegantly shaped planks of wood slotted together in such a way that the tension of the timbers against one another seals the boat against the water. The smallest are the oar-boats, needle-like vessels with barely any draft that skip over the waves. These are powered by a single long oar, and they are fiendishly difficult to control as the oarsman must be standing. The young people race one another in oar-boats, paddling out when the seas are rough and challenging one another to mount ever-greater waves.


    More numerous are the sixen-boats, wide-bodied and fat-bellied, keeled, with a high prow. They have a crew of six men, but that half-dozen does the job of twice that number when a sixen-boat is under sail. Every man on the crew must be able to row, raise sail, cast net, reel out lines, navigate, haul in catch. A sixen crew at work is like a flock of starlings at sunset, a constant stream of coordinated movement with no need for a leader to shout commands.


    Sixen crews bond for life. Their boat designs are unique, like tattoos in wood, each colour and shape telling something of the men, the boat, and their history together. I cannot explain more, because the people lack the words to explain it. ¡°The voice of the boat is colour,¡± they sing.


    Many days have passed since Ang Fromah died. Long enough for the weeping to have stopped but recent enough for the memories to be fresh. She was toothless-old and her song had faded to a quiet whisper, but in her prime she had been the best at everything, and she made sure everyone knew so. The loudest singer, the fastest net-maker, the best oar-boat rider (until she was dashed against rocks and broke a leg), and the most argumentative and difficult woman the village had ever known. Everyone loved and feared her in equal measure, and promised her that she would have the death that every one of her people desired, dying upon the sea.


    These people believe that they came from the water, and that after they die that is where they return. The most perfect death, they assert, is drowning. To be enclosed in the cold embrace of the sea, to replace the air in the body with salt water, to sink to the bottom and gently settle into the sand, that is the most direct way to the afterlife.


    Most of them do die at sea, that is certain. There are a hundred ways to die at sea, none of them pretty, but Ang wanted the brightest sixen-boat to sail her out to the deepest waters so she could slip beneath the waves with an anchor-rock in each pocket. She¡¯d been demanding this end for more than a season, but her daughters had hesitated. ¡°Next tide,¡± they sang. ¡°Wait for the neap tide, wait for the blue skies, wait for the orcas to return.¡±


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    They waited, and Ang grew weaker. Then on the eve of her last voyage, while her feet were still on dry land, she breathed her last. The weeping was all the more bitter because her dying wish had not been granted. So the villagers tied up their boats, placed Ang¡¯s lifeless body into her old oar-boat, and carried her to the Stone Ship.


    This vessel is the strangest boat of all. It is built of smooth, finely carved pink stone, and sits on a small island upstream of the river mouth. It is ancient, made - so they say - by the ancestors, using tools and knowledge that was lost when the Old Earth passed away. Fully three hundred strides long, it is shaped like no boat I have ever seen on the Inner Sea, geometrically perfect. The prow is a triangular prism of solid stone, the main body of the vessel constructed from vast blocks of stone with edges so clean that the joints between blocks are all but invisible.


    The Stone Ship does not sail, but when the river is in spate after the late-year rains or when the snow melts from the mountains, the water runs high against its flanks. The people say that long ago, in the early days of the Old Earth, the Stone Ship sailed across the Outer Sea, nudged along by a great whale. When the Outer Sea broke through the Great Gap to fill the dry basin that became the Inner Sea, the Stone Ship was thrust through in a great torrent, and finally made its way to the furthest reaches of the Inner Sea and finally to their village.


    Before they carry Ang into the Stone Ship, I wade out across the river and place my hands on it. The stone speaks to me in the way that only stone can speak, which is a series of ticks and groans and low rumbles, and it tells me that it had rested on this spot for some little while. By stone reckoning, it means the ship has been in this spot since Old Earth times. I had thought the tales of the Stone Ship sailing the seas somewhat fanciful. I¡¯m no boat-builder, but I can¡¯t see how a ship of unmortared stone could float. Of course, I will share neither my suspicions or my insights with the villagers. Why pollute their beliefs with mere facts? Instead I sit respectfully by the riverside beneath the fronds of a great fern and watch as the people carry Ang Fromah in her oar-boat up the ladders and into the Stone Ship.


    ¡°Take the wheel, Ang,¡± sing the people. ¡°Take the wheel and sail, the wind blows straight and the sea shows grace, take the wheel and sail.¡±


    I watch Ang¡¯s daughters carry her oar-boat back to dry land, and the funeral party move away to the quayside. The tidying of the long wooden ladders is left to one old man, who lifts them away from the Stone Ship and places them on the ground as if they were as light as willow-switches.


    ¡°Where go oar-boat?¡± I ask, trying to inject a note of song into my spoken words. The old man nods appreciatively, recognising my efforts at communication.


    ¡°Ang¡¯s oar she holds, for when the seas rise again all ancestors must heave to and row away,¡± he sings in a high, somewhat shaky quaver. ¡°An oar-boat without an oar is driftwood, we give it to the sea.¡±


    I nod. The words make sense, if not the intent. He lifts the ladders beneath strong arms and starts the walk back to the village. I make to rise and follow him, but something catches my mind¡¯s eye and I sit back down again to wait for it to come into focus.

 Hilltop

    I have been sitting by the Stone Ship for hours. The air is cooling rapidly and the sun is dipping behind the modest hill that rises behind the village. I am stiff and aching from sitting motionless, but I have no recollection of the passing of time. I force my memories to resurface. Ang Fromah¡¯s funeral rites, yes. Then the old man with the ladders. An oar-boat without an oar. Then¡­something came into my mind, I cannot determine what. There is a gap in my memory for the time I was sitting here oblivious to the world. I touch the ground beneath my legs, but there is no sign that the gods beneath the ground have reached up to me. Did I slip out of joint? I don¡¯t know.


    I stand, muscles complaining. I¡¯m a young man, more than twenty summers but I think no more than twenty-five. I should be strong and lithe, but my strength has been seeping away while I have been biding my time with the fishing people. It¡¯s too comfortable here, I¡¯ve made excuses to myself: I want to understand them, find out who they really are. That¡¯s why I have lingered. But the truth is that I¡¯ve lost sight in my pilgrimage to understand myself, and it¡¯s been easier to let myself sleep beneath an upturned boat and eat the preserved fish that is left out for me each day, like some kind of house-bound animal.


    I had told myself that I would see out the cold months and recommence my journey when the weather warms, but I see now that it would be all too easy to hesitate, delay, wait another week and another, and find myself still here a year later. I should move on.


    The place where I first saw the fishing village is a few minutes¡¯ walk away, at a spot where the path divides at the summit of a bald, round hill. I wheel around, getting my bearings. It¡¯s that hill, right there, dark in front of the setting sun. I stride towards it, determined to rediscover the place where I paused my journey and make a promise to myself to begin again soon.


    The ferns that soften the hillside are dying back, making the climb easy. Halfway up I turn to look, and I can frame the village, the quayside, the boats, the people, the river-mouth and the Stone Ship without turning my head. Such a small place, but such full lives. Perhaps I¡¯ve lingered through jealousy, envious of their simple riches, or maybe I hoped that by staying awhile I would absorb something to fill the strange gaps inside me. Then I laugh at my weak excuses. ¡°You¡¯re just lazy, Toren. You like fish and good company more than the open road. Get on with you!¡±


    I complete the climb. The sun is little more than a sliver of gold, but there¡¯s enough light to make out the worn path that traverses the gently rounded peak. Facing the Inner Sea with the sun behind me, I spread my arms as if to embrace the vast, horizonless body of water. The path to my left is where I came from. The path to the right is where I will continue. I drag a line in the dust with my shoe, marking my starting point.


    I freeze, motionless. Slowly, slowly, I lower myself to the ground, belly-down. I rotate myself until I am looking sunwards, and peer into the shallow valley on the far side of the hill. The faint smell of dried meat and a distant metallic clang was all it took for my sense of self-preservation to take over and collapse me to the ground. Neither the smell nor the sound have any place being here. The fishing-people don¡¯t hunt or preserve meat, and there is little good hunting in these lands either. Neither do they have much use for metal, apart from scavenged wire that they make into fish-hooks and a handful of precious knives. So who is here?


    I slow my breathing and open my senses. Now would be the perfect time for the gifts that the gods of soil bestowed on me to spring to life in a useful and predictable way. Let go, I tell myself. Let it happen.


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    I flicker out of joint for a moment. A brief image of well-armed men in quiet, urgent debate appears in my mind. From them comes a sense of hunger, and something else¡­desperation, maybe. A need to control? I don¡¯t understand what my senses are telling me.


    I replay the vision in my mind. Cloth-covered plates of scavenged metal bound with leather straps over travel-stained jerkins. Heavy boots. Blades, hand-axes. A longbow. How many of them? I¡¯m unsure. A small crowd. More than ten. I try to picture them in turn so that I can count them, but they slip beyond my mental grip.


    Then I know, just as if one of them had turned to speak to me. Twenty. We are the Fighting Twenty. None may stand against us and live.


    I inch backwards, slowly, slowly. Only when I am some way back down the hill do I turn and run towards the village.


    The funeral has become a celebration. Poddick, a foul brew of bitter fruit and fermented seaweed, is being drunk. Songs are becoming bawdy. Children are running here and there. These people make music with their voices, and have no need for stringed or blown instruments, but they love to drum, and several of the wooden barrels used to store salted fish have been pulled together, and an unruly group of drummers are building a complex rhythm to accompany the song. The group is dynamic and constantly changing, with new drummers joining as others leave, the complex rhythm evolving in response.


    I had fully intended to share the news of the nearby warriors with the most senior people in the village, but my intent drains away as I watch them variously drinking, drumming, laughing, and singing. What did I think I was going to tell them anyway? ¡°There are men in the valley!¡± Who, they would ask. What do they want? ¡°I don¡¯t know!¡± Did you sing a question to them? ¡°No¡­¡± What do they smell like? This is a common question for these people. People like me coming into the village from the hill path smell of dust and sweat. These people smell of salt and sea and fish. ¡°I didn¡¯t smell them,¡± I would have to say. Why? Because I only dreamt them. The smell and the sound were just figments of my imagination. Too long on the road, imagining brigands and cut-throats lurking around every corner.


    I am at the edge of the village watching the celebrations, and a feeling of isolation and loneliness overwhelms me. These people are not my people. I don¡¯t know who my people are. I don¡¯t know who I am. All I know about myself is this: I woke up in a forest clearing almost buried beneath leaves and dirt, and I have no memory of anything that came before, or why I was there. I had no injury, no clothes, no possessions. The nails of my hands were long, as if I had left them untended and unused for a month. My skin was soft, like that of a newborn child, and my hair long. I was lean and unfed, but healthy.


    I left that place, begged and stole until I was shod, clothed, and less hungry, and began walking. To where, or for what reason, I know not, but I am haunted by visions of decay, of burial, of rotting in the ground and being eaten by worms. In these dreams I am transformed into something without flesh that is everywhere and nowhere at the same time, stretched into a skein of glowing thread deep within the soil, and it is at these moments that I hear the gods of the soil speak to me. I wish I knew what they were saying.


    I walked to show myself that I am alive, and vital. I walked in the hope of finding a wise one who could touch my forehead and explain my past. I walked in the hope of finding someone who recognises me as one of their own, someone who would take me into their arms and call me brother.


    My name is not even my own. Toren simply means ¡°outsider¡± in one of the common Inner Sea languages. It¡¯s the word that the children shouted to the adults when I stumbled into their settlement a few days after emerging from the forest.


    I retreat to my upturned boat on the quayside, abandoning the idea of warning the villagers about the nearby warriors. I probably only imagined them anyway. My mind plays tricks on me that I don¡¯t understand. Why should I drag these people into my strangeness? They have left me a meal and a cup of poddick. I will leave them to their lives and the sea. I resolve to depart the next morning.

 The Fighting Twenty

    Impatient to get on with my journey, I sleep lightly and wake up just as the sun is rising. A few fishermen prepare nets and check their boats, waiting for the tide to favour them, but otherwise the village is quiet. I walk towards the river.


    ¡°Travel well, return soon,¡± sings one of the fishermen, nodding towards the bag slung over my shoulder. I smile and nod, trying and failing to think of a reply. I pause by the river to fill my water-holder, then begin to make my way up the hill. I¡¯m going to reach the top, find the path, and keep walking. No lingering, no waved farewells.


    I¡¯m halfway up when I hear movement behind me. I stop and turn. Two men have appeared out of nowhere to block the path. I see dark, travel-stained leather clothes, boots, scrap-armour. Lean, scarred faces. Watchful eyes. Their expression is clear: you won¡¯t escape us, don¡¯t try. One of them taps a finger on the hilt of a blade. He doesn¡¯t even need to draw it, I know he could have that blade at my throat in a moment.


    These are the men that appeared to me yesterday, cold and hard and real. I¡¯m a simple fool, a hopeless idiot. I should have trusted the vision, I should have warned the people.


    I consider throwing myself down the hill, but that would lead them towards the village. Perhaps it¡¯s me they want. Maybe I can get to the top of the hill before them. Maybe I can¡­


    ¡°Be calm,¡± whispers a deep voice behind my ear. I flinch as if I¡¯ve been stung, and a strong hand claps me on the shoulder. ¡°I said, be calm. Be still.¡±


    I force myself to be still, breathing quickly. I notice that the hand that¡¯s holding my shoulder-bag is shaking uncontrollably. The grip on my shoulder turns me around effortlessly, as if I¡¯m a child¡¯s doll. He¡¯s standing above me on the hillside, looking down at me. I see a full beard, shaved head, eyes that pin me down. One look at his face, and I know I am facing the leader of these men. He has the pick of the armour, the longest blades, the finest clothes.


    ¡°How many men in the village?¡± he asks. His tone is polite and measured.


    ¡°Why should I-¡± I begin. His fist whips out quickly and my head snaps backwards. I don¡¯t even feel the pain yet, but I stumble backwards and fall into the men behind me. They step quickly aside, and I tumble end over end down the slope, losing my bag and whatever shred of dignity I had left.


    The leader is crouching next to me as I lift my head from the ground. ¡°How many men in the village?¡± he asks again. ¡°Quickly now.¡±


    I shake my head. ¡°I haven¡¯t counted. Thirty? Forty at most.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re not one of them,¡± he says. Only then do I realise that I can comprehend their words without any effort at all. Their language is the language of my inner voice, my thoughts..


    ¡°What weapons do they use?¡±


    I begin to rise into a sitting position, but a rough hand between my shoulderblades pushes me flat again with an extra shove at the end that suggests it could easily have been a punch. My cheekbone throbs. ¡°They don¡¯t,¡± I begin. This is madness. I should be running, screaming a warning, but I¡¯m meekly keeping my face towards the grass and answering their questions. ¡°They don¡¯t have weapons. They have fish knives and nets and fish hooks.¡±


    ¡°They¡¯re good with boats?¡±


    ¡°Very good,¡± I say. Then I muster my courage. ¡°Just leave them alone. They¡¯ve done you no harm.¡±


    ¡°Get up,¡± says the leader. ¡°If you disobey me, I will cut your tendons and you¡¯ll have to continue your journey on your hands and knees.¡±


    I don¡¯t doubt him. This is no thug. He knows I was making my way up to the path. Another thought strikes me: he probably saw me yesterday, and was waiting for this chance. They¡¯re fighting men, warriors. They could have raided the village overnight, but they didn¡¯t. I don¡¯t understand why. I get to my knees and raise my hands in submission. ¡°Please, just tell me what you want.¡±


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    He doesn¡¯t reply, but instead looks past me. I hear movement behind me but I don¡¯t turn to look.


    ¡°We have four,¡± says a voice. ¡°Two women and two kids.¡±


    The leader nods. ¡°Bring the children along. Keep the women where we agreed. Five to guard in turns, two on constant watch.¡±


    I hear a grunt of confirmation and the rustle of feet in undergrowth. If they¡¯ve grabbed two of the net-making, fish-gutting women from the village, they¡¯ll need at least five men to control them. I smile inwardly at the thought.


    I dreamt they call themselves the Fighting Twenty. With five men hiding somewhere and three here, that leaves twelve. The people of this village might be hard and strong, but they can¡¯t stand against that many blades, even if they have the advantage of numbers. Keeping the women hostage is an evil twist.


    ¡°Up,¡± he says, and lifts me from my knees by the scruff of my shirt. ¡°We have business. Listen, you call me Aldur, right?¡±


    I nod.


    ¡°If they have a word that means lord, or king, or the like, you use it when you refer to me.¡±


    I nod again, but I have no idea whether the fishing people have any such word.


    ¡°Every time you fail me, one of those women loses a finger. If you do your job, they¡¯ll be back here weaving nets in no time.¡±


    ¡°What do you want me to do?¡±


    His mouth smiles. His eyes do not. ¡°Exactly as I say. Get used to the smell of my sweat. Until this is done, you don¡¯t leave my side.¡±


    We walk back towards the village. Aldur rests his arm across my shoulders as if he¡¯s walking home from the tavern with an old friend, the two others flanking us. They stroll casually, like friends taking a little fresh air together. The quayside is busy with sixen-boats being prepared for the day¡¯s fishing. A man coiling a rope notices us and pauses.


    ¡°Visitors,¡± he sings. I detect uncertainty in his tone.


    ¡°Visitors,¡± repeats another, his head popping up from within the nearest sixen-boat.


    The word ripples through the quayside until every face is turned towards us. I feel like a plague-carrier. One of the older fishermen stands up, hands his fish-knife to a fellow crew member, dusts his hands off, and steps forwards. I know his name. Olvin.


    ¡°Your people come to visit?¡± he sings. ¡°Visitors?¡±


    We stop walking. There¡¯s a gap between us and the villagers. It may as well be a mile wide. Aldur looks at Olvin, looks around, looks at the boats. The seconds pass uncomfortably.


    ¡°You speak their language,¡± says Aldur. It¡¯s a statement, not a question. I nod. ¡°Tell them what I tell you.¡±


    He walks me a few steps forwards, then: ¡°We need your help.¡± I hesitate. This is not what I expected. ¡°Tell them,¡± growls Aldur.


    ¡°Help needed,¡± I sing, falteringly. ¡°Help needed by you to men.¡±


    Olvin nods, shrugs. ¡°We help.¡± He¡¯s wary. Several other men have downed tools to come and stand next to him. Women are shooing children back towards the village huts. I notice raised voices from amongst the women.


    There is movement at my side. Two children, barely more than five summers¡¯ of age, appear at Aldur¡¯s side. One of them is sobbing. The other looks petrified. Olvin¡¯s face darkens. One of the women screams, calls their names. I know her, she¡¯s a weaver. Her name is Elba, a quiet woman seldom seen on the quayside. They call her House-Elba, as she is never on a boat. She¡¯s about to run towards us and I fear for her life. The fishermen feel the same way, and one of them catches her arm.


    ¡°Tell them we found these two,¡± growls Aldur.


    ¡°Men found children,¡± I sing, desperately trying to make my voice heard over the voices and sounds of rising anger. ¡°Men found children!¡±


    Aldur grabs the two children and strides forwards. Their tiny legs struggle to keep up with him. He closes the gap in moments, pushes through the crowd to Elba and thrusts the sobbing children towards her. She drops to her knees and gatherers them into her arms. Without a word he turns and walks back, passing within arms¡¯ reach of Olvin and the other men. He doesn¡¯t flinch, doesn¡¯t look at them.


    ¡°Men hurt children,¡± shouts Olvin, emphasising each word with a jabbed finger. ¡°No help. You leave.¡±


    I begin to translate back to Aldur. ¡°I understand enough,¡± he says. ¡°Tell them we found two of their women also.¡±


    I close my eyes and shake my head. I feel sick. Head down, I sing. ¡°Men found women, men found women.¡±


    A hush falls. Aldur¡¯s men - less five, I assume - are fanned out either side of him. Every one of them is garbed in armour of some kind, armed in some way. The way they are standing makes it clear that the captured women are not here.


    Aldur waits until he¡¯s certain the message is clear, then he dictates words to me. I sing them to the village.


    ¡°If you try to harm us, you will never see your women again.¡±


    Aldur touches his temple with a finger, and the gesture is clear. Think on my words.

 Lessons

    It is late and the moon is high. I want to sleep, but I cannot because I am in someone else¡¯s home. Olvin¡¯s family are huddled silently in a corner of the simple dwelling, and one of Aldur¡¯s men is standing in the middle of the room inspecting the blade of his short sword.


    I have been translating for hours, communicating Aldur¡¯s demands to Olvin. It has been a slow, painful process. Aldur wants boats to transport him and his men across the Inner Sea. Olvin asks where, making reference to tides, winds, currents, and things I don¡¯t understand and cannot express. Aldur refuses to elaborate and simply repeats his demands, insisting that seven days¡¯ food and water are gathered. There are raised voices, threats, confusion. I struggle to keep up.


    Finally some kind of agreement is reached. Aldur forces all the men of the village onto the quayside to prepare the boats, and I am left alone with Olvin¡¯s woman, her sister, and several small children who have hidden their faces in the womens¡¯ skirts.


    I burn with shame and regret. Shame that I can do little more than follow the warriors¡¯ orders, and regret that I didn¡¯t trust my vision and warn these people.


    ¡°You don¡¯t look like them,¡± says Aldur¡¯s man. He speaks my language with an accent that I can¡¯t place. ¡°You look like Merrenese.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t know where I¡¯m from,¡± I say. ¡°I don¡¯t know what Merrenese is.¡±


    He peers at me suspiciously, then shrugs.


    Aldur comes into the hut, vital and energised. Gods, does the man never rest? He beckons me, and vanishes outside again. I drag myself upright.


    ¡°Quick, laggard,¡± grunts Aldur¡¯s man. I stagger after the warrior.


    I walk towards the boats and the sea, my eyes adjusting from lamplight to moonlight. The warriors, the Fighting Twenty, are not labouring. They have arranged themselves to separate the men from the village. Some are facing me, some are facing the boats. All have blades drawn. There is a poise of attentiveness and focus to every single one of them, and I wonder how such well-drilled, well-organised fighting men could find themselves needing the assistance of a tiny, isolated fishing village.


    Aldur walks back towards me from where he¡¯s been supervising the work. ¡°Follow,¡± he says, and heads away from the village and the sea into the darkness.


    I trot after him towards the river. The Stone Ship glints in the moonlight, faintly reflected in the flowing river. Aldur guides me towards a stand of bushes some way from the Ship and positions me behind it.


    ¡°Speak quietly, stay hidden,¡± he says. He doesn¡¯t whisper, but lowers his voice and dulls the hard sounds in words that could carry over distance. ¡°Tell me where you are from.¡±


    I sigh inwardly. Any explanation I give is going to seem like evasion. ¡°I don¡¯t know where I am from. My memory has gone.¡±


    Aldur grips my face with one of his hands and turns it until I am staring him in the eyes. ¡°I ask again, where are you from?¡±


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    The bruise on my face throbs. I try to lock my eyes onto his. ¡°I tell you by the gods of the soil, sea and sky, I do not know where I am from. I do not know who I am. My memory is lost.¡±


    He frowns in disbelief, then releases me and turns his attention towards the Stone Ship. ¡°These people, they sing to one another. Can they communicate without words? Just by making sounds?¡±


    ¡°Yes, a little. There are sounds for simple words. They use them on the boats for speed.¡±


    ¡°Ha!¡± He grunts triumphantly. ¡°I suspected. Also, there are forty-two men, if you count the lads strong enough to strike a man down. How many do you think are over there by the boats?¡± He doesn¡¯t wait for the answer, he knows I have no idea. ¡°Thirty-seven.¡±


    I see a flicker of movement down by the river. My tired brain does not immediately grasp the importance of what he is saying. As my eyes adapt to the dark, I see huddled figures moving along the riverbank. They¡¯re carrying something long. I realise it¡¯s one of the ladders that bore Ang Fromah to her resting place, and it¡¯s the missing five fishermen carrying it.


    ¡°Not a sound,¡± growls Aldur.


    The scene unfurls with sickening predictability. The men prop the ladder against the Stone Ship and one by one they scale it and drop into the structure. They¡¯re looking for the kidnapped women. It¡¯s the most obvious place to look, there are few other hiding places nearby. There is silence for a few moments, then a muffled shout, then silence once more. Then one by one the five men re-appear, but only as corpses that tumble lifelessly over the side of the Ship into the shallow water of the river.


    ¡°Follow,¡± says Aldur, and I trail after him towards the river. The Stone Ship is silent. ¡°People are predictable,¡± he says. He¡¯s reverted to his normal voice.


    ¡°Are you holding the women in there?¡± I ask. ¡°It¡¯s a sacred place to them.¡±


    ¡°If you think I would tell you where the women are, you¡¯ve lost more than your memory. You¡¯ve lost what little wit you ever possessed. Sacred? Tell that to those five heroes who just climbed in there with revenge in their minds.¡±


    One of the dead bodies is tangled in weeds at the side of the river. The other four have floated out of sight. Aldur grabs the dead man by the arm, drags him out and flips him over. His neck is cut deep from side to side. New blood leaks out of the severed vessels, mingling with the river water. There¡¯s a jagged rent in his garment too, where he¡¯s taken stabs to the body. I want to recognise his face and remember his name but I can¡¯t bear to look at him and turn my eyes away.


    ¡°Another lesson,¡± says Aldur. ¡°Always I have to give lessons so that people understand. Mere words are never enough.¡±


    He has dragged the body back to the quayside and I have trotted along with him like an obedient dog. At his coming, his men order the villagers to stop and listen. Aldur drags the body to Olvin¡¯s feet and spits on it. ¡°Fools, both of you,¡± he growls. He jabs a finger at the dead man. ¡°Fool.¡± He jabs a finger at Olvin¡¯s chest. ¡°Fool for letting them play the game of heroes.¡±


    Olvin is stunned, his arms hanging limply by his sides. He stares at the body as if he doesn¡¯t understand what he is looking at.


    ¡°The other four heroes have floated down the river. That¡¯s the kind of water-grave you people appreciate.¡±


    The villagers gather around the body with a collective moan of anguish. One man breaks through and drops to his knees, gathers the limp dead body into his arms and just sits there rocking back and forth as if comforting a sick child. I don¡¯t know whether the dead man is a son, a brother, or a lifelong friend, it¡¯s too dark to tell.


    Aldur steps up onto a fish barrel. ¡°Your women are safe. They will be returned when you have given me what I asked for.¡±


    The villagers¡¯ faces turn to me. I sing a translation. One by one they return to their tasks, excepting the one man who kneels holding his dead loved one.


    Aldur pulls one of his warriors aside. ¡°Throw the body into the sea. I¡¯ll have no wailing women or screaming children. Any complaints, start punishing. Hurt them enough, but do nothing that will stop them sailing those boats.¡±