DARKFALL

Duran turned to stare at Glynn with accusing, incredulous eyes. ‘Is it true, Glynn Roseberry Flandryfire?’

Hella laughed coldly. ‘Is that what she told you her name was? She is no more Fomhikan than I. I do not know what she is other than a betrayer of friendship.’

Glynn’s head jerked back as if she had been slapped. ‘Hella, I didn’t betray you. I went …’

‘I know very well where you went. You hurried to your mistress to let her know my brother was dead.’

‘But Hella, Solen …’ Duran began, then she stopped and glanced back at Glynn. ‘It is clear you two know one another and I would be told how.’

‘We met on Acantha. She sought my brother’s aid and protection pretending to be Fomhikan and in need. When Solen fled, she bade me pack and meet her so that we could leave Acantha together. I trusted her and I did as she asked. I waited. But she did not return. I did not want to leave without her, but Nema made me, saying she would seek for her and send her on. When I came here, I sought out her family. I wanted to give them news of her, but there was no family. No one had ever heard of her. Then Nema sent word that she was with the Draaka.’

Hella spat out the last words and Glynn was stunned at her rage. Without warning, the door opened and Argon white cloak stepped into the room. He seemed more gaunt and severe than when Glynn had seen him, and there was something hunted in his eyes.

‘Keep your voices down,’ he snapped. ‘You can be heard in the common room shouting.’ His gaze roved over them, seeking the focus of their discord. His eyes widened in recognition when they reached Glynn. ‘You are the girl Solen saved from the great water.’

Duran shook her head and sighed. ‘This story becomes deeper and deeper. Solen saved her?’

‘Aye, and by doing so, made himself her keeper until she healed. She was suffering from extreme exposure and had swallowed enough bittermute algae to paralyse her memory as well as her body and voice. But what is she doing here, for he took her to Acantha? Or did he bring her here as well?’

Duran made a cutting motion with her hand and Argon’s brows lifted at whatever her eyes communicated.

‘She came here with the Draaka,’ Hella snarled. ‘Solen should have let the silfichoke on her.’

The blonde amazon nodded brusquely. ‘Bound for Ramidan at the request of Tarsin, or so she claims.’ Glynn saw a look of anguish fleet across Argon’s face, quickly masked, but there was no space to wonder at it.

‘Silfa heard it spoken of in the common room,’ Duran added. ‘And Hella also …’

‘Donard told me of it just now,’ Hella explained. ‘He arrived too late to sit at his father’s table, but from the edge of the crowd he watched while the Draaka spoke and Poverin allowed it. Maeve left with Rilka while Gedron licked the heels of the Draaka. He said she was there as well.’ She nodded at Glynn as if the mere gesture defiled her. ‘Now I want to know why she is here. What lies has she told and what is she trying to make you do?’

‘I was not trying to make anybody do anything,’ Glynn protested. ‘Sure I lied about being Fomhikan, but only because Solen suggested it. He said since I looked like a myrmidon, I had better say I was Fomhikan while I was on Acantha.’

‘If you are not Fomhikan and you are not a myrmidon, what are you?’ That was Argon, and there was an edge of curiosity in his voice.

‘I don’t know.’ A lie, but what else could she say after what had gone before? ‘I went to the Draaka to try to sell a darklin I had found in the minescrape. I could not sell it anywhere else because I had accidentally let it orientate on me … When I was working in the minescrape, I heard that the Draaka used stones for some sort of ritual, and I thought she might pay for my darklin, even though it was orientated. But then …’ She stopped, not knowing how to explain the feinna.

‘You lie as you breathe,’ Hella hissed. ‘She did not speak of any darklin to me before leaving. Solen gave her shelter and, almost from that moment, things started going wrong for him. Then, the very day after he died, she crept away to the Draaka. No doubt she had belonged to her all along and was praised for her successful part in our downfall. Solen said she was nothing to him, but he was wrong. She was his blackwind.’

Glynn’s own slow temper flared at the reminder of Solen’s unexpectedly cruel last words to her. ‘Don’t make me your scapegoat, Hella. I played no part in your brother’s downfall. Solen had already done what had been forbidden by your chieftain when he pulled me aboard the Waverider. And your chieftain knew about it already – Nema said so and we heard Jurass say it during the wing hall. Solen offered me shelter because Carick made him, but I was grateful. I did not tell you where I was going that night when we parted because I did not want you to be afraid. You were so upset about Solen’s death.’

Glynn’s anger died, leaving her fatalistic. In the face of such bitterness, what could be said? She turned from Hella to Duran.

‘I have told you the truth.’ She had given up all notion of telling the deepest truth about herself. What she had said was true in all that mattered. She was not a spy; she was not allied with the Draaka.

Glynn decided there was no use in telling them about the feinna. These amazons spoke of killing so carelessly, what respect would they have for an animal’s life? The amazons would think her a weak fool for not wringing the little animal’s neck to free herself from its bonding. If they even believed her. And would they, given that such a link as had grown between the feinna and herself was supposed to be rare, if not impossible?

‘In the beginning, I had no choice but to work in the haven because, though they would not pay me for the darklin, the draakira said I must pay for the time I had spent there.’

‘You could have paid with the coin you had earned from the minescrape,’ Hella snapped.

Glynn answered the question without turning from Duran. The coin had vanished. There was no longer any pleading in her voice. A simple statement and nothing asked.

‘Each day I worked to pay for the night before,’ Glynn said to Duran. ‘It was a vicious cycle. Then I found they intended to travel, and I had the chance go with them. I had no way of contacting Hella and so many days had passed. Nema had offered her help and so I could only hope Hella was all right. In any case, I had no real choice. I could stay in the haven working forever, or I could work for the Draaka and leave Acantha as part of her entourage.’

‘I did not want to come here,’ Glynn said. ‘This is the Draaka’s journey and it was her decision to remain on this island for a night. I want to go to Ramidan.’ She thought fast, foreseeing the next question.

Duran gave him a strange look. ‘You do not speak with any courtesy to us,’ she observed. ‘You demand to travel with us to Myrmidor at our not inconsiderable expense, yet you are full of questions about this girl. What is she to you? Do you weave aught of her.’

Glynn shifted to bring Duran’s eyes back to her. ‘I told you I had accidentally invoked the darklin. In a vision I remembered I have a sister there who is ill. Dying. I don’t know how or why, but she is on Ramidan. I have to get to her and the Draaka offered the quickest way.’

Hella began to applaud. ‘See what a balladeer she is? Once she was a daughter of Fomhika with an uncle who could not sing, and now she has a dying sister on Ramidan. Such tales she weaves us. Such glittering lies.’

Glynn glared at the Acanthan girl, the rotten sweet-wine taste of fury rising in her throat. ‘You think you are the only one who has ever grieved for someone, Hella? You were my friend and I grieved for Solen’s death with you, though I was nothing to him. Yet you laugh at the fact that my sister is dying. You don’t know what friendship is.’

Glynn was sick to death of confrontation and perilously near to tears, which she sensed would not serve her at all with these people. She wanted to tell them to do as they pleased and go to hell, but if they killed her, the feinna would suffer, and Ember. For them, she had to endure, if not for herself.

‘Why did you not tell us you were with the Draaka at once?’ Dolf asked. ‘Why did you come with us?’

‘If you remember, I was somewhat preoccupied when we met in the lane,’ Glynn said tersely. ‘As for tricking you or lying, I did not ask you to bring me here and I have been trying to leave ever since I realised who you were.’

‘She has heard too much,’ Silfa growled, drawing a wicked-looking knife from a belt sheath. ‘We saved her worthless life, now we will take it from her.’

Duran caught hold of Silfa’s arm in a seemingly effortless grip, but the big woman grimaced in pain and let the knife drop out of her hand to the floor.

‘I will decide this matter, unless you would dispute my authority in a challenge,’ Duran said, in a soft voice that was silk wrapped around stone.

Glynn moved back against a wall, wondering if she had the slightest hope of making a run for it. She looked over to the door, but it was blocked by Hella and Argon. Hella was talking rapidly to the older man, whose face was virtually expressionless. Silfa and one of the other myrmidons began to argue.

‘Quiet!’ Duran snapped. She looked at Glynn. ‘I do not believe that what we saw was a set-up designed to lure us to take you in. There was too much risk that we would not bother, and no one made us walk that lane at that moment.’ She turned to Gorick. ‘And did she not reject my offering of secrets?’

‘That is true, by the Horn,’ Gorick answered. ‘Yet she heard us speak of the Draaka bitch and said nothing to stop us.’

‘What should I have said?’ Glynn demanded indignantly. Didn’t these people have any imagination? ‘Here I am travelling with the Draaka and I find myself saved by her enemies. Would you have me announce it when there was every likelihood my throat would be slit?’

‘That is fairly put,’ Duran said evenly. ‘But tell me, you said you were not of the Draaka’s order. Are you opposed to her beliefs?’

Silfa put her hands on her hips. ‘Do you call it chance, Duran, that brings the servant of an enemy into the midst of our secret meeting? If so, then the Chaos spirit has found a way to make chance its servant.’

‘I am not your enemy!’ Glynn said. ‘I am nothing more than a servitor to the Draaka.’

Glynn ignored her, holding the myrmidon leader’s gaze. ‘You saved my life and I’m grateful for that, but it doesn’t mean I want to be part of whatever you are doing or what you believe. I don’t. Nor does the fact that I am working for the Draaka mean I care about her beliefs. What is between you and her has nothing to do with me.’

‘I have no quarrel with the rescue, but what possessed you to bring her here?’ Argon asked.

‘It was foolish, in hindsight,’ Duran admitted ruefully. ‘Put it down to her looking so like one of our own younger sisters. She could be my blood sister.’

‘What could I report?’ Glynn snapped ‘Everyone knows the Draaka wants Darkfall closed down. I am sure your being here is no secret nor the fact that you myrmidons hate the Draaka. I have heard nothing that everyone does not already know.’

‘I will deal with her,’ Silfa volunteered. Glynn’s mouth dried out for there was no doubt in her mind that the burly amazon could kill her with ease.

‘No,’ Duran said. ‘It is a twisting of chance that she is here, but chance I believe it was, though a chancing so odd I must believe there is some reason for it. Each thing has its song to sing, and truly, this sings loudly.’ The myrmidon leader ran a rough hand through her dreadlocks, and the silver beads interspersed clicked together.

‘I do,’ Duran said quietly. ‘But think of this after you leave us, Glynna. Frame it how you will, serving the Draaka is serving the Chaos spirit and you are a fool if you think that the battle between the Draaka and Darkfall does not concern you. It concerns every person who yearns to the light. Everyone serves one or the other, and most of us both at some time or another. If you would walk away unscathed from this perilous night, you must serve the light.’

‘What?’ Glynn stammered, for this was unexpected and seemed at odds with everything else the woman had said.

‘Plainly, I will let you go. But only if you will swear to serve us and spy on the Draaka for us.’

Glynn bit her lip. It would be easy enough to say yes, and safer, but she hesitated. She did not want to lie to Duran, and she had no intention of getting mixed up any deeper in Keltan politics. She was fairly certain that Duran believed her, and decided to risk the truth. ‘I will not spy for you,’ she said. ‘It’s got nothing to do with her cause or yours. It wouldn’t be right to take her pay and work for you. I told the Draaka’s people I would work for them until we reach Ramidan and that is what I mean to do. Work for them. Fetch and carry. If you have to kill me for that, then do it because I’m sick of all this talking.’

To her surprise, Duran smiled. ‘Spoken with the impatience and the honour of a myrmidon. Know this, Glynna. Had you agreed to spy for us, I would have let Silfa follow you and slit your throat, for someone who would serve two masters will betray either. It seems my instincts did not mislead me after all.’

‘I … I don’t understand,’ Glynn said, feeling sick all over again at the thought of Silfa creeping after her in the dark.

‘You are honest, girl, and to a fault. But it has saved you. Would that you saw all things as clearly as you see your honour. Tell me, would you judge me honest?’

Duran’s smile broadened. ‘Well, then I suggest a different pact. We will let you go free, and you will forget you met us, or, at least, you will not speak of this meeting to the Draaka.’

‘Agreed,’ Glynn said, wishing all over again she had not got on the wrong foot with the myrmidons, and that she might have put her troubles into Duran’s capable hands. But it was too late now. Silfa’s black look told her that, and Hella was still glaring at her.

Duran held out her hand and Glynn took it in a firm grip. ‘Very well. Argon will take you back to the main streets.’

Duran gave him a level look. ‘Take it as a request from one of whom you have made demands this day which some might say you have no right to make, Argon soulweaver.’

Argon bridled, then nodded curtly and made a gesture towards Glynn. She obeyed with alacrity, not wanting to give Duran time for second thoughts. She did not look at Hella. Argon ushered her back through the crowded kitchen and into the leafy lane.

Glynn turned to see that the leader of the amazons had come to the door. ‘When first I saw you, I thought you were a young myrmidon. If ever you would join us, or decide to align yourself with Darkfall, seek out the myrmidons and say my name, Duran, and they will help you.’

Glynn did not have to know much about this woman to sense that she did not offer such things lightly. ‘Th … thank you,’ she stammered, but Duran had already gone inside, closing the door behind her.

Glynn told him the name of the nightshelter, and he nodded and set off quickly, taking the road. She trotted after him, her mind reeling with all that had happened, but she was also curious about Argon. Aboard the Waverider he had spoken savagely against Darkfall, yet now here he was with the myrmidons. Since they had only just arrived, he must have been here all this time. Nema must have sent Hella here, and Donard dwelt here as the son of Poverin. Yet there was some reason they all met, and Duran had spoken of secrets. Glynn had said she did not want to hear any secrets, but she could not help but be curious what would have been said if Hella had not come. Soberly she reflected that, if she had heard those secrets, Duran might well have let Silfa slit her throat, so in a sense Hella had saved her life.

Glynn felt a pang of hurt at the Acanthan girl’s words even so. Hella had found it easy to assign to her the worst motives. Between Solen’s cold dismissal of her only hours before his suicide and this, Glynn was forced to realise how little she meant to anyone in this world.

They reached the leafy poles outside the nightshelter just as clouds reconformed to unsheathe and frame the green moon. Glynn thought how cold and remote it was. She turned to Argon whose eyes were fathomless in his gaunt face.

Argon did not respond to her polite words. ‘There is some deep mystery in you, girl,’ he said softly. ‘I said nothing of it to Duran for I am no more friend to the myrmidons than they are to me. They see me as a betrayer and a deserter and, by their lights, I am. They would not bring me with them to Myrmidor except that I laid the friendbinding upon them. I give you these words of warning. Do not seek out Duran, for the ties that bind the myrmidons to the soulweavers are deep and far-reaching and they will ensnare you as well. Once Darkfall has your life in its hand, it will never relinquish you.’ His voice was as bitter as it had been on the Waverider.

Glynn stared after him, thinking of a small boy exiled from his mother and his home. She went inside and was headed for Bayard’s room when she heard the draakira’s familiar voice. She stopped indecisively outside the door, wondering whether to go and get the key or wait.

‘Of course it is true. That cold bitch, Maeve, would die before speaking a lie for she values honour above her flesh.’

‘… sent a servant instead of coming herself with the message. So a lie could be spoken.’

‘No. Her sort would regard the servant’s honour as an extension of her own. Besides, why tell a lie that could be so easily disproved? If she sent a message that someone tried to assassinate Tarsin, that is what she believes. The question is, who attempted it, and why?’

Glynn blinked. An assassination attempt had been made on the Holder of Keltor? Did this mean their travel plans had changed?

‘Tarsin has made himself enough enemies,’ the Prime pointed out. ‘Anyone could have sent poisoned wine.’

‘Perhaps, but golden cirul is not easily obtainable. It would have to have been obtained here on Fomhika.’ The Draaka sounded thoughtful. ‘Poverin looked shattered enough when he repeated the words conveyed to him by Maeve’s servant. Almost too shattered, for one would think the death would have answered his prayers.’

‘Perhaps what you saw in his face was disappointment that Tarsin had survived the attempt,’ Bayard murmured. ‘Interesting that a visiting Sheannite visionweaver with soulweaving tendencies stopped him from drinking the poison. I wonder why Alene did not prevent the murder attempt.’

‘Perhaps she did not choose to stop what would have solved a lot of problems for Darkfall …’ the Draaka said. ‘What a delicious thought. She must be most unpopular. How fortuitous that we will arrive in the aftermath of such a scandal.’

Glynn heard footsteps behind her and quickly knocked on the door. She was too close to it to do anything else without incurring suspicion.

‘Excuse me,’ Glynn said meekly. ‘I heard the voice of draakira Bayard and I need … I mean … our room is locked.’

‘Wait.’ The Draaka’s voice was as smooth as cream, but with a deeper thread of authority. ‘That is the girl who brought the darklin? Bring her to me.’

Glynn caught an unmistakable and inexplicable flare of alarm in the Prime’s eyes as she ushered Glynn into the room, and that was as odd as anything that had happened in the long day.

The room took her breath away, for the floor was almost entirely covered in thick, red-dyed skins, while richly variegated wall hangings, patterned in red and black, hung over stone walls.

Seated on a silk-draped couch, heavy lines stretched either side of her nose, the Draaka looked older than she had at a distance. Approaching, Glynn knew that she ought to be more afraid, but having already faced near-abduction and the possibility of death that night, she was too drained to feel anything deeply.

‘Bayard tells me you are useful to her,’ the Draaka said. Unbidden Glynn had a memory of the Draaka offering to kill the Unraveller. And that other rapacious voice: Feed me!

‘When the feinna births its young,’ she continued, ‘Bayard tells me you desire to be released from our service.’

Glynn nodded. ‘I have a sister who is ill and I wish to take care of her. That is why I brought the darklin to you in the first place. I wanted to return to her.’

Bayard looked surprised, but said, ‘She is Fomhikan, as I told you, and she has made no trouble here. Did you send word to your sister? I did not forbid that.’

‘She is on Ramidan,’ Glynn said. ‘I do not know why, or how she fares, nor even if she is still alive.’ The absolute truth of these words came out in her starkness of tone, and the Draaka’s eyes widened fractionally.

The Draaka tapped a long nail on the edge of the seat, her forehead knotted. ‘You said the darklin accidentally orientated on you. What did you weave?’

The Draaka rose and took up an ornate jug that stood on a small table, pouring two glasses of a greenish liquid. Glynn noticed a light shaped like a flower suspended from the roof; an exquisite thing woven of gems and small fragments of bubbled glass.

The Draaka sipped from the other glass and, perforce, Glynn drank. The green liquid was heavy, but tart and refreshing. She felt immediately more relaxed.

‘A good brew,’ the Draaka approved, refilling both glasses though they were not yet empty. ‘What is your name?’

Glynn said nothing, since it did not seem to be a question. ‘Where did you get the darklin?’ A sudden sharpness in the honeyed tones.

‘I found it in the minescrape. I was trying to get enough coin to travel …’ Glynn was startled to find she was beginning to slur her words. Careful, she thought.

The Draaka laughed. ‘I thought myrmidons had a great appetite for cirul …’

‘But I’m … not a myrmi … myrmidon,’ Glynn mumbled, her tongue thick in her mouth.

‘I don … don’t care about Darkfall. I … only care about my sis … sister an … an the feinna …’ The green fog in Glynn’s brain cleared for a moment and she felt a pang of alarm because she could feel the events of the evening rising to her mouth, and she had sworn to Duran that she would say nothing. She set the glass of green cirul firmly on the edge of a table.

‘Bayard believes that your link with the feinna will enable you to help it to bear its younglings alive, using the husbanding skills you learned on an aspi farm.’

‘I … will try,’ Glynn said, forcing herself not to go on and say she had no idea what an aspi was, and had never been on a farm on Fomhika.

The Draaka yawned and looked bored. ‘I had felt some concern about this girl, but you are right. She is no danger to us. Remove her now. I am weary and I want to sleep before the ceremony of consecration.’

Bayard tugged on Glynn’s arm and she let herself be led from the room, wondering distantly what had been in the cirul. She had the feeling the Draaka had not had her mind on the interrogation; had toyed with her absently as a cat with a dead mouse, thinking her no great sport. Glynn was thankful, for if pressed, she had the feeling she would have told everything about Duran and Argon white cloak, and Donard and Nema and Hella and Solen.

Solen again. ‘Why?’ she whispered to the image that rose in her mind of his dark hair and purple eyes. ‘Why did you have to die? Why didn’t you fight?’

Just before dawn she woke from the now familiar nightmare of the trap and the dead He-feinna to find Bayard undressing. The draakira’s eyes were dilated completely in the lantern-light, and a hectic colour stained her cheeks; a residue of whatever hallucinogenic she took to become the voice of the Chaos spirit for the Draaka.

Bayard laughed exultantly. ‘Oh yes, and what a place it was. Magnificent! Behind the altar was a glass mosaic – they know about beauty here, truly. The ceremony went very deep this time. Perhaps deeper than ever. Tonight the Draaka told me the Void spirit spoke through me of the future. Of war and the fall of the misty isle, and of the rise of our order and a glorious new age.’

‘A war to cleanse Keltor,’ Bayard said. She threw off her overdress and stretched out fully clothed on her bed, instructing Glynn to waken her early. In moments she was asleep and snoring.

Glynn looked over at the feinna and found it was awake and staring at her. Her own fears appeared to be mirrored in the creature’s face. As she climbed into her bed she pulled back her covers and patted the place beside her. The feinna waddled over and leapt lightly on to the bed despite its bulging stomach. Glynn curled her fingers round its belly and pulled the feinna gently against her own body, wanting to be comforted as much as to give it. The little animal wriggled higher, turned and laid its head on Glynn’s arm. Its great dark eyes, gleaming in the light from the lantern Bayard had forgotten to extinguish, seemed to ask a question of her.

‘Oh, little one,’ Glynn murmured sadly. ‘I am the last one you should look to for answers.’

segue …

The watcher withdrew pondering the bonding between the girl and the feinna. Like the link that had grown between the world of the Unraveller and the world of Keltor, it was impossible, yet it had happened. Perhaps there was something that could be learned from it. The feinna needed the girl who had needed the feinna, and a link of love had been born of these needs. It was the same with the other woman and her cat, and with the two women.

Was this what lay between the worlds: the cause of the expectancy it sensed in the web of connections: a need waiting to be answered?

But if the linking was the result of an undischarged debt caused by the summoning of the Unraveller, how would it be repaid? Was it that something must be given back before the worlds could proceed on their own courses? And if so, what? The world of Keltor needed the Unraveller, but what need had the Unraveller’s world of Keltor?

The watcher sensed that the link between the girl and the feinna held the answer, yet the girl, who was more woman now than child, could be observed only obliquely through those around her, and even this was dangerous for it might draw the attention of the Chaos spirit.

It returned to the Unraveller’s world, and was drawn to a man within whom there was a fading trace of the Song …

The machine made a wheezing sound, and the man could not help himself breathing in the same mindless rhythm. Tum-hah, tum-hah, tum-hah. He glanced up and down the silent ward to distract himself. He felt the fingers of the comatose woman twitch in his and he looked into her slack, powdery face. There was no sign of waking, of course. The movements were purely involuntary now, they said. It was just a matter of time. He liked to think that she was dreaming one last long dream, and that the convulsive twitches were dim physical echoes of her adventures. They said not; no rapid eye movements; no twitches of the eyeball. But how did they know someone in extremis did not dream undetectably?

He pictured her dancing. It was hard to imagine his mother dancing with his silent obese father. But they had won ballroom dancing competitions when they were young. His father had died from a heart seizure when he was five. His clearest memories were of the two of them, he and his mother, alone together. Only after he had left home, did she seem to grow old.

Then there had been a minor heart attack and a stroke. She had lived with them for a while, but Ruth had loathed it and so had the twins. His mother had talked too much, and left things about and shouted at visitors. When she became incontinent, Ruth put her foot down, saying it was time they considered some sort of a home.

He didn’t remember discussing it, but a decision was made. The day they had taken her, they told her they were all going on an outing. She had grumbled happily until the car turned in at a sign saying Tall Pines. She had become very still, reminding him of an old dog they had taken to be put down. About a block from the veterinary hospital, the dog had seemed to know what lay ahead, and had developed that same stillness.

A smiling nurse showed them the room and Ruth exclaimed falsely at how big and airy it was, and how pretty. The boys stoically ate the grapes out of the welcoming fruit bowl. When they left, she was still sitting on the bed and staring vacantly at her knotted hands.

‘Don’t you worry,’ the nurse had said comfortingly. ‘It feels like you are abandoning her, I know. But this is the best thing. She’ll come round. You’ll see.’

But she hadn’t. He knew her ferocious strength of will, and had not been surprised. Nonetheless they had visited once a week until she had the second stroke and fell into a coma. Ruth had refused to bring the boys then, saying it was too depressing and asking what point there would be in it when his mother had neither spoken to them nor acknowledged their appearance on any occasion since she had entered the home.

Since we put her there, he had wanted to say, but had not.

He came alone after that. Once a fortnight late in the afternoon after band rehearsals on his day off, ears still ringing and the smell of beer and smoke in his hair. The home did not have set visiting times for terminally ill patients, because they were seldom overwhelmed with visitors, so he could come whenever he liked. He told Ruth this was the most convenient time. She said she did not see why he should go at all, but that no doubt his conventional upbringing required him to be a dutiful son.

He had not told her that he felt it was not only his duty to visit her, but his right and his desire and a matter of honour. He would have felt embarrassed even to say to his clever, ugly wife that he loved his mother and wanted to visit her. He thought how odd that was. He had spoken of love quite naturally when he was a boy. But he had been happy then, and somehow lighter. Maybe it was easier to talk of love when you were a child.

Was it simply age that brought this strange numbness to the soul and heart? When his sons were born, he had held them and wept as if his heart would break for the beauty of it. Now he watched them at breakfast discussing the school curriculum with Ruth, and felt nothing but a deep fatigue.

His sons, and he felt nothing for them. Or for Ruth.

‘You are so intense,’ she had laughed half crossly on their first date, batting his hands away and straightening her skirt. ‘Nothing matters that much.’

But it did. Or it had. Without any discernible reason, though, it had ceased to matter. Intensity had slipped away from him along with his passion for Ruth and his joy in the boys, in his friends, in his music.

He thought of his mother bringing him, week after week, to piano lessons she could ill afford. One morning he had told her he did not want to go any more. She had stopped the car and turned to look at him so seriously he had been frightened of what she would say. He remembered her words vividly.

‘You have music in you, but more importantly you have passion, and the two together are a gift from heaven. You owe a duty to such a gift.’ Then she had started the car and he had gone to his lesson without another word between them.

Such hopes she had for him, and what was he? An ill-paid history teacher and a member of an amateur jazz band. He did not blame his mother for his mediocrity and wondered if she had blamed him.

A nurse approached unheard by the older man. The watcher shifted into the young man and found itself immersed in the Song.

The young man was thinking that he had seen the bald guy sitting with the old woman before, in the oddly barren mid-week afternoons. He was glad because so many of the people lay there for weeks and months unvisited, some with the green-edged Do Not Revive slips in their files.

At the beginning of his nursing career he had wanted to work in hospitals, which he had expected to be full of blood and pain and need. He had not known if he would be strong enough for it. But it was a training stint in the terminal unit, where life seemed to lie greyly in abeyance, that he found hardest to bear.

He could vividly recall the day he had made the decision to leave the cutting edge of hospital nursing and move into long-term care of terminal patients. A red-haired girl had been brought into the hospital several weeks earlier to be monitored as the specialists went through the painful process of trying to find some treatment that would prevent a massive tumour in her brain growing any further. Their efforts had caused the girl dreadful pain, but one day he came on duty to be told they had finally managed to stabilise the tumour. He had gone to congratulate her, and had discovered that, free of the distortions of pain, she was remarkably fair.

She had turned to look at him, and he had been appalled to see in her eyes that she had given up life, though she was not dead. That empty, beautiful face crystallised his feeling that there was something terribly wrong with the world. The edges of it showed in her, and in these people no one cared about, dying their neat accepting deaths, unvisited and unmourned. This was where healing was most truly needed. Not the miraculous restoral of lire to those who must die, but the healing of that grey hopelessness; that void.

He did not know how such a healing could be accomplished, but to work anywhere else would be too much like joining the ranks of the unseeing and uncaring. So he quit the hospital and had come here.

He did not believe life was about mere happiness. It was about finding meaning and purpose and it was about giving something back. He did not know what he could give, other than the fact that he cared. The bald guy cared too. The nurse felt them to be comrades, as in a film he had once watched where unseen angels in suits drifted among people, hearing the lives of mortals as snatches of whispered thought. No one saw them, but they saw one another. They were immortal and they saw everything. They were witnesses. The nurse regarded himself and the bald man as witnesses, too.

The bald man glanced around.

‘Hi,’ the nurse said softly. ‘How’s the patient tonight?’

Stupid question, but what else could you say? It was just words anyway, to show some sort of solidarity. He unhitched the kidney bag and rigged a fresh one.

The man noticed him looking at the music case. ‘It’s a clarinet,’ he said.

‘I can’t play anything. I wish someone would have made me practise when I was a kid.’

‘My mother made me practise,’ the bald man said.

They both turned to look at the old woman, the only sound between them the regular sighing of the breathing machine.

Chilled to its soulless depth by the nurse’s vision of the beautiful red-haired girl with empty eyes, the watcher segued into the old woman’s dreams. It watched a young woman dance, thinking that the nurse had exhibited great compassion. It was this quality that defined all those of the Unraveller’s world, in whom it had found traces of the Song. Compassion.

It travelled to the still centre of the old woman’s dreams, and entered the Void …

26

segue …