Ash

DAYLIGHT, IN THE Deep, was for sleeping and singing. The other men, with their own faces returned to them, wandered away to curl up on blankets. One older man had even brought a mattress. Ash’s father shook his head and laughed.

“Plum says he’s getting too old for sleeping on the hard ground. I know how he feels.” He looked at Ash with undisguised pleasure and put both hands on his shoulders. “It’s very good to see you. You’re looking well? You’ve certainly filled out!”

It was a question. Ash smiled. He certainly had filled out over the past two years. He had been little taller than his father for quite a few years, but now he was bigger, too. Stronger.

“Yes, I’m well.”

“What happened with Doronit?”

Ash’s face closed in. He could feel it, feel the muscles tense and the jaw set, and he forced himself to relax. “I’ve left Doronit. It was necessary.”

His father looked at him shrewdly and, to Ash’s surprise, decided to change the subject. He turned to Flax.

“Welcome to the Deep, lad. Flex, your name is?”

Ash smothered a laugh. “Flax,” he corrected.

Rowan chuckled gently. “Badger ears are sharp but they don’t hear human speech all that well,” he explained. Flax goggled at him, clearly astonished that he would refer so casually to his transformation.

“Oh. Um . . .”

Rowan took pity on him. “You’re a singer?”

Flax nodded.

“Well then, let’s hear something.”

This was the moment Ash had been dreading. He took a step back, to have a clear view of both Flax and his father’s face. Flax coughed nervously, no doubt wondering what would happen to him if he sang poorly. Then he took a deep breath and let out a single, clear note; the beginning of the most famous love song ever written, The Distant Hills.

From the high hills of Hawksted, my lover calls to me

The breeze is her voice, the wind becomes her breath

From the high hills of Hawksted, above the settled plain

My lover sings so sweetly, sings the song of death

The song told of a pair of separated lovers. From the words it wasn’t clear whether the beloved was far away or actually dead, and singers differed in their interpretation. The song could have been sentimental, but the music was spare and dignified and it was one of the treasures of Domain culture. The men puzzled over it in the Deep, as they talked over many songs — who might have written it? No one knew where Hawksted was. None of their extensive traditions mentioned the song, but the scale used and the melody line showed that it was very old and probably written by someone of the old blood.

Flax’s voice, always beautiful, was taken and magnified by the high walls of the Deep. It took on resonance and depth that sent chills down Ash’s spine, but it kept its haunting clarity on the high notes. Rowan’s face was unreadable, but the other men came back, slowly and quietly, not wanting to disturb the singer. Halfway through the song there was traditionally a flute solo. Rowan fished his smallest flute, a wooden willow pipe, from his pocket and was ready; he picked up the melody from Flax without a break and when Flax came back in for the last verse he kept on playing softly, so that the flute and the voice wound around each other like the lover’s voice and the wind.

Afterward, every man there had tears in his eyes. Even Ash, although he didn’t know if he were crying for the song or for the look on his father’s face.

Rowan carefully shook the spit out of his flute and put it back in his pocket. “Well,” he said. “Well.” He turned to Ash. “You did right to bring him.”

Ash nodded. Their meeting had happened just as he had imagined. Rowan would welcome Flax and train him and take him to meet Swallow and they would Travel together and be a family. So, although he felt as though a hole had been scoured out of his gut, he had to remember that this was not important.

“Yes. But I didn’t come here because of Flax. I came because I need something from you.” His father turned, surprised, and Ash motioned him away from the others.

“Of course, son. What is it?”

“I need the secret songs,” Ash said.

Rowan went very still. “I can’t teach you those.” His voice was flat.

“Because you don’t trust me,” Ash said. “You told me you taught me all the songs, but you didn’t. Because I’m not a singer. Or a musician.”

He couldn’t stop the pain from appearing in his voice. Rowan heard it, and bit his lip. But he still shook his head.

“Not for those reasons. I trust you. Truly. But the songs are not for young men. Not for any young men, no matter how trustworthy.”

Ash stared at him, wanting to believe him. Rowan took him by the arm and dragged him back to the group seated around the fire.

“Ask them, if you don’t believe me.”

“Ask us what, lad?” one of the men said.

“I need to know the secret songs,” Ash said baldly.

The men, just like Rowan, went very still and the atmosphere chilled. One of them got up and stepped forward; a stocky, balding man whom Ash had met here before. Skink, that was his name. He glared at Ash, and then around the circle of men.

“What do you know about the secret songs? Who’s been talking?” he asked.

“The Well of Secrets,” Ash said.

That astonished them, he was glad to see. Before they could collect their thoughts, he explained everything: the enchanter, the ghosts, the need to find Acton’s bones and raise his ghost. At that, they looked at each other and shook their heads. They were going to refuse him.

“I need the songs,” he said in desperation. “Or we all might be wiped out.”

A thin-faced man named Vine pursed his lips. “But this enchanter wants to take the land back for us, doesn’t he? For Travelers? Why not just let him?”

The other men seemed to be considering this. Ash couldn’t believe it.

“Let hundreds, maybe thousands of people die? People you all know! Children. Babies. They’re killing everyone.”

“But not us,” Vine said.

Ash was astounded that the other men were looking thoughtful, some of them even nodding.

“Really? I know they’ve killed at least one person with some of the old blood in her. How are they going to know who is a Traveler and who not?” He turned to an older man with a bald pate and a fringe of white hair and hazel eyes. “How will they know who you are, Snake? You’ve pretended to be one of Acton’s people often enough. How will ghosts know the difference?”

“Lad’s got a point,” Snake said, embarrassed.

“But he can’t have the songs,” Vine said firmly.

“Why not?” Ash was exasperated.

“Let’s sit down and discuss it,” Rowan said, smoothing things down.

Ash sat down in the fire circle. The fire was low, cooking some parsnips in the embers, but it gave a kind of formality to the gathering, as though they were assembling a council.

Ash sat next to Rowan. Flax hovered behind until Rowan pointed to the place on his other side.

“Sit here, lad.” Yes, Ash thought, momentarily distracted. Of course you have to sit next to him. He was surprised that he felt no real hatred of Flax for usurping his place. It felt so inevitable, as though it had been planned by the gods, that he could no longer feel anything but pain and resignation.

When everyone was seated, Rowan cleared his throat. “So. We have two things to decide, it seems to me. Firstly, will we resist this enchanter? Secondly, will we give the… the songs to Ash so that he can resist him by following the Well of Secrets’ plan?”

The other men nodded.

Skink leaned forward and took over. Ash remembered that in other years, it was Skink who ran discussions and gave orders when orders were needed.

“I can tell you one thing. If Acton’s people work out why this enchanter is loosing the ghosts on them, every Traveler in the Domains will be slaughtered overnight.”

They sat, recognizing the truth when they heard it. There had been massacres before, for no more reason than a Traveler man seducing a blond woman; or a child sickening after a Traveler family had passed by. For a reason, a real reason such as this, the massacre would spread like fire through a pine forest.

“We should not only resist him, we should be seen to resist him,” Skink concluded.

The other men nodded, even Vine.

“So,” Rowan said.

“So,” Skink echoed. “The second question. I say, Ash is not ready for the songs. Someone else should sing them.”

“How do you know I’m not ready?” Ash challenged him.

Skink laughed shortly. “Are you married? Do you have a family? You are not ready.”

Ash was intent on arguing, but Rowan intervened. “There are seasons in a man’s life, son. Babyhood, childhood. Then youth, when a boy first comes here. Then the wild time, when he Travels and lives and is irresponsible. And then maturity, which comes with marriage and children.”

“And then age,” Snake said dryly, “which comes to us all, whether we like it or not.”

“If we’re lucky,” Ash said out of habit. The others nodded and said, “Aye, if we’re lucky,” and spat on the ground for luck.

“I don’t understand . . .”

“The songs you’re talking about . . .” Skink stopped and looked at Rowan for help.

“Songs of power,” Rowan said. “They are songs of power.”

“Exactly!” Ash said. “That’s why we need them.”

“Power like that — young men want to change the world, Ash. Just like this enchanter does. So we protect the power from the impetuousness of youth. No man may learn those songs until he has a stake in the future. Until there is a risk to him in changing things.”

Ash was confused. “I don’t understand.”

“Until you have children,” Flax hissed at him. “Until you’re a father.”

The men nodded. Oh, Ash thought. It wasn’t me. Father didn’t refuse me. He would have taught me later. He would have trusted me. But although he was flooded with relief that his father hadn’t deliberately withheld the songs, a small doubt remained. He had left the Road, after all, and gone to Turvite. Would his father have ever sought him out again? Visited, no doubt, when they were in Turvite, but that only happened every decade or so. Would his father have come to teach him the songs when the time came?

He couldn’t brood over it; there was too much at stake to let his attention wander.

“You have no stake in the future yet,” Skink said. “One of us will sing the songs.”

“It won’t work,” Ash said.

“Oh, only you can sing?” Vine mocked him. “Hah! I’ve never heard you sing a single note ever.”

There it was, the moment he had dreaded. He opened his mouth to try to forestall it, but Flax got in ahead of him.

“You don’t understand!” he said. “He has the prophet’s voice, like the Well of Secrets when she heals!”

Ash was surprised by this championship. Flax’s voice was full of awe, and it impressed some of the men, but Vine was still skeptical.

“A prophet’s voice? What does that sound like?”

Flax opened his mouth to explain, but Ash put up a hand.

“It’s not a prophet’s voice. Is it, Father?”

Rowan shook his head. The other men looked at him. “It is the voice of the dead,” he said.

There was silence. Then Flax spoke, his brow furrowed. “The dead don’t speak. Can’t speak.”

Rowan explained reluctantly, not looking at Ash. “Some people have the power to compel the dead to speak. When they do… ‘from the grave, all speak alike, and it is not easy to hear.’ ”

“But that saying means that the dead are silent!” Snake objected.

Rowan and Ash both shook their heads. The movement was identical, and as Ash realized that his heart contracted inside him.

“No, it doesn’t mean that,” Ash said. “It means that the voice of the dead is terrible.”

“You didn’t think to share this with us, all these years, Rowan?” Skink asked quietly.

Rowan flushed. “It’s not one of the secrets of the Deep,” he said. Ash knew that it would have been his mother’s decision to keep the information within the family. He was almost certain that he had inherited the ability from her.

“I was told,” Ash said, to distract the men from his father’s discomfort, “that only one in a thousand thousand can compel the dead to speak.”

“And that’s you, is it?” Vine asked.

“Yes.”

Skink was still gazing at Rowan as though he had betrayed them all. Rowan cleared his throat.

“It is a great blasphemy to compel the dead to speak. It is a power best left unused.” His voice was urgent, utterly convinced. “That is why we did not teach Ash about his… ability. Blasphemy must be avoided.”

Ash remembered the shame and excitement of standing next to Doronit at Mid-Winter, compelling the ghosts of Turvite to speak. He remembered the ghost of the girl he had killed, and the stonecaster’s ghost, anxious to help his son and go onto rebirth.

“To compel a ghost to speak is blasphemy,” he said. “But if a ghost wishes to speak, the power can be a blessing.”

It was the first time in his life he had disagreed with his father. Rowan looked at him in surprise.

“I still don’t believe he can sing the songs,” Vine said.

Ash stood up, trying to relax his throat muscles. He knew how he was supposed to sing; knew about breath control and pitch and phrasing. But he had not sung aloud since he was a small child, and the ring of faces was hostile, except for Flax and his father. He felt his gorge rise, and forced it down. Then, deliberately making it as bad for himself as he could, so there could be nothing worse waiting for him, he chose to sing The Distant Hills.

As the first note left Ash’s throat, he saw them all flinch. His father kept his head bowed; Flax and the others stared straight at him, mouths agape. Except for Vine, who looked away and then back again, over and over.

He sang the first two lines, which was more than enough. The grating, stone-ripping-stone sound was magnified by the rock walls, just as Flax’s voice had been, but with Ash the sound became unbearable, unthinkable, the howling of demons. He watched their faces. They were horrified. Repelled. Just as he had known they would be.

At the end of the second line Ash fell silent and stood there, waiting.

“So?” Flax said eventually, running out of patience.

“Mmm,” Skink said. “He was on pitch.”

Ash gaped at him. The last thing he had expected was a critique. “I —”

“That’s a voice to make a man’s balls climb up into his gut. But the phrasing wasn’t bad. He was in tune, though it’s not an easy melody line.” Skink spoke as if Ash were any young singer, come to the Deep to learn the old songs. He had seen the older men do this, time and again — take a young singer and groom him. He had never expected it to happen to him. He felt a warm ball of gratitude to Skink grow in his belly.

Vine looked sour. “I don’t care if he can hit the highest note in the scale. He’s a child. He has no stake in the future and he shouldn’t be taught the songs. That’s the real issue.”

“He doesn’t even know his true self yet!” Snake added.

Ash could see what was happening. Better to keep things the way they always had been. Better to be in control; especially when the alternative was to give away power to someone strange, like him. Someone incalculable. What he had to do was to make himself unthreatening: to meet their demands in a way they could accept.

“I have a stake in the future,” he said softly.

They looked at him, puzzled.

“Got some girl pregnant in Turvite, did you?” Vine snapped. “Might have known.”

“No,” Ash said, controlling his impulse to slap Vine backward onto the hard rock. “No, not that. But friends of mine had a baby last winter. He’s being raised in Hidden Valley, and I have sworn to protect him and his family. He is my stake in the future.” He paused for a moment, trying to look them all in the eye, one by one, to convince them. “His name is Ash.”

Skink considered, pulling at his lip while he thought. “I will ask you some questions. If the answers are sufficient, then we will think about the next step.”

“What’s that?” Flax jumped in.

“No man may learn the songs unless he knows his true nature. If we accept that Ash has a stake in the future, he must find his true shape. Only if the River accepts him can he learn the songs.”

Ash breathed out, hard. Another step, and another step. Fighting was a lot easier.

“When the child was born, what did you feel?” Skink said. Ash knew by his tone that the question was more complicated than it appeared.

“Well . . .” he said, trying to give himself enough time to think it through, then realizing that all he could do was tell the truth. “Firstly, just thankfulness that everything was all right; that his mother was safe and he was well.”

The men nodded.

“Then, when I saw him, I felt . . .” Ash paused. What had he felt? “I was surprised, because he was so little and so… red and scrunched up.”

Some of the men laughed, but it was the laughter of recognition.

“Then he was named for me, and I held him for the first time and I felt… joy. But later, when I thought about it, I felt afraid. Afraid for him. Afraid of all the things that could happen to him. Like the ghosts. That was when I swore to protect him.”

His answer poured out of him, each emotion vividly alive again. He was still afraid for little Ash, and it showed, he knew from the looks on their faces. Rowan had tears in his eyes. But it wasn’t enough.

“Have you sung to him?” Skink asked, putting him in his place.

Ash felt his face harden. “No,” he said.

“And you have left him.” There was condemnation in Skink’s tone. Traveler children were few, and cherished. Rowan placed his hand on Ash’s shoulder in support and warning. Be calm, he meant. Ash could almost hear the words. He took a breath and let it out slowly, then answered.

“The gods willed it. Go to the Well of Secrets, they said, and she sent me to find the secret songs.”

“There is one last question. Is the child of the old blood?”

“His mother was a Traveler.”

“Was?”

“She has Settled.”

Skink, Vine and Snake exchanged glances. Vine shrugged, and the other two nodded.

“It is enough,” Skink said. “We declare that Ash, son of Rowan, has a stake in the future in the form of the boychild Ash.”

“When the time comes,” Vine added, “Ash, son of Ash, son of Rowan, will be admitted to the Deep and meet the River.”

“As you will do, tonight,” Skink said, “when you make your climb.”