Springtide on Ael Lahi.
Dusktide washing the pale sands.
Moontide.
Lai Dhar scanned the twilit bay. The seashore was, as he had hoped, empty. No one would hear him here if he sneaked one last practice before the new moon rose.
He sat down, bare toes wriggling through the warm sand to the damp sediment below, so deliciously cool after the day’s heat.
Lifting the flute to his lips, he took a breath and began to weave the intricacies of the Spring Invocation.
A lock of wayward hair flopped forwards over his face; he shook it out of his eyes and carried on.
He had been practising the invocation for moons beyond counting – and still he couldn’t get it right! And tonight it was vital he should get it right; tonight was the night of the moonmoths. And as youngest adept of the Sacred Grove, he had been chosen to play, to charm the moths to the Goddess’s shrine. The knowledge that his partner in the invocation would be his twin sister Laili did not improve his mood; she was so much more accomplished a flute-player than he – and he did not want to let her down. If she was nervous about tonight’s ceremony – their first as newly initiated adepts of the Sacred Grove – she would be able to conceal it. Whereas he had hardly slept, tossing and turning all night beneath the stars.
Even now he was not sure what had persuaded Aela, Eldest One, that he was ready to participate in the moon mysteries. This morning when she had commanded him to play to her, she had soon stopped him with one tap of her staff; gentle, yet firm.
‘Patience, patience. Don’t rush at it so impulsively. Let the notes flow. They can only flow when you can forget what your fingers are doing … and that means—’
‘More practice.’ Lai nodded his head, sighing. ‘It’s just – the music in my head, Aela. It sings, it soars, and when I try to capture it—’
‘You can only let the music fly when your body and mind work together in partnership. Music in the head is all very well, but you cannot express it when your fingers are tripping over each other.’
‘You mean – I’m not ready?’ He could not bear to think he might have to wait another year to be admitted to the mysteries.
Her gnarled fingers cupped his chin, tipping his face up to hers.
‘Lai and Laili – so alike in looks – and yet so different in temperament. How could I separate you tonight of all nights?’
Body and mind working together …
His fingers moved more fluently over the holes in the flute, repeating the wreathing patterns of the invocation. Better – it was getting better –
There was not a cloud in the dusky sky … and yet Lai’s skin suddenly chilled as if drenching monsoon rain were about to fall.
A warning?
He glanced uneasily behind him, but only the fragrant leaves of the balsam trees stirred slightly.
Just a breeze off the waves, nothing more sinister.
And yet …
He returned to his practice. Now the notes began to flow, to soar, to wing out over the waves …
A hoarse squeak suddenly marred the flowing purity of line; in a fury, he took the flute and flung it from him across the silvered sands.
‘Tsk, tsk!’ Laili was standing behind him, her moongauze robes stirring in the light evening breeze. She wagged her finger at him in imitation of old Aela. ‘Still so impatient, Lai Dhar! Your temper will be the undoing of you one day!’
Lai made a grab for her but she slipped out of his reach and snatched his flute, waving it over her head. Her laughter, light as the evening breeze, teasing, tantalising him.
‘Give it back!’ He chased down the beach after her, feet slithering over the sand.
Danger …
He stopped, gazing out over the misted sea.
‘You sensed it too,’ she said softly.
‘It’s nerves – nothing more.’ Lai forced a laugh.
‘Then why are you watching the sea?’
He shrugged. All day this faint sense of unease had been troubling him. He could hide nothing from her. They might be opposite in temperament but each had always known the other’s feelings without a word passing between them.
The purple skies were already peppered with stardust; soon the new moon would rise. A waft of frangipani flowers, cardamom-sweet, drifted across the strand.
‘Come.’ Laili touched his hand, her fingertips soft and cool. ‘It’s time.’
‘Wait—’
There was a shadow on the horizon, the ghost of a ship where there had been nothing but a misted expanse of sea.
Danger …
Lai’s body chilled again with a sudden inexplicable shiver of fear.
‘Probably a spice barque,’ Laili said.
‘But what spice barque could move so fast on a calm sea?’
From the darkness of the moonhaunted glades an eerie shimmer of sound arose to greet the moon. A sound to ravish the heart. To make the heart ache almost to breaking.
‘Listen,’ Laili whispered. ‘It has already begun.’
Aela, the Eldest One, stood, supported by her sisters, in the heart of the Grove. Sweet-burning incense candles lit her gnarled face. She beckoned Lai and Laili close … and as they knelt before her, she touched each in turn upon the forehead where the white crescent, moonmark of the Goddess, gleamed pearl-pale against their brown skin. Then she handed them each a ceremonial weirdflute, carved from sea-bleached bone.
Lai moistened his dry lips with his tongue and raised the flute to his mouth; Laili did the same. He took a breath – and began to play. To echo, to embellish the glittering sounds emitted by the moths.
Moonmoths. Sacred to the Goddess, the moonmoths of Ael Lahi emerged gauze-winged from their chrysalises on this one night of the year to sing, to mate, lay their eggs – and die. With the Goddess’s blessing, the moonmoths would be drawn to the flute-music and the glowing incense candles … and would sanctify the Grove with their presence.
Lai’s flute sent spirals of notes curling upwards like the incense fumes to intertwine and mingle with the notes rising from Laili’s flute in perfect unity of purpose. A drowsed spell of drifting music enwreathed the Sanctuary. Lai raised his eyes as he played and saw the moonmoths come floating down from the black sky—
Voices. Men’s voices, shouting, sharp as smashed glass in the Grove’s stillness.
‘What’s happening?’ The flute dropped from Laili’s fingers.
A scream seared the air. Men came running into the Sanctuary, adepts scattering in front of them like wind-blown petals. Lai saw a blur of crimson in the torch flares.
‘Slavers!’ he whispered.
Aela stepped forward, her hand upraised.
‘This is a sanctuary, sacred to the Goddess. Go now and leave our hallowed places undefiled. Or the Goddess will strike you down!’
For a heart’s beat, the strangers stopped to stare at the frail old woman. And then one of them began to laugh.
‘You don’t frighten me, old woman, with your mumbo-jumbo. Curse away!’ His words were in the common tongue – but harshly, oddly accented. ‘We want young ones, healthy ones. Tell us where to find them – and we will spare your Sacred Grove.’
Aela drew her robes about her and proudly raising her head, spat in the stranger’s face.
He stared back at her, the spittle wet on his cheeks. Even the insect-whirr had ceased, the moist air hung silent, still, empty of sound.
‘You’re very foolish, old woman. We could have reached an agreement. But now—’
One of his men moved behind the Eldest One; the blade gleamed, slashing downwards towards the silvered head. Aela fell without a sound. Scarlet, redder than spilt wine, stained the silver.
Lai shuddered. The pale lifeflame was snuffed out, in a breath of a passing breeze, leaving a cold desolation in his soul. He heard Laili’s sharp indrawn breath, felt her stunned shock, her disbelief.
‘Aela—’ she began, starting out across the clearing towards the crumpled body.
And Lai came to his senses.
‘No!’ He caught hold of her, pulling her back. ‘Run, Laili!’
‘I – I can’t—’ Her ornate robes slowed her down, winding themselves tighter about knees and ankles.
‘Faster!’
She lost hold of his hand and fell. Lai turned back, bending to scoop her up, only to see two of the slavers coming straight towards them.
‘Lai!’ Laili screamed aloud. One caught hold of her by the other arm, jerking her away from him.
‘Let her go!’ Lai flung himself onto her abductor, thumping both fists against the man’s broad back.
A blow to the side of the head sent him reeling. Glancing dizzily up, he saw a drawn blade glinting in the darkness.
‘Tarrakh-zhan! Look at this one!’
The point of the blade pierced the skin of Lai’s throat. In the torch flares he could see a cluster of crimson-clad men around Laili. They had ripped her gauze robes open, baring her arms, her small breasts, tender and pink as guava-flesh.
Take her.’ A curt voice cut across the others. ‘She’ll do.’
‘Lai!’ Laili cried out sobbingly. ‘Help me!’
Lai reared up only to be slapped down again.
‘And the boy?’
‘He’s young. Sturdy. Take him too.’
Ducking under the blade, Lai clamped his arms around the man’s legs, tugging with all his strength.
‘Laili!’
The man kicked out. His foot caught Lai in the chest.
Lai fell. Flat on his back. Too winded to roll out of the way.
The blade came whistling through the moist air, striking him full on the forehead.
White lightflash.
Then dark, dark of the moon …
Void.
Herded together like animals, golden Aelahim, pale Mynezhilim, dark-skinned tattooed Enhirrans, they crouched in the darkness of the slave galley, men separated from women by a slatted wooden partition.
Lai opened his eyes; pain flashed through his skull, dazzlebright.
He could remember nothing. Only that white flash of pain; slowly the dazzle was dimming and fragments of memory returning. The stench of the hold, the sickening roll and pitch of the vessel, the ache in his skull, all centred on the dizzy lurch of his stomach; he retched until his throat burned but only a thin slime came up.
The pain had become a jagged slash across his blurred vision; his hand rose, shakily, to touch his forehead and came away caked in half-congealed blood.
Blood. Scarlet seeping through silver. The reek of choking smoke … Confused fragments of memory amongst the cindered firesparks.
‘Lai … li?’
‘Here, Lai.’
A glint of russet caught his eye in the distant shadows.
Lai began to crawl slowly, painfully towards a chink in the partition until the bite of metal into his ankle told him he was shackled to the bulkhead. Stretching his full length, he extended his arm until they could just touch fingertips …
‘They haven’t – harmed you?’
‘No. Not yet. If I am forced against my will, it will be a crime against the Goddess. A desecration of her name. But I will never be able to serve her again …’
Now he remembered. And groaned aloud, letting his head sink into his hands. Intruders in the Grove. The sacred vessels smashed, the Sanctuary violated. The smirch of smoke and flames—
‘Aela. I should have protected Aela. But I just stood there.’ The ache of remembering was worse than the throbbing pain in his bruised head.
‘What could you have done against them? They were armed. They would have killed you too.’ Her fingertips pressed against his, reassuring, comforting.
‘What will they do to us?’ he whispered, raising his head.
‘What do they do with slaves? They are barbarians. They worship Mithiel, Wielder of the Undying Flame. They do not understand the ways of the Goddess.’
He felt her fingers begin to tremble against his; her head drooped. Unable to bear the unspoken accusation of her silent tears, he whispered fiercely through the partition, ‘I’ll get us back to the Island, Laili. Somehow.’
She did not reply.