From the reviews of Nightpool
“Scenes that fairly soar infuse the tale with mythical qualities, which are buttressed by vitalized characterizations (the otters, foxes and dragons as well as Teb are developed in loving detail while the evil ones are truly evil). An enthralling fantasy that begs a sequel, better yet a series of sequels.” —ALA Booklist
“A sense that communication with animals once existed but has been lost permeates all of human lore. Georgia writer Shirley Rousseau Murphy's forte is her ability to vicariously compensate for this loss through her stories. In Nightpool she is in top form.” —Atlanta Journal and Constitution
Nightpool
(Dragonbards Trilogy, Book One)
by
Shirley Rousseau Murphy
Smashwords Edition
Copyright © 1985 by Shirley Rousseau Murphy
All rights reserved. For information contact webmaster@joegrey.com. This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only, and may not be resold, given away, or altered.
This is the first book of a trilogy. It is followed by The Ivory Lyre and The Dragonbards.
Harper & Row edition (hardcover) published in 1985
HarperPrism edition (paperback) published in 1987
Ad Stellae Books edition, 2010
Author website: www.joegrey.com
Cover art © by Fernando Cortés De Pablo / 123RF
Chapter 1
It was early dawn when a swimmer appeared far out in the dark, rolling sea. His face was just visible, a pale smear, and his hair blended with the black waves. He dove suddenly and disappeared, then was hidden by scarves of blowing fog stained pale in the moonlight. Moonlight brightened the crashing spray, too, where waves shattered against the tall, rocky island.
The swimmer popped up again, close to the island’s cliff. He breasted the waves and foam with strong strokes and leaped to grab at the sheer stone wall. A foothold here, a handhold, until his wet naked body was free of the sea, clinging like a barnacle to the cliff. A thin boy, perhaps sixteen. He climbed fast, more from habit than from need, knowing just where the best holds were. Above him, the cliff was honeycombed with caves, this whole side of the island a warren of dwellings, but no creature stirred above him. Not one dark, furred face looked out at him, and no otter hunted behind him in the sea; they all slept, after last night’s ceremonies.
He climbed to his own cave and stood in the entrance dripping, his head ducked to clear the rough arch of the doorway. Then he turned back to look out at the sea once more. Behind him, his cave echoed the sea’s pounding song.
He was bony and strong, with long, lean muscles laid close beneath the flesh, a thin face with high cheekbones, and his dark hair streaked and bleached by sun and sea. The skin across his loins, where the breechcloth had grown small for him, was pale, and the white scars on his back would never tan. His eyes were as dark as the stone of the island. There was a white, jagged scar across his chin, where a wave had heaved him against the cliff when he was twelve. He stood trying to master the flood of emotions that still gripped him, though he had thought to swim away from them out in the cold, dark sea. Homesickness was on him even before he departed, and he wanted to go quickly now while dawn lay on the sea and the otters slept, wanted no more good-byes, because already his stomach felt hollow and knotted. A part of himself would never go away, would stay on Nightpool forever, a ghost of himself still swimming the sea with Charkky and Mikk, diving deep into undersea gardens, playing keep-away in the waves.
He longed to be with Mitta suddenly, gentle, mothering Mitta, who had cared for him all the long months he had lain sick and hurt and not knowing who he was, cared for him as tenderly as she cared for her own cubs. Maybe he could just slip up over the rim of the island and into her cave, and lay his face against her warm fur as she slept. But no, the good-byes would begin all over, and they had said good-bye. Maybe the worst part of leaving was the good-byes, even in the warmth and closeness they had all felt last night at the ceremony.
He thought of the monster he meant to seek, and fear touched him. But he felt power, too, and a stubbornness that would not let him imagine losing against the dark sea creature. And once he defeated it, his real journey would begin, for he went to seek not one, but two creatures, as unlike one another as hatred is unlike love.
His head filled again with last night’s scene in the great cave. Before the ceremonies began, while he and Thakkur were alone there, the white otter had stood tall before the sacred clamshell pronouncing in a soft voice the visions that gave shape to Teb’s searching. The gleaming, pale walls of the great cave had been lighted by fire for the first time the otters could remember, five small torches of flaming seaweed that Charkky and Mikk had devised in Teb’s honor. Teb thought of Thakkur’s blessings and his strange, luminous predictions, the old otter’s white sleek body stretched tall, his attention rooted to the shell.
“You will ride the winds of Tirror, Tebriel. And you will touch humankind and change it. You will see more than any creature or human sees, save those of your own special kind.
“I see mountains far to the north, and you will go there among wonderful creatures and speak to them and know them.”
As Teb stared out now at the dawn sky, he was filled with the dream. But with the knowledge, too, that no prediction is cast in stone, that any fate could change by the flick of a knife, or the turn of a mount down an unknown road.
And not all Thakkur’s predictions had been of wonder. “I see a street in Sharden’s city narrow and mean. There is danger there and it reeks of pain. Take care, Tebriel, when you journey into Sharden.
“And,” the white otter said softly, “I see your sister Camery, tall and golden as wheat, and I see a small owl on her shoulder.” This was a happier prediction, and Teb vowed again that besides fulfilling his own search, he could find Camery, too, and those who traveled with her.
When Thakkur finished his predictions, Teb took his paw and walked with him down from the dais to a stone bench, where they sat together until, a little later, the crowds of otters began to troop in. “Camery is alive,” Teb said softly to Thakkur, and studied the white otter’s whiskered face.
The white otter nodded briefly. And then, partly from old age and partly from the strain of the predictions, he lapsed into a sudden light, dozing sleep. Soon Teb was surrounded by otters and drawn away into a happy ceremony of gift giving.
Each otter had brought a gift, a shell carefully cleaned and polished, or a pawful of pearls, or a gold coin from the sunken city of Mernmeth, that had lain drowned for so many lifetimes with its treasures scattered across the ocean floor.
Now, as he stood looking out at the sea, the ceremony of gift giving began to form a song in his mind. His verses came quickly, pummeling into his head, and each made a picture of the giver, holding forth a treasure. The song would remain in his memory without effort, creating sharp, clear scenes that he could bring forth whenever he wished. Just so did hundreds of songs remain, captured somehow by that strange, effortless talent that set him apart from other humans. Always he carried in his mind this hoard of color and scenes and voices from the past.