Quint looked to his spear, its gouged and battered blade, the Lady’s Grace thinning, so faint, then to this titanic approaching crag of water greater than any he had seen in over fifty years, rearing now over him taller than six fathoms.
Damn you…
He raised the spear, shaking it in the searing extremity of his rage.
Damn everyone! Damn everything! Damn The mountain of water slammed into the wall to tumble, undercut, overflowing like a waterfall, washing, scouring, unstoppable. When it thinned, draining to both sides from the course of the wall, the stone core remained, uneven, punished, gouged of everything, empty of all movement.
On into the evening a fresh layer of snow began to fall over alclass="underline" the grey undisturbed waters of the inlet, and the bare stones of the wall where no footfalls marred it. Through the night it froze into a fresh clean layer of frost and ice.
All through the fighting below Hiam knelt, praying. He prayed for forgiveness. For penance. And for guidance. He ignored the cries, the blasts and the upheaval. Hands clasped, eyes screwed shut, entreating, begging. Lady! Please answer! How have we displeased you? Where have we transgressed? Please! In the name of our devotion. Will you not grace me with your guidance?
At one point something enormous ploughed into the tower in an avalanche roar that seemed the end of the world. The impact drove Hiam against a wall and left the tower tilted, threatening to fall at any moment, but he did not turn from his single-minded observance. Surely his zeal would be rewarded now, at this moment of testing.
After a time he knew not how long — nor did he care — an answer came. The Lady’s voice whispered as if into his ear: You failed me, Lord Protector!
He bowed to the floor, abject in his piety. ‘My Lady! How? How did we fail? What was our transgression? Let us make amends.’
Amends? You failed! They are upon me! You let them through! You swore to protect me!
‘M’Lady, our holy concord remains between us. We will protect the lands as we swore-’
The lands? The lands? You protect me! Me! And you have failed even at that simple task, you wretched fool.
Hiam sat up, puzzled. ‘We swore to protect all the lands — under your blessing and guidance, of course.’
The lands? You fool! Your blood protected me from my old enemies! And now they are coming!
‘Our blood protected… you?’
Yes! Fool! Blood sacrifice forestalls them. But now they are through! What is left to me? Who will- Wait! I sense them close. The ancient enemy. They have followed me even unto here. How will I hide? You! Why did you not die for me? Do so — now!
And the Lady’s presence snapped away, leaving Hiam reeling. His mind couldn’t catch at anything. His hands went to his neck. All this time… then all this time… No. It was too terrible to contemplate. Too horrific. A monstrous crime.
He rose from the floor, backed to a wall as if retreating from an invisible enemy. It was a lie. A deception. Somehow. But no. That had been the Lady. He knew her presence.
He had finally come to the true foundation of his faith and he wished he’d never done so.
His scorched thoughts turned to all the brethren who had preceded him — good men and women all. So many. Down through the ages. His heart went out to them in an ache of love that could not be borne. Countless! All trusting to the truth of their cause… Yes, trusting and… used.
He crossed to a gaping window, stared out at the snow-flecked night without seeing it. He knew what to do. What was one more death? He would die — but not for her.
No. Most certainly not for her.
Hiam climbed up on to the windowsill and threw himself from the tower, to tumble down into the heaving white-capped waters below.
Dockworkers among the maze of waterfront wharves serving the Korelri capital of Elri were still discussing the morning’s tremor — how the tall pilings wavered like ships’ masts! — when, before their eyes, the tide suddenly withdrew to an extent unheard of in any account. Fish lay jumping and gasping in the tidal muck abandoned by the waters. The rotted stumps of ancient docks reared like ragged teeth far out into the mudflats of the bay. Citizens still dazed from the shaking gathered on the waterfront to watch this eerie phenomenon.
A strange greenish cast grew in the sky to the west. A sound like a distant windstorm gathered. People stopped talking to listen and watch, hushed. Something was approaching up the bay — a wide green banner or wall hurrying in upon them like a landslide. The noise climbed to a raging whistling rush of wind that snapped cloaks and banners away. Citizens now screamed, pointing, or turned to run, or merely stared entranced as the wall swelled into an overtopping comber now breaking some seven fathoms high. It crashed through the shoreline without slowing or faltering and rushed on inland, taking villages, roads and fields on its way to slam smashing through the south-facing fortifications of Elri, demolishing those walls, toppling stone guard towers, gouging a three-block swath through jammed houses and shops.
As the water slowly withdrew it left behind a stirred, glutinous mass of brick, mud, shattered timbers and building stone. It sucked everything loose with it down the slope and back out into the bay, never to be seen again. And it left behind an empty shoreline of mud a full rod beyond its original contours.
*
Far within the channel maze of the saltwater marsh east of Elri, Orzu pulled his pipe from his mouth to sniff the air and eye the strange colour of the sky to the west. He leapt to his feet, threw the pipe aside and set his hands to his mouth, bellowing: ‘Everyone aboard! Now! Quick-like!’ The Sea-Folk stared, frozen where they squatted at cook fires or sat tying reeds. ‘Now!’ Orzu ordered. ‘Abandon it all! Cut the ropes!’
Cradling her child to her chest, Ena clambered on board. ‘What is it, Da?’
‘The Sea’s Vengeance, lass. Now tie yourself down.’ Aside, to another boat, he roared, ‘Throw all that timber overboard, Laza! Lighten the load.’
Ena wrapped one arm in a rope, tried to peer over the great fields of wind-lashed reeds bobbing taller than any man. A storm was hurrying in upon them. It cast a light over everything like none she’d ever seen before. It was as if the entire world was underwater.
Something was coming. She could hear it; a growling, rising in intensity. ‘Is it another shudder of the great earth goddess?’ she called.
‘The old sea god’s been awakened. And he’s angry.’ Orzu gestured urgently. ‘Mother! Drop that baggage and jump in now!’
The boat lurched. Ena peered over the side: the waters had risen. She glanced back west in time to see some dark wall advancing like night, consuming the leagues of waving grasses.
‘Here it comes!’ Orzu bellowed.
The vessel slammed sideways, twisting like a thrown top. Ena banged her head against the side, struggled to shield the babe pressed to her breast. When she next looked up they were charging north, water-borne, bobbing amid a storm of wreckage: uprooted trees, the roofs of huts, driftwood logs, all in a churning mulch of detritus mixed with a flux of mud. She watched a cousin’s boat become wedged between the boles of two enormous logs and crushed to shards. Her family members jumped to the roof of a hut spinning nearby.
The wave carried them over the sand cliffs bordering the marshlands and on inland, ever slowing, diminishing, thinning. Until finally, in its last ebbing gasp, it lifted them up to lie canted on the slope of a hillside far from the sight of the coast. She sat watching in wordless amazement as the waters swept back as if sucked, leaving behind in their wake a trail of ugly churned mud, soil, and stranded oddities such as the wall of a reed hut, or their boat itself: a curious ornament for a farmer’s field.