Page 344 of The Liveship Traders Trilogy

Kennit clambered from the boat to the shore.

Squidgy seaweed bladders, blue mussels, and white barnacles on the glistening black rocks made the footing treacherous for his crutch.

He threw an arm across Etta’s shoulders in mimicry of affection.

‘Etta and Wintrow will be coming with me. You two wait here for us.’ The rowers muttered uneasy agreement as Kennit surveyed the steep path without enthusiasm.

He had a long hike ahead of him, over a stony trail.

For a moment, he doubted the wisdom of his decision.

Then his eyes met Windrow’s gaze. The youth was nervous, but anticipation danced in his eyes.

For a sharp instant, Kennit felt that sense of connection again.

Wintrow was so like himself as a lad. Sometimes he had felt that same rush of excitement, usually when they had sighted a particularly rich plum of a ship.

An instant later, the faint smile on his face turned to a grimace of distaste.

He rejected the memory. No. He had never truly shared anything with Igrot.

After all the man had subjected him to, he felt nothing for his memory except disdain.

‘Let’s go,’ he said so sharply that Wintrow jumped slightly.

Kennit started up the narrow defile, leaning on Etta.

By the time they reached the crest of the first hill, Kennit’s shirt was sweated to his chest. He had to stop to rest. It was the day, he told himself.

It was warmer than it had been last time he was here.

Under the trees, the heat became more oppressive, despite their shade.

The pebbly path that led through the Others’ domain was as precisely kept as ever.

The last time he had passed this way, the charm on his wrist had told him that there was a spell on this path, to keep travellers from straying.

Now, as he glanced off into the green shadows of the verdant forest, he dismissed it as nonsense.

Who would want to stray from a straight and level path to venture through such a leafy maze?

He took out his kerchief and wiped his face and neck.

When he looked around, he realized the other two were waiting for him.

He scowled at them. ‘Well? Are you ready? Let’s go on.

’ The gravel of the path shifted unpredictably under his crutch and his peg.

The constant small struggle to correct his balance multiplied the distance for him as the path meandered down this hill and up the next.

At the top of the second rise, when he stopped to catch his breath, he suddenly reached a conclusion.

‘They don’t want me here,’ he said aloud.

The trees seemed to echo his words back in agreement.

‘The Others are making it hard for me, trying to turn me back. But I won’t give up.

Wintrow shall have his oracle.’ As he lifted his kerchief again, he caught sight of the charm strapped to his wrist. Its face was frozen in a clownish smile, the mouth ajar, the tongue lolling out.

It mocked him. Deliberately he set his thumbnail to its brow and scraped it down, but as always, the iron-hard wood defied him.

The face of the charm did not even flicker an eyelid.

He lifted his glance to the other two, to find them watching him in consternation.

Casually he brushed his thumb over the charm again, as if he had been flicking dirt from it.

He made a difficult decision. ‘Wintrow. Go ahead of us. I think it might be better for you to walk the Treasure Beach alone, undistracted by my presence. I might inadvertently prompt you to pick up something you were not destined to discover. I would not wish to taint the prophecy. Go along, now. Etta and I will be there for the Other’s pronouncement.

That is all that really matters. Go now. ’

Wintrow looked uncertain. He exchanged a glance with Etta, who gave a tiny shrug. Kennit felt his fury rising. ‘Do you question my order? Go!’

His roar sent the boy haring off down the path.

‘Good.’ Kennit put satisfaction into the word.

He shook his head after him. ‘Wintrow must learn two things from me: to obey, and to be able to act on his own.’ Once more, he set his crutch under his arm.

‘Follow me. Not too swiftly, for I wish Wintrow to have plenty of time alone on the beach. These things are not to be rushed.’

‘To be sure,’ Etta agreed. She glanced about at the forest. ‘This is a strange place. Seldom have I seen such beauty. Yet it forbids itself to me.’ As if suddenly fearful, she moved to take his free arm.

He shook his head to himself. Helpless females.

He wondered why the charm had been so insistent that he bring her along.

Not that he had consulted the charm about this venture; the damnable thing had insisted on offering its opinion, not once but repeatedly.

‘Take Etta, you must take Etta with you,’ it had exhorted.

Now look at her. He would have to take care of her, he supposed.

‘Come along,’ he told her firmly. ‘If you stay to the path, nothing will hurt you.’

Wintrow ran. Not from Etta and Kennit; he felt half a coward to have abandoned them there.

He ran from the forest itself, that cupped him like a trapped mouse in its palms. He ran from the overwhelmingly strange beauty of the threatening flowers and the poignant fragrances that both tempted and repulsed him.

He fled even from the whispering of the leaves set to gossiping of his death by the hot breath of the wind.

He ran, his heart pounding in his chest more from fear than exertion.

He ran until the path spilled him out on a wide-open tableland.

Before him was suddenly the blue arch of the sky over the open sea.

A crescent beach spread out, framed at its tips by toothy cliffs.

He halted, gasping for breath, wondering what he was supposed to do now.

Kennit had told him little. ‘It’s simple.

You walk the beach, you pick up whatever interests you, and at the end of the beach, an Other will greet you.

He will ask of you the piece of gold. You give it to him; just put it on his tongue.

Then he will tell you his prophecies for you.

’ Kennit had lowered his voice to confide sceptically, ‘Some say there is an Oracle on the island. A priestess say some, a captive goddess say others. The legend is that she knows all the past, everything that has ever been. Knowing all that has gone before, she can predict the shape of the future. I doubt this to be true. I saw nothing of the kind when I was there. The Other will tell us what we need to know.’

When he had tried to ask for more details, Kennit had become impatient.

‘Wintrow, stop dithering. When the time comes, you will know what to do. If I could tell you everything you would find and do on the island, we would not need to go there. You cannot always depend on others to live and think for you.’

Wintrow had bowed his head and accepted the rebuke humbly.

Increasingly, Kennit said such things to him.

Sometimes Wintrow felt the man was grooming him for something, but he was not sure what.

Since Divvytown, he had accepted that there was far more to Kennit than he had ever suspected.

He had followed at Kennit’s heels all of one long afternoon, dragging a bag of stakes and a mallet.

Kennit paced the distances, and jabbed a hole with his peg where he wanted each stake driven.

Some described the edges of a road, others the corners of the houses.

When they finished and looked back, Kennit seemed transfixed.

Wintrow had stood beside him, trying to see what he saw.

Kennit broke the silence. ‘Any fool can burn a town,’ he observed.

‘They say that Igrot the Bold burned a score of towns.’ He gave a snort of contempt.

‘I shall raise a hundred. I shall not be remembered with ashes.’

Wintrow had accepted him then as a man of vision. And more. He was a tool of Sa.

He scanned the scene from left to right.

Kennit had told him to walk the beach. Where was he supposed to start?

Did it matter? With a shrug, he turned his face to the wind and began walking.

The tide was still going out. Once he reached the tip of the beach’s crescent, he’d turn and start his search.

He would walk the whole beach seeking for his destiny.

The bright sun beat down on his head. He muttered at his stupidity in not bringing a bandana.

He kept his eyes down as he walked, but saw nothing out of the ordinary.

Tangles of skinny black seaweed, empty crab shells, wet feathers and bits of driftwood marked the limits of the tide’s reach.

If objects like this were to foretell his future, he did not think the prophecies would be earth-shaking.

Towards the tip of the crescent beach, the sand gave way to outcroppings of black rock.

The tableland behind him had risen to the height of a ship’s mast and showed its underpinnings of slate and shale.

The tide had retreated fully, baring the normally covered black rocky shelves.

Their cracked and pitted surfaces cupped tidepools full of life.

Such things had always beckoned Wintrow.

He glanced back at the trail from the forest. There was still no sign of Kennit and Etta.

He had a bit of time. He wandered out onto the rocks, stepping carefully for the seaweed underfoot was treacherously slick.