Jo Walton The Rebirth of Pan

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speaks reluctantly, each word dragging out. "Elly " He is struggling to
free his hands, he has almost done it, I think. Can she see that?
"What else?" she sounds impatient. Down in the cabin the boy starts getting
dressed. I can hear a crashing and a booming from somewhere far away
where there is a battle raging that finished four hundred years ago. I
can hardly spare a thought for it, not even for you in the midst of it. She
raises her little knife and sunlight reflected off the water glints on the
blade and sends light dancing about the deck.
"Sacrifices." She laughs, and the sound is shocking as I rock there in the
water and the bound man struggles beneath her on the deck. The echoes come
back from the island.
"Are you telling me Maman was conducting sacrifices?"
"I'm trying to tell you that your mother kept you cut off from everything you
need spiritually and that was killing you. She didn't know, she loved you, but
she was killing you."
She would have done that, yes. I remember that night, the spirit you called,
the way it rocked the water and almost sunk me, the things she said afterwards
when she was going. You didn't know. If you had known you would have rescued
the child. Why did we never think of doing that? Why did we leave this girl to
grow like this? I know we've been looking for her this last half year, but
there were seven years and a half before that when we should have been there
for her. The boy is coming out of the cabin now towards the ladder to the
deck.
"I don't believe you," she says. "I'm sorry Cloud, really I am. I do like you
and I don't want to drag this out. Consent."
"You don't hate me, Elly. You know you don't. You love me."
"Yes," she says. "Consent, Cloud." Their eyes lock. Then she takes a deep
breath and plunges down her arm. "Cloud Kir Harghia, with love, in the name
of death and life and the hope of a new beginning " He screams before
the blade finds his throat and the bright arterial blood fountains up,
covering her and the deck. It feels warm and sticky and unpleasant on the
planks. I do not know what it must be like on her face, in her hair.
The boy stands at the top of the ladder, quite still, holding the rail. She
drops the knife onto the body and raises both her arms as high as she can,
fists clenched. The blood runs slowly away, leaving her clean. He is still
moving slightly but dead beyond a doubt. She takes a step backwards and
releases her fists, spreading her fingers wide. I do not know where that power
is going but that is a summoning of some sort, an opening. I can feel the gods
and spirits drawing close around this island.
The boy does not move, and neither do I. After a moment when nothing
has come she takes another step backwards and bumps the wheel. She sits
down abruptly on the deck and starts to sob. The boy comes forward then,
towards her, past the body. He neither stares at it nor avoids looking at it.
He puts a hand on her shoulder. "Elly?" he says. Tears are streaming down her
face.
"Cloud." she says.
"He was a bad man."
"He was good to me. He was my friend. Nobody made me kill him," she says, "I
did it myself. Oh
Emrys, I saw myself in the smoke with a knife in my hand. And now I have done
it, but do you know what? It was the wrong knife." She is almost choking on
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her tears. "I don't want to be like that. I don't want the devil in my
family."
"You can choose who you want to be, but who is in your family just isn't a
matter of choice." The boy hugs her fiercely for a moment and then lets go.
"Sarakina?"
How does he know I have it? He was in the restaurant with the others when it
was brought to me.
Nobody knows. The fisherman brought it from the Lady, the ever-renewing
Priestess of the Moon who has had it in her keeping the last two thousand
years. It would have been too good a knife to use on that man. It is for her,
though, and the time of her need will be soon. A knife is a tool, and it will
be needed to remake the world. Which is what you longed for above all things
and what you have cared about more than anything else. It would be wrong of me
to withhold this now. With some reluctance I slide open one of the lockers. It
is inside, incongruous amid the jumble of tools and rope and charts you keep
in these little deck-lockers. He was so nervous, that fisherman, fulfilling a
bargain he had made with one he feared so much. He stood on my deck, cap
jammed right down on his ears and muttered the message, that it was an old
knife from the Lady, that the last time I would see you would be at Lepanto,
and that this was needed for the girl and I would know when. The knife is
wrapped in sacking, as it was when I opened the little locker for him to put
it in. I saw no need to unwrap it. The boy steps forward, but does not touch
it.
"Elly?" he says. She looks up. "Here it is."
"What?" She is still sobbing a little and her face is tear-stained. "What is
it?" She comes forward, frowning a little, takes up the bundle, opens it. The
blade is stone, crescent shaped, very sharp, the handle is bone. In her
hand in the bright sunshine it looks every year of its immeasurable age. She
has turned it over in her hand, and is beginning to look up again before he
answers.
"The knife you need to kill me."
24. LORD OF BATTLES
The poppy's red that stains the decks with death the wine-dark waves, the
brightly-bannered ships the golden sun that glints on helms and arms no colour
bright enough for death is death.
Laerti was the only person from Ithyka on
El Real
, the galley that was Don John's flagship. He was proud of his position. He
knew it was due in large part to luck. Since he and Dimitri had found the
monster fish he was someone. He knew that without that he would not have come
to anyone's attention or been chosen for this honour. Yet however known he
might be, if his skill and seamanship were not up to it he would not have been
here. His skill counted, and luck, after all, was the favour of the holy ones.
So he stood proud in his cardboard armour and fluttering red neckscarf and
waved at Katerina and little
Leo where they stood by the boathouse beside Pappa Andros and the bishop.
There were crowds all along the shore, tourists and locals mingling to watch
the battle. He waved again as he spotted his parents standing with old Vrathi
from the milk shop. There were even more people on the farther shore, and more
again would be watching from the distant heights of Nafpaktos. Laerti waved a
last time then turned his mind to his work.
The strait between the mainland and the island was crowded with wooden ships.
There must have been a hundred on each side. Most were oared vessels, galleys,
those few galleases with sails were placed strategically along the line.
Laerti was kept busy with the oars. He found it strange to work with
strangers, Italians, Spaniards, Germans, Greeks from other islands, people
from all corners of Europe.
They spoke English as their common language. Laerti had learned it in school,
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as everyone did. They had been practicing together for days, but the feel of
the crew was still very different from working with friends. He was glad
he was up on deck and not down below. On a real galley they'd have chained
slaves working those oars. They'd have had to have chained him to make him
stay down there in the heat. Whenever he had a chance Laerti gazed across at
the enemy fleet. Most flew long red pennants which fluttered in the breeze,
showing arabic curlicued writing in gold. On the mast of the Turkish flagship
hung a great standard.
"That is supposed to be standard of Ottoman Empire," the sailor at the next
oar told Laerti when he asked. "It has embroidered on it name of Allah
twenty-six thousand times. Never has it been captured, but today it will be." [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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