The Star Shard (20 page)

And of course Cymbril would miss Urrt and the other Urrmsh. How could she say goodbye to them?

Even the Rake's grand circuit tugged at her heart: the cities and towns under the changing seasons, each far-flung wall built of different stones, the morning light different on each thatch, the breath of each hay field different in sweetness. It was her enslavement that had allowed her to see so much of the world. She thought of the seas of human faces.
I'll be out among them,
she reminded herself.
When I'm free, the whole world will be spread out before me and waiting.

The necklace of swamp flowers was withered now. She'd hung it on a cloak peg. The dry garland broke beneath her fingers, the petals swirling to the floor. She knelt and sifted through the dead blossoms, thinking of Gorhyv Glyn and what it might be like there. Would she be happier? Would the Sidhe accept her as one of their own? It was hard to abandon the comfort of a home she could see around her in search of one that was still unknown. Change took courage, but leaving the Rake was a change she needed, beyond the fears and the pain. Deep down, Cymbril knew she needed to be free.

Not long before, she'd watched a gardener on the top deck transplanting rosebushes from clay pots into deeper soil beds. When they came out of the pots, the roots were bunched up in cramped tangles. Cymbril almost believed she could hear the plants sighing with relief when the gardener settled them into the black earth, where they could stretch like sleepers awakening.
I'm like the roses,
Cymbril thought. Huge as the Rake was, it was still a very tight clay pot.

After the next day of work in Blue Barrows, she went to see Urrt. She'd thought of a half-dozen ways to bid him farewell, but she used none of them. Sitting beside his feet, she began to weep.

"Ah," he rumbled, pulling and pushing on the oar. "Yes. We are coming soon to the place you are going, little thrush." Around them, a long, humming tale went on—or maybe it was a song.

Cymbril hugged his knee and shook as waves of agony she'd never expected rolled through her. Tears spilled from her eyes, and her nose ran.

"Little bird." Urrt's palm brushed her hair, gently as the falling of light. "This is a song I've not heard from you before. But it is a good song, too, and makes the world better, not worse."

"I thought it would be easier," Cymbril gasped when she could. "If leaving is right, why does it hurt so much?"

"It's the way with life," said Urrt. "Parts of the world are broken, and there's no fixing them until the End. This kind of hurt means you love. And that, songbird, is a treasure better than a stone or a pin. Have courage." After a long pause, he added, "Remember the hatch. It will be open tomorrow night."

Cymbril told him she thought there was a black nargus aboard the Rake and that the Eye Women were responsible.

Urrt considered this news for a long time.

"If that's what it is," he said at last, "then those old sisters in yellow are growing awfully bold, and there's trouble coming. A nargus has a mind like an empty pit. Those women must be controlling it."

"Will the Armfolk be all right?" she asked.

"We will keep watch," Urrt said. "It may be that Master Rombol will need our help before long."

The help of the Armfolk—did Rombol have any idea how fortunate he was to have Urrt and the others rowing for him? Cymbril closed her eyes and rested in the warm space, the Urrmsh song resonating in the wood, in her bones. The next thing she knew, Urrt was nudging her awake.

"You should go back now," Urrt told her, "before they miss you up there."

Cymbril rubbed her face. It felt stiff with dried tears. She took Urrt's hand. Panic fluttered in her chest.

"Go on," Urrt said. "We will talk again soon, I promise you."

Cymbril hurried to her bunk, afraid to look back.

 

She tossed through the night, sleeping in snatches, springing awake. Once she sat up at a terrible barking from Bale. Not long afterward, when silence had returned, two soldiers trudged down the hallway past her door. She heard the creak and clink of their armor. "Whatever it is," one muttered to the other, "it clawed through that gate like a swatch o' curtain, and there was nothin' left but feathers. Not hardly nothin' o' the cages
themselves.
"

"It's a witchy-wolf, I say," the other guard answered. "That's how it gets away. I saw what one did up in Burl Valley when I was a boy."

Then the soldiers passed beyond hearing.

Cymbril pulled the covers close around herself and lay blinking in the dark.

Over and over she picked up the stone and the hairpin, the two treasures that no one could take from her. As long as she had these, with their glow of Sidhe fire and magic, she carried a part of her parents. Peering into the Star Shard's depths, she could almost see the faces of her mother and father, hazy as dreams remembered on waking.

 

She was up before dawn and wriggled into her green dress with embroidered leaves on the cape. Today no one had given her orders for what to wear. Her choice of clothing anticipated Gorhyv Glyn, the woodland realm, but it also celebrated summer—the best dress for her last day on the Rake.

The town was Deepdike, named for the mossy trench that circled it, too wide even for a charging horse to leap across, and four fathoms deep. Wooden footbridges spanned it, strong enough to support normal traffic, but the Thunder Rake could not come across to the market square. Instead, a procession of carts and wagons rolled down the ramp and over the bridges.

Cymbril mustered her best efforts, singing with as much conviction as if all the songs told of her own life's journeys. The ballads brought tears to her listeners' eyes, and the merry songs made them grin. At the end of "Blue Were Her Eyes," she saw an old farmer in the crowd suddenly catch his wife by the arms and kiss her. The woman looked back at him in happy surprise, her own blue eyes sparkling from a wrinkled face like those of the woman in the ballad. Cymbril watched the couple as she sang "Lavender and Primrose." All throughout its lilting verses, they danced together, weaving among the other listeners as if they were on the floor of some grand castle ballroom. Perhaps in their minds, Cymbril thought, that's exactly where they were.

Then something happened that had never happened before. Two minstrels bounded through the crowds, a boy and a girl, both a few scant years older than Cymbril. People laughed and clapped in recognition, thumping the pair on the backs as they passed. Their clothes were patched and of poorer cloth than Cymbril's, but equally green, as if the three had dressed to match. The boy and the girl appeared just as Cymbril began "Home, Lads, Home." From the midst of the audience they played along, their fingers flying over the strings of long-necked instruments that hung by straps from their shoulders. As they pounced right up into the wagon bed, one on each side of her, Cymbril stopped in surprise.

"Keep singing!" said the girl. Her black hair hung in a long ponytail, and a spray of faint freckles dotted her face.

Cymbril forged ahead, and they matched her tune with their own voices, blending into harmony. After her initial bewilderment, Cymbril began to laugh inside, as if she were floating in the sky, sweeping with the birds from cloud to cloud. People in the market began to clap in rhythm, and more linked arms and danced. With three voices intertwined, the long cascade of nonsense syllables at the song's end brought exuberant cheers from the crowd.

The minstrels caught Cymbril's hands and bowed with her. She wanted to collapse and catch her breath, but there was no time—now the requests poured in, and the two paused only to be sure Cymbril knew the next tune.

The sun climbed the sky. Even the merchants came out and stood before their stalls to listen. As the singers huddled together to discuss the words to "Far Green Hills," Rombol clanked goblets with the Patron of Deepdike and cupped his free hand around his mouth to shout, "You're doing far too well! Nobody's buying a thing!" The crowd laughed with him—but turned quickly back to the wagon as the three began singing again.

When they took a short rest, Cymbril laughed at the way the two flopped down as they pleased, arms and legs all askew. She'd been taught to sit before crowds with composure, like a lady.

The dark-haired girl offered Cymbril a hand in greeting, her arm swinging out in a broad gesture like a man's. "I'm Bobbin. You have a beautiful voice."

"Thank you. I'm Cymbril."

"We know," said the boy, clasping Cymbril's hand in turn. "You're famous. I'm Argent." Argent had short white-blond hair and the faint beginnings of a beard. He wore a small silver earring.

"We're cousins," Bobbin explained, dangling her feet off the wagon bed. "We can't stay much longer. We're riding with my uncle to Highcircle. He had an errand here this morning."

Cymbril glanced admiringly at their travel-worn boots, bound up to their knees with leather cords. "You're not from here, then," she said.

"No," said Argent with a chuckle. "We're from out there, the Wild. From everywhere. Like you Rake folk."

"You don't have a home?"

"The grandest home," said Bobbin. "I own thousands and thousands of magnificent towers, shaded with royal canopies. I call them 'trees.'"

The cousins laughed easily, and Cymbril joined them. She'd never envied the highborn ladies at the markets—and certainly not the rich vulture-women of the Rake's teabunks—but she felt envy for these two.

"The Wild is the best home." Argent leaned back on his elbows and gazed at the sky. "We were born there."

Cymbril peered longingly toward the trees.

Argent sprang upright. "Are you ready to sing some more? They're getting impatient!" With a courtly bow, he helped Cymbril to her feet.

Never had Cymbril enjoyed a morning's market so much. She was sorry when, glancing at the sun's position, Bobbin and Argent nodded to each other and squeezed Cymbal's hands again. "That's it," Bobbin said. "We ride."

"It's been a privilege," added Argent.

"My privilege," Cymbril said.

As suddenly as they had appeared, the minstrels hopped down out of the wagon. At a trot, Argent acknowledged the crowds, who applauded. Bobbin's ponytail bounced as she spun and waved. In a blink, they were across the market. They stopped once, however, at the Patron's booth, and a clerk counted coins into their hands.

The folk of Deepdike weren't inclined to let Cymbril eat lunch. They were prodders and hair-feelers, leaning too close and breathing on her. Wiltwain rescued her, leading her into the bread baker's tent and settling her onto a stool behind a curtain, handing her a tray of hot bannock and blueberry jam.

As he turned to go, Cymbril spoke quickly. This might be her last chance to say anything to him. "Overseer—did you believe me ... about the Night Market?"

He lowered his voice. "Master Rombol ordered you not to speak of that again."

"But do you believe me?"

He studied her at length, then nodded.

"You do! Why?"

"Do you suppose yours is the only word we have on it?"

This came as a surprise to Cymbril. But Wiltwain was again preparing to leave, so she plunged ahead. "And do you know that the two old women with the frog bought a black nargus from Brigit?"

He lowered his brows. "What are you talking about?"

"They're looking for more magic, like the things in the storerooms I found. The monster that makes Bale bark at night is a nargus, which sniffs out magic. It will soon be very dangerous, because it's getting hungry. I saw Brigit at the Night Market. She had something inside a box on wheels, all bound up with ropes and chains—probably the nargus, though I can't prove it."

He regarded her dubiously, probably wondering if this were all some flight of her imagination.

"Ask the Armfolk," she said. She knew he respected the Urrmsh. At least he was warned now. What he chose to do was his business, but Cymbril could leave the Rake with a clear conscience.

"Stay away from those old women and their markets," Wiltwain said quietly, and left Cymbril to her lunch.

You're welcome,
she thought as he strode away.

At the tent's door flap, something landed squarely at Wiltwain's feet, nearly tripping him: a green-black, bumpy something like a wet rock—the fat frog. It sat there puffing its throat until he edged past it with a scowl. Then the frog stared at Cymbril until a baker's boy shooed it away with a broom handle.

The frog had likely heard her. It would tell its mistresses what Cymbril had said about them. She needed to get off this Rake—and quickly.

As she ate, she thought about the Night Market and Rombol's knowledge of it. He'd insisted that no such things took place. But that was a lie—Cymbril should have guessed he was aware. Why else would Byrni have been in the skeletons' booth? Rombol had sold Byrni to the skeletons, or to the Eye Women, or to
someone
on that magical forest deck. Now she knew why the storerooms in her hidden hallway were mostly empty. The Master had found buyers for the magician's charts, bottles, trunks, and maps—and they weren't the buyers who strolled through daytime markets.

Of
course
Rombol knew. She hoped he also knew now that the Eye Women weren't his most loyal of tenants ... and where he stood with Brigit.

***

The afternoon wasn't easy. The crowds liked Cymbril fine as a soloist, but after the fun of the morning, she couldn't get her heart back into singing. The world seemed both wondrous and unbearably sad, both cramped and vast. Night was coming. It was as if the air were getting heavier, harder to move through. "Have courage," Urrt had said. Hand firmly gripping the treasures in her pocket, Cymbril watched the fireflies floating as silent sparks all across the garden plots and in the woods beyond the ditch.

She had just finished "The Evening Bell," and the thinning crowd was asking for more, when Rombol stood in the market's center and called, "Roll it up!" Down came the awnings. Up rolled the mats. Coin boxes snapped shut and jingled onto high wagon seats. Tents whispered into fallen piles of night. Cymbril stood still in the wagon bed, gazing at the first stars. Tomorrow evening, if all went well, she would be seeing them from the Fey realm.