The Tower of Living and Dying. Anna Smith Spark

about it either. And he was almost sober some nights.’

      ‘I have something for you,’ Selerie said to Thalia. ‘Here.’ He gestured; the girl stepped forward, held out a little wooden box. Cedar wood, carved with a delicate pattern of flowers, a few last fragments of gold leaf. The more beautiful, for being old and use-worn, the wood smoothed and darkened by careful, loving hands. Thalia opened it slowly. In her perfect fingers a short chain of silver, set with sapphires almost the same colour as her eyes.

      ‘Oh!’ She held it to the candle flame to make it glitter. Blue stars. Blue fire. Blue lights shining in the sea.

      ‘I am the nearest kin my nephew has,’ Selerie said. ‘It seemed apt therefore to welcome you as such.’

      Thalia smiled at Selerie kindly. The girl disappeared with the empty box. Servants brought cold cured meat and hot bread. Spiced greens. Cimma cakes. Hippocras. Even keleth seeds in a silver bowl. It was a pleasant enough evening. They wandered back afterwards in the light of a torch flickering on Tal’s armour. Stopped a little while to look at the sea. Again before their tent to look at the stars. Clear and cold, their breath puffing out white. A hard frost.

      Till tomorrow, then.

      A child, a youth of thirteen, when he sailed to Ith, to visit his uncle. A child, strong and happy, climbing trees in the orchard, scrumping sour apples, running and running through the wild country of his kingdom, running into the sun with the wind in his hair. Even then, he knew, the shadows followed him. Felt them. Knew them. Shadow eyes that watched him. Longed for him. A child, a youth of thirteen. Dreaming such dreams. His brother was less than two years younger; he loved him so dearly, looked after him, his best friend, ‘when I am king’, he would say, ‘and you are my closest adviser, my second in command, the captain of my armies – you and I, we’ll conqueror the world, won’t we? I’ll win you a kingdom too, Ti. A really big one. Rich and grand. We’ll share out the world.’

      He went to visit Ith.

      Selerie told him things.

      He came home.

      His brother was waiting there for him.

       Chapter Fourteen

      On the sand of the beach His wonder worker raises his arm. Speaks words that mean nothing. Empty sounds. His face is calm, still like the smooth water. His eyes are closed. Sweat trickles slowly down the line of his jaw. The wonder worker, the weather hand, the vessel of His hopes. The weather hand grasps at the sky before him. Lowers his arms. Speaks meaningless words.

      He opens his eyes. Looks at the calm clear water, the calm clear sky, the pale liquid light. Birds dance on the horizon. The marsh reeds whisper behind him in a soft breeze. His weather hand speaks. Shouts.

      The air shimmers. The storm comes. Vast black clouds pile on the horizon, rushing in on a warm, strange, savage wind. He watches the rain coming, a wall of black water, the sea churned and shattered with the weight of it, so heavy it rips the canvas of His army’s tents, breaks down branches, bruises the skin. The ships dragged up on the beaches tremble in it. Like iron falling from the sky. Like the stars are falling. Like there are no stars left in the dark.

      Hours. Days.

      Waves batter the rocks high as buildings. Their crests are furious white with foam. Sea bulls, His men call them. As the storm goes on He begins to see things floating on them. Tree limbs. Bits of boats. Bits of houses. Dead things. In a lull in the storm some of His men find the bloated carcass of a horse, its hooves painted in gold. They eat it raw, the wind being too strong to kindle fires. Two men die of it. Should not take that which belongs to the old gods. Sea and sky and earth and stone. And it’s bad meat, being drowned.

      He sends men over the cliffs of the headland, to spy out the land nearer to the storm’s heart. For they are only on the edge of it. Shielded. The men go on hands and knees in the darkness, heads wrapped in leather against the rain and the earth blown by the wind. He has promised them their own bodyweight in gemstones if they bring back news of His enemies. They cannot get far, in the storm, the first stream they come to is a raging torrent, the path up the high steep cliff is a knife blade, three of the ten slip and fall. The sea at the cliff’s foot boils like a cauldron. They are hurled around in the water and the rocks show briefly red. Three go back, shaking. Four go onwards, reach the top of the climb where the land sweeps down to a wide golden valley and a river mouth. A long view across the lowlands, before the sea-girt hills and then the forests that rise slowly to the north. They cannot see beyond the length of a spear thrust, in the wind and the rain and the whipped-up spray. The waves are tall as battlements, their white caps huge as drifts of snow. When they break on the fields they shatter rocks and tear the earth. Lightning rolls and roars and hangs as cracks in the world through which another light burns. Stormspirits shrieking, dancing with long teeth and long nails. His troops cower in their shelters. He stands on the shore with His face in the rain.

      The sky is boiling. The sea is boiling. There is no sky. No sea. No earth. All that exists howls in the wind.

      Days. Nights. No sun. No dawn. No dusk. Men drown standing on the cliff top, from breathing in the rain. The waves are huge as towers. Sea dragons. Harder than stone. The air is screaming. A man’s mouth opens, pleading, and he cannot hear his own voice. The rain is rock and metal, crushing, shattering down the world. There is nothing left.

      And then calm.

      The storm fades to stillness. Slow, heavy beat of the wind. A heart slowing. The rain stops and the air is fresh and sweet. Cold. Pure. Washed clean. The land is transformed by wind and water, raw holes in the land, broken stone where the earth is ripped open like a miscarried womb. Piled mounds of muck and filth. Scar tissue across the landscape. Pus. Timber and flesh litter the beaches, stranded by the outrunning tide. The sky and the earth are silver, shining water that laughs musically as it runs back down into the sea.

      The shattered remains of ships begin to float in at the mouths of the marsh channels. Black wood. Red painted eyes. Dead men in armour, heads and limbs. Ripped metal, its surface pitted by the rain. Dead women. Dead babies. Broken walls.

      He walks the tideline, wondering. Bids His men ready their own ships for sailing. Today He will come into His own.

      The sea is choked with rubble. Dead people. Dead animals. Broken trees. Broken houses. Broken ships. They sail slowly, prows brushing through the bobbing ruins of lives. The wind is against them, but the sails fill and they sail.

      They come again around the headland. A flash of white on the high cliff. The smooth waters of the bay open before Him. Winter sunlight. The sea welcoming Him home. His fortress rises before Him. The harbour is broken, its wall shattered into pebbles, not a single ship remaining whole. The war engines are missing. The houses and taverns of the lower town have been swept away like sand.

      On the broken stones of the harbour His people are waiting. They cheer Him, receive Him kneeling, throw open every door and window of their town as a sign. He walks up the high road to His fortress, the whalebone gates that were raised for Him a thousand years before He was born. The grey towers of Joy. The golden tower of Despair. His fortress. The stones bid Him welcome. His fortress, built for Him and Him alone. His servants kneel before Him in a blare of silver trumpets, holding bloody offerings in outstretched hands. They spread the victory feast before Him. Wine and honey and plates of gold. His soldiers raise the paean, shout His name. Victory! Victory and triumph! Rejoice! Rejoice! And then His bedchamber, with the crimson hangings and the windows open to the sea, and the woman with her eyes wide.

      And He is home.

PART TWO

       Chapter Fifteen

      A