THE
SHADOW ISLE
BOOK SIX OF
THE DRAGON MAGE
KATHARINE KERR
COPYRIGHT
Published by Harper Voyager an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
7785 Fulham Palace Road,
Hammersmith, London w6 8JB
www.harpercollins.co.uk
First published in Great Britain by HarperVoyager 2008
Copyright © Katharine Kerr 2008
Katharine Kerr asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the authors imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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Source ISBN: 9780007268924
Ebook Edition © AUGUST 2014 ISBN: 9780007283378
Version: 2014-08-11
DEDICATION
For Elizabeth Pomada
CONTENTS
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Authors Note
Prologue: In a Far Country
Part I: The Westlands Spring, 1160
Part II: The Northlands Spring, 1160
Part III: The Northlands Summer, 1160
Keep Reading
Glossary
About the Author
Other Books By
About the Publisher
AUTHORS NOTE
Despite what you may have heard or read elsewhere, The Shadow Isle is not the last book in the Deverry sequence. It is, however, the beginning of the end, Part I of the last Deverry book, as it were. The true end will be published soon as The Silver Mage, also from HarperCollins.
PROLOGUE
In a Far Country
You say that the three Mothers of All Roads run tangled beyond your power to map them. Why then would you ask to travel the seven Rivers of Time? Their braiding lies beyond even the understanding of the Great Ones, so be ye warned and stay safely upon their banks.
The Secret Book of Cadwallon the Druid
Laz woke to darkness and noise. Gongs clanged, men shouted. Not one word made sense to him, and no more did the sound of water lapping and splashing. He could smell nothing but water. Pain his hands burned, but the rest of him felt cold, soaked through, he realized suddenly, sopping wet. How his hands could burn when he was sopping wet lay beyond him. The gongs came closer, louder. Waves lifted him and splashed him back down. Floating, he thought. Im floating on water.
The shouting came from right over his head. Hands suddenly grabbed him, hauled, lifted him into the air while the shouting and the gongs clamoured all around. Hands laid him down again on something hard that rocked from side to side. The shouting stopped, but the gongs clanged on and on. Through the sound of gongs he heard a dark voice speaking. Not one word of it!
The voice tried yet another incomprehensible language, then a third. Here, lad, speak you this tongue?
Lijik Ganda, he thought. Just my luck. I do, Laz said aloud. A bit, anyway.
Splendid! Who are you?
I dont know. Laz put panic into his voice. I dont remember. Where are we? Why is it so dark?
Its not dark, lad. Theres a lantern shining right into your face.
Im blind? I dont remember being blind.
Voices murmured in one of the languages he couldnt understand. Someone patted his shoulder as if trying to comfort him. The rocking continued, the splashing and the gongs.
Here! Laz said. Are we on a boat?
We are, and heading for the island. Just rest, lad. The ladies of the isle know a fair bit about healing. It may be that they can do somewhat about your eyes, I dont know. Id wager high that they can heal your hands at the very least.
They do pain me.
No doubt! Black as pitch, they are. You just rest. Were coming up to the pier.
My thanks. Did you save my life?
Most likely. The voice broke into a wry laugh. The beasts of the lake nearly got a meal out of you.
Beasts. Lake. Blind. None of it made sense. He fainted.
Laz woke next to light, only a faint fuzzy reddish glow, but light nonetheless. Most of him felt dry and warm, but his burning hands lay in water, and water dripped over his face. The scent of mixed herbs overwhelmed him; he could smell nothing beyond plant matter and spices. He could hear, however, women talking. Two women, he realized, though he understood not one word of what they were saying. The pain in his left hand suddenly eased. A woman laughed and spoke a few triumphant words, then lifted the hand out of the water and laid it down on something dry and soft.
I think me he wakes, the other woman said in Deverrian.
I do, Laz said.
Good, Woman the First said, but there be a need on you to stay quiet till we get the burnt skin free from your right hand.
Is it that you see light? Woman the Second said.
Some, truly.
Try opening your eyes.
With some effort his lids seemed stuck together with pitch he did. What he saw danced and swam. Slowly the motion stopped. The view looked strangely blurred and smeared, but he could distinguish shapes at a distance and objects nearby. In a pool of lantern light two women leaned over him, one with grey-streaked yellow hair and a tired face, and one young with hair as dark as a ravens wing and cornflower-blue eyes.
My name be Marnmara. The young woman pointed at her elder. This be Angmar, my mam. The boatmen tell me you remember not your own name.
Laz considered what to say. Hed not wanted to tell the boatmen his name until he knew more about them, but these women were doing their best to heal him. He owed them the courtesy of a better lie. I didnt, not right then, but its Tirn. I think I have a second name, too, but I cant seem to remember it.
There be no surprise on me for that, Marnmara said. Whatever you did endure, it were a great bad thing.
He started to lift his left hand to look at it, but Angmar grabbed his elbow and pinned it to the bed. Not yet, she said. It be not a pleasant sight, with you so burned and all.
Burned. He formed the words carefully. How badly?
Angmar looked at her daughter and quirked an eyebrow.
I doubt me if youll have the use of all your fingers, Marnmara said. But mayhap we can free the thumb and one other. The right hands a bit better, I think me. Mayhap we can free two and the thumb.
Free them? From what?
Scars. They might grow together.
Panic struck him. Will I be able to fly again? The one question he didnt dare ask was the only question in the world that mattered.
Why is the pain gone? he asked instead.
The herbs, Marnmara said. But the healing, itll not be easy.
Its very kind of you to help me.
I will heal any hurt that I ken how to heal, Marnmara said. Such was my vow.
We have your black gem. Angmar held up something shiny. Fret not about it.
My thanks. Dimly he remembered that he once had owned a pair. Not the white one? I carried a gem in each hand.
The boatmen did find this one clutched in your left hand. Your right hand trailed open in the water. I think me the other be at the bottom of the lake by now.
So be it, then.
He realized that he could now see Angmar more clearly. Whether because of the herbs or time passing, his eyes were clearing. What had blinded him? The flash of light. He remembered the pure white flash and the sensation of falling a long, long way down. Why didnt I listen to Sisi? For that he had no answer.
Angmar glanced at her hands, flecked with black. Marnmara picked up a rag from the bed on which he lay and offered it to her mother, who began to wipe her fingers clean.
Those cinders are bits of me, Laz said.
I fear me they are. Angmar cocked her head to one side and studied his face. Need you to vomit? Ive a basin right here.
Instead he fainted again.
I hear that the island witches have a new demon, Diarmuid the Brewer said. Maybe hes that snake-eyed lasss sweetheart, eh?
Theyre not witches, Dougie said. Avains not a demon, just a mooncalf. And how many times now have I told you all that?
Talk all you want, lad. Youre blind to the truth because of the young one. A pretty thing, Berwynna, truly.
But treacherous nonetheless, Father Colm broke in. Never forget that about witches. Fair of face, foul of soul.
Dougie felt an all too familiar urge to throw the contents of his tankard into the holy mans face. As for Diarmuid, he wasnt in the least holy, merely too old to challenge to a fight. Dougie calmed himself with a long swallow of ale. Father Colm set his tankard down on the ground, then pulled the skirts of his brown cassock up to his knees, exposing hairy legs and sandalled feet.
Hot today, the priest remarked.
It is that, truly, Diarmuid said.
In the spring sun, the three of them were sitting outside the tumbledown shack that did the village as a tavern. Since most of the local people were crofters who lived out on the land, four slate-roofed stone cottages and a covered well made up the entire village. It was more green than grey, though, with kitchen gardens and a grassy commons for the long-horned shaggy milk cows. From where he sat, Dougie could see the only impressive building for miles around, Lord Douglass dun, looming off to the west on a low hill.
If this new fellows not a demon, Diarmuid started in again, then who is he, eh?
He doesnt remember much beyond his name, Dougie said. Its as simple as that. Tirn, he calls himself. Some traveller who ended up in the lake, thats all.
Burnt a fair bit, and him with unholy sigils all over his face? Hah! Father Colm hauled himself up from the rickety bench. Now, frankly, I dont think hes a demon. I think hes a warlock who was trying to raise a demon and paid for his sinful folly. Speaking of paying He laid a hand on the leather wallet hanging from his rope belt.
Nah, nah, nah, Father, Diarmuid said. Just say a prayer for me.
I will do that. Colm fixed him with a gooseberry eye. For a fair many reasons.
With a wave the priest waddled off down the dirt road in the direction of Lord Douglass dun and chapel. Diarmuid leaned back against the wall of the shed and watched the chickens pecking around his feet. Dougie had stopped by the old mans on his way to Haen Marn to hear what the local gossips were saying plenty, apparently. Diarmuid waited until the priest had got out of earshot before he spoke.
Well, now, lad, youve seen this fellow, havent you? Do you think hes a demon?
I do not, as indeed our priest said, too. He must be a foreigner, is all, and most likely from Angmars home country.
Imph. Diarmuid sucked the stumps that had once been his front teeth in thought. Well, one of these days Father Colms going to work his lordship around to burning these witches, and that will be that. Im surprised hes not done it already. Diarmuid spoke casually, but he was looking sideways at Dougie out of one rheumy eye.
Its Mics hard coin, Dougie said. Who else around here can pay his taxes in anything but kind? A silver penny a year the jeweller gives over, and that buys my Gran a fine warhorse for one of his men.
Well now, youve got a point there. The village folk keep wondering, though, if his lordship holds his hand because of your mother.
Are you implying that my mothers a witch? Dougie rose from the bench and laid his free hand on his sword hilt.
What? Diarmuid nearly dropped his tankard. Naught of the sort, lad! Now, hold your water, like! All I meant was that shes the lordships daughter, and youre her son, and theres Berwynna, and uh well er He ran out of words and breath both.