The Waters Rising Read online

  The Waters Rising

  Sheri S. Tepper

  Dedication

  My gratitude to LuAnn Breckenridge

  who proofread, shook her head,

  allowed “This could be better said.”

  And would not let me just play dead.

  Cast of Characters

  Abasio—a wanderer with a mysterious mission

  abbot, the—leader of Wilderbrook Abbey

  Alicia—Duchess of Altamont, holder of the Old Dark House, daughter of Mirami

  Bang, Mrs.—servant of Genieve

  Bartelmy Fletcher—Woldsgard youngster, crossbowman, part of Xulai’s escort

  Bear—“Great Bear of Zol,” a Tingawan warrior appointed to guard Xulai

  Benjobz—owner of an inn and a pond called Benjobz

  Belika—aunt of Nettie Lean, a convenient person for Nettie to have known of

  Big Blue—a horse with a history

  Black Mike—a smith, driver, fixer, part of Xulai’s escort

  Bright Pearl—a Tingawan girl of no particular importance

  brothers—Rahas, Pol, Aalon, and others; interchangeable functionaries of the abbey

  Brother Derris—a very individual functionary

  Chamfray—Mirami’s chamberlain and close associate

  Crampocket Cullen—penny-pinching steward of Woldsgard

  Dame Cullen—Crampocket’s wife, a managerial type

  Dobbich—servant of Genieve

  Falyrion—Duke of Kamfels, Mirami’s first husband

  Falredi—Falyrion’s son with his first wife

  Farrier brothers—Willum and Clive; drivers, workmen from Woldsgard, part of Xulai’s escort

  Gahls—king of Ghastain, Mirami’s second husband

  Genieve—Falredi’s older sister, onetime sweetheart of Justinian

  Ghastain—historic personage, conquerer, despot, Huold’s lord

  Hallad, Prince Orez—descendant of Huold

  Horsemaster—master of most everything in Woldsgard

  Huold the Heroic—historic personage, heavily mythologized; Ghastain’s companion, Lythany’s father

  Hulix—son of Mirami and Falyrion; he became Duke of Kamfels after Falredi’s death

  Jenger—Alicia’s consort of a certain sort

  Justinian—Duke of Wold; husband of Xu-i-lok, the Woman Upstairs

  Lok-i-xan, Prince—most important man in Tingawa; father of Xu-i-lok, the Woman Upstairs

  Lythany—historic personage; Huold’s daughter, ancestress of Justinian and Orez

  Mirami, Queen—widow of Falyrion; fourth wife of King Gahls; mother of Alicia, Hulix, and Rancitor

  Naila—first wife of Falyrion, mother of Falredi and Genieve

  Nettie Lean—seamstress, lady’s maid, part of Xulai’s escort

  Oldwife Gancer—Xulai’s nursemaid when she was a baby and part of her escort

  Orez—the name of Hallad’s mother’s family, from whom the lands of Orez were inherited

  Pecky Peavine—a farmer and drover, Bartelmy’s cousin, part of Xulai’s escort

  Precious Wind—the Norland name of a Tingawan woman, Xu-xin, guardian of Xulai

  prior, the—elder brother, second in command at Wilderbrook Abbey

  Rancitor, Prince—son of King Gahls and Queen Mirami, half brother of Hulix and Alicia

  sisters—Tomea, Solace, and other abbey functionaries

  Wainwright—chief craftsman of Wold, particularly of rolling stock

  Wordswell—elder brother, librarian in charge of the vast Wilderbrook Abbey library

  Xulai—“Precious Hope.” A Tingawan girl appointed as Xakixa, soul carrier, for Xu-i-lok

  Xu-i-lok—Tingawan princess, daughter of Lok-i-xan, wife of Justinian; also called “the Woman Upstairs”

  Places: Rivers, Roads, Mountains, Towns

  Ghastain: Any country or area at one time conquered by Ghastain. Since this included a great deal of territory, most of the conquered peoples simply continued using the names they had used before they were conquered, and Ghastain did not linger long enough in any one place to notice. Ghastain’s original lands were far south and east of Norland.

  Norland: A vast conquered area north of Ghastain’s original homeland, including Wold, Kamfels, Altamont, Orez, the Highlands of Ghastain, the King’s Highland, Elsmere, Merhaven, and a good deal of other, unmapped territory.

  Wold: In the northwest of Norland, a pastoral duchy surrounded by mountains and cliffs, with Orez to the west, the Highlands of Ghastain to the east, Kamfels to the north, and Altamont to the south. It has one major river, the Woldswater Running, rising from streams in the north and ending in Lake Riversmeet. It has two major roads—the Wolds Road, paralleling the Woldswater, and the King’s Road, crossing from east to west at Lake Riversmeet—plus many narrow roads connecting villages and giving access to various forest areas. It has several sizeable towns, including Hay, Harness, and Hives, plus a plethora of small villages. Its capital is at Woldsgard, in the north, and this citadel is surrounded by a market town.

  Kamfels: Kamfels is a forested duchy with many fisheries. It is bounded by Ragnibar Fjord on the south, the sea on the west, the trackless forests on the north and east. It has several towns, at the ocean side, and numerous crofts and mills on the mountains. Its capital is at Kamfelsgard. Under Hulix, its present duke, it has acquired a reputation for bellicosity.

  Altamont: Altamont is bounded by Wold on the north, the Icefang Mountains on the west, the area around Lake of the Clouds on the south, and the great cliffs on the east. It is a hereditary duchy occupied by farmers in the valley, foresters on the western mountains, miners (at a previous time), and some freshwater fisheries at Lake of the Clouds. Its villages are scattered, it has no towns, and many of its people have moved south, away from Altamont and into the upper reaches of Elsmere.

  Orez: Orez includes the large island of Elsmere, the fiefdoms along the opposite shore, and a very large tract of country from the Great Dune Coast inland to the mountains. Much of it is unoccupied and those who live there are intensely independent, well armed, and fierce. It is ruled by Hallad, Prince Orez, who inherited the lands from his mother’s people. He is half brother to Ghals, by far the better half. The fiefdoms lying on the west slope of the Icefangs are, south to north:

  Wellsport: ruled by the Port Lords

  Marish: ruled by Earl Murkon of Marish, Prince Orez’s second son

  Chasmgard: ruled by Defiance, Count Chasm, Prince Orez’s eldest son

  Combe: ruled by Hale Highlimb, called Treelord

  Vale: ruled by the Free Knights, horse breeders

  The Dragdown Swamps: This area includes the western slope of the King’s Highland south of the great falls, plus the western end of the Eastern Valley, all of it previously riddled with old mine shafts and tunnels that flood in wet weather and are a source of difficulty for travelers.

  The Big Mud: A vast area of mire, a swale of enormous extent that accumulates water during wet seasons and seldom dries to any great extent. People attempting to cross the Big Mud are often lost. The Big Mud has recently been invaded by the waters rising and is now a swamp populated by swamp creatures, including many birds.

  The Great Dune Coast: An area of sand dunes along the eastern shore of the Western Sea, inhospitable, dry, constantly subject to storms. It is traversed, north to south, by one long, straight road, maintained by Hallad, Prince Orez, and the Council of Elsmere.

  Elsmere: A city and port on the north coast of the Bay of Elsmere. Known for its fisheries and for ocean trade. It is protected from the strife often found in the north by its remoteness from other large population centers.

  Merhaven: A duchy to the east of Elsmere, small, self-contained, consisting largely of fishin
g villages and farms. Genieve is Duchess of Merhaven, though she never uses the title.

  The Highlands of Ghastain: A huge mesa thrust up when the skystone fell, surrounded by precipitous cliffs, drained through the King’s Cut and the Eastern Valley by the river Wells and to the south through various rivers flowing into the Big Mud. The northwest quadrant of the highlands is known as the King’s Highlands.

  Map

  Contents

  Dedication

  Cast of Characters

  Map

  Chapter 1

  The Woman Upstairs

  Chapter 2

  The Journey

  Chapter 3

  Pursued by a Witch

  Chapter 4

  Becoming Xulai

  Chapter 5

  An Awakening

  Chapter 6

  The Dragdown Swamps

  Chapter 7

  The Old Dark House

  Chapter 8

  Merhaven and the Sea

  Chapter 9

  The Sea King

  Chapter 10

  The Last Monster

  Chapter 11

  The Sea Child

  About the Author

  Also by Sheri S. Tepper

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Chapter 1

  The Woman Upstairs

  “If you look over your left shoulder,” said the horse, “you can see the towers of King Gahls’s castle on the highlands.”

  The wagon driver replied, speaking very softly, “Blue, if you look over your right shoulder, across the water, you might catch a glimpse of a dozen or so of Hulix’s archers with arrows nocked.”

  “Ahhhh,” murmured the horse, plodding resolutely forward. “That would be Hulix, Duke of Kamfels, son of Queen Mirami.”

  Abasio, the driver, resolutely keeping his eyes forward, yawned and stretched, giving no indication he had seen the archers. Among Abasio’s former friends and companions it was generally supposed that archers who had taken the trouble to paint their hands and faces to match their leafy surroundings were less likely to shoot a passerby if the passerby didn’t notice them. Being noticed could be considered an insult. “He is indeed the son of Queen Mirami.” Abasio yawned again, loosening his jaw, which had been tightly clenched. “In order to allay suspicion, I am about to sing something pastoral and suggestive of bucolic innocence.”

  “Something half-witted and full of tra-la-las,” sneered the horse, sotto voce, “and hey-nonny-nonnies.”

  “Very probably,” said Abasio, clearing his throat.

  Hey—oh, the wagon pulls the horse,

  Or else the horse the wagon,

  And no one really knows what force

  By which the which is draggin’.

  For time can run from front to back

  And sometimes even sidewise,

  And oceans have the liquid knack

  Of often running tidewise. . .

  “Neigh, neigh,” offered the horse, “ti-i-idewise.”

  The singer continued:

  Though who does what and what was where

  Are matters that can lure us,

  With riddles so arcane and rare

  That none know how to cure us,

  Let’s not waste life deciphering,

  Let lore and logic scatter,

  Let love and beauty rapture bring,

  And meaning will not matter!

  His voice, a pleasant baritone, after engaging in a number of fal-de-lals and triddle-de-dals, faded into a silence that did not so much fall as insinuate itself.

  “Are they gone?” the horse whispered.

  “Seemingly,” replied Abasio, throwing a surreptitious glance across his shoulder where the water-filled gap had widened considerably between them and the archers. “Either they or we have gone, yes.”

  “It was all those neighs that did it,” the horse said, approaching a curve in the road. “They decided we were not dangerous because I kept de-neighing it. Whaagh?” Blue snorted in astonishment, stopped dead, glaring ahead in dismay. What had been a road was, for a considerable distance, underwater.

  Abasio heaved a sigh and leapt from the wagon seat. Once level with the horse he could see that small stones emerged from the water’s surface here and there. Fallen branches at the edges lay partly submerged but not afloat. “It’s shallow,” he said, leaning away from the wagon to look ahead. “The road comes out of it just at the end of the curve.”

  “I suggest you wade,” the horse remarked. “Let’s keep as much weight off the wheels as possible.” He put his shoulders into the collar and heaved, moving briskly through the swale, the wheels making ripples that sloshed against Abasio’s boots as he moved alongside, ready to push if necessary. They came out of the water onto an uphill road freshly cut from the forest. Rounds of new wood, sawed off flush with the ground and scarred with wheel and hoof tracks, showed where trees had been. Branches, some still with leaves attached, were piled in the forest on the uphill side, though the large timber had been hauled away. Downward to their right—where the old road had been—water rippled softly under the stroke of the wind, its shivering surface flecking the valley with darting glints of sun gold.

  “It’s the waters rising. So they say,” Abasio commented resentfully.

  “We should have gone down the other side of the fjord.”

  “Where we’d definitely have encountered the inimical duke himself. If we’d survived the encounter, we’d have had to take the ferry to get to Krakenholm,” said Abasio. “You may recall what happened the last time we put you on a ferry.”

  “It was windy. There were waves.”

  “You were seasick,” said Abasio. “I was only thinking of your welfare.” He tugged very slightly on the reins to signal a momentary halt and did a few knee bends to give the appearance of a man stiffened by hours of driving, though he had been asleep inside the wagon until recently. Big Blue had slept the previous night while Abasio had kept watch, so today the horse had followed the road while the man slept. The lands of both King Gahls and the duke of Kamfels were reputedly unfriendly to travelers, but there had been no alternative to trespassing on one or the other.

  “How much farther to Woldsgard?” the horse asked.

  “Not far. You can see a couple of fingers of the Hand of Wold just over the rise, a little to the left.”

  The horse raised his head, peering. Indeed, above a jagged sawed tooth of stone, four slightly separated fingers thrust monstrously into the air. One could imagine the rest of the hand, a right hand, palm forward, thumb jutting to the north, the whole conveying the word “stop” as clearly as though it were being shouted.

  “It’s only one big tower,” remarked Abasio, who had taken the halt as an opportunity to pee into the brush at the side of the road and was now rearranging his clothes. “One big one with five smaller ones at the top. No one knows if the architect intended it to look like a hand or whether it just turned out that way.”

  “Unfriendly, either way,” said the horse around a succulent tuft of grass.

  “Not according to what I hear,” Abasio replied, making a quick circuit of the wagon to be sure all the baskets, pots, and vats were tightly attached. Usually they hung loosely, the whole equipage jangling like a kitchen in a high wind. Coming through the king’s lands and those of Hulix, his stepson, horse and driver had chosen quiet. “The Duke of Wold is said to be a good, kind, and honorable man, though a very sad one.”

  He climbed into his seat once more and they proceeded westward along a road that continued to edge upward wherever the terrain made it possible. Below them, on the right, the water-filled fjord had grown too wide for a bowshot to be of any consequence; on the left, the mountainside into which the road had been cut became steeper. By late afternoon, they rounded a final corner and moved out from among the trees onto a flat, square monolith half a mile across. Abasio leapt down to inspect the vaguely rectangular outcropping beneath them, like some monstrou
s gravestone. They had entered a third of the way down the eastern side of the rock. The high point was ahead, a little to their left, the southwestern corner, buried in the mountain, and from there the massive pavement sloped diagonally all the way to the northeast corner, which was marked only by a cluster of small tiled roofs, wavelets shuddering along their eaves. A good bit higher and farther west, a shabby cluster of newer buildings crouched uneasily beside a floating pier where a dilapidated ferry teetered on the wavelets, certainly empty, perhaps abandoned.

  “Krakenhold,” said Abasio in some wonder. “I thought it was larger.”

  “It was larger,” the horse snorted. “The larger part is now drowned. I don’t see anything on the other side.”

  Abasio stared slit-eyed across the water. “That’s Ragnibar Fjord, and there used to be something called Ghost Isle on the far side. Evidently it’s drowned, too. There’s still the ferry, though, so there must be somewhere on the far side it can tie up.”

  A line of ashen clouds edged across the western sky; the northern shore, if there was any, lay very low upon the waters. Abasio kicked at the black rock beneath them: basalt, virtually immune to the elements. The western edge plunged into a vertical wall, blocking any farther travel to the west. Anyone going on from here would have to go north on the ferry or south, where a narrow, topless tunnel had been cut through the jagged upper edge of the tilted slab they stood upon.

  “I was told about this,” Abasio remarked, striding toward the cut, horse and wagon following. “It’s called the Stoneway. It seems to have acquired a few more stones along the way, fallen from the mountain.” He went ahead, kicking small rocks away from the wheels and protecting various items of the wagon’s paraphernalia that threatened to be brushed off by the uneven walls on either side. “The woman who first built Woldsgard had it built. Her name was Lythany. She was Huold’s daughter.”

  “That would be Huold the Heroic.”

  “Very probably.” Abasio stopped for a moment, looking at the tool marks on the sides of the cut, following their lines upward to the sky, considering the work involved, the years it must have taken. The shadowed, stony pipe itself would be well lit only when the sun was directly above, though it rose steeply into sunlight at the far end. Several hundred paces later they rattled across the last of the rock and emerged onto a gravel road.