Free The Waterless Sea by Kate Constable Page B

father had cast him out, he knew who he was: Heben, son of Rethsec, son of Cheben, called the Quick, and so it went on, back and back. He said proudly, ‘I can trace my ancestry back to Cledsec himself, who was one of the Seven, the first warriors of Merithuros.’
    Calwyn had to smile. ‘And who was Cledsec’ s father, Heben?Who was his mother?’
    â€˜The legends say that the gods sent the Seven from the sky in a silver ship.’
    Mica had been listening. ‘Then you got sailin in your blood after all, same as me!’
    â€˜It’ s only a legend.’ Heben frowned. ‘And after twenty generations in the deserts, I think we can claim to belong to this land.’
    No! Halasaa’ s voice was savage inside Calwyn’ s head. A quick glance at the others confirmed that they had not heard him; Halasaa’ s words were for her alone. Halasaa was never violent, never anything but gentle and calm. But the words that tumbled from him now were harsh and disturbed. This land does not welcome his people any more than a corpse sits up and bids welcome to its murderer!
    Calwyn stared at him. ‘Peace, Halasaa!’ she murmured.
    His face set, her friend strode ahead, and the subject of ancestry, whether it was Heben’ s, Calwyn’ s or Mica’ s, was dropped.
    But the image of the murdered land stuck in Calwyn’ s head, and as the day went on, she found herself listening intently to the small sounds of the desert: the shuffling of the hegesi , the crunch of Halasaa’ s footsteps, the scamper of a startled nadu . After a time, she fancied she could hear the breath of the land itself, as if the endless plain sighed like the ocean, or the whispering forests of theWildlands. But this land seemed to murmur of death and decay. The gnarled, stunted shrubs looked like bundles of dead twigs stuck into the dirt. She noticed tiny piles of nadu bones, heaped up like abandoned birds’ nests. The scattered rocks and boulders lay inert and lifeless. The air was so dry in her throat that she couldn’ t sing. At that, panic gripped her, for without chantment, she was no longer herself, and she stopped and took a gulp from her waterskin.
    Despite the protection of the long robes and turban, Calwyn’ s face was flayed by the sun. When at last night fell, the cold air was as welcome as a cool bath on her burnt skin. The others were all darker-skinned, and stood the fierce sun better; certainly she was the only one who glowed red at the end of every day. Halasaa laid his cool hands against her cheeks, and even before he began the subtle movements of healing, she felt better at his touch.
    That night Calwyn slept badly, despite her fatigue. Cold and sore, she found no comfort on the hard ground, and every rustle of a night creature or crackle of the fire jerked her awake. When at last she did doze off, she was tormented with nightmares, and woke clammy with sweat, heart hammering, unable to remember her dreams.
    On the fifth day they came through the hills, and saw it.
    The Palace of Cobwebs lay along the top of a ridge. At first, except that the hills were too low, Calwyn might have taken the Palace for a snowcap: it was a glistening of white marble, the froth on a wave of red rock, a layering of light that burned across her eyes. That was all that could be seen at first: light, and whiteness, and a shining like glass.
    As they drew nearer, she could see the texture of the whiteness, the shapes of the interlaced buildings with their curved and gleaming roofs, some high, some low. There were domes, and slender turrets, and towers as fine as needles; there was one tower that seemed to pierce the sky. Calwyn, who had visited the most ancient of all cities of Tremaris, the abandoned city of Spareth, felt her memory catch at those shapes. She wondered at the builders who had copied them, and the stories of their patterning that must have been passed from generation to generation until