“Because you do not belong here, Genevieve. Your road is not this one. Your road is the one you are running from. You must keep the oath of your lineage, your promise to your mother. You must go back.”
She heard it clearly in her mind though she was perfectly aware that her ears did not. The golden light pulsed in time with her heart, her vision spun out into it, seeking shape, form, identity. Her heart broke at the words. What spoke? Who spoke?
“Who speaks?” she said.
A line of silver bubble started among the golden filigree, arrowed up at her, lunged from the water and streaked into the air, snatching the rail of the boat as it flew. A shape. Manlike, maybe. Man-sized, certainly, but with a great frill around its head, like a fringed collar, very bright and beautiful. It gripped the railing firmly and said without moving its mouth, “You have heard the harbinger song, Genevieve. You have sung it in reply. You will go with Delganor.”
“No,” she cried aloud, the word skipping on the waves like a stone, splashing up echoes. “No!”
The shining being bobbed its head. Still it did not move its mouth, yet it seemed to say, “You will go with Delganor. It has been long planned that one of Stephanie’s line would go where he goes, see what he sees. You are the one. We have heard your listening. When you sang, we knew you were the one. Your mother saw it. We see it. Stephanie’s line has spread widely, and in you it has come together. You will follow the necessary way. You will go with Delganor.”
She leaned upon the rail, sick to her heart, the pain spreading outward, through all her body and mind. “Not Delganor.”
The being cocked its head. “Yes. All here hangs in the balance, trembling upon the cusp. You are needed now. Others may be needed later. Return, Genevieve. And call upon us at need upon the sea, Genevieve. Call upon us at need.”
“Who are you?” she cried. “Who are you?”
“A messenger of te wairua taiao,” whispered the being as it left the railing with a sudden slithering motion. The design of fishes broke apart, random golden sparks that swam away in all directions. The golden-green glow dropped into the deeper darkness, and Genevieve closed her eyes, then opened them once more. She was leaning on the aft rail. The pain that racked her was real. She stumbled back to her hatch cover, telling herself she had dreamed, but no. Her supper was still quite warm, not enough time had passed to fall into dreaming sleep.
So, she had not dreamed, she had had a vision. Or she had not had a vision, she had actually heard a being speak! Or heard something speak through it, which made more sense. She had seen fat golden fish with a light beneath them, a light that spoke in her mind. A light that knew her by name! That spoke of her lineage, her duty!
Her duty to go with Delganor. Her duty to return, then, to Delganor.
Perhaps real. But perhaps it was all a trick, a trick by Delganor himself.
Anyone who could listen, as he did, could do other things as well. Create illusions. Create voices!
She tried to convince herself of this as she sat shuddering upon the hatch top, her supper growing cold in her hands. Hours later, chilled through, icy with sorrow, she heard the cheerful voices of Garth and Weird Wigham, joined in a slightly tipsy song that kept time with the splash of the oars.
Supplied with a new anchor and rope, theUnlikely Duck made her erratic way down the Drowned Range, from island to island, giving Genevieve and Garth a chance to view a part of Haven neither had seen before. Since the islands were the rugged peaks of volcanic mountains sunk—and still sinking—in the Inundation, they had no gentle beaches. Here and there a wooded valley might plunge into the sea, and everywhere tiny streamlets meandered from the heights through boulder bound pools. Huts clung to the precipices and round water towers loomed over tiny terraced fields that clung to the sides of the mountains, supported by tall walls of dry-laid stone. All these works of man—towers, walls, and terraces—had been built through centuries of incessant labor.