Read Online Madbond by Nancy Springer - Free Book Online Page B

on a seat all shining with pearl and—and sunstuff, like your great knife, but even brighter. And carved into shapes more fanciful than those of driftwood, and her clothing was such as I had never seen, dress and overdress floating and flowing and edged with pearl and fringed like—like a scallop, as if she were a great sea aster. But her head and neck were the head and neck of a cormorant. And at her feet, lying as a dog might lie, was a badger.”
    â€œA badger?” I exclaimed. “In the sea?”
    â€œEven so. And I think there were many creatures and people around her, but I remember only dimly, I saw it all too quickly. She was hearing petition, and the petitioner was my mother in her seal form.”
    I sat up, seals lying all around me, opening and closing my mouth as if I were a fish.
    â€œI knew her by her slenderness and the pattern of her dapplings,” he added.
    â€œKor,” I protested, “If you are trying to divert my mind with marvels—”
    â€œI am telling you only what is true. My mother was Kela, daughter of Kebek, daughter of rulers of the Seal Kindred back to the time of our seal ancestor Sedna, a time before the coming of Sakeema. She had power to be a seal.”
    â€œAnd do you have that power?” I challenged him.
    â€œNot at this time. Perhaps someday it may come to me. I think—perhaps I am afraid. She lost her life—”
    He was having difficulty, and yet he seemed compelled to tell the tale. I sat and let him continue.
    â€œShe lost her life through the usage of that power for my sake.”
    He spoke so softly that I had to lean forward to hear him.
    â€œI saw her only for a moment, saw her there at the feet of Mahela. I felt Mahela’s eyes on me, a glance like a blow. Then I remember nothing for a while. When I awoke, I was back in my own bed at Seal Hold, and my father was with me, and I was getting better. But it was some few weeks later before my mother came back.
    â€œI was nearly well when she arrived, and she embraced me, she seemed quite placid and happy. Then she began to make her preparations. She had bargained for a year’s delay, it seemed. She explained nothing to me, and even my small knowledge was too much for a child to encompass, so I told myself—what I had seen—perhaps I had dreamed. Nor did my father understand what was happening, even as she gave away belongings and set the affairs of the Kindred in order. The seasons drifted around the cycle of four. And the very last night, as she made her way down to the sea, she awoke me from my sleep and told me what was happening, so that I would not feel that she had abandoned me. Then she kissed me and left, gone back to the realm of Mahela for good.”
    â€œSo she gave herself in trade for you,” I murmured.
    â€œShe gave her life for mine.”
    He paused, then finished the tale starkly.
    â€œMy father was wild with grief. She had charged him to care for the people and for me, but within a season he left both in the hands of a regent and went after her. He took a coracle, but no food or fresh water, and sailed westward.… I did not expect him to return, and he has not.”
    He exhaled a long breath, blowing away the past as a fighter blows away the pain of a wound, and for a while we sat in silence.
    â€œIs your mother yet alive, Ar—Dannoc?” Kor asked softly.
    â€œNo.”
    â€œHow did she die?”
    â€œI—” Suddenly I was deep in blackness again, I could remember nothing, and I was angry. “I don’t know!” I shouted at him, making the seals raise their heads. “Kor, will you stop trying to trick me! When I remember, I will—” I sagged, my anger gone as suddenly as it had come. “I will tell you,” I said wearily.
    He was more distressed than I, then. “I was not trying to trick you into remembering,” he told me. “Or not that time. I learned better, this