Meanwhile, Duck tells me, Kankredin was abusing Hern for daring to ask what he was doing to the River. “I am working night and day with the River, bringing his waters down to drown the natives, cleansing the land for us, and you have the gall to stand there asking what I think I’m doing!”
Duck answered, seeing Hern struggling and panting, that it was generally thought the River was angry.
“Angry? Of course he’s angry!” Kankredin thundered. “He’s fighting me tooth and nail. But I’m winning. I have him in a stranglehold, and he won’t escape.” Duck says Kankredin roared on in this way for some time. Duck listened scornfully because he was sure Kankredin had no idea of the truth about the River. This was just how I felt, reading Kankredin’s gown, though Kankredin was saying one thing to Duck and another on his gown.
—come to my terms, was the next thing I read. Thus I keep him tame and pull from him the vital strength of the land. But he has been cunning and fixed his strength in certain of the souls of his people. When I knew this, I sent forth my mages to battle to seek these souls.
The weaving was large and loose. The next part was on Kankredin’s right shoulder. Then I put my first command on this river that he yield up to me these souls, which he was not willing to do. We strive, and he turns rotten with the effort, bringing sickness, for which I curse him—Kankredin had pulled the gown up into folds here, at the top of his right leg. I stared and stared, but I could only pick out disjointed fragments at the surfaces of the folds—refuses the land his waters … hides his souls from me … send forth greater strength … by this I invoke total power—
“Why do you think I put up the soulnet?” Kankredin roared, as Duck tells me.
“To catch the natives’ souls, I suppose,” Duck said. “Did you know that quite a lot of the souls were getting through?”
This made Kankredin very annoyed, though he tried not to show it. “So you have mage sight,” he said scornfully. “Quite a lot of people can see souls without being mages. Are you telling me to use a smaller mesh? Eh?”
“You’d catch more if you did,” said Duck. “What do you do with them?”
“Never you mind,” said Kankredin. “That net is a charm on the River, not a soul trap in any strict sense.”
“I see,” said Duck. Not that he did, he says. But he was enjoying himself, I could tell. I remember thinking, as I stared at Kankredin’s gown, that I had seldom seen Duck more confident.
Then, pulled up on to Kankredin’s thigh, I read: and thus we took one with such a soul, outwitting the river by accident, I confess, since his captors had thought he was a clansman like themselves. I knew he was talking about Gull. I read furiously. The river would not yield me the soul of the lad, though we strove for three days. But I am cunning. I examined the lad and turned his soul about in my mind. I find his soul is more than the river. It is part of the ancient life behind the river.
Here came the hem, drawn up above Kankredin’s fat vague foot in a dirty sandal. The rest was on the back of the gown. I could have screamed.
I had to get Kankredin to stand up and turn round. I have never been so determined about anything. I looked at Duck and turned my hand round inside my sleeve, hoping that Kankredin would not notice. Duck understood. He had been trying to read Kankredin’s gown, too, but he is slower than me, and he could see I was devouring it. So he gave me his daft look, which is his private way of saying, Yes, but it’s not easy, and turned to Kankredin’s two mages.
“Do you do illusions? Can you make yourselves look like somebody else?” I knew he was trying to find out if any of them had been disguised as Tanamil, and I wondered if I dared to shake my head at him. I was sure the back of Kankredin’s robe would tell me.
Kankredin and his two mages gave out sounds of disgust. But this is exactly what they would do if they did not want us to know. Duck did not see it that way.
“Yes, but can you?” he said. “Can you stand up and show me?”
Kankredin saw there was some trick in this. He was terrifying clever. For a moment the fat shape of his face became near and clear to see. His thick lids folded down over his eyes, and he stared at Duck. Duck, for the first time, was troubled by his power. The front of his coat heaved as he grasped the Lady, and he gasped. “That’ll teach you to bother me with silly questions,” said Kankredin. “Won’t it? Eh?”
At this, I thought suddenly: Why is he bothering to talk to us at all? He thinks we’re just silly children. I looked at Hern, and Hern was beginning to look the way Gull had looked.
“Stop it!” I said. “Leave my brother’s soul alone!”
“Not I,” said Kankredin. “There’s some strangeness in this soul.” He looked full at Hern. Hern put his hands to his face as if he felt giddy.
Duck and I were both terrified. Duck took Hern’s arm and pulled him away across the room. And Kankredin sprang out of his chair in a wave of cold air, roaring that Duck was not to meddle.
The next part was very horrible. I had a perfect opportunity to read Kankredin’s back, but it was at Hern’s expense. And it came to me then that if Kankredin’s gown told the truth—and I think it did, as far as Kankredin knew the truth—Hern’s soul, and mine, and Duck’s were all like Gull’s and could be used the same way. Kankredin stared under his fat lids at Hern, and Hern leaned against Duck, shaking. Duck put both arms round Hern and pressed the Lady against him so that they both had a bruise for days. At the same time, he says, he was willing Hern’s soul with all his might to look normal—like Korib the miller’s son’s, like Aunt Zara’s, even like Zwitt’s. And I read Kankredin’s broad back for dear life.
Thus I, Kankredin, mage of mages, know how to rule the very soul of this land’s soul. The river tries to keep the lad’s soul from me, but I have bound the lad to come to me. I feel him approaching. He is near. By the power of these words and the hands of my mages, I now erect a soulnet across the mouths of the river wherein shall lodge the souls of all those dead in the land. These my mages collect daily. They shall be captive to me and learn to do my bidding, and I shall not suffer them to go out over the sea
to their last home. But the lad who is coming to me will lodge in the net in his own body. Then through him I shall draw forth the soul behind the river’s soul. When I have it, I shall come up the river, rolling it before me like a wave of the sea, and the land will lie captive at my feet. I, Kankredin, have spoken.
I did not read his sleeves. They seemed to be spells from much longer ago. “Duck! Let’s go!” I shrieked.
Kankredin turned and looked under his fat lids at me. I did not think we would be able to go.
“There’s no mystery about us,” I said. “We—we have to catch up with Kars Adon.”
“That’s right,” Duck said quickly. “Take a look at our souls. Can’t you see we’re quite open and honest?”
“I’ve looked at your souls,” said Kankredin. “Empty things they are. Suspiciously empty. His is not.” He pointed to Hern.