Chapter One

The steam coach with its terrible springing seemed to jolt over every bump and rut, rattling Annat's teeth. She was wedged between her aunt and the side of the carriage, but the window was so smeared with mud she could not see out. It was getting dark, and it would soon be time to kindle the oil lamp that swung from the roof. They must be about an hour from Masalyar. Except for the old woman sitting opposite, whose droning voice and complaints had been a refrain for much of the journey, the three of them were the only passengers. Her brother Malchik was leaning in the corner on the opposite side of Aunt Yuste, sleeping or pretending to sleep. Annat wriggled uncomfortably in the leather seat, drawing a glance from her aunt.

'It'll be the end of our civilisation, you mark me,' said the old woman. She was not from their village, and the coach had picked her up about halfway to Masalyar.

'I wouldn't know. We are Wanderers,' said Yuste, sounding out of patience. Annat focused on the old woman, waiting for her reaction.

'Are you so? Don't meet many of your kind out here. Most of 'em prefer to stay in the City.'

Your kind. Annat put a fringe of her hair into her mouth. They always said that, the Doxoi. She did not need to ask if the old woman were one. All the country people believed, all the villages had their temple with its blue-gowned priest. Where she came from, her family had been the only Wanderers. It was different in the City. Her people. Her kind.

'My father has a farm in Sankt-Eglis – he's the village doctor there,' said Yuste.

The old woman's mouth chewed on nothing, as she thought this over.

'I've heard of him. That would be the doctor Vasilyevich. His wife had twins, I heard. And that's not all I heard—'

'I'm one of the twins,' said Yuste, with a fleeting smile, interrupting the old woman before she could divulge the rumour. Annat was disappointed.

'So you are,' said the old woman, without embarrassment. 'And these must be your children.'

'Not mine. My brother's. I'm taking them to meet him.'

Annat looked out of the blind window. She could see a faint reflection of her face, the delicate bones and pointed features, her eyes two brown shadows. They say I look like him. She knew that Malchik remembered their father, for he had been five years old when Tate walked out of the family house, leaving them and their mother for ever. Malchik was cast in their mother's likeness, slender and fair, except for his strange hazel eyes with their flecks of green. He had the height of a tall man, but his limbs were fine and delicate. Annat had always been the one who liked to climb trees or the cliff, to swim and run – but alone. She wondered what was in Malchik's mind as he dozed in the corner of the carriage. Though she had known him all her thirteen years, he was often an enigma to her. She was so different. If there was something in her mind, she said it. Perhaps that was another reason she had no friends of her own age.

'And is he a doctor too, their father? I've heard that many of your sort are doctors.'

'Not a doctor. A healer.'

The old woman's eyes were glass beads in the twilight.

'You mean a sorcerer,' she snapped.

Yuste shook her head slowly. 'No, I don't mean that,' she said.

The old woman's lips became a sour purse. She said no more, but took some knitting from the heavy bag beside her and took to muttering over purls and plains. Yuste turned to Annat and gave her a secret, mischievous smile.

Tate was a shaman, as Annat was. He would teach her healing when they were together. Annat felt the faint crackle of power as she flexed her fingers. Sometimes it was good that people thought you were a sorcerer. They were afraid of you, and they respected you. Other times it was bad. They threw stones after you in the street, and talked under their breath of burning.

Yuste clasped Annat's wrist with her warm, thin hand, as if she had read her mind. Perhaps she had. Yuste still had that one power left, though she had lost the others. When Annat met Tate, she would be able to talk to him silently, and he would answer; they called it sprechen. She would not be cut off and alone, a Wanderer and a shaman amongst people who did not understand or like either.

The last hour seemed the longest. At first, Annat thought that she was seeing a reflection of the oil lamp in the window pane, its image multiplied as it swung to and fro. Soon there were too many lights, some distant and far, like stars, others so close that they threw a warm glow into the carriage. They had street lamps in Masalyar, kept burning by the householders to make the streets safer. Yuste had told her. And now the story was becoming reality, and Annat was moving into the dream. They would meet their father, and he would take them far away into the north, through the country of bandits and Soul Men.

She clutched the hard wooden body of the doll to her chest. The doll had been her mother's, and her mother's mother's; it was old and smooth, though Yuste had made a new dress for it out of green silk when Annat was a little girl. When it had been time to pack, Annat had taken the doll and her vyel and a few clothes, white blouses, black skirts and black pinafores. The Doxoi had made a law that Wanderers must dress in two colours, black and brown, to remind them of their dirt and shame. White was allowed because it was no colour. Yuste and Malchik both wore brown, but Annat preferred the crow-darkness of black, which made her face look pale and her eyes large.

For some time now, the thin tyres of the steam coach had been rattling over cobblestones, making a tinny melody. There were people in the street outside, the people of Masalyar, but Annat could not see their faces. Yuste unpinned the watch from her blouse to peer at its dial in the dim light.

'Ten of the clock,' she said, in her dry voice. 'We're late, of course.'

Malchik twisted his head towards her, and the light flashed across his glasses.

'How much longer is it?' he asked, sleepily.

Yuste leaned past him towards the window.

'I have no idea where we are,' she commented. 'The Central Station is quite near the port. We could be on the moon for all I can see.'

Malchik gave a croaking laugh. His voice still sounded as though it had recently broken, for all his eighteen years. The old woman looked up from her knitting, sniffed, and raised the needles closer to her face. Annat saw the lines of Yuste's amusement. Her aunt was almost an old woman, thirty-six, and not married yet. Most girls in the village married when they were sixteen, straight from their dolls to the marriage bed. They called Yuste a spinster. When Annat had whispered this to her grandmother, Bubbe had shaken her head. It was not customary for Wanderers to marry so young.

Annat slipped her right thumb into her mouth, hoping that Yuste would not notice. There was a rough callus below the knuckle, she had been sucking it so long. She was not sure that she wanted to meet Tate. What was it that Malchik had whispered to her, last night after they had said their prayers? It had been unlike Malchik to tell her anything; if he wanted to confide in anyone, he chose Yuste or their grandparents. You know he doesn't really want us. If he cared what happened to us, why did he never visit? It's not so far. Annat had never asked herself such questions. She had grown up accepting her father's absence as part of the landscape, like a distant shadow on the horizon. There had been Yuste and Bubbe and Zaide and even Mame, though she had not showed much interest in Annat. That had been the picture of Annat's family, sheltering together on the cliffs like storm-blown petrels.

The carriage jolted to a halt, almost throwing them into a heap on top of the old woman and her knitting. Yuste sank back in her seat, adjusting the pins that kept her brown velvet hat in place on her hair. Almost before Annat had recovered her breath, the driver wrenched open the door next to Malchik, who leaned out to see where they were. Then he jumped out of the carriage, moving with the eagerness of a small boy and his usual clumsiness. Once outside, he turned back to the coach to see whether Yuste would follow, but Annat was first, clutching her doll to her chest. The silver aura of the huge lights made her blink. They were in a vast shed, higher than the tallest barn, which seemed to stretch into infinite and promising darkness, marked with silver lamps. The shadows of the first trains that Annat had ever seen lurked in the distance, dwarfing even from there the steam coach with its long funnel; it was parked at its buffers next to the shallow platform where she had alighted. She turned on the spot, dazzled like a moth, focusing on the lamps until Yuste brushed past her.

Three men appeared. They moved towards Yuste and there was a moment of hesitation, of wordless pause, before the foremost clapped his hands together and bowed. Yuste mimicked him. Annat stared at this puppet show. She was seeing a new Yuste, one who was not just her aunt, but a woman whom strangers recognised and greeted. The first man was little, mostly bald, with bright eyes dark as wine and cheeks the colour of old leather. This was Annat's first Darkman, from Ind, far in the east, and she knew his name: it was Sival, Yuste's teacher, whom she wrote to every week. They were embracing now, with the close lock of long-lost friends, ignoring the others, who eyed each other with cautious glances.

Annat stood apart from Malchik. Her stomach felt hollow and queasy-sweet, full of bird's wings. One of the two other men was her father, Yuda, Yuste's twin. The two men were dressed much alike, in City clothes: black jackets with the sheen of leather, open-necked shirts of fine cotton, not like the coarse stuff that Yuste bought from the village weaver to make Annat's blouses, and dark trousers cut close to the leg, very different from a countryman's trews. She guessed which was her father at once, for his companion was dark-skinned, tall, and his shirt was red, a colour forbidden to Wanderers. He was gazing at Annat, almost smiling, but she had already fixed on her father, so small, scarcely taller than Yuste. It was the image of his shaman's power that marked him out to her inner eye, a vivid, coruscating blue that dimmed Annat's own, uncertain flame. She hardly saw his face before Yuste's warm hand took hers and brought her to Sival. Her father waited at a distance with his dark friend.

'Welcome to Masalyar, Annat and Malchik. You are tired, and a little frightened. So are we. We have been waiting for weeks to meet you.'

'How do you know what I'm thinking? You're not a shaman,' said Annat.

'I told you she was rude,' said Yuste.

Sival smiled at Annat, and she had to smile back. He was little and leathery and full of a shy warmth that she might trust.

'I study people just as I study books. Their faces, their movements tell a story. You are a shaman, I saw that at once.'

Annat looked for her father. She was not afraid. Only that strange feeling, like fluttering below her chest, that made her a little breathless. Speak, she willed him, sending a message into the silence.

– There is One in Zyon.

It was not a voice, but clear as black script on white paper: a reply, which Yuste had never been able to give her.

Sival beckoned the two men.

'Here is your father, Yuda, and Shaka, his friend.'

Both men wore their hair long, like women: Shaka's was knotted into many plaits, bound at the back with a thong; Yuda's was loose and smooth, like black feathers. Annat leaned closer to Yuste, wishing she was young and small and could bury her face in her aunt's clean-scented skirts. She felt Yuste's arm encircle her shoulders.

'Hallo, Yuda,' Yuste said, with gentle wariness. She extended her free hand to Shaka, who bent to kiss it with a flowing gesture.

'You've brought the kinder then,' said Yuda, as if he had not yet noticed Annat or Malchik. His face was jet on ivory. Like Zaide, so dark and so pale, the face of a tall clock, who had looked down at Annat with sad-sweet eyes. Her father's eyes were not sad-sweet. His gaze on Yuste was dangerous: mocking and fierce and inscrutable. Annat relished the wildness from the safety of her aunt's embrace. It promised adventure, not the dull severity she had feared from Malchik's stories.

'I brought them up for you, Yuda. I wouldn't part with them now if I wasn't sick.'

'By God, it's been so long,' he said, and hugged her, somehow enveloping Annat. She smelled his jacket: tabak and leather. Yuste's body shook as she sobbed, once. Annat looked up, disentangling herself, at her aunt's half-seen face. It would be strange to feel so much for Malchik. She loved Yuste, Bubbe and Zaide; her brother was just there, mostly ignoring her. Annat observed how much grey was in Yuste's hair beside Yuda's. She wanted to stroke her aunt's hair, to gently pluck out the grey strands so that the brown crept back. Now Yuste was going away to be healed, and Annat must travel with her stranger-father to a place she had not heard of. Even her grandparents had agreed that it would be good for them to spend some time with Yuda, who had asked leave to take his children with him to his new posting.

'What do you think?' Yuste asked Yuda as they stepped apart. 'They were so small when you left. Annat was only a baby.'

'She hasn't grown much,' he said, looking down at Annat. She glared back at him.

'I'm small like you.'

'You hear that, Shaka? Small like me. Look at the other one; I hope he doesn't get any taller.'

As Malchik blushed an angry colour, Yuste held out her hand to beckon him closer.

'Malchik takes after his mother's side,' she said, a remark that Annat knew to be fraught with hidden meaning. At home, their talk was full of these hints that were understood, not spoken, partly because Malchik was touchy, and partly for other reasons.

'I thought you'd have a beard,' said Malchik, approaching with folded arms. He did not look his father in the eye.

'No beard, and too short. What did you tell them, Yuste?'

'I thought they should make up their own minds.'

Sival interposed, with quick, fluttering hands. 'You young people don't feel the cold, but my old bones are frozen. If you can wait until tomorrow to continue this, I will take Yuste and the children back to the Shkola. The train doesn't leave until mid of the day.'

'The children should be in bed,' said Yuste. 'At home, they get up at dawn to do their farm work and say morning prayers.'

'I'm not tired,' said Annat.

'You look like a ghost. Besides, Sival is right. This isn't the place to talk. Are you coming back with us, Yuda?'

'It's a little early for my bedtime. I'll see Shaka home.'

Shaka gave a smile of white teeth that made his face look boyish. Annat longed to touch his glossy skin to see what it felt like. Did he darken in the summer sun in the same way that she did? She would have liked to ask him, but was afraid that he would think her stupid. She did not want to admit that she had not met any Darkmen before. His forefathers must come from Morea, the great continent that lay below the Middle Sea. Annat wished that they were going to travel there, not north into the lands of cold and wildness.

Yuste was right; Annat was sleepy. She would have liked to draw in the sights and sounds of the City as they walked to Sival's house, the Shkola, through the streets, having left her father and Shaka with a promise to meet them there next morning, but all she saw were the dancing street lamps: cressets burning on street corners, rows of pale green gas lamps and, where the house owned a generator, the uncertain flickering of an electric bulb. In some of the streets were tram lines, and once a tram rattled past with a noise like a chain of milk carts, making a green flash across Annat's sight. The air was perfumed with the smell of soot from generators and stoves; it hung heavy in the yellowed mist, causing Annat's throat to feel sore. Once or twice the shadows of Doxoi temples reared up unlit, except where there was a glow of candles from the long, slender windows. She could not see the stars above their spires.

The Shkola stood in a square off one of the main streets where sycamore trees grew slanting towards the cobbled space at the centre. There were no street lights here, but windows lighted rose and gold made rectangles of colour like paper lanterns hung from the trees. The bells of a clock tower rang twelve notes as Shival unlocked the street door. Annat drifted drowsily up the stairs, there were so many. When Yuste had kissed her goodnight and the door was closed, she was left in a small room under the eaves where she would sleep alone for the first time. She put the doll on her pillow and lay down beside it fully clothed, staring at the white ceiling. Before she was quite asleep, the doll spoke to her.

Take care, Annat. There is danger waiting for you in the north. Danger for you and your brother.

Annat kept her eyes shut. She did not want to look at the doll for fear of silencing it.

What danger? she thought.

Let me go home. Return me to where I belong.

Annat sat up, convinced she had been dreaming. She looked down at the doll's worn face with its painted mouth. Something made of wood could not speak, yet she knew in her heart that it had.