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owned that pain as all the counsellors taught
me. Survived. Hadn’t I? But in this dungeon dark, I wasn’t sure of anything any more and the nightmares were back and swarming. I felt myself shutting down, withdrawing until I
was nothing more than a little seed of awareness. Was this how it was for the selk, for the Mondhaith, for the women of Nhem? Just a spark in the darkness of unsentience? Maybe it would be better
if I could stay this way, I remember thinking.
    Eventually, I dozed, but did not sleep. For a moment, though, I thought I was dreaming when I heard the sound. The selk were singing again. Their song echoed around the walls of the cell, and
through the hollows of my head. I put my hands to my ears, but could not shut it out. It went on and on, penetrating, seeping through the cracks and shattering.
    I was engulfed in a rush of cold sea air. Loki’s light poured through the sudden gap in the wall with the glitter of the warship. The hulking form of a selk was crouching in the gap.
    ‘You must hurry. There is no time,’ it called me.
    I agreed. No more time for nightmares – regardless of what the selk wanted or were planning, I had to act. I threw myself through the gap and down the rocky outcrop on which the
Skald’s fortress stood. Shouts sounded from high on the walls and something hummed past me, splintering rock and pulverizing seaweed into a stinking, pulpy mass.
    The selk were waiting at the base of the rocks. One of them pushed the back of my knees. I stumbled forward.
    ‘Where are we going?’
    ‘Quickly. You will see.’
    They guided me out onto the rocks. Behind me, the fortress had started to hum with voices, like a hive indeed. I could hear someone shouting: I thought it might be Glyn Apt. Then the sound of
weapons fire, but surprisingly not aimed in my direction: could it be my own Skald, fighting?
    ‘Hallsdottir!’ That was Glyn Apt. Making my unsteady way over the sharp slabs of rock, I glanced back. The Morrighanu was standing in the ragged hole made by the selk’s sonics,
a gun in both hands and sighted on me. Ahead, the warship had started to move, swinging round to train its port guns on the selk. Something singing and hot struck the rock not far from my feet,
sending black wet splinters hissing into the sea. If I went in, it wouldn’t take me long to freeze. Another bolt, and the selk beside me cried out. At first I thought it had been hit, but
then I saw that something was rising from the water.
    Glyn Apt snapped an exclamation that I did not catch. I was concentrating on the gleaming wing, coming up in a stream of sea with Loki’s light burning off its sides. The hatch was opening.
I jumped, slipping a little on the rocks, nearly fell, grasped the edges of the hatch and threw myself inside.
    Outside, the selk were splashing into the sea and safety. The wing’s navigational array was already firing up, lit with unknown co-ordinates. The hatch closed behind me; though I was alone
I was passenger, it seemed, not pilot. It took seconds for the wing to power up. I looked through the wet window of the hatch to see Glyn Apt running along the rocks, leaping sure-footed, weapon up
and firing. On the other side, there was a sunlit burst of fire from the blastcannon of the warship, sending seawater spattering over the wing like a sudden storm shower. But the Morrighanu forces
came too late. The wing was speeding off, taking me with it, under the warship’s guns and far out into the western sea.
     
SEVEN
P LANET : N HEM (H UNAN )
    Make that four hundred and one.
    The new woman came in over the ridge this morning, not long after dawn. The gate guard was the first one to catch sight of her and she called me. I was already awake – I didn’t sleep
for long on those nights that were hot and stifling even when it rained. The heat reminded me of Iznar; the odour of old earth hung around me, the smell of roots, the closeness of a dark
cellar.
    So I hurried down from the height,