The Seal Whistle: Tales of Tormay

By Christopher Bunn

A Tale from the Land of Tormay 
Janek, a wandering orphan, arrives in the fishing village of Averlay and is immediately embroiled in the mysterious designs of a traveling peddler. In a land of murderous snowcats, ancient curses, and the walking dead, Janek must defeat the Dark before it finds an artifact of great power.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christopher Bunn
• Release date: Feb 19, 2015
• ISBN: 9781507007068

Book preview

THE SEAL WHISTLE

A Tale of Tormay

by Christopher Bunn

Foreword

The events of this story take place about ten years after the end of the last book in the Tormay Trilogy: The Wicked Day (or the end of A Storm in Tormay, if you choose to read the trilogy in its single-book compilation). I would advise you to read the trilogy before you read The Seal Whistle, as the events that take place in the following pages explain a rather odd story first brought up after a conversation between Levoreth Callas and her aunt. And, if anyone has been wondering, this tale also fills in a few more details about one of the most important characters of the trilogy. The first book of the trilogy, The Hawk and His Boy, is available for free at most ebook vendors.

Welcome back to Tormay...

THE SEAL WHISTLE

Chapter 1

A Small Black Cat

All stories begin with good and evil. At least, any story worth telling.

Good and evil do not start in the hearts of men, but it is there that they root and flourish. Like all of life, good and evil, light and darkness, fray into each other. This makes discerning their boundary a difficult task for even the wisest of wizards. The light shines and the darkness gathers around in shadows shallow and deep. However, the storytellers and the harpists who tell their tales in inns and castles and over campfires and dinner tables, and even the wizards studying words in their precious books, why, they all usually want a simpler beginning.

For their sake, therefore, this story could have begun hundreds of years ago when a swordsman killed a wizard in a lonely northern tower. If not then, maybe it began with a boy, recently orphaned and down on his luck. Or, even more humbly, perhaps it began on the last day of summer with a small black cat.

The morning of that day arrived in a blur of cold light. This was normal for the far north of Tormay, which you will know well if you’ve visited that land. Along the coast of the duchy of Thule, the sunshine slanted across the grey sea. It turned the water into an expanse of flashing light as the waves rolled across Averlay Bay. Far out on the horizon’s edge, white sails bent to the wind as the last of the night fishing fleet made for home. The grass and the heather of the hills sloping up from the shore shone with dew. There, on the northern coast, life had always been full of days such as that day, burnished with light, blown by the wind, and bounded by sea and stone.

None of the fishermen in Averlay went back out that morning, despite the schools of mackerel running. They were weary from fishing through the night. That had been hard enough with a cold, angry swell beneath the moon, but the day was promising to be worse. The wind blew from the east, hurling clouds through the sky, one by one, until they piled up into black thunderheads. For a wide-eyed moment, the sun peered down between them, but then it disappeared. The long, rocky strand of beach running along the curve of the bay lay bare and lonely, bereft of the usual seals that loved to laze there. Rain began to fall, and the land and the sea vanished in gloom.

The town huddled beside the shore and waited for the day to pass. No one ventured outside if they didn’t have to. The only signs of life were the wavering trails of smoke, whipped away from the chimney tops by the wind. That, and a black cat.

The cat was a solitary little creature. It hurried through the narrow streets. As far as cats go, it wasn’t much of a specimen. Scruffy and scraggly, it was missing most of its tail. To pile humiliation upon humiliation, it was also muddy and wet. It paused beneath the eaves of a house and tried to lick its fur into some semblance of dignity. It was no use, however, and the cat gave up in disgust. It glanced around and then sniffed the air carefully, turning its head from side to side as if it sought a scent just beyond its reach. It sniffed at the door of the house, and then, after another cautious glance back, the cat scurried down the next street.

A cemetery lay at the end of the lane. Several houses sat a polite distance away. A low stone wall encircled the edge of the grassy plot. The cemetery itself was a jumble of headstones, more old and worn by time than new. An oak tree stood at one end, reaching out with its branches to shelter those who slept beneath the turf. The cat jumped up on the wall and peered about. It evidently decided that loitering in the rain was not the wisest thing to do—certainly if it did not want to catch a cold. The cat jumped down and hurried on its way.

After turning a corner, the cat found itself on the street skirting the seaward edge of the town. Halfway down the street, a pier reached out across the beach below and into the water beyond. Averlay’s only inn, the Drowned Man, huddled next to a warehouse beside the pier. Its windows were shuttered, but smoke wavered up from the chimney and light shone from the kitchen window in the back of the building. The cat hesitated and then turned the other way. A wave crashed on the beach and the cat flinched at the sound. It scampered off down the street, its shoulders hunched against the rain.

The street ended at the foot of a cliff. The cliffs there swept out into the ocean in a sharp, curving headland that formed the southern boundary of the bay. A shabby stone house sat at the end of the street. The house did not look lived in; the windows were dark and grimy. The roof was pockmarked with cracked and missing slates. The cat climbed the steps and sniffed at the front door. It leapt up onto the windowsill beside the door and peered through the glass. There was nothing to be seen through the curtains drawn shut inside. The cat trotted around the side of the house. A high stone wall guarded a small backyard. There wasn’t much to see in the yard, other than a rickety shed and an overgrown garden choked with weeds.

The rain was falling harder now, and, despite it being only the end of August, there was a touch of ice in the air. The cat dashed off down the street, running as fast as it could. It ran surprisingly fast for such a small creature, and soon it was out of sight.

The waves rumbled on the beach below and the rain hissed on the water. Far out past the bay, lightning shattered the darkness. White bolts struck down, churning the sea into fury. The bolts fell closer and closer to the bay, as if the footsteps of a giant were stalking toward Averlay. The clouds darkened over the town, but the cat was already long gone by that time.

Chapter 2

The Tramp and the Trader

The following day, a boy came walking up the road that runs along the coast between the towns of Lastane and Averlay. The grass was wet from yesterday’s rains. The sky was a perfect blue. The boy whistled a melancholy tune as he tramped along. The wind caught his tune and whirled it away, straight off the cliff’s edge that dropped down away, not twenty feet from the edge of the road.

He was a thin boy, a ragged boy with patched elbows and knees. He wore no shoes, but his feet were as tough as leather. His hair hadn’t been cut in months, and it was a glorious, untidy black, grown as thick as a horse’s mane. His skin was tanned a deep nut-brown, for he spent most of his days out under the sun. His eyes were a sharp and startling grey. They were as grey as storm clouds and twice as solemn. He had an oak staff in one hand, and the other hand was hitched in the strap of his knapsack.

He had been walking since before sunrise, but his step was still sure. He could walk all day if he had to. He had done so many a time, with a smile on his face. Though, to be honest, he hadn’t done much smiling lately. Walking is what he did. Sometimes he whispered those words out loud to himself. He remembered his father saying them many a time. But then there had been the two of them.

Now he was alone.

A flight of gulls swooped by past the cliff’s edge and then angled out over the sea. The boy fished an apple out of his knapsack. It was small and withered, but he ate it all the way down to the seeds and stem.

The road stretched out before him, unwinding along the cliff top to the north. The twin dirt tracks had been rutted by years of wagons and carts and stock. There wasn’t a soul in sight, unless one counted the seagulls and an occasional pelican winging by.

The boy was wrong, however. There was another. Something made him turn. Far to the south, almost on the edge of his sight, a tiny black shape trundled along the coast road. The breeze had died away and the day was becoming warm. The black shape seemed to be traveling fast, for the boy was soon able to make out what it was. It was a horse-drawn wagon. A figure sat on the buckboard, reins in hand.

The boy frowned. He looked down at the ground and scuffed at a pebble with his foot. He picked it up. He tossed it in his hand a couple of times and then threw it out over the edge of the cliff. It tumbled down through the sunlight until it struck the water far below and disappeared.

The wagon was much closer now. It was one of those caravans with wood walls and a shingle roof, complete with tiny windows and a crooked rusty stovepipe jutting up from the top of the roof. The sides of the wagon were covered in peeling red paint. The shingled roof was black. A man sat on the buckboard seat with a little black cat beside him. The horse was an old swayback with a patchy mane and shiny hide where the harness had been rubbing.

The wagon was close enough now for the boy to hear its wheels creaking. The cat sat up straight, staring at him. For a moment, the boy had the strange impression that the caravan was too wide and too tall for the wheel bed, that it perched there precariously, swaying with every step of the horse, and was about to topple over into ruin.

The man clucked to the horse and pulled up on the reins. He had a merry, round face surmounted with a large nose and a bristling beard. His brown hair was weathered with a sprinkling of grey and his blue eyes were as bright as the sky.

Good morning, he said cheerfully.

Good morning, sir, said the boy.

Excellent day for a stroll, isn’t it?

I suppose so, said the boy.

The man laughed. You’d make a difficult customer, wouldn’t you? I can tell ‘em from a mile away. Most days, I can sell sand in Harth, wool in Andolan, wine in Vomaro. Even sell ice to the cold lords of Harlech themselves, but not you. No, sir. Not a chance there. I reckon you’re too sharp for your own good. Certainly too sharp for my good. A boy beyond his age, aren’t you? Name’s Pym. Pym Gullvane. Trader, merchant, shopkeeper, purveyor of fine goods and anything else that can be bought or sold.

He reached out a hand, smiling, and the boy could not help but step up and shake it. He had been raised to have manners, and manners were meant to be kept. The cat inspected him with curious green eyes. The horse closed its own and seemed to go to sleep.

And what might be your name? said Gullvane. You have one, don’t you?

Janek, sir, said the boy.

A fine name, said Gullvane. He nodded, suddenly solemn. A fine name indeed. Unusual. It reminds me of an old story I once heard, but I can’t remember it now. Or perhaps it was a song. That’s the price of old age. Northern name, isn’t it? You must be going home or thereabouts. Here, would you like to ride along? The wheel’s faster than the foot, and I aim to be in Averlay before night. My cat doesn’t bite, if she worries you. Drua is a kindly old soul.

Thank you, sir, said the boy sturdily, but I like walking. I don’t mind the slowness of it. I’d much rather be going somewhere than be somewhere.

A wanderer, eh? The sky your roof and the turf your bed. I was like that once when I was younger. I tramped from duchy to duchy with my shop strapped on my back. All traders are wanderers to some degree, but we bring our houses with us, just like the snails. Gullvane rapped the wooden buckboard with his knuckles. The years are getting colder and harder on these old bones, though, so now I stay a month here, a few months there. I might stay in Averlay for a while if the town suits me, if I can drum up enough custom to make it worth my time. Here, fancy one for the road?

The trader dipped his fingers into a bag beside him and came up with a handful of round, red sweets.

Boiled honey. I bought them in Hearne last week. They’re tasty.

Janek shook his head. No, thank you, sir. I don’t have much of a liking for sweet things.

Gullvane tossed one to his cat. The beast snapped it up. Its sharp white teeth crunched once, and the sweet was gone.

Pleasant wandering, lad. If you ever need something bought or sold, Pym Gullvane’s your man. Don’t forget.

With this, the trader winked at Janek and twitched the reins. The old horse set off again with a reluctant step that quickened until the wagon was trundling away toward the northern horizon. The boy stood and watched until