And I was cold.
Hands fumbled with the dagger, and then stopped. ‘I can’t take it out. You’ll just bleed faster. What were you thinking? What—’
Acarius. So I had managed it. I had saved him. After a bit of effort, I achieved what I hoped was a reassuring smile, although my overriding emotion was a vague sense of being pissed off about dying. I wasn’t finished. It wasn’t fair.
‘Cricket, what have you done?’ Acarius said.
I reached for Brix’s vial with slippery fingers. Acarius took it from me.
‘Her . . .’ I whispered. ‘Out . . .’
‘I’ll stop this.’ Acarius was sobbing. ‘I’ll keep you alive. Cricket—’
It’s all right. Get her out.
I wanted to say it, even concentrated hard. But the weight on my chest was too heavy.
Acarius did as I asked, though, fiddling with the vial. It took him a few seconds to arrange the pewter rings in the right combination. I fought to keep my eyes open.
Someone gasped. Then Brix was there beside me, warm, whole, her hands on my face. ‘Gray.’
It’s all right.
I couldn’t tell her. There was too much blood in my mouth. I choked. She stroked my cheeks, gentle, the way you would comfort a baby.
‘Help me,’ Acarius said. ‘I need another pair of hands. Lorican, help me! Drag that over here!’
‘Gray, I’m sorry,’ Brix said.
Finally, I got enough air. Finally, I got my tongue around the words. ‘Love . . .’
I coughed. Something tore in my chest. Warmth flooded my gut.
‘Here! Now!’ Acarius shouted. Something cold and metallic touched my lips, but I couldn’t see what. He started chanting.
I needed to take one more breath. The last. I knew it was the last. ‘Brix, I love—’
Twenty-Seven
‘—you,’ Jaern’s voice said.
I stopped, startled.
Nothing hurt. That didn’t make any sense.
Acarius, Lorican and Brix stared at me, a few feet away. They had all been bent over a body on the floor. Acarius held the gold doll, and an empty glass bottle. Keir Esras himself stood a short distance from him, goggling open-mouthed at whoever it was they were working on.
Acarius recovered first, rising to his feet, cautious. ‘Cricket?’
‘What?’ But there was still something wrong with how I sounded. And I was sitting up, somehow. I didn’t remember sitting up. ‘How did I get over here?’
Acarius took a step forwards. On the floor behind him, with the knife still protruding from its chest, lay my corpse.
I was dead.
‘Now, it’s not as bad as it could be,’ Lorican said, straightening and coming to stand beside Acarius. ‘Don’t panic.’
I looked down at myself and – despite Lorican’s advice – instantly panicked, feeling at my arms, legs, chest – all new, all familiar, all perfect, riddled with spells that lay dormant under the alabaster skin. I scrambled to my feet, testing the ground under me. It was all sickeningly real. ‘Shit!’
‘It was the only intact body we had to hand,’ Acarius said. ‘We had no choice. Don’t panic. And dammit, stop swearing.’
‘I’m dead!’ I snapped. ‘This is an excellent moment to swear!’
Brix stood. ‘You’re talking; I think that means you’re alive.’ She walked towards me. ‘We just have to figure this out.’
‘Why are you so calm? You find this acceptable?’ I waved my hand – or Jaern’s hand, actually, with a smudge of alchemical paint still on the fingers. She caught it and held it. Her touch brought me back to my senses, made me realise that there were consequences for someone other than me. ‘Brix?’
‘We will figure it out,’ she said.
‘I’m a selfish prick,’ I said, hoarsely. ‘You were transparent. Are you all right?’
Suddenly, she smiled. ‘Still not little, though, I take it.’
Probably for the first time in eight hundred years, my body blushed. ‘Shut up.’
She intertwined her fingers with mine. ‘Good to know it really is you.’
My forehead wrinkled. ‘I don’t see how that follows.’
‘I don’t know anyone else who would say shit instead of thank you after being resurrected,’ she said. ‘And nobody else gets embarrassed quite as quickly as you do. I’m all right, if you are.’
I couldn’t even categorise everything I was feeling, let alone explain it. I kept stumbling over the big central fact that I loved Brix. I needed her like I needed my breath and blood. I had been, before my death, fairly certain that she loved me back. At the moment she was joshing me. Granted, it was probably only to keep me from hitting the gibbering phase of madness – still, it seemed hopeful. But once we were safe again, it was entirely possible that the overwhelming weirdness of our situation would strike her, and she’d be gone.
So no, I wasn’t exactly all right. I was trying to decide how to tell her this when something moved at the edge of my vision. It was Keir Esras, slinking towards the door.
‘Keir,’ I said. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’
He halted, for all the world like a man caught stealing apples. ‘I was just—’
‘Don’t go running off.’ Even with Jaern’s voice I didn’t sound like Jaern, which was both reassuring and annoying. I needed the tone of haughty command, at least until I decided what to do with the Guildlord.
And not only him. Lorican was hovering near Acarius. Six or seven Guildies remained alive scattered around the sanctuary, all in various stages of shock. Makesh was still curled up beside the altar, rocking and moaning. Add in any possible survivors outside, and it came to a significant problem. Victory, if that’s what you called it, was somewhat fraught.
‘What do you want?’ Keir seemed to be trying to pull his dignity together, without much success. I’m not sure whether he wasn’t entirely recovered from the paralysis, or whether he mistrusted the evidence of his own eyes and thought I was Jaern. His attitude split evenly between bargaining and grovelling.
‘Djinns’ flasks,’ I said. ‘You’ve got quite a collection of them somewhere, I’m guessing. Fuel for the army-raising and your immortal rebellion.’ I grimaced. ‘Gods, it sounds even crueller and stupider when you say it out loud. At any rate, I want you to take me to them.’
Brix drew in her breath. Her grip on my hand tightened.
Keir hesitated. I suppose he had some justification, given that I was asking for items worth several years’ pay. Then again, those ‘items’ were actually people.
‘Right.’ I turned to Lorican. ‘How are you? Are you all right?’
Lorican stared at me. ‘How do you think I am?’
‘Okay.’ I gestured with one arm, impatient, and nearly knocked Brix over. ‘Fine, stupid question. Several of you were statues, I died, it’s been a strange day. Are you functional, or do you need to sit down, or what?’
‘I’m on my feet,’ Lorican said, ‘which I reckon will have to do. What do you need?’
I motioned to Keir. ‘Could you just—’
‘Aye.’ Lorican moved behind Keir and caught him, one hand on the Guildlord’s collar. ‘I thought the almighty Examiner General would be more . . .’ His nose wrinkled.
‘Just hold him,’ I said. ‘He’s going to do as we say.’ It’s difficult knowing what you’re doing with your face when you’ve only had it for a couple of minutes, but I must have managed a reasonable facsimile of a menacing stare. ‘I still have all of Jaern’s spells. Hells, there’s even a few here he didn’t get around to using.’
‘Very well.’ Keir went pale. ‘Anything you want. They’re in the scriptorium. I’ll show you.’
‘Lovely.’ I grabbed for Brix’s shoulder as she was about to step away.
She halted. ‘What is it?’
‘Just stay next to me, please,’ I said, under my breath. ‘Please. This body is a different size than mine was. I can’t quite tell where my feet are and I need your
help to not trip.’
She gave me a quick sideways look. ‘Oh gods, I hadn’t thought of that.’
‘Quit talking about it. We’re trying to keep me from panicking, remember?’ I said, through a fixed smile. ‘Acarius? What about these others?’
My grandfather stood with folded arms, frowning at the room in general. ‘It’s . . . a bit of a conundrum. There’s really only three possibilities. Containment will be awkward, since this place only has two very small cells.’ He glanced at Keir. ‘As I have reason to know.’
Keir swallowed visibly.
‘Next option is killing everyone,’ Acarius said, without taking his eyes off the Guildlord. ‘Which has the advantage of simplicity.’
. . . although not of morality, he had said, when I was eleven years old, since morality is never simple. I could have recited this lesson from memory. I didn’t, however. Keir looked frightened enough to pass out. Someone who had murdered people simply to test a spell deserved to feel afraid.
‘Or you could let them go.’ Acarius shrugged. ‘I leave it to you.’
That was complicated, too, not least because eventually the Guildies would realise they had us outnumbered. Luckily, everyone in the room – except possibly my grandfather – was as dazed as me.
‘I think the Guildies should make themselves useful,’ I said. ‘Drag the corpses to one place, cover them, sort out which of the survivors need care.’ I paused. ‘We should probably tie Makesh up before he does himself a harm.’
‘All the corpses?’ Lorican said. ‘Including yours?’
He pointed, and I looked at what he was pointing at and saw my old body’s dead face. The vacant eyes were still open. For some reason, that was what did it.
I would have gone down if Brix hadn’t caught me. She shoved my head between my wobbling knees and kept her hand on the back of my neck.
‘Don’t faint now,’ she said.
‘Ha,’ I said, and fainted anyway.
After that things happened quickly. Brix brought me around by the simple expedient of sticking her thumb and forefinger in my armpit and pinching. When I was done being appalled, Keir led us to the cramped, dusty scriptorium, where some hundred-odd djinns’ flasks lay arranged like scrolls on the shelves. Luckily only about half of them were occupied, since there was no way of knowing which one held Anka.
Even if the vials had been clearly marked, one look at Brix’s face told me that we couldn’t leave anyone imprisoned. After a solid twenty minutes spent opening flasks, Keir and his remaining friends no longer had us outnumbered. Granted, the Tirnaal men and women who came out of the flasks were largely disorientated, nauseated and hysterical, but they were on our side.
A blonde girl of about fifteen was in the thirty-seventh flask. I was the one to open it, which is why I was the one she puked on as soon as she took form.
She wiped her chin with the back of one trembling, tattooed hand. ‘Who in the hells are you?’
‘Corcoran Gray.’ I stepped back from the puddle. ‘You’re welcome. And I’ve had a worse day than you have, so be civil.’
Like the others she was reeling on her feet, but she still managed to glare at me. ‘What—’
‘Anka!’ Brix shoved past me, reaching for her sister.
Shocked recognition burst over Anka’s face. I watched as they hugged each other. I watched them weep and laugh and keep touching each other’s faces, as though to be certain they weren’t dreaming.
It was good, knowing that they were real. It was good knowing I had done what I promised, even if I wasn’t sure I was real anymore.
Acarius’ hand rested on my shoulder.
‘We’re not finished, Cricket,’ he said, quietly.
And so my grandfather and I turned back to the shelves of vials, and went back to work.
It took hours to sort it all out. We finished freeing the remaining Tirnaal. The wizards I had left under Lorican’s eye were nothing more than flunkies, most of them numb with shock. They were grateful enough to leave with waterskins and a loaf of bread apiece from the fort’s storeroom. I made them take the catatonic Makesh with them, with instructions to take him to Ri Dana and, presumably, his slave-trading relatives. His mind had utterly given way, and I couldn’t even look in his direction without making him shriek in terror. Even Brix, to whom I gave the decision, seemed unwilling to torment him further.
Keir Esras presented a different problem. It wasn’t as though I could disarm him and turn him loose, since his weapons were in his head. An intelligent man would have simply killed him, but Jaern had been right about me: I couldn’t stomach the act of taking a life. We left him inside a prison circle with a supply of bread and water. That, and the knowledge that I was going to stop at the next city and let the rest of the wizard’s Guild know they had been harbouring a necromancer who couldn’t even raise dead properly.
After all, the Guild’s criminal records did not feature a description of my current face.
*
But I wasn’t all right.
We spent several days at Cor Daddan, dividing the food stores and the horses left in the stables, dismantling the necromantic tools in the temple, cremating the dead. As long as we had work to do and not much time to sleep, eat, or think, I could keep myself from remembering what had happened to me.
Brix had her hands full working with her shattered people. Lorican, who had already dealt with the concept of being in a new body, seemed slightly bored by the whole thing. The Tirnaal survivors all stared at my damn pale skin and silver hair when they thought I wasn’t looking. Anka stared even when she knew I was looking.
Always in the background was the shroud-wrapped bundle that I hadn’t quite been able to put on the pyre with the rest of the bodies. Acarius had agreed with uncharacteristic gentleness when I stammered out what I wanted.
When everything else was done, we dug the grave by ourselves. He and I sweated until we had a decent hole, and then buried my old self in the hard dirt and yellow grass outside the wall.
We stood there for a while, awkward. It’s not fitting to weep at your own interment. It seemed foolish to have a funeral, considering I was only sort of dead.
‘I didn’t want this,’ I said, after a moment. ‘Eternal life. I didn’t want it.’ I touched my shirt, over the teardrop-shaped black pendant that still hung around my neck. At least the wicked little thing had gone quiet and dark. I had considered burying it with my bones, but that seemed irresponsible, like tossing poison into a river. Jaern had said it had an entity inside, after all, and he’d been able to heal and harm using it. Between the pendant and the spells that crawled under my new skin, my resurrection was full of difficulties.
‘Is that what’s worrying you?’ Acarius sighed. ‘Cricket, you haven’t got eternal life.’
I glanced at him. If he was trying to make me puzzle something out, I wasn’t sure I could avoid throwing a punch. ‘What?’
‘I didn’t catch your soul in a vial. I put it directly into that body. Bodies with souls in them age and feel pain and are in all other ways entirely mortal. Bodies without souls are – well, you saw.’ He tapped his own chest, a trifle rueful. ‘You see, I should say. My soul isn’t in this body. I’ve had to spend centuries betwixt and between, outliving everyone I love. I wouldn’t do that to you.’
‘How many people have you done this to?’ I said. ‘Me, Lorican . . .’
‘Not many,’ he said. ‘It’s very rare, my being there at the exact moment someone is dying and having a suitable body at hand to place the soul in. You understand that Jaern created dead bodies when he wanted them. I don’t. I never have.’
‘And he took out your soul,’ I said. ‘Where has that been, all these years?’
‘The cabin.’ He studied me. ‘A vial, hidden in a cache that even you never found. How did you capture Jaern’s soul, by the way?’
I sighed. ‘I drank it.’
He frowned. ‘You what?’
‘Drank it,’ I repeated, dully. ‘And do
n’t start shouting at me about how stupid it was, because I know.’
‘Drank it,’ he muttered. ‘I never thought of drinking the damn thing. And that worked?’
‘Yes.’ I stretched my neck, first to one side and then the other. ‘While we’re asking questions, how did the Guild manage to capture you?’
He twitched his shoulders irritably. ‘I was a damn fool, if you like, but you were gone and I was . . . restless. Ready to take any job to keep busy. They had been watching the cabin for weeks, learned exactly how I came and went. When I was down in the village buying cheese one day, two of them slipped into the cabin and wrote a prison circle on my bedroom floor. I’d left the wards off because—well, I thought you might come home. Then they came to me and said there was a necromancer stalking their village graveyard, and would I help?’ He snorted. ‘I stepped into the bedroom to get a cloak and they had me. Keir took all my diaries, too, my papers.’ He paused. ‘I made a mistake, there. After the first few months of Keir trying to break into my mind, he hinted that he’d figured out the location of the doll. I panicked, thought the only way to keep it out of his hands was for you to get it. And like a simpleton, I started trying to contact you while he trotted off to trap you. I should have known it was a trick.’
‘About the doll,’ I said. ‘I’d like to get clear on how, exactly, I exist.’
‘You exist for the same reason as everyone does.’ He leaned on his shovel, a dangerous twinkle in his eyes. ‘Your father and mother loved each other very much, and—’
‘Oh, shut up.’ I pinched the bridge of my nose, exasperated with how difficult it was to put into words. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘Tell you what?’ he said, with elaborate patience.
‘Anything. You didn’t know anything about my parents, did you? My mother was just one of your many descendants.’ I closed my eyes briefly. It still hurt, even though I thought I understood. ‘All that time, I thought you were hiding something from me, some terrible truth about who I really was, about why she died.’ I tried to laugh; it came out more as a hiccupping gasp. ‘And you didn’t even know her.’
‘I didn’t,’ he said softly. ‘I tried to make up for it, teach you what I knew, but you wanted to know about her so desperately. I didn’t – I just didn’t know how, Cricket. I’m sorry.’
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