The Realm Rift Saga Box Set

by James T Kelly

  As if he’d spoken aloud, Ambrose confirmed, "The future is written. Like the past."

  The old man spoke with the weight of that future. The responsibility of seeing it come to pass. "It seems cruel to let us see the future without giving us the power to change it," Tom replied. He tried not to think of Katharine, crying in that dark place. Her grip growing weak in his own. "We should be able to use our foresight to change things."

  "A nice idea. But if that were true, we would not be here."

  Something let out a low keen in the distance. A wolf, perhaps. It sounded lonely. Would Katharine feel lonely when it happened? She would tell him he loved her. He wouldn’t say anything. How would that make her feel, as the life went out of her? And what would happen to their child? "How do you live with it? When you foresee something terrible, how do you just allow it to come to pass?"

  "Accept what has to happen, Tom. Play your part. It is all you can do."

  "That isn’t very comforting."

  Ambrose gave an awkward shrug, like his memory of how to do it was imperfect. "I cannot remember my past, Thomas Rymour. I suspect I once thought as you do. But when all you remember are the things to come, you realise there is no fighting destiny." He turned to him, met his eye. His dark gaze bored into Tom’s, and Tom couldn’t help but be a little frightened. "Grieve today for the things you will lose tomorrow. Or grief will blind you to what you must do next. "

  Tom poked the fire and listened to Ambrose snore, a low, constant buzz. Nothing like the loud, intrusive snores coming from Emyr. But snoring nonetheless. Snoring from a man who said he needed more than sleep.

  Emyr thought his old friend wise. Perhaps he was. But Tom couldn’t do it. He couldn’t give Katharine up for dead. He felt like he was on the precipice of something wonderful, while unseen forces were trying to collapse the cliff beneath his feet.

  And those forces would win. He knew they would. The foresight showed her dying. And when she died, he would be alone. There would be no-one to reach out to, to touch and hold in the dark, no-one to share his days with.

  Tom uncovered only part of the jar, hunched over it, stared at the sprite within, hugging its knees to its chin.

  The light was otherworldly. Magic. Void. But it was a comfort. Tom had thought to speak to the sprite. But what could he say? So he sat there, gazing at the sprite, basking in its light. Drawing a cold comfort from the mere presence of a fay.

  He could go. He could give this all up and go back to Faerie. Take his punishment. Absolve his wrongs. Return to the fold. It would be easy. He just had to say the words.

  He covered up the jar with shaking hands and sat alone in the dark.

  Ambrose’s damnable twig was mocking him. Or, at least, that’s how it felt. Tom rode with the cold, lifeless, empty thing in his palm. He’d already examined it, felt the smooth bark, peered at the faint lines wrapped around it, stared into the fibrous pith, smelt it, held it up to his ear like a fool. It was a twig. A dead bit of wood. There was no fire, no earth, no air or water in it. Not that he could feel anyway. So he rode with it in his palm and sighed at it.

  Gravinn still wound their path between the mountains as best she could. They had long left behind any signs of civilisation. A few days ago there had been smoke in the distance, a goatherd, Gravinn had said. But nothing since. No signs of people or habitation. Just the occasional hare, which Six shot as often as he could, and at night Katharine would tell him how to skin and cook them.

  Tom tipped his head back and spotted a bird flapping lazily through the cold, clear sky. Hares and birds, that’s all they saw. The black shadow above seemed to float in the air, needing no effort to stay aloft. It seemed so easy.

  Gravinn led their party around an enormous boulder, three times as tall as Draig, and back down the mountainside.

  Tom missed roads. They were smooth and easy. Not like their current path. He felt he spent the whole day riding back and forth across the same patch of land. He looked up to watch that bird soar away over boulders and mountains.

  Except it was still above them. It had turned to follow.

  "Six," he called, as softly as he could. The elf was alongside in a moment. "What kind of bird is that?"

  Six squinted into the sky. "A magpie?" He grunted. "Big magpie, though."

  "Emyr’s bones." Melwas. He was healed and he was tracking them. "Can you bring it down?"

  Six made an uncertain sound. "I miss as many hares as I hit."

  But why else would Ambrose have insisted on iron-tipped arrows? "Do your best. Quickly."

  Six looked up again, peering at the shadow. "Why?"

  The bird dipped a wing and left them. Iron nails. "On my horse. The fay have found us!"

  Chapter 9

  Six scrambled from his mount to Tom’s, and Tom kicked his heels and flicked the reins, sending his horse into a gallop. The magpie had turned, flying back south. It had a clear path. Theirs twisted and turned. They stood little hope of catching it. But it was too good an opportunity.

  "I’ll never hit it like this," Six cried into his ear. He had one arm wrapped around Tom’s waist, squeezing hard as they thundered across uneven ground.

  "We have to try." To its credit, the horse was doing well, neatly jumping or darting around any obstacles. It seemed to relish the race, and Tom wondered if their slow pace had left it bored.

  He risked a glance upwards. The magpie was watching them.

  "What does it matter?" Six asked. "It’s seen us. The fay know where we are."

  "Trust me," Tom told him.

  Six grunted, not exactly a vote of confidence, and Tom quested towards Caledyr, hoping it would guide him.

  Fight, was all it had. It was a sword. It knew nothing of riding.

  "Cursed stinking iron nails," Tom swore. Calmness of the soul until death. Calmness of the soul until death. A death that was hopefully months away, and not waiting for them in a rabbit hole or a half-buried rock that would bring down the horse and crack their heads open.

  The magpie was teasing them. They had to cut around a huge stone, so the bird slowed, let them catch up. When their path was blocked, forcing them up the mountainside, it slid across the sky, keeping them in sight. But Six didn’t draw his bow. "Are we close enough?" Tom asked.

  "Still too far."

  Melwas was toying with them. And then, when he got bored, he would leave.

  "Try!" Tom called out.

  They crested the hill and rushed down the other side, so steep that Tom thought they would fall, but they didn’t, and they raced across open grassland, hooves pounding the dirt. But the horse was getting tired. The bird was going to get away.

  Six released him, and Tom heard the bow draw and ring beside his ear as the arrow loosed, which arced through the air only to fall short.

  Tom dug his knees into the horse, spurred it on. A burst of speed, before the terrain dropped, forcing them to slow and half-gallop, half-fall down the hillside.

  "Again," he told Six. They had to bring the bird down. They had to.

  The bowstring sang, the arrow arced. The magpie didn’t flinch as it watched it fall short.

  "It’s too far," Six growled.

  Down another hillside, this one so steep the horse stumbled and shuddered with the effort of keeping its uneven footing. But at the base of the hill was was a huge, open stretch of grass. They could build up a gallop, close the distance. They could do it.

  Wait.

  The thought from Caledyr turned his head and he caught sight of a narrow crack in the mountainside. All moss and grass and stone, like someone had cut it through the mountain eons ago.

  He’d foreseen this.

  He tugged the reins and the mountain rushed up and swallowed the world.

  "What are we doing?” Six was forced to hunker against Tom’s back; there wasn’t much room here.

  "I’m not sure." Tom let the horse slow to a walk before stopping, panting, shivering with fatigue. Tom looked up at the sliver of sky above them.
>
  "Have we given up?" Six sounded like he couldn’t decide if he was pleased or irritated.

  "I don’t think so." Tom replied. All he could remember was this, siting here inside this little crack in the world. Waiting.

  "Why is the bird so important?"

  "Keep an eye on the sky."

  They waited. They watched. Tom began to think they were wasting their time.

  A shadow passed above. Nothing more than a flicker. It could have been anything. But Tom grinned. "He’s looking for us." He clambered down. The horse seemed content to wait. It nibbled on some weeds. Tom didn’t wait for Six, just picked his way through the tiny valley as much as he could while staring up into the sky.

  The ground climbed upwards, the going steep. Whenever they disturbed loose rock it seemed to fall forever, the tumbling stone against stone ringing like a thunderclap. Tom’s first thought was that the noise would give them away. But they wanted the bird to look for them. So he kicked stones free of the dirt, and Six grumbled behind him.

  Their path opened up onto a plateau of rock, pathetic clumps of grass clinging to tiny cracks in the stone. The view was incredible, the mountains rising up on either side, tall green trees clinging to impossible steep slopes, a river wending its way far below. The sky above was grey, a little blue in the south, dark clouds to the north. Despite himself, Tom took a deep breath. Clean, pure air.

  "Wait there," he told Six, pointing back into the crack. Six said nothing, slipping back into the shadows. Tom turned back to the tableau. There was no sign of the magpie. Had it given up? Had it returned to Faerie? Perhaps it was just looking in the wrong place?

  Tom drew a breath and cried, "Melwas!

  He waited. Listened. Nothing. The silence was almost something tangible. Like you could reach out and touch it.

  A flicker of motion. To the right. There, below, the magpie. Definitely one of Melwas’. Twice as big as a normal magpie, with a splash of white around one eye.

  “Melwas!"

  The bird heard him, banked, flapped its wings and climbed, before fluttering to a landing at the edge of the plateau. Well out of reach. It stood there, tipped its head at him. Didn’t make a sound. It was taunting him, by getting so close. It was telling him there was no hurting it.

  Tom drew Caledyr. The blade sang. Fight. Kill the enemy.

  The bird tossed its head, like a challenge. It knew it could fly away before he could even get close.

  Tom hefted the blade. Lifted and lowered the point, a salute to the elf hidden in the rocks.

  He jumped as an iron-tipped arrow skewered the bird and knocked it down. It flapped, screamed, tumbled towards the edge. "No." He dropped the sword, scrabbled after it. Caught it by the tail and heaved it away from the fall. He dropped it again, let it flap for a moment longer before it stopped, lay still, glared balefully up at him as it lay prone.

  "Good shot."

  Six stepped out. "It wasn’t moving much."

  "No." Tom allowed himself a smile. Nudged the bird with his foot. Midhir or Melwas, the Faerie king’s arrogance had always blinded him. And now he was blind. The splash of white was over the left eye. Thought.

  "What’s so special about this bird?"

  "You saw the swans Midhir had at Calmae?" When Six nodded, Tom continued. "They change to magpies, but their function is the same. Thought and Memory. They embody those traits for Midhir or Melwas."

  "Which one is this?"

  "Thought."

  "So the fay can’t think?" Six sounded sceptical. And he was right. It wasn’t that simple.

  "Just Melwas." Memory had once become trapped in Tir for four days. Midhir had tottered around his realm like a foolish old man, vacant and scared, memories coming to him only in snatches, just long enough for him to remember what he had forgotten. What would he be like without Thought?

  "So do we kill it?"

  A good question. Dead, it would return to Faerie and take time to reform. Alive, they could keep it from Melwas indefinitely. But the fay would come for it.

  But would they come anyway? For the effrontery of shooting down Thought?

  Tom wanted to keep it. Put in a cage and hide it from Melwas. Let that smug monster drool like a babe for the rest of time. But Katharine was already in too much danger. "We kill it." He retrieved Caledyr, reversed his grip to aim the point at its neck. The sword sang at the thought of tasting Faerie flesh.

  Dead-bane, it sang.

  Tom thrust the blade into Thought and watched it twitch in silence. It wanted to scream. But it didn’t want to give him the satisfaction. So it just glared at him until it grew still and glared at nothing at all.

  The bird’s death had been so much quieter than Fenoderee’s. It seemed unfair, somehow. Tom tried not to take satisfaction as he cut the head from its neck.

  Six pulled his arrow free of the dead fay, slid it back into the quiver on his back. ”Do we leave it here?"

  "No sense in bringing it with us." Tom spoke with a bravado he didn’t feel. It was as if fears had poured out of the dead fay’s body and were trying to crawl into his mind. Melwas wouldn’t stand for this. The fay would come for them. Still, Mab had told him to kill the fay sent after him. And Tom couldn’t argue with the smile on his face at the thought of Melwas without Thought. Would Mab smile, he wondered. Would she delight to see a mortal in contest with her king?

  "Well," Six said, staring down at the fay at their feet. "I certainly feel a lot better than I did after the last time we rode on horseback together."

  "Yes," Tom agreed. It felt like decades since they'd led that dragon on a merry chase through the streets of Cairnalyr, but his neck still ached at the memory of it. "And this one was far less frightening."

  "Why did we do it?" Six lifted his chin in a silent challenge. "What one fay knows, all fay know. That's what you say."

  Tom shook his head. "It works differently with Memory and Thought," he told the elf. "Their only link is to Melwas. He has to touch them to share what they've seen and heard."

  "So the fay don't know where we are?"

  "No." It was reassuring to hear his own answer. "The knowledge died with the bird."

  Six nodded. "Fine." He lowered his chin. Tom felt like he'd passed some kind of unspoken test. "But we shouldn't have left her." The elf turned and stepped back into the crevasse. The waiting horse snickered at them as they picked their way down.

  "Katharine is with Ambrose," Tom said.

  "Can he protect her?"

  "I think so."

  "It would be better if you knew for sure."

  It was patronising and Tom wanted to tell him so. But he couldn't. He felt like he couldn't speak up at all. When Six stopped and turned to him, gazed down at him, he felt small. Chastened by the memory of admitting his weakness to the elf.

  "Let's go," Six told him, and they mounted the horse in silence and began to make their way back.

  Tom let the horse pick the pace; they had ridden it hard and it deserved to take things easy, so he let it stop to graze on the thin grass or drink from a small pool nestled against a hillside. But without the mad energy of the chase, the cold seemed to have a much stronger hold on Tom's fingers and toes, and fatigue tugged at his eyelids.

  "Tell me about the foresight," Six said as they rode a gentle path up a hillside.

  Tom didn’t want to talk about it. Putting voice to what he’d seen made it too real. “There isn’t much to say,” he replied.

  “Then it won’t take you long.”

  What did it matter? What good would it do? “I try not to think about it.”

  “We’ll never find a way around it if we don’t think about it.” Six’s words were firm but kind, and Tom could tell that elf didn’t want to hear the foresight either.

  Tom’s first instinct was to indulge Six’s secret desire. Tell him that there was no way around it, that foresights might as well be written in stone. But this one couldn’t be. This one couldn’t come to pass. So he said, “It’s dark in my fores
ight, and very cold. Katharine is lying down. Her hands are covered in blood.” I love you, she said. But Tom couldn’t tell him that. Not when he knew he would say nothing to her in return. So all he added was, “And her hand grows weaker in mine.”

  “Is that it?”

  “That’s enough.”

  “So you don’t see her die?”

  “It feels like she dies.”

  “But you haven’t seen it?”

  “No.” But that sounded too much like hope. “But I can feel it, Six. She’d need every one of Sir Allyst’s Miracles to survive.”

  “Maybe we only need one.” Six sounded thoughtful, but also pleased with himself. “Ambrose should have died centuries ago.”

  Yes. He should have. “You think maybe he can do the same for Katharine?”

  Six snorted. “Ambrose looks like he’s a stiff breeze from being a pile of cryptic dust. But he must know something.”

  “If he hasn’t forgotten it.”

  Six was silent for a moment. “True,” he admitted. “But there’s a chance, isn’t there?”

  Yes. There was a chance. “You might be right.” Tom pulled the twig from his pocket. Was that why Ambrose had given him this? To teach him magic, so he could save Katharine? “Thank you.” And he reached into the twig with a new resolve to make it dance with fire and save Katharine’s life.

  But the twig refused to burn, and whatever hope Six had given Tom was sputtering like a dying candle by the time they reached the others.

  Chapter 10

  By the time they returned the others had already set up camp. There was still a little time until nightfall, but everyone seemed too tired to start travelling again. Not too tired to start a barrage of questions about where they had gone and why, so Tom found himself explaining Faerie lore to them all.

  Which Jarnstenn found unimpressive. "Fairies and magic." He snorted and shook his head. “Plenty of marvels in Tir, but not one of them could convince me of that rubbish."