Manx

by Greg Curtis

“What consequences?”

  “That magic is life. You've literally been sucking the life out of us for four hundred years. Like leaches suck blood.”

  But it was worse than that she knew. The shamans knew it too and the druids likely guessed. Their magic was weak. They didn't heal as quickly from injuries as they should. Their flesh was weak and slow. Because they might look the age they had when they'd been abducted, but inside they were older. How much older was the question. How much life had they lost? How much did they have left?

  “So?!” The Lady stared at her, her eyes filled with nothing but hate. “What does it matter? You're animals! Demons! And worse! No people were harmed. Just things that needed to die anyway.”

  Did that mean that she and those who had come before her had always known what they were doing? Or did she just not care? Sorsha couldn't decide.

  “But people were harmed,” Sorsha told her. “Even if you don't want to count us as people, your own people were harmed too. You may have the knowledge and the technology to drain the living vitality of the magical and implant it in an enchantment. But you don't have the gift. So you placed vast amounts of living magic into objects that weren't able to contain it, and of course they leaked. And that magical essence leaked into those holding it. You. It made you sick. That's why there aren't many of your kind left. You poisoned yourselves.” It was a theory. The best the sages could come up with based on what they knew. But it fitted the facts.

  “Lies!” Their prisoner screamed almost hysterically.

  “No lies. Why do you think we look as we do? The magic changes us. Before we change our magic is tiny. A small precious thing. And we can do little. But when the magic calls to us we are transformed. Shaped into a vessel capable of holding it. But your enchanted swords and the like, were not capable of holding it. Nor were the bodies of those who carried them capable of bearing such vitality. You burnt out from the inside.”

  “Liar! Bitch! Filthy whore!” The woman started screaming every insult she could think of at Sorsha.

  “I don't think so,” Sorsha answered her when she finally ran out of words. “You die young. You don't know why. You live the end of your life in pain. Joints fail and body parts seize. They rust inside you. You discover headaches that tear your brains out through your eyes. And you have growths. Lumps and bumps in every part of your body. Sound familiar?”

  “Sounds like a curse. A pact you made with the demons!”

  The woman wasn't going to listen to her, Sorsha realised. But then she'd probably been raised to believe the lies of her ancestors. Even as she'd undoubtedly watched them die one by one and never known why. The chances were that she'd been told that it was simply the price they paid for fighting evil. But even as the woman continued her ranting and raving, Sorsha's thoughts were turning in a different direction. Unravelling the other mystery that had beset them.

  “What did you do to the Smythes?” she asked when Lady Marshendale had run out of strength once more.

  “Nothing!” She yelled at her, all fired up again. “You think we would send them to hell with you?! Of course we wouldn't! They're human!”

  “But you did do something.” Sorsha knew it. She felt it within her very marrow.

  “Well they're thieves. So we bound their magic – by blood.”

  “By the gods!” Sorsha suddenly couldn't face the woman. “You bound the magic of those born to the glory. You robbed them of their sight and crippled them. No matter whether they'd committed a crime or not.”

  But now she knew why the Duke of Clairmont, spent his days in a wheelchair, drinking himself into a stupor. Why he used a gun to defend himself instead of his gift. And why the librarian didn't. The rest of his family were broken in one way. Blinded and crippled by their loss. They probably drank themselves into an early grave. While he instead had been physically crippled and broken in another, but in his terror and desperation had freed himself partly from the spell that had bound his magic.

  “They're thieves and assassins and brigands of every sort!” she defended her people.

  “Mostly they're just pitiful wretches whose lives you destroyed before they were even born.” Sorsha took a deep breath. “And do you know how I know that?” She raised her head to stare the woman directly in the face.

  “Who cares bitch!”

  “I know that because a father dangled his son in a pit full of lions.” Sorsha finally understood the crime – and the desperation. “Your ancestors robbed that family of their very essence. You left them bereft of sight and will. Barely able to comprehend what had happened to them. But they understood one thing. Perhaps not well enough, but they understood it. Desperation and terror break spells.”

  “I could never understand how a father could do that to his child. No matter how drunk he might be. No matter that he was challenged by another of the nobility. Or even that he was cold of heart. None could be that cold. But now it becomes clear. He didn't do it for that reason.”

  “He did it for the same reason he had a pit full of lions and a crane to lower meat into it in the first place. For the same reason he'd done the same to all his other children before the librarian I would guess. He was desperately trying to break them free of your binding. He hoped that desperation and terror would break it's hold on them.”

  “But in Maxwell Smythe's case, something went horribly wrong, and his son, a boy of but five, was nearly torn to pieces.”

  “That's how terrible what you did was. So awful in fact that it could cause a father to risk feeding his own children to the lions rather than let them suffer what you did. By the gods! The demons in the underworlds must be looking forwards to roasting your bones!”

  Did something in what she said get through to the woman? Sorsha didn't know. All she knew was that the woman fell silent for a while after that, and traded yelling and screaming at her for just glaring at her instead.

  The room was silent too. No one knew what to say. But maybe that was a good thing, she thought. She didn't want to say anything anyway. It was too painful. And there was no point. They would learn nothing.

  But everyone was looking to her to say something. They believed, because she was the first to break free, that she had some sort of right to tell them what to do. The truth was, there was nothing to do.

  “Take her away,” she told them in time. “She isn't going to tell us anything. Lock her up in one of the cells in the city gaol. Weld the door shut. And leave her there to rot. But feed her and give her water. So she can spend the rest of her miserable life thinking about her crimes. And those of her ancestors. We'll free our own people in time by ourselves.”

  “Whore!” Lady Marshendale finally found her tongue. “Abomination!”

  But even as she started hurling another round of abuse at Sorsha, the magical bindings holding her tight, began pulling her away. Dragging her out of the inn and into the street, and then off to the gaol in the heart of the city, so she could begin staring at her prison walls. Hopefully for the rest of her life, Sorsha thought.

  Meanwhile she had things to do. Things that began with speaking to the sorcerers about working out whatever binding spell had been laid on the Smythes and removing it. And at the same time talking to the shamans about what had been done to the rest of the spell-casters and what could be done about it. But she feared little could be. Recovery would largely be a matter of time – and an acceptance that their lives would be shortened because of what had been done to them. It was just a matter of how much of their lives had been stolen.

  But even before that, she had to explain the truth of what had been done to them, to her people. To spread the word. To tell them that much of their life had been sucked from them.

  By the gods this had been an evil day!

  Chapter Twenty One

  He didn't feel any different. The sorcerer had done his thing, the man's eyes and fingernails had glowed a bit brighter than before, and maybe, just maybe he had felt a little warmth – Manx couldn't be certain – but as
far as he could tell nothing had changed. Certainly as he concentrated on the maze of tangled dimensions in front of him, they didn't look any different to before. Nor were the solutions coming to him any faster than before as he untangled the dimensional knots. Everything was just as it had been.

  But maybe the effects of lifting an ancient blood curse took time to show themselves. And for the moment he had more important things to worry about. Like solving this latest dimensional puzzle – his sixth – so that thousands more spell-casters could be freed shortly. And enjoying the fact that the unguent was clearly working on his scars. They were softer now, and maybe even a little smaller. Possibly even a little less angry, he couldn't be certain. But it was only a couple of weeks since he'd started using it. It might take a couple of years to fix them properly. If the unguent could do that.

  And then there was the information about his father, which he didn't even want to think about even a week later. That his father might not have been the booze soaked monster he'd always thought of him as?! That it had all been some sort of accident?! That was simply too much for him. But if he believed that then he had to accept that what had been done to him had in some measure however small, been right. He could never bring himself to accept that. For the moment he was just doing his best to not think about it. Maybe in time he'd give the theory more thought. Or not.

  Yet if he couldn't decide whether the news Larissa had given him was good or bad, the news the others had received was definitely bad. Terrible. They had aged. Inside. And now apparently it was just a matter of letting their outward forms catch up with that ageing.

  He understood that. Not the magic of it – that was incomprehensible – but the symptoms they'd been complaining about. Feeling weak and sore. Joints not moving as they should. Tiredness. Half the patrons in the library complained about the same things. As for the headaches and the magic not coming as cleanly as it should, that they didn't complain about. But then they weren't spell-casters.

  The question was of course, how much had they aged? How much life had they lost? Obviously it wasn't four hundred years worth of life or they'd be dead. But with the problems they were experiencing, he doubted it was only a few days worth of life either. They could all be at the end of their lives.

  Which left him with an unexpected question running through his thoughts as he worked. Though not a question really, so much as a doubt that he'd been wrestling with ever since they'd begun.

  “Should we be doing this?” he finally asked. Though he didn't stop his work, guiding Arden in unravelling the dimensional knot.

  “Again you worry about the changes we'll make to the world?” Larissa replied. “You would keep us locked away in another dimension just to keep things as they are? How selfish is that?”

  “No,” he answered. “I mean bringing them back from a prison where they know nothing, to a world in which they're sick. And maybe worse.” He didn't want to say dying, but she understood. “It seems cruel. And while they're locked away, unknowing, they're also not ageing – as long as we stop the Silver Order. If we do that, they'll be safe forever.” He pointed at a loop that had been pulled too far out of place and had Adern push it back into place.

  “You mean they'll be trapped in there, all but dead, forever,” the shaman retorted. “At least when they're free they're alive. And we may be sick, but we have hope. We have a future. Families and children. In that hell we have nothing.”

  “Of course,” he agreed. But he wasn't sure he did really. Maybe the ones who were already out could find a cure for themselves and the others. Without the rest having to suffer. And if they couldn't who was to say that the others could? The chances were that they'd all just be coming back to die of old age. Larissa though, wasn't in the mood to listen to that. It was best just to agree and keep silent as usual.

  So that was what he did. He just concentrated on his work, guiding Adern in his, and the hours rolled slowly by as the dimensional knot shrank before them.

  This was a large one. Larger than any of the others he'd had to deal with before. Did that mean it was a bigger prison, he wondered? Would there be more prisoners released? And how would the people of the city cope? Not well was his thought. Meadowleigh was a good sized city, but thousands of spell-casters unexpectedly arriving in their midst would still be a shock. And all there were to guide the newly freed prisoners in their new life were a few score of other former prisoners who had arrived in the city before them.

  There had been trouble in the other cities where they'd been. More trouble that was – there was already trouble everywhere throughout Redmond now that the spell-casters were returning. But they hadn't stayed to witness it. They never stayed. They had a simple schedule. They drove up in the steam wagon one day, found an inn for a couple of nights, freed the prisoners the next, and then drove on the day after. Always heading east. And no doubt when they reached the eastern limit of Redmond, they would turn either north or south and then head west. That way they would criss-cross the entire realm, and in time, maybe a couple or three more months, free all the spell-casters.

  Then he could go home. Maybe return to his old life as a librarian if the library was operating again. And of course feed the cat! Whitey assured him regularly that that was his most important function as her servant! For the moment though she was back at the inn, enjoying the rewards of his second most important function, providing her with suitable shelter. She was sleeping in his bed.

  How by all that was holy, had he ended up with a cat?! He kept asking himself that. He knew what they were like! He could talk to them! Maybe there was some truth to what Whitey kept telling him. He was soft in the head!

  Manx was still thinking that when a shadow passed in front of him, distracting him.

  At first he didn't know what it was. All he did know was that it sent shivers down his spine. But then his eyes pierced the trickery and he understood. It was a man. With a knife. He was hiding behind some sort of spell. But he didn't intend to hide for long. He was advancing on Danvers, their sorcerer, and the man who had freed him from his curse. And the man with the glowing blue eyes had no clue.

  In a heartbeat Manx was up and running towards the man, shouting a warning and drawing a knife of his own, knowing nothing but the need to stop the would be killer. After all he owed the moth eaten sorcerer. And after that battle was drawn.

  The assassin stopped, turned around wide eyed, and aimed the knife at him. But Manx was ready for that. Even as the assassin was turning he was drawing the shadow around him and dodging to the side. Acting on instincts he hadn't even known he had. And noticing as he did so that the man's knife was glowing black. That had to be bad.

  Then the man came at him, not fooled by the shadow he was wrapped in and the battle was on. The assassin struck, he dodged and struck back, and all of it at impossible speeds. Manx didn't know how he was doing it. But he realised after a few desperate attempts to get behind the man, that he too was wrapped in shadow. And they were both playing the same game. Using the shadows to hide and move, and get behind the other. They were both Smythes. The difference was that this other Smythe was experienced at using the shadow, and until just now Manx hadn't even known it was possible.

  But somehow he held his own. He was unfit, scarred and slow. He barely knew what he was doing with either the shadow or the knife in his hands. He'd never been in a serious fight before, let alone one to the death, save of course for the assassins who kept bothering him and they were no trouble. And he didn't even know where the knife had come from. But somehow he could dance and spin just as fast as the killer. The magic itself seemed to guide him. How did it do that?

  The assassin dived low with his blade, trying to cut his legs out from under him, and the move caught Manx completely by surprise. Yet still he managed to spin out of the way, and in the process drew first blood, slicing the man's shoulder wide open and leaving a gash right down his upper arm.

  The man cried out in surprise and danced back. But then he coun
tered, spinning in another direction and nearly cut Manx's throat out in the process. The assassin only missed because Manx threw himself backwards, somehow knowing the right way to move even as it was his turn to cry out in alarm.

  After that the two of them began circling one another, knives at the ready. Each looking for an opening. Manx was working completely by instinct, and yet somehow standing his own. But his heart was beating like a drum in his chest and fear was finally beginning to catch up to him.

  His enemy lunged at him, a crude feint designed to draw Manx into an unwise attack. But Manx didn't fall for it. Somehow he knew what was intended. Instead Manx drew a second shadow around the killer, blinding him, and struck back himself, going for the man's thigh, and somehow it worked. Once more the killer screamed and danced back. But this time he was bleeding from two places. His right arm and left leg. Neither was a mortal wound, but they had to be slowing him down.

  The attacker didn't seem to understand that though, and no sooner had he danced back than he was leaping forwards once more into the fray, striking at Manx' exposed side with his glowing black blade.