by J.A. Clement
Chapter Eleven
Copeland stumbled away down towards the cliffs. “You should have let me! It wouldn’t have taken a moment!” There was no answer but the pull did not lessen.
He followed the path that ran beside the cliffs into the tunnel to the Angels’ inlet. There was a shape standing by one of the lanterns. It stepped back and behind it, though he had never noticed it before, there was a fissure that led through a narrow passage. Copeland picked up the lantern and followed, despite the screaming of his instincts.
The flame of the lantern was still dancing mockingly at him, but he clung to its light. He had been familiar with these caves for many years now, but this place was new to him and he was beginning to doubt that he wanted to meet the owner of the sibilant voice after all.
Ahead of him in the pool of light the figure was muffled in some kind of cloak made of many layers of rags, with the hood drawn up. It paced into the cave and turned and at the sight of it, Copeland shied away. If it had ever been a man, it could hardly be called that now.
It was tall, but the most shocking thing about it was the gaze, that glare which slammed into him with the rawness of a dead man’s eyes. And the rest of the face; grey skin and flesh, pallid, thinned lips, reptilian cheekbones and a wide, sharp jaw. It reminded him of something, but he was too terrified to remember what.
“Finally!” The hissing whisper echoed round the cave like the echoes in his head. “We have work to do. Come here!”
“What work?” Copeland backed away slightly.
“Work of the kind that you have just failed to do. But mostly, I need your body.”
Copeland had not noticed the tendrils of black smoke reaching towards him in the dimness of the cave. There was a confusing moment when he was three people; and then he fell to his knees. The other made a disgusted noise as the tendrils of smoke withdrew.
“Mankind has changed. Once upon a time when I called the whole town would come running and I could take my pick of their best warriors. Now the only one receptive enough to hear is mad.”
It replied to itself, but in a much more human voice with a slight accent. “Is that bad, my Lord, that he is mad? Does that render him unusable?”
“It would be risking his madness myself if I were to take this one over fully. I cannot be sure of controlling him, but he may be useful to us. Man, what is your name?”
Copeland wanted to lie but could not have done if his life had depended on it, which he was not at all sure wasn’t the case. “Copeland. What shall I call you?”
“I think...” mused the colder voice. “Yes, it is not entirely inaccurate. For the time being you can call me Sigismund.”
Nereia sat on that cold lifeless sand, and tried to understand what her blackwater twin was attempting to convey. “I don’t understand. If there are not the words, show me.”
The implacable one considered this. “We would need to merge fully.”
“If we did – and I’m not agreeing to this yet – if we did merge, as you say, would I still be me?”
“For the most part, yes. People might notice a difference but they would recognise you. There would be more layers and you would be you and more than you are now.”
“Would it show? Would I look like you or like me?” Nereia gestured to the seaweed hair of the other. “I won’t have Mary afraid of me.”
“It depends on the eyes that are looking.” The implacable one paused as if in thought. “Mary will see different expressions. She will think you grimmer than you have been. But she will see you and you will still be there to interact with her.”
“Who would be - in command, so to speak? I don’t care how practical it might be, I’ll not have you killing or hurting people with my hands unless it is some dire necessity.”
“You and I would be one. There would not be that Nereia and this Nereia; only Nereia. You would be augmented, but you would be made of the person you are now. We would make the decision as one.”
“That’s very confusing.”
The implacable thing sat down on the sand facing her, looking out across the silhouette hills on the one side and the black, snarling waves on the other. “It is like making bread with flour and yeast and all the other ingredients. You mix them together and make a dough which, once cooked, becomes bread. Once it is bread, you cannot take the flour out of it, nor does the flour exist in its original form; but the flour is still there, as is the yeast, and all the other things that were put into the dough. That is how it would be. You would be intermingled with me. There would be no going back but much could be done to make things right.”
Nereia thought about this for a long time. The implacable being simply waited while the waves hissed and muttered.
Finally she sighed. “It scares me to say so, but I think that this is the right thing to do.”
“You would give up that much of yourself to allow me to do this? You trust much on little evidence.”
“I know. I must be mad.” Nereia shrugged. “But Copeland is too dangerous for me to deal with alone and I need your protection for Mary. You’ve been true to your word so far. And...” She hesitated. “And when it comes down to it, my instinct says it’s right. I have no grounds to think so. For all I know, you’ll take over and turn into something bad-” She stopped, for though her voice was unchanged it sounded as wrong as a cracked bell. “What on earth was that?”
“It has been long since that has happened!” The other one leapt to its feet and turned to stare at the dead tree in the distance. “The healing has started already! It has started, just with your presence here...” It turned back to her. “In this place, right now, things that are true will sound of truth, and things that are lies will sound like lies. Try it.”
“My name is Mary,” Nereia tried, and it sounded wrong. “I am the queen of Scarlock.” These so obviously had the sound of lies that she tried again. “My name is Nereia; I am not the queen of Scarlock.” This time it was just her normal voice with no other quality overlaid. “How strange! But if you can hear truth, if I say that I can trust you and we would be working towards a good end...”
Relief flooded through her as all of that rang true, and suddenly a shooting star seared white across the unbroken blackness of the night, landing with a flash at the foot of the tree.
The implacable one bowed. “Approval indeed.” For such an emotionless thing, there was almost a trace of awe in its voice.
Nereia had no idea what it meant - but neither did she understand why she felt she must do this. It was purely that the instincts she had come to rely on in eleven long years of precarious living told her that it was right. She had long since learnt that her instincts were good, and she trusted them utterly. “So what do I have to do?”
The implacable Nereia held out its hand to her. “This will hurt at first, but it will not damage you and it will not last long.”
Hand in hand, the two Nereias made their way across the moonlit sand towards the snarling waves.
“Ready?” asked the blackwater Nereia, its seaweed hair glistening in the spray from the surf.
“Ready as I’ll ever be.”
Taking a deep breath, they stepped together into the searing waters.
Madam paced the length of the cellar. “I have to get back. Anything could be happening.”
“Astrid will have to make lunch all on her own,” Hanna answered.
“Nereia will be worried.” Mary shared a glance with Bet.
“Mickel was only expecting me to be a moment.”
There was a subtle sound from above; they all froze. There was no obvious exit from the cellar and it was too late to hide. Mary clutched at Madam in a sudden fear of what or who would come down the ladder, but in the dull light that filtered down from the trapdoor, it was Esme who peered down at them. “Are you all right down there?”
“I have to get back.” Madam strode to the foot of the ladder.
“And I need Mary with me.”
Esme came down into the cellar. “Jack and the girls will have to stay here for the moment. The quartermaster has stationed soldiers here and the place is crawling with them. The soldiers are looking for Jack and Vansel and they know what the girls look like. We can move them after nightfall, but they need to get out of town and lie low until the soldiers have gone.”
“Impossible.” Madam shook her head. “Copeland will never let Mary go, even if he did release Bet.”
“Where are you going to keep them, Madam, in the Black Cat? Soldiers have been to Mickel’s warehouse already and the minute they finish their duties your brothel will be so full you’ll have every nook and cranny of the building in use. Where do you suggest they stay?” Esme gave her a meaningful look. “We can find somewhere out of town eventually, but right now I can’t let Jack into danger and if that means your girls stay cooped up for a few days, I’m sorry.”
“There are dangerous things happening in the Cat right now, and I need to be there to deal with them!”
“Then go!” Esme expostulated. “There’s no need for you to be in here!”
“I promised to stay with Mary!”
Mary interrupted. “Madam, is Nereia in danger? She is, isn’t she?”
“I don’t know, Mary, but I need to be there!”
“Please go to Nereia, Madam. She’s all I’ve got. I am scared of this darkness and this place, yes, but we seem to be safe for the moment and if anything happened to Nereia I would never forgive myself. Please, Madam. I’ll be fine here with Hanna and Bet to keep me company.”
“And me,” Jack said softly. “Madam, I don’t know what’s going on but I can promise you that I’ll take good care of Mary - of all your girls. Nothing will happen to them if I can prevent it, I swear.”
Madam was torn but there was no time to waste in dithering, so reluctantly she made her decision. “Very well.”
“Jack, I’ve emptied your things from the room,” Esme told him briskly. “Come and help me lower them down. As soon as Vansel gets here you’ll need to be ready to leave.”
She handed down various portmanteaux and valises to Jack, who climbed a way up the ladder to take them. Two valises came down, and then a third. Finally there were his beautiful boots, which Esme passed down as a pair. Jack reached up for them, exclaiming at her carelessness when handling his pride and joy, but she let go too soon. The boots dropped; Jack lunged to catch them, missed his handhold and fell off the ladder with a crash. The lantern plummeted with him and the whole place was plunged into darkness.
“What was that?” A shout came from outside the barn. Quickly Esme swung the hinged barrel shut and pulled a keg over onto its side. The barn door creaked open and, frozen, those hidden below heard steps approaching and the quartermaster’s voice. “What was that noise?”
“Why, it was myself, sir.” Esme put on her ‘bumpkin’ voice. “Them rats that live in here gave me a right nasty fright, they did, jumping out as they had no business to do. Made me drop my keg and all; and if it’s damaged I shall have to get the rat catcher in for my husband won’t like that, no not at all, he won’t.”
“Rats!” the mutter came back. “Still, a clean bed and a dry roof is never to be sneezed at.”
The barn door closed again and after a moment there was the squeak of the barrel’s hinge. Esme leant down anxiously. “Is everyone all right? Jack?”
“Oh dear,” Madam bent over Jack as he lay unconscious with his leg doubled under him. “That doesn’t look good. We need Mickel.”
Vansel returned from the oak tree, where he had found an answer to his message. Slipping round the corner he saw the first and third shutters closed on the servants’ attic at the Mermaid; the signal for trouble. He hurried through the mist of rain to the barn where after a brief update on the situation he left again. The plans he had put in place were now impossible and he would have to go back and let Alaric know that for the time being, they were stuck where they were. He kicked viciously at a stone as he strode back to the oak. With the Mother so near and the town filling with soldiers headed by Colonel Lowry, Jack’s timing could not have been more dangerous.
Mickel was sitting by the fire, waiting for a knock at the door. When it came he dashed to open it, only to see Madam.
“Is it Nereia?” He grabbed his cloak.
“No – the boy Jack.” Mickel froze. “In the cellar with the girls,” she continued, catching her breath as best she could. “Fell and hurt himself. His leg looks broken but he was unconscious when I left.”
“How-” Mickel caught himself. “No matter, I’ll go.”
“The girls are down there still. The inn is full of soldiers. I need to get back. Trouble with Nereia.”
The storm suddenly let loose like a barrage of cannons. There was a crack of lightning, apparently right overhead, and then another and another. Thunder sounded so loudly that Mickel winced. Lightning lashed the sea and thunder rumbled continuously for some minutes. Then all fell into eerie silence. The rain stopped abruptly; the sea fell flat and ominous.
“What was that?” Madam whispered.
“I’ve never seen anything like it!”
They stared out of the window for a moment, as the last faint rumbles of the thunder faded over the horizons. Madam felt the hairs on the back of her neck rise. Surely it couldn’t be anything to do with...? “I’ve got to go!”
Mickel watched in some surprise as she dashed away. He gathered together his doctor’s bag and headed for the Mermaid. Across the town people were venturing out of their doors, looking across at the now mirror-calm sea and blinking in the sudden watery sunlight as the thick clouds began to break up and disperse.
Nereia staggered out of the dark waters and fell to her knees on the bone sand, gasping. She/it had told herself/itself that it was going to hurt but she/it hadn’t realised what she/it had meant. She stopped, catching her breath, dizzied by this new kaleidoscopic overlay of personalities, knowledge, voices.
“Oh... That felt really strange...” Even her voice did not sound quite as it had. Gathering herself a little, she sat back on her heels and looked searchingly at her body. Each hand and foot, arm and leg looked as they had, except that her burns were gone. The old, pre-merge Nereia would have asked if they would be there when she went back to the real world. The new one knew that they would not.
Nereia stood, putting a hand to her hair; it was still hair and not the long seaweed strands of the implacable being. She walked to the point where her footsteps appeared out of nowhere and, wondering at how easy this seemed, concentrated. A white line appeared in the air in front of her, lengthening to a long rectangular glare. A step took her into a bright white place; another, and she had that brief, disorienting feeling that gravity had gone through ninety degrees. She found herself lying on the sofa in Madam’s lounge with the taste of salt in her mouth. She was so tired.
She pulled the discarded cushion from the floor and, putting it comfortably under her head, was asleep instantly.
Mickel hurried to the Mermaid, composing himself as he got to the yard so that if there were soldiers around, they would not think that anything was amiss.
Jem greeted him at the gate. “The soldiers have gone for the moment, but they could be back at any time.”
“How is he?”
“Not good.”
In the cellar, Jack lay grim-faced on the ground. His head was pillowed in Mary’s lap and Hanna’s cloak was over him, but at a glance Mickel saw that the leg was broken quite badly. “Jack, m’boy; you are a quality clot.”
“It really wasn’t his fault, Mickel. He slipped on the ladder,” Mary ventured.
“I daresay it wasn’t.”
“We are... in something of a fix now though, aren’t we?” Jack gritted his teeth as Mickel examined him.
“We’ll think about that later. For now, we need to see to this
leg of yours; but first we’re going to need to give you a draught of poppy to dull the pain.”
“I’ll be fine...”
“Don’t be so silly!” Mary scolded him.
“I don’t need it!” Jack gasped as Mickel moved him.
“You’re pulling that face because you’re enjoying it so much, are you?” Having mixed up the draught, Mickel put it to Jack’s lips but the younger man pressed them firmly together.
“Please take it, Jack,” Mary pleaded. “Mickel is going to need to re-set it, and that will be agonising. If it hurts too much you might make a noise and the soldiers will hear.”
“I can stand it!”
“I know you can but – well,” she whispered, “I don’t like to think of it hurting you. Won’t you drink the draught? Please?”
Jack looked up into her eyes for a moment; she blushed and looked away.
“Very well,” he said in a somewhat relieved voice. “I shouldn’t like you to worry.”
“Thank you, Jack.” Mary’s voice might have been meek but as Jack drank the draught, her expression told a different tale. Mickel nodded in amused appreciation.
While he was waiting for the poppy to work, Mickel removed Bet’s bandage. He decided to leave her wound open to the air for a while. It seemed to be healing nicely. Once Jack was looking sleepy, Mickel stood up. “We’re going to need to re-set this and to splint it. I’m going to need your help, girls.”
“I... I feel faint!” Hanna announced suddenly.
“Go sit down then; that way if you faint, you won’t hurt yourself.” He did not spare her a glance. “Mary, you’re going to have to hold him straight. Can you come round this side of him?”
Hanna sat on a barrel, looking more annoyed than ill, but after a moment gave up on ladylike vapours. “I feel a bit better now. How can I help?”
Mickel set her to looking for something that could be used as a splint, while Bet took bandages out of his bag and Mary held Jack steady so that Mickel could reset the leg. It took a moment for him to be sure that the bone was in the correct position and, even half-unconscious with the potent poppy draught, the pain it caused Jack was obvious. It made Mary feel a little sick to see it, but she gulped a few times until it went away and kept an ear cocked for Mickel’s commands. Eventually it was done. The bone was set back in place, the leg supported by splints and bandages and Jack was made as comfortable as possible in the damp cellar.
“We need to move him, preferably before the poppy wears off.” Mickel straightened. “But to where?”
“The Black Cat?”
“Full of soldiers.”
“The warehouse?”
“They’ll come for supplies.” Mickel grimaced. “It might be the only place we can put him - problem is, Jack hasn’t been able to keep quiet for any length of time since he came out of short pants. Still, if there’s nowhere else...”
There was a thoughtful silence.
“I can’t promise anything,” Hanna said slowly, “but there may be another option...”
Madam hurried up the path to the Black Cat and erupted through the front door, coming to an abrupt halt. The door of her lounge was hanging from its hinges. The lock was smashed and Blakey was sitting outside, sipping brandy vacantly. As she entered the room he started, knocking the little gold snuffbox on the arm of his chair. It burst open, scattering pearlescent white flakes over the floor. He fell to his knees and carefully began to gather them back in again, one by one.
Madam’s eyebrows shot up, but she would come back to that. “Nereia?”
“In there; all quiet.” He did not pause in his careful picking.
She walked through the smashed door. The girl lay quiet on the sofa. Madam went to lay a hand on her cheek, but suddenly her wrist was caught in a steely grip. Nereia’s eyes opened to reveal the black, blurry look; Madam froze in dismay but Nereia’s normal gaze came to the fore and she let go of Madam’s arm.
She yawned. “Sorry about that. I was asleep.”
“Are you all right?”
Nereia took a moment to consider this. “Yes, I think so.”
“Did you-?” Madam was not sure how to express it, but Nereia smiled.
“Yes; as far as I know we are – well, less of a ‘we’ and more like ‘I’. I’m not sure I quite know who I am at the minute though.”
“Is that safe?”
“I think I’m in control, but I really don’t know what ‘safe’ is any more. I don’t intend to let anyone else get hurt, in any case.”
“Well that’s the main thing. Do you feel different?” Madam could not work out whether or not she should be concerned; certainly she would be wary of the girl for a while.
“Yes. As if I thought I only had one hand all my life and had suddenly discovered that I had two. What I don’t know is what that hand can be used for. I would normally be worried about that but... I’m not. After all, it is my hand. There is a confidence which I have not felt for a long, long time. Not since the last charge of the Skral, perhaps.” Nereia’s voice was heavy with drowsiness.
“The last what?” Madam demanded.
“What? Sorry, Madam. I was falling asleep.” She frowned. “I was half-dreaming; a battle, and thirteen thirteens of every clan, tall fair-haired warriors with axes charging, unstoppable as spring tide, and as destructive...” She resettled her head on the cushion, sleepy and comfortable.
Madam looked closely at the girl. She seemed to be half-asleep but calm and unthreatening. “Well, I’ll leave you to snooze for a bit, my dear. I should imagine it will do you good.” She turned to leave. “By the way, what happened to the door?”
“Oh, that. Copeland came and it all got a bit messy. Blakey can probably explain it better than I.” Her voice trailed off and Madam felt a cold hand on her heart as she stared at the girl who to all appearances had fallen deeply asleep again. If Copeland had been here, she could not believe that all was well, for any of them.
As Madam came out of the room Blakey was shutting the snuffbox, and hid it in his pocket in a guilty manner that told Madam all she needed to know.
“Is she all right?” he asked. “She told me to wait here and protect your girls if she came out.”
“She’s fine.” Madam noted how he was cradling one arm in front of him uncomfortably. She led him to the kitchen where the cook was putting the plates away. Madam nodded to her. “Astrid, Hanna has been unavoidably detained. I can’t tell when she’ll be back, but she did ask me to pass on her apologies.”
“In trouble, is she?” The older woman grunted sourly.
“Staying out of the way of soldiers - at my behest.” Madam dismissed her and turned to her companion. “Sit down, Blakey.” She brewed coffee and gave him a mug, then sat down across the kitchen table from him and looked into his face. Yes, the signs were there. First things first, though. “What happened to the door?”
Blakey took a long drink of the coffee, and gathered his hazy wits. Earlier he had added a pinch of Angel Feathers to his brandy to dull the pain from his shoulder. It made it difficult to think, but the coffee was cutting through that a little. “I was upstairs. I heard the door slam.”
Slowly, having to think hard to put it all together, he told her of Copeland’s arrival, the knife through Nereia’s hand, the sudden healing and Copeland’s flight; and Nereia warning him to guard the door. “It made my skin creep. A breath from the dark shores, as my mother used to say.” His face clouded over at this recollection.
“Will Copeland remember it?” Madam interrupted.
Blakey shifted painfully. The drug was beginning to wear off by now and though this made thinking easier, the pain was starting to gnaw at his shoulder again. “I don’t think so. He was like the other time. If it wasn’t that my shoulder hurt so much I would have followed him and made sure that he didn’t get up to something else. In fact...” He sat back in his seat uneasily. “Now that I think of it, I really wish I h
ad. Still, at least he left the knife here.”
“Yes.” Madam decided to cut to the chase now that he was waking up a bit. She stood and went to the window; no one in earshot. “Blakey, Copeland is getting dangerous. We need to keep an eye on him. I am starting to be afraid that he will hurt someone else as badly as he did Nereia, or worse.”
Blakey considered this, rubbing his arm absently. “He is starting to act very strangely. He spends a lot of time away from the office. I don’t know where he goes but he’s always a mess afterwards. Whatever he’s up to, it isn’t good.”
“Precisely. And he came back for Nereia and Mary.” She came back to stand by him.
“I know.” Blakey did not want to confront Copeland again but where those two were concerned, he felt so guilty that he couldn’t help it. It was baffling. They were no different from all the others – and there had been a lot of others over the years, he admitted to himself shamefully. Abruptly his guilt erupted into anger and he punched the table. “What do you want from me?”
Madam grabbed his fist, gesturing at the broken skin over the knuckles. “What I want you to do, Mr Blakey, is to refrain from killing yourself until we’ve dealt with Copeland. After that, you’re free to do as you wish but for the moment we need you healthy.”
“What do you mean?”
“I saw the snuffbox you carry, and I know what is in it. The mark of the Angel is on your face, Blakey. Much longer, and you’ll be no use to me at all.”
Emotions chased each other across Blakey’s face; anger at first, confusion, shame, sorrow, despair. “What would you have me do?” Weariness washed over him. “Copeland knows. He has me overseeing production of it in the drying sheds. And I need the Angel Feathers! It’s the only thing that helps my shoulder-”
“That’s an excuse!” Madam snapped. “Tell me now, is it not?”
Blakey tried to hold her eye but she was right and both of them knew it. He covered his face in his hands. “I can’t... I can’t stop. I tried and it didn’t work. When the need gets too much I can’t stop myself. And even if I could, I have to go to the drying sheds every day.”
“Do you? Always to the drying sheds and nowhere else?”
“I suppose not…. The pain makes me drink, you see, and the drink makes it seem all right. I don’t know how to stop.”
Madam looked at him thoughtfully. “I think you’d better come with me.”
She did not explain further so he simply followed her, too drained to argue. They crossed the hallway and went down the stairs to that very same room in which he had beaten Mary and Nereia. He entered reluctantly, not knowing what to expect, but it looked very different. It had been emptied of all the furniture that had been in there, and scrubbed, and now all it held was a large bed and a chest of drawers.
“I have a proposition for you.” Madam told him. “You leave the snuffbox with me in daytime so you have to come back. You spend your evenings here. We arrange with Mickel to have plentiful supplies of alcohol and poppy draught for you, and once you’ve taken it you go to bed here,” she gestured at the bed. “We lock you in, and you don’t go anywhere or do anything till morning.”
“I don’t know...” Blakey was not at all sure this was a good idea.
“At the moment we need you in one piece and functioning, Blakey.” Madam was firm. “If that means we hold you here until you’re clean of the addiction, then we will do just that.”
“But you’ll have to let me go sometime. How can you be sure I won’t hurt you? If the need gets bad enough I might do anything to get another fix.”
“Oh, I won’t be dealing with you. Kresta will.”
“Kresta?” he faltered.
“One of my girls. She was invited to attend the Radahan court. She’s back to pay a visit to her family and will be delighted to help if it means I keep an eye out for her family when she’s back in Radahan. Wait there.” She mounted the stairs and called, and when she came back down again she was accompanied by a stunning, willowy girl wearing a suit of close-fitting leather, a long leather coat, and a blue and pink woolly bobble-hat.
She grinned sheepishly when she saw his stare. “Present from my Nana. It’s colder here than I’m used to.” She stuffed the hat in a pocket to reveal a shapely skull, shaved completely bald. “This the one you told me about?”
Madam nodded. Kresta walked around him, considering. “Shouldn’t be much of a problem, I’d say.”
“Right, Blakey.” Madam went to stand out of the way, halfway up the stairs, “Just attack Kresta, will you?”
“What?” Blakey was flabbergasted.
“She’s very highly-trained. You’ll never touch her, but I’d like to see you try just so we know what sort of danger-money I should be paying her.”
“What?”
Madam sighed. “Kresta?”
The woman walked over to Blakey and slapped him on the face, hard. He blinked, his hands coming up half-heartedly and she punched him on the jaw, not hard enough to damage but enough to sting, definitely. There was no way he was going to hit her, but he went for her wrists to stop her from hitting him - and somehow found himself upside down on the floor.
“Ow!” he yelped, rubbing his shoulder.
“Try a bit harder, Blakey, you’re no fun at all!” Kresta pouted. “You really won’t hurt me, you know.”
“Okay.” He picked himself off the floor, grinning despite himself, and threw a half-hearted punch in her direction. She ducked under, twisted his arm and with a bang he hit the floor again.
“Watch the shoulder!” he grunted. “You’re good at this.”
“Radahan-trained; we cater for all tastes. Now come on, one last time and make it a bit more difficult. Seriously, we all need to know that when the need is on you, I can keep you subdued. Pulling your punches now is not going to do me any favours at all. Agreed?”
“Agreed.” Almost before he had finished speaking, Blakey lunged at her. She bobbed into his grasp, twisted like an eel and disappeared between his legs as he staggered forward. He spun round to see her roll to her feet and come straight back at him. He tried to deflect her over his hip and throw her to the floor but in his grasp she became suddenly pliable and threw him off-balance. As he staggered forward she dropped to the floor, grasping the back of his hand, and rolled in a half-crouch, twisting his arm so that he fell to his knees. He tried to get up but she exerted such pressure on the base of his thumb that he felt the bone creak as he tried to pull against it, and subsided.
“Give up?” She was only slightly out of breath, he noted with some admiration.
“Give up.”
She let go and turned to Madam. “I can cope with him. At full fitness he’d be a problem, but he is out of shape and that shoulder’s a definite weakness. Sorry, Blakey, but it’s true.”
“Don’t spare my feelings!” He straightened up behind her and lunged suddenly. She danced sideways without even looking and tripped him with a graceful foot; he went careering onto the bed and fell heavily.
“Ahhh!” He found himself laughing weakly. “And to think I said my shoulder was painful before!”
“Yes, and that’s the point, Blakey,” Madam said crisply. “Angel Feathers makes you more easily injured and stops you from healing. We need you in one piece and strong enough to help us get rid of Copeland. I’d rather you were on our side. What do you say?”
Blakey sat up on the bed with some difficulty. It was no contest really, he thought, returning Kresta’s challenging gaze.
Copeland made his way back to the office, weary. There was a knife in his hand. Why was there a knife in his hand? He felt he should recognise it. It was blunt of blade and chipped of handle... Oh yes. It was the knife the storeroom man used - what was his name? The old man who had worked in the drying rooms for years, anyway, his, though usually it was not quite so sticky with blood.
He yawned, sticking the gory knife in the pocket of his coat. It was odd, really, as he had made a po
int of picking up a very sharp knife from one of the fishermen’s boats earlier on, and this was clearly not that knife. He wondered vaguely what had happened to it. He ought to go to bed, but now that it came to it, he just couldn’t summon up the energy to go up that extra flight of stairs. His office chair was comfortable enough.
He sat down heavily, then removed the knife again because it was stabbing uncomfortably into him. Hmmm. What was the other thing in there? He tossed the knife into a corner and inserted a hand in his pocket, groping around to find what was in there. Something smooth, sticky, roundish... He yanked it out to look.
“An eyeball! Who’d have thought it?” he exclaimed, much diverted. “You can watch over me while I’m sleeping then.” He placed it on the desk in front of him carefully, turning it to stare him in the eye. He chuckled briefly, but broke off into another yawn. A wave of weariness washed over him and he laid his head down on the desk next to the eyeball, asleep as soon as his eyes shut.
The story continues in
On Dark Shores 3: Mother of the Shantar
which tells of Vansel’s second in command, Alaric; of his attempt to smuggle the Mother of the Shantar across the border and get her to Scarlock; and of the mysterious Jonas and his repeated attempts to betray her to Colonel Lowry and the Mardonese army…
~~~
Before you go...
Hello readers! JAC here.
When you bought this book (and thank you for doing so), I bet you had a quick look at the reviews or ratings before you did. Everyone does - they’re so useful. I wondered if you’d consider leaving a review of your own?
When you leave a review it helps to guide other people with similar tastes to yours to a book they might like, or to avoid a book that probably won’t appeal. That’s pretty powerful, if you think about it... and whether you loved it or hated it, your individual opinion really counts.
Your review doesn’t have to be lengthy; you could just say what worked well, what didn’t work so well, and whether or not you would recommend anyone else read it. (I do read reviews, by the way. Book 3 will be much longer than these two novellas because that’s what you all requested.)
Thank you; every review is appreciated.
In the meantime, it’s back to Book 3 for me (and I just got to a good bit, too!)
Catch you in cyberspace, maybe?
JAC
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This book has been something of an ensemble effort, so, I should start with some very specific thanks. Much appreciation goes to my excellent editors, Julia Lee Dean and Mike Rose-Steel, without whom this book would be a lot longer and more rambling than it is; and Trish Kristufek, who formatted it for print. I’m similarly grateful to my tremendously talented artists, Fena Lee who made the lovely cover for my first ebook, Marie-Louise Knight, who made the WGP logo, and Regina Wamba from Mae I Design, who made the rather stonking cover for this paperback edition.
Since taking it into my head to self-publish, I have learnt an incredible amount, met some fantastic authors, readers, reviewers, gossipers on forums, delightful people, clever people, helpful people, inspirational people by the score. The indie and self-published community at large have proved generous and enthusiastic, helpful and ever ready to give an opinion or suggest an improvement. To all of you, readers, writers, reviewers, and those who have given your time to this book, grateful thanks. You know who you are, folks… and so do I!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
J.A. Clement lives with her partner in the South of England. She absolutely loves having the opportunity to share her stories with real live readers, and is working to finish the next book rather faster than this one...
Blog: https://jaclement.wordpress.com
FB: https://www.facebook.com/ondarkshores
Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/jaclementwriter
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4712734.J_A_Clement
See blog pages for news and gossip, and to say hello!
OTHER TITLES BY J.A.CLEMENT:
On Dark Shores
1. The Lady * (novella in this ebook)
2. The Other Nereia * (novella in this ebook)
3. Mother of the Shantar (due 2012)
Parallels
Short stories available separately in ebook form
The Black-Eyed Susan
Ebooks available in assorted formats from most large retailers
For more information and links:
https://jaclement.wordpress.com
