by Luca Tarenzi
She heard Needleye gasping above her. "I would have gone to speak to them. It was my duty."
Verdigris closed her eyes and shoved the wave of bitterness to the back of her throat. "Albedo came to me as soon as he heard you'd returned. It didn't go unnoticed that you weren't about."
Needleye kept quiet.
"You're a princess, dammit." Verdigris lowered her voice to a whisper. If Needleye had snuck into her tent in the dead of the night, it meant she thought - or she knew - she was being followed. It wouldn't have been the first time. "You are the only one who seems to forget that sometimes."
Needleye took two deep breaths. "My brother forced you? He used his voice?"
Yes! At least that was what Verdigris wanted to say.
"No," she replied.
"You told him everything of your own accord. You even told him about the seagulls."
Verdigris closed her eyes. "He's the king, Needleye."
"A king who had issued an order against doing what we did."
Verdigris forced herself to remain still. She didn't want Needleye to feel her trembling.
"But you knew," Needleye said after a moment. "You knew that nothing would happen to you because you are the only Sluagh in the tribe and your eyes are precious. They'll never take even a drop of your blood, no matter you do. Or don't do."
Verdigris opened her eyes again, suddenly.
"Did you tell Albedo what happened when the Pale Death took Stylus?" Needleye's mouth was right by her ear now, and the Glamour she was breathing out burnt like acid vapour. "Did you tell him you ran to hide like a cockroach at dawn?"
Verdigris lunged forward with such speed she surprised herself and this time Needleye was unable to dodge her.
She bit her with all her might, right between the shoulder blade and the neck. Needleye's leather tunic absorbed much of the bite, but Verdigris still felt the tips of her teeth ripping into flesh. Needleye started to scream, but it turned into a growl as she tried to grab Verdigris' neck.
They clung to each other as they fought until Needleye managed to pin Verdigris' hands down and sit on top of her with all her weight.
"Albedo won't do anything to you either!" hissed Verdigris. "You're his sister. You're even safer than I am." She paused just long enough to gather her breath. "There is no great difference between you and me."
"We aren't the ones who'll pay." Needleye relaxed her grip on Verdigris' wrists and a new tone came into her voice. "It'll be Thaw."
Verdigris blinked.
"They're going to execute him. Make an example of him. Tomorrow."
Verdigris felt her own Glamour welling up into her head, filling it to the brim with the roar of anger, the sharpness of fear and the scalding bitterness of guilt.
It was a moment or two before she realised Needleye was no longer on top of her. She had moved to the back of the tent and, by the sounds of it, was rummaging through her things.
"What are you doing?" she gasped.
"Me? I'm looking for weapons. You. You're going to get on your feet, get your sword and follow me like a shadow."
Verdigris swallowed hard, sure everyone in the vicinity had heard. "Where are we going?"
"To the Cells, of course." Needleye's voice was low, clear and accompanied by a puff of Glamour filled with the winter frost. "We're going to free Thaw. Tonight."
4
He came to his senses more than once while being carted off like a sack, but then he'd pass out again.
Perhaps he was merely pretending, keeping his eyes closed because the Moryans hadn't realised he was awake... He didn't even realise when he was.
Finally, they threw him onto the ground in a room cluttered with objects he'd never laid eyes on before, items he couldn't name, lit by worryingly tall, hot flames that rose up terrifyingly close to him. He tried to curl up into a tight ball, but he knew it was useless. There was no way they wouldn't see him.
He opened his eyes and forced himself to keep them that way. He had to watch, to know what was happening if he wanted to have a chance.
He had no idea, though, what that chance might be.
If Stamen were here, he'd know what to do. He always knew what to do.
But it was Stamen's fault he was here. Now, he was alone and the only thing he could do was shake with his eyes wide open...
Waspider turned the thimble used as a brazier upside down, and the fire in the center of the room went out. Then he carefully removed the four pencil stubs that held up the cardboard ceiling, allowing the latter, which was placed at an angle, to slip to the side, revealing the sky.
His arms were straining, but he tried to ignore the pain. He was too old to be making such an effort alone, but this was not something he liked to think about. Plus, he preferred not to have servants or others around him unless it was strictly necessary. He loved solitude. He loved silence.
The sky above him was clear and filled with stars, unusually close. Building experimental shelters on the tops of mounds rather than near the ground was a recent development for the Boggarts, made possible by the new and improved hiding spells Waspider had developed. Of course, no magic was perfect, and sometimes the seagulls picked off a few victims, but the rewards were worth it. Up there, one could see better, the rubbish had been dumped more recently and humans were less often around. Even fire could be used without too much worry.
The king got the spyglass from the little table and pointed it upwards, trying to focus on the stars. He shifted the three lenses backwards and forwards, testing various combinations before giving up. The dots of light remained out of focus.
He toyed with the object in his hands. His men had found it where the hidden Goblins had been seen, so it must have been their creation. It was a good idea, but not well-made. The cut straw failed to hold the lens fragments firmly in position and, without making careful calculations and plenty of trial and error, it was impossible to adjust it properly.
Waspider removed one of the lenses and fiddled with it. Interesting. Very interesting. Where could the Goblins have found such a thing? Were there other pieces? Bigger ones? What other treasures where hidden on enemy turf?
Years ago, Waspider had stumbled upon a human broadcast and, since then, he'd longed to get hold of a magnifying glass, or at least a sufficiently large fragment of one. It needed to be big enough to concentrate the sunlight so he could imbibe it with his magic, turning a concave bit of glass into a lethal weapon capable - if his calculations were right - of penetrating a cloud of Glamour strengthened to become a shield. It would be a new, versatile and inexhaustible weapon that could fry the enemy in its own blood...
Waspider walked towards the little table, holding the lens, but he tripped on something.
He cursed under his breath and looked down. His room was filled with all sorts of items, but he was maniacal in keeping it tidy. Nothing should have just been lying on the floor.
He saw a pair of feet.
These feet were attached to two scrunched up legs that were in turn attached to a tiny trembling body and large staring eyes.
Waspider blinked a few times.
It was the little Goblin his men had brought him that night.
He'd watched him for ages, even tried unsuccessfully to get him to talk. And then...he'd forgotten about him.
He'd been playing with the spyglass as if he was alone, but this creature was there watching him from the floor.
The king slipped the lens into a pocket and rubbed his eyes. No, this was not normal.
He moved towards the prisoner - who curled himself up into as tight a ball as was possible given he was tied up - and studied him in the light of the stars. A dirty towel around his waist was his only clothing, and he was truly minute, but it was impossible to tell if he was simply young or just small.
Waspider frowned. He'd never seen such a Goblin. The prisoner's skin was pale yellow, almost white, with an unhealthy hue. Its head was bald and round, but with a narrow chin. Its eyes were huge and milky. Lo
ng, thin and flat fibrous strands seemed to stick to the shoulders and the arms, perhaps hair or maybe something else.
His Glamour had to be very weak, so weak that, glowing faintly like a firefly, Waspider couldn't smell it even if he was right on top of him.
He bent down to the trembling face and breathed in deeply, trying to pick up the smell...
The Moryan seemed enormous to him, not only because he loomed over him when he spoke and watched him, but also because he had to be genuinely big. The Moryan was bigger than anyone he'd ever seen.
He was clearly as thin as a rake, even though his garments were large, with spacious sleeves. His skin was the color of dry leaves and his hair looked rather like dusty cobwebs, long braided cobwebs that stretched down to his hips and beyond.
His face was a conglomeration of points. Pointed nose. Pointed chin. Even the cheekbones almost managed to be pointed.
Yet, it was the two mirror-like eyes that really made him scary.
Smooth. Shiny.
So shiny that every time the Moryan came close, he saw his own reflection, tied up in a bundle on the floor.
He felt like those eyes were merely there to remind him he really was a prisoner.
To make it clear this was no nightmare he would soon wake from.
It was not about to just end.
Waspider used two pieces of flint taken from a lighter to get a fire going. He needed more illumination to study the lens fragment further.
How much light could it focus on one point if the source wasn't the sun? The TV programme hadn't gone into such detail and he'd never found anything else that would tell him more.
He bent down to the fireplace, took a deep breath and blew a mouthful of Glamour onto the flames. The fire rose up, providing much brighter light, as if some petrol had been thrown on it.
Waspider lifted up the lens, moving it up and down in front of the palm of his other hand, but no point of focused light was visible. He rubbed his chin, brooding, as the flame settled back down.
Perhaps he should work on a spell for fire to make it like the sun's rays, or something similar...
What would it take? He'd definitely need to spend plenty of hours alone in the sun, absorbing as many rays as possible into his Glamour cloud, so he could then reproduce it. It would be no small task. He'd get thirsty, perhaps even suffer sunstroke, and it would require a long, careful spell to keep him hidden from the seagulls for so long.
No, it simply wasn't worth it. At least, not before he'd gotten a hold of a much bigger lens fragment. This brought him back to his main concern: increasing raids into Goblin territory.
If only his men had been able to take one Goblin alive in the raid that evening, he would have been able to interrogate him; perhaps the Goblin would've known where the three lens fragments came from.
He looked around the room at the chairs made of woven wire, the sofa made from the soft part of a hairbrush, the little metal shelves that stood neatly but filled with as many objects as a compulsive, curious collector like him could get hold of... Then, his gaze fell on something he didn't recognize.
He narrowed his eyes, got up and moved closer to this tied up bundle of trembling prisoner. He stared at this small, bizarre creature.
Waspider stayed still for a long time, then put his hands together and started walking up and down the room, slowly, without taking his eyes off his guest.
He clearly remembered that neither he nor this other creature had left the room. Yet twice he had become distracted and forgotten he wasn't alone, for an unknown period.
He stopped and stretched his arms. The first time he'd interrogated the trembling creature, he hadn't got a word out of him, but then again, he'd done nothing other than ask him questions. He'd given him no incentive to answer.
He opened his hand, bearing his claws and focusing hard on the poison gland at the base of his wrist.
Every Boggart had retractable claws, but only he had such a gland, and it was one of his proudest achievements. It had taken infinite patience, years of concentration and pain to make it, channelling his Glamour to slowly, painstakingly slowly, mutate the very shape of his own flesh, nerves and tissue, forming new vessels and poison ducts reaching right to his nails. Now, he possessed a hidden weapon that no other member of his race had ever had.
He'd considered mutating other Boggarts similarly, even carrying out some initial experiments, but he'd not yet perfected the process for others. His only achievements on this front had been crippled hands and maimed soldiers.
The king didn't see this as a waste. It was an investment in experience.
He raised his claws at the prisoner, whose eyes widened tremendously.
"If you think I'm about to hurt you," he said calmly, "then you're right. The poison I'm about to inject comes from wasps and some spiders, with a touch of strychnine I got from the bait for mice traps. I had to eat many of those creatures to learn how to make it, you know."
He grimaced at the memory of how sick he'd been after eating mice poison. The cramps, the fits.
"I'm not going to inject enough to kill you, but the effects will last...for a while. It'll feel like your nerves are on fire and someone has burnt your eyes with red-hot embers. The strychnine will also make your muscles contract. Every single one. Hard. Complete, painful paralysis."
The prisoner tried to slide as far away as possible, but there was no space to move, and Waspider's movement was simple and lightning fast. He bent down, gashed the creature's calf with his claws and then stood back up, all within the space of a breath.
The prisoner let out a hoarse squeak, a sound the king had never heard before and that seemed nothing like a word. No other sound followed.
"The effect is instantaneous," Waspider added as he sat down, without looking away. "When it is over, I'm going to ask you a few more questions. Then, if you still don't want to answer me, I'll scratch you again and we'll start from the beginning once more." He glanced up briefly at the stars. "I'm in no hurry. The night is still young."
The scratch on his leg had come unexpectedly, but it didn't hurt.
Stamen had once told him that such wounds were extremely painful for Moryans and since then he'd often tried to imagine the feeling. Was it like some of those diseases that crack your skin and soften your bones? He'd felt like that, a few times.
Such things really did hurt.
He knew such things could even kill you.
The Moryan clearly seemed to think that the injury on his leg was supposed to be painful. Extremely painful.
What was he going to do when he realised it wasn't?
Would he try to find another way to hurt him?
The Boggart king kept his eyes and attention squarely on the prisoner the whole time. The effort needed for this was enormous as his thoughts kept slipping away from him with the same ease as the gaze of creatures without fairy blood slipped away from those protected by a cloud of Glamour.
Yet, the power here was different to any type of Glamour Waspider had ever come across. It was magic that went straight for the mind, not just the senses. It deviously slipped through one's thoughts like grease, pushing them apart, confusing them and gently rolling them away from each other. Waspider drew on every ounce of concentration and mental strength his trained mind possessed, but more than once he found his thoughts slinking elsewhere and his eyes gazing at something different.
To make matters worse, his poison was clearly having no effect. No screaming or writhing in pain. The prisoner didn't move at all. Those big eyes kept looking at him, filled with fear but completely clear of pain.
After nearly an hour of waiting, the king rubbed his eyes and breathed in deeply. He was tired, his head throbbed and he found himself to be strangely irritated, a most unusual sensation for him. His curiosity, though, was stronger than everything else.
He was sure this little creature had a different make up of any Goblin, Boggart or other type of Moryan. It was impossible this prisoner had developed a
resistance to his poison because, well, quite simply it was his invention and nobody had been exposed to it, aside from a few unwilling Boggarts used as guinea pigs. Did it have some type of natural immunity? Perhaps it possessed special magic in its blood that protected it against toxins. Perhaps - more interestingly - it was simply that its body didn't react to poison.
If so, it would be exceptionally interesting to see how its body was constructed, but not right now. Now there were still many questions the king wanted answered.
If poison didn't work, then magic would be needed.
Waspider stood up, went to kneel beside the prisoner and placed a hand on his arm. The prisoner made a futile effort to move away.
"Keep still," whispered the king. "Getting agitated won't help at all."
The prisoner didn't obey so Waspider pushed him hard against the ground, immobilising him. Then, he closed his eyes and, very slowly, he blocked out all external sensations.
The nocturnal noises coming from outside, the prisoner's uncontrollable shaking and even the strange fibrous feel of the arm under his fingers were all pushed to the edges of his conscious mind and then expelled from it.
His was about to use Gramarye, unnatural magic. This would be no natural use of fairy magic, like Glamour, but a deliberate contortion of such power, something one could only learn through years of discipline and painful trials. It was like being able to bend an elbow the wrong way without breaking or dislocating it.
He'd performed the planned spell successfully many times in the past, but his victim's Glamour was so dim and fleeting the king was not entirely sure he'd manage this time.
He inhaled deeply, blowing out denser and denser spurts of Glamour, expanding his cloud until it stretched around him and his prisoner. The scent of his own Glamour filled his senses, pressing gently on his skin like the fluttering of dozens of insect wings. The smell was vague, but sharp, like filed metal.
The prisoner must also have realised what was going on, because his shaking became frantic, but Waspider didn't notice. He even released his grip because physical contact was no longer necessary.
