by Sharon Lee
“Seriously,” he said.
I nodded, jerkily, and went back to overlooking the harbor.
“Anna broke her neck this morning,” I said quietly. “I— She’s a good person. What you said—a big heart. The world’s better with Anna in it. I couldn’t just let her—” My voice broke.
“Die,” Borgan finished for me. I caught his nod out of the corner of my eye. “I can see that. She gonna be okay?”
“Yeah. Tony called the Rescue. I told them she fell off the carousel and hit her head. If they didn’t buy it, they were polite enough not to say.”
“Hmm.” He turned his head to look at me. “What actually did happen, if you don’t mind saying?”
I hesitated, then pushed upright and turned to face him.
“Do you know about the carousel?”
He raised an eyebrow. “You mean about there being half a dozen desperate criminals, stripped of their names and their memories, bound into six of the animals by the Wise, who want to see if and how the Changing Land’ll change them for the better?” He snorted. “Yeah, I know about the merry-go-round, Kate.”
“Okay.” I sighed. “What actually happened is that the wards got ’way too thin—my fault—and the unicorn broke loose. It went after Anna. I tried to turn it with the knife I got off Mr. Nemeier’s hired hand yesterday, but my fencing’s rusty, and it knocked me down. Whereupon Anna, who thought the charm Gran had given her awhile back protected her from exactly such dangers, jumped between us—”
“And got herself all kinds of broke.” Borgan shook his head. “Most people, they see a unicorn come strolling off a merry-go-round? They either scream and run, or check themselves into Detox.”
I felt my lips twitch toward a smile. “Anna’s not most people.”
“That’s so,” Borgan murmured, and again, “that’s so.” He pushed out of his lean, hitched a hip onto the rail, and looked down at me, his eyes dark and ironical.
“You got a real gift for storytelling, by the way. Every tale you give out hints at six you haven’t. Makes it hard for a man to know where to start asking his questions.” He looked over my head and was silent for the beat of five, apparently considering his options, then nodded and looked back to me.
“The knife from Nemeier’s crewman,” he said. “I’m taking it that the lawyers weren’t able to settle everything out all nice and polite?”
“Henry can’t get the Boston lawyer on the phone. The message I got yesterday was that Mr. Nemeier wants me to fix the damage to his grass.” I touched my cheek, the skin smooth under my fingertips. “He cut me, as a reminder, and a promise of worse things to come, if I didn’t do what I was told.”
Borgan looked at me. Before I knew what he was about, he had his hand under my chin, tipping my face up to his. My heart slammed into overtime; I swallowed, and Borgan let me go.
“Seems to have healed clean,” he said.
“The land,” I managed, and he nodded.
“Can I take a look at that knife?”
“Sure.” I reached under my jacket and slipped it out of its nestle against my backbone, offering it to Borgan across my palm, like I’d been taught, hilt toward him.
He gave me a formal nod and picked it up, holding it like he knew what he was doing, which he probably did.
I watched as he sighted down the edge, and then weighed it in his hand, eyes half-closed.
“Turned unicorn horn with this, did you?” he asked eventually.
I nodded. “It’s a good knife.”
“So it is. How did you say you got it off him?”
“I didn’t. But if you must know, I kicked him in the balls.”
Borgan grinned, black eyes glinting. “Did you now? And what happened to him after?”
“He ran off.”
“That’s too bad.” He flipped the blade neatly and offered it to me, hilt first. “Keep it by. You never know when you might need a good knife.”
Right. I slipped it away into its sheath, and stood looking up at him.
“Borgan—”
He raised a hand and I stopped, waiting.
“Tell me,” he said, “about Tarva.”
I blinked, surprised. “Tarva? I told you, he was my friend.”
Borgan nodded, and moved his hand, silently inviting me to expand on that bare fact.
I shrugged. “When I was new here, Tarva showed me how things worked. Everything was a joke, but a friendly joke. I didn’t have to be on guard every second in case somebody wanted to kill me, or . . .” In fact, Tarva had shown me that it was still possible to have fun, to laugh, and . . . to care in spite of everything that had happened.
“He taught me to swim,” I told Borgan.
He looked startled, and I threw my hands up in exasperation. Everybody—Gran, Nerazi, Mr. Ignat’, and, yes, Tarva—had been astonished and amused to find out that I hadn’t known a doggy paddle from a dalmatian when I arrived in Archers Beach.
“Yes, I was born into a House of the Sea, but I never learned how to swim, all right? There wasn’t any need for me to learn how to swim. No sea in the Land of the Flowers would have hurt Princess Kaederon, for fear of what Aeronymous—my grandfather—would do if they had.” I looked out over Kinney Harbor, then back to Borgan.
“The Atlantic Ocean, on the other hand, doesn’t give a damn if I live or I die. I’ve always liked that about it.”
Borgan tipped his head. “I think you’ll find the sea cares more than you suppose,” he said quietly. “Why did you kill him?”
My temper flared, and I embraced it, giving him the best glare I had in me.
“I don’t think that’s any of your business.”
“I think it is,” he returned placidly, and crossed his arms over his chest. Waiting.
My first impulse was to let him wait until the ocean froze, but, dammit, I needed his help. Today.
“Just an overview’d be fine,” Borgan murmured.
I shook my head, lifted my hands and let them fall, defeated.
“Sure—an overview. Tarva used to think it was a barrel of giggles to steal fish out of nets. One guy—Dan Bentley, his name was. Dan, in particular, took the joke bad—real bad—which, y’know, only added to the spice, as far as Tarva was concerned. He was having so much fun with the man, he’d shift and go up to Neptune’s at the end of the day just to ask him how many fish he’d caught for the seal . . .”
I let it drift off, remembering how I’d tried to talk him into cutting the guy some slack. But Tarva only laughed at me, and the other guys started to take up the joke, while Dan got madder and madder until even the land took note, which was when—
“I decided the best thing to do was to force Tarva to leave the guy alone, so I—” My voice squeezed out. I swallowed and took a breath. Borgan waited, calm and relaxed against the rail.
“It didn’t do any good to talk to him,” I whispered. “So, I used High Magic to override his will, and—and set him under a geas not to hurt Dan Bentley, which stealing his fish surely did.” I shook my head.
“Trouble was, that didn’t stop Dan Bentley from hurting Tarva. He came into Neptune’s one night, already drunk, and madder’n hell. The fish hadn’t come to his net that day, or the day before, and he was feeling the bite. Tarva didn’t say anything to him—not that night. He couldn’t. But he was there, and all it took was Dan seeing him. He pulled a knife, and Tarva—” I swallowed. “Tarva couldn’t fight back. Because of me, of what I’d forced on him. He was dead when the other guys pulled Dan off him.” I looked out over the harbor; the schooner was quiet at her mooring now, as if dancing had tired her out.
“Hmm,” said Borgan. “And that was your fault, was it? Your death?”
“It is,” I said, still watching the boat. “And worse. I know what it feels like to be under someone else’s will—to watch my hand move, and not be able to stop it, or change its intent. I—I swore I’d never do that to anyone, and my friend—” I shook my head. “It’s proof that black blood will tell, no matter that I
’d learned better. Proof that the land—and the people I cared about—would be better off without me.”
“And so you cut yourself off from Archers Beach and went out to the dry lands to die,” Borgan said, his voice shockingly matter-of-fact.
“That’s right. And I almost made it, too.” I turned my head to look up into his face, which was politely noncommittal. “Then Gran went missing and I had to come back, and there’s a decade’s worth of dying all gone to waste.”
Borgan’s lips twitched—a smile, I was pretty sure. “So, what is it you want from me, besides a cup of coffee?”
“I want you to act as my safety line, while I meld with the land and look for my grandmother.”
He looked over my head. “That’s a lot,” he said, softly. “A lot to ask, Kate.”
“I know it is. But it has to be done soonest and you’re—” I closed my mouth before what’s available escaped.
Borgan snorted lightly, as if he’d heard what I hadn’t said, and it amused him.
“So,” he said, still looking out to sea, “what do you know about me?”
“I know you’re trenvay,” I said slowly. “That you’re powerful. And old.” The last one was a surprise, then wasn’t, as I thought about it.
“How d’you figure old?” he asked.
“I didn’t,” I told him truthfully. “The land knew.”
“Hmm. And powerful?”
“You ranked yourself with Nerazi, and that’s plenty powerful for me.”
“I did say that, didn’t I?” He looked down into my face. “Any idea what I am?”
“What—” I blinked, and waited, but this time the land had nothing to tell me, aside that it was beyond delighted with its good friend Borgan. I fielded my best guess.
“A selkie.” I put light fingers on his leather sleeve, snatching them away almost immediately, heart racing.
If Borgan felt a reciprocal jolt, I couldn’t tell it from his face.
“That’s a good guess,” he said and pushed out of his lean to stand tall before me. “Kate.”
I looked up into his eyes, and even the land quietened for a second or two.
“Understand what you’re taking on. You’ll have to trust me. Maybe as hard, or harder—you’ll have to trust you. Now’s the time to ask yourself, Can I do this?”
“I have to do it,” I said, and felt the land bolstering my resolve. “It’s not going to be pretty if those animals get loose. I don’t have enough jikinap left to light a cigarette—hell, frying a strip of grass almost finished me. If I don’t find Gran now, I’ll have to try to pull in an Ozali from another of the Six Worlds, which is not optimum, or I’ll need to ask Nerazi to call on the Wise, which is so much less than optimum that words pale.”
Borgan grinned. “Got a real respect for authority, don’t you?”
“The trouble with the Wise is that you never know what they’re going to do, or if they’ll unilaterally decide that there wouldn’t be a problem if they just remove the person who called them in from the equation.”
“They are a thought whimsical,” Borgan agreed, and shrugged. “All right, Kate, I’ll stand watch for you. Choose the ground.”
I nodded, having previously thought of this.
“It’s up in the middle of town,” I said, apologetically.
“That’s all right. I can use some exercise.” He waved me ahead of him. “Lead on, pretty lady.”
SIXTEEN
Saturday, April 22
Up in the more or less middle of town, there’s a park—a couple benches, a sundial, a few maples with daffodils planted ’round their feet. It’s the site of the old Archer homestead. There used to be a plaque there saying so, but it vanished years ago, and the town never bothered to replace it. The Garden Club takes care of mowing the lawn and seeing to the flowers, and it used to be that the guy across the street would rake the leaves in the fall. Maybe he still does.
With a good four blocks of buildings to keep the sea breeze at bay, it was positively warm on the old home land. I took off my jacket—and Borgan sucked his breath in through his teeth.
I threw him a glance over my shoulder.
“Problem?”
Wordlessly, he opened his fingers, and I obediently spread the jacket out between my two hands. The drape was a little off, what with the unicorn’s mods. Borgan shook his head.
“Came within a quarter inch of being skewered,” he said. “You didn’t think to mention that?”
“I told you my fencing’s rusty,” I said defensively, “and besides, it missed.”
“It’s an inch that’s as good as a mile, Kate. You start dealing in fractions and the odds get jittery.”
“It wasn’t my idea of a good time,” I snapped. “And I suppose you never took a risk in your life.”
“There’s a fine thing to suppose about the man you just asked to keep you from doing something hugely stupid,” he retorted, and I laughed, turning away to drop the ruins of my jacket at the base of the sundial.
Three o’clock, according to the pointer—the sundial doesn’t do daylight savings time. I bent down and brushed the grit from the brass face, my fingers tracing the cast letters:
There’s always time for magic.
Right.
Sighing, I folded my legs and sat on the damp grass, squinting up at Borgan, standing above me with the sun over his shoulder.
“Ready?” I asked.
“That’s me should be asking you.” He sighed and sat across from me, effortlessly cross-legged, jacket on his knee, and extended his hands, palms up. I put my hands on his, and yanked back, breath hissing, the land yammering and jumping, pulling at my attention like a kitchen full of puppies.
“Kate?”
I pushed the land down and told it to sit, and took a second to sort myself out before looking into Borgan’s eyes.
“Could you turn it off, please?” I asked politely.
“It?”
“The glamor. I’m not going to be able to do this at all if I’m thinking about how nice it would be to kiss you.” Borgan lifted an eyebrow, and I added a hasty, “For instance.”
“Hadn’t thought of that,” he said. “Though I think it would be nice to kiss you, too. Time and a place for everything, I guess. Let’s see what I can do . . .” He closed his eyes, and I had a sudden sense of departure from the land, as if the rather substantial person sitting on the grass before me was nothing more than a shell.
For the space of three long breaths, he sat perfectly still, and as far as the land was concerned, absent. Then he sighed, opened his eyes, and held his hands out once more.
“Try now,” he said.
Tentatively, I extended my hands.
There was a tiny frisson of energy just before our palms touched, then only warmth, skin to skin.
I closed my eyes, and the land snatched at me, overloading my senses with color, taste, smell; I saw Archers Beach laid out beneath me, gull’s eye view; felt the satisfaction of a rose in the sun, the simple contentment of wind-brushed grass—
Gasping, drowning in sensation, I pulled back, struggling into my own head, opened my eyes—and saw Borgan watching me, a frown on his broad face.
“Might be time to ask that question again,” he said quietly. “Can you do this?”
I took a deep breath, tasting grass, salt, and leaf. “I have to do this,” I said, as firmly as I could. Borgan shook his head.
“Have to isn’t can,” he said.
Which was true enough. But—
“I’m out of practice, that’s all. The land took my pledge when I was a kid, with a serious amount of magical education in my immediate past. I didn’t even have to think about how to handle the bond. Just give me a minute to get the hang of it again.”
“All the minutes you want,” he said calmly, and tipped his head. “If you’ll take advice, it might be reasonable to just go with the flow. Remember, I’m holding you, and I won’t let you get lost.”
It was an absurd
thing to say, and absurdly comforting to hear. I gave him a smile and took a breath.
“Once more,” I whispered, “into the breach.”
The greeting was more restrained this time, as if the land had understood the need for a little moderation. I went slowly, like wading into the surf until the undertow takes you, and sweeps you out to sea.
I couldn’t have isolated the moment when it happened. Suddenly, I wasn’t aware of the land’s presence as a separate component inside my head, that was all. I was vast, and green, and limitless. I was marsh and rock. I was all of the trees on Heath Hill and every crumb of thin, sandy soil. Leaves and trash tumbled across my back and the wind combed the grasses of my hair.
There were voices all about me, the voices of those who were sustained by the land. I held myself as still as I might, listening for one voice, particular and unmistakeable . . . and not hearing it.
What I did hear, though, was—static, call it, like when you put the car radio on “search” and the scan hits a spot where there ought to be a station, but it’s out of range. There was, now that I was in a position to hear it, a lot of static.
A lot of static.
The last time I had melded with the land, years ago, there had been two spots that were off the air: The Boundary Stone, that divided Surfside and Archers Beach.
And Googin Rock.
I concentrated, trying to isolate each empty band; to count—one . . . three . . . five . . .
Nine.
Just above the fizz of static, I heard something else. A wailing and a crying, hopeless and maybe not completely mad. And I was wrong—the static was there, too, fizzing along the far edges of agony.
I focused—and performed the analog of opening my eyes.
My attention was immediately drawn toward the northern salt marsh. I went willingly, struggling to see in a black-and-gray mist—a sort of visual static—tasting mud, foul and thick. I moved closer yet, the marsh’s pain dinning in my ears. Black tendrils whipped out of the mist, wrapped around my essence, pulling me down into itself, as if—
I snapped to a halt, with a sensation like a rope tightening around the waist of my simple human body. The black tendrils fell away, wailing, and I rose into the melding of place and spirit that was Archers Beach.
