by Sharon Lee
Mr. Ignat’s power was visibly depleted, the hearth fire guttering and pale. Ramendysis, by contrast, burned as bright or brighter than before; undiminished by his reckless expenditure of power.
Ramendysis smiled.
“Forgive me, but it seems you have a limited reserve. Would it not be best to husband your resources? You know you cannot stand against me. What is an old oath to the loss of your life and the death of your child?”
He flicked his fingers, tossing another working negligently into the growing pile, where it was skewered in its turn.
“When your last sliver of power is gone into my net, what then, Belignatious?”
“An excellent question,” Mr. Ignat’ answered. “Shall we find out?”
Might one break silence to point out that you are unprotected and unchampioned, Keeper? The batwing’s thought was strained; I could almost hear it stamping its dainty hooves in distress.
And what it said was certainly true. I was wide open. I should, I thought, do something about that.
Across from me, Ramendysis shook his head, lightning threading his thundercloud curls.
“This grows tiresome,” he said, and lifted his hands.
Power swirled and flowed between his palms, more power and even more, forming a great, sticky mass, gray touched with pink, like the sky before a thunderstorm, and laced with smoking black threads. Elfshot. I could see its intent as clearly as if I’d built it myself. Released, the sticky mass would pass through the gaps and omissions in the larger workings as separate globules, each containing its tithe of poison. It would stick to whatever it touched, and it would burn, and burn—and, eventually, kill.
Magical napalm.
Trapped between the bars of jikinap, Mr. Ignat’ took a breath, foreknowing his doom.
Ramendysis paused, the ball spinning between his palms, and tipped his head.
“One more chance. Old friend. Where is the Opal?”
Mr. Ignat’ shook his head, golden hair crackling.
Ramendysis released the working.
The Word flamed out of my throat, burning my tongue; the bomb fried in mid-flight, charred bits drifting in the unsteady air.
Ramendysis didn’t bother to turn. I saw him raise a finger—then I stumbled as a blade of pure energy swept out of the ether, thick with jikinap and ablaze with malice.
I parried clumsily. The next strike came as a hammer blow, and again I barely turned it. My blood was hot now. I yearned to contest against Ramendysis fully, I wanted to crack him open, suck the power out of him, and become, become—
To me! the batwing screamed between my ears. To me, as you love your life and your land!
I jumped for the carousel, smelled ozone, and leapt astride the batwing’s back.
“Go!” I yelled, and cut the ties that bound it.
THIRTY-EIGHT
Thursday, April 27
The batwing threw itself into the air, heading straight for a distressingly solid metal wall. I shouted a Word; the metal went to mist; leather wings swept down—and we were outside, airborne, and climbing, in starlight almost as bright as day.
He will pursue us.
“Good. We want him to pursue us.”
Do we? If this is your unruly blood speaking, Little Ozali—
Far below us, the roof of the carousel enclosure vanished in a blast of sleet, and Ramendysis was rising, a dust devil his steed, and lightnings in his hands.
Your wish is answered. Now what?
Good question. Memory replayed Borgan’s voice: Thought I’d best be on the sea, in case . . .
Keeper? The batwing’s thought was sharp enough to cut.
“Go out—over the ocean,” I said.
The batwing turned neatly, furled its wings, and angled downward, right under the noses of the dust devil and its master. Lightning knifed around us; I smelled scorched hair in the racing air, then only the complex scents of the sea.
I flattened myself along the slender neck, my fingers twisted in the silken mane.
“Skim the surface,” I panted into a back-swept ear; “as close as you dare. Go north.”
The sea rose with dreadful speed, and behind us came Ramendysis upon his beast. Power flared all around, and a jikinap net formed on the surface of the waves.
“Watch out!” I yelled, but my mount had already taken evasive action: A strong beat of the wide wings, and we were up, in the middle air again, and blasting north at approximately the speed of sound. Behind us, Ramendysis was gaining.
“You see that notch in the shore up ahead at eleven o’clock?”
Yes . . .
“That’s a creek. Follow it inland.”
’Ware!
The batwing twisted in mid-flight, and the net fell past, its strands woven with elfshot. Ramendysis was so close I saw him smile.
Too close.
I snatched power into my hands and hurled it like a softball, directly at that hateful smile. Ramendysis raised a negligent hand and absorbed the blast, laughing—and then not, as a black shape whisked out of the star-mantled sky, directly into his face, talons raking and cruel beak slashing.
Mr. Ignat’s bird. Arbalyr.
“Go!” I yelled, but the batwing needed no encouragement from me. Leather wings thundered as they cut the air, thrusting north with a vengeance.
I dared a quick glance over my shoulder as we skated messily into the mouth of Carson Creek. Ramendysis was some distance back, his mount at a stand, patterns of power stitching the night sky in what I hoped was a vain attempt to ensnare the bird.
Carson Creek is a twisty snake of a waterway, and the batwing flew the course with all the panache of a veteran stunt car driver, arriving at Heron Marsh with no pursuit yet in sight.
“Hover over that clump of salt hay, there,” I directed. “And don’t make any sudden moves. I’ve got to visit a friend.”
I thrust my will into the marsh, not caring about the noise or the rude disturbance, and as I expected, the mad trenvay rose to meet me.
The water freshens, Guardian.
“Good,” I said. “One comes behind me. He would see you strangled, the marsh filled and the small lives slain.”
What would you have me do?
“Everything that is in your power.”
There was a small silence, while the trenvay weighed his indebtedness, then—
Guardian, I will do all that I might.
“Do that, and your debt is canceled,” I said, and would have added something more about the nature of our pursuer, but a familiar voice interrupted me.
He comes! He rides on the back of the wind!
I hurled myself into my body, retching with the suddenness of it, snatching the silky mane, which had to have hurt, but the batwing made no complaint. Wind gusted, throwing dust and debris into our faces. Beneath us, the weeds and reeds flattened, and the sluggish water showed white-capped waves. My mount danced back a few nervous, mid-air steps.
“Steady . . .” I murmured, and threw a hand up to shield my eyes as Ramendysis blasted into the marsh.
Kaederon . . . the batwing implored.
“Steady . . .” I answered, like my stomach wasn’t tied into fifteen knots, and the kid who had been his plaything wasn’t gibbering at the back of my mind, screaming at me to run, run, hide!
A gout of black slime erupted from the depths of the marsh, coating Ramendysis in an instant, tightening into a tentacle. The wind steed bucked, roaring like a locomotive. Encased in slime, Ramendysis twisted, one white hand breaking free, power sparking along his fingertips, an edge of violet light, growing.
Another tentacle burst from the depths, wrapped ’round that slender hand. Ramendysis shouted something I couldn’t hear above the roar of the wind. If it was a Word, though, it missed its mark—and in a blink he was gone, sucked under, vanished within the embrace of tentacles, the flare and flash of incomplete workings shredded on the violent air.
I took a breath, tasting dust and ozone, and said, quite calmly, “Beg
one.”
The wind died; the murky waters stilled.
Batwings beat, one . . . two . . . three.
I counted, slowly, to one hundred.
Beneath us, the marsh was calm, the reeds in their small groupings, upright, and the peepers took up their interrupted chorus.
Is the deed so easily done, then?
“I’m not sure,” I admitted. “I don’t think we can bury him so deep he’ll never get out. He’s just too powerful. And I wouldn’t sleep real sound, knowing he was underfoot.” I took a breath, tasting the musk of weeds and mud. “What I’m hoping is that he had to go back across the Wall to disengage. Give us some time to regroup.”
Regroup? I have knowledge of your allies, Little Ozali. What do you imagine they might do to thwart so cruel and determined a mage?
“Damned if I know.” I sighed, contemplating the quiet waters of the marsh. The smart money said that Eltenfleur wasn’t going to be able to hold Ramendysis long. The trenvay altogether hadn’t been able to thwart him. “We’ll have to call the Wise, is what?”
And the Wise, the batwing said delicately, will do—what?
Well, that was always the question, wasn’t it, with the Wise. I sighed again.
“Let’s get out of here.”
A sweep of wings and we were rising, the swamp and its secrets shrinking below us.
What direction?
“Back to the carousel,” I said, and tensed for an argument.
But all I got from the batwing was a courteous, Of course.
* * *
The light inside the storm gates was an unsettling shade of violet, rippling off the jikinap bars in pulsating sheets. Ozali Belignatious looked up from inside the cage—and visibly relaxed.
“Well met, Pirate Kate.”
I slid off the batwing’s back, and threw a glance around.
Beside the nasty illumination, everything seemed all right. The protective ring of trees still stood at the back of the enclosure, Arbalyr the not-quite-phoenix roosting in the topmost branch of the tallest. I sighed in relief, and bowed when he cocked a bright eye at me.
“Thank you,” I said.
He closed his eye, and I turned back to the trap and its contents.
“Thought you’d be out of there by now,” I said to Mr. Ignat’.
“Alas, there is far too much power in the working,” he murmured, and I saw then that he was sweating. “It yearns to consume me—which it will do, and speedily, if I dare try to absorb it.”
I blinked. “You’re Ozali—”
“I was Ozali,” he corrected me. “I am an empty vessel, Pirate Kate—or near enough. If I wish to re-establish myself, I must take small bites, over time. Such a feast as this will surely end me.”
He speaks sooth, the batwing murmured between my ears. Lesser power yields to greater.
“What about the flask?” I asked.
“I have it,” he said, and I could hear the strain in his voice. “Do you counsel me to throw a match into a gas tank?”
Right.
His will wavers.
It certainly seemed so. As I watched, the bars contracted. The Ozaliflame closed his eyes.
“Tell me what to do,” I said, and watched in horror as the bars contracted again; the nearest barely a cat’s whisker away from a leather sleeve. “Mr. Ignat’!”
He didn’t answer me.
Lesser power yields to greater, the batwing said again. You have the means, Little Ozali. Do you have the heart?
“What do you mean?”
A feast lies before you, in all ways suitable to your station.
Despite its recent assistance, the batwing horse had good cause to want me incinerated. It had every reason to lie. I did know that.
On the other hand, I couldn’t think of anything else to do.
Except stand there and watch him die.
I swallowed, and took three steps forward.
The air crackled as the jikinap took note of me, and my power rose to meet it.
I held my gloved hands before me, opening my fingers wide. Think you can take me? I thought, watching the bars of the cage twist and reorient, seeking, as power always does, to merge with more of itself.
“Come on . . .” I heard myself croon, and at the same moment felt a weight settle on my left shoulder, and the prick of claws against my skin. Arbalyr, throwing in with the challenger.
I just hoped I wasn’t about to get us all fried.
Black lightning leapt from the power caging Mr. Ignat’. From my fingers, an electric blue bolt leapt to meet it. The air ignited even as I drew a breath to scream. My blood flared and the world vanished, lost in a crazy electric dazzle. I was caught, unanchored, bodiless, one spinning spark in a vortex of power—
Knives pierced my shoulder. I gasped; clung to the pain, embraced it—and so found my body, and my mind.
The knives in my shoulder became claws. The air I drew into parched lungs carried the tang of the sea. I was on my knees on the concrete floor. Directly before me a bright haired man with red mustaches stood unrestrained and free. I gasped at a sudden shove, and gasped again as a fiery bird flamed into the air, beating upward until it passed through the roof and was lost to sight.
I took deep, deliberate breath. Hungry . . . I was so hungry.
“Katie!”
Power flickered feebly against my skin. A tithe of my own flowed outward, to capture and consume—
“Command yourself, Pirate Kate. You’ll not be unmanned by such a scurvy strike as that.”
Damn’ straight I wouldn’t, I thought laboriously, closing my eyes as I struggled to impose my will, to control my hunger, to remain in control. The jikinap; I’d taken too much, I—
I wasn’t hungry.
Cautiously, I raised my head, tasting blueberries, or maybe fiddleheads. In the back of my head, the land purred like a contented Maine coon cat.
“Excellent,” Mr. Ignat’ said approvingly. “Now, look at me.”
I opened my eyes and focused on his face.
He was smiling, the blue flames dancing in his eyes.
“Thank you, Katie,” he said.
“I’m not sure you’re welcome,” I said, slowly coming to my feet. It was nothing short of amazing, how well I felt. “We left Ramendysis in the marsh, but that’s not going to hold him long. Gran needs to call the Wise.”
He shook his head. “That might not be to the best good, Katie.”
“We’ve got no choice,” I snapped. “Ramendysis is the one who’s tearing up the place, against Law, custom, and the Word of the Wise. They’re gonna throw the book at him.”
“We daren’t risk Nessa,” he said, simply, and I felt suddenly not quite so well.
Ramendysis would claim Nessa had been stolen from him—as, indeed, she had been. There was nothing that the Wise could do, except find that she be returned to his care. She had, after all, given him her soul.
“Mr. Ignat’—”
’Ware! A storm rises from the north!
Hailstones hammered against my greatly enhanced senses, and I lurched to my feet.
“Get Gran and Mother to the Wood!” I yelled at Mr. Ignat’ and threw myself across the batwing’s back. “We’ll pull him off!”
The batwing danced under me.
“Katie!”
Leather wings boomed, and we were airborne. I looked down in time to see Mr. Ignat’ throw something that flashed silver upward. The wall was ’way too close; I shouted a Word, caught the flask, and shoved it into my pocket as we rocketed into the night.
Power bloomed around us like fireworks, boxing us inside bars of living fire. The wind blew down the stars, and here came Ramendysis, a working of compulsion and servitude hanging like a lariat from his fingertips.
“Shit.”
I brought my attention closer, grasped the structure of our prison and threw power against it, meaning to destroy.
Only the bars didn’t shrivel under my assault; they drank what I used against them, growi
ng stronger with every strike.
“Princess Kaederon,” Ramendysis crooned, and raised his hand to me, as if inviting my company in a dance. “You may yield.”
I do NOT yield!
The batwing threw itself forward. I wrapped my arms around its neck—and a good thing, too. Sharp hooves battered the fiery bars of jikinap as if they had physical being. Ramendysis shouted, and I felt the night swell with the speaking of a Word, but the batwing was having none of it.
One last kick and we were out, free; flying for our lives and more. The wind roared and capered, hurling trash, stones, and broken glass at us. I was as flat as I could be, bleeding from a dozen cuts, and there was blood mixing with sweat on the batwing’s silver neck. Gasping, I brought power into my hands, and hurled a fireball into the teeth of the wind.
Enough! Would you feed him still more?
The metal maze that was the Galaxi’s framework loomed before us, and we were zooming straight for it.
I took a deep breath. Held it.
The batwing horse furled its wings and shot into the maze, weaving expertly between the metal struts. It seemed that the wind died somewhat, and I dared a glance over my shoulder.
The good news: Ramendysis had fallen behind.
The bad news: He was rising above the maze.
“The ocean!” I yelled into the batwing’s ear. “Now!”
Obediently, it banked, rising as I fought to keep my seat.
Up we went, and out, the wind screaming like a freight train behind us. I snatched the flask from my pocket, pulled the cork with my teeth and spat it out.
Lightning flared to the right. The batwing never slowed.
I brought the flask to my lips, and drank.
Thunder roared. Ahead and down, the reflected stars sparkled and swelled.
My steed folded its wings—and fell.
Beneath us, the ocean . . . shrugged.
Leather wings snapped out, clawing us to a stop, the batwing dancing backward on panicked hooves, while the water shrugged once more, surged . . .
And rose.
A hundred feet and more, it rose, a skyscraper lifting out of the ocean, water sheeting from it in truckloads. Snout, flukes and tail, it rose, toothy maw gaping.
