Rise of the Reaper

by Lorna Reid

  ‘Yes. This is pretty amazing.’

  ‘It’s weird to think that this was always here, that we were so close to …’ Katrina waved her hand, trying to sum up the extent of everything and failing, ‘… to whatever all this is, to what we could do and see and experience.’

  ‘The magic?’

  ‘Just … everything. I mean, look at all this!’

  Poppy leaned beside her and they looked out over the side of the Gatehouse. From this vantage point, they could see gentle grassy slopes running down to a distant border hedge that towered upward, perhaps thirty feet, and which stretched away back toward the woods where, somewhere, the portal home lay.

  The nothingness beyond the hedge fascinated Poppy. There was no sea, no distant rolling hills, no cities hunkered on the horizon; there was just a swirl of endless, impenetrable mist, shot through with a palette of colours – colours that represented every known strand of magic, according to Thom.

  ‘What do you think would happen if you went out there?’ Katrina said.

  ‘You’d die, probably. It’s impossible anyway. We tried, when we were your age.’ Thom leaned beside them and looked out over the hedge.

  ‘A magical infinity – and in the middle of it floats this place. Alone, but not. Connected to every Land, both known and forgotten, but isolated at the same time.’

  ‘It makes you sad?’ Poppy saw the flicker of emotion in his face: regret, even bitterness.

  ‘Yes. It’s more self-pity.’ He smiled. Poppy was about to ask what he meant when Danny shouted from further along the rooftop.

  ‘There they are!’

  Poppy looked down to see Jen and Pete emerging onto a paved area below, not far from a track worn in the grass, wearing dark cloaks and carrying packs. Everyone waved except Thom, who emptied the water bottle he’d been carrying over the edge.

  Pete yelped, barely dodging it in time, and Jen cackled, having darted back out of the way. A barrage of swearing drifted upwards and then there was a flash of green light. The earth around Pete shot up, creating a stream of dirt that rocketed past the parapet and rained down on Thom, who yelled and scrubbed his hair, tugging his shirt out and flapping the ends.

  ‘That went down the back of my bloody neck, Pete!’ he yelled down, a grin plastered over his face. He got the finger and a wicked laugh in reply, and then, with a wave, Peter and Jen hurried down the slopes toward the hedge. They paused at what looked like any other part of the hedge, waved one last time and, with a shimmer of light, were gone.

  *

  Poppy drew a deep breath, allowing the cool air to flood her lungs, wishing it would numb the rest of her. She shuffled to get comfortable on the plush velvet window seat of the chambers they had moved to for their stay, playing idly with the charms on her bracelet. In the far part of the cosy sitting room, amid the jumble of tables, bookcases, and deep armchairs, gentle light from the magical wall sconces threw a comforting mantle over a somewhat happier atmosphere.

  Laughter, squeaks of excitement, and chatter pervaded as Katrina and the others took advantage of Thom’s blend of congeniality and willingness to show off and coaxed him into more and more daring and bombastic magical displays while he fielded questions with ease.

  Ordinarily Poppy would be in the thick of things, but she’d lost her taste for adventure, and her thirst for knowledge had dried up the more she’d spoken with her mother. Living with her father’s death all these years had been hard, but not as hard as it suddenly was now.

  Finding out more about him was like rediscovering him, only to lose him all over again. No amount of talk of awards and heroics, great leadership and swordsmanship, magical prowess and respect would bring him back. It made it hurt all the more, made that empty place inside her feel cavernous.

  ‘Was dinner that awful?’

  Poppy jumped, not having heard Thom approach. Bare feet on a stone floor was certainly an effective way of sneaking up on someone. He grinned and perched opposite her, humour still tugging at the corners of his mouth, but being eroded by concern.

  ‘Yeah. I guess so.’ She tried a smile, but failed miserably.

  ‘You spoke to your mum?’ he asked.

  Poppy nodded.

  ‘She told you about your dad?’

  Poppy nodded again, and felt any words she had burn in her throat. Before the first tear rolled under her chin, Thom had pulled her gently into his arms. She started to sob.

  She didn’t know how long he let her cry before he spoke, but his voice was soft, spoken into the ear nearest the window, so that she didn’t have to share her grief.

  ‘I loved him so much. I understand how hard this must all be. Like losing him all over again.’

  Poppy sniffed, hoping she wasn’t getting snot on his shirt.

  ‘Just know that he was a good man. A great man. What he did at Crowmount, keeping those portals open as long as he did for the retreat, saved countless lives and enabled us to gather enough fragments of the Ianuan Soul Core to keep them out of enemy hands and to seal Ianua, ending the war.’

  Poppy’s throat burned and she tried to stave off the pain.

  ‘The Soul Core is the magical focus, the heart of a Land? I think that’s what Mum said.’

  Thom nodded. ‘If you control it, you control the Land and its magic. We tried to destroy it to stop the Darklanders getting it, but we failed. It shattered but retained its power. We took what we could.’

  ‘Dad had help with the portals, Mum said.’ Poppy wiped her eyes and looked up at him. It was Thom’s turn to fall silent. He merely nodded. ‘You and he worked together to hold them open while Company Thirteen made their last stand.’ Something flickered in Thom’s eyes. Pain? He looked away a moment, composing himself.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You were both terribly injured; Pete and Jen pulled you both through as the final portal closed but …’ Her voice broke and tears flooded back into already-stinging eyes.

  ‘It was a split second too late for John, and almost for me.’ Thom looked away, out into the darkness for a moment, finding some kind of relief from the cool breeze. ‘I don’t know if Josie told you, but the Gateway is … it’s different. The magic here is ancient, powerful, arcane. This place, it’s like there’s no death here. I came here on the brink and it caught me. It was too late for John.’

  ‘Mum said it is why you became the Gatekeeper. You got stuck in the magic.’

  A fragment of a smile drifted to his mouth. ‘It’s like when it caught me on the thin edge of death, it bound me. It saved my life, but I’m not really free to truly live.’ A twinge of bitterness seeped into his voice.

  ‘You’re trapped here?’

  ‘In a sense. I can leave, just not for weeks on end. It drains me to be away too long.’

  ‘You must feel like a prisoner,’ she said.

  Thom nodded. ‘Yes. I tell myself every day, though, as miserable as it makes me, I was the luckier one. A moment more, and John would still be here too. Not a day goes by where I don’t miss him.’

  Poppy swallowed the rest of her grief and sat up, folding a tissue to run under her eyes and catch the escaping makeup while Thom fished in the pocket of his jeans. He pulled out a neat blue leather book and handed it to her.

  ‘Here. Thought you may like this. I’ll leave you to it. I’ve left the others playing with a magical blow-top. Some of the random effects can be iffy.’

  She looked over to see the others clustered around what appeared to be a spinning top that was glowing and pulsing as it danced on a cushion of magic. It suddenly jerked to a halt and spat out a cluster of tiny glowing butterflies that swooped around Danny’s head before vanishing.

  ‘Doesn’t seem so bad,’ said Poppy.

  ‘Your dad made it. Trust me, there will be some pranky, dodgy stuff in there that he would have found hilarious,’ Thom said. Just as he went to stand, the top stopped again and a green cloud puffed up in Russell’s face. He spluttered and coughed and started retching; Katrina and Danny did
n’t know whether to laugh or panic.

  ‘Aw fuck, Jack’s going to kill me.’ Thom dashed over as Russell clutched his mouth and ran to the window. Poppy turned back to the book and ran her hands over the ornate, embossed design in the leather and cracked it open, enjoying the sweet smell.

  Her father stared up at her and her gaze swept over him, absorbing the bright blue eyes, short, lazily spiked blonde hair, strong jaw, and huge, easy smile. Sandwiched between Peter and Thom, he grinned up at the camera from a grassy bank, dressed the same as Jack had been, albeit with a more laid-back air to him.

  Suddenly, the past leapt into focus and she knew that while there was still more to discover, he wasn’t gone. She shut out the sound of Russell retching out of the window and buried herself in her father’s past, letting him come to life.

  Chapter 6

  ◊

  KATRINA YAWNED AND RUBBED at her eyes, which were irritated by the late night and the morning light, and tried once again to focus on breakfast. She’d already half buttered her hand rather than her toast. Before going to bed, she’d pestered Thom for books on magic and the Lands, and he had obliged with a stack of recommend titles. She and Russell had divided them up between them and, between the books, the excitement, and her mind churning and processing everything, she hadn’t slept well. Russell, it seemed, was in the same boat, and he returned her sleepy grin from across the large, round kitchen table.

  ‘You had a copy of that Brief History of Magic, too?’ he asked, sliding the jam over to her and frowning as most of her knifeful slid off and plopped onto the table before she could get it onto her toast.

  ‘Yeah. It was hard to put down,’ she said, dabbing at the dark, polished wood with a napkin. ‘Didn’t know what they were on about a lot of the time, but it’s a question of filling in the gaps. It’s just hard to know where to start; what do we try and learn about first? Lands, history, magic?’

  ‘Or something interesting,’ muttered Danny, picking sleep from his eyes and sitting down. He grabbed the biggest bowl he could find and fished among the miniature cereal boxes before wandering off to riffle, unabashed, through one of Thom’s cupboards.

  ‘We can always ask Thom,’ Russell said, ignoring Danny’s remark and glancing at the man who was busy at the cooker, unconcerned about Danny fishing packets and jars out of a cupboard and carrying them back to the table.

  Katrina smeared jam around her toast and took a bite, looking around the large room as she considered Russell’s suggestion. The kitchen was cosy and had a warm feeling that was more about the reddish stone floor, cream plaster walls, and old mismatched furniture than the actual warmth.

  A dark, polished stone countertop idled along the length of one wall and beneath the windows, atop country-style wooden cupboards and drawers, some of which were missing handles and doors. The large chunky cooker, of sorts, where Thom stood, was nestled in a shallow alcove of exposed red stone, its heavy, soot-blackened top smothered in pans which bubbled and sizzled under some magical heat. Katrina had no idea how it worked, but there was a thick layer of brick between the stove top and the smudgy glass in the two oven doors, so she guessed they were separate.

  Odd-shaped bottles and jars filled with oils and other liquids, and strange – often brightly coloured – powders and herbs lined shelves above the work surface, while pots and pans hung from hooks on walls, among paintings and framed photos, or threatened to spill from some of the doorless cupboards.

  A large rope of garlic hung from a hook in the far corner beside a walk-in pantry, next to which was pinned a crude jokey drawing of what looked like Dracula. Katrina recognised her mother’s handiwork. Behind her, tucked into a large but snug-looking corner, was a lounge area, with several sofas and a large coffee table resting in front of a homely fireplace. Magazines and newspapers spilled everywhere but made it look more lived-in than messy. She felt at home and wished they could stay there all day.

  ‘What do you reckon?’ Russell asked, breaking her idle gaze.

  She nodded. ‘Yeah, could do. There’s some other stuff I was wondering, too.’ She frowned, trying to find a way of phrasing her question so that she didn’t seem like a baby. ‘I haven’t read anything yet about how you get magic, I mean, how you develop it.’ She swallowed, feeling his curiosity.

  ‘Told you, you’re born with it or you’re not.’ Thom smiled, setting down a large plate of bacon and eggs and sliding a serving spoon onto the table before taking his seat. ‘Anyway, coming here may have kick-started who knows what inside you. Just be patient.’

  His smile made Katrina blush, and she felt foolish.

  ‘It’s one of the first things both Pete and I asked John, so don’t feel silly,’ he said, pouring her a glass of fresh orange juice.

  Katrina smiled, feeling both a weight lift and a stab of excitement. Did that mean what she thought it did? She immediately imagined being able to breathe underwater, or incinerate everyone who had ever picked on her, or glide through walls.

  ‘Did you hear from Dad yet?’ Danny asked between spoonfuls of a disgusting cereal combination.

  ‘Not since the last time you asked in the hall, ten minutes ago.’ Thom grinned. ‘Got enough sliced banana in there, Dan?’ He pulled a face. ‘You eat more than your bloody father. You aren’t that tall, so it’s not exactly going into hollow legs.’

  ‘I am tall!’ Danny protested.

  Thom laughed and sipped his tea, avoiding a stray cereal hoop that Danny flicked at him.

  ‘That looks vile,’ commented Poppy, sitting down and pulling a face as Danny spooned up a mountain of fruit, cereal, honey, chocolate chips, cinnamon, and what looked like rainbow sprinkles.

  Russell watched in horror as he shovelled it away and gave Poppy a deliberately sticky smile. Katrina snorted. After all these years, you’d think Russell would be used to it, she thought. Danny’s palette was from another planet – he ate almost anything, and in the most bizarre combinations.

  Thom was clearly used to it, because he flicked an escaped raisin at Danny, shook his head and, with a smile, flipped open a newspaper to scan the headlines.

  Poppy craned to read the page and frowned over her toast. ‘Oracle murdered? Are those the ones who prophesied about the Cataclysm?’

  ‘Yes. Time Mages who developed their magic differently. Highly reclusive, powerful, and whose counsel is greatly sought after.’

  ‘One was killed?’ Katrina said. ‘Who would do that?’

  ‘Lots of people. You’d be surprised. An Oracle’s last prophecy is the most powerful. To some, that’s worth murder.’

  ‘Dad mentioned one yesterday. Has he seen one? Are they like psychics?’ Danny said, swallowing his mouthful and ripping up a piece of bread. ‘Can they tell us where Mum is?’

  ‘Yes, no, and no, not really.’ Thom gave up on his paper and sipped at his tea again. ‘Your dad saw a few when Niri and Blake went missing. A few of us did. It is a great honour to even be granted an audience with an Oracle. There was something about the magic … something blocking it. She couldn’t help.’

  Danny made a noise of disgust, earning a look of reproach from Russell. ‘Couldn’t you try another one?’

  ‘We did, not that it did much good.’

  ‘Would it make a difference now? Now that we know she’s alive and has that beacon thing? It would help Dad – she might give a better reading now.’

  ‘Look, they aren’t “readings”. And you don’t just roll up to an Oracle and expect her to unveil everything. It’s complicated,’ said Thom.

  Danny, however, clearly wasn’t giving up, and was scanning Thom’s paper. He waved his spoon, splashing milk and cereal hoops over the page. ‘Look, it says one is coming to the big city you mentioned, Lallial. The one Jen and Dad are stopping off in on their way to the tower. We could see her. Tell her what we know and—’

  ‘No,’ Thom snorted. ‘You’re going nowhere. Least of all to an Oracle.’

  ‘But she may know something about Mum. Now
that you’ve narrowed things down.’

  ‘No, Danny. We’ve already tried. And I can’t just waltz off, dragging you lot with me.’

  ‘Then go alone.’

  ‘I’m not exactly on speaking terms with her,’ Thom muttered. Poppy shot Katrina a quizzical look. Katrina grinned to herself; she could feel the gossip cogs turning in Poppy’s head.

  Thom flicked to the middle of the paper and began reading what looked like sports scores – something on water, judging by the pictures Katrina was able to see. Danny’s eyes narrowed and he glared down into his bowl. She shared an eye roll with Poppy and hoped this this hadn’t set the tone for the day.

  *

  After breakfast, Russell curled up with his book on one of the sofas by the empty fireplace, content to let Danny skulk around the kitchen and act like he wasn’t interested in the conversation as Poppy bombarded Thom with questions about her father, and Katrina asked about magic and swords.

  The others eventually drifted outside to enjoy the sun, and Russell had read perhaps two chapters when he felt someone sidle up beside him.

  ‘Hey,’ said Danny in a voice that was too casual to be innocent. Russell put the book down and prepared himself. The last time he’d heard a ‘hey’ like that, they’d been tasked to distract Peter while Danny stole a bottle of wine from the kitchen. Russell had never felt so sick as he had that evening, when they shared it, and Poppy’s endless giggling had given him a headache.

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘That’s bloody nice,’ Danny protested. Russell looked him square in the eyes. His hair was as messy as ever, the tips wet from a recent shower, and he was wearing a long-sleeved black top, despite the weather, with a line of thorns down one arm. He looked remarkably like his father.

  ‘Whatever it is, I’m not doing it.’ Russell went back to his book and tried to ignore him. Danny wasn’t the sort of person you could easily ignore, however, and Russell could feel his bright grey eyes burning into him.

  ‘Look, bugger off. I don’t want to get in trouble today. Thom’s taking us around the easily accessible parts of the Gateway and letting us play with that magical thing he told us about, the one that can tell you what magic you possess.’