by J. M. Frey
The Reader had the magic of the Viceroy inscribed on her bones, in her muscles, in her flesh. And while only the power of the Deal-Maker Spirits could rip a portal through the veil of the skies, the Viceroy was descended of one of the strongest; the weather witch who was his mother. His magic was Deal-Maker strong, and so were all the spells he had ever woven. He was a warlock in full possession of all the magic afforded to him by study and blood alike. That strength, that power, lived on in the corporeal essence of the Reader. Her husband could draw upon it—and so, too, could his maker, when he touched the Reader.
And so it was that the Writer placed his hand on the bare flesh of the Reader, cupping his palm over her scars and leeching the magic still held dormant there, releasing it, tapping it. And with that magic, that power, the Writer did what only a Deal-Maker had been able, in the past, to do.
He reached through the veil of the skies and pulled.
Through the rip stepped Kintyre Turn and Bevel Dom. They were attired for battle, armed with all their best and most treasured weapons and armor, and in the pocket of Kintyre’s jerkin, he carried a flask of the best dragon whiskey Drebbin had to offer. They came, ready to fight, ready to protect, ready to finish the final battle between good and evil. Ready to win.
“You complete, self-absorbed, narcissistic bastard,” I spit at him, shoving my fist and the crumpled paper under his nose. “What have you done?”
Elgar heaves Pip onto the bed, and she curls into a ball, clutching her head and moaning.
“How could you? How could you do that to her? How could you have promised to leave them be, to never Write of them again, and then—this!” There is a part of me—perhaps a Turnish part of me—that wants to throttle him. Instead, I fist my hands in his lapels and shake him, hard, as a compromise. “You fool!”
“You said!” Elgar gulps, hands up and around my wrists as if he fears I will move them onto his throat. “You just said that you wished that he was here! That you didn’t think you could . . . you could . . . I just can’t stand the waiting anymore.”
“Better than this!” I shout, my skin buzzing and my brain static and my ears half-stuffed with cotton. Betrayed! my mind screams. If Elgar had been one of my Shadow’s Men, I would have had him in the stocks in a trice.
“How dare you weaken us so! How dare you go behind—how dare!”
“I don’t want to die!” Elgar sobs, fingernails scratching at my wrists.
“You utter fool!” I repeat. “‘His magic was Deal-Maker strong’! Do you realize what you’ve done? What you’ve given back to him?”
“I didn’t—”
“You Wrote it, and you touched Pip, and you made it true. You called him strong! You called him powerful! You gave him everything that Pip took. If he had any binds left on his power, if he was constrained in any way before, you have removed those bindings!” I screech.
Behind us, the door to the main suite rattles, and Ahbni calls through the wood: “Is everything okay?”
“I never said—”
I release one hand and uncrumple the page. “‘A warlock in full possession of all the magic afforded to him by study and blood alike,’” I read. “Idiot!”
The knob clicks, and the door swings open. She must have a key.
“Holy crap!” Ahbni says, as soon as she sees Pip on the bed.
“You’re hurting me . . .” my creator whines.
“Good!” I snarl, and shake him again. “Our only hope, Elgar, our only hope was that Pip’s Deal had held, and the magics in his blood had been locked away. That his powers would be limited. But you have put paid to it with this . . . this . . . ill thought-out, selfish drivel!”
“Whose drivel?” a voice asks, and I realize that, in my fury, I have utterly ignored the spot of light. It is a voice I know well. Have known for over two decades. Have missed desperately. “And why in all the seven hells am I wearing this Shadow Hand nonsense?”
“Bev?” a second voice calls out. Another voice I never thought I would ever hear again. There is the sound of a shocked gasp being choked back, a deep gasp, and then my brother’s deep baritone saying my name: “Forsyth?”
I release Elgar, ball up the paper still in my hand and shove it into the pocket over my heart. Then I turn, slowly, to face Kintyre Turn and Bevel Dom.
Just as Elgar Wrote, they are attired for war. Kintyre is in his battle leathers, a chain mail kirtle under his customary Sheil-purple jerkin, Foesmiter at his hip, and seemingly every knife he’s ever owned strapped to his chest. Bevel, as he complained, is dressed in the full Shadow Hand attire—silver mask on his face framing his unhappy scowl, the cloak wrapped tightly around his shoulders. He is in the process of jerking it off, revealing his own battle leathers, short-sword belted to his waist, bow slung over his chest, and quiver strapped to his back. They are both flopped on the carpeting, struggling to sit up, grasping at the bed and the dresser and whatever other furniture they can lay hands on for stability.
“Slowly,” I caution them both. “You will be a bit woozy.”
“Woozy?” Kintyre asks, and I can see the moment the crossing catches up with them both.
My brother staggers, reaching out for the television stand and missing. He crashes forward to his knees, and I dart forward to keep him from falling flat on his nose. Bevel has a better go of it, managing to sink himself onto the bed, sprawling backwards with a nauseous groan.
I set Kintyre carefully on his side, in case he vomits, and jump up to check on Bevel. I pull the Shadow’s Mask off his face, tuck it in next to the crumpled evidence of Elgar’s selfish betrayal. Bevel is panting harshly, but his eyelids are already starting to flutter open. He is coming back around.
Satisfied that my brother and brother-in-law are well, I turn back to my wife. Pip’s eyes are open, and she is sitting up, thank goodness. Some color has returned to her cheeks in ugly pink splotches, though the rest of her skin is still papery and strained. She has her hands jammed between her knees, trying to stop her shaking. Her eyes are wide, and dark, and trained on Kintyre and Bevel. Behind her, Ahbni is propping her up. Though the other young lady looks about ready to take her turn keeling over.
My fury surges back to the fore now that my protective concern has been satisfied. Elgar has curled himself into as small a ball as possible, shame radiating from him in near palpable waves.
“What just ha—? Who is tha—?” Ahbni chokes, but can’t seem to sort out all the questions crowding up behind her teeth.
Pip turns questioning eyes to me, and I fetch out the balled paper and hand it to her. Her eyes, already strained round, grow even wider as she reads what Elgar’s Written into being.
“Dear lord,” Pip breathes. “Elgar Erasmus Reed . . . what the fuck have you done?”
“Forssy?” Bevel asks, baffled and staring around him, still reeling. At least he’s sitting up now. “What’s . . . ?”
“You are at an inn,” I say, bringing the heroes up to speed as quickly as I can. “Our Writer, the fool, has drained Pip of what little magic has pooled in her and brought you here to help us defeat the Viceroy, who has crossed the veil of the skies to enact his revenge.”
Invoking the name of my brother’s archnemesis is as effective as I had hoped. Kintyre rolls onto his hands and knees, and between them, Kintyre and Bevel get themselves to their feet relatively quickly. Bevel shucks the Shadow’s Cloak finally, balling it into his quiver for the time being. Ahbni gets Pip up, and it is left to me to yank my traitorous creator upright.
“Where is he now?” Kintryre asks, cupping my shoulder in an earnest, manly way.
“I do not know,” I admit, frustrated. “Pip is tied to him, though. When he does magic, she suffers the blowback.”
Bevel shakes his head, and pinches the bridge of his nose, clearing his fuzzy brain. “So, does that mean the Viceroy felt Pip yank us here?”
“Oh, Jesus, probably,” Pip husks, and then coughs, sucking on the air. Ahbni curls an arm around her shoulders prote
ctively.
“Forsyth, I’m so sorry. I—” Elgar jabbers, going paler.
“Shut up,” I say, too livid to add anything more eloquent. I wriggle his dagger holster out of the back of his trousers and clip it instead within easy reach on the front of his hip. “And keep a hold of that. I don’t doubt that you’ll need it, now.”
“Hey, that’s my dagger,” Kintyre says, squinting at it. He wavers forward, and Bevel tugs him back.
“It is not,” I say. “Only a replica.”
“Is there time to get our bearings, or must we be on the move?” Kintyre asks me.
“We have a moment,” I say. “I don’t know what the Viceroy may be planning next, but if he felt the spell as strongly as Pip has felt his, he will need time to regain his strength.”
“Pity we don’t know where he is, so we could just go stab the bastard while he’s recovering,” Bevel says, but his tone is hopeful.
“We do not,” I admit again.
“Shame,” Bevel says with a shrug.
Elgar’s eyes keep cutting back and forth between Bevel and Kintyre, his mouth noiselessly flapping. Bevel and Kintyre ignore him utterly, and I don’t know if it’s because they are peevish about being summoned out of our realm without so much as a by-your-leave, or if it’s because they’re terrified to look their Writer in the face. I am not ashamed to admit that I was frightened when I first met Elgar, as well. I would not blame them if this was the case.
“Well, if we’ve the time, then,” Kintyre says. Then he comes straight to me and engulfs me in one of his habitual rough and hard bear-hugs. “Hello, brother!”
“Oof! Hello, Kintyre,” I say, chuckling despite the way he is making my ribs ache. I pat his massive shoulder. “Well met and well come.”
“Well come to where?” Bevel adds, wrapping his arms around me and pounding my back as Kintyre drops me back to my feet to treat Pip to the same enthusiastic greeting.
“The Overrealm, brother-in-law-of-mine,” Pip says, accepting Bevel’s gentler hug and offering him a kiss on the cheek.
Bevel snorts and looks around, hands on his hips. “Oh yes. Very impressive.”
Pip pinches his arm, and Bevel grins at her.
Bevel then turns to Elgar, and I can see that already, Kintyre and Elgar are engaged in a tense staring contest. Elgar looks desperate, wrecked, his eyes wide and his fingers twitching, his weight rolled up onto the balls of his feet as if he is about to fling himself at his greatest creation. For his part, Kintyre looks just as ready to leap out of the way should Elgar do so.
Bevel moves to stand beside Kintyre, shoulder pressed to his trothed’s bicep. Not impeding him, not holding him, but offering his support all the same. Bevel’s free arm comes around Kintyre’s back. He grips hard, hand fisted on the back of Kintyre’s jerkin. I don’t know if it’s the transition that has them off-kilter and seeking each other for grounding comfort, or if it’s the sudden danger, or the new environment, but I would wager that they wish they had more time than I can, unfortunately, allot them.
“So you’re him,” Kintyre says, and his voice is gruff with an emotion I am having trouble naming. I do know, however, that it is not joy. He turns away then, I assume, to disguise the look on his face, which is oscillating between fear, and disgust, and awe.
“Look at me, please,” Elgar begs, reaching out to snag Kintyre’s wrist. My brother jerks away from him as if he were a hydra attempting to coil one of its necks around his arm and drag him into its lair. “Please! I’ve waited your whole life for this moment.”
“Don’t!” Kintyre shouts. “Don’t! I’m not . . . not yet.”
Elgar swallows hard and nods, though it must be killing him. He turns his attention to Bevel. “Sir Dom,” he says respectfully, with a head bob.
“Lord Consort Turn, actually,” Bevel corrects him, crossing his arms defiantly, as if daring his creator to deny the evolution of his story arc since the book’s ending.
Elgar’s eyes get impossibly wide, and he darts a look between his two lead characters before he looks to me, pleading.
“Elgar, you cannot be surprised,” I say. “I told you. Pip said just yesterday—”
“Yeah, but like I said, there’s a difference between knowing it here,” he touches his forehead, and then his chest, “and knowing it here, and then seeing it.”
In a fit of pique, as if Elgar’s statement was a dare, Kintyre swoops in and lands a possessive, biting kiss on Bevel’s mouth. Bevel, unprepared for his trothed’s display, grunts and splutters, arms flailing to keep his balance for a moment before he grabs Kintyre’s arms and sinks into the kiss.
Pip whistles and applauds. Ahbni looks like she’s been smacked between the eyes with a mackerel. Elgar flushes red and moans, “Christ, I need a drink.”
“I have this flask in my pocket that I don’t remember putting there,” Kintyre offers when he finally lets Bevel up for air. “I don’t know what’s in it, but you’re welcome to it.”
“Oh! Dragon whiskey!” Elgar says, and takes a greedy sip when Kintyre tugs the flask out and hands it to our creator. Elgar’s eyes start watering immediately, and he coughs into the back of his hand as soon as he’s swallowed. “Holy shit, that burns.”
“That’s what dragon whiskey does,” Bevel says with a frown. Then he turns to my wife. “Pip?”
“Yeah-huh?” she asks.
“What’s that fantastic bit of blasphemy that you enjoy so much?”
Pip beams up at him. “Fuck.”
Bevel beams back. “Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I also think I need a fucking drink.”
“This way, bro,” Pip says, slinging her arm over Bevel’s shoulder, mostly so she can lean on him, and leads him into the main room of the suite.
Elgar
Elgar knows Kintyre Turn better than anyone alive. It doesn’t matter that Lucy was the one pulled into the world of the books instead of him because she knows more, by whatever metric the Deal-Maker Neris had employed. Nobody knows Kintyre better.
Elgar studies Kintyre’s every gesture as he follows Lucy and Bevel out to the main room. Everyone—except for one security guy—has cleared out, probably uncomfortable or embarrassed by the shouting. Lucy helps Bevel to a glass of wine with a word of warning: “Careful, the wine isn’t watered here.” Bevel winks at her, and Lucy rolls her eyes before offering one to Kin, too. Forsyth demures, Ahbni says she doesn’t partake, and Lucy clearly doesn’t want one right now, though she’s looking at the bottle longingly. She doesn’t offer any to Elgar.
Ahbni insists that Lucy sit on the sofa, and Lucy agrees. Forsyth goes with them, pulling a computer tablet out of its leather pouch on his belt, and tapping through the data he sees there. He’s muttering about Finnar, and traces, and “the Detroit bastard did a live rundown of Elgar’s Q&A, and was revoltingly vitriolic. So why can’t I find the wretch on the internal security feeds?” Ahbni narrows her eyes at him, and pulls out her phone, sneering a little as she sends a message of her own.
Elgar remains in the doorway, clinging to the doorjamb, unsure of what to do. Unsure of what would be welcome. After their cups are empty, Bevel steps up to Kintyre’s chest, pushes him gently to the other side of the room, and tips his head up as they converse quietly. Are they planning? Commiserating? Elgar isn’t sure. He can’t help the small gasp that escapes him, though, when Bevel rocks up on his toes to plant a gentle, chaste kiss on Kintyre’s bottom lip.
Oh yes, Elgar knows Kintyre better than anyone alive. And right now, watching Kintyre and Bevel cling to one another in a small, silent, private moment that is nonetheless happening in public, in the main room of the con suite right beside the drinks table, he knows that Kintyre is sad. So sad that Elgar can barely stand it.
Lucy is leaning on Forsyth, eyes drooping and every line of her body curved in miserable pain. Elgar feels guilty about that. He does. Maybe he should have asked first. But better to beg forgiveness than plead permission, right?
And they would have said “no.” They’d been saying goddamned “no” for two days, and for what? Because they were afraid that bringing Kintyre Turn into the Overrealm might break something? Might make something worse? Except that, yeah, okay, it has. But how was Elgar supposed to know that it would work that way?
The thing is, he’s the Writer, right? He knows Kintyre Turn, and he knows the Viceroy, too. And he knows that he has created a dynamic where only Kintyre can kill the Viceroy. It’s poetic justice. That’s what Kintyre is for. And if Forsyth and Lucy want to save everyone trapped in this building, then they need Kintyre. And where Kintyre goes, so too has to go Bevel, and . . .
Ungrateful, Elgar thinks to himself, face flushing with anger. That’s what they are. I did the right thing. I did.
When Elgar looks back up again, frustrated at his own introspective pity, Bevel and Kintyre have broken apart. They’re talking in low tones, gesturing and clearly making plans. Another step closer, and Kintyre looks up at him.
Kintyre. Staring him in the face, his glacier-blue eyes narrowed, his look thoughtful. His normal blond queue is a windblown mess around his face. He’s gotten older. His hair is going elegantly silver, and the lines around his eyes make him look charming in a movie-star kind of way. But Bevel looks old. Bevel looks tired, Elgar thinks. There are deep pouches under his eyes, and his wrinkles aren’t charming, and his hair is shaggy and thinning on the top. He’s got a little belly.
Elgar has never really thought about what Kintyre and Bevel would look like when they were in their later years. In his mind, they were always the brash, perfect eighteen-year-old hero and the plucky, bull-doggish sixteen-year-old sidekick, no matter how many titles he heaped on them or adventures they went on. Sure, they grew more mature—old enough to drink and swear and . . . and fuck by the end of the first book, which spanned nearly two years. But never old.
