by Jen Williams
Frith closed his eyes, willing himself to remember the details. There had been a forest – not a headache of colours like this one, but a deep, green forest like that of home – and a young boy with brown skin and barely any flesh on his bones. He had worn nothing but leather belts, and had sat on a great boulder. The boy had small grey stones in front of him, and he had made them jump to his will.
‘That was not Edenier,’ said Frith, looking back to the frogs. ‘It was the Edeian. Magic inherent in the flesh of Ede itself. The same magic that moved the werkens, and riddled the mountains of Skaldshollow and the Frozen Steps.’
He looked around at the trees and the foliage, encasing him in their green cave. The most ancient places were the ones where the Edeian was strongest, and here, he realised, he could practically feel it. Euriale was alive with wild magic. Perhaps that was something he could use.
Frith settled back on the rock, trying to ignore the discomfort and the heat. He forced himself to close his eyes and relax. He summoned the memories, letting himself be lost in them as he hadn’t for some time. He saw again the woman in the turquoise silk robe, and the man with the beard and hands covered in gore. He saw Bezcavar again in the human form that Joah had known a thousand years ago, and he saw the Edenier trap, unfinished and still somehow deadly – this his mind skipped away from rapidly before he could dwell on it – and he saw the boy in the forest. Concentrating fiercely, Frith peeled back the layers of the memory. The boy’s eyes had been dark green, he remembered, and in truth he wasn’t a boy at all, but a spirit of that place. Not a ghost, but a being of trees and water and earth that had taken human form for a brief time. Joah had summoned the spirit and it had shared knowledge with him. Suddenly, Frith understood that as the boy had been the spirit of that place, so Mendrick, a wolf built of stone, had been the spirit of the mountain at Skaldshollow. The spirits were everywhere, but they took different forms.
More frogs plopped into the pond. Frith stood up. What would a spirit of this place look like? Would it help him? Would it ignore him? Or just kill him outright?
Without giving himself time to think about it, he walked around the edge of the pond, splashing through the algae-thick water, until he got to the muddy bank. He knelt there, giving the frogs a few seconds to get out of the way, and then he plunged his hands into the muck. Immediately, a thick, green stink assaulted his nostrils and he turned his head to one side to take a breath of fresher air. The mud was thick and almost black, gritted here and there with pebbles and ancient frog bones. He dragged his fingers through it, ignoring the way the water was soaking into his trousers, and began to sculpt the shapes that were burning in his mind. Small walls of mud, curving shapes, deeper trenches; it was difficult to get the mud to stay how he wanted it. Distantly he was aware that it was a deceptively complex spell, similar to O’rin’s plan a thousand years ago to carve the words of the mages’ directly into the Edeian-rich earth, but this was several mage words on top of each other. It was like trying to build a palace with porridge.
Around him, the jungle noises grew quieter. Stillness spread out from the pond like a flood. Frith ignored it.
He pushed deeper, feeling the hard nubs of roots under his questing fingers, dredging up the deepest, blackest mud; it would have the strongest magic in it. He pulled it up in great, wet handfuls, no longer noticing the stink, and he kept building, holding the shapes in his mind as best he could. After a few moments he looked around and snatched up a handful of sticks and foliage from the littered ground next to him and began to construct a rough framework within the muddy pile.
It was a little like making the Edenier trap – the same sense of cold satisfaction at creating something from nothing – but without the creeping horror and sensation of violation that came with using demon-tainted magic. A fly touched his face, and he batted it away impatiently, smearing black mud there. He barely noticed.
When finally he sat back from his creation, the sun was creeping towards the horizon and his legs were numb from kneeling for so long. He staggered to his feet, wincing as the feeling came back through bright points of pain.
It didn’t look like much, at least not to the untrained eye. His pile of mud and sticks was roughly cone-shaped, and came to just above his knees. Sticks and mud and tiny bones poked out of it, and there were gaps and shapes in there too; Frith could see them in his mind’s eye. More than that, he could feel them. Quite different to the sensation of Edenier burning in his chest, the latent Edeian in front of him felt like a warm tickling on his skin. When he held his hands out to it, the feeling brushed at his palms, as though he were facing a fire instead of a pile of mud.
‘There was something else,’ he murmured. Around him, the birds and the monkeys had fallen silent.
He consulted his memories again, seeing Joah’s skilled fingers creating his own shrine of mud. When it was complete, the mage reached into a pocket and produced a small bird made of golden wire, and he’d placed it within the structure. The bird had tiny sapphires for eyes.
‘An offering,’ said Frith. ‘Of course.’ He took a step back, and looked down at himself. He had nothing of worth, no weapons, no jewellery. In the dark green cave of the trees, Frith shook his head. All he had were the clothes he was wearing.
After a moment, Frith put a hand to his shirt. There were silver buttons at the throat – each one engraved with either a tiny tree or a tiny griffin, made after their return from Baneswatch. Looking at them made him think of Gwiddion – another friend, lost. He took hold of two and yanked them away from the shirt, breaking the stitching, before bending and pushing them into the thick mud at the heart of the shrine. He stood back to admire his work.
‘Please, if you’re there, I need your help. If you’re there. If anyone is there.’ He paused, wondering if there was a certain thing that needed to be said. He consulted his memories again. ‘I call on you here, at the heart of Ede.’
‘You are more correct than you could possibly know.’
Frith started, feeling the hairs on the back of his neck grow stiff. The voice was low and somehow insubstantial, like the echo of a voice, and it seemed to come from inside his head. At the same time, the pond in front of him grew dark, as though something behind him were casting a large shadow. He could feel a presence, a terrible unseen shape, standing so close behind him that he was sure he should feel its breath on his neck. Frith stood very still. He knew, somehow, that it would be a bad idea to turn around.
‘Spirit,’ he said. He took a deep breath, willing his words to be the right ones, ‘I am honoured by your presence.’
‘On an island of shrines and temples, yours is the most paltry,’ came the voice again. Frith could read no emotion in it, and no gender. ‘But you interest me because you are god-touched. The Destroyer and the Liar. You were present at the end of both.’
Frith blinked rapidly. He knew that, logically, if something were standing right behind him, he would be able to see their reflection in the pond, but there was nothing. Only the deepening shadows.
‘I was,’ he said after a moment. ‘I helped to end Y’Ruen, and I saw O’rin perish, to my sorrow.’
‘And so the cycle begins again,’ said the voice. ‘Or at least it should. What is it you want from me, god-touched one?’
‘I need your help,’ said Frith. He tried not to rush his words, but it was difficult. Some terrible part of him, perhaps the same part that had seen the construction of the Edenier trap to the end, dearly wanted to turn around and look upon the face of what he was speaking to. ‘I have lost someone. She was taken to this island, and is lost somewhere upon it. I need help to find her.’
‘I am not a dog you can use to follow a scent,’ said the voice. It did not sound angry, but, even so, Frith felt his heart quicken in his chest. ‘This is the cradle of Ede. It is my eye that opens. And you dared to summon me for this?’
Frith gritted his teeth. ‘I have the power to do so, so I did. I use what I have at my disposal. I must save her
, as she would save me.’ He took a deep breath. ‘I love her.’
The voice was silent for a time. Frith kept his eyes on the dark water in front of him. All of the frogs had vanished.
‘The woman you seek. She is one of the Grace’s children. Salt in her blood, and fire in her hair.’
‘Yes!’ Frith almost turned around in his excitement, stopping himself just in time. ‘That’s Wydrin. You have seen her?’
‘She walks my soil,’ said the voice, as though this were obvious. ‘It’s possible to show you where she is.’
‘Please,’ said Frith, ‘that’s all I need – some idea of where to start, and I—’
‘There will be a price,’ said the voice. Frith nodded, not daring to speak. ‘The Destroyer and the Liar are gone, so the cycle must begin again, on Euriale, as it always does. The Eye is open. But I feel discord. Something is awry. He who guards is missing from his post, and new life surges unabated. I cannot act, but perhaps you can. Find the one who spins the webs, and set him back where he should be. That is what I ask of you.’
Frith nodded. He barely understood, but there seemed to be little choice.
‘If it is within my power, I will do it,’ he said, wondering what he had just agreed to. Deals and promises made to demons, gods and spirits: none of it ever ended well.
‘Then it is agreed. There is magic you can barely imagine, traveller. I will open your heart to it. Look up.’
Frith looked up to the canopy. As he watched, the long, languid branches of the willows began to lift and peel back, revealing the sky above. It was overcast, and the last orange light of the day clung to the bottom of the clouds with a glow-like fire.
‘What am I looking for?’
‘Look at the clouds, and see your path.’
Frith frowned, narrowing his eyes. He could see nothing, just clouds and light. There weren’t even any birds flying, just clouds that promised rain later and— abruptly he saw it, and he took a step backwards in amazement. There was a break in the cloud, a line, only obvious if you were looking for it. The clouds were moving slowly to the east, but the thin dark line that split them was moving west, and slightly faster than the rest. He could follow it across the island.
‘If I follow that, it will take me to her – is that what you’re saying?’ He turned, too focussed on getting this vital instruction correct, but as he did, noise and colour screamed back into the world. The shadow on the pond was gone, and the birds and monkeys were calling again. After a moment he heard the gentle plop of frogs finding their way back to the water.
He was alone.
23
Estenn’s camp was industrious, well-maintained and filled with the smell of cooking meat. Smelling it, Wydrin felt her stomach rumble. She couldn’t remember her last decent meal. Estenn had marched them through the forest relentlessly, pausing only for a few hours in the night, and no food had been forthcoming. Now it was mid-afternoon, and the air was tepid, the heat suffocating. Wydrin’s fringe was plastered to her forehead with sweat. Judging by her previous visits to Two-Birds, they would have a storm soon.
‘I don’t suppose there’s any food going?’ They were walking through the centre of the camp, and everywhere there were men and women with tasks; tending fires, tanning leather, hauling pails of water from a central well. Everyone looked busy, but they all took a moment to glance over at her. She suspected that prisoners weren’t often brought into their camp. Or allowed to live very long. ‘Even the godless have to eat.’
Estenn, who had been walking at her side while the guards brought up the rear, paused. She pointed over to a nearby cooking fire, tended by two young men. A great side of something was spitted over it, ribs white against red flesh.
‘I would offer you food gladly, Wydrin the Godless, but I’m not sure it will be to your tastes.’
Wydrin looked closer at the cooking meat. She felt the worm of fear in her gut grow larger. She could well be in serious trouble here.
‘Why would you do that?’ she asked, not quite able to keep the anger from her voice. ‘There must be plenty of animals to hunt in this stinking jungle.’
Estenn looked at her, amused. In the daylight her skin was smooth and unlined; Wydrin could still see no sign of the many years she claimed to have lived. ‘The animals here are children of Euriale, just as we are. Why should we harm them? The men and women of Two-Birds, though,’ she nodded towards the fire again, ‘they are not worthy to walk the soil of the cradle of Ede. And what better way to keep them away, than by filling the woods with wolves? Besides which, people are much easier to hunt.’
They moved on. Wydrin tried to ignore the smell of roasting meat.
‘Where did you all come from?’ she asked. ‘I know where you came from, but it doesn’t explain all these others.’
‘Not everyone who wanders into the trees is killed for meat,’ said Estenn. ‘Those who come seeking the gods, or those who have a simple need to escape from Two-Birds – some of those we take in. I teach them how to live here, how to understand the island. A few we have taken ourselves, snatched from Two-Birds as children, and then raised here.’
‘You have stolen children? How very godly of you.’
‘It is necessary to have new blood sometimes.’ Estenn shrugged. ‘And now, of course, we have been here so long that children have been born and raised in our camps. The truest children of Euriale. Like Nettle, here.’
They had reached a structure of mud and wood that appeared to shelter a tunnel that led directly beneath the earth. A girl of about sixteen stood on guard at the entrance. She wore a crown of bright blue beads at her temple, and held a spear casually to one side.
‘Emissary.’ She gave a slight bow.
‘Nettle was born and raised on the island,’ continued Estenn. ‘She knows its heart almost as well as I do.’
‘There’s a whole world out there, kid,’ said Wydrin, addressing the girl. ‘All sorts of places where you don’t have to live in a sweltering mud pile and hide in the woods – and the dinner choices are a lot more palatable, believe me.’
The girl looked at her with wide eyes, before turning back to Estenn. ‘Emissary …’
‘It’s all right, Nettle. Tell her what you know to be true.’
The girl passed the spear from one hand to the other. ‘Euriale is the home of the gods, and we are its children. The world outside has forgotten the true gods, and driven them unto death.’ She drew herself up to her full height. ‘The Emissary has been chosen to bring them back, and we, the children of Euriale, will help her. Ede will see the glory of the gods again. Y’Ruen will cleanse all in her fire, Y’Gria will rebirth the lands and seas, and Res’ni and Res’na will shepherd the dual nature of humanity back into being, while O’rin, father of lies, sets the stories turning once more.’
For a few moments, Wydrin was too stunned to speak. And then she surprised herself by laughing. Nettle and Estenn both looked at her angrily.
‘Y’Ruen’s cleansing fire? Oh yes, very cleansing. She would kill you all as soon as look at you, and you would welcome it with open arms.’ She grinned, unable to help herself. ‘Y’Ruen brings nothing but death and misery. You can trust me on that.’
The girl looked confused, but Estenn’s mouth was pressed into a thin line.
‘This is how the ignorant understand the world, Nettle. Nothing falls from this sell-sword’s mouth but lies and self-delusion.’
‘Shall I run her through?’ asked Nettle, hefting the spear in her hand. ‘In the name of the Twins?’
Estenn put a hand on the girl’s shoulder. ‘Don’t worry, Nettle. This one will get what she deserves, in time. We will keep her for a while. Run and fetch Cully and Jake and tell them to take over your guard duty. I will want extra muscle on this entrance for now. Our guest is going to be joining the Spinner.’
The girl ran off, casting one more poisonous look over her shoulder at Wydrin. Estenn took hold of her arm and began to walk her down the tunnel.
‘Easy to get them to think what you want when you have a captive audience, isn’t it?’ said Wydrin. She was wondering what the Spinner was, and didn’t want the uncertainty to show in her face. The way was lit with small oil lamps, wedged into the soil. ‘That girl knows nothing of the real world, just the poison you have dripped into her ear.’
Close to her, her voice low, Estenn murmured into her ear. ‘You are one of the very few people on Ede to have seen the gods in the flesh. Why do you deny them?’
‘Oh, I don’t deny they exist,’ said Wydrin. She thought of flying on the back of a griffin, the sea a twinkling carpet of blue below, while Y’Ruen roared behind them. ‘I just happen to believe that you shouldn’t have to bow and scrape to someone just because they’re bigger than you and have sharper teeth. The gods don’t care about you, Emissary. They’ve never cared about any of us.’
Estenn nodded, as though she expected nothing better. ‘Let me show you then, Wydrin the Godless, something else very few people have ever seen.’
They had stepped through into a wide chamber. On the far side, almost reaching the ceiling, was a big pile of furs and blankets. It was quivering slightly. Wydrin tried to draw back, but Estenn’s grip was strong. She missed the weight of her weapons at her belt more than ever.
‘This is the Spinner of Euriale. I brought him here to answer my questions too. He can give you some idea of how it goes.’ She shoved Wydrin forward, and she stumbled fully into the chamber. A soft keening noise came from under the blankets. Estenn raised her voice. ‘I have someone new for you to speak to, Spinner.’
Wydrin approached the pile of furs and rags cautiously. The keening noise was strange and multifaceted, as though it came from many throats at once, but it was still clearly the sound of someone in distress.
‘Hey, it’s all right.’ She held out her hands to show they were empty. ‘I’ll help you, if I can. There’s no need to be afraid of me.’
