by Jen Williams
This would not stand. Not again.
It was not like the Edenier. Rather than a boiling in his chest, it was as though every fibre of his being – every hair, every piece of skin, every drop of his blood and tissue – lit up with purpose and sang with energy. He reached out with his will and cast the stones away, and even as the world slipped back into motion around him, he noted with satisfaction how they crumbled into ancient dust.
Good, thought Frith, and then on the heels of that, what is happening to me?
Darkness flew in at the edges of his vision. There was power, so much of it, and it left like the coursing tide.
42
‘Frith? Can you hear me?’
Wydrin was bent over the young lord’s prone figure where they had laid him out on a deeply cushioned chaise longue. His face was pale, and there was a lot of red dust in his hair, but he was murmuring in his sleep, which Sebastian took to be a good sign. He looked around the room, and willed Frith to waken soon. They dearly needed someone to explain what had just happened, and, Isu knew, he had no clue.
They had been taken not to the dungeons or even to the bare room where they had waited before, but to a set of untidy rooms he took to be Commander Xinian’s own. He had the distinct impression that she had wanted them out of the way as soon as possible, and that she wanted to be the first to question them. Xinian herself had left them some time ago, saying that she needed to check in with the guards on the northern gates, but that she would be back. Her expression as she left suggested that there had better be answers awaiting her when she returned.
Sebastian turned to Oster, who stood near the tall windows that opened on to a narrow balcony. The glass was lined with gold, and glittered in the sunshine, although it clearly hadn’t been cleaned for some time. Oster’s face was tense, and he watched the sky constantly.
‘What is it?’
‘I knew that creature,’ said Oster without looking at him. ‘I knew her. Or I almost did.’ He squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head. ‘It almost makes sense. But I can’t quite …’ He turned to face Sebastian then, and his eyes were desolate. ‘The Spinner is dead. He was supposed to sing me my histories, tell me all our stories, and then I would have known. But now he is gone, and I am here.’ He gestured angrily at the city beyond the window. ‘This is not my time, I know that much, and all the knowledge I should have is lost.’
Sebastian pressed his lips together into a firm line. He had no words of comfort for Oster. This was exactly what he had wanted to avoid. They had headed straight into danger, and once again they had dragged innocent bystanders along with them. Standing in the bright light of the window, Oster seemed to shine with his own inner glow, and his mail gleamed as brightly as it had when he’d first met him. There was no sign of stubble on his smooth jaw, and his dark hair remained artfully tousled. Sebastian remembered Wydrin’s words, and felt a curl of unease move through his stomach. Oster was not human, and not a bystander to what had happened in Euriale. He would do well to remember that.
‘You did not need to come with us,’ said Sebastian. ‘You didn’t have to jump into the Eye.’
Oster turned to him, scowling. ‘It was obvious that you needed my assistance,’ he said, drawing himself up to his full height. ‘And you still do.’
‘I thought that it wasn’t your place to serve humans? Besides which, Wydrin and I have been looking after ourselves for some time,’ said Sebastian. The silvery link that ran between the two of them was thrumming with this new tension. It was making his head ache. ‘If anything, we’ve had more than enough of dragons and dragon-kin. If that’s what you are.’
Oster took a step towards Sebastian, as though they were preparing to fight. ‘Of all people, you say that to me? I may not know who I am, but at least I am trying to find out. At least I am not hiding from it.’
‘Lads, if we could leave the tiffs for later?’ Wydrin was giving them a caustic look over her shoulder. ‘I think Frith is coming round.’
With more relief than he wanted to admit, Sebastian stalked away from the window and came back to where Wydrin crouched. Frith’s eyes flickered open, and he winced before attempting to sit up.
‘Take it easy, princeling. You hit the deck fairly hard back there.’
‘It feels like it.’ The young lord’s voice was hoarse. ‘Where am I?’
‘In Xinian’s own apartments, would you believe?’ Wydrin grinned. ‘She is every bit the hard arse in life as she was in death, isn’t she?’
‘What happened out there, Frith?’ Sebastian put his hand on Wydrin’s shoulder, and she pressed her own hand to it briefly. ‘You started glowing, and the broken stones—’
‘I really do not know.’ Frith ran his fingers through his white hair, making it stick up at odd angles. ‘It was magic of some sort, but not Edenier.’
The interior door opened, and Xinian stepped back through, a wary expression on her face. At some point she had unstrapped the heavy shoulder armour she had been wearing and now carried it tucked under one arm.
‘I do not need to tell you that this is not the best time to be causing trouble at the Arkanium, and in truth I am deeply weary and sorely tempted to just have the lot of you consigned to the dungeons and locked away for the foreseeable future. It seems it’s not just a case of turning up in the sacred groves unannounced – there is also the matter of two unconscious guards you left in the common room.’ She set the armour down on a low table with a crash. ‘However, your white-haired friend here saved a number of lives earlier by disintegrating a shower of dangerous debris, apparently in an instant.’ She peered closely at Frith, who had dragged himself into a sitting position. ‘He wears no silks and no cuffs, has no mage words that I can see on him, and I cannot feel the Edenier in him. And yet we all saw him light up like a torch as the rocks were destroyed. In short, it looks like no mage magic I’ve ever seen, and I have seen a lot of it.’
She went over to a tall cabinet of dark wood and removed a bottle of wine and a tray of goblets.
‘You wanted to talk to me,’ she said, as she brought the tray and the wine back to the low table. ‘So talk. Start with your friend here and what he can do.’
‘I can speak for myself,’ said Frith, some of the old anger back in his voice. ‘And I know little more than you do. The wall exploded, and everything seemed to stop.’ He paused and looked down, his gaunt face thrown into shadow. ‘I wanted the rocks out of the way so I … moved them.’
Xinian poured herself a glass of pale-yellow wine. Sebastian noticed that she didn’t offer them any.
‘You are a mage, then?’
Frith caught Sebastian’s eyes briefly. How much to say, that was the question?
‘I was a mage,’ he said, ‘but I no longer possess those abilities. The story behind that is a long one.’
‘And we don’t have time to tell it,’ put in Wydrin. She had perched on the edge of the chaise longue next to Frith, and now she leaned forward, her hands clasped before her. ‘Commander, we have tidings regarding the Citadel plan. You really do need to hear them, and sooner rather than later.’
Xinian frowned at them all. Outside of her armour she was a tall, wiry woman with powerfully muscled shoulders. Sebastian had not seen her ghost in Skaldshollow for more than an instant, but she cut an impressive figure in flesh and blood.
‘I suppose the lives saved by the wall have bought you that much,’ she said eventually. ‘Tell me what you think you know.’
It took some time to explain, and Sebastian was happy to let Wydrin do it. Well versed in the telling of tales, she carefully talked around their origins a thousand years in the future, and focussed on the immediate threat: the woman who could make herself vanish, the woman who hated the mages, the woman who was working on the side of the gods. During the telling, Xinian finally offered them the wine, and they all drank of it gladly. When Wydrin’s tale was done, Xinian retrieved a second bottle from the cabinet and refilled their goblets without asking. The expressi
on she wore was grave.
‘And you are sell-swords hunting this Estenn down?’
Wydrin nodded. ‘Aside from all this, she has stolen something very valuable from us, and murdered a good friend. She will feel the kiss of my blade before all this is done.’
‘This is not good news.’ Xinian sat on the low table, goblet held pensively in her hand. ‘And it could not come at a worse time.’ She sighed heavily and glared around at them all. ‘The exact details of the Citadel plan are known only to the higher echelons of our leaders. That this woman knows all about them suggests that we have a traitor in our midst.’
‘Forgive me, Commander, but that damage is done,’ said Sebastian. There was no way to explain to her that the details of the plan were simply historical fact where they were from. ‘Now we must move to stop her, and as quickly as possible.’
‘When she captured me, she spoke of this artefact, the Red Echo. She said it was the main piece of bait you used – you are going to use.’ Wydrin cleared her throat. ‘I think she plans to use it to destroy the mages before you have a chance to capture the gods.’
Xinian’s mouth turned down at the edges. ‘It certainly has the capability to do that. The Red Echo is an artefact forged at the very dawn of the time of the mages, and in truth we barely understand it. The power contained in it is immense.’
‘That has to be her first move,’ said Wydrin. ‘She will locate the artefact, and steal it. Where is it being kept?’
Xinian’s eyes grew cold. ‘It is kept in two separate pieces, at two separate, secret locations. It is quite safe.’
‘Oh, great.’ Wydrin shook her head. ‘I’m sure that’s fine, then. Look, I’ve just told you that this woman can turn invisible, a power even you people don’t possess, and that she knows your plans when supposedly only your big high-and-mighties know them. Don’t just trust this problem to go away. The risks are too great.’ Wydrin took a breath. ‘Believe me.’
Xinian looked away, shaking her head. ‘This is the last thing Reis needs. If word gets around that an agent of the gods knows of the plan and intends to sabotage it, then his opponents will finally have the excuse they’ve been looking for to rise up against him. It will shake the Mage Concordance to its very core. Worse, it could be all-out civil war.’
‘Who is this Reis?’ asked Oster. Sebastian glanced up at him in surprise; he had kept his silence throughout Wydrin’s tale.
Xinian raised her eyebrows, pressing her bald head into wrinkles. ‘You do not know of the Archmage?’
‘I am not from these parts,’ said Oster, his voice utterly flat.
Xinian snorted. ‘And I thought Reis’s dreaded boot had walked every part of Ede. The Archmage commands the mages in this time of war. It was he who pushed for the Citadel plan, and his will that now drives it through.’ She paused, and took another gulp of wine. ‘We’ve been fighting this war for over ten years, and we are run ragged. If the Citadel plan should fail before it has even started …’ She grimaced. ‘He will lose the precarious grip he has on power, and it will be easy for the gods to destroy us, for we will all be busy fighting ourselves.’ She put the goblet down and Sebastian saw her cast it a rueful look, as though she blamed it for her loose tongue. ‘The number of people who know about this must be kept to an absolute minimum.’
‘Let us go, then,’ said Frith, his voice low. ‘We know this woman, and we can track her down and stop her. We can retrieve our property, have our revenge.’ He looked up, and his eyes were storm dark. ‘It’s the sort of thing we are quite good at, if I do say so myself.’
‘The Black Feather Three,’ said Xinian. ‘That’s quite a name for a group of mercenaries.’ She paused. ‘There are four of you.’
‘Again, it’s a long story,’ said Sebastian.
Xinian stood up. She looked very tired, and Sebastian felt a twinge of sympathy. A soldier’s duties were never at an end.
‘Fine,’ she said shortly. ‘I have no energy to argue with you, and no people I can spare to watch over you anyway. You shall travel to the two locations I mentioned, and search for this agent of the gods. I will have you assigned to rooms here for the night, where you can rest and have a wash. From the smell of you all, you need it even more than I do.’
‘Commander, perhaps it would be best if we left immediately?’ Sebastian said, keeping his tone carefully polite. ‘The danger to you and your people is so great—’
‘I mean, can’t you just magic us all there and back really fast?’ put in Wydrin. She glanced at Frith, and then shrugged. ‘That’s a spell you can do, isn’t it?’
Xinian half smiled. ‘You really aren’t from around here, are you? That particular form of magic has been lost to us almost since the war began, along with several others that were especially useful. Travelling from one place to another in an instant, or even just using magic to look at a remote location – we have to use the Edenier itself to ride the Edeian energy that exists in a cocoon around all of Ede –’ She held up her hands and cupped them together, before dropping them again, shaking her head. ‘In short, it is dangerous magic, all the more dangerous now. When we move through the Edenier and Edeian like that, the gods can find us almost instantly, and in that instant we are vulnerable.’ She frowned. ‘We found that out at the cost of many mage lives, at the beginning of this war.’
‘These secret locations – I take it they’re some distance from Krete?’ asked Wydrin. ‘I’m assuming you wouldn’t keep something so dangerous close to a major city.’
‘They are far, yes, but we have developed new methods of travel. Take the time to rest now, while you have it. I will send a steward shortly to show you to your rooms.’ She walked over to the door and paused there, a small, bitter smile on her lips. ‘Do not fret, the methods we have are still fast, and certainly faster than anything this Estenn will have at her disposal.’
43
Ephemeral had meant to leave when the sun set, but then the first of the eggs had hatched.
She was walking carefully among them, feeling their minds brush against hers and murmuring soothing words. She wondered where the mother was, or if these were the sorts of creatures where the eggs were hidden away, then left to fend for themselves. She had read of such things.
One of the eggs began to tremble, and as she watched, the thick leathery hide was pierced from the inside. A dark hole opened in the side of the egg, and then something poked through: a narrow reptilian head, its scales pale blue and shining, dotted here and there with a darker colour, like splotches of ink. It opened and closed its mouth, baring rows of minuscule teeth, while tiny forearms waved about under the water. Ephemeral stared at it for a moment, perplexed, before her stomach turned over. She had assumed that these creatures were at home in water, but clearly this one could not breathe. Perhaps the eggs had been placed here and the area flooded some time later; it certainly rained often enough on the island.
Without pausing to think, she reached down and plucked the infant animal from the wreckage of its shell and held it up out of the water. It was surprisingly heavy; a long tail curled underneath it, lined with scaly bumps, and at its shoulders were two clumps of fibrous tissue. Ephemeral was holding it up to peer closer at these growths when several of the eggs began to twitch near her feet. The time had come, and they were all hatching at once.
With a cry of dismay, Ephemeral tucked the infant into the top of her pack, ignoring its outraged squawk, and bent to rescue another from the tepid water, followed by another. Splashing backwards rapidly she found a muddy hillock rising out of the pool and deposited the newly hatched lizards there, before rushing back for the others.
Some time later she stood at the foot of the hillock, soaked from head to toe and streaked with mud. She had saved all of them, and now found herself looking at a writhing nursery of stumbling, squawking dragon-kin creatures. They were all shades of blue.
‘Your mother will be along presently, I expect,’ she told them. Reaching out for their minds, she tried t
o show them an idea of what mother was. The chorus of squawks increased tenfold, and several fell over. She cleared her throat, trying to think of an image for ‘Mother’ that wasn’t an immense dragon-god. Instead, she tried to summon the feeling of safety and closeness she had experienced in the birthing pit, encouraging them to take comfort in each other. In response, she felt their minds questing back at her. They were bright and curious.
‘She is probably hunting,’ she said aloud, although she could sense no larger creatures nearby, and the last light of the evening was rapidly leaking from the sky. ‘Hunting to provide food for you, her young.’ She thought of Y’Ruen again, filling the battlefield with boiling flame. ‘Mothers can do that.’
There was a trilling squawk from her side, and she looked down in surprise at the baby dragon-kin she had put in her pack. She had completely forgotten about her, and now the creature was staring up at her with bright orange eyes.
‘I must go,’ she told the creature with the ink splotches across her knobbly forehead. ‘Terin will be leading them to the lagoon even now, and I must be there first.’
A warbling cry echoed through the trees, and as one the infant dragon-kin drew together, some of them waving their long heads back and forth, searching for the source of their fright. Ephemeral tried to imagine leaving them alone in the dark, in the hope that their mother would return, and found that she could not do it. Not all mothers were reliable, after all.
‘I will stay with you until dawn,’ she told them firmly. ‘Just until the sun comes up. You will be much braver then.’
Devinia watched with distaste as Augusta settled her blunt fingers against the crewman’s chest, pushing him back onto the floor. They were below decks, in the shallow stinking place that was serving as a sick room. Five of the crew were down here now, too ill to work, and Augusta had been roped in full time to care for them, although it was blindingly obvious to everyone that there was nothing she could do. Devinia was supposedly assisting her, which largely added up to fetching buckets of cool water and holding down the patients when they raved, which was frequently.
