by Jen Williams
‘From what I understand, it wasn’t easy, and he certainly should have died, but Joah and Selsye are unrivalled in this sort of magic.’
Wydrin took a slow breath. It was possible. She had felt the effects of the healing magic for herself – a pink light that had been like sinking into a warm bath. But what if this was more lies? A joke? She pressed her cold fingers to the mark on her cheek. It was too terrible, this hope. She had thought she could carry on, her heart armoured in vengeance, but here was love again, to make her weak. It was unacceptable.
Strong fingers gripped her forearm, and she looked up to see Xinian, her face creased in discomfort. ‘Take heart. You will see for yourself soon enough.’
‘How soon?’
Frith stood and watched as Selsye added a small bag of powder to their fire, turning the flames an eldritch green. The grotty little beach they stood on looked all the more sinister in its sickly light. Joah had left some time ago, climbing up over the rocks behind them to go and arrange their ‘transport’. From Selsye’s expression he had surmised that she wasn’t best pleased about this part of the plan, but in general she was quieter than she had been. He suspected this had a lot to do with what he had told her. Reluctantly, he looked over at the long narrow bag resting by the fire where they were keeping his staff. Very deliberately he looked away and out to the mist-shrouded sea. Their ship should be arriving soon.
‘I am still not sure I believe any of it,’ said Selsye into the silence. She tucked the empty bag away into one of her pockets. ‘It is ludicrous. All of it.’
Frith didn’t answer immediately. She had, at least, kept her promise of not telling Joah, although he wasn’t sure how long that would last. Eventually, he said: ‘It would explain a lot though, wouldn’t it? The staff, the nature of my own strange magic. It’s bending the fabric of time – you said so yourself. I have travelled here from a future Ede, using a similar magic, and somehow it has infected me. Truthfully, did you not think there was anything strange about us? Something slightly out of place?’
Selsye snorted. ‘Out of place? You were all bloody out of place, according to Xinian, since you turned up tramping around in my sacred grove.’ Her smile faded. ‘Perhaps there was something. I don’t know. Lots of small things, adding up to an overall strangeness. I don’t know what Xinian will say about this. I doubt it will improve her mood, anyway. Oh, speaking of which.’
She nodded to the mists behind them and a ship loomed out of the swirling fog. Frith took an involuntary step forward, his heart beating faster, and then he saw her, jumping down from the side into the shallows. She seemed a little uncertain on her feet, and he found himself splashing down to meet her, ignoring the biting cold water that soaked into his trousers.
‘Wydrin?’
She looked up, her face so full of hope and terror it hurt his heart. She was deathly pale, with a single vivid pink mark like a scald on her right cheek.
‘By the Graces!’ She grabbed him and pressed her hands to the sides of his face, staring at him as if willing him to be real. ‘I thought she fucking killed you. I thought you were taken from me.’
‘I’m not, I’m fine. Look at me.’ She was shivering within his arms. ‘Wydrin, are you all right?’
She kissed him then, fiercely, her mouth deliciously warm even as the sea threatened to leach all heat from his body, but when she pulled away there were tears on her cheeks. Frith reached up to push her hair away from her face, and she took hold of his hand and gently pulled it away.
‘Wydrin …?’
‘Hoy, you two, get out of the water already,’ Xinian called to them from the beach. ‘If you catch a chill, I’m not healing you.’
Frith looked back to the fire. Joah had returned and was deep in conference with Selsye. He opened his mouth to say something else to Wydrin, to draw an explanation out of her somehow, but she was already splashing through the water to the beach. Ignoring the faint throbbing pain in his chest, he followed after her.
69
‘You have our means of transport, Joah?’
They were clustered around their small fire, the flames burning orange again. Wydrin found herself staring at Joah Demonsworn. This was the closest she had been to him since they’d arrived at Lan-Hellis, and although it was all too possible to see the man he would become, it was strange to look upon the face of an enemy who had yet to harm you, had yet to steal away the man you loved. At the thought, her traitor eyes slipped back to Frith, who was standing very still, his arms crossed over his chest. Looking at him, she saw the curving blade bursting through his chest. Her cheek burned, and she looked away.
‘I have summoned him, yes,’ said Joah. ‘He likes to be in the earth.’ He took a short trowel from his belt and, kneeling down, dug into the black dirt. A few inches below the surface he uncovered what Wydrin initially took to be a shiny black rock, but then a set of segmented legs flexed experimentally at the air, and a large crab sidled out of the hole. It was as black and as slick as obsidian, with a pair of glowing red patches on its smooth back, like embers still warm from the fire. It was about the size of Wydrin’s hand, stretched from the tip of her thumb to her little finger.
‘Well, I had been having a craving for some fresh seafood lately,’ she said. ‘You really didn’t need to go to all this trouble though.’
‘That is no sea creature,’ said Xinian, her voice curiously flat. ‘It is a demon.’
Wydrin took a step back.
‘It is the same being you used as a distraction in the dining hall,’ said Frith. ‘What is it doing here?’
Joah bent and picked up the crab-shaped thing, holding it up for them to see. It sat in his hands placidly enough. ‘First of all, I should say, do not be afraid. This being, who I call Feveroot, has been bound by multiple spells and magics, and is no more capable of harming us than you are able to lift this island above your head. Once, Feveroot inhabited a tree in eastern Pathania, a great thorn tree. It is from that, that I took his name. Inside the tree, he drew animals and birds to him, and compelled them to impale themselves on the long, wicked thorns. The creature fed on the blood as a sort of sacrifice.’
‘Demon,’ snapped Xinian. ‘Call it what it is, Joah.’
Joah nodded. ‘Yes, that is what it is, Commander. A demon, a being of terrible appetites that has boiled up from the flesh of Ede itself. It is also a source of great and fascinating knowledge. There are many different types of demons – some prefer to remain invisible, hiding within the bodies of others, while some prefer to haunt certain places and landscapes –’ Catching the look both Xinian and Selsye were giving him, Joah cleared his throat. ‘I found this specimen when I was travelling through Pathania last year, and with it I discovered how to draw out such a creature, and bind it to my purpose.’
‘It will end badly,’ said Frith sharply. He opened his mouth as if to say more, and then shook his head. ‘You play with something you do not understand.’
‘It is all perfectly safe,’ said Joah. ‘I have bound the creature, and brought it here with me. I commanded it to change its shape in the dining room, to alarm the mages, and then when we had the time we needed, I commanded it to make itself very small and come here. Its powers are limited, but it can carry you where you need to go, and it will obey you. It has no choice.’
‘By demon. You want us to travel by demon.’ Wydrin reached up to touch the mark on her cheek but stopped herself. ‘I don’t know why I’m surprised by anything any more.’
‘I – I cannot approve of the use of such magic,’ said Selsye quietly. She had her arms folded into her sleeves. ‘We barely know anything about it, and Joah is so young.’
‘Mistress Selsye, I have learned so much from Feveroot.’ The expression on Joah’s face was earnest enough, but Wydrin found herself wondering how much Selsye truly knew about his education outside of Lan-Hellis. She looked at Frith to see barely restrained anger on his face, but it only brought back visions of Estenn’s sword and she forced herself to look away.
‘I am not happy about it either, Selsye,’ said Xinian, ‘but at this moment, we have very little choice. The transport spells are closed to us, and we have no hope of accessing the last carapacers.’
Selsye nodded once. ‘Needs must, I suppose, but Joah, we will be having a long conversation about this in the near future. Assuming that there is a future. In the meantime, I will stay here, and keep close to the Archmage.’
Wydrin raised her eyebrows. ‘Is that wise? Reis no longer lives in the land of the sane. You could be in danger.’
‘I can look after myself,’ she said. The casual ease with which she said it led Wydrin to believe it was true.
‘Joah, show us what we need to know,’ said Xinian. ‘And be quick about it.’
The young mage pushed a loose strand of hair behind his ear. He almost looked nervous. ‘We will need a little more space.’
As they followed Xinian and the others back towards the sea, Wydrin felt Frith fall in at her side.
‘I need to tell you something.’ He cleared his throat. ‘I told Selsye where we are from. Where we’re really from.’
She looked up at him, unable to help herself. ‘You did what?’
‘I had little choice. They saw the staff, Wydrin. Selsye has it now. She hasn’t made it yet, but she has all the designs.’
‘Ye gods and little fishes. What did she say?’
‘As you can imagine, she did not believe me at first. But it explains too much. I did not tell her what we know about Joah, or their own fates. Although now I wonder if I should have.’
‘Why ruin what they have now? All happiness ends in death anyway. At least Xinian didn’t have long to endure before she joined Selsye.’
She felt Frith looking at her then, so she turned her face away, out into the dark.
‘Wydrin, are you all right? It’s like you can’t look at me.’
‘I am sorry, but I can’t do this any more,’ she said. ‘It makes me too weak. I thought I could live with it, but I can’t. I see it every time I look at you now. I see you die, over and over.’
‘What do you mean? Wydrin, what are you talking about?’
‘I can’t do it,’ she said simply. ‘I can’t go through that pain again. And I would lose you, eventually, and I would be destroyed by it.’
‘Better to pretend you don’t love me?’ The old anger was back in his voice, and even that was a thorn in her heart – memories of journeying across Ede, and the antagonism between them that masked something else. ‘To ignore that I love you?’
‘You’d get bored of your bit of rough eventually,’ she said, almost absently. The mark on her cheek was burning, burning. The crescent moon above doubled, and then tripled. ‘How long can I entertain you, really?’
He stopped. ‘You cannot think that,’ he said. ‘You know that is not true.’
‘Are you two coming? We have little enough time as it is!’ Xinian waved them on down the beach.
Wydrin looked away from him and trudged across the sand. After a moment she heard him follow after her. When they reached the others, Selsye handed Frith the long leather bag containing the staff. She shrugged at his startled look.
‘Having it around hurts my head,’ she said simply, ‘and I’ve no doubt it will come in handy.’ With that she turned away.
‘This is what you’ll need,’ said Joah. He took from around his neck a silver chain with what looked like a long glass phial hanging from it. ‘Whoever holds this has control of Feveroot, and can command him to change his shape. Now, I will need a sample of your blood. All of you who intend to ride with Feveroot.’
‘Why?’ demanded Xinian.
‘Once a sample of your blood is in the phial, Feveroot is bound to you, and cannot do you harm,’ said Joah. Selsye stood off to one side, looking down at her boots, while the demon itself crouched on the sand in its crab shape, unmoving.
‘Fine,’ said Xinian, unsheathing the dagger at her waist. ‘Let’s get this over with.’
Joah pulled the stopper from the phial and took a number of thin glass rods from inside. In turn, they each offered up a drop of their own blood, into which Joah dipped a glass rod, before securing it back in the phial. When it was done, he passed the phial to Xinian, who looked at it as if she’d just been handed a soiled undergarment.
‘And what do I do with it, exactly?’
‘You command him. He speaks, when spoken to.’ Joah cleared his throat and addressed the glass-like crab on the ground. ‘Feveroot, you have new masters now.’
‘I am overjoyed.’ The voice was soft, vaguely male. The red patches on the creature’s back glowed with each word.
‘You will be returned to me, Feveroot. I will want to know that you did as you were told.’
‘Oh I expect you will.’
Wydrin frowned. The demon did not sound like Bezcavar. Did demons have different voices? She supposed that would make sense.
‘It is ready,’ said Joah. ‘Now you must tell it what it needs to be, Commander.’
Xinian grimaced down at the glass phial in her hand. ‘I just tell it?’
Joah nodded eagerly. He had the air of a man longing to show off a magic trick. Xinian, however, looked as though she’d rather be anywhere else than in charge of a demon. She shook her head, as if she couldn’t think of anything at all.
‘We have to travel far, and quickly,’ said Frith in a low voice. ‘Across seas and across the land.’
Xinian glanced at him, and shrugged. Next to her Selsye looked tense, her lips pressed into a bloodless line.
‘Be a bird, then. A bird large enough to carry us.’
‘As you wish,’ murmured Feveroot. The crab seemed to burst apart, a solid explosion of ink-like glass, tendrils reaching up and out. They all took a startled step back, and then it was much, much larger, surging down the beach in a tide of black. Wydrin had a confused impression of shining feathers, stretching up into the dark, and then they were sharing the beach with what looked like a giant eagle. It still looked like it was made of black glass, but now its eyes were glowing a baleful red, and watching them closely. The beak was a curving blade, icy with moonlight.
‘Isn’t it extraordinary?’ exclaimed Joah. ‘The things we could learn from this creature, the magic we could master.’
No one had an answer to that.
70
Flying with Feveroot was initially a very unnerving experience.
When it had been time for them to leave, the demon had bent its head low, the tip of its beak scoring a line through the sand, until its back was accessible to them – a smooth stretch of black glass that was warm to the touch, highlighted here and there by glowing red shapes; like a panel in a stained-glass window, but feather shaped. Xinian, Wydrin and Frith had clambered up over its wing and stood awkwardly on that shining surface. Selsye and Joah watched from below.
‘Well, this is inconspicuous,’ said Wydrin. ‘Feveroot, I hope that you don’t fly too fast, because I think we’ll just be blown off into the ocean.’
‘I could hold you in my talons.’ The voice came from the glowing red sections rather than the eagle’s head. ‘I would not drop you.’
‘Held in the claws of a demon.’ Xinian was frowning. The glass phial now hung around her neck. ‘Why does that feel like a bad idea?’
‘It cannot harm you,’ called up Joah from below. ‘Remember, your blood is in the phial. It is bound to you, and must protect you.’
‘Wait a moment,’ came Feveroot’s voice again. Around them, the slick glass-like substance of the demon’s body became mobile again – multiple threads of shining obsidian leapt up and over them, interlacing into a lattice. After a moment, some of the empty sections filled in with the glowing red substance. Again, Frith was reminded of a stained-glass window.
‘Feveroot, what are you doing?’ asked Wydrin. She reached out and touched the lattice work.
‘This will keep you from being blown off into the ocean,’ the demon replied evenly.
�
�Fine,’ said Xinian. ‘Let’s get this over with, shall we? Take us across the sea to Relios, and there we shall land. From there I can check for messages from my contacts.’ She paused. ‘I take it you know where Relios is?’
Feveroot unfurled his wings. ‘I am familiar with all places where roots burrow.’
‘Good.’ Xinian walked to the edge of the cage and looked down to where Selsye stood. Something passed between them then, a shared understanding. Frith looked away. ‘Selsye, watch Reis. If anything happens, get a message to me if you can. Stay safe. I love you.’
‘I love you too, Xi. And be careful.’
Frith glanced over to Wydrin, but she was standing with her arms crossed over her chest, looking down at her boots. Feveroot spread his great wings, and the others on the beach retreated to a safe distance. The demon crouched slightly, talons scoring great furrows in the black sand, and they were off up into the sky, moving at a tremendous rate. As one, they all fell onto their backsides, and there was a bellow of outrage from Xinian.
‘Demon, have a care!’
There was a moment of turbulence, and then the flat surface of Feveroot’s back evened out somewhat.
‘My apologies,’ murmured the demon.
Frith turned to help Wydrin to her feet, but she was already clambering up.
‘It makes me miss Gwiddion,’ he said, half smiling. ‘More so than usual.’
Wydrin smiled wryly, but then looked confused, as if she’d lost her train of thought. She touched the red mark on her cheek, before turning away. ‘We shall miss him all the more, if this demon pitches us into the ocean,’ she said, without looking at him.
They flew on through the night. It was cold, and Wydrin could hear the wind well enough, but the strange barrier Feveroot had erected around them seemed to keep the worst of it out. Beneath them the sea was a stretch of darkness alive with the silver movement of moonlight on waves. Xinian was standing upfront, her hand curled around the glass phial as if she feared that to let go of it was to lose their mastery of the demon, and Frith stood nearby. Every now and then he would glance back to Wydrin, an expression of concern on his face. She had moved to the back of the glass cage and sat crouched against it, her knees drawn up to her chin. She felt feverish and ill, but this was hardly the time to come down with a sickness. Absently, she pressed her hand to one of the glowing red panels set into Feveroot’s back. It was faintly warm, and it made her feel oddly dizzy – fever, reflected back at her. She blinked rapidly.
