by Jen Williams
‘Can you feel it now?’ said Feveroot. His voice issued from the red mark nearest her right boot. ‘It grows, and it clouds your judgement more and more. You know that it will only grow worse.’
Wydrin squeezed her eyes tightly closed and opened them again, willing her head to be clearer. It didn’t work.
‘Can you take it from me?’ she asked quietly, not really sure what she meant by the question. ‘Some demon magic. Make this madness go away. Take it from my blood.’
Feveroot was silent for some time. ‘Even if I were free, that isn’t within my power. But perhaps I can point you in the direction of help, if your head is too addled to see it.’ When he next spoke, the demon’s voice issued not just from the red mark by her boot, but from every part of the red pattern that speckled the giant manta ray. ‘She knows she is ill.’ His voice was louder than she’d heard it before. ‘Perhaps you can ease your pain together.’
Frith startled and turned around, his eyes wide. ‘Do you address me, demon?’
‘He is sharp, this one. I do, Lord Frith.’
Treading carefully, as though he thought the demon might suddenly turf them off, Frith walked over to Wydrin. His grey eyes were narrow with caution. ‘You will admit there is something wrong, then?’
‘It was Estenn,’ she said. ‘She did something to me at Lan-Hellis. When we fought in the artefact room, she reached for me and I moved out of the way, but not quite fast enough to avoid being touched. I think she has given me something, the same thing she gave to the mages at Poledouris.’ She took a deep breath. It was exhausting just to talk. ‘Feveroot could taste it in my blood, as he tasted it on the dead mages. Whatever it was, I don’t think she gave me quite enough, but –’ She raised her hands and then let them drop back to her knees. ‘It was enough to cause me a heap of trouble.’
‘And to stop you thinking rationally,’ said Frith. He came and sat cross-legged next to her. ‘You have not been right since Lan-Hellis, that much is obvious.’
‘The stuff about you and me—’
‘The stuff about us is nonsense.’ He sat up a little straighter. ‘Clearly.’
‘Frith, whatever she has done to me, it’s like she’s taken hidden feelings, and then made them stronger. When I thought you were dead –’ she paused and wiped a handful of sweat from her forehead – ‘I was lost. I am afraid to feel that again. To be weakened again. That is real. I am stronger if I am unattached.’
‘I beg to differ,’ he said, glaring at her with his storm-grey eyes. ‘You went through a great shock, whilst under the influence of some sort of magical curse. But you are stronger than it, and we are even stronger when we’re together. I learned that, the hard way.’
Wydrin found herself smiling even as her heart began to beat faster; a wild panic growing in her chest. It wasn’t in her to stop loving him. She would always be this weak.
‘You seem very sure that I haven’t just gone off you, princeling.’
He looked away from her for a moment, staring off at the red and blue horizon. ‘There has been a lot of upheaval in my life, to say the least. Much of what I thought to be unending and infallible was temporary, and easily broken. I was wrong about so much.’ He turned back to her, the sharp angles of his face etched by the sun. ‘But I do know that you love me, Wydrin Threefellows.’
She took a shaky breath – it was like succumbing to the fever, even as she knew the truth of it. She was stronger than the madness. She just had to concentrate on that. Easier said than done.
‘I would kiss you, you git,’ she said, ‘but I am incredibly sweaty.’
‘You are a fool, sometimes,’ he said mildly, as he turned to face her. He touched the line of her jaw, and kissed her firmly. Wydrin felt her head spin, and was glad to hold on to him for a time.
‘It is always pleasing when humans see sense,’ said Feveroot. ‘I have witnessed very little of it since I was taken from the tree. But you are still afflicted, Wydrin Threefellows.’
‘There must be a cure,’ said Frith. ‘There will be healers, ones who are familiar with magic and curses. If that’s what this is. We will seek one out.’
‘No time,’ said Wydrin, shaking her head slightly. ‘We race to Raistinia. There’s no time to stop to find some wise woman and her herbs.’ She pushed her hair back from her forehead. ‘I will just have to get through it. When Estenn is dead, when the threat of the Red Echo has been removed, then we can worry about what’s wrong with me.’
‘The infection grows worse all the time,’ said Feveroot. Wydrin thought she could hear actual doubt in the demon’s voice – what a different creature this was to Bezcavar, the demon who had tried to kill her in Skaldshollow. ‘It could kill you eventually, or cause you to be killed.’
‘Why would you care, demon?’ asked Frith. His words were short, but he sounded genuinely curious. ‘You seem very concerned for a being that thrives on pain and blood.’
‘I can only be set free – can only return to my tree – if the blood is willingly washed from the phial with water. If the phial is broken, I will be scattered to the wind, and lost.’
‘Don’t you worry about me,’ said Wydrin, keeping her voice as firm as she could. ‘My blades are sharp, and it takes more than a cold sweat to keep the Copper Cat down.’
Privately though, she wondered. In the far distance, the glittering blue band of the sea sparkled into existence, and, sitting on it like a scar, the shadow that was the city of Raistinia. They had very little time, and now more than ever they needed her wits, and her luck. And it seemed she was running out of both.
76
Tove reached up to hang another of the white linen sheets over the line. It was a warm, cloudless day, and the small cobbled courtyard was a pleasant suntrap. Consequently, her charges – her own son of eight years, and her niece and nephew – were starting to get that glassy-eyed look that spoke of a longing for an afternoon nap. That wouldn’t do at all. Pulling up her sleeves to display her own finely inked silk strips, she gestured with her fingers and sent a fine spray of ice crystals over the children. Gratifyingly, they shrieked as one.
‘Wake up, magelings!’ she said cheerily. ‘I want to see perfectly formed words from each of you this afternoon, and you won’t do that if you’re drooling down your tunic.’
‘Mum.’ Her boy shifted in his chair, wiping droplets of moisture from his face. ‘This is boring. We could be down at the sea yards. There’s a company of mummers come in from Onwai, and Father said they’re doing a play with real swords and real blood and—’
‘You will call me Mistress Tove during our lesson,’ she snapped, more annoyed with him than she wanted to admit. Trist was a good boy, but he didn’t yet grasp the gifts he’d been given. The Edenier remained unpredictable to them, as it always had – sometimes it was passed down through the family line, and sometimes it would suddenly appear in families where no one had lifted a single magical finger before. And sometimes, of course, it would skip a child entirely, despite the talents of the rest of her family. She thought of her dear daughter Kaiya, who was with her father today, dutifully learning her sciences. The Edenier was a gift, not to be squandered. Belatedly, she realised that her niece and nephew were watching her with raised eyebrows, apparently waiting for the scolding they expected their cousin to receive. Instead, she turned to the bucket at her side and removed the long brush, already thick with ink. ‘Trist, up you get. I want to see the words for Fire, Force and Ever. Quickly now, the lines must be swift and smooth, no faltering.’
Frowning so that his lower lip stuck out, Trist stood and took the brush from her. He approached the white sheet and hesitated there, clearly bringing the correct shapes to mind, but before the ink touched the canvas her niece cried out, pointing above their heads.
‘What is that? Oh Aunty Tove, what is it?’
In the blameless blue sky above their heads a giant fist of rock hung in the air, as solid and as real as the cobbles under their feet. It was festooned with vines and f
lowers, hanging from it like a shifting curtain of greenery. As they watched the shape moved slowly over them, shrouding them in black shadow. It was heading towards the centre of the city. Tove felt her skin grow cold all over, despite the heat of the day.
‘Mum, is it the gods? Have they come?’
She looked down at Trist’s upturned face. He had already managed to smear ink on his cheek.
‘I don’t know, my love, I don’t …’
Except that she did. She had never seen it with her own eyes, but there wasn’t a mage alive who did not know the aspect of Y’Gria’s floating palace. Indeed, a great number of dead mages had known it very well. The mage guard would be moving into place now, and the special spells that hung over her city would be leaping into life, but even so, terror constricted her throat. It was hard to believe that it was possible to stand against such a thing when you saw it hanging in the sky above you.
‘Go inside,’ she said abruptly. ‘Our lessons are over for today. We will stay inside and –’ She swallowed down her fear. Wait for the nightmare to go away. ‘We’ll stay under a roof for now.’
Y’Gria appeared at the bars of Sebastian’s makeshift cell, a small smile playing on her golden lips. She had put him down in a dark corner of one of the ruins, and fashioned bars from the roots of an old tree growing above to hold him there. He had tried to break through the twisted roots, throwing himself against them again and again, but although they had bent a little they had never come close to breaking.
‘What do you want? Where is Estenn?’
‘I thought you would like to see this, good Sir Sebastian,’ she said. ‘Oster promises that you will behave yourself, and if you don’t, I will throw you from my palace walls. How’s that? I do hope you will behave, Sebastian, because I would so dearly like to see your face when we destroy the mage city.’
Sebastian stepped back from the bars, not trusting himself to speak. She nodded once, and the crumbling walls grew lively with thick green vines. They slid around his arms and pinned them to his back. He resisted once, feeling alarm as a grip stronger than anything human twisted around his wrists, but then it stopped.
‘There. Held securely, I trust.’ Y’Gria gestured lazily at the roots, and they shrank back up to the tree above them. ‘Come with me.’
Sebastian followed her out of the ruins and into a wide courtyard with neatly cut green grass. There were crumbling grey walls on three sides, and the far side was open to the sky. Oster was nowhere to be seen, but Estenn was there, fussing over her hessian sacks. Y’Gria took him to the very edge, where empty space yawned inches from his feet. It occurred to him that with his arms bound behind his back it would be very easy for her to simply push him out into the void, but then she could have done that any time she wanted.
‘Behold, Raistinia.’
It was a jewel of a city, a confection wrought in red-gold and studded with sapphires. Rather than merely spreading next to the sea, Raistinia took the ocean to its bosom; Sebastian saw canals of glittering water dissecting streets of red brick, and large square pools dotted with pleasure boats and barges, fes-tooned with bright flags. The floating palace descended rapidly towards the city, until he could clearly see people moving down the streets and along the canals. Most of the faces were turned up to them, and some were already running. He was reminded of an ant’s nest when some bigger creature, a scorpion perhaps, began to tear down the carefully constructed towers of sand.
‘We are moving out over the centre of the festering hole, where it is best to deploy the weapon. Isn’t that right, Estenn, my child?’
Estenn stood up from the sacks. To Sebastian she looked dazed, as though being in such close proximity to Y’Gria had given her sunstroke. He eyed the bags, measuring the distance between him and Estenn. He could run and use his body to push one or both the sacks over the side. He would likely fall himself. A drastic solution, but there were so few options left.
As if she had read his intention on his face, Y’Gria slipped a cold hand around the top of his arm. ‘Now then, Sir Sebastian, I had Oster’s word you would behave yourself. Does the word of your lover mean nothing to you?’
‘Where is he?’ he asked, dragging his eyes away from the sacks. ‘Shouldn’t he also be here to witness your triumph?’
Y’Gria squeezed his arm, letting her nails dig into his flesh. ‘He is in a foul temper for some ridiculous reason, so I have sent him to be alone until he can conduct himself with more grace. Are we ready yet, Estenn?’
‘I believe so. There is a small ritual to perform, and then the Red Echo will fall on all of them below.’ Her tongue darted out and licked her lower lip. ‘Thousands of the godless, dead, by my hand.’
Sebastian saw Y’Gria’s eyebrow twitch slightly. ‘At our hand, my dear. Do what you must.’
‘I will not let you do this,’ said Sebastian, trying to meet Estenn’s eyes. ‘Whatever it takes, I will stop you.’
‘Make any move I don’t approve of, Sir Sebastian, and I will gut you in seconds,’ said Y’Gria almost pleasantly. ‘You will be quiet, and watch the will of the gods in action.’
The bags at Estenn’s feet trembled, and to Sebastian’s surprise a small figure climbed out of one. It looked like a creature made of paper and scrawled with ink; it made him think immediately of the Culoss, the strange little men they had battled and then befriended under the Citadel. They too had been made by mages. After a moment, an almost identical figure climbed out of the second one. They both stood blinking ink-black eyes in the sunlight.
‘They are the Red Echo?’
‘The mages and their ridiculous confections,’ said Y’Gria dismissively. ‘Get on with it, Estenn.’
Sebastian tensed, thrown by the apparently living spell. Estenn drew her cutlass and knelt before the two doll-like figures. With tiny movements, she nicked their parchment palms; red grains of what looked like sand leaked from one, black sand from the other. She took their hands, preparing to place them together.
‘For the glory of the gods,’ she said through gritted teeth. ‘For the glory of the Twins!’
Out of the corner of his eye Sebastian saw Y’Gria frown, and then, as he tensed to throw himself forward, hoping to knock Estenn away from the Red Echo, a black shadow descended on them all.
‘I’ve got a bone to pick with you, you gods-crazy bitch!’
He looked up to see an impossible creature of glimmering black glass swooping down on them from the clear blue sky and then abruptly Wydrin was hurtling from its back, dagger already drawn. She landed on the grass and rolled, tucking the blade carefully aside so that it didn’t stab her, and then she was back on her feet. The great black creature, which Sebastian realised was shaped like a manta ray, banked round and he saw Frith run and jump from its back too, landing in the grass with somewhat less grace. The strange black manta ray turned and dropped back out of sight.
‘What is the meaning of this?’ Y’Gria was screeching, her form already splitting into hundreds of twisting roots. ‘Who would dare?’
‘The Copper Cat dares!’ Wydrin waved Frostling in the air, and then caught sight of Sebastian. ‘Seb!’ She was sweating, and there was a red mark high on her cheek. ‘Good to see you alive, we’ll catch up in a bit.’ With that she ran directly at Estenn. The woman brought her sword up, an expectant expression on her pale face, but at the last minute Wydrin dodged her, snatched up one half of the Red Echo, and leapt from the edge of the floating palace into empty space.
77
For a few heart-shattering seconds Wydrin dropped through the sky, Echo clutched to her chest, and then Feveroot was beneath her, tendrils of flexible black glass reaching up and gathering her to his changing form. Despite his efforts she still landed hard, and Echo gave a muffled squeak beneath her.
‘Help?’
‘Hold on, kid, this is going to get bumpy.’ She rolled over onto her back and looked up at the floating palace. She could already see bursts of multicoloured light and errant fireballs a
s Frith did his best to keep the god creature occupied. Her heart clenched at that, and the fact that Sebastian was up there with him, but they had very little time. If they could get Echo away and hide the spell again, there was still a chance. As she watched, a plume of pale-green tentacles burst from the side of the palace, swirling eerily in the open air. For a moment she thought it was just Y’Gria fighting off Frith’s magical attacks, but then the tentacles twisted and shot towards them, moving faster than she would have believed possible.
‘Shit! Feveroot, make yourself hawk-shaped. And DIVE!’
The shining black substance of the demon twisted and ran together, becoming lethal speed, and they shot towards the ground at a terrific pace, so quickly that Wydrin felt sure her vital organs had all switched places. Even so, they weren’t quite fast enough – a barbed tentacle flashed out from the main cluster and caught at Feveroot’s tightly furled wing. Wydrin saw the wickedly sharp thorns tear through the slick substance of the demon’s flesh as though it was made of butter, and a bright red burning fluid spattered into the sky, hissing as it hit cool air. Feveroot screamed, a many-throated howl that chilled Wydrin to the bone. The tentacle tore loose and suddenly they were out of reach, but still the glowing red blood of the demon poured from the wound, and they were spiralling towards the ground. Wydrin clutched at the hard feathers at the back of his neck as the city of Raistinia loomed sickeningly close.
‘Feveroot? Feveroot, are you with me?’
‘I am … holding on to this shape.’
Wydrin looked up, thinking that this couldn’t possibly get any worse, only to see Estenn sliding down one of Y’Gria’s twisting roots towards them. Her teeth were bared, eyes wild. We’re both as bloody mad as each other, thought Wydrin. The root tip was growing thinner and thinner as Y’Gria attained the extremities of her reach. Estenn had a sack tied at her waist – the other half of the spell, of course. She intended to unite them still.
