by Jen Williams
She closed her mind to them, and after a few moments, the continual low-level thunder that was the dragon-kin began to grow more distant. A few, she knew, took to the wing and left that way; she felt the wind against her face. Others tramped off into the deeper forest, not looking back. Ephemeral took a shaky breath.
‘What happened?’ asked Terin. He stood and waited for her to catch up, his blue eyes serious.
‘They have – flown the roost? I believe that is the phrase.’ Ephemeral forced a smile. ‘I have lost enough family.’
Devinia gave no sign that she had noticed the departure of the dragon-kin. They kept walking, mostly in silence, until on the afternoon of the next day, when Terin came to a stop and lifted his head.
‘It’s close now,’ he said. ‘Just beyond this treeline.’
Devinia looked up, her eyes bright for the first time in days. ‘Let’s see what we have, then.’
They stepped blinking into bright sunshine. Beyond the trees was a rising circle of concentric stones, made of a rough greenish rock. They were covered in thick swathes of what looked like a spider’s web, and the air was still. Ephemeral felt the flesh on her arms break out in goosebumps. She could feel the power Terin spoke of, like an echo in a room where people had recently been shouting, but there was no sign of anyone.
‘This is it,’ said Devinia. Her voice cracked a little, and she stumbled as she walked towards the stones. ‘The Eye of Euriale. This is where we would have ended up, if –’ She shook her head. ‘Where are they? Wydrin! There must be something here. A reason for all this. Wydrin!’ There was no answer to her calls, and Ephemeral could not feel Sebastian. She swallowed hard against the emptiness in her chest.
The stones were just tall enough to be difficult to climb. Terin, in particular, took frequent breaks as the sun beat down on his uncovered head, until eventually he sat on the edge of one of the stones and waved at her to keep climbing without him.
‘I’ll get there,’ he assured her. ‘Just keep an eye on our captain.’
Ephemeral scrambled up after Devinia, who had had a renewed burst of energy. They cut the spider webs away as they moved, chopping methodically and dragging themselves up, from one stone to the next. Eventually they stood looking down into an enormous, shadowed pit. There was a faint green glow from the very bottom, and a distant, whistling sound, like the wind across the desert at night. The sense of echoing power was very strong here, but still not quite present.
‘What is this?’ Devinia scowled down into the dark. ‘What is this supposed to be?’
‘It is the heart of the island,’ said Ephemeral. She didn’t know what else to say.
Devinia looked around, and then back into the hole. ‘There should at least be a weapon. There should be power. Something I can use. Not a fucking hole in the ground.’
‘There is power here,’ said Ephemeral softly. ‘But I do not think it is for humans to use.’
Terin appeared at that moment, his face pale from the long climb. Devinia glared from one to the other. ‘After all this, nothing. I should kill you both,’ she said, although there was no heat to her words. She went to the outer edge of the stone ring and sat down heavily. ‘How can my daughter not be here? How can I have lost so much, for nothing?’
Terin sat down next to her, and to Ephemeral’s surprise, briefly touched a hand to Devinia’s shoulder. ‘What do we do now, Captain?’
They were all silent for some time. In the distance, there was a great thundering crash. The Dawning Man pushing down more trees, still following them, still alive. They had all heard it in the last few days, but no one had spoken of it.
‘Let him come,’ said Devinia eventually. ‘Let the bastard come for me. I will peel that crown from his diseased head, and I’ll crush him with his own weapon.’ She lifted her head and looked at the other two. ‘You should go, now. Find some shade, and try not to die on this stinking island.’
‘That’s what we should do,’ agreed Terin.
‘What did Augusta say to you, at the end?’ asked Ephemeral.
‘She told me … she told me to put Ristanov out of her misery. That there had been enough pain.’
Ephemeral nodded. She agreed with Augusta. For a few moments the only sounds were the calls of birds and monkeys. Somewhere out there, Inky was taking her first steps in her own life. Her own, independent life.
‘If you take the crown, you will be infected too,’ said Ephemeral.
‘What does it matter now?’ said Devinia. ‘I’ll likely die here anyway, but I’m not going without taking that bastard with me. I have no choice.’
‘There is always a choice. I have learned that.’ Ephemeral seated herself on the step between Devinia and Terin. It was good to sit down. ‘Choices are important. So we will stay with you to the end, blood-of-Wydrin.’
89
Wydrin walked the shadowed streets of Krete, her footfalls silent out of long habit. It was a clear night, the stars overhead dizzyingly clear, but there was a strong desert wind blowing, and it smelt of a change in the weather. A storm, she thought, but then that might just have been her jangling nerves. Augusta had always been best at predicting the weather, much to Devinia’s endless annoyance. She smiled at the thought.
She had left the Citadel to fetch them some provisions – it wasn’t clear when they would get to eat again, after all – and Joah had distractedly given her directions to a market in the centre of the city that stayed open until the early hours. She was trusting Sebastian to keep the Citadel free of guards or nosy mages, and she realised she had no concerns on that front any more; Sebastian seemed different after his time at Y’Gria’s palace. The grim introspection had gone, to be replaced by a steely poise. He seemed comfortable in his own skin again, and for that she was glad. There had been no time to talk to him about it, but she wondered if he had forgiven himself in some part for what had happened with Prince Dallen and the brood sisters. She hoped so. It was about bloody time.
It was late, but the city, like all cities, was not quiet. Men and women still walked the streets, many the worse for drink, and the taverns she passed were lively; chatter and the sour stench of beer poured through the open doors into the night. Even so, there was an unmistakable tension everywhere; the laughter a little too loud, the eyes a little too bright. They would know now what had happened in Raistinia, or at least they would have heard rumours of it, and in their hearts they knew that eventually the fury of the gods would come upon them. For a brief moment, as she paused at the doorway of another tavern, she was filled with the urge to run inside and shout at them all to leave. Get out of the city, get away. Find the furthest corner of the world and hide, and hope the gods won’t find you.
Except, of course, that wouldn’t be enough. Smiling sourly in the dark she remembered standing and watching the sunset with Sebastian in the Blackwood, telling him that there was nothing they could do – that the dragon wasn’t really their problem, anyway. In the end, the reality of that had caught up with her. It had caught up with all of them.
She walked away from the tavern without going inside and followed the streets down and down, until she came to the small market Joah had spoken of. She picked up the scents of fried meat, and quickly purchased several bags of food to take back to the Citadel; chunks of pork on a stick, covered in a sticky glaze that smelt of plums; thick slices of crusty bread fried in butter and dusted with salt; golden pastries filled with a minced mixture of lamb and spices. From another stall she bought a couple of bottles of wine to wash it down and made to go, but her eye fell on a small table to the side of the food stalls. A short woman with black hair and rings clustered on her fingers like virulent barnacles was watching the people passing by with a solemn expression.
Pushing her newly purchased wares into her pack Wydrin approached her, nodding at the items on the table.
‘And what are these for, exactly?’
‘Charms against the gods, my girl. This one here will hide you from Y’Ruen’s bal
eful gaze – as she passes over, she will not see you,’ she indicated a collection of silver rods and coloured beads tied together with a tangle of blue thread. There was a tiny mouse skull hanging from the end. ‘And if you have ever felt the evil influence of Res’ni the wolf-sister, then wearing this charm against your bare skin will cleanse you.’
Wydrin snorted with something close to delight. ‘Where have you been all my life, woman?’
The charm seller’s lips pinched together, sensing mockery. ‘I make all of these myself, with my own crafting magic. My customers come back and tell me how these charms have changed their lives.’
‘Well, I suppose if it doesn’t work, they’re too busy being dead to complain.’ Seeing the look on the woman’s face, Wydrin relented. These people had enough problems without her taking the piss. ‘Do they sell well?’
The woman nodded, and some of the energy seemed to go out of her. ‘The gods grow angrier by the day. People are frightened, all the time. They are trying to go about their daily lives and pretend that nothing is wrong, but the gods will come for the mages one day, and then we all –’ She raised her hands in the air and dropped them. ‘I do not come from here. I come from Kurensten, a cold place. The great lakes would freeze in the winter and then when spring came, the ice would get thinner and thinner. Eventually, it would crack and shatter, but until that happened there was a strange noise at night. My mother said it was ghosts, but I knew it was the ice, waiting to break. Krete is like that now. We think we are talking and living our lives, but we are the wailing of ghosts.’ She paused and took a breath. ‘The charms sell very well, although I don’t know if anyone believes in them any more.’
Wydrin nodded slowly. ‘They’re not gods, not really. They’re bullies. Here, I’ll take three. The ones for Y’Gria, Y’Ruen and Res’ni. I think that will do us nicely.’
At first the charm maker looked uncertain, as though she thought Wydrin might still be mocking her, but when the coin purse came out she packed up the charms quickly enough, wrapping them in scraps of stiff paper and tying them with ribbon. Wydrin thanked her and turned to go, but the woman caught at her sleeve.
‘You must wear them next to your skin, girl, at your throat or at your wrist. That is where they work the best.’
‘Sure.’
‘Here.’ The woman came out from behind the table and gestured for the packages back. ‘Which one is for you? I will put it on myself, so I know you have it on correctly.’
Faintly bemused, Wydrin handed her the charm for Res’ni. The woman took it and fastened the leather thong around Wydrin’s neck, fussing with the beads and the silver charms until it rested comfortably against her breastbone.
‘There,’ she said, when finally she was happy with the arrangement. ‘That will work well for you, child.’
‘Thank you,’ said Wydrin, and she was surprised to find that she meant it. There were few things as comforting as being fussed over by a woman old enough to be your grandmother.
‘I’ve seen too many young people die,’ said the woman, her voice tight. ‘It makes me older than I wish to be. Go on, go. Be blessed, child.’
Wydrin headed away from the market and back towards the Citadel, the charm hanging cold against her throat. She was halfway up the steps that wound around the hill to the Citadel when there was a strange crackle of energy that set her hair on end. For a moment she thought it was simply the storm she had sensed earlier, an errant bolt of lightning perhaps, but then the night lit up with strange green light. She looked up and across the city towards the distant northern gate. The sky above the city wall was filled with boiling cloud, and a twitching mass of squirming tentacles was reaching from the centre. The gods had arrived.
‘Fuck me sideways,’ she spat, before sprinting up the rest of the steps.
The light from the lamps cast Joah’s eyes into deep shadow, making his face gaunt as he bent over his work. His hands were held out in front of him and he was pressing the angular shapes of the demonic pictograms into softened metal with the Edenier. He hadn’t spoken for some time now, and Frith did not like the way he stared at the device, his mouth pursed into a thin line of concentration. When the piece was finished, the young mage sat back and without needing to be told to, cooled the hot metal with a thin layer of ice. Still he did not speak. Frith couldn’t stand it any longer.
‘Well?’
Joah looked up, startled, as though he’d forgotten that Frith was there at all.
‘They are extraordinary,’ he said earnestly. ‘I’ve never seen anything like them, and yet magic is evident in every line. I can feel it working.’ Absently he wiped his fingers on his robe, as though he’d been touching something dirty. ‘It is not a pleasant sensation.’
‘No,’ said Frith. ‘It is not.’
‘And where did you say you found these runes?’
‘I did not say.’ Frith shifted where he sat, bringing the finished pieces together and slotting them into place. It was very close to being done now, and he could feel the aura of the thing pressing at his mind. The device looked a little like the Edenier trap had – a serrated ball of black and silver metal, imprinted with the demon’s own strange language – but it was larger, and more open. The top peeled back like a flower in bloom, and at its heart were pieces of broken green crystal: not the Heart-Stone, but the pieces of pure Edeian they had been able to salvage from the artefacts in the room above them. Looping around it like a crown was a band of eroded gold, into which Frith had instructed Joah to etch more mage words. This combination of both the mages’ and the demon’s magic was both beautiful and frightening; it did not repel him in the same way the Edenier trap had, but he felt deeply uneasy, knowing that he had designed it. He stood up, trying to get some blood back into his stiff legs.
‘But you must tell me,’ Joah ran his hands over the device, his eyes bright. ‘This is a whole new branch of magic unrelated to the Edenier, and I must master it.’ He glanced up at Frith, and his look was avaricious. ‘You are full of mysteries.’
‘There is no time, as well you know.’ Frith deliberately looked away from him to the last pieces of the trap. ‘Quickly, let’s get this done.’
‘Fine.’ Joah picked up one of the artefacts and turned it over in his hands. It was an eroded piece of stone dotted with shards of brittle green crystal. It had obviously been made to resemble something once and had been much larger, but time had reduced it. Joah shook his head. ‘There is not enough Edeian here. We need more.’
‘That is the last of it,’ said Frith. ‘Give it to me.’
Joah passed it up to him, and without thinking too closely about it, Frith summoned the time magic. The artefact grew in his hands, becoming a great four-legged animal with a long snout – back in its original form, the statuette had a pair of tusks curving from under its mouth, and they were both formed of the pure Edeian crystal. Frith handed it back. ‘Will that do?’
Joah shook his head slightly, in wonder rather than denial, and with a delicate push from the Edenier, broke the crystal free of the stone. He melted more of the silver they had left, and dancing it through the air like a snake, used it to fuse the Edeian shards to the inside of the device. At that moment, there was a clatter of boots on the steps leading from the room, and Wydrin crashed into the chamber with Sebastian at her heels. She was pale, with two points of colour high on her cheeks.
‘They’re here,’ she gasped. ‘They’re outside the city walls.’
Frith went to them, and took a hold of their arms. ‘The device is almost ready, and there are just the targets to place.’ He took a breath. It all felt too fast. Wydrin put her hand over his and squeezed it.
‘Don’t worry, Feveroot and I will get those in place before the gods even know what is happening.’ She reached into a pocket and pulled out what appeared to be a pair of charms on lengths of twine. ‘Here, you two, humour me and put these on. I’m suddenly feeling very superstitious.’
‘What are these?’
; ‘Just extra luck, hopefully.’
He exchanged a look with Sebastian, and then slipped the charm over his head. The big knight did the same.
‘I will be up on the roof, watching,’ said Sebastian. ‘The mages are already attacking and they may delay the gods for a time. Let’s hope it’s enough.’
Frith nodded. ‘When you are ready, Wydrin, signal Sebastian. I will activate the device straight away, and if everything works –’ he paused, knowing that she would object to his next words, ‘if everything works as it should, the gods will be drawn here immediately.’
‘What are you talking about?’ Wydrin frowned. ‘You need to be out of the chamber before that happens. You understand that, right? There will be four very angry gods sharing this very small space. You do not want to be here.’
‘There is no other way. Once the gods are inside the barriers Xinian and Selsye have set, they will know we have something planned. We cannot give them any time to act against it, or they could simply force their way back out again, or focus their efforts on destroying the Citadel.’ He paused. ‘Besides which, I am the only one that can activate the device. I have to be here.’
‘Nonsense,’ Wydrin scowled at him. ‘If that is the case, then I will come and bloody get you. As soon as the last target is on, Feveroot and I will be here, and you had better be ready to leave.’
There was a rumble and a crash so loud they all felt it through their boots.
‘There’s no more time,’ said Sebastian, his voice low. ‘Wydrin, we have to go now.’
Joah appeared at his elbow, carrying a leather pack with a long strap on it. ‘Here. The targets are in here. I have labelled each in a language you will understand.’ The contempt in his voice was briefly as clear and as cold as ice. Frith saw Wydrin raise an eyebrow at that before dismissing it as unimportant. ‘Get in close, put it against their flesh. My magic will do the rest.’
