by Sam Bowring
‘Shall I try to command the fire instead this time?’ he offered.
‘Do you think you can?’
‘It will probably take me longer than you.’
‘Can you make us a haze then?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Really Rostigan, why did I even bring you?’
She tried to cover with a smirk, but he felt the truth of her exasperation.
‘Perhaps I have a less artful version,’ he said, and gestured at the rock pile. Rocks lifted up, and he guided them to construct something of a floating dome around Yalenna and himself – not a complete barrier, but it cast a shadow and obstructed them from view on the path side and above, and no silkjaw would approach from what was soon to be the fiery side. Some of the rocks spun slowly in the air, and he brought them closer together to still them, adding more to fill in the gaps.
‘Not too bad,’ said Yalenna.
‘Not as subtle as yours.’
‘It’ll do.’
‘All right. Ready?’
She lit the torch. Once again she folded the flame over itself, building it to a white hot intensity. At the splaying of her fingers, streams burst forth – and the silkjaw clacking its jaws went up in a puff, its blackened bones falling away. Over the burgeoning roar and sizzle, Rostigan thought he heard an angry shout, and peered through the cracks in his floating rock shield. A lone figure made his way down the path, his tattered robe flying about his bare feet.
‘Mergan,’ Rostigan muttered. It was an unwelcome, unexpected sight – the man’s last meeting with Yalenna had been a troubled one, and who knew what his purpose was in being here? It seemed odd that he would tarry about the tomb where he had been imprisoned for three centuries, but what else could explain his presence? Hopefully he did not mean any harm, for ever since the change his threading ability had been beyond compare. Would he listen to reason? Would he give Rostigan a chance to explain that he had forsaken the sinful ways of Karrak?
A force seized the floating shield and tore it apart, hurtling rocks in every direction. One cracked against Rostigan’s brow and he stumbled backwards into the furiously channelling Yalenna.
‘Watch out!’ she yelled, as she was knocked perilously close the edge.
‘Mergan!’ Rostigan warned dizzily.
She glanced around, saw Mergan raising his hands towards them.
‘What,’ bawled the old Warden, ‘are you doing to my nests?’
The torch ripped from Yalenna’s hand, fiery streams fizzling out as it went flying away to clatter onto the path.
‘I rule these mountains now!’ said Mergan. ‘I decide who comes and goes, and who sets fire to what and where!’
‘Mergan!’ cried Yalenna. ‘What are you speaking of? Don’t you remember that we are friends?’
‘Friends when you traffic with the likes of him?’ Mergan stabbed a finger at Rostigan, who flinched, but all the finger sent his way was accusation. ‘Have you gone mad, girl? That is Karrak, Lord of Crows! Lord of Lies!’
‘He does not go by those names anymore!’
Mergan laughed. ‘Oh really? And what else has changed in my absence? You two have gotten cosy over the years, have you?’
‘I have been dead – Mergan, you know this!’
‘A convenient excuse. Tell me this, then – if you and I are such good and glorious friends, why do I find you here destroying my silkjaws? Is that really your idea of reconciliation?’
‘What?’ Yalenna was awash with confusion. ‘Your silkjaws? What are you talking about? Please, can you not remember who you –’
‘Enough!’ Mergan bellowed, and clapped his hands. A shockwave of air burst forth in rapidly expanding rippled lines. Rostigan reached out to try to stop them, knowing his efforts would prove woefully inadequate. Yalenna was more deft and inverted the blast before it reached them to send it back at Mergan. With a lazy gesture he batted the air, breaking the ripples apart.
Mergan strode forwards, hands working almost to a blur as he wove a tapestry of spells with daunting mastery. Wind assailed them, rocks whirled past, the ground shook, and bones jostled inside their bodies. It was all Rostigan could do to keep himself in shape as he pushed back against Mergan’s penetrating influence. Then a spinning rock cracked him square in the chest and he flew backwards off his feet, off the ledge and out over the nest. For a moment he gazed upwards, stunned, at a pleasant view of open sky framed by mountainsides … and then there came a whistling in his ears and he was falling.
The snapping surface of silk barely slowed his descent. His hand thwacked against something hard, and he twisted so that his legs began dragging behind him. As he continued to break through the weave, sticky silk plastered his body until he was next to smothered. He spread his limbs wide to catch as much of the stuff as possible, and slow himself as best he could. Eventually he came to a stop, suspended far down in the darkness of his white cocoon. He felt like a spider’s lunch.
He tore silk away from his mouth and eyes, and strained his head back up the tunnel of waving strands he had carved out with his fall. Light flashed in the upper levels – somewhere above the fight still raged. Suddenly something blocked the tunnel, and for a terrible moment he thought Yalenna was plummeting directly after him … but then, as the bundle fell closer, he saw shining white jaws opening. The silkjaw-to-be was not yet more than a few bones bound together, but it landed upon him snapping frantically, without the wings or other joints to position itself properly. Rostigan grabbed it by the jaws, careful of the tiny silver fangs growing along them, and broke it apart.
Pushing the dead almost-’jaw away, he became aware of the nest vibrating around him. Other lumps were wobbling through the weave, bits of bone loosely strung together – it seemed the malicious natures of the creatures preceded their physical completion.
He pulled free his sword and began to swing away, yet every swipe he aimed at a gnashing bundle, every kick and struggle, sent him deeper into the nest.
Mergan watched Karrak fall with relish. If it had not been for him and other Wardens of his ilk, Mergan would never, never… but no, that wasn’t right … wasn’t it Regret to blame?
‘How did he turn you against me, Yalenna?’ he asked with a glower. ‘Did he use his twisted words to corrupt your mind?’
‘You know he can’t do that,’ Yalenna spoke through gritted teeth as she fended him off.
‘Such a beautiful mind you had when I first met you. Do you remember? So young and empty, waiting to be filled – so eager to learn and do what was right!’
‘I still want to do what is right.’
‘I wish that were the case. Such a shame.’
‘Mergan …’
She went on to say various other things, to beg and plead with him, to argue and question, but he ceased to really pay attention. Perhaps she thought he was lowering his guard, slackening off his attack in an effort to commiserate with her. She was still a little naive, it seemed, even after all the lessons life had taught her.
He finished the subtle job he’d been doing, working through the ledge she stood on, snicking threads here and there, weakening the structure to a certain point – then gathered up a final bundle and wrenched. Yalenna’s eyes went wide as the ground dropped away under her, and both she and ledge fell from the mountain.
Mergan chuckled as he walked to the crumbling edge. He arrived in time to see Yalenna tumbling through the upper layers of the web, while several paces from her the large chunk of rock quickly opened up a tunnel all the way to the bottom – some hundred paces down, by the looks. A pity that he’d had to damage this remaining nest in disposing of his enemies but, well … hopefully it would grow back, or at least continue functioning in the manner Regret had designed it for.
He heard a beating of wings, and glanced up in time to see a silkjaw diving at him, its silver fangs flashing in the sun. He hurled himself to the ground and felt a whoosh of air across his back as the creature passed over.
What?
Mergan rose, his hands uncurling, feeling the sadness of realisation.
Of course they did not recognise him.
Fool. You are not really Regret, and they know it.
He cast around and spotted Yalenna’s discarded torch on the path, still smouldering a little. Summoning it to his hand, he flared its dying embers to life and launched streams upwards at the oncoming ’jaws. As they caught fire and wheeled away, raining down bones as their fibres singed, he turned back to the crevasse.
If the Unwoven learned that silkjaws did not accept him, they would know he was not really Regret, and that was something he could not allow.
Dejectedly he raised the torch.
At least what he had to do would ensure that Yalenna and Karrak were really dead.
Flame streamed again, down into the nest.
Rostigan heard a cry and looked upwards. Two new fissures were opening through the nest as objects fell. One was faster and larger, and passed him by to hit the ground below with a great thud. The other, from the sound of it, was Yalenna. She was breaking through the weave as he had, but was lighter and therefore slowed sooner, coming to a stop some paces above him.
‘Yalenna!’ he called.
She groaned.
‘There are silkjaw bits and pieces in here,’ he warned. ‘They’ll try to attack you!’
He hacked one aside as he spoke, and the movement made him slip further downwards. She didn’t respond, and he wondered if she was dazed. He worked his way over until he was right underneath her, though he couldn’t help simultaneously falling deeper.
‘Yalenna!’
Above her the view turned red, the mouths of all tunnels glowing with fire. Burning fibres wafted down, turning to smoke before getting far. Over the roar he heard Mergan cackling – the other Warden was burning the nest above them!
Why was a question which floated briefly through Rostigan’s head. Why was Mergan here? Why was he doing this? Why had he stopped them from burning the nest only to start the process again? To some extent the answer was simple – Mergan was mad, that was plain, no sense to be made of his actions.
Rostigan began to swing his sword all around, opening up a kind of chamber, and Yalenna sagged lower as he weakened the web beneath her.
‘Cut your way down!’ he shouted.
Finally she seemed to awaken. She started struggling, and he wondered if she was too tightly wrapped … but then, with relief, he saw a flash of silver about her. As she sliced at the silk below, he continued enlarging his chamber, and a few moments later she tumbled down into it.
‘We have to get to the bottom,’ he said, and began to cut away beneath him. She quickly got the idea and set to work doing the same, and together they worked deeper into the nest. Orange light washed over them, and the air began to heat. The nest surface grew ever closer as Mergan burned it away, while the ground loomed towards them.
‘Come on, Yalenna!’
They moved frantically, slicing as best they could in the restrictive space. Finally they ripped through the last of the weave that lay between them and solid footing, setting down upon rock.
‘What now?’
‘We need to find shelter or we’ll be roasted alive.’
Moving was easier now, and Rostigan led the way, carving a path through the sticky strands. He reached a cliff wall and skirted along it, hoping for a path out, or some cave. What he found instead was a low overhang, the space underneath barely large enough for a body to fit inside.
‘In here!’
Yalenna got down on her belly and wriggled backwards under the ledge. Beside her Rostigan did the same, until he had managed to wedge himself in quite far. Outside the fire flashed intensely as it reached the bottom levels, and embers began to settle where they had been standing.
‘I think we’ll avoid getting cooked in here,’ Rostigan said. ‘Do you want to wait it out and confront him, or …’
‘Let’s just get gone,’ she muttered angrily.
Thus, face down in the grit, they concentrated on threadwalking. Rostigan felt a wave of heat roll across him, but it was not intense or long lived – with the silk gone, there was nothing left to burn. Smoke wafted under the overhang and he willed himself to ignore the acrid sting entering his lungs. He pictured Althala, held the image firmly, felt the distance between him and it … and soon his threads were unravelling as his pattern came apart.
MESSAGE
Salarkis saw great pillars of smoke rising from the Peaks, and wondered what was happening. There were more silkjaws on the wing than usual, except over the Spire, which they thankfully seemed to avoid. In the Dale, groups of Unwoven were gathering to point and stare, while others ran up steep paths into the Peaks. Whatever was happening, Salarkis did not think that they had caused it.
He wondered if his old friends were nearby doing something useful, unlike him, stuck in this place, trapped and useless.
He watched for some time, until the smoke began to disperse.
In the Spire below he could hear Unwoven moving about. He had gathered from overheard snippets that they were cleaning the place up, though they still did not venture up to the roof. He was seemingly safe here, from them at least, if not from starving to death.
‘Hello?’ he called down the stairs.
There came a shuffling and a grubby Unwoven appeared at the bottom, peering around the doorway. ‘What do you want?’ she said.
‘Do you know what has happened in the Peaks?’
‘Maybe,’ she said. ‘Why would I tell you?’
‘Why not?’ he tried, but she sneered and receded.
He attempted again to work on his message. The sending of words had never been one of his threading talents, before or after his various changes, yet getting a message to Yalenna was one of the only useful things he could think of to do. He knew the technique in theory – a threader shaped threads from some random pattern into recognisable letters – but had never been able to do it himself. Then again, he had never had such a pressing need.
He searched the roof for anything useful, found a sharp stone, and set about scraping it across the ground, eking out letters as best he could. The message was simple, but important, and having it spelt out made it easier. He used threads plucked from the breeze, thin silvery strands which were light to his influence and which would float easily and far. Using the scratches as a template, he curled the strands tightly into shape. One by one, letter by letter, it was working. It was working!
He suppressed excitement lest it ruin his progress, for holding everything in place remained a strain. He tied letters together with finer threads to keep them in order, then tied the words together too, a sort of faint latticework that kept the message composed. A sideways glance at the world showed evening on the way – he must have been at this for hours, yet had barely noticed the time passing. He tried not to be distracted with thoughts about the increasingly large stains in the sky, which all but blotted out the setting sun.
The message was ready, or as ready as he could make it. Gingerly he floated it up between his hands, some of the loose ends waving, and walked to the edge of the roof. To the south the Pass was high enough to obscure the lands beyond. Easier if it were a straight line, he thought anxiously, for my first try. Instead he concentrated hard on where Althala lay, somewhere beyond thick pinnacles of rock, and envisaged a line between him and it that curved slightly through the Pass. There were threaders on constant alert at the top of Althala Castle who cast a wide net, so even if his aim was off a little, with some good fortune, his blind shot might make it.
There was nothing else for it. Gently he eased forward his hands, and the bundle of threads floated from him, picking up spee
d as it went. He half expected to see Mergan’s influence reach up from somewhere below and tear it apart, but blessedly it seemed the man’s attention was elsewhere, and the message floated on.
It was irksome being near Loppolo, yet Yalenna could not fault his presence. She had been the one to decide that he could live, and now she had to live with that decision.
Loppolo had apparently asked for a report from Jandryn and Tarzi about some mission they had led underneath the city. That was how Yalenna and Rostigan had found them anyway – in Loppolo’s dining hall, munching on various titbits while going over what had happened. Yalenna supposed that even a king who had been secretly stripped of his power should know what was occurring in his realm, if only to keep up pretences. Still, upon arriving, she reminded him who was really in charge by ordering Jandryn and Tarzi to start their account again from the beginning. Her brusqueness, she realised, from the looks she earned, was not ill-received by Loppolo alone – though it was hard to tell if Tarzi’s glower favoured her, or Rostigan. Jandryn too, seemed oddly distant. Nevertheless, after a moment, Tarzi started the tale again. As she spoke, Yalenna and Rostigan had cause to exchange a glance, each surprised to learn that worms had been feeding on the Althalan populace.
‘And you went into the tunnels?’ said Rostigan, staring in amazement at Tarzi.
‘I did,’ she answered testily. ‘Forgive me, did I need your permission?’
Rostigan looked slightly abashed. ‘No, that’s not what I meant. But I do worry for you – would you not expect me to?’
She laughed. ‘Why should you? I would have thought it obvious I survive, as it turns out.’
Yalenna took Tarzi’s chastising of Rostigan as fair warning to hide her own reactions. She, too, upon learning what Jandryn had been through, worried for him in retrospect – but she dared not say anything in fear of hurting his ego or inflaming his anger. He was his own man, after all.
Jandryn shot Tarzi a smile, a clear sign of comradery. It seemed the two of them had bonded over the incident. ‘We needed Tarzi,’ he explained. ‘She kept us in good spirits when the greyness threatened to take our hope. Without her, well … it would have been very bad, I have no doubt. And now your minstrel has a story to tell in which she is the hero! You would have been proud of her.’
