Bone, Fog, Ash & Star

by Catherine Egan

  Nell’s goal for the past year had been to study cetology, marine mammal science, with the famous cetologist Graeme Biggis. All her life Nell had longed to leave Holburg, to see the larger world, but once she left she came to appreciate the natural splendour she had grown up with. As children, she and Eliza had spent hours sitting on the cliffs in winter watching for whales, cheering whenever they saw a spout or a great dark back surging out of the waves. In the summer they swam with schools of curious dolphins, recognizing individuals year after year by size and scars. They found mushrooms that glowed in the dark and observed the nesting habits of the hundreds of species of birds that populated the island. Biology classes at Ariston Hebe had given her a context for the wonders of her childhood. Cetology in particular – exploring the mystery of those huge underwater mammals, so intelligent, so beautiful – had captivated her completely.

  While many students chose to do another two years of secondary school before transferring to a university, the best students usually went on to university after their third year. As a top third-year student at Ariston Hebe she would no doubt win scholarships to any number of reputable universities, but Nell didn’t care about that. As far as she was concerned, there was no Plan B. She would go to Austermon and study with Graeme Biggis. He taught select courses at Austermon and chose his top students to be assistants on his marine expeditions. She intended to be one of them, and go deep beneath the sea to witness the lives of the marvelous creatures there. Nothing less would do.

  Since she was seeking to enter the Department of Natural Science, the entrance exam would be weighted heavily towards the sciences and mathematics. There would be shorter sections on history and literature but Nell was confident of her ability when it came to the humanities. What she needed to cram were the more complicated branches of physics and mathematics. She wouldn’t be given a full scholarship unless she demonstrated excellence in all areas, and the fees were so outlandish that it was simply impossible for her to go without a scholarship.

  She spent the morning deep in her notes. At odd moments her mind would wander to Jalo, the way he had bent towards her on the path and how she had stepped away like a fool. When she’d told Charlie her relationship with Oscar Van Holt was “on and off” she had made it sound rather more “on” than it was. In fact, neither of them was capable of a relationship around exam time, and while she was deeply impressed by his intellect, the more she got to know him the less impressed she was by the rest of him. Oscar Van Holt was all brain, without much charm or humour to balance him out. Jalo, on the other hand, well, Jalo was a Faery, unspeakably beautiful, powerful, mysterious. Why hadn’t she let him kiss her? What would it be like to kiss a Faery?

  Angry with herself for wasting precious minutes with such thoughts, she went back to her notes. Kissing Jalo was far from the point. She had to ace the Austermon exam. That was all that mattered for the next three weeks.

  Behind her, someone entered the room on silent feet and watched her carefully through brilliant, changing eyes before soundlessly drawing a dagger.

  ~~~

  Charlie thought he saw something out of the corner of his eye, a shadow flitting between two trees, but when he looked again there was nothing. He made another attempt to raise the apricot issue with Emin as they walked among the bright little trees, their baskets already overflowing with fruit.

  “These apricots are delicious,” he began feebly.

  “Aprico! Ardelishuss!” a bird peeped cheerfully overhead.

  “Yes,” said Emin. “Nothing compares to the real thing! Not that you’d know the difference, I suppose.”

  “Uh huh. Yes. We’re enjoying them.”

  “I am so glad!”

  “Ardelishuss! Aprico Ardelishuss!” the bird carried on. Charlie glared at it.

  “The thing is, lah, humans need to eat all kinds of things.”

  “Oh yes!” said Emin vaguely, missing the point yet again. “I can imagine!”

  “I’m nay sure you can,” said Charlie. “It can be…problematic, aye, to eat the same thing every day.”

  “Naturally!” said Emin. He had no idea what the human was on about. He picked a gleaming apricot from a low-hanging branch. “This one looks good. Why don't you have it? Since you need to eat so much?” He offered it to Charlie, who shook his head a little, feeling ill.

  Mala looked over at Charlie and said in her lazy voice, “Perhaps you would like to eat something different?”

  Charlie could have hugged her. He was about to reply when another bird soaring above them sang out, “Warizagural?”

  He froze.

  “What did that bird just say?” he asked.

  “What bird?” Emin bit into the ripe, golden apricot. Mala whistled and the bird swooped back.

  “Chektacassla. Kwait, kwait.”

  They all stood still for a moment, perplexed. Then Charlie dropped his basket and began to run back in the direction of the house, which had inconveniently become a castle again, perched on a looming cliff high above. Emin and Mala exchanged a horrified look and everything changed.

  ~~~

  Nell heard Charlie shouting and looked up from her notes. She was high above the orchard and she could see him running like mad through the trees, calling her name. She had never heard that note of panic in his voice. She stood up, spilling her notes across the floor. Suddenly the view outside the windows shifted and the house was right in the middle of the orchard. A book-turned-raccoon made an angry chattering noise behind her and Nell span around. A Faery was almost upon her, dagger in hand. Nell threw her bowl of apricots in the Faery’s face and tried to run past but the Faery caught her by the arm, dagger hand flying towards her. Before she could move to defend herself, a golden net ensnared the Faery.

  “There will be more,” said Emin. He and Mala were both in the room. The bookshelves were crumbling to shadow and dust, the walls drawing close around them.

  “If they work Illusion? Or Curse us?” Mala’s eyes were frightened but Emin shook his head firmly.

  “They have no license to work Illusion on my property. I think whoever is behind this would not be quite so bold. I may not be rich but I am still technically a member of the nobility. They are here for the humans, am I right?” He pulled the ensnared Faery roughly from his net. Her bright hair was in a tight knot behind her head and she wore simple silk trousers and a tunic.

  “Who are you?” asked Emin, giving her a shake.

  The Faery said nothing, staring back at him defiantly. Charlie was at one of the windows, banging.

  “There’s no door!” he shouted. “Let me in.”

  The window swung open and he clambered into the room, which immediately began to rise as if the tower were growing. The windows disappeared.

  “Are you all right?” he asked Nell breathlessly.

  “Emin arrived just in time,” she said, looking away. She didn’t want him to see that she was trembling. She gathered her fallen notes back into the folder and hugged it to her, gripping the edges to keep her hands from shaking. “What’s going on?”

  “Assassins,” said Emin. “But where are the others?”

  There was a whistling sound and Mala spun herself in front of Nell, taking an arrow to the chest. There was a fourth Faery in the room for only an instant. Then both the intruders were gone, straight through the wall.

  “Blast the Ancients!” cursed Emin. They went rocketing upwards and the walls fell away. Nell stumbled, dizzy, and found herself clinging to Charlie’s arm. They were on top of a stone tower that loomed high over the apricot fields and the hills and the forest. Far below they could see a few figures moving swiftly through the orchard.

  “It’s nay the Thanatosi,” said Charlie. “Though they’re about as fast.”

  “They’re Faeries, aye,” said Nell faintly. “Why are Faeries trying to kill us?”

  Mala pulled the arrow out of her chest with a disgusted look. Thick gold blood trickled down the front of her gown.

  “Are
you going to be all right?” asked Nell, alarmed.

  “It will heal,” muttered Mala. She touched her fingers to the blood. “It hurts,” she added, as though surprised.

  Charlie nodded sympathetically. “I hate being shot with arrows,” he said.

  Half a dozen morrapi, silken spheres pulled by myrkestras, were soaring over the apricot fields towards the tower. Nell and Charlie stiffened but Emin said, “These are mine. You cannot stay here. I will send word to Jalo. Mala, my love, you will take them?”

  Mala nodded, expressionless.

  “Take us where?” cried Nell. She had her trembling under control now but everything was happening so quickly and the sight of assassins flitting through the orchard made her queasy with fear.

  “Jalo arranged a back-up plan in case you were discovered,” said Emin. “Our paths part here. Good luck to you both.”

  The morrapi landed on the tower all around them.

  “Come,” said Mala. She pulled back the silk door of the nearest one and climbed into the gold-mesh sphere.

  “Thank you for everything, Emin!” said Nell shakily, letting him clasp her hand before she joined Mala in the morrapus. Charlie shook his hand as well and they took to the sky, bobbing and floating.

  None of them spoke for several minutes. Nell pulled the silk door back just a crack to peer through it. Mala reached over her shoulder and twitched it closed again.

  “Don’t,” she said firmly. “There are several morrapi going in different directions. They mustn’t know which one we’re in.”

  “Where are we going?” Charlie asked.

  “The Faery City,” said Mala. She smiled slightly. “I grew up there. The nobility own land and live in Castellas, but the rest of us live in the City.”

  “Just one city?” asked Nell.

  “It is a very large city,” said Mala. She looked down at the bright bloodstain on the front of her robe and passed her hand over it. The mark disappeared. The wound seemed to have closed already.

  “I have never been hurt before,” she said, looking up at them with her brilliant eyes. “I don’t like it.”

  “I’ve nary been keen on it myself,” Charlie agreed. The way he said it made Nell want to throw her arms around him suddenly. It was such a Charlie sort of comment to make at a time like this and she found it deeply comforting.

  “Thank you for warning me,” she said to him, her voice full of her sudden burst of affection.

  Charlie shook his head and his brow furrowed. “I’ve nary had to run like that. It was horrible, aye. I couldnay turn into anything faster, I couldnay do anything to help you. If Emin hadnay been there…I’m useless, Nell!”

  He looked at her, his brown eyes sorrowful and bewildered. There was something so pleading in his expression. Nell didn’t know what to say to him. She looked down at her folder. Her knuckles were white from holding it so tightly. She made herself relax her grip.

  “Would you like some food?” Mala asked them. “Something other than apricots?”

  “Yes!” they both cried.

  “What do you like to eat?” she asked.

  “Pickled snake,” said Charlie immediately. “Black bean cheese! Crab spawn cakes!”

  Nell gave him a horrified look and chimed in: “Pancakes, spicy shrimp, cheese WITHOUT the black bean, oh the Ancients, ice cream!”

  Her mouth was watering.

  “I don’t know what those things are,” said Mala, frowning, but the bottom of the Morrapus filled with trays loaded with food. The Morrapus dipped slightly with the added weight.

  “Is it real?” Charlie picked up a spiced chicken leg and bit into it. A look of pure bliss crossed his face. Nell immediately began shoveling delicate canapés into her mouth.

  “Illusion food,” said Mala, watching them curiously.

  “I cannay believe it would have been that easy all along!” groaned Nell. “A whole week of apricots!”

  “It will stave off your hunger and keep you alive for a time but you will need real food before long,” said Mala.

  It tasted real enough. They ate until they couldn’t eat anymore. The leftovers simply disappeared.

  “What are we going to do in the city?” Nell asked Mala. “Hide?”

  Mala shook her head. “Do you know who is trying to kill you?” she asked.

  “Nearly everybody, apparently,” said Charlie.

  “We’ve no idea,” said Nell.

  “I do not know, either,” said Mala. “And perhaps I should not tell you what I think, but it seems only fair, given where we’re going. I suspect Jalo’s mother, Tariro, is behind this. She doesn’t want her son’s reputation sullied by unsavory friends.”

  “She nearly killed me last time we were here,” said Nell. She could still vividly recall the hate on Tariro’s face, her iron grip. “But how did she know where we were?”

  “She tends to know things,” said Mala cryptically. “Jalo is at his mother’s house now. When Emin’s message reaches him, he will leave the house in a hurry, as if going to rendezvous with you. Between them, he and Emin have put together an elaborate ruse to throw any assassins and spies off the scent. Tariro has spies all over the Realm, I expect, but we will be hiding in the last place she would think to look.”

  “Where is that?” Nell asked.

  “In her own Castella.”

  There was a long pause. Then Charlie said, “That doesnay sound like a very good plan to me.”

  “What if she sees us?” added Nell.

  “She will not recognize you,” said Mala. She produced a twinkling little vial from a pocket in her dress. “This is a glamour, prepared by a witch that Jalo knows.”

  “Heilwig, I bet,” said Nell to Charlie. He nodded.

  “With the help of this glamour, I can work an Illusion on you that not even a Faery can see through unless they look very closely.”

  Another pause.

  “Unless they look closely?” Charlie repeated. “That sounds like a fairly major flaw in the plan, lah. What if somebody does look closely?”

  “Nobody will look at you closely,” said Mala. “You will be servants like me. Believe me, the nobility barely see their servants as it is. They will notice nothing.”

  “It sounds dangerous, aye,” said Charlie.

  “It is,” said Mala. She uncorked the vial and tossed the shimmering liquid in their faces.

  ~~~

  The journey by morrapus was a long one, made to feel all the longer since Mala would not let them look outside. Nell tried to study but it was impossible to focus. She could feel the changes being wrought by Mala’s glamour. Her skin felt different; it tingled and stretched. She kept wanting to rub her face like a sleepy kitten but every time she went to touch her face or run her hands through her hair Mala stopped her and said enigmatically, “Let the glamour do its work.”

  “It’s nice to change bodies a bit,” said Charlie cheerfully. “I’ve been stuck in the same one for so long, I think this’ll be refreshing.”

  Every time Nell looked at him she began to giggle in spite of her fear and anxiety. He was halfway between being Charlie and being something else. The colour of his eyes kept growing lighter and then darker again, and the shape of them wavered. The tips of his eyebrows that turned up at the ends were curving down, she was sorry to see. His features were shifting and his skin brightening. It was most peculiar.

  “You look prize strange yourself,” he told her as she tried to stifle her laughter. “I’m nay sure how I feel about you changing. Especially watching it happen. I’m so used to you looking like…lah, you.”

  At last the morrapus began to descend.

  “You can look out now,” said Mala to Nell, like an indulgent parent rewarding an obedient child. Nell pulled back the silk and looked out.

  The sky was full of morrapi, bobbing and billowing behind grey-white myrkestras. Below them, the gleaming Faery City stretched from horizon to horizon. At first, Nell couldn’t believe her eyes. It was as if the City was rippli
ng, but as they drew closer she realized that it was changing constantly. Broad promenades and stairs and spangled bridges snaked first this way, then that, winding through the city while towers and spires sprang up around them or faded out of sight. Vast cathedral-like buildings that would have been considered great architechtural wonders in any Di Shang city appeared and grew evermore elaborate before becoming something else. The vast city was in constant motion, but in contrast to the uncertain jumble of Emin’s home it somehow maintained a constant balance and harmony through every imaginable configuration. Great Kalla seemed very small and still and dreary in comparison.

  “Charlie, look!” Nell grabbed him by the hand before realizing what she was doing. It was an entirely un-Charlie-like hand. She withdrew her hand quickly, glancing at him. He was not Charlie at all anymore and she could tell by the way he looked back at her that she must be similarly changed. His lively face had been deadened to a perfect symmetry, and an expression of haughty nobility had replaced his usual mischievous twinkle. Gold curls framed his face.

  “Look at you!” she giggled.

  “It doesnay feel like really changing,” he commented. “I feel all wrong, like I could just peel this new face off.”

  “Don’t do that!” said Mala, alarmed. “Remember to try and move like a Faery, as much as possible. And you can’t bring that.” She jerked her chin at Nell’s folder. Nell clutched it to her, appalled.

  “I cannay leave it behind!” she insisted. “This is the most important thing in the worlds to me!”

  Mala frowned, then shrugged. “Keep it hidden,” she said. “It will be easier if it’s smaller.”

  The folder was sitting in the palm of her hand, no bigger than a folded handkerchief. Nell gasped and opened it. Her notes were intact, but so tiny as to be barely legible.

  “You’ll make it big again afterwards, nay?” she said urgently. “I’ll go blind trying to read this.”