“As you wish, my Lady.” Miyam’s face was a blank, her eyes like stones.
Chapter
~13~
The Crossing was hard on Ferghal. At first he slept, for it had been a long day of rowing after dismantling the engine and failing to put it back together again. But when the mist cleared and the cliffs of Tian Xia appeared in the distance, he sat bolt upright, bellowing. He screamed and flailed and begged the Ancients for mercy, then cursed their names in language more colourful than Eliza had ever heard, and finally collapsed unconscious. After bearing the insensible Scarpathian to the healing Cave that had saved both Nell’s life and Charlie’s in the past, Eliza and Foss went to the temples of the Faithful, and from there Eliza summoned Jalo with the ring.
She was at Foss’s bedside now, in one of the smaller temples. Foss’s face was dull, his eyes dim, and there was a disconcerting rattling sound deep in his chest when he breathed. Every time she looked at him, Eliza felt her heart twist into a knot of terror.
“We shouldnay have done that spell,” she said. “You’re too weak.”
Foss gave a rasping little chuckle. “So you would venture into the Realm of the Faeries without any kind of protection?” he asked.
Eliza felt the spell humming just beneath her skin. Her blood jumped with it. It was a powerful barrier designed to repel a Faery Curse, and it had taken more strength than Foss had to spare right now.
“It would have been a risk,” she admitted. “But it’s risky anyway.”
“Do not fear for me. This is a good place for me to rest.”
“Not for long. Rhianu told me the Mancers looked here before we arrived, but I spec they’ll be back. I just hope Jalo gets here before they do.”
The priestess Rhianu, Eliza’s particular friend among the Faithful, appeared in the doorway.
“Sorceress,” she said. “There is someone who wishes to see you.”
“Jalo,” said Eliza, rising.
Rhianu shook her head. “Come.”
Eliza followed her out of the small temple. The Faithful were busy in the fields, cultivating crops and hanging out rows of laundered black robes to dry. Rhianu led her beneath the central Temple of the Nameless Birth and along the narrow flagstone corridor that led to the Chamber of the Oracle. Eliza’s heart began to beat faster. Nia had killed the last Oracle. She had never thought to ask if there was another.
Rhianu knelt, whispering, until one flagstone fell away. Eliza climbed down the ladder into the dark room. The flagstone sealed her in and then the room blazed with light.
“And now, here we are!” said Selva. She still wore her black robes, but her fair skin and her white hair glowed with an unearthly light.
“You’re safe!” cried Eliza. “How did you get out of the Citadel?”
“The Mancers would not offend the Ancients at a time like this,” smiled Selva. “I am tired, my dear, I need rest, so we will speak briefly. You are going to the Realm of the Faeries soon.”
“Yes,” said Eliza. “The Mancers cannay follow me there. I’m hoping I can persuade Nell’s friend Jalo to hide the Gehemmis for me, though I dinnay spec it would be safe to tell him what it is. When it’s stowed away I can bargain with Kyreth. Can he call off the Thanatosi if he chooses to?”
“No,” said Selva. “That is impossible. The Thanatosi will not rest until their prey is vanquished. There is no way to call them off.”
Her half-formed plans and desperate hopes collapsing, Eliza pressed her knuckles against her forehead and took a deep breath, trying not to panic.
“The last Oracle told me that victory would only come at a cost for me,” she said. “That I would cut out my own heart. That mine is the Lonely Road. What does it mean? What do I have to do?”
Her grandmother’s hand cupped her cheek. It was a cool, calming touch.
“There is loss and gain with every act,” said Selva. “Each moment, you will choose what you feel you must do, and every choice will cost you, and every choice will take you further down the road that is yours. Your heart,” she touched her fingers gently to Eliza’s chest. “Your heart was made for this task.”
Eliza choked on a laugh. Selva was not so different from the last Oracle, in that when it came to the really important stuff she was utterly obscure.
“Maybe Kyreth could do something to protect Charlie in exchange for the Gehemmis?” she said, then shook her head. “No good. I cannay count on him for that. But he might take Foss back if I return it. Praps that’s all it’s good for. And Charlie will have to stay with the Faeries unless I can find some way to defeat the Thanatosi.” Her heart felt like a wave washing against a relentless cliff. What good was any of it? What could she do for those she loved so dearly?
“You must not return the Gehemmis to the Mancers,” said Selva severely. “Go to the Realm of the Faeries. Go to the Dragon Isles in the Far Sea. Go to the Hanging Gardens of the Sparkling Deluder. Assemble the four Gehemmis. They have more power than you can imagine, my dear.”
“The power to stop the Thanatosi?” asked Eliza.
“Oh, far more than that,” said Selva with a smile.
“What kind of power?”
“You must learn how to use them,” said Selva. “It is a great and noble quest for you to undertake, as befits a Sorceress!”
Eliza sighed, but hope glimmered again among the looming shadows within her. “Stealing from the Immortal Powers sounds more like an impossible quest, aye, nothing great and noble about it,” she said. “But all right. How am I going to get the Gehemmis from…lah, from the Faeries, for starters?”
Selva smiled again, as if fond memories were returning to her.
“You must be wicked,” she said.
“As far as instructions go, that’s nay very specific,” said Eliza dryly.
“Then let me tell you,” said Selva, “the secrets of the Faery Vault.”
~~~
Jalo arrived at night. Eliza was dozing in a chair by Foss’s bed. One of the Faithful brought the Faery to their room.
“Thank you for coming,” she said, barely awake, stumbling to her feet.
“Never mind that,” he replied crisply. “Your friends are in danger. I’ve hidden them for now but you’re going to have to get them out.”
“What do you mean?”
“Assassins. Humans are not terribly popular in the Realm of the Faeries these days.”
This was a setback Eliza had not imagined. Something about the way Jalo said it told her she was not hearing the whole story. But it didn’t matter – she would lie to him too, in a moment. She stood up straighter. She knew how she looked: dirty and tired and terribly young. But she was the Shang Sorceress and Jalo needed to remember that.
“I’ll take them with me when I go,” she said. “But I have another request. I need to speak with your King.”
Jalo looked like he could barely refrain from rolling his eyes.
“That will not be possible,” he said.
“Your King will be glad to see what I have to show him,” she said. “Have you heard of the Gehemmis?”
Jalo shrugged. “A legend of some kind,” he said. “Gifts of the Ancients.”
“No legend,” said Eliza. She hesitated and then took the strip of bone out of her backpack to show him. She could sense Foss tensing on the bed, no longer asleep.
Jalo took it in his hands and looked over it wonderingly. But when Eliza held her hand out he gave it back to her.
“I can request an audience,” he said grudgingly. “I cannot promise it will be granted.”
“Good enough,” agreed Eliza. “But I cannay go into the Realm of the Faeries without some kind of protection or they will simply take the Gehemmis from me.”
Jalo sighed. “What, then?”
“I need to make a brief stop,” said Eliza.
Jalo nodded, then jerked his chin at Foss on the bed. “He may not come.”
“Give me a moment to say goodbye.”
When Jalo had left, she s
at on the edge of Foss’s bed and took his large golden hand in her small brown ones.
“The Faithful are watching the Cave, aye,” she told him. “When Ferghal is better, where will you go?”
“South,” said Foss.
“Are you sure the Cave willnay help you? It might be worth a try.”
“The Cave cannot return me to the Mancer fold,” Foss said serenely.
Eliza swallowed her tears and nodded.
“We will go to the Isle of the Blind Enchanter in the inland sea,” said Foss.
“I’ve read about him,” said Eliza. “The inland sea is where the Mancer dragons come from.”
Foss nodded. “The Blind Enchanter has long held cordial relations with the Mancers, but he is known to welcome all travellers. He may be able to help me keep up my strength for a time. I hope he will be able to help you, too, for he is the only living being to have met the Sparkling Deluder.”
Eliza nodded, barely taking this in. She couldn’t think of the whole impossible task ahead of her. One thing at a time: the Realm of the Faeries.
“He was known long ago by other names, such as the Wandering Enchanter, the Great Bard, and the Wayfaring Rhapsodist,” said Foss, getting the look he often got when embarking on a long tale. “He travelled both worlds, it was said, and made songs of all the things he saw. Before Nia emptied the books, the Mancer Library held all the known transcriptions of his songs. Indeed, much of our collected knowledge of the worlds has been gleaned from them, for he sang about topography, the creatures he encountered, the shape of flowers and their properties, relating not only great tales of adventure but also the tiniest details of life in the worlds.”
“I’ve heard of the Wayfaring Rhapsodist,” said Eliza. “I didnay realize it was the same person. He must be very old. Is he immortal?”
Foss frowned. “Of course not. The only true Immortals are the Four Great Powers. But some others, like your friend Charlie before this latest accident, are gifted with great longevity. In his six hundredth year, the Wayfaring Rhapsodist went south and crossed the Dreaming Wasteland to see the Hanging Gardens of the Sparkling Deluder. Many have made the journey and only a few have returned. All but the Blind Enchanter came back raving mad, bearing little semblance to their former selves, sometimes having aged far more years than they were gone, others having been gone a century without aging a day. He was not mad but he was changed. He had walked the world making songs of all he saw, but when he returned from that place, he could no longer sing or see. He was blind, his voice blighted, his wanderlust gone. Now he goes nowhere, sees nothing, and though he welcomes travellers and their tales, he does not tell his own. What happened to him is a great mystery. It will not be easy to get him to tell you anything about the Sparkling Deluder.”
“But you’ll be safe there?” asked Eliza.
Foss smiled. “The Mancers will be pursuing you, not me,” he said. “And south is the safest direction from here. We will go through the yellow mountains.”
“The Cra live in the yellow mountains.”
“We are both far too old to be palatable to the Cra. They will leave us alone.”
Eliza felt a wave of sorrow. She wondered if she would ever see him again. As soon as she had thought it, she buried the thought. It was too awful to contemplate.
“I have to go,” she said. “Be safe, Foss.”
He held her hand tightly and smiled up at her. “May the Ancients guide your steps,” he said.
She nodded and left him there.
~~~
Charlie and Nell were silent for a time, watching the ball, until Charlie could not hold his tongue any longer. Very quietly, he whispered: “I’m sorry, Nell.”
She had begun to sway to the music and caught herself when he spoke.
“What for?” she asked.
“Getting you into this. If it were nay for me, you’d be safely studying for your test in Di Shang.”
“Lah, that’s what friends are for,” she said, putting her hand in her pocket to stroke her tiny folder. “And we’re still friends, nay?”
“Of course we are. I wish things hadnay been so strange between us this year. I didnay want that. I just felt…”
“Let’s not talk about it,” she said swiftly.
Charlie gave her an unhappy look.
“Look,” she hissed, a little impatient, “I know why you were avoiding me.”
“You do?”
“Of course. It was so obvious.”
“Lah, that’s why…I mean, I thought that if you wanted to see me, you’d let me know. I sort of thought it was up to you, aye. I didnay want to force myself on you.”
“That’s ridiculous. But you were angry, I spec. And rightly so.”
“I wasnay angry. Why would I be angry?”
Nell looked down, could not make herself meet his non-Charlie eyes. “You blamed me. I blame myself, too.”
“For what?” Charlie was utterly confused now.
“Ander’s death, of course!” she burst out, her eyes filling up with tears. The tears washed away the changing Faery colours and revealed her violet irises. Charlie was confused by her words and the sudden appearance of her own eyes at the same time.
“That’s nay…” he began, but Mala had turned to glare at them again. Then her eyes flitted to something behind them and widened in horror. Reflexively, Charlie and Nell followed her gaze.
It happened in the blink of an eye. Five black-clothed members of the Faery Guard swept down upon them, chaining their wrists in silver. Mala was pulled roughly from the group and chained as well. The music rose and the Faeries at the ball kept spinning by the scene, oblivious. They were bundled out the archway and through another, all three of them chained together within a morrapus before the reality had really sunk in. When it did, Nell began to shake uncontrollably.
Chapter
~14~
Jalo stayed on the mountainside, preferring not to enter the tower, and Eliza could hardly blame him. The Hall of the Ancients was a ruin, the statues torn from their grottoes and broken across the floor, stones crumbling from the walls. The place reverberated with horror. And there, broken spear in one hand as if poised to throw it, stood Nia, the Xia Sorceress. The Urkleis jerked in Eliza’s chest as if it might break loose. At that moment, she almost wished it would. To be free of it.
Nia was unchanged. Her lovely face was white and tense, her red-gold hair coming loose about her shoulders. Her eyes seemed to look right into Eliza’s, and the young Sorceress felt, knew, that Nia could see her. Frozen within the loop of her own Magic she could neither move nor speak. But she could see, she could think, she could feel. The white tiger, emaciated, slunk from behind his mistress and surveyed Eliza with coal-black eyes. His red tongue hung from his mouth. He looked as if he would like to pounce on her and eat her but did not have the strength. The ravens swirled and screamed. Eliza felt her heart would break with pity, or perhaps that was only the pull of the Urkleis.
“I need something,” she said, her voice shaking badly. She had to be quick or the awful rage and longing filling the hall would undo her, split her open and draw the Urkleis from her. She ran to Nia and reached for the vial of brilliant liquid hanging from her neck by a slender chain: Malferio’s blood. This had rendered Nia immune to Illusion and would do the same, Eliza hoped, for her.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, unclasping it. She did not want to touch Nia but she could not help it. Her hands brushed the Sorceress’s hair, the cold skin of her neck. The moment Eliza touched her, the Urkleis leaped in her chest and Nia’s free hand swung down and closed around her wrist. Involuntarily, Eliza looked up into the eyes of the Sorceress.
They were bright green-gold and they bored into Eliza. Her grip tightened. They stood still like this for a moment, the Urkleis tearing against the flesh that held it. The tiger roared and roared, the world was full of its roaring. Eliza’s chest burned, her fear crescendoed, and she felt something within her breaking thread by thread. She was lost
in Nia’s devouring eyes. Her ravens multiplied above, shrieking, now now now. She burst free, something snapping. It felt like her body exploding. It felt like threads of fire running through her. She burst away from Nia, clutching the vial of Faery blood in her beak. She shot out of the half-destroyed tower and down the mountain on black wings. She might have continued flying forever, for she had no sense of direction or purpose, only a mad beating desire to escape, but a net of light fell over her and pulled her out of the air. On hands and knees in the snow, she was Eliza again. She turned on her assailant, dagger flashing, cutting free of the net. Ravens poured out of the sky. She forced her enemy back into the snow, driving her dagger into him, again and again. She was hurled off, landed in a snowdrift screaming, the sky swarming with inky ravens. Jalo stood over her, sword drawn. Blood like liquid light trickled from the wounds in his chest, stomach, and shoulder. His face was white with rage.
“How dare you!” he roared. Eliza was sobbing; she could not stop. There was something in her mouth. She spat it out into her palm: the necklace, the vial of blood. The tiger’s roar from the Hall of the Ancients carried down the mountainside, echoing. Jalo looked up at the tower and then back at Eliza. She was covered in snow, weeping and shaking.
“What happened?” he asked her, calmer, but she could not speak, even to apologize. She shook her head, fastening the vial around her neck with trembling fingers. She did not look up at the tower on the peak, where Nia was still desperately trying to pull Eliza back to her. She staggered towards the waiting myrkestra and Jalo helped her onto its back, wincing with his wounds. The only cure for this was distance. She had what she had come for.
~~~
They paused to rest by a river the following day. Eliza sat at the bank murmuring until a Tian Xia invisible eel leaped into her hands. She had everything else she needed in a little gourd the Faithful had given her. She cut the eel open with her dagger and let its blood drain into the gourd.
“You will be searched before you are allowed to see the King,” said Jalo from behind her. He had been a little less cool since they had left the Hall of the Ancients, though his wounds still pained him. Perhaps he had been reminded that in the past she had saved him, too, from Nia. “They will not allow you to carry a potion.”
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