“No.” It came out a little sob.
“Because I showed you my true form, that first time we were in the Realm of the Faeries. I showed you, and I…I thought I made it prize obvious how I felt about you. Do you know what I mean?”
Everything became suddenly very still for Nell. Her sobs died within her. The wind and the mountains and the panting of the hounds were blanketed by a deep hush, a deep quiet in her mind. She didn’t feel like she was going to fall off anymore. She stuck her tongue out and licked the icy tears off her upper lip.
“Tell me,” she said. Thank goodness he was back to looking like himself, she thought. Thank goodness that false, bright Faery face was gone, and his dark eyes and his funny eyebrows and his about-to-turn-into-laughter-smile were all back. She thought about her notes scattered somewhere in the snow in the foothills or maybe in the witches’ forest, and faraway Austermon, and Eliza battling the Thanatosi, shy little Eliza who had come to Holburg years ago and who was so different now and yet so much the same. All these thoughts seemed to exist at once in her mind, hanging still, present and waiting, and she outside them.
“I’ve been in love with you since the first time we met, aye,” he said.
She gave a hiccupping little laugh. “We were twelve,” she said, but she was barely listening to her own voice. What they said now didn’t really matter. She was waiting for something else, a particular moment.
“I wasnay so young,” he said. “But I mean it. I didnay recognize it, nay really, until later, but still. I think everybody who meets you prolly feels the same way. Like life is simply less colourful without you. I thought you knew…but then after I showed you my true form you were a bit strange, like you wished I hadnay done it. You were wearing the ring Jalo gave you, and then there was that boy Julian. I thought if you wanted to see me you would say so. But you never did. Eliza never said that you asked about me or you wanted to see me or anything. The way she talked, it sounded like you never mentioned me. She thought it was strange too, I could tell.”
“That’s why you never visited?” She felt a great weight lift, and began laughing. “Charlie! You’re far too subtle for a girl like me! You should have told me how you felt.”
“Lah, I’ve told you now,” he said, laughing too. “But it’s hard making a declaration of love to one of your best friends. I didnay know if you felt the same way. I still dinnay know, come to think of it.”
“Dinnay be an idiot,” she said. “Of course you know.” This was the moment she had been waiting for. She leaned towards him, but he looked up so suddenly that she ended up kissing him clumsily on the chin. A vast shadow passed over them. The Verr mon Noorden were leaping from the sleds, hurling spears up at the sky. Nell looked up too and saw a giant winged creature glittering in the sunlight. A blade of green fire burst from it, sending the warriors leaping out of range. It was a dragon, massive and rust-red.
The covering was pulled off a sled near the back to reveal a huge catapult armed with spiked iron balls. One of these was flung upwards with deadly aim. The dragon dodged narrowly, responding with another burst of fire that set the catapult in flames.
“Charlie, that dragon!” said Nell. “Is it nay…?”
“One of Swarn’s!” Charlie finished, scrambling off the sled. Nell leaped after him, waving her arms joyfully.
“We’re here! We’re here! Tell them to stop, Charlie!”
Charlie shouted out in their language and the Verr mon Noorden paused. The dragon descended, landing right in front of Nell on the snowy mountainside and fixing her in its huge golden gaze.
“It’s you!” she exclaimed, running forward to put her hands on its face. She recognized the dragon that she had saved from the dead marsh a year and a half ago, nearly full-grown now. The Verr mon Noorden looked on in amazement.
“Our journey is finished,” Charlie told them. “Bryn-Arr is grateful.”
“We await the return of the warrior,” said the Chief.
“He will not return,” said Charlie. “His day is done.”
“The stories will be told forever,” the Chief promised. Charlie clasped his hand. Then he and Nell climbed onto the dragon’s back. It leaped into the air and bore them on powerful wings over the mountains to the cliffs of Batt.
~~~
“Is she still holding them off?” whined Malferio, peering over Kyreth’s shoulder into the Vindensphere.
“You did not know she was so powerful,” said Kyreth smugly.
“She’s not especially powerful,” said Malferio. “She’s just lucky. They would have torn her to pieces if that witch hadn’t given her the fire spell, and all she’s really doing is doubling their numbers every hour or so. Her barriers are getting worse and worse. And by the way, I can’t believe she’s unleashed Amarantha on the worlds! You must be so proud. She locks Nia up in the Hall of the Ancients and then sets free the next worst thing. She’s very inconsistent.”
“I have read of Amarantha,” said Kyreth, smiling. “But Eliza would have found another way if she had not had the fire spell. What is luck but the forces of the worlds aligning with your purposes? Is that not a kind of power too? Why should she be luckier than you?”
“I don’t believe in that stuff,” muttered Malferio, slinking back to his divan and curling up. He’d had enough of watching the battle. He picked up his empty pipe and looked hopefully at Kyreth.
“She is making use of her ravens,” noted Kyreth. “They lift the fallen Thanatosi and take them out of reach of their fellows so they cannot multiply as quickly. Still, she is relying heavily on the walls of fire and their numbers are increasing. They are pushing her back, if slowly. It has been a full day and a night now and she has kept them from pursuing her friends. Of course, her friends will have frozen to death or been eaten by an Yrgtha or slaughtered by the Verr mon Noorden by now in any case.”
“Yes, let’s have a look at them, that sounds fun,” said Malferio, brightening somewhat.
“But no…they must still be alive. If the Shade were dead, the Thanatosi would turn back. How can they have survived? He cannot change.”
“Still alive? That’s boring.”
“Watch – she is very good with the dagger. Now she is disarming them but not killing them. The Warrior Witch has taught her well. Ah! She has something else, another weapon, do you see? She used it yesterday, though sparingly.”
“I can’t see from over here.”
“I recognize it. She used it on the Mancers, too. The Warrior Witch uses such a tool to paralyze her enemies. Ah, that is clever, very clever, but she does not have enough poisoned darts to paralyze very many of them, I think.”
“Amarantha free!” muttered Malferio to himself. “Well, there is something for Emyr to worry about. Yes, he’ll soon find that being King isn’t all fun and games. The Master of the Vaults is a very powerful and clever Faery, you know. I can’t think how your little Sorceress got past him. Those vaults are enchanted by…well, I don’t know by what exactly but something very powerful indeed.”
“By Amarantha’s Magic,” said Kyreth softly. “Yes, she has done what Selva failed to do. She may yet succeed in her quest. But she is so like Nia, in the end. Her mother was willful, but Rea understood right and wrong. Rea understood duty. Oh, she could be unreasonable and her marriage was folly, but she took her duty seriously, the good of the worlds. This one…she cares only for a few and will let the rest rot. She will unleash a dangerous witch and burn the witch-trees by the hundreds if it serves her purpose. She will die for those she loves, which is noble, but she will lie and steal and kill for them too.”
“And you were so keen on an heir. She sounds like she’d be a lovely mother.”
“She will produce an heir at the end of this,” said Kyreth darkly. “But after that…”
“Oh, I see. What a ruthless son-of-a-troll you are! I understand why the Mancers have thrived.”
“She is so weary. She has not slept. And yet she is as quick as they who need no sleep.
Oh, but she will tire and fall before they do. She cannot hold them off much longer.”
“What about the Faeries? Are they still surrounding the forest?”
Kyreth cupped his hands around the Vindensphere and the scene within pulled away, as if they were seeing it through the eyes of a hawk circling high overhead.
“See for yourself,” said Kyreth, but Malferio did not stir.
Faeries with glinting swords stood in formation all around the forest, waiting. They could not enter the witches’ forest or work their Magic there.
“I do not know how she will get past the Faeries,” murmured Kyreth. “She may need my help. She is being pushed further and further back, towards the edges of the forest.”
“How can you help her?” scoffed Malferio.
“I think I shall not need to. The Emmisariae will arrive soon,” said Kyreth. “They will not let her die.”
“They are no match for Faeries!” cried Malferio.
“You think because you are Immortal you are more powerful than the mortal beings,” said Kyreth. “But it is not so. Why did you need Amarantha, then?”
“Look, they can fend off Curses with those barriers, but what can they do against Illusion?” scoffed Malferio.
“How will the Faeries get near enough to them to work Illusion?” Kyreth countered. “A myrkestra cannot approach a dragon.”
“Ah!” cried Malferio, growing excited and getting up. “Let me see this part!”
The two of them watched in the Vindensphere as the Emmisariae on their golden dragons soared over the waiting Faery troops and circled the battle between Eliza and the Thanatosi. They saw Eliza look up, the stunned panic on her weary face. She pointed her palm out and a ball of fire shot from it towards the Mancers. Immediately the ball of flame was caught in a barrier, which closed around it, extinguishing it. She held her dagger up and shouted a command at the dragons in the Language of First Days:
“Stay back! Stay back!”
The dragons pulled up, unsure. The Emmisariae commanded them more firmly to go down. The dragons seemed briefly uncertain, circling, and then made another attempt at descent. Eliza ran into the thick of the trees, the Thanatosi behind her. She shot out another firewall to stop them and kept running. The trees snatched at her, recoiling before her hand and her dagger every time.
“She will run straight into the Faeries!” cried Malferio excitedly. “She is done for!”
Kyreth stood up. Indeed, the forest was spreading out, she was nearing the Faery troops, when the Mancer dragons recoiled before a blade of green fire. A dragon far bigger than they, dark red with nearly black wings, came screaming from the clouds and plunged straight for Eliza. It caught her in its talons and shot back up into the sky before anyone had time to react. The Faery myrkestras rose into the air but could not rise fast enough or high enough. The Mancer dragons pursued but they were soon left behind. The great beast took the Sorceress high into the clouds over the foothills and they were gone, leaving behind them the howling witches’ forest in flames and the Thanatosi pouring out of the forest after their prey. The Mancers and the Faeries ignored each other, making for the mountains, seeking a sign of the vanished Sorceress.
Kyreth laughed. “There,” he said.
“You see!” grumbled Malferio. “Lucky.”
Chapter
~18~
The cliffs of Batt loomed over the Dead Marsh. Since the destruction of her home and her dragons, Swarn had built a new house high on the cliffs, overlooking the slaughter ground where she had buried the dragons. She was waiting outside her house, a modest dwelling made of clay and bone, when the dragon bearing Charlie and Nell arrived. She stood erect as always, her white hair loose around her shoulders, spear in hand, but Nell thought she seemed much older than the last time they had seen her. It was not that her face was more lined, or that she appeared any less powerful and agile. Rather, it was as if something steely at her center had begun to collapse. Some of the fire was gone from her eyes.
The dragon landed before the witch with a wild scream.
“You got Eliza’s message? Her raven, I mean?” asked Nell, scrambling off the dragon’s back and slipping to the ground. From the cliffs, they could see over the Dead Marsh all the way to the Ravening Forest beyond. On the eastern horizon the silver-green of the Far Sea shimmered like a strip of watered silk.
“Yes,” said Swarn. “I sent the other dragon to assist her.”
“Then she’s all right,” said Nell hopefully.
“I do not know,” said Swarn. “She has burned the witches’ forest. So many souls! And every being whispers now that the Shang Sorceress went to the Realm of the Faeries to free Amarantha. What is she doing?”
“I spose she’s trying to save my life,” said Charlie unhappily. “It’s gotten very complicated, aye. She thinks if she gets all the Gehemmis she’ll be able to do something, stop Kyreth.”
“Yes, she has asked for my help in her quest. But why burn the forest? The witches imprisoned in those trees are not her enemies.”
“The Thanatosi were right there. I dinnay know what happened. We just ran,” said Charlie. He repeated this, as if he couldn’t quite believe it: “We didnay stay to help her. We just ran.”
“Eliza can take care of herself,” said Swarn tersely. “What I do not understand is how the two of you are constantly tangled up in her affairs.”
“It’s nay on purpose,” said Nell. “The Thanatosi are after Charlie.”
“I am unsurprised,” said Swarn. “We will eat and then I will take you to Lil. It is no more than a day’s journey.”
~~~
Gautelen mon Lil mon Shol was eighteen years old. She spent almost all her time in her father’s library. It was a fine library, one of the finest in the worlds, though Uri mon Lil liked to tell of how he had seen the Mancer Library, albeit decimated by the Sorceress Nia, and since then could only see his own library as a few rooms full of second-rate books.
“There is nothing wrong with a young witch spending her time among books,” he said to his wife. “She is studious, that is all!”
“She is changed,” said his wife, the Storm-Seamstress Ely-Hathana mon Shol, her long amber eyes serious. And Uri knew that Ely-Hathana was right. At sixteen, Gautelen had been full of life and mischief. She had been gifted at music and magic and poetry, quick to laugh, kind to all. Then she spent a year in the Realm of the Faeries as their unwilling Queen. Since her return from that place she was a different girl: quiet, brooding. There was a slow-burning fire in her, and she was tending it.
She returned to them joyfully at first. There was a great party at the house in Lil to welcome her. At the dinner table that night, Gautelen heard for the first time her father tell of his own adventures: how, burdened by a terrible Faery Curse, he had travelled to Di Shang and the famed Library of the Mancers to seek some way to free her from her bondage. She was rapt, reaching to take his hand, tears starting in her eyes. Then he told how he had helped the Shang Sorceress to trap Nia with her own Magic and as he spoke Gautelen’s face changed. She withdrew her hand slowly. Confusion and grief battled across her face. A wind began to howl outside. She rose to her feet and the dining hall fell silent. Rain battered the windows – heavy drops the size of a water-ape’s head.
“Nia delivered me from the Faeries,” she said in a low voice. “She deposed and punished that…King.” She flinched and would not speak his name.
“But my dear!” said Uri mon Lil, surprised. “The Sorceress Nia is evil. Her revenge on Malferio does not make her less so.”
“She freed me,” cried Gautelen, amber tears rolling down her smooth dark cheeks. “She did not have to but she did!”
“You were useful to her,” said Ely-Hathana briskly. “Do not be foolish, daughter.”
“You don’t know her. You didn’t meet her. She came to me and…I know her heart, father! She is not an evil Sorceress! She is…I cannot describe her, but she is wonderful and she is good and we must free her at
once!”
“That would be folly!” protested Uri mon Lil. “And impossible besides. Only the Shang Sorceress can free her. She has the…well, she is the only one who can do it.”
Gautelen’s face hardened. “She has the what? What does she have?”
Uri mon Lil hesitated. “The power,” he said in a small voice. “My dear…I understand you have been through a terrible ordeal but you must choose your friends carefully.”
Gautelen would hear none of it. She brooded for weeks. Nothing her mother or father said to her could lift her mood. Some time later, when Eliza sent word that she was coming to Lil to return Uri’s staff, he arranged for Gautelen to go to the isles of Shol and visit relatives. She heard about the Shang Sorceress’s visit later, from a wordful water ape, while she was out rowing. A week of terrible storms followed. The womi of Lil begged Ely-Hathana to stop the storms, but she thought it best to let her daughter vent her rage. Then one day Gautelen disappeared in one of Uri mon Lil’s enchanted boats. Uri was frantic. The womi and the wordful water apes of Lil went in search of her. Relatives in Shol were alerted to the young Storm Seamstress’s disappearance. Finally, a centaur spotted her in the Irahok mountains and word spread. When it reached Uri, he knew where she was going.
He found her in the ruined Hall of the Ancients, weeping at Nia’s feet, half-starved and frozen, having employed every spell she knew. She cursed the name of the Shang Sorceress even as Uri brought her home to Lil. In Gautelen’s mind, Eliza was wicked and powerful and ruthless, and Uri thought wryly that the image Gautelen had of her did not at all match the good-hearted, awkward young girl he knew, who did not look as if she could enchant a river rat.
Since then, Gautelen kept to herself, studying in the library. In the Hall of the Ancients she had entered Nia’s mind and learned the secret of the spell that bound her: the Urkleis that was lodged in the Shang Sorceress’s chest. She poured all her efforts now into preparing to face the Shang Sorceress and obtain the Urkleis from her.
Gautelen ate her supper alone in the library as usual and then walked down to a sandy cove hidden by low-hanging trees on the northeastern tip of the island. She could see the dark heads of the wordful water apes sometimes breaking the surface of the water and she could hear their deep voices murmuring beneath the waves. She sat in the sand with her legs out straight and let the foaming waves wash over her ankles. The tide was coming in. Powers of the Deep controlled the tides, and these powers remained a great mystery. When she was a little girl her father had told her that under the sea there was a world as complex as the one at the surface, as full of different beings, some good and some evil, some powerful and some less so, and as ignorant of the world above as the overland beings were of them. She lay back in the sand and the water washed up her legs. Maybe she would lie here and let the sea take her. The tide would come up over her and pull her down to those mysterious depths she had been so curious about as a little girl. The great beings of that secret realm would help her, give her Magic; she would return to the world, smite down the Shang Sorceress, bring the Urkleis triumphant to Nia. She would build Nia a castle on one of the lovely uninhabited isles of Shol and defend her against all those who meant her ill. Lost in this fantasy, Gautelen let the waves creep up to her waist, soaking the bottom half of her dress. The dream was shattered when a thousand black-headed water apes surged up and began to bellow all at once around the island, making the sea churn. Gautelen sat up. A massive shape came rocketing through the evening sky towards the island. It was a dragon – far larger than the green-gold dragons of the inland sea or even the long black dragons of the Dreaming Wasteland, illustrations of which she had found in her father’s library. It soared over her head, up towards her father’s house on the hill. She leaped to her feet and ran back through the jungle, where night birds chattered and huge snakes unwound their bodies and began to look for food. She passed a few of the peaked houses of their womi neighbours as she climbed the hill and saw their faces peering out anxiously. They too had heard the ruckus of the water apes and seen the dragon. Now they watched as the wizard of Lil’s strange daughter ran home, half-soaked.
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