“So you are working for them!” the Faery cried. “What treachery! The Faeries will crush them!”
“Was working for them,” said Eliza. She saw that a couple of the Faeries had noticed the dark box in Anargul’s hands and they were murmuring to one another. “But then they sent me south to face the Sparkling Deluder. I couldnay even make it to the Dreaming Wasteland. It was a waste of time. I’m nay that powerful.”
“Of course not,” said the Faery. “The Mancers have always put far too much stock in their Sorceresses, if you ask me. Well, so they’ve taken our Gehemmis to the Citadel. How do we know you’re telling the truth?”
“You dinnay think the Mancers would let me carry it around for long, do you?” she asked.
“Then what are you doing here? And what’s this?” he reached towards the box in Anargul’s hands.
“I wouldnay touch it if I were you,” said Eliza.
The Faery hesitated.
“My punishment,” she lied quickly. “The Mancers made it hundreds of years ago. They’re the only ones that know how to use it, how to control it.”
“What does it do?”
“When it’s opened, it draws the Magic out of its target,” she said. “If you try to take it from the Mancers, it will open up and take your Magic. Mine is already gone. They had just finished using it on me when you arrived. Another blast would probably kill me. They’re the only ones that know how to close it.”
“Nonsense,” said one of the Faeries. “She’s just trying to scare us off. It’s obviously something important.”
Eliza shrugged. “Go on and grab it then,” she said. “I spose I’m to be killed anyway.”
“I will!” cried the Faery, pushing forwards.
“Wait, wait!” said the one who had done most of the talking. “No need to be hasty. We just need to send word, have it investigated. It won’t be long. Better safe than sorry! You,” he pointed to one of the Faeries, who was putting flowers in Trahaearn’s hair. “Send word to the General. Tell him we’ll stand guard here until our orders come.”
The Faery bowed and took off on his myrkestra.
“What about her?” one of the Faeries asked.
“Shut her in the house,” suggested the leader.
Eliza hated to leave the Sparkling Deluder’s Gehemmis in Anargul’s frozen hands, surrounded by Faeries, but she had no choice. She followed the Faery into the house. It looked much more run down than she remembered, as if nobody had lived there for years. Foss lay in the bed, his eyes closed. Ferghal and the Blind Enchanter were nowhere to be seen.
“Is that one dead?” the Faery asked, pointing at Foss in alarm.
Eliza’s heart began to beat like a jackhammer in her chest, but she managed to keep her voice steady: “He opposed their using the box on me. So they used it on him too. Twice.”
The Faery shuddered and strode back out into the sunshine, shutting the door on her. She ran to Foss’s bedside.
He opened his eyes. They were like dark caverns with a faint light glimmering at the back. His skin was loose against the bones of his face. He stirred very slightly when he looked at her.
“Hang on, Foss,” she pleaded. “I’ll think of something, aye. Where are Ferghal and the Blind Enchanter?”
Foss’s lips stretched slightly into what might have been a smile. He lifted a shaking hand and pointed at a tall lamp by the wall. Eliza looked at it, puzzled. It was not a very attractive lamp. It was odd and bulky and…she paused and looked again. It was not a lamp at all, but the Blind Enchanter. He held her backpack in his hands. He winked at her.
Eliza leaped to her feet.
“How did you do that?” she asked, impressed.
“A kind of…Deep Seeing…in reverse,” he rasped out. “With a…glamour…effective if no one…looks too hard.”
“And you still have the Gehemmis?” she whispered. He handed her the backpack.
“You have seen the…Hanging Gardens,” he said. The last two words were voiceless, breath only.
Their eyes met and she nodded. They spoke no more of it. The Blind Enchanter went and lifted his large wooden table aside. Then he stroked the earth floor, murmuring. A trapdoor appeared and opened.
“By the Ancients!” Ferghal boomed, falling silent when Eliza shushed him. He scrambled out, his grizzled face covered with dust. “Cold down there,” he whispered. “Good to see you back in one piece, witchlet! Sooner than we’d expected, but not a mite too soon, may I say.” He indicated Foss with his head. “Why are we being quiet?”
“Faeries outside,” said Eliza.
“And your friends…are coming,” said the Enchanter.
Eliza looked at him in surprise. “My friends? How do you know?”
He smiled at her. “I always know…when someone is coming…here.”
“How will they get past the Faeries?” she asked, her fear returning.
“Send them a…message,” said the Blind Enchanter. “We will create…a small diversion. They must go around…to the west…keeping low and…out of sight. The cliffs…will hide them. There is a…cove there…and…a small cave. The cave leads…to this…passageway.” The long speech cost him a great deal. He leaned against the wall, gasping for breath.
Eliza opened the trapdoor and sent a raven down it, bearing the message to Nell and Charlie.
“What kind of diversion?” she asked. The Blind Enchanter grinned and followed the raven down the tunnel.
Eliza heard the Faery approaching from outside. Hurriedly she shoved Ferghal into the tunnel with her backpack and pulled the table back into place just as the Faery opened the door and entered.
“Not up to mischief, are you?” he asked her.
“There’s nothing to eat in here,” she said. As soon as she said it, she realized how hungry she was.
“They want me to check that this one’s really dead,” he said, uninterested in her remark about food. Eliza watched apprehensively as he went over to Foss’s bed and prodded him. Foss did not stir. The Faery shrugged, leaned down, and pulled a long, shining knife from his boot.
Eliza half-flew across the room, dagger in her hand before she knew she’d reached for it. She clamped one hand over his mouth so he could not cry out and with her other hand she drew her dagger across his throat. Shining blood poured from the wound. She threw him to the ground, voiceless with his throat cut, and drove the dagger deep into his heart, again and again. She knew he was struggling to make a Curse and so she continued to stab him until he gave up. Then she drove her dagger right through him, pinning him to the ground through the chest.
“Blast the Ancients,” she muttered. She shoved aside the table again and opened the trapdoor. Ferghal was crouched in the tunnel, wide-eyed. She pulled her dagger out of the wounded Faery and dragged him to the opening.
“Get him out of here,” she whispered. “Take him to the Blind Enchanter, fast. See if he can think what to do. If he shows any signs of getting his strength or voice back while you’re taking him, then drop him and run, fast.”
“Powers that Be!” breathed Ferghal. The Faery looked murder at him. Ferghal hefted the wounded being over his shoulder and hurried away down the passage. Eliza dragged Foss out of the bed, whispering apologies as she pulled him across the floor and lowered him into the passage as well. Then she shut the trapdoor over him and pulled the table back into place.
She waited alone in the house, heart thundering. The thought that came to her again and again was: I am not strong enough. I can’t defeat them all. I am not strong enough. Again and again, she pushed the thought away. I’ve come this far and I can go a little farther yet.
Two Faeries came in this time.
“Where is he?” One of them demanded.
“He took the dead Mancer,” said Eliza.
The Faeries gaped at her.
“Took him where?”
“I dinnay know,” said Eliza. “He just took him.”
“Nobody’s come or gone,” said one of the Faeries.
>
“Lah, he left a few minutes ago,” said Eliza.
The Faeries looked at her some more and then at each other.
“Were you watching the door?” one of them asked in a low voice.
“No,” conceded the other. “But we would have noticed.”
“What, do you think I made them both disappear?” asked Eliza sarcastically. “I dinnay even have any powers anymore.”
“So you say,” said the first Faery, then turned to his partner. “You watch her, don’t take an eye off her.”
“Why me?”
“Just watch her.”
Half an hour passed with different Faeries coming in and questioning Eliza. She stuck to her patently false story: that the Faery had simply taken Foss’s body away with him.
“She’s not going to tell us anything different,” said the one who seemed to be the leader. “But I’ve heard humans respond to pain very quickly.” He gave Eliza a cold look.
“So? What kind of pain?” The other Faery in the room drew a sword.
“Don’t kill her,” said the leader. “That won’t get us anywhere. Try burning her.”
Flames licked around Eliza’s ankles, but they were illusion flames and she was still wearing Nia’s necklace. She hesitated a moment too long, trying to decide whether or not she was good enough an actress to feign being burned.
“We need some real fire,” said the leader, scowling. He drew a firestick from his cloak.
At that moment there came a great screeching noise outside and the sound of myrkestras crying out. It took Eliza a minute to recognize the screeching: dragons. The Faery grabbed her by the arm and dragged her outside.
Gold-green dragons were swarming in the air around the eastern end of the island, diving and feinting in the direction of the myrkestras.
“Is this your doing, Sorceress?” demanded the leader.
“I cannay do anything!” Eliza insisted. “I’ve no idea why they’re acting up!”
“Look! One of them’s got Ildor!”
Indeed, the Faery Eliza had attacked was hanging and flailing from the talons of one of the dragons. Eliza almost laughed with relief.
“Those are Mancer dragons!” she said. “They must have seen him with the dead Mancer and gotten angry.”
“We’ll have word soon enough. We will wait for our instructions,” the Faery leader ground out between his teeth. “Back inside.”
Another Faery dragged Eliza back into the cabin. She waited there, every muscle tense, the Faery watching her hatefully. What happened next occurred so quickly that Eliza couldn’t quite piece it together in her mind afterwards. The trapdoor was open and the Blind Enchanter hurtling out. The Faery was turning, rising, hand reaching for his sword, as some powder caught him in the eyes. He stood there a moment, frowning, blinking, and then went back to glowering at Eliza as if nothing had happened.
Eliza sat frozen and bewildered on the bed as Ferghal followed the Blind Enchanter out of the trapdoor, lifting Foss. Behind them came Charlie and Nell.
Chapter
~25~
Eliza could not help herself. She leaped up and ran to embrace her friends. For a moment they were all laughing and talking at once. The Faery showed no sign of seeing any of this.
“What did you do to him?” Eliza asked the Enchanter. “And keep your voices down,” she murmured to the others.
“Potion,” said the Blind Enchanter. “For one hour…he’ll see just what he saw…a few moments…before I threw it at…him. You on the bed…the empty…room.”
“The dragons’ll be settling, I reckon,” said Ferghal. “Clever, that, how he set them off! And with the body of that Faery, so he can’t squawk!”
“I’ve been trying to get this one to explain who he is and what he’s doing here,” said Charlie, raising his eyebrows at Ferghal.
“He helped me and Foss,” said Eliza. Her heart ached looking at him. She thought of him running through the wood, the arrows whistling after him, the Thanatosi upon him.
“What is it?” he asked, seeing her eyes well up with tears. “Lah, we’re all fine, Eliza. Trapped in a house with Faeries outside, not a fantastic situation, aye, but still.”
“We’ve got to get out of here quick, I reckon,” said Ferghal. “We’ll run down that passageway and escape on the dragon these two arrived on. I’ve never ridden a dragon, that’ll be something new. Quite a story for the grandkids, not that I’ve met any of them, but I reckon I’ve got several and if I track them down it will be quite a tale to tell. Hello, I’ll say, I’m your granddaddy, and have I told you about the time I escaped murderous Faeries on the back of a dragon? That shall impress them well enough, I should think.”
“But…go…where?” demanded the Blind Enchanter.
“We need a plan,” agreed Eliza. “We cannay just take off with Faeries and Mancers out looking for us. We willnay get far.”
“Will this help?” asked Nell. With a look half-proud, half-shy, she handed Eliza the dragon-skin pouch. Eliza took it.
“The Gehemmis?” she asked wonderingly.
“We have a lot to tell you,” said Nell. Her smile fell away. “Swarn…”
“I know,” said Eliza swiftly. She put the Gehemmis in the backpack with the other two. “We need the last one, the one Anargul’s holding outside. Then we’ll have all four.”
“Then what?” asked Charlie. “We become all-powerful masters of the universe?”
“I’m nay sure,” said Eliza. She looked at the Blind Enchanter. “Do you know how to use the Gehemmis?”
He shook his head.
Eliza laid the three Gehemmis out on the table and examined the symbols, but she could not read any of them or identify any patterns. The Blind Enchanter lifted the strip of bone and sniffed it with his long, agile nose. Ferghal picked up the sphere full of fog and turned it over in his hands.
“Old,” he said, nodding sagely.
Charlie and Nell exchanged a look, a slight roll of the eyes. There was nothing unusual in it, exactly, but the look they gave each other and the way they stood together, shoulders touching, was so intimate and so complicit somehow, so different, that Eliza understood, suddenly, what had passed between them in the last few days. She turned aside quickly and gulped for air.
“Are you all right, Eliza?” asked Nell anxiously.
“Give me a minute,” she replied. She walked to the other end of the long cabin and pressed her forehead to the stone wall by the fireplace.
What a joke I am, she thought to herself. What a stupid girl. Not to have guessed. To have ever thought…she clutched her hands together to stop them shaking.
“You’re nay all right,” said Nell, right behind her. “What’s happened? What are you nay telling us?”
“I’m fine, lah,” said Eliza. “Just scared.”
“There must be somewhere we can go,” said Nell. “What about the Faithful…?” but she trailed off.
“We cannay use the Gehemmis. We cannay read the symbols,” said Eliza, barely hearing what she was saying. “The Book of Symbols is nay even in the Citadel. Or, it is, but it’s empty, Nia drained it.” Her face changed. It came to her then, what they had to do.
“You and Charlie,” she said flatly.
Nell flushed and she broke into a silly grin.
“I wanted to tell you right away, aye, but with everything so dire and serious…” she whispered in a happy rush.
Eliza felt her face crumple. She couldn’t help it. Tears slid out of her eyes. She covered her face with her hands.
Nell stopped, confused, and then turned very white.
“Eliza?” she whispered. She pulled Eliza’s hands away from her face. Her eyes were wide with horror. Neither of them said anything for a minute.
“You dinnay…? Oh Eliza!” said Nell, her voice trembling slightly. “You nary told me! If I’d known…”
Eliza drew a sharp breath and pulled herself together quickly. That’s right, Smidgen, she seemed to hear Nia say.
“Charlie must nary know,” she whispered, almost angrily. “You have to promise me, Nell. Swear that you’ll nary tell him, no matter what.”
“Eliza…”
“Promise me.” It was a command from a Sorceress, not a plea from a friend.
“I promise,” said Nell, her face creased with misery.
“Good.” Eliza strode back to the table, where the others were helplessly examining the Gehemmis for nonexistent clues. “We need to get the fourth Gehemmis from Anargul,” she said, directing this at the Blind Enchanter. “Can you use that potion on a group of Faeries at once?”
The Blind Enchanter nodded. “But after…that?”
“Then I’m taking all four Gehemmis to the Hall of the Ancients,” she said, “and freeing Nia.”
There was a long silence.
Nell was the first to speak, her expression still pained. “That’s looped, Eliza,” she said.
“Oh dear,” sighed Charlie.
“That’s what I’m doing,” said Eliza.
“You cannay!” Nell cried. “Have you forgotten that she killed Ander?”
“And a great many others, aye,” said Eliza, not looking at Nell. “That’s nay the point. We’re outmatched. The Mancers. The Faeries. The Thanatosi. We dinnay even know how to use the Gehemmis. She’s the only one who can help us.”
“She’s nay going to help us!” shouted Nell. “You must be looped to think she would!”
“I know her better than you do, Nell,” replied Eliza. “If our interests align, she’ll help us. And at the moment, the Mancers are enemies to all of us.”
Nell looked at the others, throwing her hands up. “Tell her! Tell her she’s looped!”
Charlie gave a weak little shrug.
“I’m with you, witchlet! Bring back the Sorceress!” cried Ferghal.
“Shut up, you’re nay part of this,” snapped Nell. “I know you’re upset, Eliza, but…”
Eliza turned a furious gaze on her and Nell fell silent.
“This is what I’m doing,” she said again. “This is my plan. I can create a stir out there with ravens. Once I’ve distracted them, will you use the potion on the Faeries and get the Gehemmis for me?” she asked the Blind Enchanter.
Bone, Fog, Ash & Star Page 28
