by Jeff Wheeler
Ahead of them walked a cluster of guards. Their eyes narrowed at Ahad-dian, but instead of trying to walk past them, Ahad-dian cursed and pulled Chellis back into the main hallway. Two of the guards shouted after him.
“What are you doing?” Chellis hissed as Ahad-dian broke out into a run, tugging her alongside him.
“I can’t lie to those ones,” he huffed, taking the next left, then a right. He slowed, scanning his surroundings before hurrying to another set of stairs. “I’m a dead man,” he said.
He half dragged Chellis up the stairs and took a hard right down a poorly lit hallway, slowing when they neared another, tired-looking guard outside an ornate door. The guard said nothing as they passed, but Ahad-dian picked up the pace again when the previous guards’ shouts echoed up the stairwell.
He cursed again.
Chellis writhed from his grasp. “Where are the waterways?” she asked.
He wiped his palm over his forehead. “What?”
“The waterways,” Chellis repeated, the shouting getting louder. “Where the river branches off to feed the citadel. I’ve seen them before. The moat.”
Ahad-dian’s eyes widened.
“We don’t have time, Ahad! Where are they?”
Ahad-dian seized her arm and ran down the hall. Chellis struggled to keep up with his long strides; her legs were not made for running, and they hadn’t had decent exercise for eighteen months. Ahad-dian tugged her left, guards’ footsteps echoing behind them. Someone all in gray, carrying a candle, started at the sight of them; Chellis darted forward and slammed both hands into his chest, pushing him as hard as she could. He dropped the candle and hit the wall, banging his head. Ahad-dian pushed Chellis forward, then out an open window onto a narrow precipice some four stories above the earth.
Below them flowed the moat, silver by the light of a crescent moon, covered by the curving roofs of a balcony to the left and a walkway to the right. They left a ten-foot gap of water between them. If Chellis jumped and hit one of the roofs, she’d break.
“I don’t know . . . how deep,” Ahad-dian said.
“There, the window!” a man shouted inside. An arrow flew between Chellis and Ahad-dian, tearing through the gray fabric of Ahad-dian’s shirt. He hissed as the tear filled with crimson.
“Hold your breath,” Chellis said, wrapping her arm around Ahad-dian’s waist.
She kicked off of the precipice and fell into silence.
The cool water hit her like a storm-tossed wave, and Ahad-dian’s weight thrust her down far enough that her shoulder blades grazed the moat’s cement floor. She swam with the current, avoiding the surface. An arrow sailed past them, leaving a line of silver in the dark water.
She pulled Ahad-dian forward until they reached the cover of the exterior walkway, then brought him up for air. Hagori could hold their breath for only a minute at best, and Chellis didn’t know how much air he had gotten on the way down.
Not much. Ahad-dian gasped, his long limbs flailing without grace. Chellis held him up, the base of the walkway only inches above their heads.
Ahad-dian took a deep breath, and Chellis took his arm and pulled him down into the water.
The fresh, unsalted water rubbed her like unsanded wood, yet its depths invigorated her. Her bruises and abrasions turned to memory beneath the current, and her fins opened and propelled her and her dian forward, around the corner of the citadel. She swam until the moat forked. Ahad-dian pointed to the right, and Chellis swam through the channel until Ahad-dian tugged at her, desperate once more for air.
They rose to the surface, and almost immediately Chellis heard the shouts of angry guards, saw the waving of torches on the looming citadel. Ahad-dian gasped several times before diving back under, kicking his sandaled feet to swim.
They met a grate, and Chellis pulled Ahad back to the surface.
“Climb,” she ordered.
He did, finding footholds in the grating. An arrow whizzed by, dangerously close to his head.
Chellis shoved Ahad-dian from the top of the grating to the other side, and his body splashed into the water. She submerged, swam back, and then propelled herself forward as fast as her limbs would allow—the unused muscles remembered the movements, even if they protested it.
She burst from the water, arcing up and over the grate, and dived into the water on the other side. She grabbed Ahad-dian’s belt and swam as hard as she could, urging both of them forward. If Ahad-dian were to swim alone, his slowness would kill him.
They swam. Even with Chellis’s help, Ahad-dian had to begin swimming at the surface to prevent hyperventilation. Chellis came up every five minutes or so to gauge their surroundings, though she could hold her breath for ten. Each time the guards’ cries sounded a little quieter, their torches a little more distant.
Finally, Ahad-dian could go no farther, and he lifted himself onto the river’s sandy banks.
“I can feel it,” Chellis said, wading in the water, her breaths searing but alive. “The sea. I can feel it.”
Ahad-dian breathed heavily. “Good,” he said, more voice than air. He clutched his left shoulder.
Chellis pulled herself onto the bank and moved his hand, then gasped at the amount of blood running down his arm. It soaked his entire sleeve, and he’d been free from the water only a moment. In the starlight, he looked ashen and pale. Too pale for a Hagori.
“Ahad,” Chellis whispered.
“Widow’s Blood,” he said with a tired grin. “I told you . . . it doesn’t stop.”
“Lean over,” Chellis said, pushing him onto his good arm.
“Chellis, you can’t—”
“I can certainly cry for you, Ahad,” she said, the tears already coming forth. “If I can cry for anyone, it would be you.”
The vision of Ahad-dian bleeding out and dying on the sand filled her consciousness. She thought of his arrival as her dian, his kindness, his risk to bring her there. It was more than enough. Chellis pressed her forehead to Ahad-dian’s shoulders and wept into his wound, watching the skin seal itself with every drop.
She laughed. “There,” she said.
Ahad-dian sighed and lay back on the bank, still ashen.
“Ahad?”
“Thank you,” he breathed, “but I’ve still lost too much. I can’t go any farther. Not tonight.”
“I’ll carry you,” she said, taking his hand. She searched for the citadel, but didn’t see it. “Twenty miles to the coast from the citadel, isn’t it? We must be halfway there. I can hear it, Ahad. We’re so close.”
He chuckled. “I can’t live in the ocean, Chellis. You must go on alone. That was always the plan.”
Chellis’s heart stopped beating for several seconds, or so it felt. “We’ll stay on the coast,” she said, almost whispering. “You and I, land and sea.”
But Ahad-dian shook his head. “I have to go back.”
New tears coursed down Chellis’s cheeks. “But why?”
“Gaylil,” he said. The name pricked her skin as though lightning carved it there. “I have to . . . get Gaylil.”
“They’ll kill you.”
“I think I can do it,” he said, pushing himself into a sitting position again. “I have to get her too.”
Chellis shook her head. “You can’t save all of them, Ahad! Neither of us can! Not until this war . . . not until my people can gain allies. I’ll go back to them. I’ll find them and report my stories. Surely someone will listen to our plea for aid, if they haven’t already.” She squeezed his hand. Perhaps in her absence, someone had rallied supporters. Surely her people didn’t swim around complacent, awaiting a man-given fate. “We’ll save them together, but I need time.”
Ahad-dian smiled. “War takes time. Gaylil may be dead by then, Chellis.”
She shivered.
He cupped the side of her face with a sand-covered hand. “Believe in me. I have friends in the city. No one will expect me to come back. I’ll sort it out, make a stronger plan. I’ll save her, and
I’ll save you.”
Chellis blinked away another tear, letting it fall, useless, to the sand. “You really want me to leave you on the bank of the river, with our enemies following behind? Come with me, Ahad.”
“I can’t. Not yet.”
“Then when?”
He tilted his head to the side, studying her.
“One month,” she answered for him. “Enough time for you to recuperate and plan. Enough time for me to learn what has happened to the remnant of my people. Do you understand?”
She stood, squinting through the darkness. She pointed toward the squat mountain range far to the west, a black wedge against a blue-black sky. “Spear Peak. I don’t know what your people call it. The far end of the range, where the rock turns dark. One month from this night, Ahad. Meet me there.” She turned toward him. “Promise me.”
He nodded. “I promise, Chellis.”
She knelt down in the sand beside him, searching his eyes for truth. The night was too dark for her to see it, but she believed him.
“Promise,” she repeated, and she leaned forward and kissed him, her lips against his. One tradition that meant the same in both their cultures, she knew.
At that moment, he smelled like the sea.
She pulled away. Ahad smoothed her hair behind her ear and whispered, “Promise.”
Chellis nodded and imprinted his face onto her memory. One month.
Leaving her savior on the bank, Chellis dived into the river and swam for the ocean.
Charlie Holmberg
Charlie Nicholes Holmberg was born in Salt Lake City, Utah to two parents who sacrificed a great deal to give their very lazy daughter a good education. As a result, Charlie learned to hate uniforms, memorized all English prepositions in alphabetical order, and mastered the art of Reed-Kellogg diagramming a sentence at age seven. She entered several writing contests in her elementary years and never placed.
In summer 2013, after collecting many rejection letters and making a quilt out of them, Charlie sold her ninth novel, The Paper Magician, and its sequel to 47North with the help of her wonderful agent, Marlene Stringer. Someday she will own a dog. (Did she mention her third book, The Master Magician, totally made the WSJ bestseller list? Because it totally made the WSJ bestseller list.)
Charlie is also a board member for the Deep Magic e-zine of science fiction and fantasy.
The Dragon between Worlds
By T.E. Bradford | 8,500 words
- 1 -
“He’s a devil.”
“He’s a maester, and just what the boy needs. Training and discipline.”
“I don’t like it. The others won’t go near him. It’s no wonder he has no servants or acolytes.”
“He’s willing to pay, which is more than can be said of any others. Besides”—he drained his mug, banging it down onto the table—“what other offers have we gotten?”
In his hidden spot crouched on the grass outside the window, Cyril’s hands balled into fists. He knew his father thought he was a failure. In spite of doing his best in all of his classes, none of the maesters had taken him as an acolyte. He wondered which one it was his father spoke of.
“They whisper that he calls on the dark magic.”
There was a beat of silence. “The wagging tongues of cleaning women.”
“Who have seen what is kept in the dark.”
“Enough!”
The roar made Cyril flinch, even though he was safely out of sight.
“Ye’ll keep yer tongue!”
The pounding footsteps that accompanied the growl filled in the scene well enough. His father would be looming over his mother, eyes red and face dark. His mother would be looking to one side. She knew better than to look him in the eye.
“I will not have you filling this house with gossip and lies.” A fist landed on something, likely the counter. “He’s offered to take the boy, and I’ve accepted. There’ll be no more discussion on the matter.”
Cyril felt a mix of fear and excitement fill him.
“Besides, it’ll do the boy good to be out from under yer wings. Ye’ve coddled him long enough.”
Footsteps, this time moving away, meant the tirade would not escalate, at least for now. He let out a breath of relief. Then soft sounds reached his ears. His mother was crying. He started to stand up, to go and comfort her, but stopped. His father thought he was too soft. That he needed to be more of a man. Maybe his mother did coddle him. Was that why none of the maesters had wanted him?
He felt guilty for thinking such thoughts about his mother. She had always been good to him. She’d tried to keep the worst of his father’s anger away from him when she could. But when she cried, he felt strange inside. His father hated crying. That was why his mother did it only when he wasn’t there to see. She hid her tears from his father. He wished she hid it from him too. It made her seem weak.
Maybe she was making him weak too.
He backed away quietly, careful not to step on any twigs or branches that might betray his presence. When he was far enough away from the house, he turned and ran. The feel of the grass whipping at his legs, of the air buffeting his face, soothed him. He ran until his legs felt unsteady and his lungs burned. When he could go no farther, he collapsed onto the ground, letting the grass and dirt cool him. He rolled onto his back and looked up into the sky. Clouds turned into shapes as he watched them. A pig shifted into a lion. A duck into an eagle.
These are omens, he decided. I will become something powerful. Something great. I will show them who I am. Whoever this maester is, I will stand beside him and learn all that he knows and more. I will be the best acolyte they have ever known, and then I will become a maester too. The greatest ever.
They whisper that he calls on the dark magic. He recalled his mother’s voice in his head.
The idea of it sent a thrill through him. What did it mean, dark magic? What did it do? Could it call up demons and devils? Destroy cities?
His father was probably right. It was all just gossip from old women. Even as a student he constantly heard them chattering in the kitchens and in the halls. Most of the time it was just silly prattle about this couple or that leader or something they’d seen or heard. He’d never paid it much mind.
Above him, a cloud that looked like a lizard elongated, growing a great head and a roaring mouth.
A dragon!
He wondered if dragons had dark magic or not. Did they even exist? The old books at school said they had once, but that was long ago. Now they were just legends and dust.
He sat up, plucking a stone out of the grass and throwing it as far as he could.
Who cared what kind of magic the maester practiced? Either way, it was power, and that was something that could be learned. He would go, and he would be a good acolyte. He would learn, and if the maester did have some dark power, Cyril would find a way to have it too.
- 2 -
The wagon rocked as it rolled over the old dirt track. In the bed, two small crates contained all of Cyril’s clothes, along with his sturdy boots. He’d tucked his one and only prized possession into a sock at the bottom so that his father wouldn’t find it. He would disapprove.
“You remember to do good work for the maester,” his father said, looking over at him with eyes that were such a light shade of blue they looked almost like the ice that formed on the river in winter. “He’s paid good money.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Yer mother fill your head with idle gossip, boy?”
He shook his head no. She hadn’t. Not really. He’d only heard it because he was listening in. That was a much graver offense, and one he wasn’t about to disclose.
“Good.” His father looked forward again. “She’s not like us, boy.”
He wasn’t sure what his father meant, but kept quiet. It was always best not to say anything when he wasn’t sure what would make his father mad.
“Some folks frown on Destructive,” he went on. “Like it’s not as good as Creative or Ne
utral, but that’s far from the truth.”
He glanced over at his son again, and Cyril saw something he’d never seen in his father’s eyes before: excitement.
“You may not understand now, but you will. Destructive can do things others can’t. You watch the maester, and watch well. If you’re careful, you may find there are things you can learn that will serve you in ways you never imagined.”
Cyril had seen a lot of looks on his father’s face, but the one he saw next was the most frightening. The sides of his face stretched into a feral grin, lips spread back to reveal teeth that were yellowed by time and drink. His eyes glittered. The effect was terrifying.
As if the sun agreed, it went behind a cloud, casting a pall over the otherwise bright morning. Thankfully, the rest of the ride was mostly silent. They rode south, crossing the Casca River at a small bridge. As the sun neared its zenith, the heat reflecting off the ground in waves, they crested a ridge above a small valley. There was only one building, but the sight of it brought both of them to a halt as the horses shied nervously.
Made entirely of rock, it looked as if the earth had buckled upward, spewing out the foundation beneath it, erupting into the sky in razor-tipped fingers and jumbled deformities.
What maester is this?
His father flicked the traces several times before the horses were convinced to keep moving, dancing nervously down the slope toward the monstrosity. When they reached the bottom of the hill, the horses refused to go any farther, rearing up when lashed. They were not willing to get any closer to the unnatural place that loomed ahead. Swearing softly, his father set the brake and jumped down.
“We’ll walk from here.”
Each of them carried one of the crates. In spite of the heat of the sun and the weight of their burden, Cyril felt chilled. When they passed into the shadow of the rock, his fingers went cold. Up close, the rock looked even more bizarre, mottled and whorled as if melted and somehow resolidified. The front door was a solid slab of wood that looked thicker than most trees. He stared at it, his mouth hanging open, as a voice from inside beckoned them to enter.
