He opened his hand, and tried again. The rope reformed. This time, Boteen stuck a finger in it. A flash caught him. A flash — an image — an impression —
As he sank, the blood leaked out of the wounds on his face. The blood floated upward, darkening the moonlight waters.
He was drowning.
Boteen caught himself, made himself breathe. He was not drowning. He had air. He was touching an old memory. A memory floating in the river —
But he wanted to live. He needed to live.
He kicked, feebly at first, but then with more strength. His legs were uninjured. His lungs ached but they didn't burn. How long could a man hold his breath underwater?
He didn't know —
Boteen could feel it. Circling magick. This was an important moment. The Islander Enchanter gained his red here —
He kicked again, harder, the power of his legs forcing him toward the surface. The blood swirled around him, then it congealed and formed a ropy string that he could tug on.
He was delirious.
He was dying.
The string broke —
The rope Boteen felt slipped from his finger.
"No!" he cried, and reached for it, nearly falling into the river.
Then he realized the panic he was feeling was not his. It was residual panic from the Islander Enchanter.
Boteen sat back on the bank, keeping his fingers in the water.
"Come back to me," he whispered. "Come back."
The rope reformed. He could feel its presence in the water, thick and slimy and warm.
Almost hot.
Like blood.
The smell of blood was even stronger than it had been.
He waited until the rope brushed his hand, then he shoved his finger inside again —
The blood came together, and braided itself, like a rope. He continued to pull, and kick, and pull. He still didn't need any air. Maybe he was already dead.
If so, he would claw his way to the Face of God. He wouldn't remain in the dark and the cold and the wet forever.
He kicked again, pulled on the string, and then his head broke the surface. He was still in the Cardidas. The moon shone silver on the water, except where his blood flowed. There the river appeared black.
The river appeared black.
The images faded. Boteen took his hands from the water and leaned back on his haunches.
A few weeks ago, just before the invasion. This blood trail was fresh.
The Islander Enchanter had used his powers to save his own life.
He had done that before. Once. Near the palace. Boteen had gotten faint impressions there, but they were covered with a patina, a gloss that made it seem as if someone else's magick had done the trick.
Someone Fey.
Fey.
A revulsion rose within him, a revulsion so strong it almost turned his stomach.
There were Fey about. Fey on the bridge. Fey —
He stopped. Those were not his feelings, not his emotions. He wiped his hands on the grass and sat.
The Islander Enchanter was strong. He was just coming into his full powers, so he was young. And he hated Fey.
This was the man protecting the heir to the Black Throne?
It did not fit, unless the Enchanter could get past the Fey part of the heir and see only his Islander heritage.
But that made no sense either. This heir, the young Gift, had been raised by the Failures. He was, most certainly, as purely Fey as a half-breed could be.
Boteen sat down, his calves aching.
Perhaps he had the other Enchanter, the sloppy one, the one whose magick could not be contained within him. The confusion fit, but the rope of blood did not. Could an untrained Enchanter save himself in such a way?
Boteen did not know.
He did not know which trail he followed.
If this were the other Enchanter, the one who leaked, then what happened to the one with Gift? Had he ever been in the city?
Had Gift?
He closed his eyes and touched the huge imprint, trying to find the continuation of the trail, trying to see where it would lead him.
TWENTY-TWO
Gift pressed himself against the rock pillar. Coulter was standing a bit too close. Gift still hadn't gotten over the anger he felt at his old friend. It flared at unusual moments, then faded into a dull ache.
He blamed Coulter for Sebastian's death.
If Sebastian and Gift had remained Linked, Sebastian would still be alive. Gift knew it.
Leen was still sitting on her rock, staring at the Cap. The Cap looked odd. The news of the Chant had frightened him somehow, made him seem uncomfortable.
This whole area had Gift uneasy. He longed to make his own Shadowlands and hide them all in it, but the Cap still warned him away from that.
The Fey would be looking for a Shadowlands, he'd said. It's the first thing they'd find.
That sounded logical to Gift, but that didn't change his desire to build one. He had lived most of his life in a Shadowlands. He wanted to go back to something familiar, if only for a moment.
The real world had too many pitfalls, too many differences for him to entirely comprehend. He still wasn't sure why the townspeople had reacted so poorly to him. Perhaps if they had called him Fey it would be clear.
But they hadn't.
They had called him tall.
Beside him Coulter stiffened. He looked at the sky, then at the ground. The Cap stood and looked too, but not in the same places. He did it as if he were trying to see what Coulter saw.
Leen glanced at Gift. His heart was pounding. Something had changed.
He could sense it.
"What is it?" Gift asked.
"A strange magick," Coulter said. "Those presences that I've been feeling — one has been getting closer."
"Presences?" the Cap asked.
"The ones like me. I told you of them," Coulter said. He hadn't torn his gaze from the sky. Gift would have thought he was looking at clouds if he hadn't known better.
"No," the Cap said. "You didn't."
Gift was standing stiffly. He felt an ache in his back from the oddness of his position. The ones like me.
"There are two others just like me on the Isle," Coulter said. "There used to be only one."
He snapped the words as if the Cap should have understood them on his own.
"Like you," Gift said. "Enchanters?"
"That's what the Fey call it," Coulter said. "I told you."
"You might have," Leen said soothingly, "but so much has happened. Perhaps we didn't remember this."
It didn't seem to matter what she said. Coulter stepped away from the pillars. He was scanning the sky. Then his gaze moved down, down toward the village.
"Looking for trails?" the Cap said.
"Yes," Coulter said. "No one's been here. Except Gift, of course. No one else."
He stepped onto the footpath, then moved slightly beyond it.
"But someone's coming," he whispered.
The hair rose on the back of Gift's neck. "How soon?" he asked.
"Today. Tomorrow. Next week. I don't know."
"What do they want?" the Cap asked.
"That's not clear either," Coulter said. His voice was strange, as if he were answering questions without really thinking about them, as if the answers were coming from some part of him not attached to his brain.
"What does it mean, the magick has changed?" Leen asked.
"Just that," Coulter said. Then he whispered, "Just that."
"We don't understand," Gift said.
"You're not supposed to," Coulter snapped. He stepped farther away, then crouched and reached out his hands. He sat like that for a long time.
The Cap approached his back, hovering there. Leen got off her boulder.
Gift didn't move.
He felt odd himself.
He had felt that way all day, though. It had to be the morning, the strange start they had had. And the lack of food
. Their supplies were dwindling. Someone would have to go into the town for food in the morning.
Someone short.
And the mountain itself. The feeling he got, the strange compulsion it gave him, was growing.
Then Coulter shook himself and stood. He turned. His face was pale, but the color was returning. His eyes looked like his own again.
"We have to get Gift out of here," he said.
"We will," Leen said. "When Adrian arrives."
"We can't wait," Coulter said.
"I thought you said you didn't know what the magick changes were," the Cap said.
Coulter licked his lips. He looked frightened. "The others — they've done something. I can feel their changes. And they are focusing here. The changes are coming here."
"You're sure?" the Cap asked.Ž
"I can feel it." Coulter walked back toward them. His face was turning red. It was a startling change from the paleness of a moment before. "We have to get Gift out of here."
"We can't leave Adrian behind on the strength of a feeling," Leen said.
"It's Coulter's feeling," the Cap said. "Adrian can fend for himself."
Gift glanced up the mountain. The strangeness inside his belly had grown. "We can wait for Adrian," he said.
"We can't," Coulter said. "It's not just your life, Gift. You have more importance than that."
Gift stared at him. There was real fear in Coulter's blue eyes. "What will waiting for Adrian hurt?"
"I don't think we have time," Coulter said. "I can't explain it better than that."
"Where would we go?" the Cap asked. "We're already at the edge of the island."
"I guess we'll have to go south," Leen said. "It would be better anyway. That Chant this morning was terrifying."
"No," Gift said.
They all looked at him. He must have spoken with more strength than he had planned.
"We're going up the mountain," Gift said.
"We're already too close to the snowline," the Cap said. "We can't go much higher. Air gets thin up there. Besides, there's nothing for us."
"That's not true," Gift said. "There is something for us. I can feel it."
"More feelings," Leen said and sat.
"A Vision?" Coulter asked.
Gift shook his head. "It's as if it were almost a Vision, as if something were shimmering just beyond my range of sight."
Coulter looked up the mountain. "Where?" he asked.
Gift came away from his rock pillars. He walked to Coulter's side and pointed up.
Above them the footpath faded into the jagged peaks. Huge boulders marked the way, and stone ledges marred sheer cliff faces. Trees grew on some of the ledges, until, farther up, the trees disappeared and the snow began. The redness of the rock grew the farther up the eye went, too. It almost looked as if the stone were bleeding.
The place Gift pointed to was just beyond the footpath. It looked, to him, like a dark spot on the mountainside, an obvious opening in the stone.
"That shimmer?" Coulter asked.
"I don't see a shimmer," Gift said. "I see darkness."
"I don't see anything," the Cap said.
"Me, either," Leen said. "Dark spot or shimmering. It's red up there. Red and sheer and terrifying."
"Terrifying, yes," Coulter said. "But there's magick above us. And it fairly shines off that mountain."
"Why didn't you see it before?" the Cap asked.
"I did," Coulter said. He looked at Gift. Gift bowed his head. He had tried to get them up there earlier, and Coulter had said no. The Cap had been confused by that small interaction, but Gift hadn't.
"Then why didn't you mention it?" the Cap said.
"If I mentioned every stray bit of magick I see, I'd be talking all the time," Coulter said.
He was understating it. Gift knew it. Coulter did too. He didn't look at the Cap as he spoke.
"You saw it too and didn't mention it?" the Cap said to Gift.
"What do you think it is?" Leen asked the Cap.
"It could be a hundred things," the Cap said, but his expression had grown dark, as if he didn't like what the possibilities were.
"It could be nothing," Coulter said.
"It's something," Gift said. He didn't want to understate the power he felt above them. He wanted the others to know what they were getting into. What he knew, anyway. "That darkness has been there from the start."
Everyone looked at him again. He shrugged. He couldn't explain it better. The darkness was like looking at a Shadowlands that he could hold in his hands, a Shadowlands before he made it large enough to hold people.
Perhaps it was a manifestation of magick, like Coulter said.
Perhaps it was.
"What if it's nothing?" Leen said. "We'll go up there for no reason. We'll be trapped."
"No more trapped than we are now," the Cap said. "And we can stop on those ledges. We might be able to see a different path away from that town below us."
"It's going to be hard to climb in the dark," Leen said.
"Coulter can make us some light," Gift said.
"And the entire valley will see our progress." The Cap shook his head as if Gift hadn't a brain in his. "That's not a solution."
Gift glanced up. He didn't want to go there in full darkness either. This mountain scared him enough, with its blood red color and its chill.
And the people below.
"We don't have to go at night," Coulter said.
"Oh, and what do you suggest?" the Cap said. "Waiting until tomorrow? You're the one who's in a hurry."
"He doesn't want to wait for Adrian," Leen said.
"Adrian is my friend," Coulter said. His temper had been close to the surface ever since they had returned from the quarry. Gift suspected the problems he'd had in town hadn't made Coulter any calmer. Sometimes, with Coulter, temper hid fear.
"He's my friend," Coulter repeated. "You people may not understand that."
He crossed his arms and turned his back on them.
"So what does that mean?" the Cap said. "That we should appreciate how hard it is for you to choose between Adrian and Gift?"
"I don't want there to be a choice," Gift said. "It's me we're talking about. I want to wait for Adrian."
"It's you we're protecting," the Cap said. "You don't get an opinion here."
"You're not letting me finish!" Coulter had turned to them, fists clenched, eyes bright. "I'm going to stay here. I'm going to wait for him."
"You can't," Gift said.
"Why not?" Coulter asked.
"You'll never be able to find us."
"I can see it as well as you can, maybe better," Coulter said.
"And what if nothing's there?" Leen asked.
Then I can follow your trails. All three of you leave trails."
"That's a problem," the Cap said and sat down. "If we're being followed by another Enchanter, all he has to do is follow the trail."
Coulter nodded. "I thought of that. But we don't know exactly where they are. If we stay ahead of them, we have a better chance of staying away from them."
"But what if— " Gift swallowed. The question was hard to ask. "What if they find you after we've left?"
Coulter looked at him, as if he had heard the concern in Gift's voice. "They're not looking for me."
"We don't know that."
"Oh, we do," Coulter said. "You're the prize, Gift, and you will be as long as the Black King is alive. The rest of us are secondary."
Gift shook his head. He hated this. He hated it all. "How long do we have to run?" he asked. "How long until they stop looking for me?"
"They'll stop when they find you," Coulter said.
"Then maybe I should just give myself up."
"You're not ready," the Cap said from his spot on the ground.
Gift felt a chill. "You think I'll want to give myself up?"
"Oh, absolutely," the Cap said. "When you're strong enough to take over the Fey Empire, you'll allow yourself to be captur
ed."
"I can't kill my great-grandfather," Gift said, his chill growing.
"You won't have to," the Cap said. "By then, you'll be able to out-magick him — and out-think him."
"He's the greatest warrior of the Fey."
"Yes, he is," the Cap said. "And he's an old man who's afraid of dying without a worthy heir. Someday you'll be his worthy heir."
"I don't want to lead an Empire."
"But you want to stop running," the Cap said.
Gift crossed his arms. His heart hurt. "Those are my only choices?"
"At the moment," the Cap said. "I'm sure, given time, we can think of a few others."
"Time is what we need," Coulter said, "And I'm going to buy some by waiting here for Adrian. You go up that mountain. We'll find you."
Gift wrapped his arms tighter around himself. He didn't like this. He didn't like any of it.
"What happens if you never come?" Leen said.
"You wait as long as you think fit," Coulter said. "And then you get Gift to safety."
"There is no safety on this Isle," the Cap said. "The Black King is too close."
"We've kept Gift away from him this long," Coulter said. "With each passing day, we gain a greater and greater victory."
"Maybe," Gift said. "Or maybe we just exhaust ourselves. I'm not learning anything new."
"Not yet," the Cap said. "We haven't had time."
"That's my point," Gift said. "How do we get the time? Or do we just run until they find us?"
Coulter came to him, and put his hand on Gift's shoulder. It took all of Gift's strength not to flinch. "You're going to have to trust me sometime," Coulter said.
"No, I don't," Gift said. "You killed Sebastian."
"You couldn't have done anything, Gift. If anything, you might have died with him."
"We'll never know, will we?" Gift backed away. He brushed off his shoulder, even though he knew it was childish. "Maybe I could have saved him."
"Maybe," Coulter said. "We'll never know. It's done now."
"It's not done," Gift said. The anger was flaring again, and he couldn't stop it. He didn't want to stop it. "It'll never be done. Not between us."
The Cap got between them. He grabbed Gift by the waist. The small Fey was surprisingly strong. "Stop. Stop now," he said.
"Why?" Gift asked. He was shaking. The Cap had tried to kill him once. He wasn't convinced the Cap wouldn't try again. "Because it bothers you?"
The Resistance: The Fourth Book of the Fey (Fey Series) Page 15
