Smoke woke me in the night. I watched, bleary-eyed, the orange glow coming from the area I'd just vacated. It grew larger. All around me was prime for another burn, and the fire could be here in less than an hour, if the wind blew it my way. On the other side of the ridge, there was a lake which looked a lot like Lake Alarum, complete with waterfall. It would take some time to hike to. Looked to be perhaps ten miles by the way the trail fell. In good health, it would be a pleasant day hike, but as it was I winced as I got to my feet. I didn't even know it had stopped raining until it started again. The wildfire started billowing black smoke, on the verge of going out. I tugged my hood up and continued down the slippery trail.
Going downhill took more effort than going up. I had to put my walking stick down first, then one foot, then the other, keeping careful balance so I didn't fall. By the time I reached a smooth spot in the trail, the sun was out, turning the Deadlands into a steaming sauna. I wasn't sure if this was the same trail I'd taken with Lyall all that time ago, but I thought it was. The smoke had become worse but I didn't see any flames, and it was high in the atmosphere. There was a fire somewhere, the question was if it was coming towards or away from me. I leaned against a tree trunk, sipping at a pouch of rainwater.
Fatigue had me light-headed and heavy-bodied, my mind a muddle. Once my sweat had cooled, though not dried in this humidity, and the water had revived me, I realized I wasn't alone. Something was coming through the air, circling around my head. It descended.
For a second, I debated springing up a defense in the final seconds between the thing swooping down and it reaching me. Then I recognized it and watched it land, a flap of wings and black feathers. A crow snatched on the brittle branch nearest my head.
It cawed.
“Hello, Death.”
The crow blinked and made another noise.
“I know. I messed that up in a big way.”
It ruffled its feathers, shook out its wings, and launched back into flight. I watched it for a few seconds. It circled me time and again, then started down the trail. When I didn't follow, it circled me overhead again. So I shoved off the tree and stumbled after it, the mud splattering up my legs with every step.
Another grand misadventure undertaken in the name of Death, who ironically enough, claimed to be the savior of life. It was true, I did not think the world would do well if there was all life and no death, but what a delicate balance to walk. How often did it go wrong, like this? The crow squawked, returned to me. I waved it off, and it dived at my head. With a grunt, I staggered into a jog.
That was when I heard a scream. Very human. Or rather, very fey or fairy. I jumped, faced the sound, and ran towards it. The ground thudded beneath my feet, logs soared under my knees as I leaped them, and I felt in that dizzying dash that I wasn't a physical being at all, but a wisp of the wind whisking over land and trail. Downhill, full speed, no slipping, no falling, not even the crash of undergrowth to give me away. So it was in silence that I found the husks surrounding the survivors holding out on the shore of Lake Alarum.
A grating whoop signaled the advance of the husks. I reached out, remembering what Barnes had once told me about walking animations, to cut off the connection between them and their controller, and I found it. There in the air, invisible, were tiny bits of string like a hundred tender roots gripping the sky. Before I could think it through, I snatched all the air into one thin block and shoved it, a wall of compressed air, to slice through the connection like a razor. Why I hadn't thought of that before, I didn't know, either. But the husks didn't stop, like I thought they would. I sunk to my knees, exhausted, as the husks met the spells of the defenders.
“Another big mess up.”
When I had the courage to lift my eyes next, I realized the husks were floundering. Not dead in an instant, but gasping like fish out of water. A fireball knocked through their ranks while they fled. They didn't make it far, most of them, before the survivors picked them off. I watched in fascination as the hunters became the hunted. A monkey-thing cleared the fallen log and bolted for me. I met it with a bare fist in its face, its last noise the shriek of surprise. An ember flared into a fireball, its pursuer targeting me.
“Whoa, hey, it's me!” My voice was a croak, but somehow, some way, when the fireball streaked for me, it flowed over my face in a warm burst. Terrified despite myself, I touched my cheek. No burn.
“Identify yourself,” Mordon said, his tone all commanding.
“It's Fera,” I tried to say. A cough ate my words, a cough which tore burning fingers through my lungs. So I brushed his face with my magic instead.
Now that the husks were gone and the survivors safe, I let fatigue take hold. I slouched against the tree, eyes hurting too much to close them. So I smiled through cracked lips when Mordon kicked the husk aside and stooped down over me. He hesitated, as though he'd seen a ghost.
“Identify yourself.”
“Why?” That was an easy word to say, but pain crossed Mordon's face, so it hadn't been an easy question for him to hear.
His voice shook as he repeated, “Identify yourself.”
“Finish it, Meadows, it's toying with you,” shouted someone from the boats. I couldn't place who said it, but it occurred to me.
“The ruins for shelter? Is it the fire?” Then what they were saying found a place as Mordon withdrew, visibly steeling himself. I spat out one of Mordon's swear words. “He's been doing illusions, hasn't he? Tormenting…you. With visions…of me.”
“Don't do it. Stay there.” Mordon backed away, the ember back in his hands again. “Just don't move.”
I bit my lip. If I got up, he'd flame me. If I stayed, I'd either meet the wildfire they were running from, or I'd meet the main body of husks. Now that I was so close to safety, it took all I had not to scream out in anguish. I never wanted to see that wary, hurt, suspicious look in Mordon's eye again. Because he so desperately wanted to believe it was me, that I'd arrived in these final moments, and he knew it. And so he would be very on-guard. I had one chance, but how to prove it?
Mordon was several feet back when I met his gaze, a warning in his eyes, and I said, “I know what happened…to the lost souls…of Lake Alarum.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
For a terrible ten seconds after I said that, Mordon simply held stock still, the ember in his hands glowing brighter. A slap of water came as the others dragged a boat into the lake. Storm clouds darkened the sky, no, it was smoke. I felt it going down my raw throat with a cough. Did I dare to get up?
“We know,” I said, “what happened. It was us…we broke the circle. The cycle. I left my shoe…in the wagon. You saw it. You know.”
Mordon blinked at me, trying not to show the conflict that was happening within. He looked like a hunched-over dog who had been beaten by a beloved master. Wary and resentful. Then anger broke through his confusion and he stalked over to me. A fist found my hair and he tipped my head back.
“What do you get out of this?” he demanded, a soft accusation. “Why do you do this?”
It was hard not to be afraid. He still held the fire in his other hand. I reached up and laid my good left hand over his wrist. “Believe me.”
“Meadows, we need to go. It's not her. Don't believe a word.”
The fingers tightened in my hair.
I tried again. “Believe yourself.”
“Quiet,” he said.
A flicker of a smile touched my lips, threatening hot tears. “I haven't been so scared since you found me in your shop. Remember, I broke in with a special key.”
“You're pulling from my own memories. It won't work.”
The illusions pulled from his memories? Then whatever we'd done together wouldn't be convincing. I had to tell him something new. A sweat broke out over my back. “Never told you I had a set. Did I? Never told you, if I knew magic was back, I'd never of gone to look for Barnes. Never woulda been in your shop. Never woulda got your brood ring.”
“I said quiet.
” Mordon's fist glowed with the ember, white-hot between his fingers as he drew it back. What else could I do? I thought, thought hard, but I couldn't think of anything else to try. I let my hand fall from his, resigned to my fate at last.
When I went to stroke the ring one last time, it was gone. My heart stopped and I felt panicked. When was the last time I'd seen it? Before the battle, surely, but had I seen it when I'd woken? I was so used to it being there, I didn't notice when it'd slipped off.
“My ring.”
Mordon's horror matched my own, and I wanted to beg his forgiveness for losing it. It didn't matter he was ready to finish me off, he didn't know, and I couldn't convince him otherwise. My opponent was good with his illusions. Very good. I could only hope it reflected my own talents as well.
“I'm sorry,” I said.
Mordon's eyes filled with tears and I braced myself.
My knees knocked together with force. Mordon had knelt in front of me, I saw, his hand trembling, the white flames escaping around his fingers, and he was staring at it because there amid the smokeless dance of fire was my brood ring, her golden wings dashing in and out of the flames above his knuckles.
His eyes wide, Mordon looked to me. “Fera?”
I nodded, not daring to speak and ruin the spell which had fallen over us. Mordon lingered on the edge of disbelief, plainly wanting to tip over and embrace me, yet petrified of doing so. Whatever had happened to them since I'd last seen them, it had been bad. Unable to resist any longer, I touched his jaw. He flinched. I withdrew my hand, hurt by his response, and squeezed shut my eyes.
His fingers jerked free of my hair. I swallowed my own sob, and then I was in his arms. They were hard, tight, too much so, sending zaps of pain from my shoulder, but his chest was shaking. So I stroked his back with the limited arc of my free hand and made reassuring noises until his breathing became steady again.
“We're out of time!” The voice was urgent and sounded hoarse. I had trouble recognizing it for Leazar's.
Mordon stood, running his hand over his face, still wary of me. With a groan, I got to my own feet and looked at the others. “I'm going to have a hard time with them, too, aren't I?”
Mordon followed my gaze.
“Maybe I should take my chances in the forest instead.”
“No.”
Mordon's intensity shocked me into submission. I let him drag me by the hand to the boat. Before anyone could do more than shrink back, he pushed me in the boat and shoved off. He dripped water into the boat beside me, wet up to the waist, took one oar, and passed the other.
Lyall took the second oar, moving in synchronization with Mordon's sure strokes. No one else dared to speak a word, all of them looking at me like I was a scorpion in a nursery. I had a feeling I should talk with them, to establish my identity and lay their fears to rest, but I didn't have the strength.
“Stop staring, you jerkwads,” I said, put my head on Mordon's shoulder, and closed my eyes to rest. “You don't look a perfect ten, either.”
By the time we arrived at the docks, I decided I wasn't going to bother trying to convince the others. There were better things to focus my efforts on, and they would believe or disbelieve me no matter what I did. So when the boat tapped the dock and they stiffened when my eyes opened, I paid them no heed. Up on the dock, I secured the boat and didn't wait for them before climbing up the ladder, a real trick to do single-handed, but I was determined to not feel unwanted.
Ruin by ruin I checked the wagons and walkways and every spell I could think. Nothing turned up. By the time I returned, the landing party had scarcely moved from the docks. They'd all been watching me, Mordon included. I didn't feel like joining them.
“So, Debbie Downers, how long has it been by your reckoning since the great portal explosion at the Unwritten trees?” I asked, letting my legs dangle off the walkway, staring off at the distance where the smoke was clogging thick.
“It happened yesterday,” Mordon said. Apparently he was the only one who was going to talk to me, go figure. I thought at least Leazar or Simbalene would participate, but they both avoided me.
“Then you must have gone through worse than me. Where are the rest of the battalion?”
This time Leazar squared his shoulders. “Don't you remember talking about it last time?”
“Whatever you talked to, it wasn't me, but it seems to have done a good impression.”
“We will kill you,” Leazar said. No one spoke against him, not even Mordon.
“No rest for the wicked, huh? I hope you don't kill me without good reason. Anyway, I have clean water here.” I separated the strip of pouches off my dress, glad Mother had shown me how to cut the spider silk. “You're welcome to drink it or dispel it or throw it over your shoulder for luck or whatever you want to do with it. I caught it during the rainstorm last night. And I ran all the way here today to save your butts from the husks. So keep sulking if that's what you want to do. I'm going to get a shelter circle made up to keep the smoke out, if anyone wants to endure my taint, come join me.”
Mordon sighed. “Fera.”
“What?”
“This is the fifth time we've taken you in.”
I propped my elbows on my knees, imagining it. It was easy to understand their skepticism, but it left questions unanswered. “What happened after?”
“You talked us into traps, turned into a husk, and went blood-thirsty.”
I sagged and thought of what it must have been like, wondering if another person had died, or more than one. How they had all worked so 'I' could turn on them in the end. Getting their hopes up. Squashing it. It was a burden of guilt I didn't want to think about. Would I be doing further damage by keeping on as I was by trying to help and by holding a grudge against them?
“Oh.” What else was there to say after that? The way they were all there, exhausted, bandaged. “Sounds like I had the better time of things. I just reset my own shoulder, survived the thunderstorm, and hiked here.” I shook my head, weary. “Look, do whatever you want to. I can't blame you if you don't want anything to do with me now. I won't take a prime spot to sleep for a while.”
“You sound like Number Three,” one of the battalion members said.
“Fine, whatever! I'm sure you've heard it all before. If you want to kill me in my sleep, do it without waking me, alright?”
“Definitely a Number Two comment.”
I gave up. Conversation was not my friend on this evening.
The circle I constructed was beyond flimsy. It did little to keep the scent of smoke out, and it just looked sick. I slept curled up within it anyway, nursing a packet of water, noticing no one had touched the rest. The smell of cooking food woke me, but the people huddled around the skillet didn't invite me over nor offer me any of the fish. Stomach growling, I turned onto my back and tried to ignore the pain in my shoulder.
“What do you think?” someone asked, voice low.
“I don't know,” came the reply. “The time isn't up yet.”
I turned back onto my left side, the movement catching my dress on a snag on the walkway. It tugged on my shoulder, bringing a wave of nausea. Only by clenching my jaw could I keep from crying out. My stomach churned, hungry, and it coincided with the nausea. I bolted upright and was sick over the edge of the walkway, nothing but dry heaves which made my shoulder worse.
“You're dehydrated. Here.”
Mordon offered a cup of drake's brew, the colony's recipe, according to the smell. I shook my head.
“Drink it. And rest.”
“I can't. It hurts too much.”
“Your shoulder?”
I nodded. Mordon put the cup down and pulled my dress to expose the shoulder, the boldness of the action hitching my breath. He felt my joint with questing fingertips, pain lancing through me with his every touch. Only biting my lip kept me from begging him to stop.
“Well this is a change,” he said.
“What is?” That was someone from the fire.
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Mordon took my wrist, put a bare foot against my back, and before I could process what he was about to do, he twisted my arm and yanked. It wouldn't do it justice to say I screamed. The first time hadn't hurt at all by comparison, and the relief following the pain made me feel faint.
“What was that?” Leazar demanded, half-way between the fire and us.
“It seems that this particular Fera didn't reset her shoulder all the way.”
Tears streamed down my cheeks. This time I didn't try to stop them. The others stood up to crowd around, all jovial and smiling, and Mordon put a hand on my back. I staggered to my feet and stumbled backwards, gripping my shoulder.
“Get away. You can't treat me like that then expect me to be okey-dokey about it. Especially not you, Mordon, how would you feel if I were to do that?”
Swift Magic (The Swift Codex Book 2) Page 26
