Magience: second edition

by Cari Silverwood

  She shrugged.

  “I still have my thoughts, my feelings, my yearnings, my appreciation of beauty. Do you really feel the beauty of this little place?”

  She looked about. Dust motes floated in the air. The water, painted by the light, was dappled with gold.

  “They say that if you almost die that you appreciate life more. Well that’s my permanent state of being. I’m always almost dead. I can still feel sadness...and loneliness, only worse than ever.” His voice drifted into silence.

  She cleared her throat. “I’m – ”

  “Sorry?” He held up his hand. “Don’t say it unless you mean it.”

  Ellinca stayed silent. Just when she thought she had drifted back into revulsion he went and made her sit up and look at him from a different angle. Loneliness. She hadn’t seen him that way.

  “I’m sorry.” She was.

  He heaved a long bubbly sigh. “There is nothing more in the world that I would like right now than to stop this war between our people and theirs. Life is worth too much. So easy to end it, so hard to put it back together again.

  “To answer your first question: You’re coming with us. I’m going to help you find Alexander Blissman. The second? That’s a little more complicated. It’s a question I’ve been avoiding since I first met you as a...a...” He swept his hand at himself. “...a restored human. The truth?” His eyes fixed on her. “I helped you because you are, I hope, the one person who can bring me fully back to myself.”

  “What?” There it was. He had said what she had suspected for some time. Goosebumps prickled her skin. The air turned cold and threatening.

  “Haven’t you figured it out? You changed me from being a senseless, ravening thing into this. Half...well, let’s say one-eighth a healthy human. I can think again. I’m me again, and I don’t dribble half as much. Am I right?”

  He was joking? Then she saw that beneath his measured, confident tone was a hint of desperation. Now desperation she understood.

  “I’m not...” She steepled her fingers before her.

  “Not sure you can trust me? Understandable.” The cloth swathing his face moved as if he smiled.

  He was too smooth in his talk by half and no matter his words he still wasn’t human. The nobles taught their children how to speechify from an early age. Trusting him just felt the teeniest bit wrong, like trusting a wolf with a bowl of hot meat.

  “Trust you? Ha!” She straightened her shoulders. “You know too well how to twist words with your tongue. You could make me think up was down and down was up if you wanted. And...” ...and you’re undead. And you tried to take my life, and you scared me so so much. He’d also helped her. She’d be a slave of the Bheulakks if not for him. Why, though? Just because he needed her talent?

  He broke into a full-throated, gurgling roar of laughter, shaking the cloth wrapping about his head. “Me? Me? I twist words? My tutors despaired of me ever succeeding at oratory!”

  How could he find comedy in this? “Stop. Be serious!” Warmth flushed her face. Was he was mocking her?

  “Look, sir. I know you’re in unfortunate shape.”

  That brought on another paroxysm of chuckling and he thumped the ground beside him with one hand. The cat, either deaf or very stoic, moved not an inch. Ellinca stood and folded her arms, frowning fiercely down at him. Slowly he subsided but the fizz of anger still seethed through her.

  He held up a hand. “Please, no more. I haven’t laughed so since before...well, you know. I fear I’ll shake loose some vital piece of me if I go on. Ellinca...” He stared unblinking with those unnaturally blue eyes.

  “Seriously? I know what you mean. But this war could go on for ten more years and even us Burgla’le’s baulk at letting undead princes attend court. Please help me.”

  “No.” The word made a pleasant full stop to his blathering.

  “What?”

  He flinched. He angled his head as though the grass held some fascination for him, as though considering his next words. Had he finally run out of them?

  Abruptly he raised his head, questing, sniffing, uncomfortably predatory in his movements.

  “Humans. I smell humans, two or three, approaching from the north. I’d best be at Dayna and Krueger’s side. By the way...” He stood, plonking the cat gently to the grass, and unfolding to his full height. “Is this creature yours?” Dost turned and stalked to the door. In his wake a button fell to the floor.

  “Wait!”

  He halted, his head inclined as if he were listening but he didn’t turn.

  “You haven’t told them about me, about how I changed you. Why?”

  “Tell them I need you for that? Tell them I am relying on a flittery self-absorbed young woman to help me change the course of history? I had to convince the auratrist that I had a chance of success. They think I was merely saving you from the Bheulakks. Take care they don’t begin to think you a danger to their mission.”

  “A danger? How? Dayna wouldn’t...”

  “You know, you remind me deeply of my sister.” He said that in an odd wistful way.

  What? Dumbfounded, she lost track of her next words. Was that a compliment?

  “About your friend.” His gloved fingers curled and uncurled. “I’m very sorry.” He went through the door before she could gather a reply.

  “Well.” The anger had faded, leaving her empty. Somehow things had turned ’round. She felt like the loser. The cat looked at her in that inscrutable cat way. “That was interesting.”

  The cat was not a cat at all. Of course. No animal except Gangar would willingly approach Dost. It was the metal eater, changed yet again. A gray tabby coat had replaced the red covering. She was sure she didn’t want to know how it had accomplished that. Now it had six legs. The thing could count ears and noses correctly but not legs? Eyes? She couldn’t see any. No eyes. How did it see? She wondered if it liked having six legs, or was it being deliberately dense?

  It struck her that Dost had not asked where it had come from. Did he already know? She had hesitated to reveal its existence to the others, thinking it might mean a death sentence for the poor thing.

  With the haversack in hand she went to one knee and gave the creature a cautious pat. Something dug into her knee.

  “Was I wrong, cat-thing?” It purred louder than a basket load of overfed felines. “An ‘A’ for effort,” she muttered. “What shall I call you? Cat-thing? Blob? How ’bout Mogg?” It seemed a reasonable name for a mixed-up cat-dog. On the ground was the shiny metal button that had dug into her knee, half of it a melted, honeycombed ruin. Mogg had clearly snacked on Dost’s buttons.

  “Oh.” A trouser button? “Hope that wasn’t fastening anything important.”

  A thought lanced into her mind. The floating man. Her dream of the man. Ever since the night when she must have healed Dost, she’d dreamed of him.

  Nausea flowed thick and heavy through her stomach. Ugh. No. Surely not. Her lips twisted. If Dost was the man she’d been dreaming of touching, she must be ill.

  She shook her head then scraped her hands down the sides of her hose as if by doing so she could wipe herself clean of his undead dirtiness.

  “It’s not that I hate him,” she said to Mogg. “He does have some admirable qualities.” Gods. How snobbish that sounded. No. She didn’t hate him. It was just that the thought of kissing an undead made her feel like throwing up. “I do pick the right ones to dream about don’t I?

  She opened the top flap of her pack. “Guess I still won’t tell Dayna about you. Like to get in?” It scurried inside and she hoisted the bag into place across her back. Funny but it never seemed any fatter with the thing inside. Heavier but not fatter.

  “Well. That’s decided then. I’ll go with them ’til I find Sir Blissman. After that I’ll make sure it’s the last I see of Dost.”

  Chapter 17

  A Bludvoik Plague

  For the next two days they stayed inside the warehouse and people came to them. Most were disguis
ed in some way.

  Pascolli’s death lay over her like a cloak of lead, weighing her down, stranding her in a gray insipid world where nothing mattered. She felt useless, play-acting. There were few moments when she wasn’t in some way missing him. Nevertheless she carried on and gradually his loss became bearable, if not forgotten.

  Ellinca went to the pond and floated two candles on the water in remembrance, one each for him and her mother. It helped in a way.

  The more she saw of how well the Grakkurds were organized this close to Carstelan the more she wondered at them revealing it to Dost, a member of the royal family, albeit an undead one. Why were they that sure of him? With a word to the right ear he could send all their spies floating downriver face down, courtesy of the Imperator’s enforcers.

  The cloaked visitors left packages that turned out to be the armor, snouted helmets, weapons and insignia of three Barskolian guards. In addition, on the second morning, an ebony open carriage – with two neat if elderly striped quaggas to pull it – turned up with four saddled mounts.

  “This for you,” declared Dayna, gesturing grandly at the carriage. “We your guards. This also for you.” The second this was a yellow-and-cream dress finely sewn with glass beads, each leaf of the skirt made from a scarf. Traditional attire for a Barskolian maiden, or so they assured her. Barskolia was a thoroughly and conveniently distant nation. It was an eye-catching costume, but at least there was a veil. She left on her black tights, rolling them up to her calves. Her hair was to be braided into a circlet to pin the veil upon.

  She spoke hesitantly, “Isn’t everything a bit...conspicuous?”

  “Ah! No. No.” Dayna grinned broadly. “We hide in front of noses.”

  This was not an impossible task given the size of the noses on the snouted helmets – grotesque metal ornaments that must be meant to frighten enemies.

  They were to ride out the following morn. Dayna informed them that if they were challenged by anyone they should nod and smile back. Since none of them bar Dost had any knowledge of Barskolia, upon questioning she imagined they’d look like a bunch of bobble-headed circus dolls.

  That night she encountered Krueger in a corner of the warehouse, illuminated by a single half-closed lantern. Unwilling to intrude, she hung back in the shadows beside a pallet of crates.

  He was bare-chested and sweat-soaked, stepping, swirling and leaping about the timber floor in an intricate pattern. From a distance it might have seemed a dance but the knives in each of his hands flashed as they cut the air. Hypnotized by his skill and speed, she watched silently. With every fluid movement another particle was added in her mind to his imaginary enemy. To her disbelief and rising unease she began see a swirling monstrous shape opposing him.

  A hand clasped her shoulder. “Come.”

  She flinched. The voice was Dayna’s. The strange apparition vanished.

  “Do not watch unless invited. Private.”

  “Oh. Sorry,” she whispered, allowing herself to be drawn away. “What was he doing? I mean it was uncanny. The way he could...”

  Dayna frowned at her, tapping one hand on her scabbard. “Yes. He is... Kaddash.”

  “Kaddash?”

  “Yes. They are weapon masters. Dedicates of the auratrist. Clever fighters.” She pressed her lips in a tight straight line. “He will know you are here. So. Not make him angry. Yus?”

  “Yus. I mean, yes.”

  She supposed it made sense to send one of your best fighters on a mission like this, and she had thought Krueger to be a lumbering over-muscled clot. Likely, he meant to appear that way.

  The night passed slowly, interrupted as it was by her waking with a start several times. A nightmare creature that she couldn’t quite recall pursued her through her dreams over and over.

  Ellinca sat in the open carriage on the lumpy quagga hair cushions, yawning now and then behind her hand. She whispered a short prayer for safe travel. They were waiting for the moons to set and the thick pre-dawn darkness to descend. The two moons were close to aligning that night, where one eclipsed the other.

  A true eclipse was an auspicious event when it occurred – not due for another forty-two years by most calculations – but she always thought it didn’t hurt to cover all outcomes by praying a little. Even a close lunar eclipse was sufficient to send shivers up the spines of merchants, moneylenders and most of the general populace. The power of the tide on nights such as this was rumored to raise waves that could swallow ships, and who knew what else the gods might get up to?

  They left the storehouse with a bare two hours before the sun rose fully. A fat-faced man with two fluffy sideburns bracketing both cheekbones had climbed matter-of-factly into the driver’s seat a minute before they departed. He rasped a name at her – Haddrash. Or at least that’s what it sounded like. She supposed it could equally have been an exotic swear word that he used to scare people he didn’t like.

  His hefty leather belt, overstocked with knives, pliers and other gear, threatened to sag to his knees. Clipped over his head was a bronze skull-cap that held a single green lens curved before his left eye. She didn’t dare question him. He smelled like rotten lemons and constantly gnawed on something in his mouth, his own loose teeth for all she knew.

  After gently depositing a long cloth-swathed parcel at his feet he geed the quaggas into motion. Despite the novelty of the situation, the carriage’s swaying soon rocked her into a light doze.

  Ellinca woke with a crick in her neck, a dry sticky mouth, and prayed she hadn’t been snoring. The quagga’s hooves thudded rhythmically into the earth of the road. Leather harness jangled and slapped. She strained her ears to hear past this. No noise of bird or cricket, beetle or bat stirred the night – very quiet. She looked up. Though they had left the sweet-smelling forest behind them the road curved along with the trees still close on the left and the longest of the branches raked dark skeletal fingers across the sky above. There should be more animal noises. It was a little disturbing.

  As they approached a small bridge the carriage slowed. Dost and Dayna came up on either side.

  “We’ll check for annoyances – bandits, trolls under the bridge, that sort of thing. It will give Krueger time to catch up.” Dost mock-saluted Ellinca, clapped the spurs in and trotted off before she could think of a reply. His saber’s scabbard slapped against the horse’s side.

  Dawdling a moment, her mare dancing with impatience, Dayna leaned from the saddle and whispered as though imparting a great secret, “Krueger goes to call of nature!”

  Ellinca raised her eyebrows and nodded. “Trolls!” she muttered. Being mocked was bad enough, but being mocked by an undead prince was even worse. Through her skirt she fingered the outline of the dagger strapped to her thigh. A saber. Why did he, a bludvoik, get the better weapon? Violence, though, was the refuge of the weak, the mad and the stupid. Besides, she couldn’t draw the dagger without hiking up her skirt, and had no skill in handling a saber.

  Having outpaced the forest there were still miles of rice paddies beyond the bridge and on either side of the road. Silhouetted against the spreading light was the serrated outline of the city on the horizon. A clean, cool thread of wind caressed her face. Anticipation ran a shiver through her. Carstelan.

  The two riders were returning, way too fast. Galloping, crouched low in the saddle, the necks of their mounts stretched out flat, it was clear that something was wrong.

  “Move! Quick!” yelled Dayna. “Turn round!”

  Ellinca half-rose from the seat. Several animals, some dog-like, some feline in shape and gait, cleared the bank of the creek close behind them.

  At the very front by a few yards ran the most forthright creature. A small wolf? Then the morning light glistened along its back and she could see where red muscle was laid bare, skinless and oozing fluid. The deepest of shadows filled its eye sockets. Its legs threshed at the ground and launched it upward, mouth agape, to land with a thump on the scaled steel armoring the rump of Dayna’s mare. T
he horse screamed, staggering sideways. Dayna twisted, leaned down and swiped with her sword, her three red plaits swishing in an arc. Neatly the head of the creature parted ways with the body but stayed planted in the armor like an oversized tick, chewing a little, the teeth perhaps embedded in the leather backing.

  Ellinca shuddered. If ever it existed, this was pure malevolence. The carriage lurched as Haddrash made to turn it around and she grabbed at the back of the seat for balance.

  “Hyah!” He lashed with his whip.

  The quaggas whinnied in fear and began to head for the steep embankment to the left of the road. Haddrash wrenched on the reins, hauling them to a stop just in time to prevent the carriage overturning. He reached down and scooped up the long parcel. Cloth slid away revealing a silver tube, the mouth wide enough to fit an arm down and the opposite end sealed, its entire surface marvelously inlaid with gold. Ellinca blinked. Gold geese – surely the work of a trinketologist.

  In one smooth motion he hefted it to his shoulder, nestling his lensed eye to a side loop on the tube, his right fingers curling onto a trigger.

  “Duck away miss,” he stated in a deep monotone.

  Obediently she clambered over the back of the carriage and ducked. By now Dayna’s mount had collapsed onto its side. In an attempt to free its leg from the strange weight the horse was violently kicking and rolling. Dayna, climbing to her feet, held the sword trailing from her limp right arm. She staggered back, away from the panicking horse. Dost... Ellinca peered over the seat. Dost was also unhorsed. He stood, weaponless, nose of his helm open and hinged upward, arms out-stretched with fingers splayed like a rake – as if he was inviting his own destruction.

  Teeth bared in blood-spumed snarls, the ten remaining undead arrowed toward him.

  Haddrash jerked on the trigger of his device. The air itself split apart with noise. Gray acrid-smelling smoke blossomed round him. Ears ringing and throat burning, Ellinca watched balls of blue and orange flame fly from the mouth of the weapon – straight at the pack of undead, smashing into them and sweeping them away in a tumble of shattered limbs and fire.