by Rob Scott
‘Just to be funny? It makes jokes?’ Brexan was confused.
‘Because understanding what is true, real and necessary is often enhanced by one’s ability to recognise something unreal, something untrue. Success can only be recognised as the opposite side of failure; without knowing failures and lies, one cannot appreciate successes and truths. The book understands that, and we, even we sorcerers, cannot dictate how magic and knowledge interact. It is a relationship that they form and that they foster. Our lot as the Larion Senate was to try and understand it well enough to tap its power in service to Eldarn.’
‘And you did,’ Kellin said.
‘For a long time, yes.’ Gilmour sighed. ‘But now, a sorcerer with all the knowledge that I have, with all the experience that I have, and with all the conviction that I have, plans to open the table and use it against Eldarn.’
‘Will it stand for that?’
‘I don’t think it cares.’ Gilmour pursed his lips. ‘That may be the reason Lessek wanted us to understand magic on a comprehensive level. It wasn’t enough to be able to work a few spells and help a few people. We were harnessing an energy source, a power unlike anything we had ever seen, certainly more than most of us could comprehend. Our strongest and most promising practitioner, an old friend of mine named Nerak, pushed too far, and it swallowed him in an instant. It is the energy of life, death, creation and destruction; it is raw emotion and raw power.’
‘Can you read the book?’ Kellin asked.
Gilmour sighed again. ‘To be honest, I haven’t tried in about a Twinmoon.’
‘Why not?’
‘Well, the last couple of times I opened it, Nerak knew, and he used my wide-eyed innocence against me.’ Gilmour searched for the right words, then said simply, ‘It hurt… a lot.’
‘Wide-eyed innocence?’ Brexan said.
‘Yes, actually.’ Gilmour was amused. ‘For a two-thousand-Twinmoon-old grettan, I have relatively limited experience with magic on this level. Granted, I spent hundreds of Twinmoons hiding all over the Eastlands, generating and experimenting with common-phrase magic, but before our battle on the Prince Marek, I’d only seen the book a few times in my life. Nerak had it at Welstar Palace. Any other copies, if there are other copies, were either hidden there or destroyed.’
‘How about you, Steven?’ Kellin asked. ‘Can you read it?’
Steven chuckled. ‘I’m able to open the pages and look through it, but much of what it says seems like gibberish to me. I can’t understand it at all.’
‘But you can touch it; you can flip through it, look at the writing, feel the pages, and nothing leaps out to cripple you, pull at your beard or slap you stupid?’
‘The first time I touched the book was on the Prince Marek, the night I went back for Lessek’s key. I had just begun to tap the power Nerak sublimated into Kantu’s old walking stick-’
‘That hickory staff?’ Kellin interrupted.
‘Yes, the one from the glen, but I hadn’t come to grips with the suggestion that there might be magic inside me, that I might be one of those rare few who – Twinmoons ago – would have been driven out of my town or shipped off to Sandcliff Palace to join the Larion Senate. When I touched the book that night, it tried to take me.’
‘Take you?’ Brexan recoiled.
‘Engulf me, swallow me whole, I don’t know, drag me into oblivion, just for fun. It was phenomenal power; I felt it through my fingertips, everything all at once, everything Gilmour just described, the essence of the book, not just what’s written on its pages.’
‘So it reached out to you with something true, something false, some joke, what?’ Brexan asked.
‘I think it reached out to him with everything about itself, about magic,’ Gilmour tried to clarify. ‘The book understood Steven’s potential, long before Steven did, and whether it was communicating with him or trying to purloin his power for itself, the book definitely embraced him with more than just the words written on the pages.’ He grinned. ‘From one perspective, it was quite an honour for Steven.’
‘To be absorbed into the comprehensive essence of magic?’ Kellin said. ‘No thanks; I’m full.’
Brexan laughed. ‘So why can you read it now?’
‘I hit a speed bump,’ Steven said. ‘Lessek’s key taught me, by kicking me solidly in the backside, several times, how to recognise the key elements in any magical equation.’
‘Equation?’
He shrugged. ‘I’m a mathematician; it makes sense to me that way. I was in the garbage dump near my home, preparing myself to spend the next ten Twinmoons digging through rotten meat and broken glass, when the key taught me how to separate what’s important from what’s not, essentially.’
‘What happened?’
‘The less important parts blurred together.’ He frowned. ‘I guess I did it… I do it to them.’
‘Do what?’
‘Blur them, take them out of the equation so the key variables can come into focus, and then manipulate them based on my knowledge and whatever magic happens to come bursting out of me at the time.’ He raised an eyebrow at Gilmour, who smiled and nodded. ‘Anyway, after that day, I was able to flip through the book. It was as if on our second meeting, the book recognised that I had grown a good deal in my understanding of my own magic.’
‘But you still can’t read it,’ Brexan persisted.
‘Not really, no.’
‘And Gilmour, you haven’t felt comfortable opening it.’
‘The last time I opened it, the book spewed forth a coil of otherworldly serpents armed with a poison so toxic that I had to abandon my former body and go in search of a new host.’ He posed comically, then said, ‘But to answer your question, no, I haven’t been thrilled about opening it again.’
‘So do we consider it an asset?’ Brexan went on, ‘if no one can use it to help us?’
‘No one can use it against us, either,’ Steven pointed out.
‘I suppose that’s true,’ Brexan said.
‘And who knows?’ Gilmour added, ‘between now and the end of this struggle, it may become necessary to use the book’s information again.’
‘Information,’ Brexan mused.
‘Exactly,’ Gilmour said, ‘more information than power. Granted, it’s a monstrously powerful tome, but its purpose is educational.’
From beneath the bow, Marrin called, ‘Steven, Kellin, anyone!’
Steven hugged the bowsprit, leaned over and said, ‘Since you’re going out, I’ll take a tube of mint toothpaste.’
Marrin frowned. ‘Rutting foreigners!’
Garec grinned. ‘They move in and just ruin the village.’
‘What do you need?’ Steven asked.
‘I need a pot of tecan and a burning brazier,’ Garec said. ‘It’s gods-rutting freezing down here.’
‘Please tell Captain Ford to leave the anchor in place for now,’ Marrin said. ‘We’ll row over there, around the west side of that big island. It shouldn’t take us long to get there and back, but I want you to know where we’re going in case this fog gets any worse when the tide starts moving again.’
‘Shouldn’t it blow north?’
‘It probably will, but I want him to know where we’ve gone in case it doesn’t. And don’t worry, Garec has a lovely singing voice. If it gets thick, we’ll give you a holler.’
‘Oh, I understand,’ Steven said. ‘You don’t want us moving from here-’
‘Because there might not be enough draft around that island, because you might run aground again between here and there, because I don’t want to lose you in the fog, but mostly because I don’t want you losing us in the fog.’
Garec smirked. ‘The last sounds you hear are your own bones breaking.’
‘Got it.’ Steven tallied their orders. ‘Don’t get lost, don’t run aground, but most of all, don’t run over the little boat with the big boat.’
‘Very good,’ Marrin smiled. ‘We’ll make a sailor of you yet. Could you pass that a
long to our fearless leader?’
‘Right away,’ Steven started aft.
At the capstan, Brexan asked, ‘When Prince Malagon, Nerak, came to Orindale, was he heading for Sandcliff Palace?’
‘I thought he was,’ Gilmour said, ‘because I thought that’s where he would go to operate the spell table.’
‘But he had actually come to Orindale, because he was going into the Blackstone foothills to retrieve the spell table?’
‘It was his understanding that Steven and I were making way for Orindale, hoping to secure a transport to Malakasia, or at least Praga, to search for Hannah Sorenson. Nerak acted under the assumption that with a military blockade on the town, we would either be captured, killed or forced to wait on the outskirts, while he searched for us, killed us and took the keystone. His spies and minions had failed to collect it for him, so Nerak decided to come and get it himself.’
‘But you didn’t have it, because Steven and Mark had forgotten it back in Colorado?’
‘Overlooked it.’
‘Rutting whores.’
‘My sentiments exactly, my dear.’
‘But his plan was to have the key, get the table and open the Fold from the Blackstone foothills?’
‘Or at least have the key to experiment with the table on his way back to Pellia.’
‘Which is essentially what Mark is doing right now.’
‘Essentially.’
‘So why did Nerak bring the book with him?’
A moment of silence passed between them. Brexan pulled her hood up and flinched as beads of icy condensation trickled beneath her hair and down the back of her neck.
Finally, Gilmour said, ‘I don’t know why. Perhaps Nerak was studying the spells, trying to round out his understanding of magic. Perhaps the book had shown him something he believed he would need in order to open the Fold-’
‘Or,’ Kellin interrupted, ‘the book showed him something he believed he would need after he opened the Fold.’
Silenced by that possibility, Gilmour recoiled from his memory of the spell book’s opening folio. The Ash Dream, he thought. What in all Eldarn is the Ash Dream? Something Mark needs to open the Fold? Something we need to close it for ever? Or maybe Kellin’s right and he needs it after his master’s arrival. Staring down at a nebulous cloud of chilly fog as it billowed about his legs, Gilmour said, ‘You may be right. The book might have shown Nerak something he would need after he opened the Fold and ushered in an Age of unbridled pain, torture and suffering.’
Kellin blanched, looking as though she was about to retch. ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘In that case, we’ll just have to get to Mark before he has a chance to… to do… that.’
‘That’s why we’re here, freezing, in this godsforsaken archipelago.’
Brexan looked aft. Most of the Pragan brig-sloop was lost from view; the parts she could see – a few ratlines, the mainmast, a hatch and a stretch of starboard gunwale – looked like bits of a derelict ghost ship. ‘Gilmour, are you confident that Nerak actually read the book? Was he able to understand it, to glean anything from it?’
‘I don’t know,’ he replied. ‘From what Steven said, Nerak was not nearly as powerful as his legend would have us believe, but it was my experience that he had a good deal more power and knowledge, at least in a mystical arena, than anyone I had ever known.’
‘More than you?’
‘Oh, certainly more than I ever did.’
‘More than Steven?’
Gilmour tried to hide a half-smile. It didn’t work. No, not more than Steven.’
Brexan smiled herself and glanced aft again. ‘Would Nerak have been able to help us now?’
‘What’s that?’
‘If Steven had kept him here, kept him alive somehow, do you think Nerak would have been able to help us close the Fold?’ Seeing Gilmour hesitate, Brexan tried to clarify her thoughts. ‘From what Steven and Kellin said, right in the moments before he was cast into oblivion, Nerak was different: beaten, submissive, I don’t know, maybe less homicidal and power-hungry.’
Gilmour nodded, obviously contemplating his former colleague’s demeanour that day in the glen. ‘That’s true, Brexan, but Steven had made an effort to be compassionate. He gave Nerak the hickory staff. I thought he was insane to do it; we all did. But he gave Nerak the chance to save himself, and instead Nerak used the staff to strike out at him. With the staff, he might have saved himself, banished the evil holding him prisoner, even been restored to his former position of grace and respect. But he ignored Steven’s mercy, and that more than anything was what killed him.’
‘Was Nerak evil before the terrible essence emerged from the Fold to take him prisoner? How long before his fall did he try to kill you, or to kill the other one… what’s his name… Kantu?’
Gilmour frowned. ‘I don’t know exactly, but there was some time before Sandcliff fell that I feared Nerak. I always worried when Kantu, Pikan or I travelled through the far portal. I felt anxious that he was using our absence as an opportunity to develop spells that would kill us or perhaps trap us on the other side of the Fold for ever.’
‘So no, then,’ Brexan said.
‘No, what?’
‘No, Nerak probably wouldn’t have helped us banish this evil essence and seal off the Fold.’
‘No,’ Gilmour shook his head, ‘most likely not.’
Brexan felt the cold seep inside her cloak. ‘I’ll get us some tecan,’ she said, shivering.
‘That would be nice,’ Gilmour said, glad for the change of topic. ‘Biggest mugs you can find.’
Warmed by the morning brew and empowered by the truths Brexan and Kellin had forced him to examine while kedging the Morning Star off the Malakasian shoal, Gilmour Stow of Estrad excused himself from the chilly partisans still watching the fogbank for Garec and Marrin and tiptoed into the companionway leading to his berth, and the leatherbound book of Lessek’s writings. Gilmour rarely felt old, but this morning, despite living inside the youngest host he had purloined in nearly a thousand Twinmoons, his body was stiff, cramped, feeling as if it might disintegrate without warning. His shoulders were sore; his lower back ached. One knee was inflamed, while the other had stiffened with the dampness and fog. His fingers felt swollen, clumsy and arthritic, and his eyes were a beat slow, managing to focus on what he had been seeing a step or two after it had fallen behind him. Being two thousand Twinmoons old was not normally physically gruelling – if it was, Gilmour would have been worn to the bone, dead several times over. Instead, it was an intellectual distance run, a tiresome and wearying adventure, and this morning, with his shortcomings and challenges neatly outlined by the curious freedom fighters, Gilmour felt the emotional exhaustion in every muscle and bone in his body.
It was a symptom of his fatigue; he knew that, and he knew that a few avens’ sleep would have him back in fighting form. But he hadn’t been able to rest; he wanted to finish just one last thing before retiring for the day. Then, he would sleep until the dinner aven, resting like the dead. Or the very nearly dead, anyway, he thought with a wry smile.
But first, he had to read that book, despite his aches and pains. It hadn’t been the actual book lashing out at him; first it had been Nerak, then Mark. The book hadn’t done it… I hope not, anyway. There was no reason to fear the writings. He had explained that to Brexan just moments earlier: the book wasn’t power per se; the book was knowledge, understanding, and whether or not it told him anything useful this morning, Gilmour didn’t care. It wasn’t useful information he required; it was confidence. His conversation with the freedom fighters had kindled a tiny bundle of hope, just a faint glow, wrapped in the protective layers he invariably applied whenever hope was all he had. But this morning, Gilmour wanted more; he wanted to feel that hope burgeon into a comforting blaze, something to keep him warm for the few days it would take Captain Doren Ford and his skeleton crew to see them into Pellia.
‘Just read the damned book,’ he murmured to himself. ‘What can ha
ppen? Mark won’t notice; we’re too close already, and he’s following the tan-bak. Even I can feel the tan-bak when I search for her. She’s like a bloody beacon in a storm out there. He won’t bother looking here; we’re nowhere near the Northeast Channel, essentially invisible, so there’s no excuse. Just read the whoring thing, and then go to bed.’
Crunch.
His tired eyes had overlooked it, brought it into focus a moment too late for his mind to care, but when his foot came down on it, Gilmour stopped to see what he had stepped on.
It was an insect – a roach? A beetle, maybe? He scraped up what he could, but he hadn’t been the first to step on it.
It’s just a bug, old man. Leave it, and go get your reading done.
But something was wrong. Gilmour felt the warmth leave his body, that quiet glimmer of hope fading. He absentmindedly tugged at one of his earlobes and then felt around inside his ear, tentatively, as if afraid of what he might discover.
The spell book forgotten, his fatigue ignored yet again, Gilmour tucked the insect’s remains inside his tunic and went back on deck.
Alen and Milla walked along the riverfront quay, heading for the Hunter’s Glade, a quiet cafe that served a cheap midday meal and whose proprietor, a childless woman named Gisella, fawned on the little sorceress as if Milla was a member of her own family. Alen had found the cafe one evening while seeking information about barge traffic along the Welstar River. When Gisella discovered that Alen had a little girl, she insisted he bring Milla around. ‘Children eat free for the Twinmoon,’ she had said, brushing clouds of flour from her apron. ‘My sister has three boys, three! Can you imagine the noise when that lot comes for dinner? Rutters!’
Alen had felt a pang of sorrow for Gisella, who seemed a pleasant enough woman; he was sorry she’d not been able to have children, and he promised to return with Milla.
Now, Milla’s hand securely clasped in his, he felt some of his own trepidation rub off; perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad to work with the child prodigy over the next two hundred Twinmoons.
‘Are we going to Gisella’s?’ Milla skipped beside him, careful to avoid icy patches.
