by Jodi Taylor
‘I said no. Even before she’d stopped speaking I was shaking my head. She even offered to give up everything and follow me – to be a companion, as she had been before. Just as long as I didn’t leave her.’
He stopped. For a moment, I thought that was the end. That he couldn’t or wouldn’t go any further, but he struggled for a moment and then continued.
‘I left. Right there. Right then. I didn’t have my gear with me, but that sort of stuff can be picked up anywhere and I had my sword, which was all I really needed. I told myself I’d done an enormous amount of damage to both of us and the best thing I could do would be to get away as quickly as possible. A clean break would give us both a chance to recover. So, I pushed her away as gently as I could and strode out into the street. I ignored her desperation, the anguish in her voice. I never looked back. Not once. Her cries followed me through the streets. I didn’t take my leave of anyone. I didn’t pay my respects to the king. I nearly ran through the town in my haste to get away. Down through the narrow passageway where the guards saluted me and out through the city gates.’
He was silent for so long I thought that was the end of the story. I had actually drawn breath to speak when he said, ‘I was threading my way around the base of the city, meaning to head west, when, high above me, I heard someone shout. Someone else screamed. I looked up. The sun was in my eyes but I saw what I thought was a bundle of clothing falling down the cliff, bouncing from rock to rock, slowly coming unravelled until, with a noise I can’t possibly describe to you, it hit the ground in front of me. Only about fifty feet away. I drew my sword and went to investigate.’
His voice was not very steady. I wondered how long ago this had happened and even now he couldn’t easily speak of it.
‘I think I knew what it had been. Who it had been, I should say. I couldn’t drag my eyes away. After all she’d been through, this was a dreadful death. Violent and cruel. I only knew it was her because of the green dress with the brave scarlet sleeves. I tried to pick her up. I don’t know what I was thinking. Every bone in her body was broken and I was responsible. She was a good woman who had lost her family, who had fought alongside me and I had done this to her. This was my fault. All my fault. I’d broken the rule and she’d paid the price. It was my fault. Everything was my fault.
‘People were running towards us. There were cries and exclamations of horror. They said she’d fallen, but I knew she’d jumped. And I knew why she’d jumped. Someone touched my shoulder. They’d brought sheets to wrap her in. I got to my feet and moved away to give them room.
‘And then …’ He stopped and this time he really was struggling. He put his hands over his face.
‘Yes,’ I said softly. ‘And then?’ Because what could be worse than this tragic story?
‘And then I realised my sword was gone.’
Chapter Sixteen
I rocked back in my seat. I know I’d been expecting something but it certainly wasn’t this. Was that it? He’d lost his sword? I know boys grow attached to their toys, but this? From the little he’d told me I’d become quite fond of this woman, Allia. She’d died because of him and he was upset because he’d lost his sword? So what?
And then, thank heavens, before I could ruin everything by saying something really crass and stupid, something in his colour made me pause. Yes, he’d been sick with remorse before, and his colour had reflected that, but this was different. And even worse. Much worse. I picked up the never-ending Bottle of Utgard-Loki and poured him another glass. ‘Tell me.’
‘I know what you’re thinking,’ he said, and yes, I wouldn’t have been at all surprised if he had known what I was thinking – it was that sort of an evening – ‘but there’s something you should know.’
‘OK,’ I said, pushing his glass back towards him. ‘Tell me.’
‘You must understand – this is for your ears only. A life other than mine depends on this.’
‘Don’t tell me if you don’t want to,’ I said, alarmed. Other people’s secrets are a burden.
He looked across the table at me. His eyes were tired and shadowed. I suddenly wondered exactly how old he really was. ‘I want to tell you,’ he said, ‘but I shall understand if you don’t want to hear.’
It was on the tip of my tongue to say no, I didn’t want to hear, and then I had second thoughts. How alone must he be? And for how long? From everything he’d told me and from what I myself had seen, he was always alone. Yes, there was Melek, but she was cold and hard and immovable. And then there was the way his colour alternately surged towards her and then fled from her. No, he needed someone else. Someone who wasn’t close and who wouldn’t judge. It would do him good to get all this off his chest, and I was a disinterested party. None of it was anything to do with me. Just for once I wasn’t involved in any way. And perhaps I could help him somehow.
‘No, it’s all right. Go on. Tell me. If you want to.’
He was silent a while, considering, I think, how best to tell his story.
‘We have swords. Melek and I. Had swords. They’re our weapons. Each one is made for us alone. One person. One weapon. I’m not explaining it very well, but if I said they were part of us, would you understand?’
I nodded. Yes, I could understand that.
‘A Hunter’s sword can cleave through steel or kill a demon with a stroke – well, several strokes actually, because they don’t usually go down without a fight, but you know what I mean. With it I could split the earth. Bring down a mountain. Light up the darkness. Frighten the living shit out of anything on earth. My sword was me. It was always with me. All the time. I never laid it down. And then, that day, I did.’
I didn’t need his words to tell me how important his sword had been to him. His colour was writhing with regret and loss. He’d lost his sword and a large part of him had gone with it. Flecks of red anxiety began to appear, swirling and clumping, threading their way through the tarnished silver of his colour, clouding it with shame. Shadows leaped around the wall. Darkness loomed. Something trembled on the very edge of my vision. I kept my eyes on him, closed my mind, and said quietly, ‘Iblis.’
With a huge effort, he reined himself in and his colour subsided. The shadows faded. My room was normal again.
I needed to pull him back a little, so to distract him, I said. ‘I don’t remember Melek carrying a sword.’
He shook his head. ‘They’re not invisible, but others can’t see them.’ He smiled mirthlessly. ‘Not until it’s too late, anyway. There must be any number of demons for whom the last thing they saw was my sword taking their heads off. They’re weapons of immense power, Elizabeth. They define who we are. They’re the source of our strength. They can’t be taken from us ...’
He stopped, unable to go on. The shadows gathered again. Patterns of red flickered around the walls.
‘But you can lose them,’ I said gently, while he gulped at his wine.
He nodded, took several deep breaths and then continued more quietly. ‘I drew it because something unknown was falling down the mountain towards me. When I saw what it was – when I picked her up and held her that last time, I laid it down. When I stood up to go, it was gone.’
‘What did you do?’
‘I panicked. For the first time in my life. Because anything could be standing behind me. With my sword in its hand. We can be wounded, Elizabeth, and we can fall sick but we always heal. I can’t remember how many times that’s happened, but there are only two things can kill us truly dead and one is a Watcher’s sword. For all I knew, something, someone, was about to take advantage of the milling crowd and put an end to me. Because I was utterly defenceless. I didn’t even have a knife with me. I kept spinning around, trying to see if I was about to be attacked and when it became apparent that wasn’t going to happen, I realised whoever had it must have run off with it. I remember staggering to a rock and sitting with my head in my hands while I tried to think. Someone brought me wine. I suppose they thought I was affected by Allia’s
death – as I was – but this was much worse. So much worse, because it wasn’t just me. After what I had done, I deserved death, but there was Melek as well. She had no idea my sword had been stolen. She could be just standing around one day – any day – unsuspecting, unprepared, and the next moment …’
His voice was beginning to rise.
‘Hush,’ I said, putting my hands over his. They were ice-cold and clammy. I wondered if I should stop him somehow, but we’d both come too far. I should hear him out and deal with the aftermath.
I said, ‘All right. Take a breath. What did you do?’
‘I made myself stop and think. I climbed the rocks a little and looked about me. With my back to the mountains, the land before me was all grasslands and flat plains and I could see for miles around. No one was behaving in any way suspiciously. No one was galloping hell for leather as they attempted to get away. My guess was that it had been smuggled back into the city. But by whom? There was a possibility it had only been picked up by a human who had no idea what he had, and I’d track him down sooner or later and get it back. And yes, I could give him a trouser-soiling experience he’d never forget, but there would have been no real harm done. The alternative …’ he stopped, and then started again. ‘The probable alternative was that someone who knew exactly what it was and exactly what it could do, now had possession of it, and was preparing to do the worst. In which case, I needed to warn Melek.
‘It only took a moment for me to come to a decision. If a mortal had it then that was the smaller problem. If not … So I slipped back into the city, found myself a weapon and a good horse and set off. They were just bringing her body in as I galloped out of the gates. I slowed, just for a moment, in her memory. Her death was on me. If I hadn’t slept with her ... If I hadn’t raised her expectations … I broke the rules, Elizabeth. Melek always said they were there for a reason and she was right. Just one slip. That’s all it takes and more than one life comes crashing down. I did wrong. I thought I could get away with it and I didn’t, and catastrophe and tragedy engulfed us all.’
He drained his glass again. I didn’t even think about stopping him.
‘But you were able to warn Melek?’
He didn’t look at me. ‘Yes, I was.’
‘And what happened?’
‘She went off to look for my sword herself,’ he said, pretending to misunderstand me and, because I couldn’t even begin to imagine the scene they must have had, I let it go.
‘But she didn’t find it?’
‘No. No one has ever found it. The centuries have rolled by and there hasn’t been even a whisper of it. I’ve been telling myself it’s part of some long-forgotten king’s grave goods somewhere. That it’s been buried and forgotten and, with luck, will never come to light until the end of the world. But, most importantly, it seems to have passed from living memory and no one can ever get to it and it’s safe.’
‘And you?’ I said, dismissing the sword because I was more interested in him.
‘I’m … weakened. I do have a sword. You saw it the other day when I was waving it at old Þhurs. It’s a good one – it’s just not my sword, but I have to have something to display. A Hunter without a sword is too suspicious for words, so, as far as the world knows, I still have it.’ He reached over his shoulder and suddenly, from nowhere, there was four feet of gleaming steel in his hand.
I leaned back. ‘Wow.’
‘Yeah. He waved it around, making figure of eights around his head, to the peril of the light fitting.
‘I know that’s not the real thing but it still looks impressive, though.’
‘No one must ever know that. It’s not just my life, Elizabeth. It’s Melek’s as well.’
‘The two of you …?’ I struggled to frame my question but he understood.
‘She says she’s forgiven me. But I’m not … not her equal any longer and it shows. We split up. My decision. I said I’d go it alone. And I do. I sally forth every now and then, killing the odd minor demon, frightening a dragon back to sleep again, or inducing a troll to give up his lunch, but it’s all bluff, Elizabeth. The big stuff – that’s all Melek these days, and it’s too much for her alone. The Fiori are increasing all the time and I can’t help. In fact, I’m more of a hindrance than a help. I’m a burden. A liability. But she never says anything and I face every day with centuries of remorse and shame and humiliation behind me and centuries more of it to come.’
I said suddenly. ‘What’s the other way?’
He looked up. ‘What?’
‘You said there were two ways you could die. By a Hunter’s sword is one. What’s the other way?’
I could hardly hear his voice. ‘By our own hand. We can take our own life.’
I didn’t need his colour to tell me this had been – and perhaps still was – a frequently considered option.
I reached out and took his cold hand. ‘Iblis, you mustn’t think like that. That is not an option for you and you mustn’t even consider it. You’re not a bad person. I think you’re very brave. In fact, I think you’re rather wonderful.’
He seemed startled, then shook his head, unable to meet my gaze. Tears ran down his cheeks.
I pulled my chair a little closer to him and said firmly, ‘Yes, you are. You said you can die by your own hand, but you haven’t, have you? You wake up every day, knowing what you’ve done – it’s your first thought every morning and your last thought at night. And yet you get on with your life. You do what you can. Every day. You saved me. For you, there’s no respite, no relief. There’s never a moment when you can forget what you’ve done and yet you’re still here, every day, doing what you can. I think that’s amazing.’
I’m not sure that was as helpful as I intended it to be, because he put his head down on the table and sobbed like a little boy. I moved around to sit beside him and gently stroked his hair.
He cried for a long time and I let him. I think it was doing him some good. His colour was brightening a little. Perhaps his tears were washing him clean – I don’t know. I do know that at the end of it, when he eventually lifted his head, he had exhausted himself.
‘I’m so sorry,’ he said thickly and making a truly heroic effort at his normal careless, insouciant self. ‘Really bad form to turn up with wine and then fling snot all over your hostess and her dining table. Not the right thing to do at all.’
‘It’s not the worst thing that has ever happened in this room,’ I said, ‘but I don’t think you should go back to the woods tonight. Would you like to sleep here? Just for tonight, of course.’
I think it was a measure of his emotional exhaustion that there was no smart reply or invitation for me to join him. He simply nodded. ‘I would. Thank you for your kindness, Elizabeth Cage.’
‘Come on.’ I led him to the sofa. ‘Take your boots off and I’ll get you some bedding.’
I ran upstairs, returning with a pillow and some blankets and made him up a bed. ‘In you get.’
There was no argument. He obeyed me like a small child. I tucked him up, drew the curtains, and he was asleep in a second.
I tidied away the glasses. The bottle still wasn’t empty so I put it carefully to one side, checked my guest one more time, and then took myself upstairs to my own bed. It had been a long day.
Glancing at my bedside clock, I was amazed to see we’d been drinking for hours. I know for a fact I’d had at least two full glasses and any number of top-ups and yet I felt fine, which was a bit of a first. I got into bed, curled up under the covers and thought very hard about everything he’d told me.
Because something, somewhere, wasn’t right.
Chapter Seventeen
At some point, one of us must have plugged the phone back in again because the ringing woke me. My heart sank. I knew who this would be.
I flailed around until I got an arm free and groped across the bedside table.
‘What do you want, Sorensen?’
‘Eh?’
Whoever it was,
it wasn’t Dr Sorensen. I blinked the sleep from my eyes. ‘Who’s that?’
‘Is that …’ he paused, ‘… Mrs Cage?’
I sat up in a hurry. ‘Is that you, Jerry? What’s wrong? Why are you ringing so early in the morning?’
He sounded slightly reproachful. ‘It’s twenty past nine, missis.’
Oh God, it was too.
‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘I had a late night and I’ve only just woken up. What can I do for you?’
‘Have you seen him recently?’
I was bewildered and befuddled. ‘Who? Sorensen?’
He sighed. ‘No. Jones.’
I swung my legs out of bed. ‘No,’ I said slowly, ‘I haven’t. And I haven’t heard from him either. Have you?’
‘No.’
I wasn’t sure what to say. I didn’t want to give anything away although I suspected old Jerry knew much more about Michael Jones than I did. ‘Is this normal? I mean, I know he goes away a lot. At short notice, sometimes.’
‘Yeah, but he usually stays in touch. I haven’t heard from him for a while now.’
‘Nor me.’
‘Listen,’ he said. ‘I’m not really worried because the bloke has more lives than a sackful of cats, but if he calls, just let me know, will you?’
‘Of course.’ I looked at the display. ‘Can I get you on this number?’
‘Yeah. It might transfer a couple of times so ignore all the clicking. You’ll get me eventually.’
‘OK,’ I said, wondering more than ever about Jerry’s line of work, and while I was thinking about that, he hung up.
I got up, showered, made the bed, and went downstairs to put the kettle on.
Iblis was up, dressed, and staring out of the window with his back to me. I was slightly surprised to find him still here. I half expected him to have left in the night rather than face me this morning. There was more to this boy than he thought. The blankets were neatly folded with the pillow on top. The room was fresh and clean. He was the perfect house guest.
