The Iron Ghost

by Jen Williams

  Indeed, humans didn’t seem to be able to smell anything much, but even so, Ephemeral felt her stomach tighten slightly. Too well, she remembered how the girl in the red cloak had screamed. She remembered the face of the knight who had come to them in the darkness and killed so many of her sisters.

  ‘This is close enough.’

  The child was jumping about now, taking big exaggerated steps to cause the biggest possible splashes. The male human raised his voice, and although they couldn’t make out the words, Ephemeral sensed distinctly that the child had been admonished for her behaviour.

  ‘Do you remember being small?’ asked Crocus in a low voice. ‘Do you remember being . . . not what we are now?’

  Ephemeral looked at her sister. She was watching the child intently, her yellow eyes following her every movement.

  ‘I remember the birthing pits. Although it is hazy,’ said Ephemeral. This was not something she had thought about in a long time. ‘I remember closeness, the sense of you all, pressed in around me. The heat of our mother’s fires. The bare flesh of the rock.’

  ‘I remember being half formed,’ said Havoc. ‘A sense of being incomplete.’

  Ephemeral nodded, pleased that Havoc had found the words she could not.

  ‘It is like the frogs before they are frogs,’ she said, thinking of the tiny animals she had held in her hands. ‘Before they are frogs they are strange things, with no arms or legs. They are unfinished.’

  The two adult humans were starting to move away, their aprons heavy with collected tubers. The child was hanging back, apparently unsatisfied with the layer of mud she had already accumulated.

  ‘We were finished when the blood awoke us,’ said Crocus.

  Ephemeral frowned. ‘I don’t know if that’s true.’

  ‘Humans start off small, and get slowly bigger,’ said Crocus. ‘How—’

  ‘Hello.’

  They turned as one to the small figure standing a few feet away from them. The child was older than the one they’d been watching, but the physical resemblance was such that Ephemeral knew at once that this was a relative; an older sister perhaps. She had an apron full of tubers. Her dark hair was pulled back from her face and she was watching them with open curiosity.

  Ephemeral fought down the surge of fear that immediately threatened to close her throat. She glanced at her sisters. They were both utterly still, waiting for her orders.

  ‘Hello,’ she said. Talking suddenly felt like the hardest thing she’d ever done. ‘Is this your swamp?’

  The girl looked amused at that. ‘This is everyone’s swamp. Are you a green jenny?’

  Ephemeral blinked rapidly. The child’s parents were no longer in sight, and she couldn’t see the other child either.

  ‘A what?’

  The girl took a few steps forward, trying to look at all three of them at once. ‘A green jenny. They’re spirits of the trees and water. They look after all the tiny animals here, and they don’t really like humans so they hide away. Is that what you are?’

  ‘We are green jenny’s cousins,’ said Havoc. ‘We are just here for a visit.’

  The child nodded seriously. ‘If you come back here, don’t hide. Say hello to me, at least.’ She smiled. ‘It is so boring, harvesting the eelwort. And I won’t hurt you, I promise.’

  Ephemeral smiled tightly. ‘We will be sure to do that, then.’

  There came a distant shout, and the girl gathered up her apron strings. ‘I have to go now, green jennies. See you next time!’

  She ran off, crashing through the mud and water much as her smaller sibling had done. Ephemeral and the brood sisters stayed where they were until she was gone, none of them daring to speak.

  ‘We should move away from here,’ said Crocus eventually. ‘If she speaks to her parents . . .’

  ‘Agreed,’ said Ephemeral.

  They walked back, being extra vigilant in case they should cross the family’s path once more. Ephemeral found herself thinking of Sebastian – soon, he would call for them. She could feel it in her blood.

  When they were back at the camp, she sought out his voice in her head, listening for that silver chord that was his presence in her mind; this was something they had worked on together, before they had been forced away from the training grounds. For a moment she could feel him – still incredibly distant but as familiar as her own blood, and she could tell that he was troubled. She frowned slightly, wondering what could have befallen their father in the city of Skaldshollow.

  61

  The first clue that they were no longer where they had been was the soft orange glow warming Sebastian’s eyelids. He opened his eyes into blindingly bright sunshine, a heat on his face so intense that he could already feel sweat trickling between his shoulder blades.

  ‘Where are we?’

  He sat up, feeling grains of sand between his fingers. Golden dunes surrounded him, dotted here and there with pale rocks and not much else. A deep blue sky, entirely innocent of clouds, reached from horizon to horizon. Some distance away Frith was already climbing to the top of one dune, his thick bearskin cloak discarded.

  ‘Frith, what are you doing?’

  The young lord didn’t turn around at the sound of his voice, and shortly he was lost to sight over the top of the dune. Sebastian got to his feet, stumbling slightly as his vision blurred and his head swam. Frith’s transportation spell was not the most pleasant way to travel.

  ‘Frith, wait!’

  Clambering awkwardly in boots made for rock and snow, Sebastian followed Frith’s shallow prints over the summit of the dune and looked down at a collection of ruins, half hidden amongst the sand. He could make out a rough shape of what might once have been a temple made of yellow rock, but either time or some sort of natural calamity had broken it all apart, caving in the roof and shattering the walls; with the sand swamping it like some sort of static sea it was difficult to tell which. Frith was already picking his way over the crumbling walls, apparently heading for a portion of the temple where two flat sections of the roof had fallen against each other, creating a dark, shadowy space. Sebastian called him again, but he still didn’t respond.

  ‘By all the gods, Frith,’ Sebastian muttered, before stomping down after him. His legs were longer than the young lord’s, and when he caught up he grabbed Frith by the shoulder, spinning him around to face him. ‘Where have you brought us?’

  Frith glared up at him, his grey eyes ablaze. The fury and the grief there hurt Sebastian’s heart, and with a lurch he remembered Wydrin’s limp form falling from sight, beyond their reach.

  ‘Please, Frith,’ he said, consciously softening his voice. ‘Tell me what’s going on.’

  ‘I’ve brought us to where we need to be.’ He gestured to the dark space behind them. ‘There are tools here, things that will help me defeat Joah Demonsworn.’

  Sebastian glanced from the dark space back to Frith’s unwavering gaze. ‘What about Wydrin, Frith? Can you not find her?’

  Frith shook his head abruptly. ‘I have already done the spell.’ He raised both his hands, a strip of soiled silk hanging from each wrist. There was a flicker of dusty light between his fingers and a dull red glow appeared. There seemed to be shapes beyond the glow, dark figures and a shifting, tremulous web of shadows, but nothing that Sebastian recognised. ‘If she were still alive . . . I don’t know what this is showing us, but it is not Wydrin. I saw what happened to people who went through the Rivener.’

  He dropped his hands and the eerie red glow vanished. With his right hand he produced Crowleo’s light-globe, and turned to head into the ruins. After a moment Sebastian followed him, ducking awkwardly under the shattered roof.

  ‘What is it you hope to find here?’ From what Sebastian could see in the wavering light the ruins had long since been emptied of anything useful. Huge blocks of sandstone littered the floor, along with one stone column that had cracked down the middle. The air was thick with dust, and smelt of acrid desert nights and old blo
od.

  ‘A head start,’ replied Frith. He was moving off to the back of the temple, skirting the fallen column and climbing over the occasional low block. Wydrin’s deal with the demon had certainly healed the young lord; any sign of his old limp had completely vanished. Thinking of that, Sebastian felt a surge of anger. How could she do such a thing? And after his own disastrous dealings with the same cursed creature. He bit down on the anger, knowing too well that it was a disguise for sorrow.

  ‘It is below these stones.’ Frith was crouching next to what looked like a random jumble of sandy bricks. ‘After all these years.’ He pushed the debris out of the way as best he could and, underneath, was a smooth grey stone, quite unlike all the others. ‘This one is wedged in,’ he said. ‘I don’t think I can drag it out without disturbing the objects beneath it. Can you help me?’

  Sebastian crouched on the other side of the flat stone and together they pried it up and shifted it over, with Sebastian taking most of the weight. Underneath there was more sand.

  ‘Are you going to tell me what this is about?’

  Frith glanced up at him briefly, before running his fingers through the sand.

  ‘When we first met,’ he said, ‘you would call me, “my lord”. Do you remember that? Wydrin didn’t, of course, and never did, but you always paid the proper respect. That seems to have lessened somewhat, these days.’

  Sebastian stared at him. ‘What are you talking about?’

  Frith continued to run his fingers through the sand, sifting it and pushing soft piles of it out of the way.

  ‘In the Blackwood they will be preparing the castle. There was still so much missing when I left, and I had to commission a carpenter to make all new furniture. There were some bits and pieces left, of course, some items that Fane and the Lady Bethan didn’t burn or sell, but it all felt tainted. It was to have been a new age.’

  ‘Frith, she could still be alive,’ Sebastian cut in, hating the desperate hope in his own voice. ‘Everything was chaotic. We can’t know exactly what happened.’

  ‘She jumped into the Rivener, and it tore her soul from her,’ said Frith in the sort of patient tone used to instruct a particularly stupid child. ‘Her body fell from the chamber into the streets, and I saw what the Rivener did, Sebastian, and you do not want to see it, you do not want to contemplate what that would mean.’ He stopped and took a breath. ‘All that is left to me is vengeance. It seems that after everything that’s happened, that is all I was meant for after all. And this will help me achieve it.’

  He pulled something from the sand. It was made of rough black metal and was the size and shape of a large grapefruit. It looked like it had been constructed from strips of black metal, turned and bent to create a jagged ball. There were shapes welded into it, crude markings that Sebastian vaguely recognised from the interior of the Rivener itself.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘I told you that when Joah held me prisoner we exchanged certain information. He took my memories, flicked through them like a book. It was most unpleasant. But the door opened both ways, and although there was plenty that Joah showed me deliberately, in order for me to progress as his pupil, I also saw a great deal that I do not believe he intended me to see, including some of his earliest memories of the demon.’ Frith turned the rusted globe of metal over and over in his hands. ‘When the other mages came for him, when they’d decided that they could no longer pay the price for his genius, he started to construct a weapon. This was it. He called it the Edenier trap. And this,’ he gestured around the ruins of the temple, ‘this is where he made it and there should be other parts buried here. This was a temple to Bezcavar, back in the age of the mages. We’re in the largest desert in western Creos, known as the Desert of Bones.’

  Sebastian eyed the object warily. ‘And what does this thing do?’

  ‘Well, it’s actually a forerunner of the Rivener, in a sense, although instead of extracting the Edenier from a soul and storing it, it has a much simpler approach. The Edenier trap destroys magic. He intended to deploy it against his enemies, rendering them devoid of the Edenier and unable to pursue him.’

  Sebastian looked at it. The thing looked unspeakably ancient, a rusted relic from another time.

  ‘And this thing works?’

  Frith shook his head. ‘It never did. Joah could not quite get it right, and Bezcavar convinced him that it would be a waste, just to destroy all that magic. Wouldn’t it be better, the demon suggested, if you could just take it and keep it for yourself?’

  They sat for a few moments in silence. Sebastian thought he had never been in such an unnaturally silent place; even the mountains of Ynnsmouth had the wind for company, and the eternal sounds of ice melting.

  ‘You think you can finish what Joah started.’ It wasn’t quite a question. Frith nodded.

  ‘It will involve using what I know of the demon’s tools, and I am fairly certain that doing that helped to push Joah towards his madness, but it is our best hope.’

  ‘I can testify that having anything to do with that creature isn’t a wise move,’ said Sebastian. He felt uneasy just looking at the Edenier trap, and he didn’t think that was entirely due to recent events. There was an aura of darkness to it that seemed to suck the light from the light-globe. It sat within its own shadows. ‘Frith, this is too risky. We can find some other way.’

  Frith laughed, and the bitterness in that small sound turned Sebastian’s blood cold.

  ‘Did you not see what he became, before we ran away? We are no longer dealing with Joah the mad mage.’ He shook his head. ‘With O’rin’s blood on his lips, he is something else altogether. We need to destroy the Edenier inside him, or it will never be over. Whatever the cost.’

  Sebastian sat back on his haunches. ‘If you think you can do it, Frith, then I’m with you. I’m with you to the end.’ He found himself remembering the night he had met Wydrin for the first time. He saw her standing in the middle of the cobbled street, waving her dagger at the retreating thugs who had been trying to kill him, laughing so hard she had doubled over, clutching her stomach with mirth. When she’d got the last of her giggles out, she had turned to him and grinned, offering him a hand. ‘Come on, big man,’ she’d said. ‘That ale in your stomach will be getting lonely by now.’ Wydrin, who had been reckless and stupid and loyal. He bent over the half-filled pit and began searching through the sand himself.

  ‘Just tell me what you need.’

  62

  Nuava hit the ground rolling, snow in her mouth and gasping for air. Moments ago she had been dozing by their small fire, thinking about the stew that Bors would make for them sometimes – venison and mushrooms, steeped in grut and simmered for hours – when there had been an enormous crash, flinging her bodily into the snow. She glanced up to see Mendrick standing with his stony back to her, and beyond him, a group of men and women she didn’t recognise. Narhl men and women. They had spears.

  ‘Wait!’ she spat watery snow onto the ground, tasting dirt. ‘You have to help us, you have to—’

  One of the men threw an ice-spear at her and she threw herself out of the way, landing awkwardly and gasping as the flash of cold caught the very edge of her coat, freezing it stiff instantly.

  ‘Skald scum,’ spat one of the women. ‘You should not have left the walls of your city.’

  Where was Prince Dallen? Nuava looked around wildly but she couldn’t see him. He’d been off scouting, as he spent so much of his time doing.

  ‘You don’t understand.’ She held her hands out to them, palms facing outwards. She could see nothing but hatred in their eyes. ‘Skaldshollow is under attack, and we’re all in terrible danger.’

  ‘Oh, we know all about that.’ A man at the front of the group stepped forward. He was tall, with long black hair that tumbled in braids down his back. He grinned at her, and she saw that there was lichen in his black beard. ‘That is why we are here, snivelling Skald warmling. While your paltry warriors are fighting this new threa
t, we will blast your walls down and drag you all out to die in the snow.’

  Nuava had climbed to her feet while he was talking, her heart thudding sickly in her chest. Mendrick still stood, unmoving, just to the front of her. I am a crafter of the Edeian, she told herself firmly, I will not let them see me afraid.

  It was easier said than done, though. When she spoke again her voice broke like thin ice. ‘Joah Demonsworn will come for you next,’ she said. She wished she still had Wydrin’s dagger with her, for comfort if nothing else. ‘He will not be satisfied with the souls of my people. He won’t stop until the whole of the North is a wasteland, empty of people and tainted with evil.’

  ‘Tainted with evil?’ The man’s grin dropped away abruptly, his pebble-coloured face a collection of sharp angles. ‘Your people have been poisoning this land for generations, creating your abominations and enslaving the mountain.’ He gestured to Mendrick with his spear. ‘The loss of the Skalds will be a blessing to the land.’

  Unconsciously, Nuava took a step towards Mendrick.

  ‘Let her be the first to fall,’ called one of the warriors. Another stepped up, and now three or four ice-spears were levelled at her. Nuava had a moment to catch a quick movement in the trees off to her right, and then the spears were falling. She screamed, scrambling out of the way, knowing she couldn’t possibly make it to cover in time, and then a bulky shape moved abruptly in front of her. There was a shattering explosion, throwing her to the ground again, and her scalp stung in several places as a shower of small rocks pelted the back of her coat. Someone was shouting at her, telling her to run.

  ‘Go, Nuava! Hide!’

  She glanced over her shoulder and saw two things at once: Mendrick, who had apparently moved into the path of the ice-spears, was now a broken collection of rocks, a ruined chunk of stone where his head had been, and Prince Dallen was there, standing over the werken’s body, a sword in one hand and a spear in the other.

  The werken moved!

  ‘What is this?’ one of the Narhl warriors was jeering. ‘Not our exiled prince, surely?’