The Iron Ghost

by Jen Williams

  Joah turned towards them. Frith heard Wydrin cry out in horror, and distantly he wondered if any of them would come out of this with their sanity intact.

  One side of Joah Demonsworn’s face was a throbbing swollen mass of infected flesh, red and shining. Frith fancied he could feel the heat coming off it. The other side was worse, though. Much worse.

  ‘Frith,’ Wydrin was at his side, shaking his arm, ‘we have no time.’

  Frith quickly shook the trap out of its sack; it was difficult to think, back in the violet light of the corrupted Heart-Stone. Joah nodded once, as though not remotely surprised to see the Edenier trap.

  ‘I thought you might do that,’ said Joah. His voice was still soft and warm, the voice of a kind man, although now it was slurred and distorted through the mask of his face. The strange, stretched angles caught the light as he spoke, the membranous tissues quivering. In the burnt side of his face his single remaining human eye watered. ‘You would have gathered the knowledge of how to do it from my memories, and you may even have had the wit to solve the problems I could not.’

  ‘I will use it. One word from me and it’s all gone.’ Frith held his hand over the top of the Edenier trap, balancing it on the palm of his other hand. ‘I will end it all here, Joah.’

  ‘Will you, though? I wonder.’ Joah glanced away, looking out through the broken windows before turning back to them. ‘To use it would be to destroy your own magic. And I know very well how much you suffered to take that power. Can you just throw it away?’

  Out of the corner of his eye Frith saw Wydrin glance at him.

  ‘I can,’ said Frith. ‘And I will.’

  ‘A suicide mission I can understand,’ said Joah, still speaking in that conversational tone of voice. ‘When you thought that you’d lost everything, it would be very fine to leave the world like this, wouldn’t it? Your life sacrificed in vengeance.’ Joah dipped his head towards Wydrin. ‘But it turns out you did not lose everything, after all. Does she know what you’ve done, Aaron?’

  ‘Shut up.’ Frith swallowed hard. He could feel, distantly, something pressing on the borders of his own mind. Joah trying to force his way in, as he had done before.

  ‘Just do it, Frith,’ said Wydrin. ‘End him.’

  ‘But do you not see, Wydrin of Crosshaven?’ Joah’s tone changed, became more businesslike. ‘You will have seen by now the spell I have carved into this place. If I speak a word, that spell will bring forth something very interesting indeed. If I speak a word in the instant before Aaron uses the Edenier trap, you will all be powerless to stop whatever it is. No magic, no defence against whatever I choose to pluck from that lost dimension. And I am a god now. Do you not think that my reflexes will be faster than Aaron’s?’

  ‘Anything you summon, you will be powerless against it too,’ said Wydrin. ‘It would destroy you too.’

  ‘Having just got over releasing one monster on the world, are you quite willing to risk doing it again?’

  ‘Stop,’ said Sebastian. ‘It’s not too late to step away from this madness.’

  Joah grinned, splitting the swollen part of his face wide open. Blood and pus oozed down his neck and soaked into the tattered remnants of his green robes.

  ‘Look at my face and tell me that again.’

  For a few seconds, there was silence. Frith felt the tension on the back of his neck like a vice. Was it all a desperate bluff? He watched Joah’s ruined face for any sign of his next move, but there was nothing human left there. It was like looking up at a moon on an alien world: strange and completely unknowable.

  If he was too slow, by even half a second, Joah would unleash a monster. And when the Edenier trap went off, they would be powerless to prevent it.

  He would have to be faster. In his mind he formed the first of the words, trusting to luck . . .

  A shape dropped down behind Joah, a long dagger in her hand.

  ‘For Selsye!’

  Xinian grabbed hold of the mage from behind, wrapping one muscled arm around his neck. Joah gasped, his lips half forming a word. Next to Frith, Wydrin was already leaping forward, shouting and drawing her sword. Xinian vanished in a wreath of red flames, as though just to touch Joah was instant death and then . . .

  . . . Frith spoke the last word, in his mind and in his heart, and the trap unfolded like a flower in spring.

  Wydrin was aware of light and sound, and the smell of burning flesh. She was also aware that she was falling, bumping into and being thrown off various objects as they crashed around the central room of the Rivener. She forced her eyes open and saw, dizzyingly, the view of the rapidly swerving sky through the hole in the roof, and then there was a crash that threw her straight out of the opening and onto a hard cobbled street.

  She sat up, and spat out a mouthful of blood. ‘I have had more than enough of falling off of things.’

  Her right arm was a bright agony, and she could feel from the warmth spreading there that she’d been cut by something, and deeply. Ignoring it she struggled to her feet, trying to make some sense of the scene around her. Directly across from her was the twisted metal remains of the Rivener, its violet light extinguished. Standing over it was the Destroyer, lit up like a stone beacon. The sky above them was blessedly blue.

  Sebastian was kneeling on the ground some distance away, blood pouring from a head wound. She ran over to him, stumbling on wobbly legs.

  ‘Seb, are you with me? Are you all right?’

  Groggily he shook his head at her. ‘Never better. Where’s Frith? Did the trap work?’

  She looked back. Frith was standing on his feet, swaying back and forth slightly. His slim figure was easy enough to pick out against the churning hole that had once been the Tower of Waking. A churning hole that was growing faster by the moment.

  ‘What the hell is that?’

  He turned to her. In comparison to Wydrin and Sebastian, he was remarkably untouched by their violent journey to the ground, although his eyes looked distant and glazed.

  ‘I wasn’t quick enough, Wydrin,’ he said softly.

  ‘So that is—’

  ‘The summoning,’ said Frith. ‘Joah managed to say it, just before I could stop him.’

  The hole in the world was centred exactly where the Tower of Waking had been, and it was difficult to look at. It was as big as a house now, filled with black, shifting light, and already she could see the shape of something trying to come through.

  ‘Is there nothing you can do?’

  Frith looked at her and smiled sadly. He held out his hands to her, empty and scarred.

  ‘It’s all gone, Wydrin. The Edenier has left me.’

  Wydrin looked back at the swirling black hole. Now it was as big as four houses, and she could see light glinting off something scaled and enormous. She took a step backwards, and nearly walked into Sebastian who had come up behind her.

  ‘Do you think perhaps we should leave, then?’ she said, unable to take her eyes from the shimmering black light. There was a roar, a roar that was all too familiar, and she took another involuntary step backwards. The hole was growing bigger all the time.

  ‘How far do you think we’d get?’ said Sebastian, drawing his sword. ‘I for one have no more running left to do.’

  There was a strangled noise from behind them. Joah Demonsworn, or what had once been a mage known by that name, lay on the ground. Something in the fall had torn open his guts and strewn them across the cobbles, but he was still moving weakly. His mouth opened and closed, pushing forth small noises that Wydrin realised were barking attempts at laughter.

  ‘I saw its face,’ he was saying. ‘The demon’s face. Have I told you?’

  Frith stumbled over to the prone form. Wydrin couldn’t read the expression on his face.

  ‘That’s all over now, Joah,’ he said, not taking his eyes from the mage’s ravaged form. ‘You can forget it. Leave it behind.’

  ‘Can I?’ Joah reached out to him, fingers like knives. There was a terribl
e sliver of hope in his voice, like a broken bottle in the snow. ‘Can I really forget it?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Frith. ‘Be at peace now, Joah Lightbringer.’

  Joah shook all over. Behind them, the creature that was clawing its way up through the portal roared again, and Wydrin felt her hair stand on end.

  ‘Could we have been brothers, Aaron?’

  Joah’s last question hung in the air. Frith looked at him a moment longer, and then turned away. Wydrin unsheathed Glassheart and thrust the point through Joah’s neck, not stopping until she heard the brittle screech of metal on stone, and then she leaned back and forth on the sword until his head was severed. His blood was black and oily.

  ‘If we’re going out, then you’re going first, you mad bastard,’ she spat.

  Thank you for that.

  Wydrin turned round, startled, and saw that Frith and Sebastian had both heard the voice in their heads too.

  ‘Nuava?’

  It was good to see him go.

  It was her voice, too, but with an echo of something else underneath it. A coldness that Wydrin recognised.

  ‘Where are you?’

  I am here, with the Edeian.

  Behind them, there was an inhuman screech and a great reptilian head forced its way through the portal into the daylight. It was Y’Ruen, but it was a Y’Ruen changed. Her scales, once the beautiful shining blue of the finest sapphires, were now dull and flaking away, revealing great patches of raw grey flesh. Her eyes, once the yellow of dragon fire, were blind, one covered in a white film, the other pitted and eaten away by parasites that Wydrin could barely imagine. The dragon roared again, opening her great jaws to reveal rotten teeth and the stench of a slaughterhouse, and she pulled herself forward, thrashing her head back and forth.

  ‘She has returned!’

  Wydrin turned to see Sebastian reeling on his feet, his arms held out to either side. There was a look of beatific terror on his face.

  ‘Sebastian, we have to go!’

  ‘I can feel her, singing in my blood,’ he murmured. What he said next was lost in Y’Ruen’s roar. Wydrin shoved him, hard in the chest, and he looked down at her as though he didn’t know where he was.

  ‘All right, magic or no magic, I am not sticking around to get eaten by that bitch. We have to run, do you understand?’

  She turned to go, dragging Frith with her. Sebastian seemed to come back to himself, and he was catching them up when Nuava’s voice spoke in their heads again.

  Get to a safe distance. We have this one in hand.

  The Destroyer rumbled into life, reaching down with its great shovel hands for the dragon’s head. Y’Ruen surged out of the hole, pulling herself through with sudden alarming strength; the great winding length of her neck, the shoulders bunched with muscle. The Destroyer took hold of the dragon, great slab-like hands pushing at her throat. Wydrin, Sebastian and Frith threw themselves out of the way to avoid getting crushed.

  ‘What is she bloody well doing?’

  There was an ear-splitting roar – Wydrin felt one of her eardrums pop with the force of it – and Y’Ruen sent forth a blast of flame, curling around the Destroyer like a burning shroud. The werken stumbled onto its knees, its head lost in flames too bright to look at.

  ‘Nuava!’ Wydrin made to run back, but Frith had his arms around her again, holding her in place. ‘No!’

  But the werken dug its enormous flat feet into the ground and began to push, carving huge grooves into the rubble and then it heaved itself forward, pushing it and the dragon back through the churning hole. Y’Ruen fought it, belching flame and raking her crystalline claws across the werken’s stony flesh, but the Destroyer was implacable, immovable.

  Wydrin had one last glance of Y’Ruen’s terrible blind eye, rolling madly in its socket, and then the Destroyer gave a final enormous push, and they were both gone, falling back into the darkness behind the universe.

  Wydrin curled her hands into fists. ‘Nuava!’

  But the hole had already closed.

  79

  ‘Wydrin, are you sure about this?’

  Sebastian showed her the dagger, as if that would help. She poured another shot of strong rum and gulped it back.

  ‘Of course I am. I have more than enough reminders of that place.’

  She laid her hand out on top of the table, palm facing up. On the table next to it were rolls of clean bandages and two tubs of healing salve. They were holed up in an inn in the riverlands; for a few coppers and a promise to purchase a great deal of food and hot water – which they certainly had done, Wydrin alone being on her third bath now – they had what they needed to deal with a varied list of injuries.

  Sebastian took her hand in his, and after briefly squeezing her fingers, used the very tip of the dagger to cut round the piece of Heart-Stone wedged in her palm. It took no more than a handful of moments, but Wydrin had thought carefully about which curse words she would treat Sebastian to, so she made sure to use every single one.

  When it was done and the wound had been washed clean, Sebastian applied the salve and bandaged it for her too. Wydrin flexed her hand carefully, wincing.

  ‘Well, that was easier to get rid of than that stupid tattoo of yours,’ said Sebastian.

  Wydrin snorted and slapped her arm, ignoring the pain. It was much warmer in the riverlands, and she had gladly sold her furs and stripped back to her leather bodice. The black sinuous shapes of the Graces that sported around her elbow stood out in stark contrast to her pale skin.

  ‘I’ll have you know I don’t regret this tattoo for a single second. I am a daughter of the Graces.’

  Sebastian laughed.

  ‘I’m not talking about that tattoo, as well you know.’

  ‘Ah, well,’ Wydrin poured another shot, ‘the less said about that one the better.’

  Silence fell between them for a time. Wydrin still felt unutterably tired, and Sebastian, to her eyes, looked older. He had a bandage himself, a thick wad of fabric tied over the right side of his forehead, and his beard was growing thick again. He looked very little like the fresh-faced knight she’d met so many years ago.

  Wydrin sighed, staring absently at the swirl of rum in the bottom of her glass.

  ‘We lost so many, this time,’ she said quietly. ‘Bors, Tamlyn. Nuava. Xinian. There are barely any Skalds left at all. We should never have come here.’ When they had left Skaldshollow, the last survivors of the broken city had been doing their best to rebuild. It would take longer now that they were without their werkens – Mendrick, or the mountain spirit, was truly gone – but Wydrin hoped they could salvage something from the shattered settlement they’d been left with.

  ‘Bezcavar meant for it to be a mess,’ said Sebastian firmly. ‘It was a trap, all along. It would only ever have ended badly.’

  ‘To lost friends,’ she said, and offered up her glass. After a moment, Sebastian picked up his own, clinked it against hers, and together they gulped down the rum.

  ‘It would be good to go somewhere sunny for a while,’ she said. ‘Somewhere sandy, maybe. The rum is always better in places like that.’

  There was a knock at the door, and Lord Frith stepped inside. His hood was thrown back, and he looked as tense as Wydrin had ever seen him.

  Sebastian stood up. ‘Speaking of things that are a mess,’ he murmured to Wydrin as he passed her, and then to them both at the door, ‘I will be scouting out the harbour, looking for the fastest ships home. Don’t expect me back until late.’

  With that he left. Frith went and stood by the fire, staring down into its flames. Outside a strong wind was blowing, rattling the roof and the rafters. Wydrin took a slow, deep breath.

  ‘So do you want to talk about it?’

  He looked up at her. His shirt was loose, and his hair dishevelled. Since they had walked away from Skaldshollow he had been distracted, absent almost. The loss of all that magic, thought Wydrin. All that power.

  ‘It was demon’s work, the device th
at I constructed. Did you know that? It was a terrible thing.’ He paused, his eyes searching the room for something she couldn’t see. ‘I had to do terrible things, to make it work.’

  ‘You did what you had to do,’ said Wydrin, knowing he wouldn’t listen. ‘Joah would have done much worse if he’d had his way. He’d already done much worse.’

  ‘I did it because I thought I had lost all hope,’ said Frith. ‘When I saw you fall, part of me knew you were dead, and I accepted it as a way of avoiding a choice that was nearly impossible.’

  He stopped. Wydrin saw that his hands were shaking.

  ‘I felt relief, Wydrin.’ His eyes were bright with anger and tears. ‘Part of me was relieved that all my choices were gone. That there could be only one path for me now.’

  ‘Frith—’

  ‘I can never forgive myself for that, Wydrin. For the relief I felt. I am a coward.’

  He said the last word with force. Wydrin stood up, ignoring the throbbing pain in the palm of her hand.

  ‘You? A coward? Never.’ She went to him and pressed her uninjured hand to his face. ‘I would kill anyone who even suggested it.’ She reached up and pressed her lips to his cheek, kissing away the tears that were falling there. ‘Arrogant, reckless, obstinate, perhaps. But certainly not a coward.’ She pushed his hair back from his face, and looked into his eyes. The sorrow there was dimming, quickly to be replaced with something else. She bit her lip. It was still difficult to say, even now. ‘The Copper Cat does not love a coward.’

  ‘Wydrin—’

  She smiled lopsidedly. ‘We’ve been playing this game long enough, don’t you think?’

  They fell together against the wall with the violence of the kiss, and Wydrin half laughed as they kicked over the pile of firewood, sending one log rolling to the furthest wall. Firth murmured against her neck, some small plea, and all humour was left behind in place of a hunger long since denied. Wydrin pulled at his shirt, dislodging several buttons, and slid one hand over the taut muscles of his chest, and then kissed the trail her fingers left. Frith groaned at this, and pulled her towards the far door, where a bed awaited them.