by Ben Galley
‘We remember,’ creaked the banshee behind her, far too close for comfort. Sift whirled to face her, staring into the mist-filled eye sockets. ‘We remember well.’
‘We forget nothing.’
‘We never break an oath.’
Sift turned to stare at the last banshee, head tilted to one side. ‘You will do as I ask, then?’
‘For a Fae Queen, anything,’ she replied, licking her mist lips.
‘What is his name?’
Sift raised an eyebrow. The stories of their keen eyes were true, then. ‘Rhin Rehn’ar, a traitor, a thief, and a liar. He has defied me and forsaken the Fae, and it is time he saw justice.’
The banshees now circled her, mist swirling around their murmuring rags. ‘Have you a trinket of his?’ one sighed.
Sift narrowed her eyes. ‘Blood, found in the courtyard the day he escaped Shanarh,’ she said, reaching into her cloak and producing a tiny black box with minuscule silver hinges. Sift held it out and the banshees reached for it. A yellow spark flew when an ice-cold finger brushed against hers. Sift shuddered again.
‘Is that all you need?’ she asked them. ‘Sisters?’
They were crowding around the box, trying their skeletal fingers at its latch. Sift backed away, watching them whispering and moaning. The box sprang open and the mist shuddered, coursing like a wave across a still pond. Sift felt the pressure in the air heighten. The chill lifted, just for a moment. Sift watched the light grow under their rags and through their ribs. The mist began to bubble and swirl, three obelisks of vapour that glowed on the inside.
‘We will find him.’
‘We will bring him.’
‘We will fulfil the oath.’
‘Leave us!’ they whined as one. They began to screech and yowl, a piercing cry that rose up and drove splinters into Sift’s eardrums. Sparks began to fly as the sisters joined hands. The queen retreated back into the small tunnel, letting the banshees crackle and howl as the wind whirled around them. It chased her through the darkness, pushing and prodding her along until she stumbled out at the other end.
The guards sprinted to her but she waved them away. Their wings had also begun to gather ice, and they drooped wearily in the misty air.
‘We can leave now,’ she grunted, her ears still ringing from the banshees’ howl.
‘What was that, my Queen? Are we in danger?’ Caol muttered in her ear.
‘Not any more,’ replied Sift, bluntly. She waved a hand towards her carriage, and the weary spiders slumped on the cold ground. ‘Let’s get them back to a warmer part of the tunnels, then make camp. Slowly if necessary,’ she ordered.
‘Yes, My Queen. A good plan.’
Sift did not need Caol to tell her that, but she smiled anyway. ‘You will be guarding my tent tonight. You alone,’ she said, matter-of-factly. She noticed the confusion, or hesitation perhaps, on his face. ‘Is that a problem for you, Captain?’
‘No, Your Majesty. I’ll be there.’
‘Good,’ Sift said, before climbing back into the carriage and slamming the door. ‘Onwards!’ she yelled, and the guards climbed aboard.
Sift spent most of the juddering journey smiling at the black silk that lined the walls—spiralling stitches that entranced her narrowed eyes. She bared her sharp teeth and nodded to herself. That bastard would be hers. All she had to do was wait. The banshees might take a week, they might take a year, but they would deliver. The oath bound them and Rhin was powerless against them. Sift grinned some more and then closed her eyes, eager to sleep the chill out of her bones and the lingering fear out of her chest. Not that she would have admitted it to anybody, dead or alive. And besides, if anybody among the latter dared to accuse her of it, he or she would have swiftly joined the former, and be none the wiser. Fae Queens do not fear anything, not even bean sidhe. Yet she had felt it, hot and sharp as the daylight above. It was why a current of anger flowed under the satisfaction, souring it. Bittersweet.
The patchwork sleep did well to calm her down, filing some of the edges from the experience, stealing some of it away. Sift awoke to find the carriage still and waiting, and a knocking at her door.
‘What?’ she demanded.
‘We’ve found a place to pitch camp, Your Majesty.’ It was Caol.
‘Call me when it’s finished, then,’ Sift sighed—as if it were all so difficult.
‘Yes, My Queen,’ Caol bowed and shut the door, leaving Sift to doze off again. He shook his head as he walked back to his group of faeries. ‘Right, let’s build a camp,’ he hissed.
An hour passed, maybe more, as the two tents were erected, one for the soldiers and one for the queen, several feet away and on the opposite side of the carriage. The spiders were staked to a sword in the dry dirt. They wandered around, their long bony legs testing each footstep before moving. A few guards erected a fire while the rest stood in a circle, spears aiming out into the darkness, their purple eyes piercing the darkness, their keen ears listening.
Caol knocked again once the food was cooked and ready. Sift swept from her carriage, her fur cloak billowing out behind her, wings folded down.
‘Bring it to me,’ she told him, before disappearing into her mole-skin tent.
Caol did as he was told. The guards did not dare to snigger, even though in their eyes he could see that they wanted to. He prepared a bowl and a tray and made sure to include every single little thing she could possibly ask for. It had barely been a week, and he had already felt the lashing of her tongue far too many times. Caol cleared his throat outside the queen’s tent and waited.
‘Come in,’ came the reply, quietly, not in her usual tone. Caol raised an eyebrow and stepped forwards.
‘My Queen? Your supper.’
Sift was standing off to the side, halfway through a book it seemed, one of the few she had brought along. She wore a long grey dress that shivered in the candlelight. ‘On the table, Caol, as always,’ she replied.
There was a small table that folded cunningly into a backpack at the back of the tent. Caol found a spot for the tray and then stood in front of her. ‘Will that be all, my Queen?’
‘For now, Captain,’ Sift said, eyeing him up and down as she spoke. Caol felt quite uncomfortable indeed.
Caol bowed. ‘I will be on guard outside the door, Majesty, until told otherwise,’ he said, and then left. Sift waited until she heard the thump of his spear butt before she got up to eat.
The food was hardly the meal of a queen, but whatever it was they had scraped together at least had some spice to it, and was not simply bland mush. Badger meat possibly. Caol had forgotten to put salt on the tray, but the cubes of meat she found turned out to be salty enough.
When she was done, she retreated to her bedroll and listened to the guards bedding down for the night. They did not dare break out their flutes or chat the night away with their queen in earshot. Soon enough, the small hollow they had found in the wall of the Deep Tunnels was dead and silent but for the breathing of faeries, the dream-twitches of wings, and the constant rumble of the earth around them.
‘Caol,’ she whispered, after what felt like an hour.
Caol came bursting through the tent-flap, spear glinting in the yellow light of the candles. ‘My Queen?’ He looked as though he had been nodding off. Sift narrowed her eyes.
‘Take off your armour,’ she ordered.
Caol blinked several times.
‘I’m telling you to take off your armour, Captain, as your queen.’
‘Yes, Majesty,’ Caol muttered, before unstrapping his armour and placing its pieces on the ground. He stood with his hands behind his back, clearly uncomfortable and perhaps even scared. That was natural. His wings buzzed intermittently. It isn’t every day that your queen tells you to strip, after all.
Sift propped herself up on her elbow and fixed him with a stare and a strange smile that Caol had never seen before, at least not on her face. Just on the faces of a few of the kitchen servants perhaps, before they had hitched u
p their skirts. Sift lifted a finger and jabbed it at the bed. ‘Need I make myself clearer? Or do I have to spell it out to you, Captain Cullog?’
Caol swallowed. It was not every day that your queen demands you in her bed, either. ‘No, Your Majesty,’ he whispered. He took a breath, and moved to the bed, his head spinning in all sorts of directions. His only prayer, at the end, when the sweat dripped and his breathing was tight, was for it not to be the most glorious of death sentences.
*
Several thousand miles away, hidden under a pile of sackcloth and a creaky old wagon, a faerie was wrenched from slumber by odd dreams of winding tunnels and sighing winds. He cursed to himself as he clutched his left hand, pain searing through it. He was confused to the core. He swore again in his old tongue. The occasion called for it. It felt as though his hand was aflame.
Hissing through the torture, he pushed himself out of the sackcloth and dared a little light in the night’s star-sparkled darkness. He snarled as he tensed, making his wings buzz and skin glow.
The faerie glared in confusion at the dark bleeding spot in the centre of his grey palm. He gripped his wrist to try and hold back the blood, growling all the while. He could not help it.
The pain began to move, finding new places to stab, and Rhin stared down at his hand as the black spot began to grow, cutting a bloody X across his palm. Rhin wanted to howl and scream, but instead he bit his arm and bellowed wordlessly, until the mark had been made, and the pain finally began to ebb away.
Dark blood dripped in the sand as Rhin held it out of the shadow of the wagon, bathing it in starlight as if it might help. He stared aghast at the cross that had lacerated his left palm. A black X stared right back, mocking him with its bloody leer.
Rhin may have been a thief, a rogue, and a reluctant murderer, but stupid he was not. He had read the Fae histories, the maps, and dialogues of the great Fae philosophers. He had even read the myths of the olden days, when the Fae Kings, not the Queens, still ruled the Fae kingdoms, and of their wars.
So it was that Rhin Rehn’ar did not gasp and scratch his head at the bloody mark on his palm. Instead he put his head to the dusty earth, still warm from a dayful of sun, and held his breath until it hurt. He knew exactly what it meant.
Chapter XI
OF LETTING
1st July, 1867
Merion could not keep the smile off his face. It was rather inappropriate, to tell the truth, considering that he was busy helping homesteaders out of the mud after a storm had made a mire out of the desert. The homesteaders had found themselves plunged into mud, their wagons stuck, and their belongings strewn across the muck. The wild west had greeted them in its usual manner—with shock and awe.
But Merion was not smiling at their misfortune; that would be too cruel. He was smiling because, for the first time in ages, he was happy.
He looked up and down the muddy line of circus folk. Devan was hauling a small cart out of the mire as if it weighed nothing at all. Nelle was leading a wild-eyed donkey back to firm land, whispering in its ear. Jacque was helping to gather the peoples’ things, being honest for once. Rahman and Hashna were working as a pair as always, escorting the older and the younger homesteaders out of the mud. Every eye he caught winked, every face had a smile. ‘Family’ was the word that kept ringing in his head, and he very much liked the sound of it. And, to top it all off, they were travelling further and further every day. Yara pushed them hard, through rain and shine. It was mostly shine, of course, except for today.
Even Itch had nodded to him, which was a definite improvement. They had taken him in at the click of a finger. He had never been accepted so easily, nor felt so at home so quickly. Not since before his father died had he felt this safe. And it warmed him, melting away some of that lingering bitterness he had been nurturing since Fell Falls. He had let some of the magic of the circus seep in, and it was helping him to forget.
‘I don’t think I’ve seen you grin this much since London,’ said Rhin, peeking out from the satchel Merion had borrowed. The faerie had been hiding for days, keeping out of sight of the circus folk. This was his first outing since the twister, and he was keen to fill it with jabbering.
To Rhin, it was almost as though nothing had passed between them. It harked back to the days before Karrigan’s murder, when it was all much simpler. Merion granted him that, daring even to pretend it was.
Merion flashed him a smirk. ‘You’re probably right. I haven’t felt this welcome before. I feel like these are my cousins, or distant nephews twice-removed or something. I feel I’m amongst kin. Like we did when we spent a night with the Shohari, remember?’
‘I remember alright.’
Merion shrugged. ‘Call me mad, but it just feels like good fortune for a change.’
‘I can’t say no to that.’
‘So have you broken the news yet?’
Merion wrinkled up his face as his boot was sucked down by the mud. ‘News? Oh, right. Yes.’ He huffed. ‘Today maybe, or tonight.’
‘Or tomorrow.’
‘Or next week.’
‘Merion …’
Merion nodded. ‘I know. I will tell her tonight.’
Rhin hummed. ‘All of it?’ he asked.
Merion caught his breath for a moment, legs askew and boots sinking into the mud. ‘As much as I need to. Or as much as they can take: that I’m a leech and I have a faerie for a sidekick. I’ll leave the lord part out. Whoa!’ He flapped his arms as his boot slipped forward, toppling him. Lurker was swiftly at his side, yanking him back up.
‘Talking to yourself, Merion?’ Lurker gave him a stern look. Merion looked furtively around. None of the other circus folk were particularly close by, and none of them seemed to be looking.
‘No,’ Merion whispered.
‘Good,’ Lurker replied, sniffing. He cast a look down into the satchel, meeting a pair of purple eyes. ‘And Rhin, don’t you rile ’im up.’
Merion crossed his arms. ‘He wasn’t riling me up. We were talking about our little secrets.’
‘I reckon she’ll just want to put him in their zoo.
Merion spoke up for Rhin once again. ‘Then they had better respect the fact he’s one of us, and not an animal. Well, not quite.’ There: a little sting in that defiant smile, despite the words. It showed Merion was trying.
‘Well, we’ll have to see. They seem alright to me though,’ Lurker replied, sniffing. It was about as close to high praise as Lurker ever offered.
Merion ran a hand through his blonde hair and plucked his boots from the greedy mud once again. ‘Like you said, we shall see,’ he answered, flashing a grin. Lurker cuffed him gently, almost knocking his hat into the mud. Merion flashed the prospector a dangerous look and made to shove him. Lurker stepped back, and when Merion’s boots stuck fast in the mud once more, he landed flat on his face at Lurker’s feet. Rhin fell with him, curled up in the corner of the satchel, where none of the mud could reach the fresh bandage around his hand. ‘Damn it, Merion,’ he yelled.
Lurker tugged the boy upright yet again, and Merion began to brush himself down. He had borrowed a pale shirt and a tan waistcoat from one of the circus boys, and with his wild blonde hair escaping his hat, he looked quite the westerner—though a muddy one.
There came a rattle of laughter from a few of the nearby circus folk. Follust’s guffaw was clear, even over the breeze and the sound of work and toil. Even Lurker was stifling a snort or two.
‘Go on, laugh, you buffoon. You’re worse than Spetzig,’ hissed Merion, as he wiped the mud from his eyes and flicked it at Lurker.
The prospector laughed long and hard all the way back to where the circus had called it a day.
‘Have you been at the flask again?’
Lurker cleared his throat. ‘Absolutely,’ he answered, and tipped his hat. ‘Seems to be the done thing in these parts.’ Merion snorted and said no more. Lurker was in good company: half the circus folk spent their days drinking the miles away. Now the sun
was beginning its descent to the horizon, and the fire-pits were being dug, the drinks were starting to pour. They could hear the tuning of a fiddle, somewhere amidst the tents and wagons.
Yara was wisely waiting for the mud to harden up, and so tonight, the circus would entertain their captive audience—the weary homesteaders who, conveniently enough, had a need for some cheering up. So Yara had opened up a few stalls and a handful of the larger tents, so that they could put on a show.
She was clever alright. Out of all the creatures in the desert, homesteaders exhibited a very unique trait: they just so happened to carry their life savings around with them. It was shrewd and Merion found himself liking it. Then again, it could have just been genuine kindness. Yara charged nothing for the show, and even shared some of their food.
Lurker and Merion walked on to their tent, where the boy managed to peel off his clothes, comb the dry mud from his hair, and find some fresh clothes. He did it all muttering at Lurker, who was rolling up a cigarette, borrowed from Mr Jacque. Rhin rolled out of the satchel and shook himself off, grumbling as well.
‘What a pair you two make,’ Lurker rumbled. ‘It’s been a while.’
Merion and Rhin traded glances, slightly unsure of how the other was going to react. ‘Yes it has,’ was all the boy said. The faerie just nodded.
‘If’n you need me, I’ll be outside,’ Lurker grunted, smiled a crooked smile, and left the two of them in peace.
‘So you like it here? With the circus folk, as you call them?’ Rhin asked casually, lingering by the bedroll in case he had to hide.
Merion scratched his head. He knew what he felt but the words did not capture it quite right. ‘They’re good people, and that seems hard to come by in these parts. So I suppose that yes, I like it. They seem pleased to have us.’
‘Maybe you, but not me,’ Rhin wagged a finger, hiding his other bandaged hand behind his back.
Merion tutted. ‘We don’t know that yet.’
