by Ben Galley
‘We’ll see. Even your aunt wanted to bleed me, at first.’
‘The Shohari welcomed you. These people are as wild as them, magick like them. They’ll understand.’
‘We’ll see,’ came the reply, as the faerie shuffled some of the pillows around. ‘Little steps at a time,’ he added.
Merion was almost finished buttoning his shirt. Rhin was casting him curious glances. ‘What?’ Merion asked, pausing on a button, eyebrow raised.
‘You just don’t look like a boy any more,’ Rhin said, grimacing. ‘It sounds weird to say it, but this desert’s changed you. You’ve got the look of a man in a boy’s skin. Got muscle where you didn’t have it before. You’re growing up, and I only just noticed,’ the faerie explained, shrugging. He was not good with words either, especially when it came to emotion. As Rhin had told the boy many times, most of that had been beaten out of him by the Fae army.
Merion looked down his almost-buttoned shirt and hummed. ‘I don’t see it yet,’ he replied. ‘But I know what you mean.’ He tapped his head. ‘Mostly up here.’
‘You’ve had some hard times,’ was all Rhin said. He did not dare to poke deeper.
‘That I have,’ Merion said as he manoeuvred the last button around his Adam’s apple. ‘But these are better times, and I don’t dare waste them.’ He stood straight and tall and checked himself in a long mirror that had been put in their tent. Not a travelling essential by any means, but this was a circus, after all.
Merion leant forwards to pick at a clump of mud in his blonde hair. In the reflection, he caught a glimpse of the faerie checking his bandages again. ‘What is that?’ Merion enquired, curious.
Rhin shook his head. ‘Nothing you want to know about,’ he replied, hating how suspicious that sounded. ‘Nothing you need to worry about, rather. Just cut myself whilst cleaning my sword.’
Merion put his hands on his hips. ‘The last time you said something like that, you were planning a train robbery so you could appease a gang of thirteen murderous Fae. Correct me if I’m wrong.’
Rhin visibly squirmed. ‘Well …’
‘Please, Rhin,’ Merion urged him. ‘No more secrets. Not now.’
After a moment of frowning, Rhin held out his hand, and Merion saw the faint shadows of blood around the edges of the bandage. ‘I’ll tell you what this is, but you have to …’
Rhin was cut off by a rapping on the taut tent fabric, fingers flicking the cloth.
‘Master Harlequin?’ It was Yara, still insisting on ceremony. ‘Are you in?’
‘Yes,’ Merion waved his hand at the faerie, who was already fading out of sight. ‘Come in,’ he said, and went to stand in the middle of the tent, between the door and the bedroll. Between Yara and the faerie.
‘How are you?’ she asked, already smiling wide. Her long red hair was tied up around her head.
‘Apart from falling in that mud out there, I’m absolutely fine,’ Merion replied, nodding to the mud-soaked clothes he had left by the doorway.
Yara stifled a snigger. ‘Itch told me. He said it was quite funny.’
Merion rolled his eyes. ‘Yes, I’m sure he found it hilarious.’
Yara cocked her head on one side. ‘He likes you, in his own way. Itch Magrey is just a quiet fellow,’ she explained.
‘Well,’ Merion hummed,’ I’m sure I shall come to understand it, then.’
The circus master waved a hand towards the door. ‘Come,’ she said. ‘I think it is about time you met our letters. We’ll get you restocked. I will not have a rusher in my circus going without his scarlet.’
Merion stepped forward, talking to keep Yara’s eyes on him, which were now roving about the tent.
‘That’s something I think my aunt would be interested in,’ he suggested. ‘If it’s alright for her to come too.’
Yara let a hand rest on his shoulder as she led him out of the tent and back into the late afternoon sunlight. A few brave stars were already poking out of the chalky blue sky, which was slowly bruising as night crept into the world. It was still far too hot; the final hurrah before the stars robbed all the heat from the desert. ‘Of course, Master Harlequin, she is with our farrier, Hemzi, an Ottoman. He does wonders with iron and steel.’
‘Is he a rusher?’
Yara shook her head. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Not Hemzi. He is just a friend we picked up on the fringes of his empire, before it all started to crumble. He will talk to you for hours about the Ottomans, about his country. That is if you let him. Like any of us, we all like to boast of our roots. It is your turn, at the fire-pits tonight, to tell a story. You have been listening far too much and talking far too little for our tastes.’
Merion took a breath. ‘I suppose it is about time I told you everything.’
Yara stopped in her tracks, a curious spark in her emerald eyes. ‘Have you been holding back from us, Master Harlequin?’
Merion searched for the right answer. It was like grabbing at a slippery fish. ‘I prefer to call it being cautious. I’ve been honest, but it’s time to tell you more. I agree.’
‘Then I look forward to hearing it,’ Yara replied, squinting at him. If she had not worn her smirk, he might have thought her disappointed, angry even. He could never tell with her. Her stubborn Rosiyan accent seemed back-to-front to him, and her grasp of the common was strangely formal even for him. Merion just smiled and nodded, and then let her lead him off, to the other side of the circus.
They found Aunt Lilain along the way, chatting idly with Hemzi, who was busy showing a pile of horseshoes who was boss. Half of them sat in the fire, glowing away, whilst the rest either drowned in buckets or had the proverbial excrement beaten out of them with his stubby hammer.
‘Nephew, there you are. Had a little trouble in the mud, did we?’ Lilain suppressed a grin as Merion scowled.
‘Gossip travels fast in the circus.’
‘We do love a good story,’ Yara chuckled.
‘If we could find one that isn’t at my expense,’ Merion suggested, and the others laughed. Hemzi beamed between his wiry grey beard and dark mahogany eyes.
‘If you like, Master Harlequin, I could make you a horseshoe. Tie around your neck. Ottomans say it is good luck,’ the farrier offered, holding up a glowing twist of iron.
‘Ha, no, thank you,’ Merion shook his head. ‘We’re visiting the letters. Are you coming?’ he asked.
Lilain stood up straight and stiff. ‘Of course,’ she replied. ‘Hemzi, you’ll have to tell me about Constantia another time.’
Hemzi just shrugged and went back to his hammering.
Yara pointed them out of the forge. ‘Then that way, if you please. And back to work with you, old man. No more stories,’ she tutted, and Hemzi waved them off with a gloved hand.
Yara spun them a yarn as they walked. ‘Our two letters are very peculiar, or so I was told by my predecessor. It is not often you find letters that can rush, or—in our case—who used to rush. Is that correct, Lilain?’
‘It is indeed,’ Lilain confirmed.
‘Our third letter died three years back. In a particularly cold Prussian winter, as far north as you can go before hitting the Baltik. Have you ever seen a winter in Prussia? No, I thought not. It is the sort of cold that can freeze your stew between the pot and the bowl. The sort that can turn your fingers and toes black so you snap them off like glass. Kadabra had never seen a winter like it, and we were stuck between towns, lost in the big snow drifts. We had to eat half the horses to survive. That was not pleasant.’
Yara paused to introduce a pebble to the toe of her boot and send it cartwheeling across the dust. ‘Darabas died two weeks in, a few days shy of us digging our way out. Two people, a brother and a sister, heading west, came across us as we broke free. They helped us back onto the road and found us horses at a local farm. We invited them to breakfast, just like you, and would you know it? They stayed. And as the old gods would have it, they were letters, after a fashion. Unpractised, untrained, but eager to
learn. We needed them as much as they needed us, and they have been with us ever since. They have built up quite a collection now. I think you both will be impressed. Besides, I think you have already met them?’ Yara tapped the side of her nose as she dragged back the flap of a wagon on the outskirts of the circus camp. Shan and Sheen Dolmer waved back at her. They both wore long brown aprons over their green shirts and britches.
Merion wagged a finger. ‘So you’re the letters.’
Sheen grinned through his tangled beard. ‘We are indeed, young man, and proud of it.’
‘We wondered when you might come by,’ Shan said, coming forwards to unlock the side of the wagon, which folded down into steps. It was a close call between who would be the first to grace them. Merion moved quickly, but Lilain was quicker still, despite the youth he had on her. Merion followed, nipping at her heels.
When they ducked under the canvas roof of the wagon, they stood together, gazing up and around, as if they had stumbled into a cave stuffed full of treasure. To them, this was treasure.
Countless bottles lined the walls, tucked tightly into shelves or sewn into little patches in the cloth, tied in place. Each one had a tiny label dangling from it, with its shade written in Sanguine, like any good letter would expect. Lilain had already spied a table that folded out from the head of the wagon, and a leather satchel, propped open and glittering with sharp tools of all different kinds.
Lilain looked like a sweet-toothed girl in a sweetshop, her eyes wide and her hands tightly clasped over her mouth. Merion was the same, but at least he had the excuse of age. He was busy trying to count them all, eyeing the Sanguine labels and testing his rusty memory. He wondered what magick they all held for him. Merion had not been this excited since his aunt had first agreed to let him train.
‘Welcome to our humble abode,’ Shan said, walking along the walls and waving her hairy hands about. He nodded as she pointed out the six veins, and how their collection was divided. ‘And of course, myth, at the very end.’
‘Not bad at all,’ Lilain was murmuring,’ not bad at all.’
Shan curtseyed, and Sheen tipped his small hat, balanced atop a mop of tangled and matted hair. ‘Why thank you, Ma’am,’ he said. ‘We try.’
‘We heard you were a letter,’ Shan enquired. Merion had noticed she was barefoot, and that her feet were as hairy as her face. Merion was too enraptured to be bothered about her abundance of body hair. Hell, he would kiss her if it helped get his hands on all this blood, he thought.
‘That I am, schooled by some of the finest in the Empire of Britannia.’
The Dolmers whistled as one. Sheen rummaged through his beard. ‘Well, we could sure learn a thing or two from you, I’ll bet.’
Lilain was already rolling up her sleeves. ‘I’d be happy to,’ she grinned, and Merion saw the aunt he knew from all those long nights in the basement, talking the hours away, manhandling corpses. She was different when it came to blood, and Merion did not blame her. Like aunt, like nephew.
‘And Merion, something for you, young Sir?’ Sheen said, leaning against the side of the wagon and crossing his arms. If Merion blurred his eyes, it was almost as though he was conversing with a bear.
‘What were your shades again, Master Harlequin?’ Yara had leant partway into the wagon, and had her elbows on the floor.
It had been a few days since he had had to repeat his story. Merion stalled for thinking time. ‘Erm …’ he replied. ‘Electric eel, armadillo, and er … bat.’
‘Those we have,’ Sheen nodded. ‘Lucky boy, to have three shades,’ he commented as he began to rifle through an open drawer. Glass clinked softly together.
Merion bit his lip, catching his aunt’s sideways gaze. ‘Well,’ he began. There was something in his voice that made Sheen stop, fingers hovering over the corks of his vials, and that made Yara and Shan both look up. He decided just to come out and say it. ‘I might be luckier still.’
‘Something you want to tell us, Master Harlequin?’ Yara asked.
Merion screwed up his face. ‘I’m a leech, Miss Mizar.’
There was a moment of silence in the wagon, broken only when Yara hoisted herself up the steps and came to stand in front of Merion, eyes narrowed and cautious. She muttered beneath her breath as she examined him, staring at his eyes and his lips.
‘May I ask what you’re doing?’ Merion asked, slightly nervous now.
‘You’re not lying,’ Yara told him.
‘I know, I … ’
Yara stood up and crossed her arms. ‘Many come to me telling me they are a leech. Wasting my time and my letters’. Those that do come never are, and those that are never come. Kon Kadabra spent his whole life trying to find one. He found a few half-leeches, but they could not come close. He never did find a true-born leech.’ Yara put her hands to her head and paced about the narrow space. ‘Oh how he would have loved this.’ The Dolmers murmured their agreement. Sheen even removed his hat.
‘You knew?’ Yara asked, turning to Lilain.
Lilain nodded. ‘I did indeed. I’ve taught him. So has Lurker.’
‘And what are his veins?’ Yara fired the question at Lilain, but kept staring at the young Hark. Merion had never liked it when people did that.
Lilain opened her mouth to answer, but Merion beat her this time. ‘Mammals, birds, fish, myth,’ he stated.
‘We’re still working on birds.’
Sheen whistled alone this time, clearly impressed. ‘Four veins? I’ve never seen such a thing.’
Part of Merion wanted to stand proud and tall. The other part wanted to blush. He managed to do a mixture of both. Lilain was looking pleased as well, though a tinge of worry hid there, as it always did.
Yara had a coy look on her face. She traded a look with the Dolmers. ‘Now, what if I told you we could make it five, or perhaps even six?’
‘What? Merion stuttered.
‘What?’ Lilain echoed.
Sheen stepped forward. ‘We know a way of mixing the bloods of two veins, one you can rush, the other you can’t. In small doses at first, so that you train the body to accept the foreign vein.’
Lilain snorted. ‘That’s impossible. It’s written in your soul what you can and can’t rush.’
Shan grinned. ‘Not any more,’ she retorted. ‘We found an old man in Vina that had found a way of using shades that cross the barriers of the veins. He’d spent the better half of his life translating an old book of the First Empire. Only worked for leeches though. Not for normal rushers. Something about the aptitude for it.’
Lilain had crossed her arms, keeping her face expressionless. ‘I’m listening,’ was all she said.
Sheen continued. ‘You have to heat them, add a solvent, and be patient for it to come together.’
‘That’s alchemy, not biology. You can’t treat the shades like that. Have you ever managed it?’
The Dolmers swapped glances. ‘No, but we watched it happen. The old letter let us come, day after day, to watch him feed a young leech his mixture, a nephew I think,’ Shan explained. ‘It worked. The boy couldn’t stomach the fish vein. After a month, he could rush a dozen shades of it, just as long as it was mixed with a trace of a stable vein.’
Merion could feel himself fidgeting. He had barely had a chance to mix bloods yet, never mind poke about in unexplored, and so far untouchable, veins.
‘I’m still sceptical,’ stated Lilain, gazing around at the bottles and vials.
‘Well, we do have a leech right here …’ Yara said, half-smiling. It quickly faded when Lilain glared at her.
‘No,’ said his aunt. ‘Absolutely not.’
‘Aunt Lilain,’ Merion began, but she shook her head at him.
‘Don’t start, Nephew, I won’t hear of it,’ Lilain sternly interrupted.
Merion frowned. ‘But why? What are you so sceptical of?’
‘Your aunt is worried you might die,’ Sheen explained, leaning against one of the cupboards.
Shan piped up.
‘Rushing shades of veins you can’t stomach, without dilution, will rupture your insides. If the mixture was wrong, it would kill you in a handful of heartbeats.’
Merion thought about that for a moment. ‘I rushed turtle,’ he muttered. ‘In Fell Falls. That night before the attack,’ he said, just a whisper on his lips. It was all coming back to him now.
‘You did not,’ Lilain scoffed.
‘You were half-dead, aunt, I would not be surprised if you don’t remember.’
‘I remember …’ but Lilain trailed away, as if mentally she were a fisherman probing his net for holes. A flicker in her eyes told Merion she had found a few. ‘Surely not.’
‘Neither of us stopped to think,’ he replied, letting the memory flow. ‘I didn’t even question you.’
Lilain just stared at him, a strange mixture of shock and guilt plastered across her face. ‘Not in all my years,’ she breathed.
‘Turtle is a barrier-crossing shade. It’s not an amphibian, but it is very close to the fish vein,’ Sheen explained. ‘If you were rushing hard, you might just have managed it.’
‘Five shades,’ Yara interjected. ‘Old blood indeed, Master Harlequin. Your father? Your mother? ‘Yara queried, a curious glint in her emerald eyes.
‘I don’t know,’ Merion lied, and Yara nodded slowly.
‘Tell you what,’ Sheen cut in, feeling the tension growing. ‘How about we stick to the veins we know you can stomach, okay? Here, we have some blend-bottles.’
Merion pounced on the opportunity to escape, joining Sheen at the back of the wagon, where a number of intricate bottles sat on a shelf, wedged together and wrapped with twine. As Merion began to rifle through them, with Sheen explaining each one, Lilain stepped close to Yara and whispered in her ear.
‘Don’t take this the wrong way, Miss Mizar, but that is my nephew, and as such I look out for his safety. I imagine you’re only trying to help and please the boy, but he ain’t the kind for slow and steady. He runs at things full pelt. I won’t have him getting carried away with something as dangerous as this. Do we have an understanding?’
Yara bowed her head. ‘We do indeed, Ms Rennevie,’ she replied. ‘But in this circus, we let everybody choose for themselves. There is no ownership here, only respect. Merion may want to test himself. We may just have to trust him,’ she said, her voice as soft as warm butter.
