by Ben Galley
Yara shrank back to the edge of the stage and Merion was left alone. Just him, the stage, and the bubbling audience. They had now taken their seats, and they watched and waited expectantly.
A stage is an odd thing. For all its simplicity of wood and nails and varnish, it holds a terrible power. It can prickle the skin. It can send the blood rushing from cheeks. It can set a tremble in the bones that is tough to shake out. But outride those dark charms, and it’s a magnet for the eyes, a tower from which to rule. He had the audience in his palm, to do with how he wished. Failure, shock, or awe, it was all him. And he knew exactly what to do. ‘Just stick to the plan,’ he muttered to himself.
Merion let the magick burn.
He raised a hand and showed its emptiness. There was a showman in him, that was for sure. He recalled the fire-pits and held onto that memory as his other hand moved around in a mystical circle. A few murmurs rose up from the audience.
A spark shocked them silent. A bright flash between his fingers. The magick had snuck out, truth be told, but it was welcome. Merion let another crackle, longer this time. The audience began to swap looks, suspecting a trick. The young Hark found himself smiling.
Time to let them have it. Merion held his hands apart, flat-faced, and let a stream of lightning burn between them, fiercely bright. The audience cried with wonder. The boy feigned difficulty, even though the magick longed to burst from him.
Merion looked up, meeting the curious, dark eyes of Lincoln and pulled out a few more stops. The lightning began to wrap around him like the ropes of a prisoner. Coursing veins of blue-white light wandered like tentacles across the stage. They never stayed still, pausing only to dance, to char the wood. A few bolts snuck up to tickle Cabele’s ropes. More flicked across the backdrop of the stage, where the drums were now pounding. Merion tried to drag it back, feeling the Bloodmoon pushing him.
The audience could not quite believe their eyes, and that alone was enough to fill him with fierce pride. He grinned fiercely as he toyed with the lightning, juggling it from one hand to the other and tossing it here and there across the stage, like Spetzig with his brands, or Yara with her knives.
Her knives.
Merion reined the power in, abruptly conscious he was wasting time. He held his breath as he built the crackling of his electricity to a fever-pitch. Bolts and sparks spun around him like a school of piranhas around a drowning goat. With every flick of his fingers he could feel it trying to burst out of him, tiptoeing along the brink of control.
With every muscle clenched as tightly as he could manage, before his teeth cracked and his eyes threw themselves from their sockets, Merion turned on his heel. He wanted to look Yara in the eyes before he unleashed his magick. He wanted to see the curve of her smile crumble like wet sand. He wanted to see her lying on the flat of her back, wheezing and confused, as he stood over her. For all the lies. For all the hollow hopes. For all the poisonous audacity in her heart. He would start with her before burning her circus to the ground, before saving Lincoln.
Only it was not Yara’s eyes he met, but an entirely different pair indeed. A pair Merion had never expected to see again in his life.
One was green, and one blue, and they both squinted in smug derision. Merion almost let his magick loose right there and then through shock alone. It was not Suffrous. He could see that now, as he stared goggle-eyed, as the audience whooped and cheered at his back. It was another man entirely. This one was taller, thinner, and had subtle differences in his attire; a brother maybe. And in his hands, he held his own blinding ball of lighting, mirroring the young Hark.
Merion knew he had seconds to act. He could see it in the coiled spring of the man’s body: a snake ready to pounce. But practice is the road to perfection, and in the face of decades, mere months collapse. It was a simple, aching fact. This ghost of Suffrous was faster. Much faster.
Before the boy could bring his lightning crashing down on the man and the others loitering on the steps, he was seized in a searing grip. He cried out as the man’s spell coursed through his veins, defiling his own magick. Electricity burst from him like lashing whips. A few frightened yells could be heard over the roar of the battling spells.
Merion felt himself being manoeuvred against his will, inexorably so. It was the lightning, manhandling his muscles. His face crumbled into a mask of horror as he was turned back to the audience. He glowed like a stolen sun. All he could do was stare at them, silently willing them to run. Some still thought it part of the show, clapping and grinning. Others were swapping wary glances as the magick grew and grew.
He was powerless. A pawn. The man held him in a cage and made him dance. Merion felt his hands creeping out, powerless. Dread grew fierce as his fingers bent to claws. Merion struggled with all his might and magick, but was found wanting. Even in the heat of the spell, he grew ice-cold with the fear of what he was being forced to do. A shrill cry escaped from his throat, as useless as his struggling.
The storm burst from him like a crashing wave, plunging into the first rows of the audience. Screams replaced the cheering. Scrabbling feet and whirling arms were now the applause. Merion felt his fingers spreading, leading the chaos to the edges of the crowd. Sparks found the guns of the guards as they rushed forwards to put an end to the boy. Powder exploded in its casings. Barrels split and smoke billowed.
Merion watched aghast as his stolen magick surged through the panicked crowd, searing cloth, blackening benches, cutting scorched paths across bare skin, shaking others to the ground to be trampled, left unconscious or worse. All he could do was strain against his puppet-strings and curse the world at the top of his lungs. He was the perfect weapon, the perfect distraction. A perfect fool. Never had perfection been so sour. He was nought but a conduit; his magick twinned with that of the man’s, burning fierce with the heat of the Bloodmoon.
Merion dug for every scrap of power he had, and for a fleeting moment, the lightning recoiled. He felt the man behind him redouble his efforts, and more magick surged through him. Merion crumpled to his knees under the pressure.
Yara was on stage now, standing tall amidst the chaos, lightning washing around her, inches close, carving her namesake. Merion managed to wrench his head to look at her. She wore a despicable smile as she slipped a hand inside her sleeve. A black knife, silver-edged, crept forth. Her eyes turned to Lincoln, standing tall in the chaotic benches, bellowing commands. Others were attempting to fling themselves over him and his queen.
Another cry ripped from Merion’s throat, like the strangled shriek of a dying witch. There, with the stage-wood crushing against his knees, crippled with panic and magick, he felt a dark undercurrent in the Bloodmoon’s power, like a shadow to its light. His blood was coming to the boil. Sometimes you need it. They were Lurker’s words, yelling in his head. He felt as though he were back in Fell Falls, surrounded by faeries, raining carnage.
Merion quivered violently as each wave of magick surged through him, again and again, out into the crowd. He pushed between them, shoving them aside with his anger and focusing every ounce of his will on simply moving his arm. It was a movement so simple, and yet so impossibly hard. Inch by crucifying inch he shifted, head pounding, teeth screaming in their sockets, until he reached out for Yara. She stood poised to throw, choosing her moment amidst the screaming, hidden behind the flash and crackle. Merion clawed at her, willing his magick to skip along his forearm and burn her to ash.
It was then that a shot rang out, strangely clear against the tumult and bellowing. Every soul there flinched: Yara, the audience, even Merion, momentarily released. He threw a look over his shoulder, and saw the man clutching his shoulder, a dark grimace plastered across his face.
‘Tonmerion!’ a voice screeched over the tumult. His heart could have ruptured with joy. It was his aunt, standing at the edge of the blackened benches, one eye closed and the Mistress held out straight. Lurker was by her side, brandishing an axe, and so was Rhin, his blades at the ready.
Merion threw his hand out madly, reaching for the circus master as the knife slipped from her fingers. Lightning slammed into her midriff, sending her spinning from the stage. The boy watched the blade in horror as it spun through the smoke-choked air, aiming straight for the tall pillar of authority standing in the centre of the frenzied audience. There was nothing to do but clench his teeth and wait for a deeper breed of scream.
Thunk! Merion’s magick had done its work. The black blade found no flesh or skin, just the wooden bench a whisker from Lincoln’s heart.
Before the boy threw himself from the stage, he caught the Red King’s gaze, staring back at him through the dying light. His face was an impassive mask of realisation. Merion tried to offer some sort of apologetic grimace before he met the dust with a groan.
Lilain was busy firing through the stage struts at anything that moved. She had a fearsome look on her. Lurker was hacking a path through the upturned benches with his axe. The audience streamed like a violent river through the gaps he cut, out into the crimson-painted night. Smoke blinded them. Fires raged. And in amongst it all, Merion, his eyes furious and his fists pinched white, strode backstage.
*
‘Where’s Merion?!’ Rhin yelled. He was half-visible, guarding their back as they shepherded the choking, hollering audience clear of the tent. A faerie in amongst them was the least of the wonders they’d seen that night. Cries of ‘Assassin!’ spilled from more than a few lips.
‘He was …’ Lurker turned and spat. ‘He’s gone!’
Lilain reloaded the Mistress, sliding bullet after bullet into her nine chambers. ‘He has business to take care of, as we all do. I trust him,’ she hissed, turning to point into the shadows behind the stage. Sheen Dolmer was creeping from the main tent. Lurker started forward, growling, almost running his tongue along the axe in anticipation, but Lilain put a hand against his chest. ‘Together.’
‘Aye,’ rumbled the prospector, a fraction disappointed.
With Rhin chasing at their heels, they strode after the scarpering circus folk. The assassination attempt had crumbled, like wet biscuits, and now their choices were to flee or find irons around their wrists, and guns in their faces.
‘All this time, they were after Lincoln!’ Rhin yelled.
Lurker might have cursed, though it sounded more like a wild growl. He strangled the axe-haft.
‘Somebody wants a war!’ replied Lilain.
The circus folk were scattering in all directions. Some fought on, unleashing their shades on the guards and braver men in Lincoln’s entourage. Devan waded through them as if they were wheat, snapping necks and breaking guns. Bullet after bullet punctured him, and yet he still kept coming. Jackabo was raining fire on the big tent, hoping to catch the stragglers in the blaze. Rasfel cartwheeled between the shadows, strangling any her fingers found, her painted face snarling in the firelight. They went about their work with devilish intention, as if a bloodlust drove them. Cabele was there too, full of wild fury, kneeling beside the fallen, her lips daubed red. Lurker put a stop to that immediately, bringing the blunt edge of the axe down on her skull. The acrobat did not get up again.
‘There!’ Lilain cried, spying Sheen grappling with a portly man who was wrapped up in a suit, ruby-faced and far out of his depth. Before she could squeeze off a shot, Sheen drove a knife into the man’s ribs. He was running before his victim hit the dust.
‘Sheen!’ she bellowed over the roar of fighting. She held the Mistress straight and level, its muzzle still smoking. ‘I will shoot!’
The shout stopped him in his tracks. He turned slowly, hands already creeping high. He smiled through his black hair, his eyes dark with bruises, forehead swollen, and his teeth glinting in the light of the moon and the fire. He had the same bloodlust in his gaze as the others.
‘You won’t do it, Lil,’ he sneered. His feet began to creep backward. ‘I know you better than that.’
Lilain bared her teeth. ‘Call me that again,’ she warned him.
Sheen shook his head. ‘You won’t do it. You’re not a killer, Lil.’
The Mistress spoke, quick and harsh, a crack that sent Sheen staggering. His smile was turned upside down, and he stared in amazement at the blood that now oozed from the new hole in his chest. ‘You bitch,’ he snarled. ‘You fu …’
An axe put an end to that sentence, spinning out of the darkness and delving deep into his sternum. Sheen whined and then slumped into a heap.
‘I’ve been wanting to do that since I first met him,’ Lurker muttered, extending a hand to Lilain ‘Together,’ he said.
‘Together indeed,’ Lilain nodded as she grasped his rough hand.
*
‘Stop!’ Merion hollered again. The man was slipperier than a trout, weaving through the circus like a needle through fabric. Merion’s legs screamed at him, but he ignored them. Through a narrow gap between two tents he hurtled, nipping at the man’s heels until Yara’s tent loomed out of the darkness. The man darted inside. Merion paused at the entrance, fists crackling with electricity. He had learnt that lesson another day. Slowly, and carefully, he stepped inwards. The man was simply standing there, adjusting his scarlet tie. He flashed a smile, a gold tooth pinching the lantern-light.
‘Master Tonmerion Hark, I presume,’ he uttered, painfully calm.
Merion worked to catch his breath as he looked the man up and down. He certainly looked like Suffrous—because of the eyes, of course, blue and green, and odd. He wore a long dark coat, a bowler hat, a red tie, and he even owned similar boots, thick with the dust of several hundred miles. He had the same confident, smug air. Merion was facing a ghost or a twin. He didn’t particularly favour either.
‘And who might you be? I haven’t had the displeasure,’ spat the boy, venomously. His anger was still raw; the images of lightning coursing through the audience still fresh as wounds.
‘Arrid Gavisham.’ The man bowed. ‘You knew my brother, I believe.’
‘And here was I thinking he was one of a kind.’
‘Unfortunately for you, he wasn’t.’
Merion felt his face flush red. ‘I take it you’re here to finish the work he started then!’
Gavisham picked his nails. ‘Dizali was wrong about you. You aren’t as dull as he painted you to be.’
‘I seem to make a habit out of surprising people.’
‘Hmm, well,’ Gavisham sighed. He reached into his coat. Merion flinched, sparks crackling. Gavisham held up a cautionary hand. ‘Tell you what. Let’s make this fun, shall we? You choose three. I choose three. Best man or boy wins. Winner gets to live. Like old times.’
Merion was suspicious. ‘And why would you do that?’
There was a smile painted on the man’s thin lips. ‘Even though I’m quite keen on rippin’ your spine from your back and wearing it as a belt, I’ve never been one for unfair fights. We leeches are gentlemen, to a fashion. And it’s a fine night for a duel.’
Merion scrunched up his face, trying to unravel the trick. Merion was firmly on the back foot, but he had never been one for backing down, even when it concerned his life. He knew the risks, but he just spat in their faces.
Gavisham opened his coat and bared his vials. There must have been forty of them gathered there, in little pockets. Merion narrowed his hard eyes. There were no bloodglyphs, no labels. Just colours. Suppressing the furious quiver in his hands, the boy jabbed a finger at three crimson shades. Gavisham made a mean show of tutting before tossing them over. Merion caught them deftly and held them close.
Arrid took his time picking his. One ochre-brown. One dark red. The other a sickly yellow. Merion racked his brains for what they might be.
Gavisham smiled and carefully folded his coat over a chair. He clicked his neck from side to side and held his vials by his sides, mismatched eyes wintry and unflinching. ‘After you,’ he hissed.
Merion took the same stance, ten foot apart at the most. His fingers itched, sweaty against the glass of the shades. ‘I insist.’
For a painful moment they just stared at each other as the seconds slid past, full of the sounds of fighting. They watched for a flinch, a twitch, a blink, anything that might mean it was time to rush.
Merion had never been one for a fighting dirty. It wasn’t in a gentleman’s nature, but then again, neither was swilling blood and spinning magick. His rage burnt all to dust.
As Gavisham threw his hand up to his mouth, so fast it seemed he would punch himself in the face, Merion clawed at the air. The eel blood still clung on within him, and he hurled all he had left. Gavisham was thrown to his back, chest smoking. He too was still rushing eel, and only that had saved him.
Down, the warm blood went. Merion gulped it as fast as he could, trying to force it into his skull as he fast as he could. Gavisham was getting to his feet. The red tie was now black, and his shirt charred and ripped. The expression on his face was one of absolute murder.
The blood sprang from his gut, and Merion began to wind up his power. He prayed it was a shade he could stomach. But he wasn’t dead or dying, not yet at least. The magick thrust into his brain as Gavisham began to march towards him, a rhino on the charge. A face like Armageddon.
Merion backed away, grappling for space as the magick went to work in his mouth. His teeth were tingling, throat surging. The bubbling anger surged with the magick.
Gavisham paused to bare his teeth in a wicked snarl. His knuckles white, he clenched his muscles, and spines, black and needle-like, sprang from his arms and shoulders. His shirt was shredded in an instant, revealing puckered skin between the spines, and traumatised tattoos of mermaids and ships long faded. There might have been a laugh in his grunting.
It was all Merion could do not to freeze. There was only one thing for it: to see what luck had bestowed on him. He took a sharp breath as Gavisham swung at him, his spines rattling. He could feel it now; the call of the shade, a powerful urge to spit at the man. Not breathe fire, not fling electricity, not swing a handful of claws, but spit. The boy knew better than to fight it.
