by Rob Scott
‘Nerak can use this bark to control the minds of the living, and he can revel in our suffering while he works to bring about the end of us all. So to answer your question: Nerak would want this because no one else in Eldarn would be hideous enough to ensnare who knows how many in the worst nightmare of their lives while they toil away at whatever reprehensible task he has dreamed up, either just for his own enjoyment, or, worse, for the eventual destruction of all we know.’
Alen kicked out their campfire. ‘We will see things between here and Welstar Palace, even inside Welstar Palace, that will stay with us for the rest of our lives, and whatever it is he is using this bark for will be one of those horrors. You can bet on it, my friends.’
Hoyt swallowed hard. ‘Now I’m feeling a bit tired.’
‘You and me both,’ Hannah said.
Alen smiled and tucked the pouch back inside his cloak. ‘Then let’s get ourselves to a nice warm inn. We’ll go wild and get comfortable beds with down pillows and soft wool blankets.’
‘And venison, with gravy – tenderloin,’ Hoyt added in a burst of enthusiasm.
‘Expensive choice, Hoyt, but you’ve had a hard day gathering firewood.’ Alen considered the immense pile of sticks and branches. ‘Venison all round then.’
That night, Hoyt fell asleep earlier than usual, though he really hadn’t suffered from any overwhelming feeling of fatigue. Churn followed his friend a short time later, carrying a flagon of wine as an aid to sleep; Hannah heard the wooden steps groan and creak in protest as the big man passed.
Alen reached for the remaining wine and started to refill Hannah’s goblet when she stopped him, protesting, ‘No thanks, Alen, I’m already getting dizzy. I’ll have some of the water, please.’
‘As you like.’ He complied, pouring from the stoneware pitcher beside Hoyt’s empty trencher. ‘But I don’t recommend the water – it’s a boring vintage, horribly similar to last year’s.’
Hannah chuckled at the reference to her world. ‘How many trips did you make across the Fold?’
‘Too many to count,’ he answered. ‘I learned so many languages on my journeys back and forth that they started to become confused in my head, all those tenses and cases jumbling together. Do you know how many ways there are to make reference to pasta in Italian?’
‘No.’ She grinned at the thought.
‘No one does, but there have to be hundreds, maybe thousands. All that oni, illi, elli, I just want it in a bowl, gods, is that too much to ask?’ He slapped the table with one hand, a little drunk himself, the first time Hannah had seen Alen like this since they had left Praga. He drank, and held the goblet against his chest as he sat back in his chair. ‘Yes, there were many wonderful journeys.’
‘Yet I see so little of our world here. Why is that?’
Alen sat forward, the long-ago lost teacher in him coming into hazy focus for a moment. ‘Oh, there used to be much more, but we have let it all fade, or we’ve forgotten how to do things properly. It’s remarkable how quickly an advanced society on the edge of greatness can disintegrate when people don’t have what they need to survive. The whole world’s focus changes, turns inwards, and progress grinds to a halt. Back then, it was industrial-age technology, that’s what we were after at the time: printing, education, public health, medicine… We had made such progress here, and our own scientists and researchers were finding ways to enrich our efforts with the magic inherent in this land. But those days, the exciting news was the industrial boom. Gods, but I would have given anything to figure out how to bring back a blast furnace.’
‘Why not just build one here?’
‘We would have, if Nerak hadn’t ruined everything. Do you know that there were metal ships in your world at the time? Imagine a navy with metal ships…’
‘I don’t have to imagine it, Alen,’ Hannah said, reaching for the water pitcher again, ‘I’ve seen it all, and you’re right: a fleet of wooden ships would be sunk in less than half an aven. The fight would be over before our modern ships had appeared over the horizon.’
Alen was hanging on her every word. ‘So it remains a wondrous place then?’
‘We have some way to go still, but all things considered, it is a remarkable place, yes. Mind you, there are drawbacks, and we’ve got our oddities too: we have to print warnings on coffee cups saying the drink’s hot! Can you imagine anything that absurd?’
Alen, a little taken aback, asked, ‘Is your coffee not served hot any more? I remember it being quite delicious that way. Tea also.’
‘Like I said,’ Hannah dismissed it with a wave of her hand, ‘some oddities and a few drawbacks.’
‘Regardless, I would love to see it again. One more trip.’ He stacked his plate neatly on top of Hoyt’s, then added Churn’s.
‘You can,’ Hannah said. ‘You should all come back with me. You’ve said yourself, time and again, that there’s nothing left for you here. Your family is gone. Why stay just to die? Is it because of Lessek? Is it really his intention that you live this long, in solitude, then just march into Welstar Palace and die?’
‘No, I’m sure there’s more, and I’m sure it has something to do with you. But after that’s done, I will rest.’
Hannah changed the subject. ‘Tell me about Nerak.’
‘Why? I was having a nice time.’ Alen glanced towards the door as three soldiers entered the tavern. They looked as if they were off duty for the evening. The former Larion Senator scowled at them. ‘Grand. And now we add these scum to the evening. This place is falling apart around us, Hannah. We should flee into the night, or at least until we find a different tavern.’
‘Right here will be fine, Alen, and as for that crew, just ignore them. All we’re doing is having a late dinner and a few drinks.’ She filled a goblet with water and pushed it across to the old man; having him falling-down drunk wouldn’t do now, not with Malakasians in the room. She would have been happy to ignore one night of revelry, but if he began making disparaging comments now, it could mean the imprisonment and torture of them both. ‘Here,’ she said, ‘have some of this.’
Alen shrugged. He was too tired to argue with her. Gripping both goblets, he asked, ‘Now, what were we talking about?’
Hannah raised a finger as if to say, wait one moment. The soldiers were heading for the bar and she wanted to listen to their conversation as they passed. She couldn’t glean much, just a few snippets. She still wasn’t familiar with the curious lilt of the Malakasian dialect; she’d never be able to fool anyone into believing she was a native.
Was in Orindale Harbour, but I hear it sank, she heard.
Not seen him in a Moon at least.
Rutter may have gone down with the ship.
Already breaking up. Whole brigades moving out of Orindale, rutting Seron, too.
Generals don’t know whether to shit or scratch.
Glad we’re not them, eh?
Right. What’s drinking?
Across the table, Alen waited, folding and refolding a cloth napkin repeatedly as the soldiers passed, determined not to make eye contact with them. Hannah immediately felt better; perhaps he wasn’t as drunk as he’d appeared.
‘Well, that was interesting,’ she said quietly, once they were out of earshot.
‘Not now,’ Alen cautioned, even more quietly. ‘We’ll talk about it later.’
She went back to her previous question. ‘Why don’t you want to talk about Nerak?’
‘Because he is a mean, reprehensible, smelly old fart, and he always has been.’ Alen grinned. Hannah imagined he must have been quite attractive an eternity ago, when he was young.
‘Come on,’ she urged, ‘you two worked together, lived together, built the Larion Senate together… at least tell me about those days, before everything began to unravel.’
Alen shifted in his curious way, adjusting himself and then coming to rest exactly where he had been before. ‘I suppose there were good Twinmoons, but things began to come apart over a very long perio
d of time. There were grim shadows of our future quite early in our time together at Sandcliff; there was a darkness to Nerak from the beginning. Sometimes the pall over him was so thick you felt as though you could peel it off and paste it on a wall if you could get close enough to him.’
‘He was frightening?’
‘No, not at first. In the beginning, he was contagiously enthusiastic, driven unlike any of us. But his lust for power and knowledge coupled with his desire for Pikan drove him mad.’
‘All over a woman?’ Hannah looked askance at him. ‘I find it hard to believe Nerak would allow everything to come apart over the love of one woman.’
‘He didn’t allow everything to come apart. Instead, he pushed too far too quickly. He was well on his way to becoming the greatest sorcerer since Lessek, Lessek’s heir apparent, but he was prone to bouts of anger – well, rage really. He pressed himself too hard, delved too deeply into the spell table. In the end, it consumed him. Would he have done it if Pikan had loved him instead of me? Eventually, yes, I think so – but I also believe he was taken by something hideous because he was in there too frequently and too early in his development as a sorcerer. If Pikan had loved him, he might have made different decisions.’
‘She must have been quite a woman.’
‘She was. Since her death, I’ve lived almost a thousand Twinmoons sequestered in the same house in the same town, never venturing further than it took to buy greenroot, potatoes and pepper weed. I’d say she was quite something.’
Hannah checked the soldiers at the bar were still engrossed in their beers and said, ‘But she didn’t choose him, Alen, she chose you, and that was entirely her choice to make. And no matter how many ways you pick it apart, or how long you hide in the basement blaming yourself, Nerak’s fall from grace was his own doing.’
‘Oh, I don’t disagree with you; it’s just that he had so much to offer. It’s really quite-’
‘Tragic.’
‘Tragic, yes.’
‘Did you never have times when you collaborated and succeeded in reaching the Senate’s common goals?’
‘Absolutely,’ Alen said, ‘many times, especially in the beginning. That may be why we all stayed so long, despite the darkness hidden in Nerak. We were teachers and leaders, but we were magicians, and even though magic was much more common in Eldarn than in Denver, it was not always easy for us to find a niche in Eldarni society. Before the Larion Senate, if you were a magician, you became a healer, an entertainer, sometimes an artist, but never a teacher. It took a long time for people to feel comfortable knowing their children were working with sorcerers.’
‘But your early successes changed some of that?’
‘That’s what made it so special. All over Eldarn people wanted their children to come to Sandcliff to study at the university; we even had waiting lists. Pikan, Nerak and I often travelled together to find those who showed more potential.’
Hannah, caught up in the old man’s tale, poured herself more wine. ‘So students had varying degrees of skill?’
‘Oh yes, we’d get urgent messages from parents convinced their little one was Eldarn’s next Lessek – mostly when some child managed to wilt the flowers on the mantel, or perhaps rolled a few beans around a trencher. We made trips to find the strong ones, the children who blew their grandfather’s barn down with a breath, who lit the dog on fire with a thought, or who lured all the region’s fireflies into the house for reading light.’
Hannah mimicked the mothers she knew: ‘My kid’s gifted. No, my kid’s gifted. Your kid? Stop it. My kid’s gifted.’ She laughed. ‘Is that where you were going when you had the fight?’
The old man’s mood darkened; Hannah was sorry she had asked the question. ‘No. That trip, we were heading for Larion Isle, where we went to work new spells and to document those that were successful. And to protect the rest of Eldarn from those that… well, weren’t successful. No sense holding back now, eh? That trip was the beginning of the end. I know I said that there had been something dark about Nerak, but that was when we should have realised that the Larion Senate was doomed as long as Nerak had access to Lessek’s key.’
‘I thought the fight was over Pikan,’ Hannah said.
‘It was. The initial confrontation was two lovesick fools fighting over a woman. Can you believe it? And he could have killed me. I know he wanted to, but his love for her stopped him, I’m sure of it. Nerak knew she would have been crushed if he had killed me, so I came out of it with a nasty ankle injury and a sorely bruised sense of my own abilities as a sorcerer. It ruined the trip to Larion Isle. I’d always enjoyed those journeys, because Pikan and Nerak led the magicians and I went just as a researcher – and because it was a great boat trip.’ He finished the wine and started in on the water. ‘This tastes dreadful. Do you want some tecan?’
‘I’d love some, sure. Do we have enough money? I know it’s a bad time to ask now that we’ve eaten the most expensive meal in the place, but how are we holding up?’
‘I haven’t been out in nearly a thousand Twinmoons, Hannah.’ He gestured for the barman. ‘We have plenty.’
‘Good. Then, yes, please. It will help clear my head.’
‘So where was I? Oh, yes, the fight: I hurt my ankle and lied to everyone that I did it getting off the ship. He wasn’t telling anyone the truth, so I let it go as well, but he began to pick at me. First, he insisted on climbing the highest mountains on the island just to run the tests. Pikan always went along, because someone had to keep the records. That would have been my role, but I couldn’t get there. Then there were the walking sticks I cut. I must have cut myself five or six, and most of them were burned when it was his turn to set the campfire. He knew they were my crutches, but he cut them up and tossed them in the flames just to be irritating. Some mornings I would wake to find my sticks on the other side of my room, or out in the common room.’
‘That sounds awfully childish, Alen, especially for someone who took himself so seriously.’
‘Love makes fools of us all, Hannah. If you haven’t discovered that, yet, be patient; you will.’
Hannah thought back to her drive up the canyon from Denver to Idaho Springs to look for Steven. Part of her had gone to confront him; if he wanted their relationship to end, he needed to say so. She supposed a part of her had gone because she was genuinely worried something might have happened to him or to Mark, but Hannah knew in her heart that she had driven up the canyon, broken into the house and fallen victim to the ugly rug because she had been falling in love with Steven Taylor. And she had not wanted to be the only one – if her heart was going to break, Hannah wanted it to be on her terms, not at 4.30 a.m. along some freezing cold trail beneath Decatur Peak. ‘Perhaps I have already,’ she murmured.
She turned the conversation back to Larion Isle. ‘Was the trip a bust because you two were fighting, or did you get what you needed while you were out there?’
Alen’s brow furrowed. ‘I have been asking myself that question on and off for the past thousand Twinmoons, and I have to say honestly that I don’t know. We wrote the Windscrolls on that trip. Pikan called them that because it had been so rutting windy the entire time we were out there. How anything ever grew on that island was a mystery to me. Anyway, the Windscrolls: there were at least three, spells for protection, deception, destruction, culling minerals from the land, cleansing contaminated water, numbing the body during medical procedures – even killing viral and bacterial infections in people and livestock. The big spells were the first few on the First Windscroll: common-phrase spells for deception, destruction, mining, farming, mass production of goods from raw materials, grand spells we hoped would have a sweeping impact on Eldarn.’
‘Destruction? Deception? And you wanted these to have a worldwide impact?’ Hannah was incredulous. Alen could read it in her face.
‘Clear cutting land for lumber or blasting through bedrock to get at rich veins of ore, that sort of destruction. I suppose you might say they were spel
ls that helped us control the devastation inherent in powerful magic.’
‘And deception?’
‘Similar in a sense to destruction; magic has an enormous capacity to change the way we perceive things. Think about the dog in your parents’ home. You’re convinced that dog was real, but you know the dog was not there. You were deceived by magic. We wrote spells to control that deceptive ability; it helped us continue to work spells in the table without waking the next day believing we were all dancers or professional bellamir players.’ That was the best explanation he could give for the moment.
The tecan arrived and they paused to pour out and sip from the steaming mugs. Hannah inhaled deeply, then asked, ‘So what happened then?’
‘You know the rest. We brought the Windscrolls back to Sandcliff and left for England. There was a common-phrase spell for cleansing contaminated water that Pikan was particularly interested in, so she and I made the research trip to Durham, to study how they handled waste and waste-water. She carried Reia to term, and I did all the work. When we returned, everything was crumbling in Gorsk, and we swore we would get back to England, even if it meant confronting Nerak and perhaps losing one of us in the process.’
‘But you never had the chance?’
‘I had to go to Middle Fork. It was a short assignment. I ended up staying there for most of my life.’ He stared across the table at her, still suffering the anguish of a decision made almost a century and a half earlier.
‘Would you like some more?’ Hannah said, offering the tecan jug, hoping to stop the old man breaking apart. She changed the subject. ‘Do you suppose my friends are alive?’
‘Steven and-’
‘Mark. Mark Jenkins and Steven Taylor. I’m certain they came across the Fold together sometime during the day before I landed in Southport.’
Alen shook his head. ‘I cannot begin to say, Hannah. I’m sorry.’
Her efforts to distract him were failing. He was lost in England, reliving the worst decision of his life, without the help of any enchanted bark or the forest of ghosts.
