by Mike Shevdon
"And what truth would that be?"
"That if it is to the High Court's advantage, they will sacrifice you and all the other half-breeds without a moment's thought. You are pawns, and this is a game with very high stakes."
"That may be true, Raffmir, but we've had this conversation before. You're not offering any better, are you? Whatever the outcome for the half-breeds, it will always be better than anything you and your friends have to offer."
"You're assuming that loyalty works both ways, Niall."
"And you're assuming I'll follow your convoluted logic. I have sworn loyalty to the council and they have sworn not to harm me or mine. I trust them more than I trust you."
"Then your trust may be misplaced, for they will always choose the path that benefits them most, regardless of who stands upon it. It has ever been thus."
"That's irrelevant. I still don't trust you."
"And I have given you no reason to, a mistake that I will remedy. Come." He stood in one easy movement."
"I haven't finished my coffee."
"It is bitter and spoiled."
"I could say the same of you."
He sighed with exaggerated impatience. "Accompany me now and I will share with you a secret of the wraithkin, something that none of your Warder companions can do for you. I do this as a gesture of good faith against some future need, so that you may better care for you and yours. There, is that good enough, or will you sit and sulk for no other reason than that you are too cynical to do otherwise?"
I watched him, considering. He had carefully avoided mentioning anything I didn't already know, while attempting to undermine the relationships I already had. He was being evasive and deceitful. None of that was any surprise. Still, I would not find out what he wanted sitting in the café.
I rose and put on my coat, making a show of straightening it where Raffmir had leaned on it, then collected my umbrella. He ignored me and went to the counter to pay. I stood and watched him while Geraldine smiled and then laughed at some comment he made.
When he came back, I held the door open. The worst of the wind had died down, but it was still raining steadily.
"You two are getting on well. Will you be returning later?"
"Politeness costs nothing, Dogstar. You would be well advised to remember that." He stepped out into the rain and I followed him.
"Nah," I said. "She fancies you something rotten."
"I do not fraternise with her like."
"You're fraternising with me. It's just one big slippery slope, when you think about it."
"Do you make a habit of goading me?"
"Everyone should have a hobby."
We walked up the hill in silence. It was quite rewarding to realise that I could get under his skin. It was also an interesting development; after all, he didn't have to be here. It left me even more convinced that he wanted something from me. I had only to find out what it was.
He walked uphill into the layer of wet clouds shrouding the upper parts of the town, and navigated directly to the Way-point, stepping easily up on to the spongy grass and making no attempt to conceal our presence. As we climbed the grassy bank, the billowing mist blurred the houses below and then obscured them completely. It felt as if we were alone. A prickle of tension crept up the back of my neck. Had he brought me here so that we would not be seen? He had sworn not to do me harm, but if no one saw what had happened, who would accuse him?
"You know how to use the Ways?" he asked.
"Of course."
"Do you think you can follow where I lead?"
"Where are we going?"
"Somewhere dry. You do not need to be concerned."
"I'm always concerned when you're involved."
"This is where you have to decide to trust me. Once I've gone, you'll need to follow quickly or you'll lose the trail. Try and keep up."
"Is this where I choose between, what is it…. honour or love?"
"That comes later." He stepped on to the node and the mist swirled in around him. The vortex turned and collapsed and he was gone.
At that moment, part of me wanted to set off back down the hill and forget him. Part of me knew that whatever he wanted, it was in his interests, not mine. All of me knew that whatever it was, it would lead nowhere good. The vague insinuations about my daughter, the innuendo about Court politics; they were a smokescreen for something, but I couldn't help feeling that not knowing would only make it worse.
I stepped on to the node and felt the Way rise beneath me. The sense of a passage in the Way was there, a trail left by another traveller. Unlike Blackbird's warm trail this felt cold, but it was distinct. I let the Way pick me up and hurl me after him, sensing the warp of space as I swept through the emptiness, echoing his passing. The Way contracted around the next Way-node and then veered at the last second, bypassing the node and flinging us back into the black. We sped through a night-black veil streaked with hanging clouds of luminescent frost until we reached another node and slingshotted around that, not touching, but whipping tight around it, accelerating outwards and away. I found myself spinning, legs and arms outstretched, unable to orientate myself while my eyes watered without blinking, unable to focus. Space contracted and blurred and then shot me out, bouncing and rolling on to the hillside, my umbrella flying out of my hand. Instinct and training broke my fall, slowing me down until I could roll to a stop and rise to my knees.
Raffmir stood, watching me. "You have no style," he said.
"That," I said as I picked myself up from the grass and collected the umbrella, "was interesting. Where are we?"
"I promised you better weather, did I not?"
I looked around. We were on the rise of a high hilltop, with other hills arrayed around us and deep valleys in between. The overcast sky lent a sourceless light, but even so the shade deepened in the valleys. The grass was dry, and it was obvious it hadn't rained here today.
"Wales?" I asked.
"It's really not important. We are not here for sightseeing."
"Then why are we here?"
"You have not yet promised me that you will keep our conversation from Garvin."
"Nor will I. I have no reason to keep this from him."
"Your daughter's life is insufficient reason?"
"Your threat is not sufficient reason. You still haven't told me precisely what peril she is in and what you have to do with it. For all I know it could be you that's threatening her."
"I have sworn not to harm her. I can do no more."
"We've had this conversation. I will tell Garvin what I need to tell him."
"Very well, I see that in order for you to trust me, I must first trust you. It is good that one of us has some faith in his heart,"
"Oh, I have plenty of faith in other people."
He gave me a sour look, but then straightened his coat. "You already know the Ways, though I think you did not know them as well as you thought."
"It was an enlightening experience, I'll admit that much."
"Now I will show you something of the wraithkin, something your Warder brethren cannot show you."
"If it's card tricks, I've seen them before."
"You test my patience, Dogstar. You would scorn the magic you inherited. Your sarcasm reflects badly on you. You have respect for no one. It is no wonder my brothers and sisters will not harbour you."
"That's not the reason, and we both know it."
He stared at me. I did not look away. It was he who finally looked to the next hill across the valley. "See the copse atop the hill there."
"I see it."
"How long would it take you to get there?"
"Walking?"
"By whatever means."
"Half an hour or an hour on foot, maybe. Less in a car, assuming you can get a car up there." The only road in sight wound along the bottom of the valley, but there might be side roads up the hillside, hidden in the shadow of the hill. "If there's a Way-point it would be quicker."
"There is no Way
-point nearby other than the one we arrived on. It is a closed end. That's why we are here. The only path from here is back where we came."
"So what do you want me to do?"
"Learn, Dogstar. Watch and learn."
He stood, gazing across the valley. I sensed a creeping spread of power, enveloping and concealing, hiding us from view.
"I can do that myself," I commented.
A sudden chill fell on the hilltop, so sudden and distinct that it made me focus my attention on him. He was drawing in power, building a store of energy. The tips of my ears were suddenly cold and I wrapped my arms about me against the hard edge in the breeze.
Around Raffmir flickering fingers of light formed a nimbus. It built until he was outlined in white fire. He glanced sideways at me, grinned, and then stepped forward.
The light flashed and blinked out and it was a moment before I could see again. I was alone on the sunset hilltop.
I looked about me, searching for where he had hidden himself and then realised the point of the demonstration. Shielding my eyes, I searched the treeline opposite. Against the dark woodland, there was a darker patch in the distance. The figure raised an arm and waved slowly. Even from there, I could tell he was grinning back at me.
It was a grin that said, "I know something you don't."
After a moment, I began to see a glow around him. He made no attempt to hide it this time, and even from a distance I could see the white fire dancing across his shoulders. There was a bright flash, and he was walking back across the grass towards me.
"You will not allow it, but you are impressed."
"It's a fine trick."
"Do you always disparage that which you do not have? I find it tires me."
"It helps me keep things in perspective."
"I will give you free advice, cousin. If you stay that sour, the wind will change and you will stay that way. Learn to appreciate the things you are given and you will have a better time of it."
"Never look a gift horse in the mouth."
"Exactly so."
"And yet, gift horses do have a knack of dropping dead at inconvenient moments, don't they?"
"That cynical streak will give you ulcers. Now I want you to try. You may find it more difficult. The ground has cooled and it will be some time until it recovers. It will be possible, nevertheless."
"You want me to do that."
"You are wraithkin born, and gifted with power. Will you disappoint me?"
"I'm not here to please you, Raffmir."
"Nevertheless, it is a useful skill, is it not?"
I had to admit, the ability to travel a distance in an instant might come in useful. "Show me."
"Stand here. You need to see where you are going. Memory is not enough, you need to see your destination. If you can't see it, you can't go there."
I felt his magic creep out around us, concealing us once more.
"Focus on the distant point. Bring it closer with your eyes, if you can. What do you see between here and there?"
"Nothing."
"Yet there remains a distance between you. There is something. There is air, and space, and the distance between."
"Of course."
"But you are wraithkin. The space between is your space. The gaps between the gaps belong to you. If you concentrate, you can step around the distance. You can get from here to there without travelling in between."
"How? I don't see…"
"Don't see! Your sight is not to be trusted. It tells you lies. It says there is distance between here and there when there is merely a flimsy curtain with the world depicted upon it. Step behind that curtain and out again, do you see?"
"I'm not seeing it."
"More power; draw what you need. Use more than your eyes. Find the gaps, the cracks and crevices between the walls of the universe. Your sight tells you the world is solid. Your touch confirms the weight and texture of reality. But you are wraithkin. You have other senses. You can sense that the world is nowhere near as solid as it wants you to believe. It is thin and insubstantial. Push through."
"Into what?"
"Never mind what. Feel. Your element calls you as it calls all the wraithkin. Answer it and you will see."
And I did see. As I gathered power into me, the world began to dim. The sense of a solid reality fell away and I began to perceive it as a construct layered on top of something else. It lost its density and its stiffness and became more flexible, more permeable.
"Now. Focus on the hillside. Focus and step through."
I looked across at the copse of trees. I saw through the space between, not across the valley, but through space itself. And I stepped.
A blinding light flashed into my eyes. I raised my hand, but the light had already vanished. I was facing trees. The distant copse was in front of me, the leaves fluttering in the evening breeze. I turned and the valley stretched out beneath my feet. On the far side, a lone figure stood. There was no wave or acknowledgment. He simply watched.
He was right, it was impressive. I stared across the valley. As the man in the museum had said earlier, you get naught for nowt round 'ere. The Feyre were like that. They understood the basic economics of favour and return, and Raffmir had just shown me something quite spectacular. There was real value in it, so what did he want in return? Across the valley, he did not move.
I wrapped myself in misdirection, unwilling to be as open and obvious as he had been. Opening the well inside myself, I drew energy into me, letting it pull power from the surroundings. The light breeze acquired bite as the temperature fell. I lifted my hand to see filaments of white light drifting up my fingers, creating a tingling sensation and forming a corona around my hand. I let the power build, feeling a tension as the air and ground around me cooled.
The world dimmed before me, the hill becoming a shadow hill, the valley obscured in the dusk-light. It made me feel that I would fall through the delicate membrane on which I stood. In that veiled light, I could see other shadows, a wrinkle in the substance of the hill, flimsy curtains in the air, shifting layers in the air. I wondered what they meant, and whether I was seeing distortions in the fabric of reality or if it was simply the way things were formed.
Lifting my eyes, I saw that the sky had dimmed, taking on a twilight quality. The overcast clouds had faded, leaving a blue-grey mantle, prickled with faint stars. A sickly green-tinged moon lay close on the horizon. It was a world beneath the world, a level below or alongside, matched but subtly different.
I reminded myself why I was here and focused upon the far hilltop. This time it was easier to slip behind the curtain of reality and re-emerge on the far side. There was no rush. I didn't feel flung across space as I did on the Way. It was only a step. Raffmir waited patiently, his gaze focused far out where the purple hills merged with the grey cloud.
"You're right. It is impressive."
"What? No word of thanks? No gratitude?"
"Tell me first what you would have in return. There is something, isn't there?"
"I offer you my assurances. I would ask nothing from you that you would not give, and gladly. There, that is generous, is it not?"
I smiled wryly and shook my head. "I have no idea, Raffmir. But I will wait to offer my thanks until I know what it is you want in return."
"I desire only your trust, and your silence. The time will come soon enough when you will have to choose and it is never an easy choice between love and honour. I do not envy you."
"Tell me why I must choose, then."
"I offer you gifts and your first response is to ask for more. Your gratitude knows its bounds, cousin. But it must wait in turn, like all else. We cannot reach the end without passing through the middle."
"I thought that's what we just did," I said, looking back across this valley.
"A bad analogy. I have shown good faith and more besides. It is enough for one day. Come, I will return you to your seaside banishment."
I followed him across the ragged grass to the
Waynode.
"Follow closely, and this time, try to exhibit some style."
He stepped on to the Way-node and swirled away without pausing. I followed close behind. We slingshotted around the first node and away towards the second, but instead of following him onward, I entered the node and arrived, wrapping myself in concealment. It was another high hilltop, somewhere in the Welsh borders, maybe.
Reorienting myself, I stepped quickly away, taking a side route away from his path. I had other plans and they did not include having Raffmir shadow me wherever I went. The next node-point was a barrow mound in a meadow, open to the sky, the smell of wet grass rich in the summer air. I diverted again. He would wait a little while for me to follow and then, perhaps, retrace our journey. If he tried to follow me, I wanted to make it as difficult as possible.
