by David Hair
She glanced across at the unruly tuft of hair poking from beneath the blanket. Alaron’s head had flopped sideways, but his breathing was regular. He was so young – not much older than her – but she could see the adult beginning to form beneath the puppy fat. He didn’t look like a mighty jadugara, but during the fight at the Isle of Glass she had glimpsed someone more impressive emerging. There weren’t many she could trust just now, but he was one. She was glad he’d agreed to come with her.
Beneath the sheet she could make out the leather case that held the Scytale, this magical cylinder that could turn men into magi. She imagined how the Mughal’s court might receive such a thing, the desperate avarice it would engender. They were sailing into a storm. She prayed to the goddess, but no divine guidance came; there were no insights or brilliant new ideas. Eventually she drifted back to sleep while the sun spun above and jackals yowled in the distance.
During the nights that followed they flew south, flying by vague memories of the maps Alaron had seen. They took it slowly, not taking to the air until the sun was well gone and the sky was black. Some nights Ramita was too distressed by the internal convulsions to fly at all, but despite the discomfort, the babies stayed inside her and the days passed in travel, sleep and awkward conversation. Luna and her entourage of stars wheeled overhead until the fugitives realised that almost a month had passed. They were somewhere in south Dhassa, the empty lands far from the eastwards march of the Crusade. This time when they ran short of supplies they hid their skiff and approached the lonely settlements on foot, offering the meat of wild animals Alaron had managed to snare using beast-gnosis in trade for vegetables and rice. Many settlements were almost deserted and the crops gone to seed because the menfolk had been taken by the shihad, but they found enough food to get by. No one tried to scry them and they saw no pursuers, but every day Ramita’s cramps and convulsions became more frequent.
Only when they hit the ranges in the south of Dhassa did they begin to believe that they might just escape …
After some debate, they decided to continue south through, aiming for gaps in the coastal ranges. Under a waning moon the ground gave way to sea, boiling beneath them with a ferocity beyond even that of the northern seas about the Isle of Glass.
Alaron shouted above the winds, ‘What is this place?’
Ramita felt a surge of pride because she knew this. ‘It’s called the Rakasarphal,’ she shouted back, staring down at the waters churning below. She couldn’t see the shape of the land from the skiff, but she knew it from the maps her husband had made her study and the legends her parents had told her. ‘That means “tail of the demon-serpent”. When the gods slept after making the world, the rakas-demons crept into it and hid. One was immense, called Kadru, the Mother of the Nagas. She seduced Sivraman by taking on the appearance of his wife, and she conceived. She tunnelled beneath the earth, where she gave birth to one thousand children who were half-man and half-snake: the Nagas.’
Alaron raised an eyebrow. ‘Half-snake? Like a lamia?’
She didn’t know what he meant, and carried on, ‘Vishnarayan the Protector heard her birth labours and went hunting beneath the earth. He slew many Nagas, but some escaped. Suddenly he was confronted by Kadru, whose head was as large as a mountain. She reared up from the earth, creating a huge gouge in the land, and tried to swallow the god whole. But Vishnarayan used his magic to grow as well, and then he grabbed Kadru and pulled her out of the ground, just as the sun rose. The sun struck her and turned her to stone. Her body became the mountain range we crossed, and the place where she’d lain filled with water and is now the sea below. It grows narrower and narrower as you travel east until it meets a great river, the Efratis. The Naga were overawed by the god and became Sivraman’s servants. They helped build the world.’
Alaron smiled as if this were a child’s tale, which annoyed her, but all he said was, ‘In our lands, your Naga are called lamiae: the snake-people I told you about back at the Isle of Glass.’
Oh yes, his story. He and his friend Cymbellea claimed they had met snake-men on their journey. Perhaps they did. ‘The correct name is Naga,’ she told him firmly.
‘Do we keep going south?’ he called. The winds were very strong from the northeast and it would be a real struggle to fight them. The windskiff was already being viciously battered by updrafts from the sea.
She pictured the map in her mind; her recollection was that the Rakasarphal was somewhat to the west of where they wanted to be. ‘We should go east from here,’ she called back. ‘To the south is Lokistan. They are all insane Amteh fanatics there.’ Her guru had told her so. ‘We should not go there.’
He tried to swing the craft about, but the air-currents picked them up and hurled them south. ‘It’s too strong,’ he shouted. ‘Let’s cross the sea, then head east once these winds have dropped.’
She might have argued, but she could feel the beginnings of another bout of belly-cramp so instead she nodded weakly, braced herself and prayed that this sea-crossing would not trigger her labour.
We are not ready yet, my sweet children. Go back to sleep.
*
Cymbellea stared at her bared arms, willing them to change. She sucked in her breath as spiny feathers broke through and spread, giant replicas of the feathers of the gull that lay at her feet. She’d been studying it for hours, imprinting the shape onto her mind, but now that it came time to try it, she couldn’t manage. They were on the highest point of the Isle of Glass, whipped by wind and spray on a chilly but clear day, trying to unlock her inner shapechanger within the three days Huriya had allowed. Below, the rest of the pack either went about their business or slept and recovered.
‘I can’t do it!’ she snapped.
‘You can,’ Zaqri replied tersely. ‘The problem is you’re trying to force it. Let go of yourself. Become the gull.’
Become the gull! Rukka mia, what does that even mean? She scowled at her self-appointed guardian, wishing she had a knife. She owed him his death for what he’d done to her mother. The last thing she wanted was to rely on him for her survival.
This isn’t working … Though she couldn’t blame him for that. Zaqri knew so much and she so little. It was becoming increasingly clear that there were huge gaps in her gnostic education, and not enough time to fill them.
Why is he helping me? Perhaps he felt sorry for her? Or guilty, for killing her mother? She decided she didn’t care, as long as he taught her enough to get away. With any luck she’d be leaving his corpse as a warning not to follow. But damn his black heart, he was a fine sight with the sun on his golden shoulders and the wind in his blond hair. And his mental touch was as masterful as his body – she felt like she already knew him far too well, thanks to this forced companionship. He might be older than her – decades older, she sensed – yet he was obviously in his prime.
‘You are half-blood, Cymbellea: you can do this,’ he told her. ‘Animagery might not be your strength, but you have enough gnostic power. You just have to believe.’
Although as a teacher he wasn’t as haphazard as Alaron and Ramon, whose well-meaning but erratic instruction was all she’d ever had, she couldn’t grasp what was needed – the letting go, the abandonment of shape, trusting in the gnosis to let her mutate her very body while believing she could find the way back. She didn’t believe, in other words.
The fact that Zaqri was grieving made it harder for Cym to hate him – but not much. He was her only protector against the still hostile pack: to survive – and not just survive, but find a way to strike back – her vengeance would have to wait. The way of her people had always been an eye for an eye, but she had to be patient.
She looked around the viewing platform, listened to the sea thundering and licked salty spray from her lips. The gulls had fled, sensing that the birds that now lived here were not natural. Bide your time, she told herself. Get off this rock and opportunities to escape will come.
‘Try again,’ Zaqri urged. ‘Let me guide you
through it.’ He put his fingers to her temple and entered her head like a conqueror, completely sure of himself and his right to go where he willed. She had no choice but to endure the mental intrusion. Her senses were flooded with a tactile sensation of feathers, how bird-shape felt, how it was achieved – how her arms might become wings, how her chest and shoulder muscles must alter … She accepted the mental imagery of the gull he gave her and tried to flow into it as he directed. For a moment it looked like she could do it, then she yowled as her arms bowed and bent, the bones cracking and reforming, racking her with instant agony. Her shoulders twisted and remade themselves and she screamed, crying out as much in panic as pain as she saw her arms hanging twisted and useless. She almost blacked out, but Zaqri stepped inside her head again and, soothing and healing, showed her the way back to herself.
She was still recoverng from the agony when she heard a sly female voice from the top of the steps that led to this upper platform. ‘Well, Zaqri, will she fly for us?’ Huriya enquired, striking a pose with the wind ruffling her long black hair. ‘She’s running out of time.’
‘Then give us more,’ Zaqri replied, going to her. ‘She’s had next to no instruction in the gnosis. Self-taught magi can do the basics, sometimes well, but she needs detailed, intense teaching to do this.’
‘We can’t wait, packleader!’ Huriya answered waspishly. ‘You know the prize at stake! We cannot delay, and I cannot leave you behind. This is your pack, these are your people, and they are angry enough at the time you waste on this gypsy.’
Zaqri clenched his fists in frustration. ‘She can be an asset to our search, Seeress. She knows the quarry.’
‘As do I,’ Huriya replied. ‘Ramita Ankesharan has been my bloodsister since birth.’
‘But you have failed to scry this Ramita, Seeress. And what if this Alaron Mercer is no longer with her? We must have the option of finding him, and for that we need her.’
‘She will not aid us, packleader!’ Huriya swatted the air dismissively. ‘She will slow us down; she will obstruct us. The injured are almost healed and the pack flies soon! Ready her, or she dies.’ She shot Cym a pitiless look, then turned to go.
‘Seeress!’ Zaqri grabbed her arm. ‘Let her and I catch you up. Two, three days and I swear she’ll be flying.’
Huriya looked at his hand, then up at him. It seemed bizarre to Cym that this little woman, tiny as a child before the giant packleader, might have the greater authority, but he hurriedly removed his grip. ‘It demeans you in the eyes of your pack to be sniffing her nethers so obviously, Zaqri. She is magi: our oldest enemy. Treat her as such!’ She spun and stamped away.
Zaqri bowed his head, then slowly rejoined Cym, his face grim. ‘Well?’ he snapped at Cym, ‘you heard her!’
‘Why are you helping me?’ she blurted. ‘I won’t betray my friends.’
‘I know that,’ he told her steadily. He frowned. ‘You are Rimoni. Once, so was I.’
Cym glanced at him in surprise. Normally her people were dark-haired, not blond, and his voice had no hints of such ancestry. But it was true there were blond Rimoni in the north of the country, where mixed blood was not uncommon. It could be so. It didn’t feel like a complete reason though.
He just wants the Scytale. Nevertheless, she was resolved to live through this if she could. ‘Let’s try again,’ she said, already wincing at the thought of going through that horrible change all over again.
But despite renewed determination, she got no further by the time she was exhausted and collapsed into her bed.
At night Zaqri guarded her. Though he shared her bed, he did so chastely, in lion form, literally keeping the jackals from the door. Hessaz watched them both with bitter eyes, but Cym soon realised that she was not alone: all the women of the pack wanted Zaqri. They are more beast than human, she thought. He is the alpha male and must have a mate.
When she dreamed it was of him, and she was a bird flitting about his giant jaws. A dozen times a night his teeth clamped on her fluttering wings; a dozen times a night she awoke with hammering heart to find a lion lying next to her, never sleeping, his eyes on the door.
In some dreams he lowered himself onto her, his fur soft on her skin, his meaty breath hot on her neck: the lion and his lover. In her dream she welcomed it, but when she woke she could scarcely keep from vomiting at the notion.
*
Next day he made her strip to her underclothes, a humiliation, but he claimed he needed to see her body as she attempted the change. Not that Zaqri made her feel overly uncomfortable about it. He remained proper toward her, gave her no further reasons to hate him, not that any were needed. Her frustration grew through the day at her lack of tangible progress. The more she tried, the worse she got, and still the change wouldn’t come. Eventually she stormed away, screaming, ‘Just let me sleep! I’ll do it tomorrow!’
Despite her mind-numbing exhaustion, she lay awake for hours, agonisingly conscious of his proximity; when she eventually slept, she dreamed of him and woke jaded, nowhere near ready for the day to come. Breakfast was a spicy meal similar to Ramita’s cooking, full of alien flavours and tongue-stinging bite.
She threw some Rimoni words at Zaqri, to test his story, but he fielded them easily. ‘Northern barbarian,’ she sneered anyway. ‘You’re no Rimoni.’
But none of that could put off the appointed moment. The pack wrecked Meiros’ lair and tipped most of the debris into the sea, then gathered on the roof. As she looked around she was met only by blank hatred.
Calmness, girl, Zaqri whispered in her mind. You can do this, I know it. Shed your inhibitions as you shed your identity. Become the gull.
‘How’s she going to shapeshift fully clothed?’ someone laughed, and the pack tittered contemptuously. They were all naked as they waited to change shape; whatever possessions they carried were packed into satchels strapped to their shoulders or waists.
‘Does the gypsy think she’s got something we haven’t?’ Darice, a big Brician woman, cackled.
‘Too good for us, eh?’ sneered another woman.
Cym felt her skin flush darker and tossed her head angrily. ‘No, I’m the same as you,’ she snapped back. ‘Just better looking.’ A Rimoni backs down to no one.
A few of them chuckled, appreciating her spunk. ‘She’s certainly a damned sight prettier than you, Darice,’ one of the men called.
Another leaped up and waggled his cock at her. ‘Hey, girly, this’ll be waiting for you when we land.’
‘How’ll she find that little thing, Kenner?’ Zaqri quipped, to more laughter.
‘It’ll be towering above Southpoint,’ Kenner the cock-waver boasted.
‘It’ll be mistaken for a tiddy-worm and eaten by a gull, more like,’ Darice responded. More banter was flung about, all voices shouting at once, as much laughter as hostility present.
‘She’s still got to fly,’ Huriya said sourly, her voice killing the merriment. ‘Or someone gets a free meal.’
Cym glared at the tiny Keshi girl, whose voluptuous breasts stood proudly high on her chest as she stood with her hands on her hips. Small as a child, worldly as a whore.
Little bitch. I’ll show you.
‘We’re waiting, gypsy,’ Huriya trilled.
She gave him a contemptuous look and walked to the far wall. She touched a panel and the wall opened. Inside it, right where her mother had told her, was a large rolled-up carpet and a pouch containing the gemstone that powered it. The only pity was that Zaqri had been so attentive of her that she’d not had the chance to slip up here alone.
Who says I need wings to fly?
She removed the gem from the pouch and hung it about her neck beside her own periapt, then she dragged out the carpet and unrolled it. Justina had told her the gem converted other types of gnostic energy into Air-gnosis,
but she was an Air-mage and shouldn’t need it, she hoped.
Some pack-members started guffawing with laughter as they watched her place her few belongings in the middle and sit down.
‘Wait,’ Huriya snapped. ‘I said you must learn to shape-change – your life is still forfeit, girl!’
‘No,’ Cym said calmly, ‘you said I must fly. And so I shall. I won’t slow you down.’ She looked at Zaqri, who was grinning broadly, to her surprise. ‘The question,’ she added, ‘is whether you animals can keep up with me.’
Before the Dokken could react, she threw all her stored energy into the carpet and willed it into the air.
In a few seconds, the shrieking howls of outrage were dulled by distance, but she felt a sudden flaring of the gnosis behind her and a vast force gathered as if to swot her from the air. She looked back fearfully and saw Zaqri had seized Huriya’s arm and just in time deflected whatever attack the tiny girl had launched. She felt her skin flush at the exertion, and poured more energy into her flight.
Hey, maybe I can outrun these bastards? she thought jubilantly.
She couldn’t, though. A few minutes later a giant golden eagle swooped onto the carpet and gripped the fabric in its claws to steady itself before resolving into a naked Zaqri. He had a satchel tied to his waist. His eyes were a mixture of fury and amusement. ‘Damn you, girl, why didn’t you tell me?’
‘You killed my mother,’ she said. ‘I’ll never tell you anything I don’t want you to know. Anyway, you’ve been inside my head: you should have worked it out for yourself.’
