Cethe

by Becca Abbott

  They were away. Stefn felt a trembling inside. It grew until his entire body shook. Tears flooded his eyes, spilling down his face. He wanted to speak, to scream and rage and beg for mercy. Instead, he bowed his head and wept.

  The movement of the boat stopped. It rocked gently, side to side, rhythmic. He thought, in a dim, small place, that he should be ashamed of his weakness, that tears were for women. He thought Arranz would sneer at him and tell him to be silent, but nothing happened and, after a long while, his anguish spent itself and silence returned.

  “I’m sorry.” Arranz spoke quietly, soberly. “I’m sorry you were forced to go through that.”

  Stefn felt hollow. He lifted his head, but he couldn’t look at the h’nar. Instead, he looked to the side, avoiding Arranz’s gaze.

  They drifted alone in the midst of a green and watery labyrinth. Surrounding their boat were other islands, deserted as far as Stefn could see, everything overgrown by a tangle of thick brush and tall, wide-branched trees.

  “If I’d known what he planned, I would never have brought you to Blackmarsh.”

  “It was nothing my father hadn’t done to me many times,” Stefn said finally. “At least you healed me. T’was more than he ever cared to do.”

  “Your father gave you those scars?”

  “We both know what I am, my lord.” Stefn stared out over the water. “It was a source of great shame to him. Sometimes, usually when he was drunk, he would find it past enduring.”

  Stefn remembered the sound of staggering footsteps in the middle of the night, the crashing of his father’s body against the wall and curses as the earl negotiated the dark corridor to his youngest son’s room. A cracking sound nearby made him flinch wildly. Heart pounding, Stefn saw a broken, low-hanging branch had caught itself on the mooring line. Relief washed through him in a cold, sickly tide.

  The boat started to move once more. The sun rose higher as they made their way deeper into the maze. Lulled by the tranquil, green silence, even Stefn’s trembling finally died away. After awhile, he risked sliding to the side of the boat and, when nothing dreadful happened, put his hand in the water. It was warm and silky-smooth. “Where are we?” he asked. “Is this still Blackmarsh?”

  “No. We’re in the Wyrbane delta. The marsh empties into it north of here.”

  “The delta? We’re near Loth’s Gate?”

  “We are.”

  “Legends say it’s haunted.”

  “By marshlanders,” agreed Arranz. “Are you sure you’re all right, Eldering? Are you still in any pain?”

  Startled, Stefn shook his head. “N-no.” Something in the h’nar’s expression sent warmth through him. In confusion, he looked away.

  An island sliding past showed bits of masonry poking through the green. A handful of stone pylons stuck out of the water near its shore.

  “The marshlanders say our naran ancestors built them,” Lord Michael said, following Stefn’s gaze.

  “Nonsense.” Stefn squinted, trying to make the ruins out. “From here, they look too old to be naran.”

  Lord Michael grinned. The expression made him look unexpectedly boyish. “Someday we’ll return and investigate them together, shall we? We’ll see who’s right.”

  Stefn stared at him, then shrugged and looked away. His heart was pounding. It was a dangerous, appealing notion.

  Fool! What do I care? Anyway, he doesn’t mean it.

  But he did want to explore the intriguing place, and it would be pleasant to have a companion to join him, someone to share the discoveries and argue hypotheses. He’d never once imagined he’d be outside the boundaries of Shia, yet here he was. He’d never imagined having a friend, either, yet…

  Stefn caught himself, aghast at the direction of his thoughts. “My lord,” he began.

  “Michael,” said the taint with that same engaging grin. “Call me Michael.”

  In early ages of Tanyrin, the Westsea Mountains had formed an unbroken, impenetrable wall along the coast. Rivers flowing westward had nowhere to empty, filling the Great Marshes instead, which according to legend, had covered vast stretches of land from the northern tip of Blackmarsh to as far south as Canterwell.

  Loth saw this great waste of land and caused the mountains to break, opening a narrow way to the sea. In a single day, the legends claimed, water trapped in the marshes drained through the passage, creating great stretches of rich farmland. The break in the mountains was called Loth’s Gate and it marked the delta’s northernmost boundary. North of the gate Blackmarsh began.

  Horses waited for Michael and Stefn at the bottom of the Gate cliffs. There were signs of marshlander presence, but no marshlanders themselves. Michael roused a sleeping Stefn and got him out of the boat and onto a horse. They rode until dusk, finally stopping at a spot that looked as good as any for camping. As the sun sank behind the low mountains, Michael lured several packles to the edge of a nearby pool with a bit of witchery and they had fire-roasted fish for supper.

  Stefn said little. Heavy-eyed, he seemed exhausted in spite of his nap in the boat. He lay down at once, pulling Michael’s coat a little closer, resting his head in his arms. His eyes drifted shut.

  Michael pulled out the sheaf of parchments from his waistcoat and unrolled them on his knee. There were nine sheets, written on the front and back.

  “What are those?” Stefn’s eyes were open, fixed listlessly on them.

  “Nothing,” said Michael. “Go to sleep.”

  Stefn didn’t argue. Without another word, he rolled over, his back to the fire and Michael.

  Nine pieces of parchment; upon them, seven of the high spells of the thrice-damned naragi. His grandfather’s box had contained not only these copies, but the originals. Set down in quaint, archaic script, the latter had been yellowed with age, the edges brown and brittle. How they had come into his grandfather’s possession, or when, the old bastard refused to say.

  “When the time comes, I will tell you. Until then, you walk too close to danger. The risks of your capture and interrogation are too great. If Severyn and you are triumphant, then there will be no more secrets.”

  “Damn you, old man,” whispered Michael. “What game are you playing?”

  Many of the carefully transcribed words that he recognized as naran were, alas, all but forgotten. Still, as an Arranz, he knew more of the language than most. Studying the spell before him, he found two familiar lines. The spelling was different, but the pronunciation was probably the same.

  Among h’naran witches there was a common charm that used these Words. Snatch-Breeze, it was called, a spell requiring very little skill or power to wield. As a boy, Michael had used it to sail his homemade boats on the streams and pools below his home. Yet here it was, embedded in a much longer incantation. Those extra Words would make all the difference, turning snatch-breeze into a real wind.

  If his grandfather were right.

  Folding the other papers and putting them into his coat pocket, he rose. Stefn was sound asleep. He didn’t stir when Michael stepped over him and headed up the steep slope. On a ledge high above the marsh, Michael stopped, collapsing breathlessly on a large rock and, in the last of the day’s light, read aloud the Words.

  From deep within him, a barrier fell. For an instant, he hung above the Dark Stream, seeing it in all its limitless, terrifying power, wild with great waves and currents. Then it rose to meet him, filling him, lifting him, and then shattering him into a starfield of droplets. One by one, the Words repeated, like the clamor of bells, and when the last syllable echoed into silence, he found himself returned abruptly to the world, flat on his back, breathless, every muscle aching. It was a struggle to sit up and look around.

  For several moments, nothing happened. The wind, instead of strengthening, fell away to dead calm. A prickling ran over his skin. Out on the marsh, the music of sunset, the cicadas and buzzers and chippie-frogs, went abruptly, ominously silent.

  It came, soft at first: a sighing that ruffled his hair an
d shirt and sent the swamp grasses bowing. After that, hell itself burst forth. Wind slammed into him like a fist, knocking him sideways. He kept his balance only by grabbing the branch of a nearby scrub pine. In moments, he was surrounded by a shrieking gale, hurling bits of gravel and shredded leaf at him as it howled past.

  Then, behind the wind, he heard another sound, one he’d heard only once before in his life. It was a roar, like the stampede of a thousand horses, and his blood ran cold.

  Flood wave!

  The giant waves were a rare, but deadly event along the marshes. Usually they were a winter phenomenon. Gale winds, meeting little resistance from brittle marsh grasses, scooped up water before them, creating a wave that rolled across the wasteland, gathering strength and speed until it finally crashed up into dry land, destroying everything in its path.

  Michael saw it now: a swell of water racing up from the south, driven by the wind howling along the cliffs. It snapped small trees and uprooted bushes as it came. Even in the fading twilight, he could see the logs and other debris churning within it.

  Shoving the parchment into his pocket, he ran, slipping and skidding down the hillside, reaching the campsite in time to see an uprooted needle-bush tumbling past. Stefn was on his feet, trying to untie the terrified horses.

  “Help me!” His shout was barely audible above the wind.

  Michael ran to free the animals. They galloped away, going north, vanishing in the brush. “Come on!” Michael shouted. “We have to get to higher ground!”

  Stefn, for once, didn’t question him. He followed Michael up the steep embankment, clinging to rock and boulder to keep from being blown away. Branches, twigs, even tiny bits of gravel hit them in an unending stream of shrapnel. Michael conjured a witch light, careless of expending more k’na, intent only on finding their way safely up into the cliffs. A cry from behind stopped him. Stefn had lost his balance and fought to keep from being blown down the hill.

  Michael caught his hand. Slim, cold fingers tightened convulsively around his. Half-dragging him, Michael kept going, reaching the top of the bluffs at last. The cliffs soared higher still, sheer, ragged sheets of rock. Amidst the fissures and fallen rock, he spotted an opening. They fell into it, collapsing in a tangle of limbs on mossy ground.

  The wind was a living thing, a monster filling the air with dust and a deafening roar. Inside the shallow cave, however, it was still. Michael, dizzy and breathless, rolled over and sat up. Wiping his hair out of his eyes, he looked out, but there was only howling darkness.

  “Is it the end of the world?” Stefn asked. In the witchlight, his eyes were huge. There was a long, bloody scratch across his right cheek.

  “It’s a gale,” replied Michael.

  “But, it was perfectly clear outside!”

  “I know.” Michael spat dust. Remembering the other spells, he had a moment of panic, but they were still with him. After determining they were undamaged, he returned them to his pocket.

  Stefn’s eyes narrowed. “You did this?”

  This was true naragi magic. Michael should have been triumphant. Instead, he remembered the stories of the naran war, of entire battalions swept away in the naragi storms, towns leveled, the bodies of men, women and children drifting in lakes and rivers that had been, for a brief, lethal time, turned into monsters by the unholy wind.

  The gale raged on forever, it seemed to Michael. The smell of rank swamp water mingled with the smell of crushed vegetation and dust. Michael thought about the flood wave and wondered how high it would reach. Surely not as far as the cave?

  Finally, the winds died away. Silence returned to the night. Moonlight straggled into their shelter. For the first time, he realized he was tired, the kind of numbing exhaustion that said he’d used more power than his body could afford.

  “Is it over?” asked Stefn in a small voice.

  Michael got up and stepped out into the open. His stomach dropped. Devastation met his horrified gaze. The hillside had been stripped clean of vegetation. The marsh was now a lake, clumps of debris floating on its turbulent surface. Already the currents had started to reverse, to rush back to the delta from whence all the water had come.

  “What have you done?” whispered Stefn, emerging into the moonlight behind him.

  “I don’t know,” he replied, voice cracking. Stefn said something else, but Michael didn’t hear. Instead, he turned inward, and sent out tendrils of k’na, seeking their horses. Nothing.

  “Come on,” he said harshly, wincing at the twinge in his temples.

  Without waiting to see if Stefn obeyed, he started along the bluff, noting how close the water had actually come to their cave and how high it was still. The wave had been larger than he’d thought! His heart thumped painfully; a cold, sickening knot of regret tightened in his gut.

  He hurried along the steep slope, using wet rocks as handholds, never minding when he slipped and fell. Had the wave been powerful enough to reach Blackmarsh itself? He started to run.

  A cry behind him brought him up short. Looking around, he saw Stefn tumbling, head over heels, down the embankment, straight toward the rushing, debris-choked water! Michael slid after him, terrified he’d fall in and be washed away.

  Inches from the surging tide, Stefn stopped and laid still, clinging desperately to a large root exposed by the flood. Michael reached him a moment later, wrapping his hand around one thin, bruised wrist, dragging him up and out of danger.

  “Let me go,” gasped Stefn. “I can walk,” and promptly went down again. Remembering his bad foot, Michael cursed and got his cethe back to his feet. Muddy, soaking wet and limping badly, Stefn would never make it back to Blackmarsh tonight. Nor, if he were honest, would he.

  Stefn’s teeth chattered audibly. In the dim glow of Michael’s witchlight, he was white as bone. Dark hair clung wetly to his head, falling into his eyes. His breath came and went, ragged. “We’ll go back to the cave,” Michael heard himself saying. “It should be easier in the morning.”

  Back in their shelter, Stefn collapsed to the sandy floor, hugging himself. Michael, almost as wet, felt the chill now, too. He sat next to Stefn and, after a moment, put his arm around him. Stefn responded by huddling closer. His body was rigid with cold.

  “Loth!” Michael said quietly. “You’re freezing.” He shifted around, settling the smaller man before him, and wrapped both arms around him. This time, there was a brief spate of resistance, but it ended quickly.

  “W-wish we could have a fire… ”

  “Everything’s soaked.”

  “Y-y-you’re a naragi. M-make fire out… out of n-nothing.”

  “All I know is Spark. It will light fires, but it only lasts… ” Michael broke off.

  He needed to stop thinking like a witch. Ordinarily, Spark only lasted an instant, but he was no longer ordinary. Surely he had enough strength left for this? Michael looked at the damp rocks at the mouth of the cave and focused on the largest. It began to glow.

  Warmth filled their small space and in his arms, Stefn gradually relaxed, becoming a limp, heavy weight against him. Michael let his head fall back against the cave wall and closed his eyes. The enervating, irresistible drag of over-extension made him long for sleep. Yet, as he sat there, Stefn’s body warm against his, he could not help wondering, if he were to take Stefn here, now, would he be replenished?

  Inexplicably, the very question made him squirm, as much with angry self-loathing as with the rush of heat the notion produced. He looked down at the dark head resting against his shoulder, hair soft and fine as silk. It did no good to remind himself that Stefn was much stronger and more resilient than he looked, or that he was an Eldering and a sacrifice to justice.

  Maybe it was the power of the Bond between them, but so what? Loth! How much easier it had been in the beginning, when he’d thought of Stefn as just another Hunter, deserving of his cruel fate. Michael stroked a wayward lock of hair back from Stefn’s forehead. Stefn murmured and nestled closer.

  Mi
chael touched his lips to that warm, dark hair and then laid his own cheek against it. That was all he dared allow himself. There was no reason to disturb his cethe, no reason he had to recover quickly. He wasn’t so tired that Sleep would not do the trick. The time would come when neither of them had a choice, but that time wasn’t tonight.

  “Lord Arranz! Wake up! Michael!”

  Michael started awake, staring blankly back at Stefn.

  “Someone’s out there.”

  Focus returned, but slowly. It felt as if he hadn’t slept a wink. Michael got up and went to the mouth of the cave. The quiet morning echoed with the clop of hooves and rattle of loose stone rolling down the bank toward the marsh. After a moment, he relaxed and stepped out into the morning sunlight, waving toward the riders approaching from the north. “Chris! Over here!”

  Chris spurred his horse forward, cantering along the foot of the cliffs to the cave.

  “Thank Loth!” he said, dismounting. A handful of guards accompanied him, coming along the narrow, treacherous path with more caution.

  “We feared the worst when the wave struck!” Chris clapped him on the shoulder, relief plain in his blue eyes.

  “Was Blackmarsh House affected? What of the villages?”

  “It never made it that far. By the time the wave got to the north marsh it was little more than a large swell. There were no deaths or injuries, but I’ve heard Fenery and Willowton were flooded and acres of peatland are likely saturated. If they don’t drain before the ground freezes, there will be a much smaller harvest this year than we’d planned.”

  No one was dead. Michael’s relief made him weak kneed. Chris frowned and inquired if he was all right. “You got caught in it, too, from the looks of you both.”

  “It was interesting,” agreed Michael with a warning look at Eldering. “I admit. I’m looking forward to a bath and a very long nap.”

  Chris ordered two of his men to give up their horses. “As to such a hope,” he said, getting back into the saddle, “we have a problem. We’ve got bloody Hunters demanding permission to search the estate for escaped Penitents. Father’s too ill to speak to them, and they won’t leave at my say-so, damn them!”