Salt Magic, Skin Magic

by Lee Welch

  The pins were no good against this wind. John fumbled out a handful of salt. He was on rough grass, no chance of making a sigil here, yet make one he must. He had a vague idea of getting his jacket off and making the sigil on that, when he felt the salt trickling out of his grasp, but not from the bottom of his fist, from the top. It was trying to make a line in the air.

  He sketched the sigil that came into his mind. It was one he knew well; Amalthea’s Mark, for increase. How could that help? But he made the lines anyway, running on instinct, trusting the salt. He had only to add the final trinity of dots when he ran out of salt.

  His pocket was empty. Perhaps he could take a pinch or two from the lines he’d already made.

  Prout had dragged Soren back to the estate. But even as John glanced up, Soren twisted out of Prout’s grip and tried to jab him in the eye with a thumb. Warren was running to help Prout. Abbott was bent over, probably loading the fowling piece again.

  Another of those blasts of foul wind and water hit John. He hunched over the floating sigil, protecting it with his body, but some of the salt was blown away anyway. The lines were now so thin they were only just visible. Would it still work? There could be no taking any for the three dots now. How could he get salt? The Petit Clé was too far away.

  Salt.

  Salt water; his clothes were drenched with it from the spell wind.

  He’d never used his clothes for magic, but the suit he was wearing had been absorbing it for months. He’d noticed, without really noticing, that his older suits stayed cleaner than his newer ones. Was that magic? Perhaps.

  He asked the suit to give him the salt and held out his hand, palm open. The suit trembled, rippled, vibrated. It was like wearing a swarm of bees. And a small grey drop of sludge dripped from his cuff and into his hand. Behind him, he could hear dull thuds as blows fell, the grunts and gasps of men in pain and mortal effort. Another shot hit him in the back. He hissed with pain, but didn’t stop working. The first drop was joined by another. There wasn’t much: a pinch, and not dry. He made the trinity—they were tiny grey smudges, hardly dots at all. Then someone grabbed the scruff of his jacket and jabbed the muzzle of a pistol into his neck.

  “Stop that or I’ll shoot you like a dog,” Dalton snarled.

  But it was too late. The sigil glowed red. There was a tremendous pulse of magic, like nothing he had ever felt before. It was accompanied by a roaring sound, as if a steam train was coming. Something hit John on the head and shoulders, knocking him down. And then there was silence.

  The pistol was gone from his neck. And the world had turned sparkling white. He got to his feet; he was the only man standing. He turned, slowly, stunned. Lord Dalton lay behind him, barely visible beneath a thick glittering layer of salt. Other prone bodies lay about, outlines rounded, as if they lay beneath snow.

  Then one of the bodies staggered to its feet. Soren, covered in salt dust, so he looked like a moving statue. He took slow steps, as if wading through glue, but he knew exactly where to go. John had thought Dalton had the pelt, but Soren went straight to Abbott, fell to his knees beside the prone body and started flinging great glittering handfuls of salt aside. Then he picked up the pelt. He knelt, unmoving, staring at it.

  “Soren!” John called.

  Soren’s head jerked up. His face was a mask of blood, covered in white salt dust. His eyes were totally black, not a sliver of white or colour anywhere, and his lips were drawn back from his teeth. He looked like a demon about to attack. Then he blinked, and his eyes were their usual light grey, and his mouth took on a more natural shape. He glanced at the pelt, and said, almost conversationally, “I must go.”

  He might have been at his tailor, and remembered an appointment with his bootmaker. The lack of emotion in his voice sent a shiver up John’s spine.

  “Soren, wait—”

  But Soren had already thrust the pelt inside his shirt and vaulted the fence. He was running back towards Raskelf. For a man with a cut chest, a raw ankle and a scarred foot who’d just been in a truly filthy fist-fight, he put on a fine turn of speed.

  John followed him as far as the fence, and stopped.

  Something was calling him, begging not to be left behind. The salt! Not the glittering blanket that had come from nowhere, but his salt. He’d lost most of it, but a good quarter was still in the Petit Clé. He glanced at Soren’s disappearing figure. But he couldn’t desert the salt. It had helped so much. And it was beseeching him to take it with him.

  He could catch up with Soren. Though why the devil he was running back to Raskelf, and not away, John could not guess for the life of him.

  He ran back around the mausoleum. The Petit Clé had escaped the avalanche from Amalthea’s Mark, which was surely no coincidence, and lay startling white on the grey stone block, in exactly the shape he’d left it. It adhered to itself like magnetised iron filings, so that it came into his hand easily, all of a piece. He shoved it in his pocket and took the chimera key out of the lock. Then he heard a cry from one of his pins and went to retrieve that, then another, and another. He had to dig for them. One he had to pull bloody from Farrell’s thigh. The salt creaked like snow as he walked on it. All about was a tremendous smell of ozone, like the beach after a storm, warring with the rank smell of salt. He could hear one of Dalton’s men groaning, a feeble sound, but clearly they were not dead. Or not all of them.

  He paused beside the motionless figure of the Marquess, buried under the salt. Should he check if the man was alive? Find the other pelt? Take it? See if that would break the curse? He knelt and shoved armfuls of salt aside, thrust back Dalton’s coat and felt for the pelt. Nothing. He glanced up. He could just see Soren in the distance, about to vanish behind a huge rhododendron.

  Damn Dalton. Damn the man. If Soren was free, John was going with him. If Soren would have him. He climbed the fence and began to run. He was faster, but Soren had a good lead now. Soren stumbled occasionally, once falling, but getting up and running again. He didn’t look back.

  When he got to the house, Soren ignored the knot of people standing at the western end, gaping and exclaiming at the hole. Lady Dalton was one of them, but she didn’t call out, as the others did, as first Soren and then John tore past. She stood, slightly apart from the others and watched them go. John hoped she was all right; that Dalton had given her the child she wanted.

  Soren ran past the house and into the stables, and John realised, finally, what he was doing. When John got to the stableyard himself, panting and dripping with sweat, Soren was up on Lord Dalton’s big chestnut thoroughbred. The creature must have fled home at some point. Now Soren was taking it. An old stablehand was pleading with him, a hand on the reins. Soren shook his head, and said, in a voice of command John had never heard from him, “No, damn you. Out of my way.” He sounded remarkably like his father.

  He gave a wordless shout and dug his heels into the chestnut’s sides. The horse leapt forward, hooves striking sparks on the flags. As he clattered past, Soren glanced down at John. John thought for a moment he would ride straight past, but once out of the stableyard and onto the grass, the big chestnut suddenly wheeled. Soren made it turn two small circles, all the while looking at John. The drying blood and salt dust on his face made it difficult to read his expression. Was he waiting? Deciding whether to wait? Saying good-bye?

  Part of John wanted to run and get another horse, but he couldn’t look away. He found himself shaking his head, as if to say, No, no, no, but what he was saying no to, he wasn’t sure.

  Soren said again, “I must go.”

  There was a trace of regret in his voice, John was sure of it. Soren was trying to explain.

  “I know. I’ll come,” he said, but Soren was already gone, sending the horse at a gallop across the parkland, leaning low, heading north-east.

  Chapter Thirteen

  John turned back to the stable yard. The rangy-looking bay Warren had been riding stood at the far end, still saddled and bridled, the old stable-h
and holding its head. John ran up to them.

  “Sir, what’s going on? His lordship’ll kill Lord Thornby. He don’t let no one ride Pendragon. Where is Lord Dalton? All these horses—no riders—what’s going on?”

  “Give me that horse.” John mounted. He’d had lessons at the Institute, but seldom ridden since.

  “Watch her, sir. She drops her shoulder,” the old man called.

  She jinked left, shaking her head. John’s heart was thundering in his chest. He knew no magic for horses. He’d have to do this the ordinary way. She shot out of the stable yard sideways, trying to drop her shoulder like the old man had said. He sent her at a gallop the way Soren had gone, and she went, grudgingly, shaking her head and trying all the time to veer left and circle back to the house. This part of the park was heavily wooded, and he cursed the trees and the gracefully curving paths that hid Soren from view. But here and there he saw a fresh hoof-print, carved deep into the wet grass, and sometimes a divot that had flung free.

  In any case, he thought he could guess where Soren was going.

  The moors.

  There was something about the moors that sang of freedom—the great skies above, the distances stretching out, the gentle rises and endless horizons. John thought that if he’d been stuck at Raskelf for over a year, the moors would have called to him, too. Soon, he saw the pine spinney near the place he’d grabbed Soren’s elbow—was it really only a week ago? He looked around, heart falling, realising he’d been half expecting Soren to wait for him here.

  He found a sheep trail that led east and went along it at a brisk trot. It led over the brow of the hill, and a huge grey-green vista opened out, relieved here and there by a black and twisted thorn-bush. And there was Soren—heading north-east, apparently making for a cairn about a mile away. John adjusted his heading. Perhaps Soren would wait for him at the cairn.

  But he did not.

  Nor did he wait at the brow of the next hill, nor the next, nor any of the places where one man might reasonably wait for another. Yet he stayed within sight, and John began to feel he was doing so deliberately. At one point the hills folded in such a way that he lost sight of Soren for what felt like an age. He was beginning to think he would stop and make a sigil and look for the tracker stone, when he saw horse and rider silhouetted against the skyline ahead, not quarter of a mile away. But the moment he saw them, they disappeared again over the brow of the hill.

  And so the day wore on. Soren set a spanking pace, and didn’t wait for him again—if indeed he’d waited at all—but the moorland was truly open here, and John didn’t lose sight of him for long. And John still didn’t know for sure where Soren was going.

  Though the further they went to the east, the more an idea was growing in his mind. All the clues the magic had given him—the shells, the barnacles, the octopus. And Dalton’s obsession with coastal Scotland and Ireland. John was beginning to think the whole business with seaweed was just that—a bit of business to disguise what Dalton really wanted; to be near the sea. And to be near those things that come from it.

  The more he thought about the pelt he’d taken from the mausoleum, the more he was sure it was not from any kind of dog, or cat, or from any animal that goes about on four legs. And, it seemed clear, it was not an ordinary token; it was more fundamental to Soren than that. He was, after all, not quite human.

  Perhaps, despite everything, Soren did not trust that John would let him keep it. The idea gnawed at him. It was so unfair. And yet, he was so tired he began to wonder, after a while, if in fact he was chasing Soren. Not just to be with him, but indeed to take the pelt and keep him. Forever. Mine.

  And have Soren hate him? What a hellish forever it would be. Just tired, he thought. Just so tired. Too much magic. The mind played tricks.

  About the middle of the afternoon, they started to descend for the last time. In the distance was a leaden gleam, like a slab of pewter under the dove-grey sky. The sea. John reached a cairn marking the end of the way across the moors. And, hanging from a protruding stone, was a ripped black tailcoat, streaked with salt dust and spattered with blood. John reached up and took it down.

  He could almost imagine it was still warm. He rode on. The sough of the sea was getting louder. Gulls were mewling like juvenile demons in the sky. It set his teeth on edge and he had to keep reminding himself they were harmless birds. Then the world seemed to open out and he was on the edge of it, with the sea close below and the sea-wind on his face.

  His horse stopped abruptly, goggling at a black shirt flapping like a downed crow on the coarse grass. He dismounted and picked it up. The ground in front of him sloped so steeply he left the horse. He stumbled down the slope, half running, half sliding.

  And there, just ahead of him, perhaps twenty yards further down, stood Soren, the pelt waving in his hand like a flag. He was standing at a place where the grass became rock and the rock fell away to the sea. His breeches, stockings, and shoes lay on the rock behind him. He stood naked, looking down into the tumult of the waves, sea spray flying around him, hair wild. He glanced back to where John had come to a halt on the slope. One quick glance. John thought he saw a white flash of teeth. A smile? A snarl?

  Then Soren leapt from the rock, the pelt spreading up his arm and enveloping him, changing him in a fluid, impossible way. And a moment later a seal breached the surface, looked around, and then vanished beneath the waves.

  John scrambled down and knelt at the edge, calling. The vast muscles of the sea heaved, rising and falling. Sea foam lay in lacy patterns on the surface, impeding his view of the depths. Icy spray got in his eyes, and he wiped his face frantically. He noticed a dark shape, sinuous, moving, and his heart leapt. But it moved again, in exactly the same way and in exactly the same place, and he realised it was his own reflection.

  He’d shouted himself hoarse. He was wet with sea-water. His hands, clinging to the edge of the rock, stung from where he’d scraped them and the sea salt had got in. Then a larger wave came over the edge, wetting him to the elbows, taking his breath away with its cold, sucking at him as it withdrew. He lost his grip, grabbed at an outcrop to save himself from falling. He couldn’t swim. If he fell, he would be dashed against the rocks and drowned. He found a different rock he could grip properly, but a few minutes later, that was underwater too. The tide was coming in.

  He backed away from the edge. Another wave wet his feet. As it withdrew, it tumbled something black along with it. He darted forward and grabbed it; a pair of sodden black silk breeches. If Soren came back, he would want them.

  If he came back.

  If.

  John scoured the rocky shelf and the grassy slope for Soren’s clothes. He knelt and bowed his head to catch the scent of them. Once it was gone, no perfumier could bring it back; no musk could ignite the blood, no wood or ambergris delight in the same way.

  Seal people; selkies. John had heard of them from the same Irish washerwoman who’d told him stories of Fionn MacCoull when he was a child. Selkies were from the same world as the hedgehog creature, but of the sea, not the land, though they could travel between both. One could trap them in their human form by taking their sealskins. A few images from a story came to him; a lonely fisherman, a stolen sealskin, and a weeping woman. But had the story ended happily or in tragedy? He couldn’t remember. It was too long ago; more than twenty years since he’d listened to fairy tales.

  And yet, here he was, living in one.

  He held the cold clothes. He could feel the tracker stone, a little fizz of magic near the centre of the bundle. It was useless now. Soren had cast it aside without a thought.

  Everything ached, as though Soren had unravelled John’s heart and lungs and entrails, and dived into the sea with them, leaving him empty on the shore. He should take action, but he felt like a piece of limp seaweed cast up on the grassy slope. He couldn’t leave. If Soren came back, he must be here. Waiting.

  Eventually, he got to his feet. He folded the dry clothes in a neat pile
and found a place to sit on a raised outcrop on the rocky shelf. He spread the wet breeches out to dry, weighing them down with rocks.

  He got out the sand, the glass-eye and the spancel and set up the charm. Something seemed to complain as he set the magic through it—the spancel kept blowing in the sea-wind—probably that was the problem. What about the horses? If Soren came back, they might want them. Later. He sat cross-legged inside the spancel, Soren’s clothes beside him.

  After a while—it could have been minutes or it could have been hours—he heard a low thunder that wasn’t the sea. Horses. He could hear shouts. The sun was nearly down and it was getting cold. He stood with difficulty, because he was so stiff, and turned his back on the sea.

  It wasn’t just Dalton and his men. They’d brought a portly, self-important looking fellow who was probably the local magistrate, half a dozen nervous-looking soldiers with muskets, and a rag-tag of villagers.

  They could see him. Surely, they could. They were riding straight for him. They were stopping. He knelt to check his charm. It had been blown about, but the spancel was closed. The sand was set right. The eye—he turned it over to see a shatter-mark like a spider-web marring its blue stare. It had tried to tell him. If he’d paid more attention when he’d set the charm, if only he’d listened—

  The magistrate brought his horse forward, peering down the hill. “John Blake, I am arresting you for the murder of Soren Dezombrey, Lord Thornby. You can come quietly, or my men can bring you in chains.”

  Murder? That, he had not expected. Though he should have.

  “I’m innocent,” he said.

  “Then where is Lord Thornby?”

  “He—” Instead of mooning around over Soren’s clothes he should have been thinking, planning. But instead he’d managed to lead them straight to the spot where Soren had gone into the water. “He’s escaped. And I charge Lord Thornby’s father, Lord Dalton, with the kidnapping and unlawful imprisonment of Lord Thornby. I have helped right that wrong. I am Lord Thornby’s friend.”