by Greg Curtis
One other thing had become clear to her as well now that she'd spoken to the woman. Once she'd finished making the arrangements with the Court, she was heading back to the southern border. Sooner or later the spiders were going to attack, and they would need every walker they had to hold the portal walls. Even her.
Chapter Thirty Seven
Four days and four more dimensional prisons pulled down and the prisoners broken free. They were back on the job and Manx thought he should be glad of that. And maybe he was. But he was also sad.
Adern was still back in Westemere. Slowly recovering. But the walker would never be the man he had been. And he was just too young to be old. Manx missed his friend's cheer. And by the gods he even missed Larissa who was staying there with him. She was a hard woman. She didn't suffer fools gladly, and as far as she was concerned he was most definitely a fool. And yet he liked her. He missed her.
As for his new partners, he still wasn't sure about them. Styl was a very young woman, at least in the way she looked and acted. Little more than a silly girl really. And she laughed and smiled a lot, often when she shouldn't. And when she did her ears jiggled up and down as though they were made of rubber. She just wasn't serious enough, he thought. But despite that and despite the fact that she was a shaman of Mya instead of Ao, she could do the job Larissa did. And maybe he was just too serious.
Brand was different. Very different. Manx found it hard to get to know him. He was a walker but he was also a monk. Moreover a monk from a very different time and place to what Manx was familiar with. He shaved his head completely so that not a single hair remained. Manx didn't know why save that it was a form of tonsure. But most monks only shaved a small patch on the top of their heads. Yet he had to admit a bald head seemed to sit well with someone with three eyes. It looked almost appropriate.
In keeping with his status as a monk, Brand always spoke slowly and only after carefully considering his words from every angle. That was probably a wise thing to do. But the man never smiled let alone laughed.
What Manx didn't understand was how the man could be a monk and a follower of Temperance – the Mother of Serenity – and have magic but somehow not be a shaman. He'd thought that if you had magic and followed one of the gods that was what you became. But it seemed he was wrong. He was wrong about a lot of things to be fair.
Whitey however loved his new partners. Or at least she absolutely adored Styl – and the shaman adored her back. In fact she picked the cat up constantly, hugged and kissed her, never called her names, and most importantly as far as Whitey was concerned, fed her every chance she could. Was the woman mad?! Did she not hear the terrible things the cat kept saying, Manx wondered? Or care how bossy and inconsiderate and utterly selfish she was?
But as much as he wanted to ask, he didn't dare. Whitey had threatened him with endless, unnamed torments if he took away her new best servant. And he tended to think she might actually be serious about that. He might be losing a cat, he suspected.
Manx wasn't sure how he felt about that. In fact as he and the others walked back to their accommodation for the night and he listened to the fool girl telling the cat how adorable and pretty she was, it confused him. He wasn't sure whether he should be pleased the cat was finally finding a new home or upset that she was leaving him. Some days he suspected, he had a loose cog somewhere in his head.
“Going somewhere?”
A rough voice startled Manx out of his musings and he looked up to see a man step out into the road in front of him. A man that he was sure he'd never seen before, and yet who looked strangely familiar.
And then it came to him. Who he was. And Manx couldn't believe it.
“Theo.” He named his older brother, surprised that he could. He didn't remember him at all – but he knew him.
“So you do remember!”
“No.” Manx shook his head. “Not a thing about you.” It was the truth, strange as it might seem, but he wasn't worried about that. He was worried about why his brother was standing in front of him. And why there were others with him.
They were standing back a ways, trying not to be noticed. But he saw the three others in the street and knew as his heart began racing a little faster in his chest, that this wasn't a social call. There were also two more behind them. One on each side, waiting he would guess to pounce. He could hear them.
But there was more. The woman in front of him and to the right was his older sister Caylee, and he knew though he hadn't known it until just then, that the first of the Smythes to attack him had been his cousin Darry. Darry Walton, and a man who was certain he'd never met or even seen before.
Still, none of that mattered. Not even how he knew these things. What did matter was that this was not a friendly visit.
“Then how –?” Theo began.
“Guys!” Manx cut him off and raised his voice a little so that the rest of his group could hear him. “Go on to the boarding house please. I'll be with you shortly. And in case they didn't understand what he meant he held out his arm a little and called his weapon to him. But this time it was no mere dagger that came to him. It was a quarterstaff. And it had his family's name on it.
“That's … unexpected,” Theo commented.
“It seemed appropriate when you brought friends,” Manx replied.
“Are you sure?” Styl asked nervously.
“This is Smythe family business, and there's only half a dozen of them. It won't take me long to deal with them.” The unexpected thing wasn't that he could say that with confidence, it was that he knew it was true. He had no fear of them, and most of his thinking was about calculating how they'd move and how he'd counter and strike back. For some reason he knew exactly how to strike, with a weapon he'd never even held before.
“Brave words!” Theo's eyes narrowed. “Especially when we only came to talk.”
“No you didn't. You came because I tore cousin Darry apart and that troubled you. And because I recovered the Window of Freda, when you thought it was completely safe. Hidden from the world and completely forgotten. As you wanted.”
“What?!” Theo looked shocked.
“The Silver Order paid our family a hideous amount of gold for our services. More than they they gave them estates and titles. It was everything a lineage of thieves and cut throats could have dreamed of. But that wasn't why our ancestors stole the window. They had a far more compelling reason. And I'm not sure you even know it.”
But he did. The understanding, the knowledge was there in his head even though no one had ever told him. Just as he knew when his brother stretched ever so slightly to his left, that he was preparing to attack.
Then he struck, leaping on Manx like a wildcat, and moving faster than lightning inside his shadow. He planned on ending this before it began. Unfortunately he hadn't counted on having the end of a quarterstaff rammed straight into his midriff so fast that he never saw it move. Nor on then having it then brought crashing down on his shoulder breaking bones and bringing him down to the street just at Manx' feet.
“But I know it,” he told his brother as he lay there, grunting with pain. He told the others too as they stood there, staring at their leader in shock. Theo was undoubtedly the strongest among them, while he was a cripple. They hadn't expected this. It left them trying to decide what to do.
“You see a long time ago, when the spell-casters returned to the world, I was told two important things. Though neither of them seemed that important at the time. The first was that it was the gods who decided what magical gifts spell-casters should have and what forms they should take. That it was in fact Ao, the Goddess of the Wild and Nature who granted these gifts.”
His story was cut short then as the rest finally came to a decision and attacked him. As a pack they gathered their shadow to them and then struck. Five on one. But still for some reason, Manx wasn't frightened. Instead he just drew his own shadow and calmly waited.
They were fast. Powerful and deadly. But every move they had he already
knew how to counter. A woman tried to plunge her black dagger straight into his heart, quick and simple. But even as the dagger came for him he twisted aside, let it and her arm pass then smashed her in the gut with the quarterstaff, before ducking under another dagger in another hand.
Then even as he was bringing the quarter staff down from above and behind the holder of that blade, breaking his arm cleanly, he used the other end to smash someone else in the face. Manx couldn't exactly say how he did it. But he simply seemed to know which way to move even without having to see the others. There was a pattern to it, and he simply followed it.
Before he even knew it, two more of his fellow Smythes were down, lying on the ground, moaning in pain as they clutched broken body parts, and only three were left. But that became two when one of them tried to use his shadow to strike down from above, thinking to skewer him from over his head. He was thinking something else when Manx's quarterstaff found his legs and spun him around in mid flight sending him streaking off into a distant store window still spinning out of control.
Caylee used that instant when he was out of position to strike at his side, but he twisted again and the dagger went streaking just past his belly. A moment later the staff caught her in the face as he continued the spin, and she went flying off backwards, screaming.
A scream caught his attention as he surveyed his handiwork and made him spin, just in time to see that the only one of his opponents still standing had grabbed Styl from behind and was holding a knife to her throat.
“Let it go!” He screamed almost hysterically at Manx, staring wild-eyed at his companions lying on the ground. But before he could say anything else a streak of white and tabby had flown up his body and dug her claws into his face.
The man screamed, clutched at his injuries, and Manx used the shadow to cross the distance between them and smash him in the nose with the end of his weapon before he could react. That brought him crashing to the ground.
Then there was only one man left, and he crawled out of the store window, bleeding from head to foot. The glass had clearly torn him apart. It was actually a mercy for him when Manx stepped over and smashed him on the back of the head, knocking him out. At least he knew no more pain.
After that Manx just stood there, staring at the bodies lying on the ground, and wondering at how he had achieved that. But he didn't really have to wonder. He knew. Just as he knew he had looked in a window with the light flowing through it less than a week before and seen a woman staring back at him. She'd told him then what he needed to know. He just hadn't realised it.
Meanwhile Styl and Whitey were practically falling all over one another. The shaman was hugging the cat and telling her how brave she was and promising her food without end, and the cat was purring ecstatically and lapping up all the praise even as she was dreaming of all the food to come.
It was sickening!
Manx shook his head then turned away and walked back to the middle of the street where most of the bodies lay. He didn't want to see that! And he had a story to finish. One that should probably be heard.
He had an audience too. Not just the three of his fellow Smythes who were still conscious. Not even the rest of his party. Once the fighting had finished many of the locals had come a little closer to see what was happening – and strangely that included a flock of geese.
“So where was I?” he asked the air. “Oh that's right. Our ancestors had stolen the Window of Freda – but for their own reasons. Because of the second thing I was told. That Smythes were the only spell-casters who had no outward trait to reveal their magic. No antlers, no horns, no glowing eyes.”
“I thought nothing of that of course. Why would I? I was just who I was. Who I had always been. Why would I want to be different?”
“But a week ago, less, we recovered the window and I looked into it and saw Freda. And now I understand.”
“We aren't actually special because of that. We're simply not finished!”
Manx took a deep breath to collect his words, and maybe because he was a little winded from the fight.
“The gods grant us our gifts. Ao first sees the potential within some people and grants them a little of her wild fire. But she is a Goddess of Nature and Wilderness. What she grants is chaotic. Powerful but uncontrolled. And above all, dangerous.”
“Freda, the Goddess of Knowledge and Wisdom, then takes that fire and shapes it. She focuses it into specific gifts and spells. And she also places limitations on the magic. Making sure that none of the magical peoples can rule. And when that's done the two of them reshape the flesh of the people to match the magic within them.”
“We are incomplete.”
“Our ancestors knew that. They understood that sooner or later their magic would be reshaped. And that their forms would change. And they didn't want that. It might weaken them. Besides what thief or brigand would want their nature shown to the world? One glance and everyone would suspect them.”
“So when the Silver Order asked them to steal the Window of Freda, they were only too glad to do so. Without it, they thought her ability to reshape the world – and themselves – would be limited.”
“But the window is returned now. Restored to its rightful place. And the wisdom and knowledge of the Goddess is returned to the world.” Manx paused for a moment to let them think on what he'd told them.
“And so too, is our final form. The decisions have been made. And we are becoming. There is no stopping it.”
His story done, Manx turned his gaze away from his family to the party and checked that they were alright. He was sure they would be, but he wanted to make certain. Unfortunately what he mostly saw was Styl cradling Whitey in her arms like a little baby, and the two of them telling each other how adorable they were. He didn't want to see that!
“We should go,” he told them. And then he continued on their path down the street, carefully avoiding stepping on his family members who were still lying on the cobbles, broken and bleeding.
The small crowd that had gathered parted to let him pass. The geese got out of the way as well, though they honked in protest at the inconvenience. And soon the unpleasantness was behind him. Except of course for the cat and the shaman.
“You had a vision?” Brand asked as they walked.
“I was shown some things when I looked in the window,” Manx told him. “But I didn't realise that until just now.” Which made very little sense to him. How could you know things without knowing that you knew them? Or for that matter, ever remember being told them?
“Were you shown anything about our stolen lives?”
“No.” Manx stopped and looked straight at the monk. “And yes. I was told – or I know – not to worry about it.” He shrugged. “But that's as much as I know.”
“It's a good thing to know,” Brand replied. “A hopeful thing. Truly Temperance's garden blooms with hope.”
Manx nodded. He didn't really understand what the Monk meant. He wasn't a follower of the Goddess of the Heavenly Garden and knew little of the faith. Still it sounded good. And maybe, he thought, this had been a good day. A hopeful one.
They needed some hope, he thought, as he watched a small herd of spear sheep cross the street in front of them, heading for green pastures. And some shepherds!
Chapter Thirty Eight
Things had changed near Hammersmith Sorsha realised as the glider came to a halt. Now there were tents set up everywhere. A huge outdoor dining area. And even a trench dug for wastes. There were also surely hundreds of gliders sitting on the ground. And as each one carried nine or ten people, thousands of spell-casters. That was a welcome sight to see.
But as their numbers had increased, so too had the numbers of spiders surrounding the dirt cities. Now they guessed, fifty thousand green spiders were keeping guard around each of them. And that was only what was on top of the ground. Underneath in the cities, were millions more. All ready to attack. And they didn't actually know how many cities there were. She could only pray th
at they didn't attack as one. Or soon.
“You shouldn't be here you know.”
Sorsha looked around to see a familiar figure walking towards her as she got off the glider. Larissa. What was she doing here she wondered?
“And neither should you,” she told the shaman. “You're supposed to be resting. And looking after Adern. In Westemere.”
“I was. Until Maxwell Smythe recovered the window. That young man is a godsend.” She paused for a moment. “Maybe literally.” Then she held out her hand with a simple wooden necklace dangling from her fingers. “Put this on.”
Sorsha took the necklace from her and did as she said, noticing that her driver was also being given one of them. And the shaman herself was wearing one as well. “What is this?”