A Dark Inheritance

by Todd Herzman

  The leg untwisted. Hishem’s breath slowed. He stopped struggling and looked at his leg. He moved it, then stared at Peiter. ‘It… it doesn’t hurt anymore.’

  Peiter smiled. It was a warm smile. It seemed so genuine and happy, like the smile he’d given Marius earlier—the kind of smile Marius hadn’t seen in town since before the raiders had come. ‘I am sorry for the pain I caused.’ Peiter suddenly looked tired. ‘Now, let me have a look at your other wound.’

  Hishem nodded, cringing in anticipation. Peiter shifted on the floor, moving up from the man’s leg. He unwrapped the bandages covering the man’s wound. Hishem winced. Parts of the bandage were stuck, clinging to dry blood and scabs. The wound was black. Not the right colour for a wound. The monk put the bandage aside then looked at old Joslin.

  ‘Could you please fetch some water and a clean rag?’

  While Joslin was gone, Peiter closed his eyes. He rested his hands on his knees and took long breaths in and out. He looked less tired when he opened his eyes again, like the simple act of breathing had returned some of his lost energy. He grabbed Hishem’s hand, staring into the man’s eyes. Hishem hadn’t stopped looking at the black wound since the bandages had been unwrapped.

  ‘Look at me,’ Peiter said. Hishem didn’t seem to hear. ‘Look at me, Hishem.’

  Marius blinked as Hishem looked at Peiter. The monk had said the man’s name. Marius thought back to the moment Peiter had come into the room until now, trying to recall every second passed and every word said. No one had ever told Peiter Hishem’s name.

  Old Joslin returned with water and rag and placed them beside Peiter on the ground.

  Cleaning the wound looked painful. Hishem put on a brave face throughout. Marius couldn’t help but recall all the cuts and scrapes he’d gotten while running in the forest, the way those had hurt when they’d been cleaned. This must have been a hundred times worse.

  Hishem didn’t seem to have noticed Peiter’s use of his name, and old Joslin had been out of the room at the time. Perhaps the monk had heard it somehow—Marius didn’t think so. He thought it more likely the monk had divined it with his magic. He still didn’t know how to feel about the stranger. Peiter was healing the injured, and he’d been kind to Marius on the road and said he was here to help, even if his answers hadn’t made much sense. Perhaps he wasn’t someone to be afraid of—the adults didn’t seem wary of him, after all.

  Peiter finished cleaning the wound. He left the rag, stained with old blood and pus, in the water bucket. The wound didn’t look much better now it was clean. If anything, the fact it was festering became more clear.

  The monk put his hands together. The light returned, a shade dimmer than before, but it was there. He placed his hands on the wound. Hishem screamed. Joslin held him down again. Marius didn’t step back this time. Instead, he stepped forward. He wanted to get a closer look. He let Hishem’s screams fade away as he inspected the wound.

  The blackness disappeared. The skin reconnected, knitting back together. Where once Hishem’s cheeks had been deathly white, colour returned.

  Hishem stopped writhing. Peiter’s hands ceased glowing as he removed them from Hishem’s bare skin—the wound gone. Only a nasty-looking bruise remained, one already turned purple, on its way to healing. Peiter braced his hands on the floor. Dark circles had formed under his eyes. Marius thought he looked older by ten years, but adults always looked older when they were tired.

  ‘I must rest,’ Peiter said.

  Hishem’s hand shot out, gripping the monk’s shoulder. ‘Thank you.’

  Peiter nodded with a tired smile.

  ‘What of the others?’ Old Joslin didn’t look surprised at what had happened. She helped Peiter up from the ground. He stood on unsteady legs.

  ‘Healing Hishem has drained me. I shall have more energy tomorrow. Is there anywhere I may rest?’

  ‘You may take my bed,’ Joslin said. ‘I’ll rest on the floor.’

  The monk put his hands up and shook his head. ‘No, no. I shall sleep on the floor. I have done it plenty of times before, once more will not hurt. All I ask for is a blanket.’

  Joslin tried to insist, but the monk continued to refuse until Joslin conceded. Marius couldn’t help thinking the monk had used another kind of magic in getting Joslin to give in. He’d never seen the old lady back down so easily.

  Marius lingered in the doorway after old Joslin and the monk left.

  How different would his life be if Peiter had been there to heal his mother?

  Chapter 13

  Ruben

  The demon hadn’t come for two days. The others stayed quiet, no matter how many times Ruben called to them. He could hear them shifting in their cells, eating the slop the captors slipped under the bars.

  After his latest encounter with the demon, Ruben had woken numb again. But feeling had come back easier this time. Whatever source of power Ruben had inside had returned. A spark lit the fire again. He knew it didn’t burn hot enough to resist the demon, but being able to feel was resistance enough for now.

  Though he wondered if he’d be better off feeling numb.

  He stood. Shook his head. Punched the cell wall. No. I’m not allowed to give up. He let himself feel the rage. He needed to feed the fire.

  Ruben had power. He knew that now. He didn’t know what that power was, nor did he understand it, but whatever burned inside of him wasn’t just rage and anger. It was something more, something unearthed when the demon had taken his blood. It had to be more, else he wouldn’t have been able to push against the demon’s will.

  Ruben leant back against the cell wall, trying to recall every encounter with the demon. The first time, in the village, he’d come at the man with a hammer. His rage had been full then. He hadn’t even realised he was running until he was almost within striking distance. Yet the rage hadn’t prevented the demon from using his magic to control Ruben’s muscles. Ruben had been stopped short, made powerless. The rage hadn’t helped him resist. It hadn’t done a damn thing but make him run into danger.

  Ruben sat in centre of his cell. He crossed his legs and shut his eyes. He tried to feel the fire. Tried to let everything else fall away so his mind, his senses, could focus on whatever was inside. He took deep breaths to calm himself, as his mother had taught him years ago, as he had taught his siblings.

  Breathe, his mother had said after he’d thrown a tantrum in the smithy as a boy, don’t let the rage control you. Focus. Focus on your breath.

  Ruben focused as hard as he could. He felt himself inhale, felt his stomach rise. The wound on his neck stung and itched. His muscles were sore after he’d faced the demon’s will.

  He snapped his mind away from the pain, refocusing on his breath. The air at his nose was cold coming in, warmer as it left. The noises of the brig pricked at his ears. Wood creaking as the ship moved on the water. Soft snoring in the cell beside him. Footsteps somewhere overhead.

  Breathe. His thoughts slowed. He became more aware of his body, not just the wound, not just the soreness and fatigue. The fire. He drew his mind to the fire. He imagined he could see it burning inside him. The flames flickering. It warmed his muscles. The pain in his neck subsided—but not in the same way as when he’d been numb. Even his hands warmed.

  Ruben sweated. The fire inside roared. His breathing quickened instead of slowing. His hands were hot. He opened his eyes and almost jumped out of his skin.

  Flames.

  Real flames, in his hands! A fire in his cell. A fire coming from him. He stared at the flames in his palms for a second before standing and shaking them out. He patted his hands against the wall, trying to smother the flames but they only grew. His mind knew he should be in pain, but he must have been in shock because he only felt the heat and not the burn.

  Water. The water. He turned to the bars where the small bowl sat. He fell to his knees and thrust his hands inside—but the bowl was empty. He’d drunk it dry.

&n
bsp; Ruben dropped his head. He was exhausted. Spent. His will to resist fading. He shut his eyes. He’d known, since the demon had taken his blood, that he would likely die here. His captors were not slave traders but something else. Something worse. He let the flames burn. If he were to die, at least it wouldn’t be the demon who killed him. Maybe after the fire burned him to ash it would destroy the ship. Maybe his death would seal the demon’s fate.

  Ruben cracked an eye open. He was taking an awful long time to burn to death. He opened both eyes as he saw his hands. They were black with soot, the fire gone. Ruben stared. They’d been aflame, hadn’t they? He couldn’t have imagined it. How else would they have blackened? But where had the fire gone, and why wasn’t he burned?

  The fire inside was still there. He felt the heat in his gut. It burned stronger now, or perhaps he could just feel it more. Ruben sat back in the middle of his cell. His hands had been on fire. He’d caused it.

  Ruben had magic.

  Chapter 14

  Ella

  Ella climbed the rope ladder, stopping halfway to the crow’s nest. The ship’s spotter had seen land off the port bow. Despite spending weeks aboard, Ella had to work out which direction was which every time someone used a nautical term. Nautical. That was a new word for her, too. She faced the ship’s front, the bow, then looked left, the port. Then found the spot in between—the port bow.

  Ella couldn’t see the land that had been spotted from halfway up the ladder. The spotter in the crow’s nest peered through a cylindrical tube—a telescope. On Ella’s first week aboard the ship, Reena had let her borrow hers to peer out at sea. At the time, all it did was trigger her seasickness.

  Ella clung fast to the rope as the ship spun left. Reena’s first mate, Ephraim, was at the ship’s wheel. The short man grinned at her.

  ‘Hold fast, girl.’ Jacob stood below her, his feet planted on the deck, arms crossed. ‘Don’t let that bastard fling you over.’

  Ella looked at Ephraim, then back out at sea, toward where the land must be. She could almost make something out, but they were too far away. ‘It’s not falling in the water I’m worried about. Reena said we’re—we’re going to see a witch.’

  ‘Aye,’ Jacob said.

  ‘The witch is going to use me to find the blood mage.’

  ‘That so?’

  Ella looked at Jacob. She felt safer talking about these things from up on the ropes, and Jacob was easy to talk to. He was one of the older crew members. His hair streaked with grey, face leathery from years at sea. He was quiet, a listener. Like Ruben had been. Like her father had been.

  ‘What do you think that means, Jacob? What will the witch do to me? I mean, Reena wouldn’t put me in any danger, would she?’

  Jacob didn’t look up. He rarely met her eye when they talked. Not because he was ignoring her, it just seemed the way of him. ‘The captain would do anything to find her husband again. But don’t worry.’ He looked at her, which took her by surprise. ‘Cap’ don’t hurt her crew.’

  ‘I’m… I’m not her crew.’

  Jacob stared out to sea. ‘You sweep the deck every morning?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘You eat with the crew?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you train with the captain herself? I see you holding that sword each afternoon, sweat beading your brow, the way you listen to her every word. That all makes you part of this crew, much as anyone else here, whether you’ve been aboard a month or a year.’ He whistled sharply, almost making Ella lose her grip. He nodded over the bow. ‘Land.’

  Ella snapped her gaze in that direction. She could make it out now, the island. Gailopas. The one where the witch lived.

  ~

  Gailopas didn’t have a dock, so the crew lowered two small boats into the water. Being in a boat this small was another first for Ella, another on her list since leaving Billings.

  Soon, she’d meet her first witch. Not that she ever expected to meet a second.

  It was three to a boat, and not everyone was coming ashore. Ella sat in the first boat while Jacob pulled the oars. He had a stocky build, another thing that reminded her of her brother and father. They’d gotten it from smithing. Perhaps Jacob got his from rowing.

  Kelhi was the third in the boat. Ella hadn’t seen much of Kelhi since boarding the Serpentine and didn’t know much about her. She was a few years older than Ruben. She had straight dark hair and olive skin like Reena, but those were the only similarities. Her hands were smooth, callous-free. She didn’t look like a sailor. Or a fighter.

  The second boat was behind them. It had Reena and Joel, with Ephraim at the oars, his rowing not so swift or smooth as Jacob’s.

  It didn’t take long to reach the beach. When the boat met shallow water, Jacob jumped out and pulled it ashore—the weight of the two girls inside seeming insubstantial to him. Ella took Jacob’s hand and climbed over the side of the little boat. Her boots sunk into the sand. She stared down. Sand. She’d never stood in sand before. She took a few steps. It reminded her of walking through mud, the same sinking feeling.

  ‘Never been on a beach before?’ Jacob eyed her with the hint of a grin.

  Ella looked ahead. The sand sloped up to meet a twisting path between two large, rocky hills.

  ‘This is the only safe place to land on the island.’ Jacob pulled the empty boat farther up the beach and saw her raise an eyebrow at him. ‘So the tide don’t catch her later.’

  The path was narrow. She couldn’t imagine more than a wagon fitting through. Though she wasn’t sure how someone could get a wagon on a beach without a dock.

  Ella heard two splashes behind her and turned to see Ephraim and Joel in the water, pulling Reena’s boat. When the boat met the sand, Reena vaulted over the side in one smooth motion, letting the two men pull the boat up next to Jacob’s.

  Reena walked to stand beside Ella, her athletic grace barely affected by her feet sinking in the sand. The captain looked up and Ella followed her gaze. The sky was a clear blue. The weather had been rocky in the deep water, till they’d gotten closer to the island.

  ‘Think it’ll rain?’ Jacob said.

  Not a cloud in the sky, Ella thought. How could it rain?

  Reena smirked. ‘Depends if she sees us, and what she thinks about us coming.’ Reena continued up the beach, Jacob following, then Ephraim. Joel took a position behind Ella and Kelhi, his hand resting on the cutlass at his hip. They walked single file up the twisted path.

  She? Ella thought. The witch?

  The path was littered with small rocks—and the occasional big one—that must have fallen from the walls either side. The walls stretched high, almost in a straight line, and came together at the top to make a gap just big enough for a person to fit through—or a barrage of arrows. Ella shivered at the thought. The walls made the path dark. A strip of blue peeked through the gap overhead, but the sun was on the wrong side to bless the pass with its light. She doubted it would shine here for more than a few minutes a day.

  No one spoke as they walked. From Ella’s limited experience, sailors were only this quiet when they expected something bad to happen—their ship to hit a rock below the waterline, dark clouds on the horizon to bring a storm, or a glimpse of unfriendly sails across deep waters. It was a silence of anticipation, and it weighed heavy on her nerves.

  Half an hour passed in careful steps. Just when Ella thought the path would stretch on forever, the rock walls opened to a clearing. The group was met by green grass and lush trees. Birds—feathers of red, blue, and green—flitted above their heads, whistling in unfamiliar ways.

  ‘It’s beautiful,’ Ella said.

  Mountain walls surrounded a valley larger than Ella’s village. Sunlight assailed her eyes, and she had to shield them to spot the houses far ahead. Reena, still at the front of the group, stepped forward and took out her telescope.

  The valley darkened. Ella glanced up to see clouds moving fast. The whi
te clouds turned grey, fleeing across the sky to block the sun. A water droplet fell on her nose. Then another, until it was pouring rain. Thunder clapped. The group moved toward the rock wall, finding cover under an overhanging cliff—but the water moved sideways by then. It soaked through her clothes. The cold bit at her skin. Ella shivered, teeth clattering. She’d never seen the weather change so fast.

  Lightning illuminated the dark. Ephraim’s hand shot up beside her, pointing at something through the rain. Ella looked where he pointed but couldn’t see well enough. When the lightning came again, she spotted something. A figure, walking toward them from the village.

  The witch.

  Joel stepped in front of Reena, a hand on his cutlass. Reena grabbed his arm and they exchanged a look. Joel’s hand fell back to his side.

  Lightning flashed again. The witch was right in front of them.

  Chapter 15

  Marius

  Ever since Peiter arrived, Marius had stopped walking down the sea road. Ella had passed through Devien more than a week ago. Wherever she was now, she wasn’t here. Marius hoped she was saving Ruben, but he’d stopped hoping she would be a short walk away on the sea road, heading home toward him. His sister and brother were gone. Marius would have to learn to live without them.

  He sat in the village square, elbows resting on knees, hands propping up his head, watching as Hishem hammered a post into the ground. The man’s leg looked as if it’d never been twisted. Every now and then, Hishem would touch his side, not yet fully healed—but healed enough for him to be up and about. Karli and Decius were nearby. Karli held a plank steady as Decius hammered in nails. Her head wound healed; his leg wound healed.

  Over the course of three days, Peiter had healed them each in turn. It was almost noon, and the monk was still asleep back at old Joslin’s. Marius didn’t know how Peiter could sleep with the noise of her place. If he were anyone else, old Joslin would have woken him up by now. But he seemed to need the rest. Healing Hishem, Karli, and Decius had taken its toll.