Nomad

by R. J. Anderson

  What if the same thing had happened to the spriggans? The women dragged underground to join the piskeys, the men murdered or forced into exile, until none of them remained? She’d tried to push the thought aside—after all, even if it was true, it had happened a long time ago and there was nothing she could do about it. But her dream had dragged all those dark fears and guilty feelings to the surface.

  “There were spriggans in my dream,” she said reluctantly, “but they weren’t hurting anyone. The knockers, the piskey miners… they were attacking them.” She went on to describe everything she’d seen, from the time the boy’s father had shaken him awake to the moment the fogou collapsed.

  “So when you cried out,” said Martin when she had finished, “it wasn’t for yourself. It was for him. That boy.”

  Even now, the memory brought a lump to Ivy’s throat. “It felt so real. Like a vision of something that had really happened…”

  “Maybe it was.” Martin moved to join her. “I’ve heard of faeries who can see hidden things, or even look into the future—we call it the Sight. Don’t piskeys have anything like that?”

  We, he’d said. So he still thought of himself as a faery, part spriggan or not. “No,” said Ivy. “At least, not any piskey that I’ve ever met. And I’ve never had visions before, have you?”

  Martin folded his arms and frowned down at them, his brow creased with thought. Then he said, “What makes you so sure the boy and the others in this tunnel-thing—the fogou—were spriggans? They might have been wandering faeries, or some other tribe of piskey.”

  “Piskeys who can bring bad luck and control the winds?” asked Ivy. “I don’t think so. And the boy seemed to think changing shape was normal for his people as well. My brother Mica made it very clear to me that piskeys don’t change shape.”

  “You do.”

  True, but she’d always been the exception to the rule. Born frail and wingless in a Delve full of sturdy, moth-winged piskey women, Ivy had spent her whole life fighting to prove her worth, often in unorthodox and even dangerous ways. Turning herself into a tiny, quick-darting swift had satisfied Ivy’s lifelong hunger for flight, and given her more freedom than she’d ever dreamed of. But it had also driven a wedge between Ivy and her older brother, who’d been horrified when he realized what she could do.

  “Haven’t you heard?” she said. “I’m not a real piskey. Aunt Betony said as much when she banished me from the Delve.” And Mica had stood there and let it happen, without so much as a word in her defense. “Anyway, I’ve never heard of piskeys attacking their own people…”

  She trailed off, gazing out the mouth of the crevice to the valley beyond. It was still mostly dark, but she could make out a tall, red-lit metal spire—a radio tower, perhaps?—in the near distance. To the west stood the chimney and bob wall of an old pumping-engine house, one among hundreds of abandoned mine buildings that littered the Cornish landscape. And if she listened closely, she could hear the rumble of early morning traffic along the road a few miles away.

  But in the dream, there’d been no signs of human industry or technology. The spriggan clan’s weapons were crude, their clothes rough and old-fashioned. Even the knockers had been oddly dressed—who wore cloaks or boots like that anymore?

  “But if it was real,” she said, “it happened a long time ago. Maybe even hundreds of years. And I don’t know why I’d be seeing something like that.”

  “Well,” said Martin, “perhaps it was only a dream, then. Something your mind churned up from bits of stories and legends you heard when you were in the Delve.”

  Ivy nodded, but her eyes were on the horizon, where a rosy glow was seeping through the clouds. This place was a long way from the old tin mine where she’d grown up, or the flat she’d briefly shared with her mother and sister in the human city of Truro. She’d never seen this wild, rugged valley before she and Martin flew over it last night, and her unfailing instinct for direction, both as a bird and as a piskey, told her she’d never been in this part of Cornwall before.

  So why did it feel familiar?

  She was still puzzling over the question when dawn broke, lighting up the nearby ridge. There stood the metal tower she’d seen earlier, but a sling’s throw from its base rose a smaller landmark she hadn’t noticed before. A lopsided pile of stones, taller than Ivy at human size and perhaps three times as wide.

  Astonished, Ivy stared at the carn, then whirled to look at the crevice where she’d been sleeping. She’d noticed how oddly square the entrance seemed, but she’d assumed it was part of an old mining tramway, or the lintel and doorposts of some long-ruined cattle shed…

  “What is it?” asked Martin.

  Ivy turned to him, wide-eyed with wonder. “This is the place,” she said. “We’re standing in what’s left of the fogou, and that’s the carn up on the hill. The valley I dreamed about—it’s real.”

  There was no use trying to search the crevice. Its back wall was a solid slab of stone, impossible to move, and the rest of the ruined fogou was so thickly overgrown with scrub that they would have had to dig to uncover it. They did find the other end of the tunnel after brushing away some of the overhanging ferns and foliage, but it was blocked. The knockers had done their work too well.

  “The carn, then?” asked Martin, gesturing at the top of the ridge. In unison they changed shape—Martin to the tiny black and white bird from which he took his name, Ivy to a darting swift—and flew up the hillside to land by the rocky pile. Martin turned back to human size, his personal preference; Ivy felt more comfortable at piskey-height, but she followed his example. Together they crouched beside the tower, studying the rough and weather-beaten stones that formed its base.

  “It was a small one,” she murmured, running her fingers over the rocks. “More square than the others, and flatter… here.”

  She laid her palm against the stone, expecting the carn to open for her as it had for the spriggan boy. But no matter how she pushed or pressed, the tower remained as solid as before. Ivy tried all the other foundation stones in turn, then slapped the carn in frustration and sat back.

  “I don’t understand,” she said. “I was so sure it was real.”

  “It still might be,” said Martin, straightening up and brushing dirt and bracken from his knees. “But likely the opening spell’s worn off over the years. Especially if the carn’s been abandoned as long as you seem to think.” He gave the rock pile a shove, but it refused to move. “Pity. I could think of a few good uses for that treasure. A hot bath and some clean clothes, to start with.”

  He didn’t look at her as he spoke, but Ivy’s cheeks heated all the same. She’d been washing as often as she could, but after a week of tramping around the wilder parts of north Cornwall her jeans had grown stiff and the cuffs of her sweater were filthy. Martin’s slim trousers and jacket, on the other hand, looked as fresh as when they’d set out a week ago. She was tempted to ask how he did it, but with her luck it would turn out to be some particularly male—or spriggan—kind of spell that a piskey-girl like her couldn’t do…

  “Oh,” she burst out, resisting the urge to smack herself. “Of course! How could I have been so stupid?” And she seized Martin’s wrist, pulled his arm down, and flattened his fingers against the lowest stone.

  With a sepulchral rasp the carn opened, revealing a low doorway and a staircase leading down into darkness. Martin snatched his hand back and swore, his grey eyes wide.

  “Well,” said Ivy, satisfied, “that proves you really are a spriggan. It wouldn’t open for anyone who wasn’t.” She motioned to the doorway. “Shall we?”

  The space inside the carn was barely large enough for the two of them, even once they’d shrunk to half-size. And though the stones appeared rough on the outside, they were so closely fitted together that not a hint of sunlight filtered through. Without her keen night-vision, Ivy would have been blind—but when it came to dark places, she had more than a few piskey tricks to rely on. She willed her skin to glo
w, sending out a pink-tinged radiance that lit up the interior of the carn.

  “Incredible,” Martin murmured, so close that his breath warmed Ivy’s ear. A shiver raced down her spine, and she hurriedly stepped onto the staircase to put some distance between them. Not that he’d frightened her, exactly… but right now she didn’t need any distractions.

  As she picked her way down into the blackness, Ivy counted six, seven, eight stairs—all of them a little too high for the average piskey, and too low for most humans. One more and she reached the bottom, stooping under a rough lintel to enter the musty-smelling chamber beyond.

  And there it stood—a great earthen jar, filled to overflowing with tarnished metal and age-dulled gemstones. Armor and weapons lay jumbled around its base, shields and breastplates grimed to blankness, a few swords still intact within their rotting scabbards. It was exactly as she’d seen in her dream.

  Wondering, Ivy edged closer, drawn to a sheathed blade that must have belonged to a child or a small woman. It looked the right size for her, but did she dare to touch it? What if there was some kind of protective spell on the trove? She turned, looking for Martin…

  And there he stood with hands braced on either side of the doorway, eyes shut and teeth set as though in pain. Ivy cursed herself for forgetting how much he hated being underground. “Are you all right?” she asked. “Do you want to go back outside?”

  “No,” said Martin curtly, pushing away from the door and striding past her. “I am all agog to see this treasure.”

  Before Ivy could warn him, he walked to the crock and plunged his hands inside it. But it seemed the hoard wasn’t enchanted after all, because nothing happened. Daring, she stooped and picked up the sword, pulling it free of its scabbard.

  The blade was rust-spotted but unbroken, its edge only slightly notched. She hefted it and made a couple of experimental passes, testing its balance. She had no skill with weapons, but she liked the weight of the sword in her hand: it made her feel strong and purposeful, even heroic. And she hadn’t felt that way since she’d fought Gillian Menadue, the vengeful faery who’d captured Ivy’s little sister and planned to destroy the Delve…

  Yet there’d been nothing noble about their last, desperate struggle at the edge of the Great Shaft. Ivy would never forget the sight of Gillian slumped unconscious over the railing, or the shriek as it broke free and sent her tumbling to her death. And though Ivy had saved her people that day, there’d been little joy in a victory that had torn her family apart and forced her into exile. She let the sword drop and turned away.

  “If I had to put a number on it,” said Martin, rubbing his thumb over a grime-crusted coin to reveal the glinting metal beneath, “I’d say this trove’s been here at least four hundred years, and most of the treasure would have been old even then. See this?” He handed the coin to Ivy. “That’s Roman.”

  They were sitting together on the ridge outside the carn, with the pieces Martin had taken from the hoard—several handfuls’ worth of necklaces, bracelets, rings and brooches, plus a small leather purse full of mixed coinage—spread across the rocks between them. Martin seemed to think it would be worth quite a bit of human money, though from the way he kept caressing the treasure Ivy wondered if he could bring himself to sell it.

  “If you say so,” she replied, passing the coin back. “But that only makes my dreaming about it even more strange. Why would I see a vision of something that happened centuries before you and I were born?”

  “Cornwall’s a strange land,” said Martin. “Didn’t your mother say something once about old powers in the earth of Kernow, and how the spells the piskeys and other magical folk used to fight each other still linger in the ground?”

  It was true. That was how Gillian Menadue had discovered the dark magic known as the Claybane, and turned it against the piskeys of the Delve. Ivy herself had only endured a few minutes of that living death before Gillian’s daughter Molly rescued her, but she would never forget the horror of being trapped in a clay shell, unable to move or speak.

  “So,” continued Martin, “maybe this valley remembers what happened here, because the boy felt it so strongly. Maybe that’s what you sensed last night.”

  “But why me and not you?” asked Ivy. “You’re the spriggan.”

  “True,” said Martin, “but as I told you before, I don’t dream.” He paused, his fingers tracing the shape of a pendant he’d picked up from the heap. “Maybe that’s why you had to dream it for me.”

  Ivy was instantly wary. “What do you mean?”

  “I think our minds are linked somehow. Ever since I healed you, we’ve been…” He made a vague gesture. “Attuned to one another. Remember when I was trapped in the Claybane, and you were the only one who could hear me? And when I finally managed to send you a message…”

  Ivy’s lips parted. “It was in a dream.”

  But he hadn’t just spoken to her in words that night. She’d also glimpsed Martin’s memories—not only the recent ones he’d been trying to show her, but visions of his youth and childhood as well. Nothing coherent, just flashes of cityscapes and grimy streets and the faces of people he’d once known. But she’d felt, at that moment, that she was seeing the world through his eyes. Just like she had with the spriggan boy.

  “Maybe dream-sharing is something spriggans do,” she said. “Maybe the boy left that memory here for other spriggans to find, to tell them what had happened.” And then, as Martin suggested, Ivy had picked it up from his mind somehow while she slept. But it was an uncomfortable thought, being the keeper of a spriggan’s dreams. Especially in this strange, wild country full of ruins and old battlefields, where there was no telling what dark memories she might uncover next.

  “Hm,” said Martin. “I’m not sure the boy would have wanted other spriggans knowing about his family hoard. But you might be onto something.” He held a ring up to his eye and turned it to catch the light, then dropped it back into his pocket. “Anyway, it’ll take time to get the full value out of this. But I can sell a few pieces right away, and make enough money to spare us eating insects all day, or sleeping in any more caves. As long as you don’t mind going back to your mother’s—”

  “You’re going to leave me behind?” Ivy was startled, then annoyed. “Why? I can fly just as fast as you can.” A good deal faster, in fact. “Anyway, there’s no way I’m going back to Truro now. It was hard enough getting away from my mother and sister in the first place.”

  Not that Marigold had forbidden Ivy to go, not exactly. It wasn’t in her nature to give orders, and she knew too well how capable Ivy had become in her absence. But she’d looked troubled and a little hurt when Ivy told her that the flat was simply too small for three, and that Cicely needed her mother far more than Ivy did. And when she explained that she was going to look for a way to clear her name and prove that Betony had been wrong, her little sister Cicely had burst into tears and begged to come with her. Ivy had been forced to sneak away when Cicely was sleeping, and she still felt guilty about it.

  “Yes, I suppose it would be awkward,” said Martin. “Especially since you haven’t told them you’re traveling with me.” He raised his brows quizzically. “Have you?”

  “No,” admitted Ivy, with some reluctance. “But that’s beside the point. Why can’t we stay together? Surely there must be someone in Cornwall willing to buy your treasure.”

  “Our treasure,” corrected Martin. “You deserve at least a half-share, especially since I’d never have known it existed without you. And maybe you’re right about the dealer, but I don’t know this part of the country well. I can find buyers a lot more easily in London.”

  “London! But you can’t go back there. You’re still wanted for killing the Empress, and the other faeries…”

  “Are looking for me, yes,” Martin said. “But I can’t imagine they’re making more than a show of it these days. Nobody mourns the Empress: a few sanctimonious bores aside, most faeries would probably agree I did them a favor.�
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  He spoke airily, but Ivy wasn’t convinced. If he thought he could be safe in England he wouldn’t have fled to Cornwall, much less stayed here so long.

  “Even if that’s true, you’re still safer not traveling alone,” she said. “And I’m sure I can fly as far as London, even if I’ve never been there before.”

  “Oh, I won’t be flying.” He scooped up a handful of treasure from the rocks and poured it into his pocket. “There’s no way I can carry all this in bird-shape. I’ll travel by magic instead.”

  Of course. She’d forgotten that faeries—or half-faeries, in Martin’s case—could will themselves from one place to another with merely a thought. Once piskeys had been able to do the same, if their droll-teller’s tales were anything to go by. But that magic had been lost since her people went underground, and Ivy had yet to learn it.

  “You could teach me,” she began, but Martin shook his head.

  “You can’t leap to a place unless you’ve set foot there once already. And for a journey like this, I’ll need to stop a few times along the way. Trust me, I can do this a lot more easily on my own.”

  “I see,” said Ivy stiffly. “Well, then, I suppose you’d better do that. I wouldn’t want to slow you down.”

  “You’re upset.” A line formed between his brows. “What’s the matter?”

  Ivy looked past the carn to the neighboring hillside, and the ruined mine building upon it. There was an old engine house just like that one back at the Delve, where the piskeys used to feast and dance on Lighting nights. She bit her lip, homesickness welling inside her. She’d taken the company of her fellow piskeys for granted, but now she wondered if she’d ever be part of a community like that again.