Nomad

by R. J. Anderson

  Her brother was right: though the long tables and benches had been cleared away and there should have been plenty of space for everyone, all the piskeys had squeezed close to the platform to get a better view. Ivy had hoped to slip invisibly along the edge of the crowd, and not reveal herself until she leaped up to challenge Betony. But there was no chance of that now.

  Yet if Ivy waited until the Joan’s speech was over and the crowd began to break up, it would be too late. If she were to have any hope of surviving this—or at least making her death count for something—the whole Delve needed to hear what Ivy had to say.

  “…my pleasure to present to you,” Betony went on, “Nettle’s chosen successor, and my new attendant.” She held up a glittering chain with a gold medallion hanging from it. “Jenny, step forward.”

  “We’ve got to do something,” Mattock said as Jenny climbed onto the platform, delicately lifting her skirts to keep from tripping. “The ceremony’s nearly over.”

  “We could go up Elders’ Way and break through the wall,” said Mica, reaching for his thunder-axe, but Ivy stopped him.

  “No,” she said. “We won’t win anyone over by smashing up the Delve.”

  And now she thought about it, sneaking through the crowd unseen and popping up like a will-o’-the-wisp wouldn’t impress them either. Her people loved a good prank, but this was no laughing matter. If Ivy wanted them to listen to her, she needed to prove that she was a true piskey at heart—honest, forthright, and brave. She rose and laid her hand on her sword-hilt.

  “Matt,” she said, “I need you to stay here by the door, and not move unless I call for you. If anything happens to me and Mica, you’ll be the only one who can help the Delve.”

  “What are you doing?” hissed Mica, as she stepped forward. “You can’t just march in there and expect them to let you through!”

  “If that’s true,” Ivy replied, “I’m doomed anyway.” Then she straightened her spine, raised her head, and walked straight into the Market Cavern.

  “Let me through, please,” she said to the piskeys at the back of the crowd. “I’ve come to speak to the Joan.”

  At first Ivy got only scowls, and one or two piskey-wives turned to shush her. But as soon as they recognized her, their faces cleared and they moved aside at once. Whispers buzzed around her as row by row, Ivy picked her way through the center of the crowd toward the dais.

  Up on the platform, Betony was draping the medallion around Jenny’s neck. “To be chosen as the Joan’s attendant is a great honor,” she announced, then frowned as the growing murmur reached her ears. She turned, cold eyes sweeping the crowd—and her gaze fixed on Ivy.

  The color drained out of Betony’s face, as though she had seen a ghost. But she was not Joan of the Delve for nothing. She pointed at Ivy and snapped, “Gossan! Arrest this intruder!”

  Fear struck Ivy, and she almost drew her sword. But she fought the impulse, and kept her hands at her sides. “Why?” she called, before the Jack could move. “What have I done wrong?”

  Dead silence followed, while the piskeys looked at each other in confusion. A young hunter took a tentative step toward Ivy, but when he saw that none of the others were doing likewise, he drew back again.

  “You are impertinent and disruptive,” said Betony. “You dishonor this ceremony. If you have something to say to me—”

  “I do,” said Ivy in the loudest, clearest voice she could muster. “I say that you murdered my mother.”

  Shocked exclamations burst out around her. “Here, lass,” said Hew, shouldering through the crowd, “you’re not yourself, you know that can’t be true!”

  He took her arm, not unkindly, but Ivy pulled away. “You have no idea what’s true,” she said. “All you know is what the Joan chooses to tell you.” She pushed to the front, holding Betony’s glare with her own steady, accusing gaze. “But yesterday she tricked her way into the house where my mother was living, and burned her so badly that she died.”

  “You are out of your wits, girl,” said Betony. “Why would I trouble myself with your mother? She left the Delve six years ago to return to her own people—her faery people. She is no concern of mine.”

  Faery. Horror rippled through the cavern, and the piskeys close to Ivy began to back away. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Gossan motion to the hunters and knockers under his command—they’d be on her in seconds, if she didn’t move. With a desperate burst of energy, Ivy plunged forward and leapt up onto the platform.

  “Yes!” she shouted, turning to face the crowd. “My mother was a faery, with no piskey blood in her at all. But so was Nettle, the woman you came here tonight to honor. And if my faery blood makes me untrustworthy, then what of yours? Most of your grandmothers and great-grandmothers were faeries too!”

  As soon as she finished, Ivy knew she’d made a mistake. Her people’s mistrust of faeries went as deep as their fear of spriggans, and they’d be mortally offended to hear her say such things about their ancestors. And Betony knew it too, because the smoldering anger in her eyes flared into triumph.

  “Even if that were so,” she said, “it would be ancient history. My people are all true piskeys, and so was Nettle, whatever you may believe. But…” Her tone became biting. “Perhaps your faith in the goodness of faeries explains why you were so easily manipulated by Gillian, when she used you and your sister to prepare her attack on the Delve.”

  The crowd became agitated, murmuring to one another in dismay. Betony gave a grim smile. “I have said nothing about your treachery until now, for the sake of my brother’s memory and what remains of your family’s honor. But—”

  “Honor!” Mica shouted from the back of the cavern. “There’s no honor in twisting the truth as you do!”

  Ivy winced. She hadn’t wanted her brother to give himself away so soon. But there was no stopping Mica when he was in a temper, and he’d already hefted Flint’s thunder-axe and raised it for everyone to see.

  “You know who our father was,” he announced to the piskeys around him. “You know he gave his life to save the Delve. And you know what Ivy did, too. She fought Gillian and cast her down the Great Shaft, she led our people to safety, and then she came back to free all the piskeys who’d been trapped in the Claybane—including the Joan herself. No traitor would do that!”

  “You think not?” retorted Betony, cutting through the rising clamor. “Well, she is your sister, after all. But the rest of us are not so blind. Time after time, Ivy has broken the Delve’s laws and despised our sacred traditions. She freed the spriggan that you, her brother, had captured; she went up to the surface by daylight, alone; she allowed your sister, an innocent child, to fall into Gillian’s clutches. And when she saw the damage that her folly had caused us, she betrayed our secrets and endangered our safety once again, by bringing Gillian’s daughter inside the Delve.”

  She rounded on Ivy. “Can you deny that everything I have said is true? Do you dare even to try?”

  A hush fell over the cavern, and all eyes turned to Ivy. Inwardly she raged at how her aunt had trapped her, and she almost wished she could lie. Perhaps she could, if she tried hard enough…

  But Mica and Matt knew the truth, and lying would only lose Ivy the few allies she had. Besides, it wasn’t the piskey way.

  “No,” Ivy said. “But there’s more to the story than—”

  Betony swept her aside and strode forward. “By her own admission, she is guilty! And now she returns to the Delve to accuse me of wrongdoing, and try to turn my own people against me. What more proof do you need of her treachery?”

  By the look of the cavern, the piskeys needed none. A row of Gossan’s hunters had surrounded the platform, their hands on their knife-hilts, while the knockers closed on Mica and wrenched Flint’s thunder-axe from his hands. The old aunties shook their heads at Ivy, and the uncles called hoarsely for her to come down. Some of the younger piskey-wives cast nervous glances about the chamber, and began herding their children toward the exit.<
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  “Wait!” shouted Ivy, darting in front of Betony again. “If you won’t hear anything else I have to say, listen to this! It isn’t safe to stay in the Delve anymore. There’s poison in the—”

  Her jaw froze in mid-sentence, as all her muscles locked. Off-balance, Ivy teetered off the edge of the platform, hopelessly trapped in her aunt’s binding spell. As Gossan’s hunters seized Ivy and wrenched her to her feet, Betony gave her a contemptuous look. “We have heard enough of your faery tales,” she said, and turned away.

  Ivy stood rigid in the hunters’ grasp, unable even to speak. They hadn’t disarmed her, but they didn’t need to: Betony’s spell held her fast, and she couldn’t have drawn her sword if she’d tried. All she could do was roll her eyes at the platform where Betony stood with a little smile of malice on her lips, waiting for Gossan’s men to drag Ivy away.

  “Wait!”

  Jenny was trembling, but her expression was resolute. She walked forward, holding out her newly awarded chain of office. “I don’t want this,” she said. “Not anymore.” Then she dropped it at Betony’s feet.

  “What?” The Joan stared at her. “What madness is this?”

  In her shock, Betony had lost hold of the binding spell. At once Ivy shrank to Oakenfolk size, too small for the hunters to hold her, then darted between their legs as they milled about in confusion. Sprinting past the foot of the platform, she vanished into the shadows beside it, blessing Jenny for the chance to escape.

  But the older girl was still talking. “Ivy’s right,” she said as she faced the crowd, her hands clenched in her feast-day skirts. “There is poison in the Delve. Nettle died of it, and we’re all suffering because of it, and it’s not going to get better, no matter what the Joan says.”

  “How dare you,” said Betony in a low, venomous tone, and Jenny flinched. But she didn’t back down.

  “I’ve helped Yarrow care for the sick and dying. I’ve seen her records.” She cast a pleading look at the healer, who refused to meet her gaze. “There are more people sick now than there were two months ago. The Joan’s spells aren’t making any difference.”

  Betony seized her arm. “You ignorant, foolish girl. This is how you repay my trust? Get out of my sight!”

  She started to drag her off the platform, but Jenny wrenched away and spoke to the crowd again, louder and more urgent with every word. “The only way for us to get better is to go up to the surface, like Ivy did! And if Betony’s too proud to accept that her spells aren’t enough to save us—if she’d rather watch us all die than admit she was wrong—then she doesn’t deserve my loyalty. Or yours!”

  The crowd of piskeys shifted restlessly. Even the hunters had begun to look uneasy. “Enough!” snapped Betony. “Be quiet!”

  Oh, Jenny, thought Ivy, crouching in the darkness. And you said she would never fear you. The piskeys of the Delve might doubt Ivy’s word, might even let Betony condemn her as a traitor. But they’d never believe anything but good of their own faithful, kind-hearted Jenny.

  “But that’s not the only wrong she’s done,” Jenny called out, voice cracking with the effort. “Before Nettle died, she told me everything. She told me the Joan banished Ivy’s mother for trying to warn her about the poison, and let her own children think she’d been taken by the spriggans. And she told me that Betony’s been trying to kill her niece—Molly, the girl who helped save us from the Claybane!”

  Gasps rose from the crowd. Every family in the Delve had been touched by the Claybane in some way; many of the piskeys still remembered how it felt to be trapped in that dark curse. They knew the blood-debt they owed to Molly, Gillian’s daughter or not, and now they knew she was Nettle’s niece as well…

  “But that’s not right, the Joan doing that,” said Hew, his heavy brow creased with distress. “That’s none of it right.” Cries of agreement and disapproval broke out all over the cavern, and a shrill voice rang out, “Hear Jenny! Down with the Joan!”

  Betony turned white as salt. Then she let out a snarl, and lunged at Jenny.

  “Jenny!” shouted Mica. “Look out!”

  But the warning came too late. Betony’s hands exploded into flame, and the fireball engulfed Jenny in an instant. Her wings shriveled to ashes, her fair hair blazed up like a torch, and she dropped to the dais in a heap.

  “JENNY!” screamed Ivy, leaping onto the platform and throwing herself down beside her. But the girl she’d grown up with was little more than a pile of blackened rags, far beyond help or healing. “Jenny, no—oh, Jenny, Jenny—”

  Mica sank to his knees, Flint’s thunder-axe sliding from his grip. Gossan and his hunters stood rigid, staring at the platform in horror. Then Jenny’s mother burst into wailing sobs, and her neighbors rushed to comfort her.

  Rage erupted in Ivy. She fumbled for her sword, pulled it from the sheath, and stalked across the dais to Betony. “Kill me too, then,” she rasped, leveling the blade. “Just like you killed her. And my mother.”

  The Joan’s lips twisted into a grimace, and a sizzling crackle filled the air. Ivy shut her eyes, bracing herself for the searing pain to come—

  “No,” Betony whispered, and then in sudden frenzy, “No! No!”

  Ivy’s eyes flew open. Her aunt had stumbled back, staring at her hands. She looked like a madwoman, her hair and robes disheveled, the pallor of her face stark contrast to the dark rings beneath her eyes. “No!” she shrieked again, gripping her right wrist and shaking it wildly. “I am Joan the Wad!” But no flames came from her fingertips, or even the tiniest wisp of smoke.

  Was it possible? Had Betony lost the power to make fire?

  A chill raced up Ivy’s spine, followed by a rush of feverish elation. Her aunt was defenseless, and with one thrust of her sword Ivy could free the Delve. Marigold would be avenged, and the Joan’s power would pass to another—perhaps even Ivy herself. Maybe Jenny’s sacrifice hadn’t been in vain…

  Betony whirled on Ivy, her dark eyes blazing with hate. “This is your doing,” she snarled. “Wingless, half-faery filth!”

  Ivy’s hand tightened on the sword’s hilt. She drew it back to strike—and triumph flashed over Betony’s face.

  She wants this, thought Ivy, astonished. She wants me to kill her. Why?

  “Do it!” Mica shouted over the crowd. Hardly anyone was paying attention to Ivy and Betony now; they were too busy arguing, wailing, clutching one another. “Do it now!”

  Of course she had to kill Betony. It was the only way to make sure she would never hurt anyone again. Even if she’d lost her powers for the moment, they might come back, and then the Delve would be at her mercy.

  But if Betony wanted Ivy to strike, she must have a reason. Had she lost the will to live when she realized her fire was gone? Or was this her last attempt to regain her people’s loyalty by making herself a victim, and Ivy a murderer?

  Surely the other piskeys wouldn’t see it that way, not after what Betony had done to Jenny. Surely they’d listen to Ivy and heed her warnings about the poison, once the Joan was out of the way.

  Yet she couldn’t forget Linden’s words: They don’t understand why she hasn’t just seized power… they’re so used to having someone thinking and giving orders for them. Or Valerian’s quiet affirmation, I will not be another Empress.

  The piskeys of the Delve were used to being powerless too. Did Ivy want to be another Betony?

  “Well?” demanded her aunt, flinging her arms wide. “You heard your brother. Isn’t this what you’ve wanted all along—to destroy me, and take my place? Strike me down, then! Show the Delve how strong you are!”

  Ivy looked into the Joan’s blazing eyes, her anger fading. Perhaps Betony was manipulating her even now, and one day she’d regret not taking this chance. But Ivy wouldn’t kill her, no matter how much she deserved it. If the piskeys of the Delve couldn’t see that Betony wasn’t worth following, if they weren’t ready to choose life instead of expecting her to choose it for them, then killing her would make no difference.
Ivy exhaled, and began to lower her sword.

  Betony’s teeth bared in a hiss of thwarted rage. Then with the speed of a striking adder, she grabbed Ivy’s arm and thrust herself onto the blade.

  Screams echoed through the cavern as Ivy staggered, shoving her aunt in a desperate attempt to pull the sword free. But the older woman’s falling weight twisted it out of her grasp. Betony crumpled to her knees, gasping, and toppled to the floor.

  “She’s murdered the Joan!” shouted one of the hunters, and the Market Cavern erupted into chaos. Gossan vaulted onto the platform and seized Betony in his arms, shouting for the healer. Children wailed and fled, while their mothers rushed after them. With a furious effort Mica wrenched free of the knockers holding him, and snatched up his thunder-axe again.

  “Get out of here, Ivy!” he shouted, swinging it as the piskeys scattered. “Fly!”

  Betony’s eyes sought Ivy’s, pain-dulled but glittering. “They’ll never follow you now,” she whispered.

  No, they wouldn’t, especially once they’d seen what Ivy was about to do. But the hunters of the Delve were swarming the Dais, and she had no other way to escape. With a scream of anguish Ivy flung herself off the platform, and changed to peregrine-shape.

  The piskeys ducked, shielding their faces in terror. But Ivy soared over them, diving at the last instant to shoot through the open door. She veered up the staircase that led to the upper levels of the Delve, until the tunnel grew too dark for even a falcon’s night-vision to see. Then she dropped back to piskey-shape and started running.

  “Stop!” she heard Matt shouting behind her. “Everyone calm down!”

  He was holding the others back, buying Ivy time. But what would it cost him? And what would happen to Mica? He’d called for Betony’s death, loud enough for the whole cavern to hear—and even with a thunder-axe, he couldn’t fight off all the knockers in the Delve. Any minute Gossan would rise from Betony’s side and order the hunters to arrest him…