Something winged and dark flew overhead, throwing a shadow over us. I looked up but couldn’t tell if it was a bird or some other kind of flying beast or machine. We didn’t know this land. My walking along with my head in a dream wasn’t good. I needed to focus on the here, on the dangers there might be, on the unknowns. My mind should be on those things—not on the future joys of learning more magic.
I turned my attention back to the land around us. It was still as dry and desolate, as dirt-covered and rocky as when we’d first stepped foot here. Except for the one flying thing in the sky, we hadn’t seen a living thing. Unless you counted the hoodoos. I had no way of knowing which were simply rocks and which might be more Watchers.
“Hold up,” G-ma said. She pulled out the blue bag with the silver runes and poured the beads into her hand. “Pay attention, Oona.”
As before, she threw them into the air and as before they came down scattered but soon pulled themselves into an arrow pointing which way we should go. If I was supposed to see something special, I didn’t know what it was.
Maurice poked his head out of my pocket. “I wondered when she was going to check.”
G-ma looked at the rat. “I’ve been consulting the beads since our first steps forward. As long as we were headed in the right direction, there was no need to keep proving it. But now the beads tell me we need to adjust our path. You see, now they point more southwest. We go that way.”
Our new course, unless we changed direction again, would take us to a set of low hills visible in the far distance. The sun rode low in the sky.
“We should make camp soon,” I said. “It’ll be dark before we know it.”
Mom and G-ma looked toward the falling sun.
“We have time yet,” G-ma said. “We’ll walk another hour and then make camp.”
Mother stopped and wiped the back of her hand across her forehead. “I can manage one more hour.”
I caught sight of Maurice in my peripheral vision, his head still out of my pocket, his nose twitching wildly.
“I smell water,” he said. “A large body of it. Close.”
“It’ll make a good place to stop,” Mom said.
“Mm,” Maurice said, sounding very non-committal. “We should make camp close to the water, but not right on it. Unless we want every creature in this place who drinks water bedding down with us. Of course, having seen the watchers, this place may not have normal creatures with a need for water other than the fae we thought we’d meet when we got here.” He looked at G-ma.
G-ma shrugged. “We may still meet them. Or we may not. All that matters is bringing back the chalice.”
Maurice scratched an ear with a paw.
The Watchers had given us two sunrises to find the chalice—which was only one full day and night from now, the way I understood what the Watchers had said. Or we could defy the Watchers and hope for the best. G-ma’s divinations said we were heading the right direction, but not how far we had to go. We needed a time and distance spell if such a thing existed. It probably did, there seemed to be a spell for everything, but if none of us knew it, it might as well not exist.
Making a safe camp in a completely unfamiliar land is mostly a matter of luck. Maybe we’d get through the night without interruption from beasts or unfriendly fae, maybe we wouldn’t.
We picked a spot close enough to the river Maurice had smelled to be able to draw water from it and refill my canteen, but not so near as to signal our presence to any beasts or beings who might come down to it for a drink. We found a rough circle of hoodoos and placed ourselves behind the largest, to keep us as hidden as possible. I hoped they were merely hoodoos and not Watchers, but G-ma said we didn’t need to worry.
“I’ll take the first watch,” I said, worrying anyway.
Mom and G-ma nodded. G-ma, especially, seemed worn from the day’s long walk. Having the first sleep would do them both good, I thought. I was tired but not worn out. I could stay awake and on guard a few hours.
“I’ll keep you company,” Maurice said.
“Thanks,” I said.
There were few stars in the sky and no moon tonight if there was a moon here. Not every land or plane was the same. Not every land or plane had our twenty-four-hour day and our skies.
This night was dark and silent. No birds called. No critters scampered by. The silence was a little eerie.
No one had thought to bring blankets, so it was fortunate the night was temperate and my sweatshirt was all that I needed. I could start a fire with a spell if we had something to burn, but there were no trees nearby. I hadn’t seen brush or other vegetation at all. There might be a fae city somewhere in this place, but all we’d seen was dirt and desolation.
“Wake me in two hours,” Mom said. “You need to sleep, too.”
“I will.”
G-ma had settled into the cradle she’d scooped out for herself. “Trina, wake me two hours after that.”
Mom nodded agreement and she settled down to sleep as well. Within minutes their breathing had become slow and regular and when I checked, both were deep in sleep. I leaned my back against a hoodoo. It was knobby and not very comfortable, but it was at least something.
Maurice sat up on his haunches, raised his nose high and sniffed the air.
“I don’t smell anything nearby,” he said. “I think we’re in for a long, boring night.”
“I hope so,” I said, keeping my voice low anyway. “I’d rather struggle to stay awake than fight off whatever predators might live around here.”
He shrugged his tiny rat shoulders. It was funny how Maurice melded both rat and human characteristics.
“So tell me,” I said, making conversation, “where did your magic come from?”
His small, black eyes twinkled. “The same place yours did, I’d imagine. Passed down through the generations.”
“The first magical person in our family was G-ma’s grandmother.”
“That you know of,” he said. “Magic can spontaneously show up, probably did in someone way back in your family tree, but my guess would be it wasn’t your grandmother’s grandmother who was first touched. More likely it was someone long before her.”
I thought about that. It was possible, of course.
“How does magic get into someone to begin with?” I asked.
“By request, usually,” Maurice said. “In my own family, the story is that a cat stumbled upon my ancestor’s nest and meant to kill him, his wife, and all their children. The rat begged the gods for a way to save his family. The gods heard his plea and bestowed magic on him. The next thing he knew, his wish that the cat could come no closer resulted in the beast bumping into something invisible but as solid as a wall every time it got within a foot of the nest.”
“So, just like that, asked for and given?”
“So the story goes,” he said.
“Are all the rats in your family magical?”
Maurice shook his head. “Usually one or two are born each generation. I’m sad to say that so far none of my offspring have shown any abilities. But I’m young still and have many wives.”
“Did the ability to speak come with the original magic?” I asked.
His whiskers twitched. “That story is recent. My own great grandfather befriended a human who was kind and set out a bit of whatever food she had for the rats who lived in her barn. She also didn’t keep a cat or a dog, which my grandfather much appreciated. One winter night a wandering human slipped into the barn for a place to sleep. He was a particularly stupid human and he started a fire to keep himself warm. A spark landed on some hay. Rats know all about fire. My grandfather knew that spark could grow into something dangerous, even deadly. He wanted to warn the kind human, but how? He had magic enough to get in and out of the human’s house but scampering up on the human’s bed and jumping around and chittering was unlikely to do more than make the human afraid that the rats she’d been kind to had gone insane or were attacking her. So grandfather begged the gods for
speech. The plea was heard and granted. The magical rats in my family have had speech ever since.”
Maurice twitched his tail, “You see what these stories have in common, right? “
“Asking for magic?” I said.
Maurice’s tail twitched faster. “For the gods’ sake, Oona. Be serious.”
“Protecting or helping others.”
His tail stopped twitching. “There are many kinds of magic, but all magic springs from what is inside the practitioner—their soul, as it were. My magic, the kind you have, and your mother, grandmother, Diego, and The Gate have, sprang originally from a desire to help. Keep it that way and you’ll be fine. Let it turn and you’ll wind up like Diego’s brother.” He focused on my eyes. “Dark magic, that lust for power that goes along with it, nibbles away at the edges of the soul and turns what’s left into hard, black stone.”
“I don’t think you have to worry much about my turning to the dark side.”
The rat batted at one ear with his paw. “Just saying. It can happen to anyone.”
I thought about that, thought about Gil, about what the lust for power had done to him, and wondered if a lust for power was behind the theft of the artifacts and the murders of their Keepers.
“Maurice,” I said. “Who do you think killed Hugo Bernard and the fairy Keeper?”
He shrugged one small shoulder. “It wasn’t The Gate. He’s about as likely to murder a couple of sentients and steal the chalice and blade as you are. But was there one killer for both or two killers, one for each? Was the killer, or killers, human, fairy, or something else? I have no idea.”
I thought about that a while too. Two killers. One on the human plane and one where the fairies lived. Or one killer who could travel in both worlds? Fairies spent time among the humans. Wizards could go to the fairy’s land. It made for a lot of suspects.
Maurice yawned and rubbed his eyes with his paws.
My phone had stopped working when we entered the darkling lands, but I thought two and a half or three hours had passed since I’d said good night to my mother and grandmother. My eyes burned from fatigue. I didn’t really want to wake my mother, but if I didn’t get some rest I’d be useless once we set out again.
I shook Mom’s shoulder gently. She groaned and muttered in her sleep, but finally opened her eyes.
“My turn?” she asked.
“When you’re awake enough.”
She sat up and sighed. “I’m awake. Anything happen while you were on guard?”
I shook my head. “Nothing. This is the least lively place I’ve ever seen.”
Good,” she said. “Nothing happening is my idea of a perfect night.” She smiled. “Go get some sleep. I’ll see you in the morning.”
I gave her a peck on the cheek and settled in the space I’d cleared for myself. It wasn’t the most comfortable bed, but it would do.
Chapter 10
I woke stiff and sore from sleeping on the ground. The sun was high in the sky but a long shadow fell over my body. I turned my head to see what had cast it.
A dozen watchers had moved in close, circling where we’d slept. Our visitors ranged between six and ten feet in height, were three or four feet around, and looked exactly like something huge had created them by squeezing clay between humongous fingers and letting it dry.
I didn’t feel menace from the Watchers, though why I thought I could suddenly sense non-human intentions when I’d never been able to before was beyond me. For whatever reason, I wasn’t nervous or frightened.
“We have company,” I said, stating the obvious.
“They came to warn us,” Maurice said. “A little too late, in my opinion.” He bent his head back and looked toward the sky. My gaze followed his and I came instantly wide awake.
Dragons.
Six of them.
Fifteen feet long at least, with leathery wings that seemed strong enough to beat the clouds from the sky, each dragon a different color: green, blue, purple, yellow, red, and black, the scales iridescent and glowing.
Dragons, with riders on their backs.
Skeleton riders.
Not just skeletons—giant, scowling, skeletons wielding big-ass swords.
An orange haze surrounded each rider and dragon. Protective wards. Strong ones. Wards that might make our magic useless against them. I tried a quick spell and sent it toward the dragons and their riders. Small sparks danced where my magic hit the wards. The sparks rained back to the dirt and died out.
Fuck.
As quickly as the dragons touched earth, the skeletons dismounted, their motions as smooth and purposeful as dancers. They were tall, eight or nine feet high, I guessed—the bones of giants. There were six skeletons—plus dragons—and three of us. I didn’t like the odds. I swallowed hard and glanced at my companions.
Mom, to my surprise, had moved into a fighting stance, her walking stick pointing toward the skeleton galloping toward her. Runes I hadn’t seen before glowed down the stick’s length.
The skeleton held a wide sword high over its head, ready for a downward strike, with its mouth open as if in a silent battle cry. As it came near, Mom swung her stick in fast figure eights. She craned her head back and her eyes flicked between the skeleton’s head and chest, watching for direction changes. G-ma had her walking stick raised, doing much the same against a second skeleton.
The Watchers had moved away from us and stood in a line—watching.
Mom jumped high into the air and bashed her stick down on a skeleton’s collarbone—a sound so hard and resonate I felt it as well as heard. The skeleton sunk to its knees.
The skeleton’s wards stopped magic, but not something as natural as a wooden stick. That was good to know.
Mom cocked her stick over her shoulder and swung it at the skeleton’s skull. Her swing was sure and true. The skull flew from the top of the skeleton’s spine.
Go, Mom.
The headless skeleton’s bones collapsed onto the dirt. Mom kicked the skeleton’s sword behind her and advanced toward the next attacker bearing down on her. All of this had happened so quickly that the last skeleton was still dismounting its dragon.
G-ma was also weaving her stick in amazingly fast figure eights and advancing on a skeleton that was failing to get its sword anywhere near her, despite its height advantage. At the bottom of a downward stroke, she made a horizontal swipe that hit the skeleton in the knees. It buckled but stayed upright, hacking its sword toward G-ma’s right arm. She twisted away, then slashed her stick across the skeleton’s midsection. The upper half of it fell one direction and the lower half another.
A third skeleton slipped behind G-ma, its sword raised, ready to strike.
My magic was useless. Shooting a skeleton was useless. Getting close enough to use a knife seemed not only useless but stupid.
I picked up a rock and aimed for its hands. I have a good eye and a strong arm. The rock hit the skeleton’s hands, knocking them and the sword enough sideways that G-ma had time to pivot and strike at its arms with her stick. The skeleton’s left radius and ulna flew a surprisingly long way.
A motion near my side caught my eye—a sword swinging toward my neck. I dropped into a fast squat and the sword sailed over me. I grabbed another rock and heaved it at the skeleton’s head. The rock connected but didn’t knock the skull off its neck bones.
In the brief moment the skeleton was distracted I sprung forward from the crouch and wrapped my arms around its knees and pulled. We tumbled down, me landing on top. I grabbed the skeleton’s hand holding the sword, yanked it off and threw it as hard as I could. The sword was heavier than I’d expected and neither it nor the hand holding it flew far from the body.
Maurice scrambled out of my pocket and dashed toward the hand. He sunk his teeth into the index finger and shook the hand until it fell apart, the bones scattering in the dirt.
Three skeletons down, three to go. And the dragons, that seemed to be biding their time before entering the fray. They watched
intently, stomping their huge feet and blowing smoke from their noses.
“For gods’ sake, Oona,” Maurice said, running back to me, “throw them like you did that Petra bitch. You can end this now.”
Telekinesis. The power wasn’t magic and probably wouldn’t be stopped by the skeletons’ wards. A wizard could get the same effect with magic, but for me, it was a physical function like my psychic abilities and empathy. Maurice had seen me use telekinesis to swing the murderer, Petra Folger, through the air and slam her into the invisible cage she’d built around me.
G-ma grunted. The skeleton she’d knocked in half had reformed and joined the second skeleton she was still fighting, the two double-teaming her from both sides.
I summoned up my will and focus and flung the two skeletons in opposite directions away from her. One hit a large boulder and broke apart, its head rolling a short distance away from the body.
The skeleton reached an arm toward the head. I focused on the skull, raising it into the air out of the body’s reach, throwing it into the branches of a tree growing from the top of a tall hoodoo.
I grabbed the other skeleton with my mind and flung it whole into the same tree that held the skull.
G-ma turned to help Mom with the skeleton she was fighting, the two women using their sticks to bash at it from the front and the side. Mom smashed the skeleton’s right tibia and fibula with her stick. G-ma jumped into the air and used her stick to whack off its skull. I grabbed the pieces with my mind and threw the skull one direction, the spine and rib cage another, and the broken bits of the right leg and the foot still another.
That left one skeleton to dispose of. Mom and G-ma turned toward it and advanced.
“I’ll do it,” I said.
Bold words for someone who was fairly exhausted and not all that sure she could do what she’d just promised. I summoned up my mind-power again, focused on the last skeleton and what I wanted to do to it.
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