by E. Hibbs
Almost like you, Merrin, she thought, and then fought to suppress a growl. She remembered the human in the wooden boat, sailing out onto the Lake. He had come where he didn’t belong and wasn’t welcome, throwing his horrid nets into Her, and pulling Merrin out.
She glanced at her hands. The webs between her fingers were loose as she held them relaxed. She remembered the feeling of smacking him: of welling up her power and forcing it out into him, into the Brand. It was a punishment that only members of the Royal Family could apply: one of the worst entitled to all Asræ. Merrin hadn’t used it for over two centuries.
At that touch, she had realised who he was. The boy’s face – and the other’s – burned in her mind like the eye of the sun. In that moment when he pulled her from beneath the water, the two of them had merged – in more ways than one. Her hatred had never died, but it had definitely quelled in the two hundred years that had passed. That boy brought it all crashing back to the fore, with a vengeance as strong as the Lake Herself. It still raged behind Merrin’s eyes and burned in her own hand.
She thought of his hand. Seared and scarred forever: a mark of shame and chastisement until his dying day, for what he had done. He would live with it for the rest of his life, however short it might be.
The fury overcame her. She yelled out and drove her fist into the rotting leaf-mould before breaking down and crying. Tears ran down her face as she fell to the floor, sleep pulling her under.
He took hold of her arms from where he sat in his boat. Her hair wrapped around the two of them. He kissed her. Her eyes closed and she smiled. The white mare snorted from the shallows, accidentally disturbing a goosander.
“Merrin, my darling,” he whispered in her ear, as one hand slipped away from her. “Merrin... be mine...”
She screamed.
“Merrin!”
She jolted awake and her eyes darted around. Roots. Earth. Stone. Her eight-legged friend standing guard.
Only a dream, Merrin. Only a dream.
“Merrin!” the voice called again, and through the fine silk of the web, Merrin noticed Dylana kneeling on the Surface. She quickly crawled out into the silvery light – glancing up at the moon, she realised it was almost midnight. And the short summer nights meant that she didn’t have much time.
Dylana waited patiently, her ancient sparkling eyes following Merrin’s every move. “You have not slept peacefully,” she said as Merrin knelt opposite her.
Merrin winced. “Was I shouting?”
“You have never shouted in your sleep. I saw you in there.”
Merrin glanced back over her shoulder at the cave. “But you cannot have woken me,” she stated. “We cannot be woken from slumber.”
“You woke yourself,” replied Dylana, as though it was as simple as the waving of the weeds in a current. Merrin nodded once and idly ran her fingers over the Bands, feeling every strand and glimmer of magic.
“Tell me what you dreamt,” Dylana said.
Merrin glanced at her. “You already know.”
“Tell me anyway.”
Merrin held her eyes sternly. “Why do you always do that? Why do you make me tell you something you already know?”
Dylana smiled, and leant forward slightly. “Because it is the only way you will admit them to yourself, and not be blind to what your mind tells you.”
“I am not...” Merrin began to say, but then she silenced and stared at the light beneath their knees. Dylana cocked her head expectantly.
“I dreamed of him,” Merrin said sharply – quickly, to get it out as fast as she could.
Dylana barely moved. “I am not surprised. Not after this.”
Merrin gritted her teeth.
“You Branded that boy.”
Merrin sat bolt upright and stared at her. “What did you say?”
“I said you Branded him,” Dylana repeated calmly. “Admit it to me.”
“Why should I not have?” Merrin snapped. “He deserved it!”
“What was his purpose here?”
“He took me from the Lake!”
“But what for?”
“How should I know?” Merrin got to her feet and stormed away. “He ensnared me in his awful net at the dawn, he could have killed me! He crossed the Wall... they themselves built that Wall, the humans, so that they would not come back here! Not after what happened! They would not dare risk it! They would not dare!”
“And yet he did,” Dylana said; her tone unchanged. “Why he did so would be very interesting.”
“Why do you take his side?” Merrin raged, wheeling on her. “He is the reason why I am trapped here! He deserved it!”
Dylana stood smoothly and fixed her eyes firmly. “Merrin, you may be a Princess, but with all due respect to our future Queen, you will not speak to me like that, do you understand?”
Merrin glowered at her, teeth bared and fin shaking furiously.
“Now, listen to me,” Dylana said. “I do not take his side. All I say is that there is no proof suggesting he even knew that you were our Monarch. The Wall means there is no free passage; he is the first human to come here in two hundred years. He probably did not even know what an Asræ looks like, let alone the meaning of the Bands. That is something straight away he does not share with Adrian.”
Merrin’s hands curled into fists. “Do not,” she snarled dangerously, “mention his name!”
“Why should I not?” Dylana faced her directly. “It is two centuries later, Merrin. It is a demon you must bury. You already killed him for what he did, so you must let it lie. If nothing else, it will cloud your judgement as Queen, and you of all people would not want that; you know this.”
Merrin swallowed, but her fin continued to shake. The light danced furiously over her skin.
“Yes, I killed him,” she hissed. “I Branded him and blinded him, and he drowned in air, penniless and unloved. And with every one of his descendants that fall in his footsteps, it is another sweet victory and vengeance! If I shorten that boy’s damned life further still, then so be it! He deserves it! All Atégos deserve it!”
*
All through the night, Silas and Pearl Spring sat together in the sick tent, each well apart from the other. Silas kept to the bed – which was essentially a thinly padded mattress on the floor – and she to a small cushion opposite him. She busied herself with stitching up the hole in his tunic, where the rock that had gashed his arm had torn through. Silas sat topless, with the blanket wrapped around his waist. Since he had handed over the tunic, he had noticed the bruise on his shoulder: a deep black fist-sized mark. He had long since got his breath back from the stallion’s kick, but his stomach was horribly tender, and his head felt tight from hitting it on the ground.
Eventually, the tarpaulin began to lighten with the dawn. When she had finished sewing, Pearl Spring snapped the thread between her teeth and laid everything aside before approaching him. She knelt down and started to untie the bandage around his arm. Silas didn’t take his eyes off her.
She laid the reddened dressing on the woven mats that made up the floor, and then inspected the wound. She held her hand close to it, to feel the heat; and ran her fingers over the broken skin with a touch as soft as feathers.
“That be well on the mend now,” she mused. “Yer a quick healer. It shan’t be long until yer’s all right n’ ready to go.”
“Why did ye not sleep?” Silas asked.
She glanced up at him, and then shook her head. “I’s got to keep n’ eye on yer, that be why.”
Silas pressed his lips together. He hesitated for a second, and then reached up and tapped the back of her hand.
“Thank you,” he said, and he meant it. “Thank you for caring for me in this way. I only wish I could repay thee.”
She didn’t say anything in return, so Silas changed the subject, and let his curiosity get the better of him. “Why did your uncle call you by a different name than that which you gave to me? Irima?”
Her steely eyes suddenly
hardened, and Silas blinked, wondering if he had crossed some unknown line. But – being so used to his position in his family – he didn’t back down under her glare. After a moment, she softened again, and went about preparing a fresh bandage.
“I shall tell yer this ‘cause yer ain’t one o’ us, so yer would not know oth’rwise,” she said eventually. “Irima is me birth name. But I am the niece o’ me uncle, and he be leader o’ the troupe. I’m his sister’s child, but she died when I were born, so now I be the only bone kin he has out o’ all o’ us ‘ere. His title be Shadow Mask, n’ ‘cause o’ him, I have a title o’ me own, y’see. N’ ev’ryone besides the Seniors n’ him’s got to call me by me title.”
Silas found all this very strange, but he bit back saying so and nodded. The musky incense filled his nose. “So do you wish for me to call you Pearl Spring? Not Irima?”
“Yes, Pearl Spring to you n’ ev’ryone else, save for me uncle, n’ the Seniors. N’ he always be Shadow Mask to yer, and don’t yer forget it.”
Silas agreed. “So, pray tell, what is your uncle’s birth name? I shall not address him by it, you have my word,” he added quickly as she looked at him again.
Irima – Pearl Spring – sighed. “His name be Garret. N’ that there man who brought yer back in ‘ere before, Tomas? He be me cousin’s ‘usband, who found yer.”
Without warning, she dipped her finger in a bowl of alcohol and rubbed it around the wound. Silas yelled and grabbed hold of the wooden beam over the pillow, screwing his eyes shut against the pain. Then she began to wrap the new bandage firmly around his forearm.
“Sorry ‘bout that,” she said gently. “Yer alrigh’?”
Silas nodded stiffly through gritted teeth.
“Alrigh’ then.”
Silas took a few deep breaths and uncurled his hand from the beam. In the heat of the pain in his arm, he had completely forgotten about his palm. But even now that he wasn’t tied up, he hadn’t pulled off the glove to inspect it. He was still too shaken about his encounter with the demon to turn his attention to what it had left him with.
Pearl Spring tied a final knot in the bandage and then she let go of him. He opened his eyes – and recoiled. His hands flew to his face.
“What?” she cried.
He held his hands out in front of him; wiggled his fingers; made a fist. But there was just black. “I cannot see!”
Pearl Spring gasped, and Silas heard the tinkling of the beads in her hair as she went to move. He quickly whipped his head around – eyes still open – and grasped hold of her. He felt her wrist under his fingers, bones as thin as a bird’s.
“Nay! Stop! Stay here!” he said. “Leave me not! Please!”
He must have looked as wretched as he felt, because she relaxed and settled back down. Her hand gently held his face.
“Yer eyes be like milk,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “Not brown anymore.”
As she spoke, his left hand, hidden from the world, burned like the touch of ice. And Silas lowered his head and wept.
*
28th Day of Jyune, in the Year of ovr Lord, 1219.
Silas is now blind again! Despite my fear of him, I do feel so sorry for this poor boy. What could have happened to him, to curse him like this so? He is a quiet one, with the most silent way I have ever seen in anyone. Something has happened to him and I only wish I knew what. I do not care; somehow I wish to help him. But how, I do not knowe.
My Lady in Heaven and Father at Her side. Help me understand. Help me master this fear. Help his curse.
CHAPTER XII
A Revelation in Ullswick
R aphael fought his way through a thicket of briars and thorns that tore at his clothes and ripped hair from his scalp. Long coppery strands were left waving from the sharp fingers, suspended in their own staked purgatory.
He went barefoot, but felt no pain. Abnormally large snowflakes – so huge that he could see every single individual pattern – danced before him, and yet he was clad only in thin pants and a summer tunic. The Elitland was fierce in winter, and icicles hung from the thorny roof overhead like daggers – or the fangs of some great creature, threatening to swallow him whole.
Eventually, the way cleared, and hovering on the edge of the hill stood the Fanchlow church. It was strangely warped, with the spire bent at an alarming angle. The wooden crosses that marked the graves had sprung up huge and thick, and stretched overhead like a great forest of the dead.
Fear gripped Raphael’s heart as he looked down. A grave lay at his feet: open, never filled in. It stretched right down to the bowels of the earth; the sheared vertical sides were red, like a gaping maw.
He saw Julian lying there: his face bloodless, red hair strangely grey; hands crossed over his chest, over a simple wooden crucifix bearing his name. And beside him, in the same position, a youth; with a crucifix carved with five letters...
“Silas!”
Raphael gasped and sat bolt upright in his cot. He had broken out in a clammy sweat and he felt chilled to the bone. His eyes snapped across the room to Uriel, who was moaning drowsily.
“Silas!” his brother cried again. “There’s a weech in my piwwow!”
Raphael swallowed and got shakily to his feet, carefully lifting the blanket from where Uriel had kicked it to the floor. He tucked it back around him and brushed some hair from the corner of his eye. Uriel groaned, and Raphael laid a hand gently on his forehead. Slowly, he calmed down, and rolled onto his side.
“Don’t you go anywhere near my fishing wine...” he mumbled into his pillow.
Raphael allowed himself a small smile, and then sat back down on his own bed. He brushed his wet hair away from where it clung to his cheek, and glanced from Julian’s empty cot to Silas’. Both of them stood alone in the semi-darkness like ghosts. The unnerving sight held Raphael’s heart in an iron grip, and he decided to stay awake, lest the night pull him into darkness again.
*
As the sun rose on the second day of Silas’ absence, the Atégos looked on as the eldest of them prepared a knapsack, to make his way in search of his brother. Mekina held Selena close, their hands interwoven; and Uriel sat perched on the end of Raphael’s bed, watching every single movement he made. Araena stood slightly apart from her daughters, clutching feebly at a beam in the wall. On the old wood, her knuckles were white.
Raphael had placed a small loaf and two apples in the square of fabric, as well as some small rings of iron to trade for lodging where he could find it. They weren’t much to offer, but they were all the family could afford to spare. There had never been any need for money in the Elitland. In such an isolated place, apart from any other and entirely under its own humble rule, currency existed only in trade.
Raphael tied the knapsack shut and rested it on the forked end of a sturdy stick before checking his knife at his belt. He turned around and faced Mekina.
“I am ready now,” he said.
She gave the smallest of nods, her lips pressed into a tight line of worry. Feeling the gloom hanging over them all, Raphael smiled.
“Ah, worry not for me. I am not leaving forever! I would never leave you here forever!”
Selena lowered her head, and hid her face in Mekina’s wrists; crossed over her chest.
“Don’t go, Raph,” Uriel said quietly, and his voice was tight with tears. “Please?”
Raphael closed his eyes for a moment, and then turned around to face Uriel. He knelt down before him, grasping his small hands and playfully rubbing his nose.
“I must,” he replied. “I must bring back Si.”
Uriel looked at him – and in his youngest brother’s bright eyes, Raphael suddenly saw a moment from the past. When Selena was nearing her first birthday; and Julian walked strong and true alongside them, he and Silas played down by the mill. They chased one another across the river and splashing water, trying to push the other over. Their father’s joyous laughter echoed from the bank, back then in the innocence of childhood
, when the closeness of the Wall was ignored.
Raphael watched as a wide-eyed version of himself – ten years younger – tossed his head over his shoulder and called for Silas, his words broken with chuckles. A five year-old Silas, clad only in a pair of short pants, chased him gleefully – until he tripped and fell face-first into the water, disappearing underneath.
In an instant, Raphael spun on his heel and rushed to Silas’ side, faster than Julian could even get to the water’s edge. Raphael reached down and pulled Silas back to the surface, rolling him over so that he lay on his back. Immediately, Silas’ eyes opened – as bright as stars and as deep as wells – and he held up a small bluish stone, with a hole cut straight through the centre of it by the river.
“You have it, Raph!” he had said, a grin on his face. Even when he was younger, Silas’ smile had never been a full one. He hadn’t yet taken on the immense weight of responsibility that he would later – but much too soon – allow himself to carry, but despite that, his smile was nothing like Raphael’s. But Raphael, remembering that moment of relief and laughter, couldn’t stop himself from thinking that it was a hundred times more than what Silas allowed of himself now.
He patted Uriel’s face, and then dropped his hand underneath the bed, feeling blindly with his fingers until he felt them close around the hard, smooth surface of the stone. He pulled it out, and it nestled snugly in his palm: exactly the same as it had been on that day.
A small sob suddenly escaped from Araena’s lips, and Raphael got to his feet, tucking the stone inside his tunic. He quickly strode over and wrapped his arms around her. He felt her shaking, tears soaking up into the material over his chest. The uncertainty of being torn between worry and anger flashed through his mind again as he held their mother.
“Ma, do not worry,” he said gently. “I will find him. We will come home, I promise you. I promise all of you.”
Araena shook her head. “Silas would not do this! It is not like him! Something must have happened to him! He would be here otherwise; he is always here!”
“Nay, nay, Ma!” Mekina approached and stood close. She caught Raphael’s eyes over Araena’s head, still covered by her mourning wimple. “Nay, we know not what has happened to Silas, but he is a smart lad, and he can take care of himself. Look at how well he does care for us! Nothing will have become of him. He would not let it, Ma.”