by Jen Williams
Frith turned to her, and through the glow she could just make out his expression of complete confusion. He opened his mouth to say something, and then the light winked out. Frith dropped to the floor in a dead faint, his body completely boneless, and for a frightening moment the carapacer dipped and Wydrin thought he would be thrown clear. Instead, he rolled to the side and came to rest there. Wydrin scrambled over to him, ignoring the blood weeping from her own leg. She pulled his head into her lap and felt for a pulse; it was there, rapid but faint.
‘By all the gods,’ she pressed her lips to his forehead, and tasted sweat, ‘what was that all about, my love?’
‘What happened?’ shouted Xinian. She turned to look at Wydrin, and it was obvious that the mage was close to exhaustion. The fingers she held out to either side were trembling. ‘Where did the dragon’s creatures go?’
‘Technically, I think they’re in the creases of your upholstery, and there’s a reasonable amount in my hair.’
Xinian looked less than pleased by that answer, but she shook her head and turned back to her task.
‘Well, we’re about to land, whether we like it or not. Brace yourself.’
51
‘So, how broken is it?’
They had landed, for want of a better word, on a tiny island of black rocks that barely deserved the description. Wydrin recognised the black sand and stunted trees of the Nowhere Isles from her journey to Whittenfarne – Frith might even have had some idea of where they were, but he had yet to regain consciousness. He lay by the small fire they had made, wrapped in Wydrin’s cloak, a bandage at his throat. The scratches across her legs had been painful but shallow, at least. The carapacer sat off to one side, leaning drunkenly, the golden legs that supported it having taken a lot of damage when they had crashed into the rocks. Xinian stood next to it, running her hands over the battered metal plates.
‘It is fairly broken,’ admitted Xinian. She scowled as she pressed her fingers to the mages’ word in front of her. It did not light up. ‘Our descent has rattled the pieces apart, and we would need an Edeian crafter to move them back into place to cover the missing panel. I can recharge it with Edenier, but it is beyond my skill to repair the rest of it.’
‘And how far are we from our destination?’
‘Not so far, but too far to walk it, even if we could scurry across water,’ said Xinian sourly.
‘Did Y’Ruen know we were coming?’ Wydrin asked in a low voice. ‘Might she appear again?’
Xinian turned her frown onto her. ‘It was a random attack. Y’Ruen delights in bringing death, but she does not have a strategic mind. She simply kills anything that moves. I am more interested in your friend there. What happened to him? How did he destroy the dragon’s daughters?’
Wydrin looked back over to Frith. His breathing had slowed, and he now appeared to be sleeping normally. ‘If I knew, Xinian, I would tell you, believe me. And I’m sure you will batter him with questions as soon as he wakes up, but for now I suspect we’d all be a lot happier if we could get off this stinking bloody island. How exactly are we going to do that?’
Xinian stepped back from the carapacer and to Wydrin’s surprise gave it a single vicious kick.
‘The people at our destination knew we were coming,’ she said. ‘Eventually they will wonder where we are, and eventually they will come looking for us.’
Wydrin grimaced, thinking of the scattered islands of the Nowhere Isles; numerous and continually lost in thick mist, they made the archipelago of Crosshaven look positively organised. ‘We’d best get comfortable, then, because I reckon that might take them a while.’
‘There’s no time.’
They both turned to look at Frith, who was stumbling to his feet. Wydrin held her hands out.
‘Oh no, princeling, you stay where you are. Rest is what you need, and you’ve lost a lot of blood.’
‘Not as much as you,’ he said, gesturing at her leg. ‘And yet you are up and about, ordering me around as ever.’ He shuffled over to them, moving as though every step exhausted him. ‘I can help you. With the device.’
Xinian shook her head at him, unable to contain her consternation. ‘You! And what are you, exactly? No mage, no Edenier burning in you, no silks and no tattoos and yet you turned the dragon’s daughters to dust. You are not coming anywhere near any mage artefact until you tell me what you are.’
Frith regarded her steadily. ‘For the greatest military commander the mages ever knew, you are foolish. I have told you already that I do not know what that power is when it moves through me.’ His shoulders were bunched together and he was holding himself carefully – he was angry, and it was exhausting him. ‘But you waste our time asking me again, when you know full well I have no answers. Every moment we spend stranded here gives Estenn more time to unite the pieces of the Red Echo, and then all of your people will be dead.’
In a swift movement born of long practice, Xinian drew her short sword and levelled it at Frith’s throat.
‘You would do well to speak to Xinian the Battleborn with more respect.’
‘Hold on.’ Wydrin took a slow breath, watching the edge of the blade. Any threat to Frith was unacceptable, and her instinct was to draw Glassheart and put a quick end to this, but that way lay madness. Frith, for his part, did not move but remained staring at Xinian – Wydrin wasn’t sure if he were too bold or too exhausted to move. ‘You both need to step back for a moment here.’
‘Your people arrived in the middle of the sacred grove, and you have no answers but plenty of threats.’ Xinian jabbed the sword at Frith. ‘And now you expect me to let him take apart one of Selsye’s creations?’ Xinian bared her teeth. ‘I have no reason to trust either of you.’
Wydrin shook her head, feeling her own anger fill her throat. It would not help, she told herself sternly. Not now. ‘No reason to trust us, except that we just kept a bunch of bat-faced bitches off your back? Xinian, we are not your enemy. What harm can it do if Frith looks at the machine? We are stuck here for a while anyway.’
Xinian hissed softly through her teeth and lowered the blade. ‘Do it, then,’ she snapped. ‘Be mindful it does not blow up in your face.’
Frith knelt in the black sand, slowly moving his hands over the green plates of metal. Beneath his fingers he could feel the faint lines of energy that marked the Edeian that had formerly held this contraption in place – they stood out in his mind’s eye like glowing lines of emerald green. Through the filter of Joah’s memories it was possible to see how the pieces fitted together, how they had been slotted into a latticework to increase the efficiency of the Edenier. It would be relatively easy to move everything back into place, if they had the correct tools. He retrieved a memory of Joah sitting on a wooden scaffold, huge plates of blistered iron hanging in front of him. It had been the monstrous Rivener he was building, the tattoos on his arms prickling with steadily increasing heat as he’d warmed the plates and turned them to his design. In the memory he could feel Joah’s warm satisfaction as the net of Edeian closed into place, and it was a good memory. It was almost possible to forget that he had murdered hundreds inside the Rivener for the sake of his demon patron, that men, women and children had died inside the iron walls in pain and terror. There was power here, yes, and the satisfaction of making something entirely new. There was also madness and death. He had to remember that. He had to.
‘Can you make it work?’
He rubbed a hand over his eyes and looked up to see Xinian glaring down at him. Too well it reminded him of her standing over his bunk in the Rivener, calling him shadow-mage and entreating him to defeat Joah.
‘We lost several plates of metal during the fight,’ he replied. ‘Without them, the net of Edeian is broken and there is nothing holding the spells in place.’ He looked around, thinking out loud. ‘If we can use something to bridge the gaps and mend the net, it’s possible we could recharge enough of the mages’ words to fly us a short distance.’
‘What do
you imagine you could use to bridge these gaps?’
Frith stood up and brushed some of the black sand from his knees. ‘These islands are thick with Edeian.’ He thought of O’rin, building his own trap for the gods underneath the rocks of Whittenfarne. Edenier, written in the fabric of Edeian. ‘Mud, stones, grass. It all contains Edeian. I am fairly sure I can use them to bridge the gaps in the net.’
‘You want to repair the carapacer with mud?’ Xinian raised a single eyebrow. ‘Then you can fly in it alone.’
‘As Wydrin said, we lose nothing by trying. Will you help me? I will need you to use the Edenier.’ He paused, feeling shame colour his cheeks. ‘I will also need you to help me collect the materials. I still do not have my strength back.’
Xinian narrowed her eyes at him. ‘You truly do not know how you killed the dragon’s daughters, do you?’
He bit down a sigh. ‘I do not. It was like everything was still for a moment, and I grabbed hold of them and pushed …’ He pressed his lips into a thin line. ‘I cannot explain it.’
Xinian unfolded her arms. ‘Come, show me what you need. At least moving about will keep us warm.’
They collected armfuls of stones and the long blue grass that grew in untidy patches on the island, and Xinian scooped a quantity of gritty black mud onto a torn piece of cloak. While Wydrin sat by the fire and rested her leg, they stripped the grass down and bound it into long thin ropes. With these they secured the flattest stones to the areas of the carapacer missing its metal shell – underneath was a sturdy wooden framework – with Frith carefully turning each stone in place until the strongest veins of Edeian were lined up with each other. It was longwinded and tedious work, but Xinian did not complain; she simply asked questions, and helped where she could. When the stones were as secure as they could make them, they slopped handfuls of the gritty black mud on the bare patches.
‘Is this really necessary?’
Frith nodded hesitantly. ‘It all contains Edeian. It’s strongest in the stones, but the mud has a sort of background glow. This makes it sturdier.’
Xinian snorted. ‘The last thing I would describe this mess as would be sturdy,’ she said, but she carried on spreading the mud all the same. When that was complete, he watched as she reactivated the mage words one by one.
‘We are still missing words. It will not fly without them.’
‘Yes,’ said Frith, trying to picture it all in his mind. He was aware that he was no longer referring to Joah’s memories, but working on his own instincts. ‘I thought that we could—’
‘We’ve got company!’
They both turned to Wydrin’s voice. She stood by the fire now, and beyond the beach in front of her a boat loomed out of the fog. It was a traditional ship of the Nowhere Isles, built of pale wood with a monstrous figurehead looming at its prow to ward off evil spirits. The vessel came close to the beach and a figure jumped from the side, splashing into the shallows. Next to him, Frith sensed Xinian’s posture grow relaxed as his own grew tense – he had seen this woman before.
‘I thought I might find you here,’ called the figure, splashing up the beach. She wore a long brown coat with many pockets – Frith could see rolls of parchment poking out of them here and there – and she had blond hair, long enough to reach her chin and then cut in a straight, no nonsense line. When he had seen her last, in the memories Xinian had gifted him with, her hair had been long and coiled on top of her head. That day would be many years from now, he hoped.
‘Selsye.’ For the first time, Frith heard genuine warmth in the Commander’s voice. ‘I should have known you could find us. How did you do it?’
Wydrin was standing. Frith suspected he was the only one who noticed how close her hand had been to her dagger, but it dropped away now. Selsye advanced up the beach, smiling. Behind her there were a few men on the sleek boat, slipping their oars and taking little notice of them.
‘Reports of Y’Ruen in the skies, my love,’ said the blonde woman. She nodded cheerily to Wydrin as she passed her. Wydrin nodded back. ‘I thought there was a good chance you would experience, uh, bad weather.’ Her smile faltered at the sight of the carapacer. ‘I calculated your likely direction of approach, and then figured out which of these dreadful little islands you might pitch up on. I waited a bit, you know I’m no pessimist.’ She glanced at Frith and nodded to him merrily enough. ‘But when you were late, well, I thought I would take the Dire Heart out for a little punt.’ She turned back and waved enthusiastically to the men on the ship. One of them half raised his hand back. ‘It’s quite exciting, weaving our way around these little islands. Very nearly ran aground a few times. So, who are these people? It looks like the ‘pacer took some serious knocks.’ She frowned briefly. ‘This was my favourite one, too. I called it Ted.’
Xinian took the opportunity to get a word in edgewise. Frith suspected she’d had a lot of practice. ‘You got my message?’
‘I did, yes, although I can’t say I understood much of it. Fanatics, betrayal, sell-swords, it was quite the read. Oh!’ she turned back to Frith. ‘Are these the sell-swords? They look the type.’ She grinned encouragingly.
‘I am Lord Frith of the Blackwood,’ said Frith. ‘This is Wydrin Threefellows, the Copper Cat of Crosshaven.’
‘Goodness!’ said Selsye, clearly delighted. ‘And you’ve come all the way out here for what, exactly?’
Frith exchanged a brief glance with Wydrin. This woman was relentlessly cheerful and extremely polite, but he also sensed a hint of steel underneath the courteousness. He could tell from Wydrin’s carefully neutral face that she felt it too. This was, he reminded himself, the mage who had faced down Joah Demonsworn side by side with Xinian Battleborn.
‘It is a long story, Selsye,’ put in Xinian, ‘and there’s a lot you need to know, but it’s very possible the plan has been compromised.’ She glanced over to the ship. ‘And the collection may be in danger.’
‘I see.’ The merriment faded from Selsye’s face. ‘Then we should get back to Whittenfarne swiftly. We can send a team back here to retrieve the ’pacer –’ She paused, her head tipping slightly to one side. ‘Have you been tying bits of grass around Ted? And … rubbing mud all over him?’
Xinian cleared her throat. ‘I thought we might be stuck here for some time, so I somewhat unwisely took advice from our guests.’
‘I sought to repair it as best I could,’ said Frith hotly. ‘It was, if you recall, the only plan we had.’
‘No, that’s interesting,’ said Selsye. She walked past them to lay her hands on the carapacer’s hide, now half hidden in black mud. ‘I can see what you were doing. Patching up the Edeian with the natural background glow of it. You have even lined up the strongest lines of force, so that it will hold together naturally, like when you fill an oil-lined bag with water and it inflates.’ She looked to Frith, all her previous foreboding gone. ‘You are a crafter?’
‘I … have some talent in that direction,’ admitted Frith. He could almost hear Wydrin repressing a chuckle.
‘But that’s wonderful!’ cried Selsye. She took hold of his hand and shook it briskly. ‘There are so very, very few of us, you know. We’re much rarer than mages, did you know that?’
‘It must be rarer to be both a mage and a crafter,’ said Wydrin quietly.
‘You are quite right,’ said Selsye. ‘The Edenier sometimes runs in families, and sometimes it does not, but if a mage procreates with another mage, there is a reasonable chance you will birth a child with the Edenier burning inside them.’ Just behind Selsye, Xinian wore a faintly pained expression. He suspected that they had stumbled over one of her partner’s favourite subjects. ‘But there is no predicting the birth of an Edeian crafter. To be able to see the magic in the earth, sea and stone, to recognise the patterns of it and then know how to use them –’ Selsye shook her head slowly. ‘It is a rare gift.’
‘Indeed.’ Frith thought of Joah, peeling apart his mind to get at his secrets, whilst the rogue mage’s kn
owledge had seeped through to him. He had paid quite the price for this gift.
‘And what you’ve done here, with no tools and no decent materials. It’s really quite extraordinary!’
‘Selsye, we must go now,’ said Xinian. ‘If we’re right, we don’t have a lot of time.’
‘Of course, of course. Come on, into the ship. Ted will have to fend for himself for a while.’ As one they moved down the beach, while Wydrin paused to kick sand over their small fire. ‘Lord Frith, we will take you to Whittenfarne and you will see the history of Edeian crafting in all its glory. And I have a friend you really must meet.’
52
Pain dragged Sebastian towards the light, against his will. It would be easier, more comfortable to stay down in the dark, but awareness seeped back as every part of his body started to ring with a new ache. He grimaced, and his face felt strangely stiff. He pressed his fingers to his cheek lightly, and recognised the sticky, powdery feel of dried blood.
‘Ow.’
Sebastian opened his eyes. He lay on a cold marble floor, a distant vaulted ceiling built of the same material hanging over his head. There was an odd scent in the air, a mixture of wild flowers and sea salt. Cautiously, he sat up, wincing as a whole new set of aches and pains let themselves be known. It felt as though he’d fallen down a set of stone steps and taken great care to hit a different part of his body on each one.
‘You are awake then, my little oddity.’
Sebastian looked around. He appeared to be on the floor of the biggest throne room he’d ever seen. Huge marble pillars disappeared into the shadows of the ceiling, while one side of the room was given over to a great silver chair, entwined with carvings of twisting vines and orchids. A woman approached from this throne, moving with unhurried grace.
She is not human, he told himself. Whatever she might look like.
‘Y’Gria,’ he murmured. She no longer looked like the tentacled giant that had menaced them from the burning town. Now she was a tall woman, with skin the colour of burnished gold and tresses of wild green hair that fell unbound down her back. Ram’s horns still curled at her temples, and now she wore a long dress made of yellow silk that brushed the marble floor. It was obvious she had legs rather than roots, and for that Sebastian was absurdly grateful. Abruptly, he remembered their last moments on board the carapacer and how the young mage accompanying them had screamed. ‘What of Silvain?’ he asked aloud, staggering to his feet with some difficulty. ‘Where is she?’