[Demonata 04] - Bec

by Darren Shan - (ebook by Undead)

  Ronan and Lorcan have caught another hare, which Fiachna roasts on a spit. Along with the leftovers from the night before it provides us with a filling meal to start the day. Again we offer to share it with the MacGrigor, but again they refuse. They have too much pride to eat from another’s fire.

  When we’re finished, they point us in the easiest direction to the coast, then wave us off. Aideen looks like she wants to wish me well but she dare not speak kindly to me in front of the glowering Torin. I wish I could stay here and work on Torin, earn his respect and love. But even if he wasn’t so hostile to me, I’m part of a quest, and although it’s shrouded in secrecy and I’m deeply suspicious of Drust’s reasons for helping us, it would be wrong to quit now. Perhaps, if I survive, I can return and seek a place here in my true home—even if it’s only so that they can chain me up with others of my kind if my body starts to change.

  One of the wretched wolf-humans is howling madly as we leave, as if it senses a kindred spirit and is singing to the beast I might one day become.

  I think about the MacGrigor—my family—as we set off, wondering what will happen if we fail and the Demonata overrun the land. Will these poor excuses for humans be all that remain of our people? Will they alone be spared, kept alive because of their poisoned blood, the only human faces in a land of twisted demons?

  My lessons resume as we march. I practise the spells which Drust has already taught me and learn some new ones, like—

  How to hold my breath for ten minutes.

  How to make my fingers so cold that anything I touch turns to ice.

  How to create an image of myself, to confuse a human or demonic foe.

  How to sharpen a rock using only magic, to fashion a crude knife or spearhead for those times when magic alone might not be enough.

  I’m amazed at how swiftly I’m developing. Under Banba it would sometimes take me a week to master a new spell. Now I’m mastering some in minutes, almost before Drust has finished explaining how they work. And although they tire me, they don’t drain me and I recover rapidly.

  Drust is surprised too. He keeps commenting on how fast I am, quicker to learn than anyone he’s ever taught, how deep my magic runs. At first I think it’s flattery, designed to keep me happy and stop me thinking about the MacGrigor.

  But as the day wears on I realise he’s actually worried about my progress.

  “What’s wrong?” I snap as for the twentieth time he mutters darkly about my skills. “Aren’t you glad that I’m learning quickly?”

  “Of course,” Drust says. “Any teacher would be pleased to pass on so much with such little effort. But it’s not natural. Of course all magic is unnatural. We bend the laws of the universe to suit our needs. Each student is different, learning in a unique way, developing unlike any other. But there are similarities… learning steps all must climb… patterns they share.

  “Except you.” His eyes are heavy. “When we started out, you were like any student. Slow to learn, stubborn to abandon your old ways, gradually opening yourself up to a new world of magic. Now you’re nothing like that. You’ve changed in every imaginable way and I’m not sure what to think of it.”

  “It’s not that strange,” I mutter. “Once I perfected my first spell, it was easy. I just had a hard time getting started.”

  “No,” Drust says. “There’s more to it than that. I…” He hesitates, then says it. “I want to look inside your mind. I want to join spirits with you and see what inspired this change.”

  I go very quiet. I shared my mind and spirit with Banba many times. It’s part of the teaching process. I thought I’d have to do the same with Drust, but there’d been no mention of it until now. Sharing one’s spirit is a personal, private thing. To do it with a woman is hard, but to share with a man…

  “It won’t be easy for me either,” Drust says quietly. “If you refuse, I won’t force you. But I have good reason for asking. There’s something unsettling about your growth. I suspect I know what it is. But I need to go within your mind to be sure.”

  “Can’t you just tell me?” I groan. “Why all this need for secrets?”

  “Druids and priestesses are creatures of secrets,” he says. “We live in worlds of mazes and mysteries. Secrecy is part of who we are and how we live. It should be enough for you when I say I need to do this. My reasons are unimportant. You either trust me or you don’t.”

  I want to pull a face and say that I don’t, to annoy him. But his worry has set me worrying too. Now that I think about it, I realise no apprentice should advance this far, this fast. Banba told me ignorance is the greatest danger any magician ever faces. If you don’t know yourself intimately—your powers and the magic you wield—sooner or later you’ll fall victim to forces of the unknown.

  “Very well,” I sigh. “But I don’t want you rooting around inside my head too long. Find what you need, then get out. If not, I’ll fight.”

  Drust nods, smiling wryly. Then, without slowing, he takes hold of my left hand and directs his thoughts towards me. I feel his presence immediately, as if he’d opened a door into my mind and stepped through. His magic washes into me, seeping through my skin. Most of it is directed through his fingers but it comes from other places too—legs, chest, head. His power is like a cloud wrapped around me, swallowing me, tasting and testing me. Soon it’s as if there are two people sharing one body. My thoughts are his, my past, my dreams, my magic.

  I stiffen but don’t stop walking. Movement gives me a notion of separation. I’m still aware of my individual self, who I am, who I was, who I hope to be. If I stop, I’m afraid Drust will become me and I’ll lose myself to him completely.

  He presses further into my mind, searching, exploring the well of my magic. He’s already deeper within me than Banba ever got, discovering truths which nobody knows, my secret wishes and desires, my hopes, loves and fears. And still he doesn’t stop. He keeps going, working on the part of me that is pure magic, dragging himself down towards my core, deeper and deeper, searching…

  Something flares within me. I feel a bolt of lethal power shoot towards Drust. I know it will kill him upon contact but I can’t stop it. It’s coming from a place I can’t control, that I didn’t know was there. The bolt flies straight at Drust, increasing in power. It’s going to kill him! It will blow him apart! It—

  Suddenly, he isn’t there. Contact has been broken. He throws himself away physically, mind following, disappearing from my thoughts, crying out in pain, but not the sort of pain that accompanies death.

  I cry out too and drop, head on fire, screaming, feeling the bolt of power explode into nothingness, tearing at the rim of my mind but not damaging me, not like it would have damaged—destroyed—Drust.

  Bright lights. Stars. Then a red haze. When it clears, everyone’s around Drust and me. Concerned for me, wary of the druid. Ronan and Lorcan have him at sword point, even though he’s rolled up into a ball and isn’t moving. Connla’s behind them, testing his own sword’s edge, eyes flicking from one twin to the other. Fiachna’s studying my face, rolling my eyelids up, making sure I’m all right. Bran is close by, anxiously chewing his lower lip.

  “I’m fine,” I mutter, pushing Fiachna away—my skin is more sensitive than it’s ever been. His touch is painful.

  “What did he do?” Ronan asks, positioning the tip of his sword by Drust’s throat, ready to slice it open and end his life the second I give him an excuse.

  “Put down that sword,” Connla growls, unexpectedly coming to the druid’s aid. “Don’t harm him.”

  “I will if he’s hurt her!” Ronan snaps.

  “He didn’t,” I gasp. I want to lie down and rest, but I’m afraid they’ll kill Drust if I don’t speak up. “We were… working on a spell. It went wrong. He was trying to help me, not harm me.”

  The others look relieved, except Ronan, who looks annoyed at being denied his kill. They sheathe their weapons. Goll asks how long it will take for Drust to recover and when we’ll be ready to
continue. I tell him I don’t know and ask them to leave us alone for a while. When they’re out of earshot, I slide over next to Drust and whisper, “Can you hear me?”

  A long pause, then a very shaky, “Aye.”

  “What happened?” I hiss.

  Drust rolls on to his side and stretches out slowly. There are burn marks on his right hand, ugly welts. There are red lines etched across his temple too, as though flames had shot up from his hand to his head.

  “I was right,” he croaks.

  “About what?”

  “The source of your magic.” His fingers twitch and he winces. It hurts but I lean forward and cast a healing spell on his hand. As the worst of the redness cools away, Drust looks at me, no gratitude in his eyes, only doubt. “Magic exploded within you when you fought Lord Loss.”

  “I know. I reached in and stole power from him.”

  Drust shakes his head. “No. That’s not the whole truth. He gave it to you.” I frown, not understanding. “Lord Loss let you take from him,” Drust explains. “More than that—he extended his magic towards you. He reached within you and struck at the… the flint of your spirit, for want of a better term. He created the magical sparks and fanned them into life. You’re powerful because he wants you to be—because he lit the flames of magic inside you.”

  My face whitens. “You mean the magic… my spells… that’s all because of him?”

  “Aye.”

  “But why?” I cry. “Why would a demon give power to a human?”

  “I don’t know,” Drust says. “But I do know this. I thought you were my apprentice, but you’re not—you’re Lord Loss’s.”

  And the suspicion in his eyes cuts to my heart as if he’d stabbed me in the chest with a knife.

  THE EMIGRANTS

  We make slow progress in the afternoon, hampered by bad weather, having to climb lots of hills and Drust’s injuries. I hurt him with the blast of magic. He got out of my head just in time, but even so he took a hammering. He casts healing spells when he’s able, but movement is still painful.

  There have been no more lessons. Drust has kept clear of me, walking close to Goll and Fiachna, bringing up the rear of the group. I don’t blame him. I’m suspicious of myself too. There’s no telling what Lord Loss got up to inside my skull and heart. Maybe he planted spells of destruction and I’m doomed to betray my friends and kill them all.

  They should be told of the threat I pose but Drust has said nothing and I lack the courage to tell them. I don’t think they’d kill me but trust would be impossible. They’d cut me off. I’d be their friend no longer—merely a possible enemy.

  So I walk in silence and keep my fears to myself, wondering if and when the animal within me will burst forth—either the magical animal of Lord Loss’s making or the beast of my MacGrigor heritage.

  * * * * *

  It’s late afternoon when we sight the sea. Dark blue, with white, choppy waves smashing against the rocks of the shore, roaring like a monster. It stretches as far as the eye can see. I hoped I might glimpse the shores of Tir na n’Og from here, the legendary land which lies somewhere between this place and the Otherworld. But if it’s out there, as the legends claim, it lies beyond the sight of normal folk—and magical folk too.

  We stop atop a hill and marvel at the vision of the sea. Even Drust wipes a hand across his brow, then stares at the horizon with wide, childlike eyes, as though he can hardly believe it’s there.

  “A thing of wild beauty,” Goll murmurs, smiling as the wind whips at his beard and hair. He strokes the flesh of his blind eye. “I saw it as a young man. I had perfect sight then. But it’s just as wondrous seen with a single eye.”

  “Where does it end?” Lorcan asks, looking left and right, then straight ahead.

  “Nobody knows,” Drust says, his first words of the afternoon. “Some say it goes on forever. Others that it comes to the edge of the world and drops away into nothingness. A few even claim that by some form of magic it leads to the other side of the world, that if you were to sail all the way across, you’d wash up at the lands to the east. But nobody really knows.”

  “And Tir na n’Og?” Fiachna asks. “Is it out there?”

  Drust shrugs. “Perhaps. There are…” He pauses, sniffs the air, looks west. “We will soon find some who believe they know where Tir na n’Og lies. You can ask them. They might be able to provide clearer answers than me.”

  On that curious note, Drust starts down the hill, angling gently southwest, to a point further along the coastline. The rest of us cherish one last long look at the sea. Then we follow, reluctantly abandoning sight of the great expanse of water, eagerly awaiting the moment when we come within view of it again.

  Night is close when we spot them. We’ve been walking along the edge of the coast for an hour, stumbling often on the strange, flat, cracked layers of rock underfoot. The strength of the sea can be felt first-hand here. The wind, the spray, the tremors in the ground from the pounding of the waves. I’m amazed the land has stood up to the battering for so long I always knew there was power in the earth, but it must be much stronger than I imagined to resist such a relentless foe, day after day, night after night, year after year. We’re all focused on the sea, watching the waves rise and crash, no two alike. In some places, where they strike, they rise up in huge plumes like smoke, spreading their drops far in a fine mist. It’s like a moving painting of never-ending designs. Because of this extraordinary show, we’re almost upon the travellers before Lorcan—at the front of the group—glances up and realises we’re not alone.

  “People!” he shouts, halting abruptly and pointing ahead. Squinting—because of the spray—I spot a procession of twenty or thirty figures, heading to a large boat bobbing up and down in a relatively calm cove.

  “Demons?” Connla asks, standing on his toes, as if that will help him see better.

  “No,” Drust says, passing Lorcan without slowing.

  “Humans?” Goll calls after him.

  “Not as such,” is Drust’s response.

  We look at each other uncertainly, then shuffle along after the druid.

  The travellers are creatures of legend. Impossibly towering giants, the height of three or four men. Tiny, stick-thin people who might be the meddlesome leprechauns of myth. Slender, graceful, pointy-eared fairies. Weeping, pale-faced, dark-eyed, terrifying banshees. Others who look more like demons than humans. Druids and priestesses too. All are part of the procession, winding their way to the boat, where others like them are patiently waiting, seated or standing, all looking west.

  “Morrigan’s milk!” Goll gasps, making a sign to ward off evil. Then he stops, confused, since although these are obviously beings of magic, they don’t have the look or feel of wickedness.

  The walkers have their eyes set on the path or boat. One of the druids happens to look up and spot us. He breaks off from the others and comes towards us. As he draws close, Ronan nudges over to Drust and whispers, “Is he a threat?”

  “No,” Drust says. He has stopped and is waiting calmly for his fellow druid, arms folded across his chest.

  “Who are they?” Fiachna asks, studying one of the burly, brutal-looking giants. We’ve heard stories of these fierce warriors of the past, part god, part human. But ancient stories are sometimes hard to believe. They grow in the telling over the generations. Things get exaggerated. I always assumed the giants of lore were simply large but otherwise normal warriors. Fiachna and the others thought that too. We were wrong.

  “They are beings of lessening magic,” Drust says in answer to Fiachna’s query. “They came after the Old Creatures and flourished for a time on the magic of the past. They’re leaving now. The magic of the Old Creatures has almost faded from this earth. Those it nurtured can’t survive without it. Their time here is finished. They go west in search of Tir na n’Og or death.” His eyes are sad but also filled with longing. He wants to go with them.

  “Do they flee from the Demonata?” I ask quietly. />
  “Not necessarily,” Drust says. “Most have come from distant lands, some from the other side of the world. They leave to escape the Christians and other new religious groups. The world has changed and will change more in the centuries to come. Old magic is no longer dominant. Those who practise it have no place here. They leave before the magic disappears completely, to avoid an undignified end.”

  “Why don’t they fight?” Goll asks.

  “They did. But only a fool continues to fight when it’s clear the battle is lost. Everything has an end. This is the end of great magic and those who belong to it.”

  The other druid reaches us and stops. He nods to Drust, who nods back. Then he casts a curious eye over the rest of us. “Do you seek a place on board our boat, brother?” the druid asks.

  “Nay,” Drust replies. “I am here on other business.”

  “There won’t be many more boats this year,” the druid says. “This might be the last before spring. If you miss this one…”

  “I have work here,” Drust says.

  “This is a dangerous land,” the druid notes. “Several of our kind have fallen on their way to this point. If you wait and the Demonata triumph within the next few months, there might never be a boat again.”

  “My work involves the Demonata,” Drust says. “If I am successful the boats will continue to sail.”

  The druid raises an eyebrow. “You have set yourself against the demons?”

  “Aye,” Drust says steadily.

  “A perilous undertaking. You do it to keep the path to the west clear for those who will follow?”

  “No,” Drust smiles. “We should all be so self-sacrificing, but most are not and I am no exception. I do this for personal reasons.”

  The druid returns Drust’s smile. “Whatever they are, I wish you luck. If you can close the tunnel between this world and the Demonata’s, boatloads to come will praise your name in the lands west of here… or in the lands of the dead.”