by Ashley Capes
Now she lifted an arm to point to Notch. “Attend to me. Do not make me wait.”
Her tone left no room for refusal; agreement seemed best. A sense of something vast filled the small clearing, smothering the whisper of the stream. The woman was not ordinary – only a fool would think it so. The overwhelming sense of power common to a Greatmask was near, but she wore no mask and her robe did not seem to conceal a bone breastplate. Perhaps she’d stolen some piece of Seto’s Greatmask and fled with it, before the confrontation in the Anaskari Temple?
Before he could answer, his leg took a jerky step forward. And then a second. Pain came with the movement. He fought but the growing agony only increased. “What do you want?” he demanded between clenched teeth. Alosus took a step, reaching out but Notch shook his head. If the big man tried to hold him back, Notch’s bones would shatter. He couldn’t even draw his sword!
Not that it would do any good.
The woman did not respond but his steps quickened as she controlled his bones, bringing him to a halt before her.
She smiled, though he still could not see her face clearly – only her lips. She appeared young, but her presence was that of someone older, more assured. “How convenient that I find tools unlooked for, even here.” She paused to regard him. “Dull though they might be.”
Dull? A charming woman. “What do you want from us?”
“For you to complete a simple task. There is a ruined temple on this island and within lies a tomb. Bring the bones you find there to the far side of the island – I will be waiting.”
“You’re obviously powerful enough to do it yourself,” Notch said, ignoring the impulse to keep his mouth shut. “Why do you need such a ‘dull tool’ to do your bidding?”
Her laugh rippled over him. “Then let me hone your edge a little, Notch.”
A pale nimbus snapped up around her and his vision grew dim – his mind struggling within a new fog. Was it her? The sensation of being... ‘read’ followed. There was a cobweb-thin thread between them, and a hint of annoyance thrummed along it; something had interrupted her, something that required immediate attention but not something that would keep her away for long. She meant what she said – the woman would be waiting for him to complete her errand.
The connection broke.
He frowned; she’d used his name. She’d called him Notch. How? Just who was she? A chill followed. She didn’t seem to be Ecsoli. Anaskari maybe? Her tanned complexion was the only clue. When the light faded, his vision cleared and he exhaled heavily. Something had changed within him... and it wasn’t just the sudden elimination of the effects of his drinking, even the need was gone. But something else had happened and the sensation faded quickly as it came.
Yet her magic lingered even as it took no recognisable form. “What did you do?”
“Just enough to ensure you complete the task. Remember, the other side of the island.” She tilted her head a moment. “My, my. You know Oseto, don’t you?”
“I do.”
“If you ever see him again, you will pass on a message. Remind him that he should not seek me.”
“Who are you? And how do you know Seto?”
She stepped back, her form beginning to fade into the vivid green of the trees. “I expect you at sunset.”
3. Notch
Crouched amongst the vines with Alosus and Melosi, Notch looked down upon the ruined temple and its crossed columns with a deep frown. It was impossible to fully drown out the whispers from Melosi’s men, who were still sharing curses and wards against evil. And why not? Being frozen in place by a figure in a white robe ‒ a woman who hadn’t even lifted a finger ‒ was hardly something to just shrug off.
For most men.
He still muttered a curse; knowing she’d done something to him wasn’t as easy to forget.
“What’s that?” Melosi asked. His own expression was troubled.
“Nothing.”
“Look,” Alosus said. His deep voice rumbled.
Shadowy movement flashed between the crumbling columns of the temple. Something big. And fast. Yet it did not reveal itself as it slipped through the overgrown grounds. The walls, vines, dark flowers and spiky grasses burst up from moss-covered paving stones to obscure the creature. But that much Notch was sure of – it was a creature. There’d been a flash of a tail, but he caught it only once and then lost sight of it. Had the thing entered the temple? The main building itself was nearly as deeply immersed as the grounds. The opening was a dark maw.
“One of those giant lizards,” Melosi said, his voice flat.
Before Notch could answer, a shape emerged from the temple’s opening; long, sinewy, the afternoon light gleamed on black and red scales. Its steps were fast, precise, as it sniffed at the air. A second creature appeared from behind one of the half-collapsed walls and then a third from the temple, this one only slightly smaller than the other two.
The rasping hiss of the silverine from the Bloodwood echoed in his memory; these things would be worse. Notch didn’t take his eyes off the creatures. The first started toward their position. “Take your men back to the ship, Melosi.”
“And just what do you think you’re going to do?”
“Give you time.” Notch looked to Alosus. The Tonitora still carried his giant sickle and he rested a huge hand on it now. “Think we can handle three of them?”
“Not truly, no. One maybe, but not three.”
“He’s right, Notch,” Melosi said. “We have what we came for, forget the witch – we’ll leave.”
Notch shook his head. “I can’t. She’ll know, and she’ll find us. I don’t want her to punish everyone because I didn’t complete her errand.” He hadn’t shared all her words with them, but Greatmask or no, she was obviously more powerful than any being he’d ever encountered.
No matter. He had no choice; she would come for him.
And she had offered him something, hadn’t she? It would help, surely. It had to. His gaze was caught by the talons that gleamed on the six-legged creatures. He still had his father’s sword. “She wants me to succeed. Go, you need time. They already have our scent.” He looked to Melosi. “Don’t sail off without us – I mean to board the Hawk again, Captain.”
The man gave a nod, then spun to his men, waving them back down the trail. Notch looked up to Alosus, who was shaking his head. “This is madness. I have a wife and son to find.”
“Whatever that woman did to me will make the difference,” Notch said. He drew his blade and glanced around. Slabs of old stone, set in a regular pattern, stood nearby, each covered in moss. “See if you can break some legs with those; it’d be a good start.”
Alosus moved to the stones and lifted one with no apparent effort, something Notch would have laboured to do if at all, and faced the approaching terrors. The lead creature had broken away from the other two. Alosus lifted the slab, took aim, and hurled the stone forth. Notch felt the wind of its passage from where he stood.
The stone struck the creature square, the snapping of bone following as it collapsed. The other creatures stopped and began to hiss, then the smaller angled away – circling toward where Melosi and his men had left. “Can you stop that one?” Notch asked.
“What are you going to do?”
Notch took a deep breath. “Find out if whatever she did will actually help.” Before Alosus could stop him, Notch charged down the hill. He circled the still-thrashing creature Alosus had struck, then hit level ground, approaching the remaining beast.
It spread its forearms, keeping four on the ground, long black tongue flicking out as it hissed and crept closer. The scales gleamed, and the eyes were dark pools with a slip of yellow iris, tracking him as he held his sword ready. If he could hack through its legs, maybe he’d be able to reach the head without being sliced open.
The huge lizard charged. One arm flew in from the left, the other slashing down from above.
Notch blinked.
Time had slowed. Afternoon light grew...
softer, dimmer. The lizard-monster became more vivid as it, too, slowed. Its left arm was still approaching but Notch had time to raise his sword and consider his next move – he was not affected by the strange slowing of time at all. Whatever the woman in white had done, it seemed reminiscent of the magic the Oyn-Dir’s used to manipulate the Autumn Grove. But that magic was unique to the leader of the Braonn people, surely? And the witch had seemed tanned as any Anaskari or Ecsoli.
Notch slipped outside of the other talon’s reach. He had time to outflank the beast; it turned slowly, slowly – even the pieces of loam it tore with its feet spun into the air at a snail’s pace.
Notch swung his sword. Hard.
The blade sliced through the limb with relative ease. He’d recovered to swing at another leg before the splash of blood from the first wound hit the earth. Another clean cut and then he was severing a third leg.
A droning buzz filled the clearing before the temple, but he didn’t stop to fathom it. By the time the now-lopsided creature hit the ground he’d already circled to start on its tail, which took a few blows to hack through. Again, time favoured him – the creature’s head had not even finished turning to face him when he dashed close and swung at its neck.
The giant lizard-thing died in a spray of blood, droplets spinning, catching the light like rubies as they flew from the edge of his blade.
The natural brightness of the world returned.
The droning ceased, and the creature’s remaining limbs twitched as it lay bleeding. Notch stepped back to catch his breath. He hadn’t laboured, yet the strangeness of it all... what had the white witch done? Was it a gift or a terrible burden? He didn’t know exactly how or when he could slow time but still... such power. On the battlefield he would be unstoppable. If he wasn’t surprised, at least. Or shot from afar either – but it was impossible to know the limits of what she’d done.
No need to find out now. Just get the bones and get them to her.
Notch approached the dark maw of the temple, sword raised. Black blood dripped from the steel; he flicked it before pausing on the threshold.
A crumbling stone figure of a man rested above the entry; stern features casting ancient displeasure down upon those who entered. Notch crept within, boots scraping on stone. Light fell into a large altar room at the end of a short passage, a gaping roof open to the sky. Greying plant life littered the empty floor, greener shoots beneath, along with animal droppings. One corner housed a large nest of mud, moss and branches, but he didn’t approach it.
Instead, he moved directly for an opening behind the round altar, and no clue as to the particular deity it once served. The opening led down, worn steps visible. He took the single torch from his pack. If it was a long passage... Notch bent to work with tinder and flint, lighting the torch before beginning the descent.
The stair curved back around and under the altar, an arch revealing a dusty catacomb. He raised his torch and flickering light fell across rectangular stone slabs set in the walls. They were evenly spaced, and each bore a pair of iron handles. They numbered in the dozens. At the limits of his torchlight, there seemed a second arch. More tombs. “How by the Gods do I find the right bones?”
Be calm. The voice in his head held more than a trace of annoyance. Fourth chamber. It is marked.
“Marked how?”
But the white witch did not answer. Notch growled as he started toward the next arch. More of the same in the room, though the spider webs seemed to have a better hold here. Animal bones, tiny and thin, were heaped across the threshold of the third arch but nothing else was of note. The same stone tombs, the same steel handles, none of which he touched.
In the final chamber, he slowed to search each slab for markings but all were the same until he came to the rear of the room. Here, a bigger, more ornate slab stood in the wall. Large enough perhaps for two or three bodies. But its handles were the same plain steel bolted into the stone. The surface of the slab bore no engraving, nothing to indicate if it was the one the witch sought.
He moved on, searching the next wall.
And there, at chest height, the handles blinked with a white light – totally independent of his torch. He sheathed his sword, then threaded the torch through an adjacent handle before gripping the glowing steel. He braced his legs then pulled. Stone ground as it slid open. Dust sprinkled free at the edges. Notch kept sliding the stone coffin free, pausing once so he could see inside. Too much farther and it would overbalance.
White and grey shapes lay within, tangled in rotten fabric and dust. He lifted the torch closer. Little of whoever had once been sealed away remained. There was a skull and scraps of cloth and beside them, a longsword broken at the hilt. Something else gleamed in the torchlight – a pair of bracers. They were covered in silver scrollwork that surrounded a leaping lion, and seemed untouched by any tarnish. He lifted both free with an intake of breath. Lightweight, but they did not feel fragile in any way. A power lurked within them; there was a... a pulse that joined his own as he gripped them.
Do not tally with mere trinkets, Notch. Bring me the skull.
He flinched at the command. “I am on my way.”
Once again, the white witch did not reply. He hesitated just a moment, bracers in hand, before sliding them on. Notch scooped up the skull and placed it into his pack. “Looks like you’re coming with me, fellow.”
4. Notch
Notch stood on the old pier that clung to the opposite side of the island, exactly as instructed.
The setting sun sent a rose tint across the earth, plants and stone pier alike. The stretching sea was dark but pink brushed across the tips of the tide that splashed against the supports in a gentle rhythm. The sound might have lulled him, but the white witch was not someone he wanted to be surprised by.
He’d encountered nothing more dangerous than a snake or two on his trek toward the second pier, the skull in his pack thudding against his back with every step. Who had it belonged to? More importantly, why did she want it? Vinezi’s foul use of bones – and human flesh – was an ugly possibility. Yet the pool of regeneration in the temple back home was empty, wasn’t it?
“Well done.”
Notch spun. The white witch stood behind him, robes unstirred by even a breath of air. She held up a hand. The sense of her vast power was near-suffocating this time, shrinking him even though he knew he did not stand even half a foot shorter. He delivered the skull, which she did not even seem to glance at – though had there been a slight tightening of her lips? Her hood crinkled, and she looked to his arms where the silver armour rested. “Are you sure you want to carry them off this island?”
“He doesn’t need them. And where I mean to go, I need all the help I can find.”
She smiled and moved closer. Notch stepped back, reflexively, then froze – had the movement been an insult? But the witch’s smile only grew wider. “You show some mettle, it seems.” She glided closer again and now he could not move even if he was willing; his bones were locked in place as before. Compelling, just as Danillo had used – something that only Anaskar’s Lord Protector should have been able to achieve with the Greatmask Argeon. Danillo or the Ecsoli, anyway. Yet the witch seemed to carry no bones of power. “Should you survive the ocean and then the Land of the Sun, I may just have further uses for you, Notch.”
“Uses?”
“Indeed.” She removed her hood. The witch was a young woman with dark hair and dark eyes – eyes which did not speak of youth. An unfathomable age glittered within. She was somehow familiar but there was not enough to recognise, merely a vague feeling. He winced as she leaned in, her breath warm against his neck. Her lips brushed his skin; a tingling spreading through him. She opened her mouth...
Pain flashed.
He could not cry out but when she drew back, still smiling, Notch found he could move again. He reached up to his neck – she’d bitten him. Teeth marks were present in two half circles, indents. Only a trace of blood appeared on his finger tips...
she had barely broken the skin. But he’d felt it.
“Now you are marked.”
“What does that mean?”
Already she was fading. “Be careful with those bracers; they might change you in ways you find alarming.”
“Wait, what have you done?” he called after her ghost.
Nothing lasting – and I do hope you didn’t grow accustomed to my little trick with time back at the temple.
Gone.
Notch heaved a sigh. He’d survived, but at what cost? He ran his fingertips across the bite-mark and shuddered before letting his hand fall away. Focus! Getting off the island was a big enough problem for now, which meant starting a fire. Assuming Alosus had been able to protect Melosi and the crew, they’d eventually see a signal fire. Assuming also, that they hadn’t simply sailed away.
By the time he had a fair blaze going, full darkness had fallen. He stood with his back to the flame and stared out to the ocean. When he wasn’t running his fingers over the bite or wondering about her need for the skull, he was examining the bracers. The lion was certainly magnificent, but neither it nor the flowing scrollwork offered any clue as to the potentially disturbing power the witch mentioned.
Was it going to be a mistake to keep them?
But if it was going to offer an advantage, didn’t he need to take the risk? In the Land of the Sun, he was going to be overpowered at every blasted turn.
Light appeared in the distance – lanterns on the Hawk, its great bulk sliding into view. He waved but his fire had obviously already been seen. Perhaps the action concealed a bit of relief, even if he hadn’t truly thought Melosi would leave. They’d obviously bested the lizard-like creature.
A longboat was launched, and he soon found himself rowing beside Melosi’s first mate. A man carrying a bow was also aboard, his eyes on the patch of light remaining beyond the pier. “Must say, I’m surprised to see you again, Notch,” Gappilo said.
He chuckled. “A warm welcome back.”