The Water Thief

by Jane Kindred

  “Well, you fucked her, boy. You must’ve meant to dispense with her. My hat’s off to you for discovering she and her cohorts from Thievesward had only come here with the intent of stealing from us.” Emrys descended the stairs at a leisurely pace. “The loss of her continued source of energy is unfortunate, but I’ve accrued plenty nonetheless. Enough to make you the most powerful earl of Cantre’r Gwaelod who ever lived.”

  “Indeed? Last time we spoke, I believe you were intent on having me stripped naked and whipped in the village square.”

  “Never in the village square.” Emrys managed to give him a wink that was both humorless and unnerving in its menacing calm. “That was before I realized August was no longer the daughter of the house of Swift she once was, merely a pawn of that charlatan Rees, having been conditioned after so many years under his control into doing his bidding. So as I said, well done in exposing them for what they were. Since I see you came to blows with the ruffian, I suppose you’re aware they made off with my mother’s jewels the very day she died, not to mention two of our best horses.”

  So Elen was gone. No wonder Emrys was so certain of himself. Macsen regarded him. He was playing a game, but it was a game that seemed to be turning unexpectedly in Macsen’s favor. “Only the horses. I’m afraid the lot of them gave me the slip when I tried to pursue them.”

  “Well, I’m sure we’ll bring the culprits to justice eventually, and even bring August once more to heel. Like her brother did, she seems to suffer from an incurable psychosis. It was a mistake to give her unrestricted freedom. All Fates is the only place for a person such as her. But we have more important things to concern ourselves with for the time being. I believe I told you before that my efforts to contain the power of the Swifts would bring great benefit to the realm.”

  “You did.” Macsen tried to affect a look of casual interest and not let on that this was precisely what he’d come back to stop. “You didn’t say how.”

  Emrys picked up one of the wine bottles and turned it about in the light from the kitchen above as though it were one of the vials he was admiring. “I’ve devised a plan that will reunite Cantre’r Gwaelod with the realm of its origins.”

  It wasn’t difficult to look shocked. He might have known it already, but hearing Emrys admit it to him was startling. “The realm of its origins?” This too he wasn’t supposed to know about. “There really is such a thing?”

  “Oh, indeed there is.” Emrys set the bottle back in its rack. “It was an irresponsible Lord Swift who allowed us to lose our place in it. And we’re about to take it back.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Without Macsen, this realm seemed more foreign than ever. August tried to distract me with introductions to new experiences, but without Macsen, every new thing seemed frightful and alien. I knew I should have been astounded at the moving pictures projected larger than life on the screen at the theater she took me to, but instead I was overwhelmed by the volume of the sound that surrounded us and the rapid, violent sequences occurring in the film. I could imagine watching this phenomenon with Macsen beside me, experiencing the strangeness with him, experiencing the shared wonder, but to August, it was all ordinary, which made it all the more unsettling to me.

  The morning after Macsen’s departure, August woke me early for a journey by train—another fast-moving conveyance made of metal, though this one, at least, did not have the unpredictable company of other vehicles whizzing past it in competition for the road, but traveled on its own track. August said it was a relic of another time, a train operated by steam engine. Much more modern, faster trains existed, apparently. To her it seemed quaint. To me, it was another loud, dangerous conveyance that rattled my teeth. Macsen, I remembered, had taken the train to Cardiff on his earlier visit. I supposed that was one of the modern trains. So perhaps to Macsen, this would have seemed quaint too.

  The lovely countryside through which the train wound did manage to take my mind off him for a bit—when I wasn’t wishing he were here watching it with me. At the end of our journey was a village that seemed much more like the world I was familiar with. The pastoral setting among the woodlands was complete with a trio of romantic and mysterious stone bridges built one atop the other, a deep gorge cut by a winding river, and a magnificent waterfall whose thundering power I could feel within my blood as I gazed upon it. But again, I couldn’t help wishing Macsen were beside me.

  That evening, August tried to take my mind off the fact that it had been over thirty-six hours since Macsen’s disappearance into the waters of Cardigan Bay by taking me dancing at the club on the pier in Aberystwyth. After Cardiff, I was dubious of her discernment in this arena, but she assured me this was an ordinary dance club and not a “specialty” like the ones she’d sent me to with Macsen.

  “You do realize you sent us there on a rather unusual night,” I murmured to her as we moved through the queue to enter, feeling the blood rush to my cheeks at the memory of it.

  “Unusual?” August turned to me with a quizzical smile. “Unusual how?”

  “They had a special…performer.”

  “Performer?” August’s eyes went wide with understanding, and she laughed into her hand. “Stripper night? Oh my God, Sebastian. I didn’t realize. I’m so sorry. I just thought you two would enjoy, you know, being together. Somewhere you could be yourselves.”

  I folded my arms in mock disapproval, fairly amused about it myself in retrospect. “We weren’t really in a place to be ourselves. I don’t think we were quite the type they expected there. But I did get dragged up on stage to have what I believe someone termed a ‘lap dance’.”

  “No!” August was grinning, clearly enjoying my predicament, despite her professed shock. “And what did Macsen think of that?”

  “Very little,” I chided her. “He nearly came to blows—did, actually, but he was hustled out the door before it got too serious.”

  She shook her head with a rueful smile. “So that’s where he got the shiner. I assumed he’d insulted someone.”

  I glared at her unrepentant expression. “You might have warned us.”

  “I’m sorry, Sebastian. I am. If I’d known it was stripper night, I would never have sent you to the pub.” She turned as we reached the door to show our identification and pay the cover. “But I take it your IDs worked out for you,” she said as she handed my card back to me. “They didn’t give you any trouble?”

  “No, no trouble.” I tucked the card into the billfold. “It was a members-only performance, though, so we had to become members.” I showed her the hand-printed card I’d gotten at the pub. August’s face went ashen as she took it to examine it. “What’s the matter?”

  “Sebastian… You didn’t… You—” Her gaze darted up and she searched my eyes. “You didn’t sign any kind of roster, did you?”

  “Of course we did. We had to sign the membership list. Ow! What is the matter with you?”

  She’d taken hold of my upper arm in a fierce pinch and was shoving me back out the door and through the crowd. “Dammit, Sebastian. You’ve ruined everything.”

  “What?” I trotted to keep up with her as she hurried back toward the flat. “What difference does it make? What are you going on about?”

  August whirled on me. “Quiet!” she shouted. “I have to think.”

  I gaped at her but hurried on behind her as her stride grew long and determined. It seemed better to let her think, as she’d said, so I followed in silence, bemused at what a membership at Cardiff’s Eagle could possibly mean to anyone but myself and Macsen.

  When we arrived at the flat, August began to pace in the kitchen. I put on tea, hoping to calm her, and she stayed silent until the tea was ready, sitting when I indicated her cup at the table.

  “So what in the world is the big deal about the membership?” I asked, using a phrase I’d picked up from her as I stirred milk into my tea.


  “The big deal?” August clutched her teacup in both hands. “Your real name is printed on the card. I take it that’s what you put down on the membership list?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “And Macsen. He signed his real name as well?”

  “Of course he did. Why?”

  Tears were wavering on the rims of her eyes. “I gave you identities, Sebastian. Why didn’t you use them?”

  “I just…forgot. They asked me to write my name and address on the list and pay my three ‘quid’, and I just did it. But no one knows us here. How can it matter?”

  “No one but Emrys Pryce.”

  “He doesn’t know we’re here.”

  “Well, he does now, doesn’t he, Sebastian?” The tears fell, a drop of salt water splashing into her tea. “Whoever’s responsible for maintaining the membership list at the Eagle would have put this into a database—a virtual card file on a computer that anyone anywhere in this world could access in an instant with the right skills.”

  “I don’t know what that means.”

  “This world, it’s both much bigger and much smaller than the one you’re used to. There’s no disappearing into Thievesward here, never to be found. People are tracked. It’s one of the reasons I didn’t want you in the building when I went in to snoop about. I told you about the cameras. They can store your image, just as a database can store your name, and anyone with a computer—which means, Sebastian, virtually anyone in this world—can type your name in if they want to find you. And they will find you.”

  I sipped my tea, trying to understand why this was so important to her. “But why would anyone be doing that? Who would try to find me?”

  “Emrys would. Not you, perhaps, if he believes you’re dead. But Macsen—if he suspects anything at all about what Macsen has done—if he thinks he might come here, he could have an alert set up, an automatic search the computer performs for him every hour of every day just looking for names he’s entered in. It would tell him the instant Macsen’s name came up on anything. And if your name appears right there with it? If he accesses the data from cameras outside the Eagle or Club X? He’ll see you. He’ll see you both. And it will be over.”

  I couldn’t see Emrys going to such trouble. How would he even think to look for Macsen in this world? I took the billfold out again and withdrew Macsen’s card.

  “He gave it to me to hold,” I said, looking down at it. Macsen Pryce was written in bold, curling letters.

  August set down her teacup and took the card from my hand. “Macsen Pryce.” She glanced at me. “He put Emrys’s last name.”

  “I suppose it comes more naturally to him.”

  August was thoughtful. “Maybe he wouldn’t look for a Macsen Pryce. Why would he?” It seemed she was trying to convince herself. She handed it back, and I tucked it away, feeling absurdly sentimental about it as the only thing of Macsen’s I had. “We’ll have to wait and see,” she said at last, as though she’d settled some matter in her own mind, and drank her tea.

  Chapter Twenty-Four: Macsen

  Nothing further was said about Macsen’s flight from Llys Mawr, and Macsen thought it safest to play things Emrys’s way. In return, Emrys treated him like the earl of Cantre’r Gwaelod in every respect. Macsen had forgotten how it had been before Sebastian’s coming had upset things at Llys Mawr. There were no more water thefts, and no more punishment of tenants was necessary. When Macsen rode out to survey the property, he received respect.

  It was a far cry from how he’d been treated in the other realm. The disrespect he’d gotten at that pub in Cardiff, and the wanton way in which the men there had behaved—including Sebastian, who hadn’t seemed the least bit put out by his role in their debauchery—still made his face hot when he thought about it.

  He tried not to think about the parts he’d liked. “Dancing” with Sebastian—and dancing with Sebastian. Thinking about such things made him ache, and he had no idea how long it might be before he saw Sebastian again. He was no closer to figuring out where Emrys had moved the vials than he’d been before they fled, having searched every nook and cranny of Llys Mawr he could access without arousing suspicion.

  And as Emrys shared his plans with him for making Cantre’r Gwaelod a force to be reckoned with once returned to the upper realms, Macsen began to doubt August’s version of things. Cantre’r Gwaelod, Emrys said, would be restored as a jewel on the Welsh coast, with Llys Mawr once more taking its place as the domicile of the most powerful cantref lord in the island nation of Great Britain. Without giving away that he’d been there, Macsen coaxed out details from Emrys of life in the upper realms.

  “Who rules this ‘Great Britain’?” he asked while they shared a flask of brandy in the library. “Is there a lord over all the cantrefs?”

  Emrys shook his head with his usual impatience. “It’s nothing like here, boy. They have a parliament of fools—lords and commoners alike—who dispense law. But money supersedes law in any nation in the upper realms. And with our enterprise, fueled by your cousin’s magic, we will rule—in the most important sense—every realm there is.”

  Macsen swirled the brandy in his glass, admiring the blaze of fiery color. It didn’t sound as though destruction was in store for Cantre’r Gwaelod. On the contrary, it seemed his realm would benefit from Emrys’s plan after all. But at what cost to Sebastian? That was the sticking point he couldn’t get beyond. What Emrys had done to acquire his power didn’t sit well with Macsen—whether he cared about Sebastian or not. And if Sebastian and August had this power inside them, the power to return Cantre’r Gwaelod from the deep, why didn’t they do it themselves? Why had no one done it since the Hundred were sunk?

  His mind had changed about a great many things in the days since he’d returned. His head was clearer away from Sebastian. Perhaps it truly had been the addictive effects of Sebastian’s magic that had made Macsen so hungry for him. Sebastian was likely feeling the same, now that he’d had time to reflect. They were utterly wrong for each other on so many levels. Above all, Macsen couldn’t see living as a nobody—like the nobody he’d been born—among people who looked down upon him for who he was. But he’d agreed to destroy the vials.

  He sighed and downed his brandy, enjoying the sting in his throat. Was he content to be the lord of Cantre’r Gwaelod, or did he want to be lord of an entire world? That was the question that remained.

  * * * * *

  It was a problem he thought he’d have a bit more time to worry in his head. But the following morning, an irresistible urge to walk in Sebastian’s burgeoning garden, just completed by the contractor, overtook him. As soon as he set foot on the misty path that wound through hillocks of lavender and trailing morning glories, he knew what Emrys had done with the vials. Perversely, he’d hidden them in plain view, right in “August’s” own domain. A labyrinth of stonework that appeared to be merely decorative ended in a central alcove that held nothing more than a delicate fountain.

  But at the base of the fountain, the decorative stones were inlaid with a design in red-and-gold-stained glass bricks that seemed familiar. Macsen bent down to examine it more closely. The stones showed the faintest of markers that gave the spot away as a catacomb entrance Macsen had never seen before, though he knew what lay just beneath the spot—normally reachable only from within the castle itself. The glass bricks formed the pinnacle of the Swift family crypt.

  Macsen didn’t bother trying to enter this way; he knew the network of tunnels well enough to come at it from the entry point in the woods. While everyone else still slept inside the manor, he headed into the woods and made his way under the garden to the crypt. The heavy iron door ought to be dusty and unused. No one had been interred here since Sebastian’s father nearly twenty years ago—Great Aunt Elen had been laid to rest in the vault of her late husband, the elder Lord Pryce—and certainly no one in the household would be coming down to pay the
ir respects. But the door showed signs of having been recently opened.

  Macsen took his knife from the sheath at his hip and pried away the doorjamb until it released the lock. He had no torch, so he had to make do with the scant light from the stained glass in the ceiling, standing inside the doorway until his eyes adjusted. And there they were: a thousand tiny glittering vials sparkling with the magic of the earl of Cantre’r Gwaelod.

  He moved closer, stroking his fingers along the stone shelves of one of the niches Emrys had used as a storage bay. Sebastian’s essence, magical breath stored in each glittering bottle, beckoned to him. Even a drop would feel like breathing Sebastian’s skin. Emrys could spare a drop. He could easily spare a bottle without missing it. But even a bottle, ingested to open a portal between the realms, couldn’t hold a candle to how it felt to be inside Sebastian. Macsen gripped the edge of the shelf with both hands to steady himself, head lowered between his shoulders. This was a sickness he had to resist. Nothing more than an addiction.

  He’d promised to destroy the vials, and destroying them would take away that temptation to indulge for good, hold up his end of the bargain to be true to Sebastian while removing the desire for Sebastian, all at once. All he wanted was the life that had been his since August’s supposed death. It wasn’t his fault that he’d gotten it the way he had. And he owed nothing to Emrys to further his scheme in the upper realms. What would it truly get him that he didn’t have here? Nothing. It would only put him close to temptation, within reach of Sebastian, and within constant contact with the magic that had confused everything for him.

  Emrys, of course, would be furious. Too bad he couldn’t simply leave Emrys on the other side.

  But what if he could?

  Macsen picked up one of the vials, curling his palm around it inside his fist. It seemed warm, like Sebastian’s skin. If he took a full vial, he’d have enough to open a portal and return. He could lure Emrys to the coast and drag him down into the surf with him, leaving him stranded there as he went back through the portal and let it close. When he returned, he could destroy the rest as he liked, without fear of repercussion.