Instrument of Chaos

by Rebecca Hall

  “Not you?”

  “You’re the one who seems to be running a fever,” Amelie said. “And vampires don’t usually get sick.”

  “I guess,” Mitch said. He did feel a little light-headed. “But wouldn’t that mean I have greater sensitivity to magic than you?”

  Amelie shrugged. “It’s not directly proportional to strength you know. Nikola’s actually fluctuates depending on what Gawain does with his brain.” Mitch shuddered, he preferred not to think about Nikola needing to get his brain magically rewired to keep his own magic from killing him.

  “Right,” Mitch turned it over once more and then squeezed his hand through the seemingly tiny opening. It fit, barely. Nikola was thinner than him, his hands a lot more delicate, and the bracelet had been made especially for him.

  Mitch’s eyes widened as his awareness of the magic around them vanished. There was no more white noise, there was no more anything. He looked at the flora and fauna around them and knew that they had to be saturated in magic, that they were probably oozing magic left, right and centre but he couldn’t feel a thing. No, there was one thing, a steady beacon of power to his left. The Heart of Faerie. Even that had been rendered invisible by the sheer amount of magic around them but now he could feel it again.

  “That feels better,” Mitch said. He raised his hand and stared at the bracelet, he hadn’t expected it to be that strong. He rummaged through his pack until he found the coolie bag and dragged out a bloodbag, now insulated by a combination of ice packs and Nikola’s charms, and sank his fangs into it, greedily sucking up the blood.

  “Ready to get going again?” Amelie asked.

  “Almost.” Mitch shoved the empty bloodbag into his pack and tied his jacket about his waist, not quite ready to put it on again. “This won’t interfere with my magic will it?” he asked. Amelie’s was much more useful if they were attacked but he didn’t like the idea of being without it.

  “It shouldn’t,” Amelie said. “It was never a problem for Nikola.”

  “But…”

  “But it was made for him and his brain works differently.” She shrugged. “Try freezing one of your ice packs.”

  Mitch nodded and pulled one out. It was still cold but no longer frozen solid. He reached for his magic and willed the ice-pack to freeze only to feel nothing. It was as if his magic didn’t exist. He frowned and tried again, commanding the ice-pack to freeze. Again he failed to feel his own magic but the ice-pack froze solid and frost covered his hand and crawled up his arm.

  “That might take a little getting used to,” Mitch said. He hadn’t realised how much he’d relied on his awareness of his own magic when using it until it was taken away.

  “There’s no kill like overkill,” Amelie said. “If it’s something that I can’t deal with then I’m not going to worry about you giving it a little frostbite.”

  Mitch nodded. He was reasonably sure there had to be something living in the forest that was relatively harmless. He just couldn’t imagine what it might be. Any rabbit that could survive the trees and high levels of magic had to have something going for it other than being cute and fluffy. In Mitch’s experience it was nearly always teeth. He shivered and it was nothing to do with the ice slowly melting on his arm, the last thing he needed was a carnivorous rabbit trying to eat him. Or even a herbivorous one savaging him.

  “Let’s get going,” he said, putting the ice-pack away and pulling on his jacket before swinging his pack into place. “We don’t have far to go right?” he asked, reviewing the directions Nikola had pressed into his mind. They felt odd, like a lingering fragment of a dream that would be forgotten the instant he thought of something else but every time he thought of them they were crystal clear.

  “It doesn’t seem like it,” Amelie said. She looked from the path ahead of them to the bracelet and back again. “I hope it doesn’t get too bad, we don’t have another one of those.”

  “You can have it,” Mitch said. He might have to dislocate his thumb to get it off but vampires healed better than changelings.

  Amelie shook her head. “Nikola gave it to you and you clearly need it more.”

  Mitch hesitated and then nodded. “If it gets too bad we leave,” he said. “We know more now. We can prepare properly and come back another time. Maybe get some sort of map.” He certainly wasn’t bringing Nikola down here a second time. He doubted Gawain and Morrigan would let him slip away again anyway.

  “Let’s just hope it doesn’t come to that,” Amelie said. She resumed walking and Mitch hurried after her. He didn’t know that something bad would happen if they got too far apart on their magically aligned path but he wasn’t prepared to risk it.

  #

  Mitch turned at the odd squawk behind him, the sound much deeper than he typically associated with squawking. Once again the scenery behind him looked nothing like what he had passed just seconds ago. Before it had been oddly balanced with spring trees on one side and autumn trees on the other, two of which had tried to snare them before Amelie tied the long, whip-like vines into knots. Whipwood wasn’t intelligent, at least not as far as Mitch knew, but they would have untied themselves eventually. He didn’t think whipwood was cannibalistic.

  Now the trees were in different positions and different seasons, some were in two seasons at once and two were ageing backwards. There were three whipwood trees instead of two and none of them were tied in knots, and there was a dinosaur chicken standing on the path.

  “Amelie,” Mitch almost squawked as the dino chicken advanced. It had a large, scaled body that was distinctly chicken shaped, a long serpentine tail and a rooster’s beak though Mitch had never seen a rooster with such a viciously curved beak before. He was prepared to bet that it was sharp.

  “What?” Amelie asked, her voice strained. Nikola’s shifting path forced her to maintain a telekinetic shield at all times; there was no telling when something might attack them. They’d got lucky the first time they moved and the path changed behind them; the whipwood had got Mitch’s pack rather than Mitch himself, but they couldn’t count on that happening again.

  “I don’t suppose dinosaur chickens are herbivores?” he asked hopefully.

  “Dino what?” Amelie spun and then grabbed his arm and dragged him onwards. “That’s a cockatrice, not a dinosaur chicken, and it’s an omnivore.”

  “Same difference,” Mitch said, trying to recall his lessons on dinosaur chickens. They were scaly serpent chicken things that could fly and… could they breath fire? He couldn’t remember but it probably wouldn’t have any trouble pecking him to death and then there were its talons and Mitch didn’t like the look of its wings or tail either. And then there was the hungry glint in its eye.

  “Probably not to the cockatrice,” Amelie said. “And it’s a lot more intelligent than a chicken.”

  “Intelligent enough to follow us along a path of spatial distortions?” Mitch said, watching over his shoulder at it did just that, and trusting Amelie not to let him walk into anything else that would want to eat him.

  “I did say not to call it a dinosaur chicken.”

  “No, you implied that it was a bad idea,” Mitch corrected. It was moving faster now, covering the ground at an alarming pace on over-sized chicken legs with nasty looking talons. Why did everything he met want to eat him?

  “I don’t think now is the time to be splitting hairs,” Amelie yelled. The dino chicken lunged forward, wings pumping and neck out-stretched. Its beak opened, clearly intending to try and rip his arm off, and it bounced off Amelie’s shield.

  “Well I don’t think I can split that,” Mitch replied. Sure he could make an ice spear or something but he didn’t think the dino chicken was going to let him focus on doing so and it certainly wouldn’t stand still and let him stab it.

  “Then distract it somehow,” Amelie said. “We need to get it off the path.”

  “Somehow,” Mitch muttered, at least the dino chicken hadn’t appeared in front of them, they would have been in
real trouble then.

  There was a sharp crack as they entered a thicket of whipwood, the trees only adding to their problems and ignoring the dino chicken.

  “Of course whipwood doesn’t eat chicken,” Mitch grumbled, looking over his shoulder. The dinosaur chicken was preparing to lunge again.

  “They don’t eat anything scaled,” Amelie said. “Didn’t you pay attention in Crypto?”

  “I was more concerned about the part where they eat people.”

  The dino chicken lunged again and Mitch could have sworn that this time it got a little closer.

  “Amelie,” he shrieked, flinching away from it and almost falling over a root. He really needed to look where he was going but that would mean taking his eyes off the murder chicken and there was no way in hell he was doing that. He didn’t care about aerodynamics.

  “Get it off the path,” she gasped, fending off more attacks from the whipwood. Almost as if it had heard her it launched itself into ungainly flight and loosed a piecing shriek that made Mitch want to clap his hands over his ears.

  He hurled an ice-ball at it instead. Maybe if he dinged its wing it would veer off course and crash into a tree or something. He didn’t care. The battle chicken didn’t care either, it didn’t even bother trying to dodge or bat the over sized hailstone away, it just kept flying right at them.

  “This fucking monster is cold blooded right?” Mitch asked. He was sure that it was a Summer dwelling creature normally, though the Equilands were fairly temperate.

  “Yes.”

  “Stop running.”

  “Now?”

  “Yes now.”

  They stopped, whipwood snapping at them from every direction. The cockatrice flew at them, trying to rip them apart with its beak and then swinging its talons up to gouge them. Amelie’s telekinetic shield held it back but Mitch was certain that the talons got closer than the beak had.

  And that was a good thing. The temperature plummeted.

  “You could have warned me,” Amelie gasped, her breath fogging the air. She drew closer to him, either to conserve body heat or to reduce the size of her shield though the whipwood seemed to be retreating as well. Apparently it didn’t like the cold anymore than the dino chicken did. It still eyed them hungrily but it seemed unwilling to come any closer.

  Mitch didn’t blame it, the temperature had already nosedived to negative twenty and he was still pushing it down even as frost formed on the ground and crawled up the nearby trees.

  “Those trees won’t explode right?” Mitch asked, spying a couple of trees that were conspicuously unfrozen. He did remember the exploding plants from Crypto and the trees were considerably bigger and likely to splinter into hundreds of stakes if exploded. Why couldn’t they have evolved a less destructive means of pollination?

  “Let’s not find out,” Amelie said. She clung to his hand tightly, shivering in the cold, but the damned dino chicken was still watching them, fury in its eyes. It wasn’t flying any more which Mitch supposed was a good thing but it did look pissed off and hungry.

  “I think it’s going to charge us again,” Mitch said, forcing the temperature even further down. There was a loud crack and a heavy branch snapped off one of the trees, sticky sap oozing from where it had broken. Amelie inched a little closer to him and the branch spun so that the broken end was facing the dino chicken.

  Branch and chicken charged at the same time, the branch splintering on impact and gouging a couple of deep cuts into the dino-chicken. What it didn’t do was throw the chicken off course.

  At his side Amelie cursed and flinched as whipwood cracked across her shield. Without that she might have been able to reinforce the branch, or simply hurl the dino chicken aside. Mitch forced the temperature lower and then commanded every piece of newly formed ice to pelt the dino chicken.

  It squawked indignantly and then there was a leathery flapping as it soared into the sky.

  “Come on,” Mitch said. He grabbed Amelie’s arm and yanked her down the path, staggering along as fast as he could on frozen muscles. It had to be worse for her, she didn’t have cryomantic magic to protect her from the cold, but other than the occasional pain-filled whimper she said nothing.

  Mitch looked over his shoulder and slowed. The dinosaur chicken was gone, as were the trees that he’d frozen. They’d escaped for now but he couldn’t help thinking about what might happen next time a monster showed up on the path behind them. Or on the path ahead.

  #

  “Why did we think that this was a good idea?” Mitch asked. They’d finally found a spot along Nikola’s path that was devoid of whipwood trees or anything else that would try to eat them on sight and stopped to rest.

  “I don’t think you ever thought it was a good idea,” Amelie replied tiredly.

  “That’s because I have common-sense,” Mitch muttered, rummaging through his pack for some food. They didn’t have a lot left but by his estimation they didn’t have much further to go either. He just wasn’t sure that they’d get another chance to stop before reaching the curse. He tossed a one square meal in Amelie’s direction and pulled out a blood bag for himself.

  “Do you think we’ll run into Michael soon?” Mitch asked once he’d finished…eating? Drinking? He’d never worked out what the right verb was for vacuuming blood.

  Amelie shivered. “I hope not, I’m barely holding my own against the trees.” Mitch shifted uncomfortably. Nikola’s path had led them across a stream which he’d attempted to use to make an ice shield but it had needed constant magic to maintain in the face of the whipwood trees and their acid and even more to move. It had given Amelie a much-needed break but it wasn’t a long term solution.

  “But if we do?” Mitch asked, unable to put the thought from his mind though he knew that neither of them would be able to do anything. They would be just as powerless against Michael as they would likely be to break the curse.

  “We won’t.”

  “I know angels tend to overlook people but I doubt he’ll overlook someone strolling up to the curse and trying to break it,” Mitch said. He was surprised that they’d managed to get so far even with Nikola’s path. Or despite it; it was probably the magical equivalent of a flashing neon sign.

  “He’ll probably believe that we won’t be able to do anything to it,” Amelie said pointedly. “Or he might decide to investigate the source of the path instead of the people on it.”

  “Nikola,” Mitch shot to his feet and Amelie grabbed his arm and tugged him back down.

  “Stop worrying,” Amelie ordered, “Nikola can look after himself and I doubt he fixed that path in place permanently.”

  “I’ve seen what passes for Nikola looking after himself and if Michael finds him…”

  Perhaps Michael wouldn’t want to kill him for knowing what he did about the Twisted Curse. Perhaps Michael wouldn’t want to pillage his mind for the information. And perhaps he’d just want a friendly chat over a cup of tea. Regardless of what he wanted Mitch knew how Nikola reacted to angels and the magic down here had already been wearing at him. Nikola didn’t even have his bracelet to protect him anymore. Mitch twisted it around his own wrist guiltily and looked back the way he’d come.

  He thought that he could back track along the path that Nikola had made for them. He was less certain of his ability to evade the whipwood, dinosaur chickens and god only knew what else might be living along it.

  “I’m sure he’s fine,” Amelie said but there was a faint hint of uncertainty in her voice.

  “Just like you’re sure that breaking the curse won’t end the world,” Mitch said bitterly.

  “Don’t be so pessimistic.”

  “I… whatever. Let’s just sleep here for the night,” Mitch said woodenly. He stared out into the forest, almost wishing for the reappearance of the dinosaur chicken. Or the appearance of anything really. It would be a nice distraction from being alone with Amelie when it was Nikola that he wanted. He swallowed, Deep Faerie didn’t seem like the right pl
ace to break up with her and only partially because he didn’t think he’d be able to get out without her help.

  “Do you think he did it?” Mitch asked.

  “Did what?” Amelie asked sleepily.

  “Distracted Michael.” If anyone could do it, it would be Nikola, all he had to do was open his mind. He had an angel in there, and a demon and if Michael really had been trapped in Faerie since its creation…

  Amelie didn’t answer and Mitch was left trying to convince himself that Nikola wouldn’t have done something like that. That Nikola liked being sane and in control too much to risk it. That Nikola wouldn’t think that the risk was worth the price.

  He was still trying to convince himself when the sun rose.

  The Heart of Faerie

  The Heart of Faerie appeared in much the same way the scenery around them changed. One moment they were walking through murderous forest, the next they weren’t.

  “I…” Mitch swallowed. “It…” He looked around with wide eyes. “I guess we found it,” he said. The words seemed horribly inadequate compared to the reality all around them.

  “I guess,” Amelie said.

  They were standing in what Mitch had always imagined the inside of a nebula to look like. A million points of coloured light twinkled at them in just as many colours, the light softened and blurred by the swathes of mist drifting through the dark. He looked back and only saw more of the twinkling lights and wisps of mist. It stretched out in every direction, even below his feet.

  Mitch gulped and tried not to think about the fact that he was standing on thin air. It didn’t feel as if he were up high, or like he was about to fall, but it still made a lump form in the pit of his stomach. He couldn’t help waiting for the moment when gravity reasserted itself and he found himself plummeting to his death. Some things even vampires didn’t recover from. Falling from an unimaginable height was one of them.

  A strand of mist drifted by and he reached out to it. It wasn’t cold, or wet, and he gasped as a tingle of magic ran up his arm. If anything the mist felt warm, almost electric. He closed his hand around one of the twinkling points of light and pulled it free. It resisted, the mist clinging to him and making the hair on his arm rise, almost like static electricity.