Wild Magic

by Jude Fisher

  Aran gave a single, curt nod. ‘I have my pride.’ His eyes gleamed in the moonlight. When he turned them upon her, they shone so silver it was like looking into the gleaming, empty orbits of an afterwalker. ‘If you still want a place on the expedition, it is yours,’ he said simply, then walked on, leaving her standing in the dangerous backwash of his anger.

  Katla felt the breath rush out of her. An hour ago; ten minutes, even, it was all she had dreamed of; but now? He did it to strike back at her mother, she knew that much instinctively; to demonstrate his power and the rightness of his quest. She felt boneless, dazed by the choice she must make: to go, and by doing so acquiesce in the madness that had already destroyed their family; or to stay at home with an angry, grieving woman and knuckle down as a dutiful daughter?

  Katla knew which alternative she should choose; as a daughter, and as a woman. But she also knew that if she remained on Rockfall, her spirit would dwindle and chafe. ‘I will go with you!’ she shouted after Aran Aranson’s retreating back. But if he heard her, he gave no sign of it.

  Dawn the following morning found Katla climbing steep ground with a coil of rope draped over her shoulder. Sense had, for once, prevailed over instinct: and so she had eschewed her favourite route to the summit of the Hound’s Tooth, via the precipitous seaward face, in favour of the old folks’ route, as she thought of it, and was strolling up the well-worn path to the top of the headland at a leisurely pace. Just what her brother had in mind for their challenge when she got there, she did not know, or even much care: it was good to be up and out of the steading, away from all the acrimony and gossip. Perhaps she and Fent could just sit in the early sun and talk about the split between their mother and father, and maybe find some way to mediate between the two of them; persuade Aran to put off the expedition by a few days, or at least until they had made some reconciliation. Even so, she had packed her seachest against the possibility of a noon sailing. And had, of course, not slept a wink.

  She was surprised to find her brother already there; and even more surprised to find that he had for some bizarre reason toiled up the path with a heavy wooden chair, which he was now sitting in, like some landless king. She stared at him, dumbfounded. ‘What on Elda have you brought that here for?’ she demanded.

  Fent, lolling in his self-styled throne, barely acknowledged her presence, but gazed out over the wide ocean as if he had not a care in the world. ‘Fine view, isn’t it?’ he said laconically after a while.

  Katla frowned. Her twin had never been much interested in scenery. Annoyance made her spiteful. ‘How can you sit there, with everything that is going on?’

  Fent turned his head lazily in her direction ‘There’s not much I can do about it, is there? They’ll make it up: they always have before. Besides, I’ve other things to think about.’ With a sudden surge of energy he came upright out of the chair. ‘I see you were not so caught up in all the drama that you forgot to bring the rope,’ he observed. ‘So let’s get our contest underway.’

  She regarded him curiously. ‘Well, I am intrigued. What is the nature of the challenge you have for me?’

  ‘Knot-tying,’ Fent announced cheerfully. ‘You said I didn’t know “a bowline from a reef, or a carrick from a clove hitch”. So I have devised a game to test our respective skills in that quarter.’

  ‘Actually,’ Katla corrected him crossly, ‘what I said was that at least I did. I only implied you didn’t.’ She grinned. ‘But I know you don’t!’

  Instead of rising to this bait, Fent sat himself down in the chair again and laid his forearms along its wooden frame. ‘I will free myself from any knots you care to bind me with.’

  ‘Ha!’

  ‘And then, you must win free of mine.’

  Too easy, Katla thought gleefully. It was a game they had played as children, and Fent always lost. But perhaps he had been practising. She decided to go easy with him: after all, they would be sharing a long, rough passage if the Long Serpent did sail at noon, and there was no point in there being bad blood between them if it could be helped. She uncoiled her rope: a fine but sturdy length of twisted sealskin bound with horsehair which gave the cord a certain elasticity as well as considerable strength, and made a beginning by looping an end around the arm of the chair. Leaving a good tail on the rope to make a solid stopper, she bound his arm to the chair in a series of running hitches, then passed the rope twice around his waist and the back of the frame, lifted one of the legs so that she could slip a securing knot to keep the bands in place, then set to work on an elaborate combination of bowlines and sheep-knots. Eventually, she finished the process with a neat fisherman’s, using the spare tail of rope, and stood back to admire her handiwork. Not too difficult; but it would surely take him a while to extricate himself.

  Fent bared his teeth at her, and his features were as sharp and cunning as a fox’s. ‘Go sit in the sun, small sister. I’ll be with you shortly.’

  Katla shrugged and moved away. Her favourite boulder beckoned: it lay in a pool of sunshine which made the rosettes of yellow lichen that bloomed upon it shine like golden coins. There was a depression in the granite into which you could just insert a shoulder and lay your head: it was remarkably comfortable, for a rock.

  How long she dozed, she did not know, but when she came awake at last it was because the chill of a shadow had fallen over her. She opened her eyes and found her brother staring down at her. She scrambled upright, surprised. The rope lay on the ground around the chair and showed no sign of unfair tampering.

  ‘I’m impressed,’ she said.

  ‘You should be,’ he returned. ‘It took a good deal of working out. Now it’s your turn.’

  It was in Katla’s mind to call off the challenge and let him win, for there was something in his expression she could not place. Not for the first time, it occurred to her that her twin – who had for most of her life seemed an extension of herself, as she was of him – had lately become a separate being entirely, as alien and unknowable as the strangest stranger. But the stubborn core of her would not allow him the simple satisfaction. She took his place in the chair and watched with a small smile as her brother tied a series of utterly inept knots.

  ‘Call that a carrick-bend—’ she started, when suddenly there was something in her mouth, and the smell of earth and sweat assailed her. Powerful hands grabbed her from behind and then another rope went around her – not her own, which confused her mightily – but a thick rope of twisted hemp; and to confound her further, Fent was still in front of her; so who—

  The man who had bound her to the chair rather more expertly than her twin stepped now into view. She glared at him over the clout of cloth they had rammed into her mouth, and was only slightly surprised not to recognise him. He was tall and sinewy, with the dark skin of a seasoned mariner and his blond hair worn in a tumble of dirty-looking curls. A large silver earring gleamed in one ear. Fent clapped the man on the shoulder. ‘Nice one, Marit. I’d say you’ve earned your place on the Serpent, wouldn’t you?’

  The other man grinned widely and Katla saw he was missing his two front teeth. ‘I’ll knock the rest out, you bastard!’ she cried, struggling against the rope, but all that emerged was a muffled groan; and the knots gave not a whit.

  Her twin placed himself firmly in front of the chair, his blue eyes sparking malice. ‘As I said, it’s a fine view from here. A perfect vantage point for watching the Long Serpent sail out. Thanks to Marit Fennson’s expertise, I doubt you’ll be able to free yourself, for if you struggle too much, the knots will merely tighten. I dare say someone will think to look for you up here after a while. Or perhaps they won’t. Though if you’re left for long enough without sustenance you may shed sufficient flesh that you can slip your bonds and crawl back down into Rockfall. It will, at the least, give you plenty of time to remember the occasion when you and my beloved dead brother knocked me over the head and tied me to the pillar in the barn with this same gag in my mouth, so that you could steal my place abo
ard the Snowland Wolf.

  ‘You’ll not make a fool of me again for a long time, sister. Fare well.’

  Twenty

  Flight

  In the wake of the destruction of the crystal and the confusion that followed, Virelai took the back stairs down to the yard two at a time, his feet sliding on the age-polished slate, palms pressed against the walls for balance. Only one other person in all of the castle wore gloves like those the seeing-stone had offered up to him in its sudden flash of vision before it had shown the gathered company the Rose of the World flaunting her great belly before the northern court; and while the others were transfixed by that remarkable sight, Virelai had been shocked rigid by that prior, very ordinary glimpse.

  Saro Vingo was making his escape from Jetra.

  Virelai felt his new-formed plan – so elegant, so perfect – slipping away. It had all seemed to fit into place with the precision of one of the beautifully engineered wooden puzzles they sold for the delectation of rich children in Cera’s summer market, and the moodstone the boy carried was its key. Or, as the grimoire he had stolen from Rahe’s great library would term it, ‘the eldistan’. After his first terrifying encounter with the boy in Jetra’s Star Chamber, Virelai had become fascinated by the trinket Saro wore with such apparent ease around his neck, and had searched through every line of the mage’s book until he had found this entry:

  ‘In Natural Alchemia (Idin Haban c. Swan Year 953) there is mention of moodstones/channel-stones, called in the regions of the far south of the mts, whence such stones most often derive, “eldistaner”. Extremely mutable in their properties,’ he had read in Rahe’s swift and spidery hand. ‘Only “youngest” are simple moodstones – for amusing diversion only. Display in outwd fashion passing whims & fancies of one who holds it in his/her hand. Takes warmth fm holder’s skin. May take on hues which differ greatly fm nat. state.

  ‘Chart shows my own findings:

  White = Death

  Grey = Emptiness of Mind; failing health

  Cyan = Serenity

  Green = Wholeness

  Yellow = Sickness; tho pale Gold = Wellbeing (further obs. req.)

  Vermilion = Anxiety/Fear/Disruption of Humours

  Carmine = Rage

  Violet – in its harsh form = Turbulence of Emotion; if tending towards the blue, denotes Intellectual Activity.’

  There followed more in this vein which Virelai had passed over impatiently. The next entry which caught his eye had been this:

  ‘“Elder Eldistaner. Ejected fm deep veins of the earth, typically fm feet or crown of fire-mts, and most esp. from area surrounding Red Pk, where the Heart of Elda lies.” Larger than usual, darker, and when polished shows compact, smooth grain. Weighs more heavily in hand and can feel warm even when untouched for hrs. Idin Haban spks of telling future w some such; others open mind of holder to viewer, and one esp. pwrful stone enabled him to make fire by channelling sorcery. Have w much magecraft channelled sufficient heat to effect burning of cockroaches, sparrows and rats, even once a seal to ashes, but V’s mind remains closed to me, if mind he has.’

  This made Virelai wince. Had Rahe truly made him the subject of one of these experiments and if so, when had this occurred, and why did he have no recollection of it? It was possible, he mused, that the stone had erased the memory, and there was, as far as he knew, no other being to whom the Master might refer as ‘V’. But the idea that the mage had regarded him as so expendable that he would risk his well-being so – or, worse, even wished his destruction – disturbed him greatly. It was as if he were no more to the old man than the cockroaches, sparrows or rats Rahe had so blithely listed. The thought made him seethe and doubt the wisdom of the course of action he was determined on; so he had pushed the doubt away and continued to read.

  There then followed a detailed list of every bird, animal and sea-creature which the Master had managed to reduce to cinder, together with the periods of recovery required after each such act. Further down the next page, Virelai had come upon this note:

  ‘More remarkable is Xanon’s account in his History of the Ancient World, ch. 13 “Among the Nomads” in which he tells how an old woman, by burying one hand deep in the ground, made a stone blaze in a great arc, killing an entire flock of rock-pigeons flying many hundred feet in the air above her. Imagine what a weapon such a stone in other hands wd make.’

  Could it be the same stone which Saro bore around his neck, Virelai wondered? Power emanated from the thing in a way that had afforded him the most horrifying and deathly visions. Such a thing in the wrong hands . . . That thought led to another: what if Tycho Issian were to lay hands on such a stone? He shuddered. With the Lord of Cantara in his current unstable state, no living creature on Elda would be safe. It was imperative that the twain be separated, and by as great a distance as possible.

  In a fit of morbid dread, he had read on, expecting more and more horrors. Instead, some pages later, he came upon another entry, cryptically worded and strange beyond belief. This he read and then overread, in case he had misapprehended it entirely. But no: its implications were undeniable. A plan began to take shape, the details flowing like the most perfect of weavings. With the stone, if not in his hands, then at least in his company, he could save his own skin. He could return to Sanctuary without fear of reprisal or the Master’s wrath. All would be well. A great wave of relief had washed over him. He remembered the momentary bliss of that rare sensation, before anxiety clamped his chest once more.

  His plan rested on the slim shoulders of Saro Vingo: lose the boy and he would lose the stone, and thereafter any chance of survival. Redoubling his efforts, he skidded to a halt at the postern gate with his heart thumping and the breath rough in his chest, and looked outside. It was pitch-dark out there and nothing was stirring. Virelai swore quietly. Surely the boy could not have fled so far and so fast? It was true that the seeing-stones could offer deceptions, so the lad might already be far away, the time he had been shown another hour of the night entirely; or safe in his bed, dreaming of his escape on another such occasion. He sniffed the air. The faint scent of horse-dung came back to him, and warm animals. Was the stable door still open?

  Virelai stepped out into the night.

  Night’s Harbinger was in a lively mood. There were mares two paddocks away and he could scent them. When the boy had come to his stall he had thought he was being taken to visit them and had followed the lad eagerly, not even complaining when a bridle was slung over his head. So he was more than a little surprised when he found a saddle on his back and a strap around his belly; but it was only when the boy had grasped his neck and stepped up into the stirrup that he knew something was amiss.

  Spinning around, Night’s Harbinger tried to bite his rider on the knee as a mark of protest, all the while snorting fit to wake the dead.

  Saro clenched his knees against the stallion’s flanks and tried unsuccessfully to quiet him. A moment later, there came the sound of raised voices from the walls above them and his breath caught in his throat. He prepared to press the animal into a desperate gallop; but then the sounds diminished and became more distant as the men passed on without stopping, and no lit torches nor any alarm followed their passage into the castle. Steadying his breathing, Saro urged the horse into a stately walk, heading for the western gate and the grassy plain beyond.

  But before they could reach the outer wall, the stallion’s ears began to twitch. Then his head came up sharply and he began to dance backwards. Saro fought him to a stiff halt, then stared into the murk to see what had caused him such concern. About twenty feet away, dimly outlined by the moonlight, was a huge dark shape. A pair of fiery golden eyes flared in the darkness, and Saro felt the hairs rise on the back of his neck and gooseflesh prickle down his arms. It was a primal reaction: prey to predator. Cold sweat trickled the length of his spine. He wished, suddenly and fervently and for the first time in his life, that he had a sword.

  For the space of several heartbeats horse and rid
er stood frozen; then the beast opened its maw. It was vast: that much Saro could divine by the glint of moonlight on the wide-apart fangs. Night’s Harbinger shifted his weight delicately from hoof to hoof and whisked his tail nervously, but otherwise showed no sign that he had any survival instinct at all. Saro waited for a roar to issue out of the cavernous mouth and for the killing leap that would inevitably follow, but nothing of the sort happened. Instead, the creature closed its mouth again with a faint click of teeth. Saro was filled with the sudden incongruous suspicion that the beast had yawned. Was it really so confident it could dispatch him and the stallion? Just as he was thinking this, darkness filled the gap between them, as if something had become between the great beast and its prey. A flicker of something tall and pale . . .

  The moodstone began to glow.

  ‘Bëte, desist!’

  The voice was deep and commanding. The stallion stilled as if by magic and Saro felt his own will slip into abeyance and his hands, which had been rising to shield the stone, fell limp and useless to his sides. Then the pale thing moved out of his line of sight, and suddenly the beast was there no more. When a cloud passed away from the face of the half-moon overhead, the man called Virelai was standing in front of him. In his arms was a small black cat.

  Saro stared past him, but the huge predator was gone, melting into the night as silently as it had appeared.

  ‘Come with me,’ the pale man said in the same timbre he had employed before, and although something inside Saro’s mind quailed away from the suggestion, his hands tightened on the reins and he heard his own voice replying, ‘Yes, I will come.’

  It had all been far simpler than Virelai could have imagined. Using the Master’s voice of command could be very hit or miss; but here he was with the cat all pliant in his grasp and the boy and his horse following him into the shelter of the orange grove below the city walls. Here they could remain unseen while he hared back into the castle and retrieved his necessaries – the grimoire, at the very least, and as much of the carefully faked silver as he could carry. Up in his chamber, wheezing with the exertion of running twenty-three flights of stairs, he stuffed the cat into its wicker basket, still amazed it had not come out of its trance and tried to bite him with its usual spite, and packed into a sturdy sack the grimoire, some clothes, the ointment, a cloak, a knife, two big bricks of the tin-turned-silver, his herbals, pen and inks, carefully stoppered to avoid spillage, and a set of parchments he had been working on, which could prove most incriminating were they to be found by, for instance, the Lords of Forent and Cantara.