by Brindi Quinn
Truthfully, I would like to do the same, and indeed I would, had I not the future on my side.
“Do you know of any other way?” I say through Awyer.
“Not a one,” says Techton.
Still frantic, Pedj interjects, “This is how everybody gets across?!”
“Probably not.” Techton chuckles. “But this is how I do, so . . .”
“Very well,” I tell Awyer. “Then let us climb.”
“Grim gives her consent.”
“HOOP!?” Pedj, who had been hoping that the wise warden would rescue him from this task, is sorely disappointed by my decision, though there is naught he may do to change it.
With our permission, Techton readies the first half of the tinker, which is to be set in the center of the wall. The mortals are to climb in pairs. Mael and Techton will climb up one side, and Pedj and my ward will tackle the other, in the hopes of equally distributing their weight. And I? I will fly easily over and offer support, though I will be able to do little more. It is as the others said; my power is unreliable here.
Techton digs around in his rucksack. He pulls out a second webbed scythe that is far more worn than the one he usually holds. “Which of you is going up first?”
Awyer raises a hand. “I will.”
Techton tosses the scythe to him. “Just in case,” he says.
The zombie is mistrustful of Techton, the wall, and the weapon. He cowers near my ward in a way most unadmirable while staring upward at the climb they are to ascend. He does not lower his head nor his cower even after they have taken their place near the bank of Sister River.
“Ready?” Techton calls from the center of the wall with a voice not well served for yelling. Its raspiness piques in an inaudible range. Nevertheless, the idea is communicated – to which my ward shouts a positive response. The necromancer is too far off for me to discern her reaction, but it serves to say that she is faring well. Better than her cousin, at least.
Holding the half-ball in his hand, Techton turns the key once, twice, fifteen times.
Here we go!
But before setting the hook onto the wall, Techton grabs a mass of chain into his hand and begins rattling back and forth in deep thrusts. “To get it started!” he shouts.
It works. In an instant, the golden scarabs begin scuttling toward the source of the disturbance. Even those high up, too distant to be seen, gleam in the sunlight. Miniscule pricks of golden shine begin to move downward at an alarming rate. Pincers lashing, the swarm comes at Techton, but bravely – or mayhap foolishly – Techton waits until the lowest of them are nearly upon him before releasing the ball’s key, latching it into place, and sprinting to join Mael near the bank of Brother River.
“Go!” he yells along the way.
And Awyer does go. Rapidly, with tight, even movements, he begins to scale the wall. My ward is a spider. He will be upon his prey without their slightest inkling. Not that he has ever had prey to speak of.
Pedj, on the other hand, is not a spider.
Pedj is afraid, and because he is afraid, his motions are jerking. For now, there is room for error, but the moment the chain settles from Techton’s initial rattling, Pedj’s movement may very well be detected.
Two stories, four stories. Awyer climbs quickly. I flit to where he is.
“Awyer! You must give the zombie encouragement! He is struggling, and he will alert them to you if he does not calm down!”
Awyer looks over his shoulder to see of what I speak. Distance is already beginning to form between the pair of them.
“Pedj, calm down. You will be all right. We have time.” He utters a few unconvincing words of encouragement. Surely, I think, there is not enough weight for them to be taken as genuine, but here I find I am wrong.
At Awyer’s instruction, Pedj draws in long breaths and releases long breaths. He begins to make gain! Higher and higher the pair of them climbs. Six stories. Eight stories. At twelve, a few of the scarabs have lost interest in the tinker. At twelve, a few of them have started to trail away.
“Faster, my fief!”
He obeys. Swiftly he climbs. So, too, do Techton and Mael. But Pedj, who was foolish enough to glance behind at the trailing scarabs, has begun to fumble once more. Quickly, he falls behind.
This time Awyer is paying attention. “Pedj!” he shouts. “Come!”
Alas, things grow worse. Pedj commences a panic, and as such, he begins to fumble more forcefully. A triad of the topmost bored scarabs set their sights on him. I watch them as they alter their course. I understand what will happen if Pedj is left to squander. What is more, I realize that have yet to see the boy in any of my forememories. Despite what Mael has seen in the water, even if she, Awyer and Techton are destined to make it beyond the Rise, as far as my foresight is concerned, Pedj is another story.
Without thinking, I swoop toward the zombie’s back to push him along. At the last minute, I remember that I cannot enchant his skin to receive me, lest the magicks go haywire and rip him to shreds, and so my attempt at helping ends only in making him falter more.
“WAH! Cold!”
I am without enchants, and there is only one I may touch in the absence of enchants, and that person is not Pedj. Pedj squeals as I pass directly through him. I have not improved his climb at all.
“I am sorry!” I call out an apology he cannot hear.
Pincers clicking, the triad of scarabs speed.
In the greater picture, Pedj is unnecessary. In the smaller picture, in the present, I do not wish for the demise of one of Awyer’s comrades. When I think on how my sphinx would react . . . Even so, I can do nothing. Any enchants I attempt will carry the possibility of landing upon the wall and drawing the guardians’ attention further.
Techton and Mael do not know of Pedj’s peril. They are intently climbing, scaling, nearly at the top of the fifteenth story. And I cannot distract my ward, in fear that he might get caught in the disaster unfurling.
But though I do not wish for Awyer to stall on account of Pedj, stall he does. Moreover, when he hears Pedj’s cry, Awyer begins to crawl backward.
Yards from the top of the fence, Awyer descends.
“AWYER! DO NOT!”
Ignoring my plea, Awyer yells to Pedj, “Do not panic!” while pulling Techton’s worn scythe from his belt. He holds the weapon over his head in menacing. “I will get any that come near!” This time, his encouragement is genuine. It reaches its target in a way deeper than the first.
Under the influence of mutuality, Pedj, no longer fending alone, hooks his fingers around the fence and steadies himself. Newly determined, the boy’s speed increases.
Lo, the scarabs have already been disturbed. And that threesome is nearly at the zombie’s ankles. Still, my foolish ward does not climb an inch further. Pedj will reach him in a helping of seconds, and the scarabs will reach them soon after!
“AWYER! GO! YOU CANNOT WAIT FOR HIM!” I cry and scream, and the only person that is able to hear my words disregards them. “MY WARD! THEY WILL SNAP YOUR WEAPON IN HALF! THEY WILL–”
I cease. For I am witnessing a man who has complete confidence in his safety. Awyer’s expression is such that he will not lose. I am reminded: Awyer will not die here. He will climb the Rise, and he will go on to deliver the stolen color to his ancestors.
Only then, will he die.
Now I wish to cry for a different reason.
Allowing Pedj to pass, my ward extends the weapon to the chain. He is certain of himself, but how will he win? As the first of the scarabs closes in, its pincers open in anticipation of clipping the weapon, it comes to me.
I know what he must do!
I fly close beside the battle-ready sphinx and speak with haste: “My fief! Scoop them off of the wall from beneath their bellies!”
Finally, he gives his attention. Locking eyes with mine, he nods.
The first of the scarabs does not make it to Awyer’s ankle, for the first of the scarabs is flung from the Rise with the ai
d of the toad-webbed scythe. To the ground the guardian falls, where it is welcomed by the sick crack of an insect breaking. The same fate befalls the second and third of its comrades. There are others who have since become piqued by Pedj’s floundering, but they are far enough that Awyer will reach the top before they.
My ward will make it.
And he does.
He makes it to the top with the rest.
Lucky for my breath, the climb down is not so dramatic.
Apparently, the tinker’s two-pronged hook is such that with only a little skill, it will catch – for Techton’s practiced throw easily hooks a part of the chain a ways down. Also caught are Pedj’s bearings. Lost they were, but now found; it is with steady legs that the bony boy descends.
Eventually, the four reach the ground. Panting and wetted by sweat, they may be; but at least they are unscathed. At least the scarabs have not claimed a new limb for dinner.
Awyer is not given a chance to relax.
I throw myself upon my ward the moment his feet meet earth.
“You are a foolish sphinx!” I scold. “A foolish, meritous boy!” I wrap my arms around his warm neck and my voice quiets. “For your merit, you are foolish.”
Lying flat on the ground like a starfish, Pedj sobs to the heavens. He does not attempt to hide it; he simply sobs in long, drawing, babe-like moans. “CRANK!” he belts. “Crankin’ CRANK! That was the worst!”
Mael, who was not witness to any of the turmoil, cocks her head. “Pedj is a baby.”
I move to release Awyer’s neck, for I do not agree with the way the impulsive action has begun to excite my nonexistent body, ticking here and thudding there; but though I think to leave, Awyer does not release his hold on the small of my back.
If anything, he pulls me nearer.
“You all did well,” Techton says, smiling agreeably and brushing his hands together. “I’m impressed. Particularly with you, Awyer. Nice job . . . It looks like your mistress is proud of you, too.” He is referring to the way in which Awyer’s arm is hanging around invisible space.
“She cannot keep her hands from me,” says Awyer in a way that is serious enough to be believable.
“I-I very well can! Do not say things like that when I cannot speak for myself!” I squirm to escape from his grasp. Awyer preens. He thinks it funny that we are compromised. I do not have the luxury of feeling humored. Our situation is far from trivial.
As is made clear when Techton, adjusting his rucksack, comments offhandedly, “Oh? If that’s true then you two have been naughty. They put a lock on that stuff, you know.”
Offhanded or not, the statement catches both of our interest and keeps it. “What? A lock? Of which ‘they’ does he speak?” I say.
But I will not find out now. No sooner does Awyer release me, on the verge of asking Techton to expound, than Mael lets out a cry.
“Somethin’! There’s somethin’!”
Squawking and hopping and flapping, she is alike an upset partridge.
But her reaction is not unwarranted. There IS something. From Sister River, something has begun to stir. Beneath the water, very near the shore, an unidentifiable black thing is rising.
Pedj scurries from his tantrum. “A merbabe?!” he says.
“No.” Techton’s eyes are keen. “That isn’t a merbabe . . . Everyone! Get back from the shore! Run ahead into the woods if you want. I’m going to stay and see what it is.”
“We will also stay.” Awyer does not think to ask my opinion. Gone are the days when he would thoughtlessly let me lead him. It is a shame. I would have told him to run. Until we reach a place where the voided rivers are grown apart, we are without enchants to aid us. Essentially, I am useless.
The mass coming from the water is dark and shadowy and difficult to make out. It is as though I can see it, but not comprehend it. Vagueness most extreme. Squinting does not offer clarity. Straining does not, either. Focus will not come by any means I might seek. Only the mass is master of its form, and the more it is exposed from the water, the more recognizable becomes its shape.
When it is halfway out, I discern that it is a man.
The man’s ears are pointed. Like mine. Like a naefaerie’s. But he is not a naefaerie. He is a race I have not come into contact with before – with skin gray as fire’s coal and hair dark as the hellbeast’s and eyes that show palest gray beneath black lids.
He rises higher until he is standing upon the water.
Awyer shifts his body in front of mine. That is not right. It is I who should be shielding him! Yet I find that I cannot move. In this moment, my sphinx is my prince, my knight, and my warrior.
The being birthed by Sister River is tall and dressed in a shiny black garment that drapes to his feet and comes up to his face. The garment does not stop at his neck; its collar rises to his nose, cutting across his face so that, of his features, only his pale eyes are exposed.
How the man is able to rise without stable enchants from a water infested with ravenous merbeasts is beyond my comprehension.
It is not beyond Pedj’s.
“Ark.” The skeletal boy utters a single word in the midst of his fear. And then he says it again: “He’s Ark.”
Techton, who does not appear afraid in the least, waves the assertion aside. “Ark is a legend, told to keep good little necromancers from raising their dead pets.”
“No!” Sunken eyes wide, the zombie throws his head side to side in disagreement. “Ark’s real as real can be, and that’s him. That’s gotta be him! Mael, get here!” Together, the pair of Bloődites sidles from the being. Step by step, they inch toward the welcoming forest arms of the Reck.
Awyer shows to me one of his sideways glances.
“I do not know, my ward. But I am fearful. Our power does not work here. We would do well to flee!”
Awyer holds his ground.
And more importantly, do not be cowardly.
These words I choose to say! They will be my ward’s downfall! I must phrase more carefully in the future.
“Who are you?” Techton is first to speak.
The gray being does not respond. Wordless, he steps onto the shore, raises his hand, and within his fingers, a whip-like thread forms. The stench of hair fills the air. I smell it and know:
We cannot stay here!
In a flash-like motion, my hands are around Awyer’s elbow. “Hair of the hellbeast! Run, my ward, RUN!” But although I draw him toward the tree line marking the entrance to the Reck, Awyer remains rooted. His curiosity gets the best of him.
From the shore, the gray man approaches the Gated Rise. He does not walk in strides as most men do; rather, the bottom of his garment lingers just above the ground. He is as I am in some ways.
But he is not faerie. And he is not human. And above all, if he possesses the hair of the hellbeast, he is not to be trifled with.
The man reaches the far side of the Rise. Backward tilts his head as upward tilts his face. If there are pupils to be found within those eerie gray eyes of his, I cannot see them. I have again taken up the task of removing my fief from this danger.
By this time, Pedj and Mael are gone, safely to the woodland that is the Reck. With the confidence of a caster, magick-less Techton is not intimidated. Is there reason behind his fearlessness? Does he possess a secret weapon that will combat the hair of the beast? And my ward, though he shows no emotion, he is thinking a great many things at the moment. What? What could they be? I see them running behind his eyes, but I do know what they entail.
He should not be thinking. He should be running!
Surrounded by the full stench of the hellworld, the man raises his whip into the air and gives a flick.
SNAP!
Like thunder, the crack of the whip echoes through the afternoon sky as its hair latches to a spot high up on the chained wall. Upon contact, the scarabs begin to cluster the point of impact. Hungry fiends or dutiful guardians. Roguish crawlers or sacred beetles. Gold amasses around the blackness.<
br />
Yes, blackness. A line of stringy blackness connects the man’s gray hand to the Rise, and while we stand, or float, watching this bizarre event unfold, something changes in the blackness. It begins to golden. The end upon the wall turns gold. Not only does it turn gold, it steals gold. From the scarabs, gold is drawn, and once the first of the insects is drained it falls to the ground with another sickly crack!
The scarab’s carcass, now a dull yellow, remains upon the ground for but a moment before bursting to pieces of dust.
Immediately following, a second scarab shares its fate. Likewise, a third. And a fourth.
Techton steps forward again, perhaps to inquire as to the man’s motives or identity, but he is stopped by the most unlikely of individuals.
Awyer shoots to meet him.
“You will be killed,” my ward tells him. “We are getting a head start. We should not waste it.”
“Huh?” Techton looks from Awyer to the gray man and again to Awyer. There is an amount of edge about the sphinx.
I glide to him. “What do you mean? How do you know that?”
“There is magick at work. I hear him. He speaks.”
“You hear him? But he says nothing.”
“I know.” Awyer nods with a dark expression. “He is speaking to my mind. Let us go, Grim. I will tell you once we leave.”
Despite the troubling confession, I cannot agree more that we should leave this place.
“Do not listen to him, Awyer. Block out whatever words you he–”
My order is cut short.
“Don’t be a wretch, faerie.”
Into my mind, a voice enters, but it is not just a voice. It is the voice of a man with sighing intent and intoxicating nature. My eyes are made wide. The voice tastes sweetly of pollen.
“Let the boy listen,” says the man. “I told him things that are useful. You should be thanking me.”
“You told him useful things? Why? Who are you? And how is it that you cast enchants in a place of stifled magicks?”