Chosen by Fire

by Harriet Locksley

  “Archie?” she said. What was he doing here?

  “Do I know you?”

  “Archie, listen. You didn’t find me here, understand?” She sensed Tam moving beside her, shrinking down into the shape of a small animal.

  “Kaetha?” There was the sound of something clattering to the ground. “It can’t be,” Archie breathed.

  “Please, just go,” she said. The Earth stone thrummed so gently, she almost didn’t notice it. Her instinct told her that others were nearby. “You don’t know I’m here,” she whispered.

  “But why are you—?”

  “Talking to yourself, Pot-wash lad?” Two men approached with heavy steps.

  Too late to go back, thought Kaetha and she gripped Donnan’s arm, keeping hold of him as they crept down the short flight of steps. Her hands found the cold, iron bars and she felt for the lock.

  “Evening lads,” said Archie. “Hey,” nerves caught the edge of his voice, “Where are you going?” he affected a friendly tone but Kaetha thought it sounded too panicked.

  “He’s on dungeons. I’m on gatehouse,” said one of them.

  “Before you go,” said Archie, “I was wondering, how would a person go about becoming a guard?”

  The other guard laughed, a sound that was sickeningly familiar to Kaetha. “Face it, Skelpt-Arse, you’re not tough enough. You’re only fit for lass’s work.”

  Raghnall Clatcher, thought Kaetha, scowling into the darkness.

  “You got to know how to throw a punch,” Raghnall continued. There was a thud, then laughter.

  Archie coughed. “Call that a punch?” he said, his voice strained.

  He’s buying us time, she realised.

  “Oh, that was just me being friendly,” said Raghnall.

  She made herself take measured breaths as she fought the urge to attack her childhood bully. Instead, she rummaged for the silver spoon in her pocket.

  “And just to be extra friendly, I can show you what else a guard needs to be able to do. You have to be able to bring someone down with a single blow to the head.”

  Kaetha winced but she could do nothing for Archie now. Finding the keyhole, she pushed the handle of the spoon into it. The Earth stone fidgeted in its clasp as she drew on its power to change the shape of the silver. Come on.

  “And stop them from getting up again with a kick to the stomach,” Raghnall continued. Archie grunted in pain at the same moment as she turned the key.

  They slipped through and eased the door back in place but Kaetha was rooted to the ground, her hands still on the bars.

  “Come on,” whispered Donnan.

  Pain. I deserve pain. I hurt her once. Then she left. Archie’s thoughts howled through her mind like a storm and she felt a tugging sympathy for him.

  “Now.” Donnan pulled her away.

  She glimpsed Tam’s cat eyes before he turned and padded ahead of them. The air she breathed was damp and stagnant. The earth of the wall at her fingertips gave way to cold stone as their path descended and the deeper, they went, the more her instincts told her to go back.

  There was a patch of light ahead, and she shuffled towards it like a moth towards a candle. The sharp scent of sweat, vomit and human waste stung her nostrils, turning her stomach over. The torch shed a slice of light into the first cell. Figures sat hunched over and lay curled up, shivering.

  Kaetha knew from a glance that her father was not there. A man with a scraggly beard was tapping the stone floor incessantly with fingers as thin as twigs. She turned away from his piercing gaze. The light barely reached the next cell.

  “Aedan?” Donnan whispered. “Aedan?”

  Nothing.

  Further along there was a tiny cell with a single occupant, a woman who stared at them unblinkingly with big, sunken eyes. She reached for a bar to pull herself up. “Have pity,” she croaked, reaching towards them. “Dear lass, dear lad.” It pained Kaetha to turn her back on her but she did.

  “There must be more cells,” said Kaetha as they continued for a while past blank walls.

  “We’ll find him,” said Donnan.

  They turned a corner just as a cry of pain echoed through the corridor. The shock crushed her heart against her ribs and she staggered towards the sound. “Pa?” she breathed, following a glimmer of torchlight.

  “You didn’t think we’d let you sleep through, Baird?” came a cold voice. “So, have you decided to talk yet?” He paused. “Well, perhaps we’ll be more persuasive this time.”

  Kaetha clamped her hands to her mouth to stop herself from calling out. Donnan tried to drag her back down the corridor but she wouldn’t budge, so he pulled her down so that they crouched in a pool of shadow.

  She glimpsed a hand, bound at the wrist. A figure in black moved out of sight and she saw a man’s head hanging limply, his face bruised, swollen around the eye and jaw, streaks encrusted with blood. For a second, it was not him, it was a stranger. However, when she looked at his eyes, she knew without a doubt that it was her father. Another man brought forth a glowing brand.

  “Tell us the name of your contact in Angaul, where he lives and the names of anyone else who was involved,” the man dressed in black continued, “and there’ll be no need for us to inflict pain.” The red-hot brand drew closer. “Your choice.”

  A stifling silence.

  Kaetha tried to draw the heat from the brand, even though she knew it was probably made of iron.

  The man in black turned. He had fine features and a delicate jaw like a woman’s. A velvet tunic draped his short, slender frame. He nodded to the man beside him and Kaetha caught another glimpse of her father. Eyes widened and nostrils flared like those of a cornered beast. Then he was blocked from her view as he screamed. Donnan held her as hot tears dripped down her face.

  Three more times, he was offered the chance to speak. Three more times, horror clawed at Kaetha from within – fear that he would betray Rhona – terror that he would not.

  Metal creaked and clanged. A key turned in a lock. It’s over, she thought, her heart pounding. The men disappeared down the corridor ahead. After the footsteps had faded, Donnan held her back a minute longer, just in case. A whole, eternal minute. Then she rushed over to the cell and pressed her face against the bars.

  “Pa!” she said in a half whisper. “Pa, it’s me.” But he lay on the floor, a foot away from her, unmoving, his eyes closed, the smell of burnt flesh hanging in the air. His face was pale and oddly swollen and gaunt. “Pa.” He didn’t respond.

  He can’t be . . .

  But his chest rose and fell in a shallow breath and she sighed with relief.

  “Pa, wake up.”

  His eyes began to open. “I dreamt I heard my lass,” he muttered.

  “You did,” she said, failing to hold back tears. “I’m here. Pa, we’re here to get you out.”

  He reached towards her. “You shouldn’t be here.”

  “Neither should you,” she said.

  “You must go.”

  “We’re not going without you, Aedan,” said Donnan.

  “We must be quick,” said Kaetha, pushing the silver spoon into the lock.

  They helped him up, his frozen grip surprisingly tight, his legs shaking, eyes shiny in the torchlight as he drank in the sight of her face.

  There was a quiet, insistent mew from a cat further down the passageway.

  “That’s Tam. Someone’s coming,” she said. Tiny tremors from the Earth stone also suggested to her the approaching tread of footsteps. She watched as hope abandoned her father, making his body seem shrunken.

  “You have to go. Darling lass, you have to go and you mustn’t come back for me,” he said, pushing her away and pulling the cell door closed on himself again.

  “You’re my Pa. I will not lose you again.”

  He squeezed her hand. “You never did. Now, lock it. Lock it and get yourselves out.”

  She hesitated.

  “Lock it – now. There’s a good lass.”

&n
bsp; She hated the turn of the key, the click of the lock, the growing distance as Donnan led away from her father. She hated that they were so close and yet so far from setting him free. They ducked into the shadows as a guard drew closer. Realising he would pass them, she feared that shadow might not be enough to hide them. They needed to be invisible.

  It’s worth a try, she thought as she took Donnan’s hands in hers. She felt the warmth of his breath but could barely make out his face. She focussed on two points of light where his eyes reflected the torch. Concentrating on the Air stone, she drew her mind away from the dungeons, away from the sensations of her body in the cold, dank corridor. She was Mind and Thought now, Memory and Reason. Such things could not be seen, such things could be as powerful as a hurricane or as unnoticeable as still air. She felt a gust of dizziness and then a floating weightlessness. She could not longer see the reflected light in Donnan’s eyes. He was not there. Neither was she. The guard walked right past them.

  Donnan, she thought, automatically talking to him in thought as if he were a Fiadhain. It worked. He couldn’t see us even if he held a torch right in our faces. She sensed his shock, both in the flutter of his thoughts and in the sudden pressure of his hand.

  You can speak . . . in my head?

  It seems so. You’re the first human I’ve talked with like this.

  So you can hear my thoughts too. With those stones?

  One of them. But look, you must keep hold of my hand. I don’t think I can reach you with the magic otherwise.

  Alright. He paused. Can you hear all my thoughts?

  No, Donnan. Just those you direct to me. She didn’t tell him how his other thoughts were like soft whispers, most too far off to hear. She could sense tension and questions in his mind and had to stop herself from probing further.

  Don’t make a sound. He squeezed her hand again. The guard is lingering close by.

  “Looking for someone smaller than you to beat up, are you?” said Aedan.

  What’s he doing? Thought Kaetha.

  He thinks the guard will find us unless he draws him towards the cell, answered Donnan.

  But he can’t cope with any more pain. We have to do something.

  “Got some spirit this evening, worm? Not like yesterday – all night crying like a wee bairn. Sounds like you’re getting a bit too comfortable here,” said the guard.

  Kaetha crept closer. Then came the thud. Aedan grunted in pain as the guard’s heavy boot collided with his stomach. Kaetha gasped. She hadn’t meant to. But now, as the guard turned to face them, she knew that, invisible or not, she had put Donnan and herself in great danger.

  The guard drew his sword and locked the cell behind him, stepping into the pool of torchlight. Kaetha could see the milky scars on his face and arms, even the large pores on his nose and brow, glistening with sweat.

  “Who’s there?” he said, coming towards them.

  He’ll hear us if we run, she thought to Donnan. They pressed against the wall as the point of his blade came much too close.

  His sword tip scraped the wall. “I heard you. I’ll send you back to your cell or into your grave.”

  They edged backwards but the guard lunged, his weapon slicing at them. Donnan pushed Kaetha away, drew his knife, leapt up and stabbed at the guard’s sword arm. The guard looked Donnan in the eyes. Her breath caught in her throat. She could see him too. She tried to reach out to him again but she couldn’t do so without colliding with the guard. Donnan’s knife had merely scratched the leather bracer on the guard’s arm and, before he could strike again, the guard knocked him down, with a fist the size of a ham. Donnan was sprawled on the stone floor in front of Aedan’s cell, the guard standing over him, sword pointed at his neck.

  “What are you? A thief or a gaol-breaker?”

  “Leave him,” said Aedan. “Look at him, he’s clearly just a servant.”

  “A servant who attacks a guard?” the man spat.

  “You thrust your sword into the darkness, not knowing who was there, you should expect a lad to defend himself,” said Aedan.

  The guard loomed over Donnan. “Gaol-breaker then. Why else would the old man defend you?”

  “I’m not,” Donnan managed, staring at the point of the blade.

  “Whatever else you are, you’re dead, laddie.”

  As the guard raised his sword, Kaetha grabbed the torch from the bracket, abandoning her invisibility to focus on her other powers. Snuffing out its light with Fire magic – perhaps this will make him hesitate – she also used Earth magic to compress the wood of the torch so that it was as hard as metal.

  All she could see were purple blotches against the blackness, spectres of the once glaring torchlight. The Earth stone twitched and she felt a silent snarl course through her. She felt like a predator, a huntress, a wild cat. At once, objects emerged from the darkness, including the figure of the guard.

  “Get back, Donnan!” she called. Strength of Earth and Fire flowed through her and she brought the torch down hard upon the guard’s head. In that moment, she didn’t care whether or not she killed him. Though, in any case, she underestimated the thickness of his skull. He turned to face her and she unsheathed her knife, holding out both that and the torch. She also summoned a ball of fire which hovered in the air before her.

  “Get into that cell,” she said, “or you will die.”

  He flicked his sword, pressing it to her stomach, and she sent the fireball at him. He ducked, staggering backwards, patting at his singed hair. The fire burst against the back wall of Aedan’s cell, flames fading as they scattered. Donnan reached her side. With a crack like flint against fire steel, a larger ball of fire erupted into being.

  “Last warning,” she said.

  More footsteps approached.

  “If you kill me, you’ll soon be outnumbered, apprehended and hanged for murder. No, you’re not going to kill me. But I could kill you, both of you gaol-breakers, and be greatly rewarded for the effort. I’ve killed lasses before,” he grinned, showing more gaps in his mouth than teeth. “But you’ll be my first witch.”

  The footsteps came nearer and a pair of eyes glowed palely in the darkness. “And what makes you think I will let you kill mine,” said Tam stepping into view. He struck the guard’s face and the man fell to the ground, his sword clattering against the iron bars.

  “Elf-shot?” she said.

  Tam nodded.

  Donnan took the torch from Kaetha and knelt down to shine it in the guard’s face. “You killed him.”

  “I did,” said Tam.

  “He was going to kill us.” Kaetha stepped over the guard’s body. “He deserved it.”

  Donnan rose, coming at Tam, jabbing the torch threateningly towards his face. “But where’ve you been? Why didn’t you help us sooner?”

  “Shut up and help,” said Kaetha, opening the cell again and dragging the guard. She could only manage a couple of inches. “Help me.” Together, they heaved the guard into the corner of the cell, and hid him as much as possible amongst the straw. “There,” she said when she’d stripped him of his cloak and wrapped it around her father’s shoulders. She removed her mother’s copper heron clasp and secured the cloak with it. “Look after that for me.”

  She locked the cell door and helped Donnan support Aedan as they walked down the corridor. She only had to think it and the torch snuffed itself out behind them.

  “Stop, Kaetha,” said Tam, his eyes glowing brighter.

  “What is he?” said Aedan.

  “It’s alright, Pa. Tam’s a friend. He’s helping us.”

  “There’s something not quite – human – about him.”

  “Not at all human, Aedan Baird,” said Tam in hushed tones. “Kaetha, you can’t leave. Not yet. This is your chance to weaken the one who has destroyed so many innocent lives. I’ve found a way through the tunnels into the keep. She’s here. I’ve seen her. This could be your only chance to take the Water stone, to stop it being used for death upon death. You must
try.”

  “I can’t. What about Pa?”

  “Donnan can take him.”

  “Not on his own.”

  “I could, Kit, if you wanted me to,” said Donnan. “But I think you should come back with us now. It’s too dangerous.”

  “I don’t want you putting yourself at further risk,” said Aedan. “Whatever it is that this creature wants you to do, it’s not your responsibility.”

  “I want to get that stone from Meraud, Tam,” she said.

  “Then you must do so. You have the advantage, three stones to her one.”

  “But I’m not ready. You’ve seen what she can do. I’ll never be that powerful and,” she shuddered, “I don’t think I want to be. I came to save Pa. That’s what’s important.” Tam sighed. “You must do what you think is right.” Kaetha tried to ignore the obvious disappointment in his stony voice.

  Aedan barely made a sound, yet she could tell that each movement brought him pain. “Poor wretches,” he muttered as they passed a row of cells. “I heard the guards talking,” he continued. “Most of these prisoners have Edonian blood.”

  Kaetha hardened herself against the swelling of pity which rose within her. “Best we’re not seen,” she whispered, stifling the torchlight. “And when we get through, I’ll do my best to keep the three of us invisible.”

  “Invisible?” said Aedan.

  “Trust me,” said Donnan, “you don’t have to understand it, but she can do it. But Kit, what do we do if that thug of a guard is still at the entrance?”

  “There’s something I can try,” she said. She let the power of the Fire stone stretch out before her. Through it, she sensed the energy of the buffeting wind, the moonlight, the roaring sea below the cliff. She sensed the bodies of horses in the stables, of men asleep in the barracks, watchmen high above them and, outside the entrance to the tunnel, a single guard. He was weary but she could sense his strength. “I will take his strength from him.”

  “Kill him?” asked Donnan.

  “No. If he’s found dead, someone will sound the alarm. We need him to sleep.”

  “And you’re sure you can do that?” he asked. “Not take too much of his strength?”