by Amy Little
Annika motioned ahead of them, speechless.
Before them was an enormous molten lake. The liquid in it was a deep, orangey-red. It lapped the stony beach on which they had exited from the tunnel and then washed back again. This was the source of the sound.
Zak extinguished the candle. The glow from the lake was sufficient to light the cavern.
“Is it lava?” asked Annika, regaining her speech.
Zak shook his head. He walked up to the edge of the lake along the soft, grey sand, and dipped his hand in the liquid. “Try it.”
Annika hesitated for a moment. She could not back down, not now, not before him, she said to herself, and determinedly walked up to Zak and shoved her hand wrist-deep in the liquid. At the last moment she squeezed her eyes shut, but then as soon as her hand entered the lake her eyes were startled open again.
The liquid was colder than the coldest thing Annika had ever touched.
She snatched her hand out. She looked at her skin and felt it with her other hand. Her skin was completely dry. Not a single drop of moisture had lingered.
“The stories speak of the dragons that were hatched on the shores of this lake,” said Zak, watching her. “This is where the hatchlings took their first dip, in this molten lake. The lake was known in the old tongues as the Dor’se.”
“Are there dragons here?” asked Annika in a hushed voice. She peered across the lake.
The lake stretched as far as she could see, its farthest reaches eventually blurring into the semi-dark and disappearing from sight. A little further along the beach, was a pier. Bobbing in the gentle swell were two small paddle boats.
Annika could not imagine who would be brave enough to set across such a lake in a boat. And to what end?
“I’ve never encountered a dragon,” said Zak, speaking slowly and seriously. “And I’ve been here about a dozen times. But it wouldn’t surprise me if one appeared.”
“Dragons are just silly old wives’ tales,” said Annika stubbornly. She was slowly regaining her composure, but she spoke the words without feeling much self-assurance.
“The stories also say that about the Dragon’s Mouth,” said another voice off to one side of them. “Yet, here we are.”
Annika spun around. Her hand sought out the gold-hilted dagger in her satchel. On brushing the satchels of herbs, she felt a strange surge of power, which she registered with surprise that cut through the jolt of fear she heard on hearing the voice. Tense and afraid, she stared into the shadows from where the voice came.
A shape cloaked in a black hooded robe stepped out towards them from beneath the stone ledges that circled the cliff-like rock walls.
“You’ve betrayed me!” hissed Annika to Zak, taking a step back and snatching the dagger from the satchel.
Bright light, almost a thunderbolt, streamed from the lake and to the dagger. The dagger’s blade shook and then glowed with the orangey-red color of the lake.
Shocked at the sight, Annika dropped the dagger.
It clattered to the stones and rolled a couple of meters towards the lake as though it were seeking to move towards it, then lay still, glowing with the lake’s light.
“It’s the dagger of the Levitants,” said the figure, coming closer. It had a soft, feminine voice.
Zak squatted beside the dagger and was examining it with wonder. “I’ve never seen one of these. Why didn’t you tell me you had it?”
“Why? So that you can sell it to the highest bidder, as you’ve sold me?” said Annika, trying to stop her voice from shaking. She did not take her eyes off the dark shape. Whoever it was, Annika knew she will not give in easily.
“Don’t feel angry at him, little sister,” said the approaching figure, and threw the hood off. From under the thick, dense folds emerged Cara’s pale face.
Fury made Annika’s voice rise to a screech. “You’ve brought me to her!”
“If he told you, you would not have come,” said Cara. She kept coming towards Annika.
Annika found herself backing away from her sister. Her fists were clenched so tight they hurt. “So you made that decision for me too!”
“We can’t speak openly in the castle,” said Zak, distractedly. He picked up the dagger, holding it gently with both hands as something precious.
“I’ve asked him to arrange a meeting,” said Cara. She stopped. “Do not be afraid. There was no other way.”
“You played me false,” said Annika to Zak. Her voice was more restrained now. She looked at Cara with some surprise. “And you… you look… different.”
Cara took another step towards them and suddenly wobbled.
Without realizing what she was doing, Annika rushed forward. She caught her sister just before Cara hit the sand.
Cara’s body felt light, like that of a child. She struggled up, grasping Annika’s hand with fingers that were hard like bones.
Annika led her to the nearest boulder.
Cara followed gingerly, as though each step gave her pain. She sat on the rough, grey stone, holding herself upright with her hands on her knees.
“What’s the matter?” asked Annika, trying to keep concern out of her voice. Her sister deserved nothing from her, Annika said to herself.
“I have no right to your sympathy,” said Cara, as though she had read Annika’s mind, and holding on to Annika’s hand. “Not after… not after what’s happened.”
“She’s been practicing her magic,” said Zak, still looking at the dagger. The dagger still shone in his hand, but less brightly than in Annika’s hands. “I’ve asked her to take a few days off. Her magic feeds off the lake. Yet her body needs feeding as well, which she is apt to forget.”
“Magic… there has been no magic in the Empire for thousands of years,” said Annika, looking from one to the other uncertainly.
“Look at that!” said Zak, taking a few swipes with the dagger from side to side. The stream of light tailed the dagger.
“We couldn’t speak openly in the castle because, everywhere, there are ears,” said Cara. “I can speak with you here, however. This is why I’ve asked Zak to bring you.”
Annika tried to take her hand from Cara’s, but her sister would not let go. “You’ve had five years to find me and speak with me,” said Annika. She did not struggle to reclaim her hands, feeling from the strong grip that her sister would sooner fall off her perch on the hard boulder than let go.
Cara nodded sadly. “You weren’t meant to be alone. Father initially wanted both of us to leave the castle.”
“He told me that too, that night,” said Annika, hesitantly, recalling the distant events.
“The Council stopped him. They wanted one of us here, in the city. They wanted a hostage. If father had all of his children taken out of Karrum, their influence on him would have lessened. They could not allow for that.”
Annika tried to follow. “A hostage… then are you saying I was let off easily, while you were kept as leverage?”
Cara shook her head. “We both were at risk. While I was here, my father’s enemies had easier access to me. But I could rely on what is left of the power of our House. That gave me some protection. You, on the other hand, were further away. If they wanted you harmed, there was nothing other than distance to stop them.”
Annika tried to make sense of this. “Who would want to harm us? I left Karrum because of an uprising against the Emperor. We, and two other Houses, the Bears and the Rams, supported the Emperor. The Wolves and the Vultures did not.” She glanced at Zak. “Are they the enemy? But the Empire now is at peace!”
“It is at peace. Just don’t tell that to the snake men who tried to skewer us the other day,” said Zak. He came up to them, and offered the dagger hilt first to Annika.
She awkwardly took it.
As soon as the hilt of the dagger touched Annika’s hand, the dagger began to regain the intensity of its shine.
Annika could feel something flow through her, as though she were an open tap. She hefted the d
agger uncertainly and then tucked it back in the satchel, with the feeling suddenly ceasing when the dagger left her hand. She said, “The snakes…?”
Cara nodded. “They are an ancient peoples. Although three Houses supported the Emperor, it was not enough. The snakes were the only ones who could save him. So without the knowledge of any of the Houses, the Emperor made a secret deal. In return for their assistance in quelling the rebellion, the snake people gained limited trading powers within the Empire.”
Annika felt the shock of what Cara said reverberate through her. All she knew about the snakes was that they lived on an island off the southern coast of the Empire. The island was said to be two days’ sail from the Empire’s shores, but no one went there, not least as the snakes were said to sacrifice any humans that they captured, killing them with cruel and macabre methods. Annika exclaimed, “How could the Emperor cooperate with such evil!”
“He wanted to cling on to the power,” said Cara, tiredly.
“But… who would trade with the snakes?” asked Annika, still not comprehending.
“You’d be surprised what goes on when there’s profit to be made,” Zak grumbled.
Annika silently stared at him. It was true, she reflected, that the depravity of man often startled her. But how could anyone sink as low as trade with the snake men? Would Zak do something like that? “What does all this mean for us?” she asked.
“Faced with a bigger evil, our two Houses are now aligned against the Emperor,” said Zak. “Although we can’t be seen to be more than civil to one another. Is that a fair summary, Cara?”
Cara’s pale face seemed to lose even more color, as impossible as it seemed, at the mention of a coalition against the Emperor, but she eventually nodded. “Yes.”
“This still doesn’t explain why you could not tell me this before,” said Annika.
“The snake people are very suspicious,” said Cara. “They are only at ease if they sense discord. Unity threatens them. We needed them to believe that you do not get along with us, that the House of the Wolf is doing penance to the House of the Tiger for the events five years earlier by running errands, and the like.”
“How could they know what we do or say at our castle?”
“They are everywhere.”
Annika felt as though the ground beneath her feet was shifting again. She shuddered. “Then the Empire is lost.”
“Not yet,” said Zak. “Only if we don’t resist.”
“The snake people are people of the magic,” said Cara, softly. “And we… now we have magic of our own.”
Annika looked at her skeptically. “Magic. To hear this from you…. Even when we were children, when our nanny tried to scare us with werewolves, you were always the first to laugh!”
Cara stood, shaky but undeniably regal. “You, Annika, have some of that magic.”
Annika opened her mouth to refute that statement. Then she remembered her work with the herbs, and frowned instead.
“I think you know what I mean,” said Cara quietly.
“When I prepare a healing potion, I can feel something flow from me towards the potion,” said Annika, in a barely audible voice. She remembered the times she had healed successfully, feeling herself being drawn into the memories. “When the patient improves, it’s almost as though there is a string tying me to them. Once the healing ends, I tie the string off and that seems to complete the healing process. Yet, I’ve always attributed this to the herbs that I use….”
Annika looked up, startled both at acknowledging to herself what she had known deep inside for many years but never managed to visualize clearly and articulate, but also in being so open with the two people whom, she was sure until recently, she could not trust.
Cara was nodding along in recognition.
“You too?” asked Annika in puzzlement.
Cara raised her hands. Between them, starting small and then gaining in circumference, luminosity, and weight, appeared a ball of light that grew to the size of an orange. It flickered and turned, as though inside it were a living creature. Then Cara inverted her hands outwards and the ball sped away from her in a light-filled streak that broke against the stone walls a few dozen meters away, sending small rocks flying in all directions.
Cara swayed.
Both Zak and Annika caught her at the same time. They lowered her to the ground.
Cara’s eyes had rolled into the back of her head. Her breathing was ragged. The black bags under her eyes seemed to reach midway down her cheeks, and the skin on her face and neck was translucent, showing each small vein beneath.
Annika felt pity and tenderness that she had not felt in years course through her. She gave Cara a little hug and then stepped away, blinking in confusion. She was not sure yet how she felt about her sister. This was sudden. All of this was too sudden.
Zak remained beside Cara. When Cara’s eyes opened, regaining their focus, and her breathing stabilized, he said, drily: “Let’s try and send lightning bolts away from the tunnels. You know, the tunnels that lead out of here. Unless you fancy taking a swim to the other side of this lake in the hope there’s an exit.”
“We could take the boat,” Cara replied, struggling to form words.
“Not when you’re as weak as this,” said Zak.
“I have reason to believe that there are others like us on the other side of the lake,” Cara said, trying to catch Annika’s eyes.
“But you refuse to tell me how you know! Do we know them for friends? Will they greet us with open arms or sacrifice us to the Great Serpent?” replied Zak, not hiding his irritation.
“We will be safe there.”
“So you say!”
“You fret like a young child. I would laugh… if I could,” Cara said.
“At least we’re agreed that you’re too weak to laugh,” he said, moodily staring across the lake. “That is another good reason to avoid magical demonstrations.”
Annika looked from Zak to her sister throughout the exchange, trying to understand what was going on. They were obviously close, close enough to bicker. A pang of jealousy flashed through Annika. She was surprised at how acutely she felt that pang.
“I wanted her to see it... Annika,” said Cara, trying to and catching her sister’s attention. “From what you’ve told me, our magic is different, but I am convinced it shares a common root. This lake.”
“What about it?” replied Annika, absently. She remembered the feeling of power that surged through her on touching the leather bags with herbs when she had put her hand inside the satchel and the glow of the dagger. She recalled that the dagger continued to shine in Zak’s hands. She looked to Zak. “Do you have a magical power as well then?”
“I,” said Zak in a deep and sonorous voice, “am a dragon.”
“What?” both Cara and Annika exclaimed.
The sight of their astonishment seemed to immediately lift his mood. “A wolf and dragon hybrid, can you imagine that? A wet nose and a fiery breath! Of course I’m not a dragon,” he chuckled.
Cara stared at him icily.
Annika felt oddly protective of Zak. Then she pushed the feeling away. He did not deserve her sympathy. He had tricked her into coming to the lake, into meeting Cara.
She frowned, trying to think through what she’d just learned. “The snake people can’t spy on us here?”
“They fear the lake,” said Zak, unperturbed by Cara’s stare.
“This is the only place we can speak,” said Cara. “And when we return up to the castle, all has to be as it was before. We cannot be seen to be close. I am sorry, Annika. But the snake people already suspect we are rediscovering some of our powers. They can feel it. Each time magic is worked, they can feel it. If they were to think we are working in unison, they will not hesitate to destroy us, and we are too weak to resist for now.”
“I’m not working… for anything, or anyone,” said Annika defiantly.
“You yourself said they were evil,” said Cara.
A
nnika shook her head. “There are many evil things in this world. An illness that takes away a loved one. A drought, a flood, a bout of pestilence. All I want is to work as a healer in the city. Flinging balls of light, fighting men… creatures with forked tongues… that’s for others.”
“You don’t understand how few of us there are,” Cara persisted. “The House of the Vulture are aligned with the snake people. The others are too scared. Even from among the House of the Wolf, it is only Zak who is willing to take risks.”
Annika’s eyes narrowed. “So you brought me here seeking a collaborator.”
Cara stood up, uncertainly. There was genuine pain in her voice when Cara said, “I brought you here seeking my sister!”
Cara stepped towards Annika, opening her arms.
Annika found herself moved to tears as she hugged Cara back.
Cara’s body was thinner. Her arms were like pliant twigs. Her cheeks were hollow, pressed against Annika, and when Annika pushed her away again, Cara’s eyes were large and shining as though with otherworldly light.
“You’ve melted away, my sister,” said Annika, wiping away her and Cara’s tears. Cara has always been the older, wiser one. One who took an interest in the world, and one who also took care of Annika. “Looks like I have to look after you now.”
“I just need rest,” said Cara. “That last fireball took more of me than I had thought it would.”
“Maybe I can do something about that,” said Annika determinedly.
Annika let Cara rest against the rocks while Annika found in the satchel what she sought.
A small tin cup, a few pinches from different packets of powdered herbs.
Annika looked at the herbs at the bottom of the cup. What she needed now was water. Where could she find it?
The lake… a sibilant whisper drifted by… use the lake.
Startled, Annika spun around.
Both Zak and Cara were looking at her expectantly.
It could not have been them who spoke.
Who was it that had whispered? Or what?
Annika forced herself to focus on the task. She walked over to the lake uncertainly, hesitated, and then lowered the cup to scoop up a little.