by David Hair
‘Because you asked so nicely,’ she muttered, hurriedly banking the fire before picking up the satchel of essential herbs she kept ready at all times. She checked to make sure she’d packed enough pots of calming unguents, then turned to face him. ‘At your service, Lord Vyre.’
‘It’s just Raythe.’ He led the way back to his wagon, where Jesco Duretto was sitting beside a blank-looking Zarelda, while Vidar, looming over them both, watched anxiously.
She went to the girl’s side, flapped Jesco away and knelt. Zarelda was unconscious, her mouth slack and skin pale and clammy, but her blank eyes were glowing and she was shaking. Kemara took her hand, counted out the rapid pulse then looked up. ‘Yes, she’s manifesting. Have you done this before?’
‘No,’ Raythe admitted. ‘The Church always step in at home. But I know the theory.’
‘That’s a comfort. We’ll need blankets and broth.’
‘But she’s already too hot—’
‘Blankets! Broth! And boil some water – lots of it.’ Once she’d sent the men off on tasks designed to keep them from under her feet for as long as possible, she sorted through her herbs, running over everything the Nyostians had taught her about this process.
‘Your core will go cold, but because your pores will open, you will start losing heat too fast. We have to trap that heat,’ she said out loud, ‘so we’ll need warm infusions, woollen blankets – and hyosca oil for the skin.’
Once they’d delivered the things she’d demanded, she shooed the men away, then undressed Zar down to her small-clothes and laid her in a nest of blankets beside the fire, which was now roaring. She massaged in the hyosca oil and fed her the broth Raythe had prepared, talking to the girl all the while, for she remembered that she’d been paralysed but lucid throughout her own manifestation and she guessed Zar was fully aware too.
‘You’re going to be fine, lass, just stay alert. Your father’s been through this, and so have I.’
She summoned Vyre with a wave and while she kept Zar comfortable and calm, he started carving symbols into the soil around them until they were enclosed in a circle of runes that glowed with the same pale blue light as the energy bleeding from Zar’s eyes.
‘Cognatus, ministro,’ he murmured, and his familiar, the Shadran parrot she’d glimpsed before, appeared on his shoulder.
‘Hello there,’ Kemara said in greeting, and it turned a curious eye her way. Then it became a green cat and jumped down so it could start circling around outside the protective wards. ‘Yes, I can see you,’ she told it, making it hiss. ‘And hear you.’
‘You must’ve got a long way through the initiation before they failed you,’ Raythe commented, clearly fascinated despite his worry for his daughter.
It wasn’t a conversation she wanted to have, not now – or ever. ‘Failed is failed,’ she said curtly, closing the subject.
He went to reply, but Cognatus turned and yowled as pale shapes began to appear all round them. Raythe extended a hand and called, ‘Cognatus, veni.’
The familiar flowed into him and vanished, sending his aura pulsing, but Zar whimpered and he and Kemara turned their attention to the girl.
‘Stay calm,’ Kemara said, ignoring the spectral shapes outside the protective circle.
Raythe took his daughter’s hand. ‘Zar, listen to me: this is the moment I’ve been telling you about, okay? Your soul is opening and it’s wanting to bond with a spirit – but you have to choose the right one, remember? I wish I could do this for you, but I can’t, and it’s not going to be easy. You need to listen to them, to get a sense of their nature before you choose, so take your time, wait until there’s only two left, then signal me and I’ll open the circle – then it’ll be done.’
There was no sign the girl had heard, but Kemara could remember her own awakening. She’d been overwhelmed for much of it, her body and brain overstimulated, but she’d been aware and able to move at the end. When I messed it all up.
‘Be strong, girl,’ she whispered, sharing a taut look with Raythe. He was much more sympathetic when he was scared, she decided, and he clearly loved his daughter. ‘It won’t be long now.’
Outside the circle, shadows were dancing, glimmering eyes trained fully on the girl whose soul was opening up. They were all hungry to get in.
*
Too much, too much – it was a flood of light, an ocean of fire, all frozen heat and searing cold. Every breath Zarelda took carried too much information, the smells so overpowering they nauseated her, the tastes filling her mouth and drowning her – but through it all, the voices of Father and Kemara kept her anchored to the here and now.
You have to let the right one in . . . Her father had told her that, and she’d read it too, but she’d not really understood. For one, how would she know which was the right one? As she stared unmoving out of the circle into the night, she saw the spirits gathering there, shimmering blurs of light and energy forming and reforming as birds, as lizards, as cats and grasshoppers and even fish, or half-human hybrids, tiny part man, part mythical beast, all floating around the outside of the circle. They looked entirely real to her, but she knew that only a sorcerer could see them, and for the first time she noticed that none of them bent even a blade of grass when they moved. They were here just for her, and that was wonderful and terrifying.
She had read the textbook Father had given her cover to cover and even started to understand some of it. Magic is achieved by symbiosis, the first chapter told her. The spirits are pure energy, but they can’t discharge that power, so we sorcerers must be the conduit for that energy. By bonding with a spirit, we become their channel for interacting with the world: we direct them with words and signs. But you must choose a spirit whose nature most accords with yours to be fully effective, to achieve the most stable sorcerous partnership.
It had sounded natural and easy, reading those words, but as the spirits closed about her, she found herself paralysed by their multitudinous eyes, their hungry mouths and reaching paws and claws. Choose me, they all called. Choose me.
She closed her eyes.
Fail to choose and your gift will fade. Choose awry, and the mismatch will poison and consume both you and your wrongly bonded familiar. Your gift will turn to destructive mizra and you will become anathema.
For all that, failures were rare, Father had reassured her. ‘When I saw Cognatus, I just knew. Trust your heart, Zar.’
Now she gazed silently out into the night as the shadows danced in the light flowing from her eyes, parading themselves and tasting her. They knew the stakes as well as she did: they didn’t want an unsuitable bonding either. So as time passed, those morphing shadows became fewer and fewer.
In the end, she’d read, there will be two remaining: the closest matches, those most aligned to your soul. But one will be better attuned to the powers that nurture life, which we call the praxis, while the other will be more attuned to destruction, or the mizra. The last two are twins, light and dark. Choose the light.
So she waited until finally there were just two still wooing her: a red fox cub and a brown one, circling intently. Both were utterly enchanting, winsome bundles of soft fur. Their big eyes promised love as they morphed through shape after shape, from lambs to cats to puppies to frogs and back to foxes, which had always been her favourite creature.
The red one was adorable and she almost reached for him – but then she saw that it was never the first to take a new shape; it was measuring her reaction to the other: it was calculating, while the plainer brown one had a lustrous innocence to it.
She signed to her father and he made the magical circle fade, then she reached out to the little brown fox. It cooed and dissolved into her, and her soul chimed.
An instant later, the red one nearly took off her hand: it started shrieking and snarling as it hit the wall of air above the protective circles and for a few seconds all she saw were flashing teeth and claws that tore at the wards, while knives of fury bored into her soul.
Then her father snapped something and swatted it away and there was just her chosen, a little brown fox cub, beaming up at her and snuggling into her lap. She fell in love.
‘Ego nomine vos “Adefar”,’ she remembered to murmur. I name you Adefar: the diminutive of Adela, the name her mother had chosen for her own familiar.
Father and Kemara, on either side of her, were looking down at the little creature, then Father’s Cognatus nuzzled Adefar, who responded with deference, like a child to a grown-up. Zar smiled at the parrot and fox cub, thinking what an incongruous pair they made.
‘Well done,’ her father said. ‘You got the right one. Now you’ve got to learn how to live with it.’
Zar stroked her new companion, feeling happier than she could ever remember being. Her father grinned and hugged her hard. When he finally released her, she turned to Kemara, expecting a hug.
Instead, the healer rose, mumbled, ‘Congratulations—’ and strode off. That was odd, but really, nothing more than a small blemish on an otherwise perfect moment.
‘So,’ Father said, patting her knee, ‘back home, you’d have been tested for suitability the moment you revealed any potential, taken in by an Academia and guided through your manifesting – but out here, you’ve done it all yourself. The important thing to remember is that right now, you are entirely capable of killing other people – and yourself. I know you’ll be burning to try things out, but you need to remember, restraint is the defining characteristic of every good sorcerer. You need to master your spirit and your power before you start using it.’
She nodded dutifully, but she was practically purring as she stroked the fox cub.
‘Learn the words, learn the runes,’ her father went on, sounding very serious. ‘Learn what you can and can’t do. Of course, I’ll be here to guide you through it.’ He tousled her hair and added, ‘And don’t ever forget that your familiar is invisible to anyone but another sorcerer, so if you start petting it or talking to it, or reacting to it in any way, that will just annoy people.’
‘He’s so cute,’ she said, gazing down at her new beloved.
‘He’s being precisely what he thinks will appeal to you,’ her father pointed out, ‘but you have to remember, “he” is probably centuries old and doesn’t really have a gender – spirits can take whatever form they like. He’ll test you, trying your patience and your will, but show him love, and he’ll repay it in kind. With a strong bond, you’ll have a friend like no other.’
‘I’m ready,’ she said proudly. ‘I’ve been waiting for this all my life.’
‘I know.’ He put his arm round her and hugged. ‘You’ve done well, Initiate Zarelda. Welcome to a larger world.’
*
‘So, Master Vyre, have you worked it out?’ Mater Varahana asked, joining Raythe at the edge of the sea-cliffs where the road fell into the sea.
‘Not yet,’ Raythe admitted.
For three days he’d been standing up here, looking over the edge at the wave-drenched boulders below, and he was conscious that people were beginning to doubt him. He’d been constantly turning the problem over in his head, but the only plan he’d come up with so far was to collapse the cliff and use the rubble to create a path along the foreshore. But he had to admit it wasn’t a very practical solution, and in any case, he doubted he had the strength required.
Cognatus squawked disapprovingly at the Mater from his perch on Raythe’s shoulder and took to the air. The parrot circled the priestess then landed, unseen and unfelt, on her head and mimed pecking at it like an egg.
Raythe wiped the smile from his face and signed the familiar to return. Cognatus blurred to his shoulder and becoming a cat, hissed at the priestess. He was always jealous of the people Raythe liked most.
Varahana threw him a quizzical look. ‘Is something the matter?’
‘Not at all. Do you have any ideas?’
The mater’s demeanour suggested she had. ‘Have you looked closely at the headland itself?’
Raythe turned to the hill above them, an almost sheer protuberance anchoring the mountain range to the coastline. ‘Vidar’s hunters have been looking for a way over these hills,’ he replied, ‘but so far, they’ve only found wild goat tracks.’
The bearskin, standing nearby with Jesco, gave a grumpy harrumph. ‘This range is a spur of the Great Northern Barrier,’ he growled. ‘So far I’ve found nothing a horse could comfortably traverse, let alone a fully laden wagon.’
Varahana smiled quietly. ‘Then let me show you what I found this morning.’
With Cognatus flitting above, Raythe, Jesco and Vidar followed the priestess into the shadow of the headland. She led them up a steep slope through the pines, pushing aside the encroaching undergrowth. After a few minutes’ climb a shallow stream appeared, running through a narrow crevice. It wasn’t wide enough to walk more than two abreast, but if they were careful, a wagon would fit, Raythe estimated. When Varahana pulled off her sandals and started to wade upstream, graceful as a heron, the men had no choice but to follow, grumbling about the chilly water.
The rivulet got deeper the further they went, until about sixty winding yards in, they reached a small pool half-hidden beneath a curtain of thick vines tumbling from the rim of the ravine more than fifty feet above them. The holy woman posed dramatically and gestured upwards. ‘Ta-da!’
Raythe narrowed his eyes and followed her pointing finger – and exclaimed in surprise, for the vines were coiled around a fallen metal portcullis some twenty foot across. Studying it from this angle, he could see the cliff-face was unnaturally square.
‘What is this?’ Vidar asked.
‘It’s a rath: an Aldar place,’ Mater Varahana replied, in rapt tones.
‘Aldar?’ Jesco squeaked, making a sign against evil.
‘Isn’t it wonderful?’ Varahana trilled, clearly unconcerned about the reputation for curses and hauntings such places invariably attracted.
Raythe gave her shoulder a squeeze, then, drawing his falchion, took the lead, hacking a path through the tangled vines covering the cliff until they clambered in behind the curtain of foliage. There, they found the remains of an ancient wooden doorway, smashed open and exuding a dank draft that smelled of decay.
‘Feel that? The air’s moving in there – so there must be other openings,’ Varahana said. ‘I have long dreamed of finding such a place. With any luck, it’s not been touched since the Vanith-Aldarai age.’
‘Have you been inside already?’ Vidar asked.
Raythe noticed the bearskin was looking nervous, his temple pulsing.
‘Not yet. I thought I’d better summon some big, strong men to look after me first.’ Then she laughed and added, ‘And I didn’t have a light.’
‘Speaking of which, it’s too dark to go inside—’ Jesco began. He hated caves.
In answer, Raythe murmured, ‘Cognatus, animus: lumis,’ while tracing Flux, the rune of energy. When his familiar entered him, he got the sense that Cognatus didn’t like this place one bit, but a globe of pale light formed in the palm of his left hand, lighting the interior of the cave and revealing a dark tunnel behind.
‘There, now we can see,’ he told Jesco brightly.
‘You can be such an over-achiever at times,’ Jesco muttered. ‘Who broke the door down?’
‘It could have been anything – an animal, bandits, or just time,’ Varahana replied. ‘The Aldar died five hundred years ago, after all.’
‘Everyone knows raths are haunted,’ Vidar growled. ‘That’s why the Ferreans call ghosts “wraiths”.’
‘Nonsense,’ Varahana said briskly, ‘A rath was just a dwelling place. The Aldar built to last, and in their latter days they lived mostly underground, trying to escape the devastating storms they’d unleashed upon the world. Not many dwellings escaped the Mizra Wars, but some were so well hidden they were never found. This might be one.’
Raythe had seen the remnants of two Aldar strongholds in southern Otravia: both were little more than devastated s
tonework, mostly reclaimed by nature and well picked over by fortune-hunters and thieves, but what if this wasn’t? Aldar relics were always in demand, and some could be worth thousands of argents.
‘Let’s explore,’ he said. ‘Perhaps there’s a way through the headland – that stream might actually be the remains of an old road. And raths were often also mines, with passages wide enough for wagons.’
‘I could stay here and mind the door,’ Jesco suggested.
Vidar looked at him quizzically. ‘Are you scared?’
‘Scared? I’m terrified!’
‘You? The fearless Jesco Duretto?’ Vidar scoffed.
‘I know, I know: best swordsman in Creation, best shot too, and I came through the rebellion without a scratch – you want to know how? Fear. I’m so terrified that I dodge faster, fight harder and kill quicker than anyone else. How about you, big man?’
‘A Norgan knows no fear. We come to kill.’ Vidar gave Varahana a toothy grin. ‘If you say there’s no ghosts in there, then there’s no ghosts.’
‘I didn’t say that at all.’ Varahana smiled. ‘But we have a sorcerer with us. I’ll be hiding behind him.’
‘And I’ll be hiding behind Jesco, as usual, to square the circle,’ Raythe said briskly. ‘Shall we get on so we’re not late for dinner?’
They put their boots back on, then Raythe led them forward, his praxis-light burning steadily, his steps sure. At first the floor was covered in rotting leaves and detritus like the bones of long-dead animals, but as they progressed, that lessened until there was little more than a fine layer of dust over everything. The air was cold, a breeze brushing constantly at his skin. He could see vast cobwebs in the higher alcoves, but they looked lifeless, as if the spiders had long-since eaten out this place and moved on. After a few dozen yards, they found no animal droppings and the few bones they did come across were ancient, crumbling away where they lay. The rath had been lifeless for a long, long time.
Then the tunnel opened into a larger chamber with a broken fountain lying shattered in the centre. Varahana gasped and striding forward, exclaimed, ‘Great Gerda, look at this—’ Her voice echoed down the tunnels.