by Ben Galley
Here and there, lying in the mud and gravel between them, bodies were slumped and curled. A few still had long knives protruding from their backs. Others were busy dying.
‘I want these disposed of. In the river, not here.’
‘As you command, Milord,’ Rolick nodded, clicking his fingers at a few of his men. They went to work silently, hauling the dead and dying towards the second carriage, painted black. Dizali did not care to watch them load it. He stepped up to the gates, where heavy locks and chains had been draped around the bars.
‘And these?’ Dizali asked, looking back at Rolick.
‘We have a hulker for that, Milord,’ the captain replied, snapping his fingers again.
Dizali stood back as a deep scraping emanated from the second carriage. Something stepped out of it, on the far side. Dizali could see the suspension of the carriage lifting upwards. After a few thudding footfalls, a tall shape loomed out of the rain. The lordsguards lifted their lanterns to light its way.
The hulker was huge, as they always were. There was something about the bear shade that truly brought the beast out in a person. This one was a woman, Dizali could see that in the eyes that stared out from her hood and from the shape of her chest. Rarely seen, but not uncommon. Her long black hair and grey robe hid the rest.
Dizali gauged her at almost seven foot as she trudged past him, making the gravel crunch and the ground shudder. She was the tallest he had ever seen. Some hulkers grow upwards, some grow outwards, some do both. She was of the third kind. The cloth of her robe strained to keep all of her in. It strained at the seams of the arms, skin-tight where the muscle bulged. Dizali wondered where Gavisham had found this one.
Amidst grunts and animal-like snuffling, the hulker grabbed at each of the chains and prised their links apart with her hands. The magick was fierce in this one. The metal bent like warm wax, splitting apart, link by link. All the while the hulker growled and grumbled at her task.
She was smart too: breaking the links not the locks. Any good thief will tell you that the lock is always the strongest point. What surrounds it, wood, hinges, chains, is never made as strong.
It only took a minute or two of pure, brute strength to crack the gates. Dizali and Rolick were soon striding across the wet lawns, making a beeline for the front doors of the great manor.
‘You are to wait outside,’ Dizali instructed. ‘I will need two hours, no less.’
‘Yes, Milord.’
Dizali jabbed a finger at the varnished door of Harker Sheer. ‘The door, if you please, Rolick.’
‘With pleasure, Milord.’ Once more his fingers clicked and the hulker came marching forward. There was a clang as the door-handles were ripped clean off and dropped. The woman looked up as if waiting further instruction. Her tiny green eyes looked odd and alone in her monstrous face, with her jaws and cheekbones swollen with the magick of her shade. Dizali nodded to the door again and her fist splintered the wood around the lock. There was another clang as the mechanism fell out of the door.
‘Thank you, Madam,’ Dizali motioned for her to step aside. The door creaked as it opened, scraping against the splinters on the marble floor. The smell of dust wafted over him. Dizali stared into the gloom and waited for his eyes to adjust to the familiar edges and shapes: the mighty staircase, a waterfall of mahogany and thick red carpet, leading to the upper floors; the ornate bookcases and tables; the scores of paintings lining the walls; the coat of arms of the Hark family, outlined in black marble at the centre of the atrium.
‘A lantern,’ Dizali hissed and one was passed through the door, illuminating his memory. The Prime Lord moved deeper into the manor.
Room by room he searched, rifling through drawers and desks, not caring to creep. Why should a thief creep when no master is due to return, after all? Harker Sheer was enormous, and so he kept to the main rooms: Karrigan’s chambers, his boy’s chambers, the room where they had held their meetings, and of course, Karrigan’s studies and libraries. Dizali did not look for anything in particular, just anything at all that could sully the late Prime Lord’s name. It was slow progress, rummaging through a lifetime of letters, notebooks, and correspondence. Almost an hour passed, and still his search had proved fruitless. Karrigan, at least on the paper he had so-far found, was spotless. Dizali was beginning to grow angry. He did not relish the thought of returning home with his hands emptier than a beggar’s.
He stood in the centre of Karrigan’s fourth and final study, in the south wing of the manor, where the desk faced a wall of glass that looked out into the gardens of Harker Sheer. Dizali stared around at the half-open cupboards and yawning drawers. He breathed slowly and calmly, trying to place himself in Karrigan’s shoes.
‘Where would that fool put something he did not want found?’ Dizali whispered to himself. The darkness had no answers for him, only his tired, churning mind.
Karrigan was Lord of the Empire, second only to the queen.
‘So who in their right mind would dare to pry into his business?’
Not his servants, not the other lords, they would never escape his gaze.
‘His son. His blasted son.’
Children were forever eavesdropping and poking their noses into business that did not concern them.
‘How do you hide something from a child?’ Dizali turned around as he muttered. He had prised open all the drawers that had been locked with a fire-poker. Even they held no secrets.
Up high.
Dizali held the lantern high and stared at the highest bookcases, at the chandelier that hung from an ornate whorl in the ceiling, and at the shelves that lingered near the plaster, with barely enough room to sport their trophies and curios.
Dizali went back to the last room he had rummaged through, a library, and retrieved a dusty ladder that had been propped up against one of the bookcases. He wedged it against the wall and climbed so he could run his hands across the shelves. Glass smashed and metal clanged as he knocked Karrigan’s ornaments to the marble floor. Dizali did not care.
The shelves held nothing for him. Neither did the first bookcase. But the second made Dizali smile, one his rare smiles, usually saved for when he was alone at his desk or staring out of his window. His fingers wrapped around the bundle of paper and dragged it from its hiding place, wedged between the ceiling and the back of the bookcase, far from the curiosity of any thirteen year-old or plucky servant. Dizali retrieved his lantern and held the wedge of paper up to its dwindling light. They were letters, bound together with a thick, red ribbon. The ribbon had been tied and untied many times. That was plain to see from the way it had begun to fray. Dizali’s thumb rasped over the edges of the letters, glimpsing handwriting. He prised one of the letters from the ribbon and held it close to the lantern. No wax seal, just a printed mark, one he recognised instantly.
‘Lincoln,’ Dizali breathed. He stared at it for several moments, making sure he was not mistaken. Then he smiled broadly, and slid the letters into his greatcoat.
Accidents work in mysterious, but occasionally marvellous ways. As he moved the ladder beneath the chandelier, the tip of it knocked the glass and dislodged a ring of ornate crystals. Dizali ducked it as it fell, letting it smash into a thousand fragments on the marble. The floor sparkled hypnotically, like a summer sea. All except for one piece: a long key, intricately and cleverly worked, and worn with use. Dizali snatched it up from the floor. It looked to be several hundred years old, of black iron, and crafted to look like part of the chandelier. Karrigan is full of secrets today.
Dizali was in good spirits when he returned to his lordsguards. They were soaked, but none of them had the temerity to shiver. The Prime Lord stared at each of them in turn.
‘It appears,’ he announced, that smile lingering on his face, ‘that vagabonds and thieves have taken up residence in the late Prime Lord Hark’s estate. They have made rather a mess of the place.’
Captain Rolick stepped forward. ‘What a shame, Milord.’
‘Inde
ed,’ Dizali replied. They understood each other completely. ‘Keep what you can carry and no more. We don’t want the Benches in complete uproar, now do we?’
‘No, Milord.’ Rolick flashed a grin before clicking his fingers at the other guards. They filed into Harker Sheer.
‘And if you find any deeds, Rolick, bring them to me.’
‘Yes, Milord.’
Satisfied, Dizali took his leave, pacing across the wet, squelching lawn and back to his carriage. The sound of bangs and smashing followed at his coattails.
Chapter XIV
OF PRACTICE AND PINE TREES
8th July, 1867
The air crackled like a firework.
‘Merion …’ Lurker warned him, yet again.
‘Trust me, I can do this,’ Merion spat out between pursed lips and gritted teeth.
The magick pounded his head like a warhammer.
‘Yeah, an’ you said that the last four times.’
‘Lurker,’ Merion hissed, and the prospector fell silent.
The light was blinding. He had to squint to focus on the leather canteen sitting atop the tall log.
He let the magick collapse and surge into his fingers as he held them straight out. He pointed, tensed his entire body as hard as he could, and let it go. Merion felt the magick pour from his body, like a hurricane ripping through him. He held it steady, just on the edge, forever feeling his mental fingers creeping towards the precipice of constraint.
The canteen shattered into a hundred hissing fragments. Lightning danced through the cascading water, flying back and forth between the droplets a dozen times before it spattered on the dusty earth of the circus ring in the big tent. It was just the three of them: Merion, Lurker, and Shan Dolmer. She was queen of the shades today, lecturing him more completely than either his aunt or current company had yet managed to—or dared to. Merion had followed her every word, listened completely. He saw this fountain of knowledge for what it was and plunged his head into its pool. He had not had this amount of fun since … well. Ever.
It had pasted a cheery smile on the boy’s face. That, and the fact the circus was nearing Nebraskar’s border, and they would soon be in Iowa. Another territory of this Endless Land put behind them.
If Merion thought about it for too long he found the laughter building. It all seemed far too good to be true. That’s what kept a wariness at the very edge of his enjoyment, a thin border of it. He knew Yara and her family were a good choice, for a while at least, and he had let himself relax. For the first time since setting foot outside Harker Sheer, he had forgotten about his father, his city, and all the many marbles he was scrabbling for. That could wait, could it not?
‘Told you,’ he said, glancing over his shoulder at Lurker.
Lurker just reached for his own flask and took plenty more than just a gulp. Then he wiped his lips, tipped his hat, and said: ‘You won’t get five tries in a fight, that’s all I’m saying. I’m impressed though, truly. Always said you were a crackler.’
‘And more besides.’
Shan stepped forwards to place a hand over the boy’s heart. Merion had grown to ignore her hairy skin. It taught him quite a neat lesson, in actual fact: never misuse the blood, or you’ll end up looking like a sheepdog. ‘A rusher, even a leech, usually takes the name of her or his primary shade.’
Merion nodded his head. ‘But I could be a mortscent, or a trickskin, or a dustkicker like Yara.’
‘Or a goldnose, like me,’ Lurker reminded him, tapping his nose.
‘That too, or … What was it?’
‘Black Knight. Centipede.’
‘Yes, but you can’t rush insects.’
Merion shrugged. ‘What if I learnt all six?’ he asked, wondering if he was being too eager.
‘You barely tasted reptile yet, boy,’ Lurker told him, waving his canteen.
‘You know I don’t like to be called that,’ Merion said, taking his turn to do the reminding. ‘And it was my first real try, anyway.’ Lurker nodded, solemnly, before cracking his crooked smile. His dark eyes sparkled as he chuckled.
Merion didn’t blame him. He even had a snigger himself. Though he would have fumed had it been a few hours earlier. The reptile-testing had not exactly gone to plan. Not at all. The boy was swiftly and violently revisited by his breakfast. A more than excusable amount collided with Shan’s shoulder, and the rest introduced to his borrowed shirt and breeches. Merion had been far from impressed.
‘Perhaps I was just too tired,’ he offered. The circus had celebrated deep into the hours of the morning when it’s better to stay awake than dare the clutches of sleep. And what a night. Lurker had finally dragged himself between the fire-pits, hunting out gold in people’s pockets, even doing tricks with rings and coins hidden under buckets. The folk had clapped and cheered, and formally welcomed Lurker as their own. He went through the whole thing with a mild look of reluctance on his face, tempered only by a fixed, lopsided smile. He had been burnt once by family, and wasn’t very eager to dally with it again.
‘It’s happened before,’ Shan smiled that disarming, though undeniably furry, smile of hers. Merion had grown to like her, and not just for the knowledge he could glean, but because she was genuine. She spoke her mind in that clipped Prussian accent whenever she felt like it. She had already told him off several times for holding the vials and bottles wrong. Yes, there’s a way to hold the vials, Merion reminded himself. But he liked that. The boy appreciated a smidgeon of honesty after the last few months of his life.
‘Well, that I am glad to hear,’ Merion replied. He could feel that old familiar headache creeping back. The one that had begun a few days ago, when rushing the anchovy shade and seeing how many people could stand on his back without him feeling the pressure. He had rushed too hard with that one. Each day of practice, it crept back to annoy him after three or four hours. ‘I wouldn’t want to be rude and not keep with tradition,’ he added.
Shan laughed. It came easy to her. Even Lurker had elicited some giggles with his gruff one-liners. ‘Right,’ she said, collecting up her vials.
‘Are we not going to try reptile again? Start with amphibian, the transitory vein, as you said?’
Shan looked impressed. ‘You’re a quick learner, Tonmerion Hark, quick indeed. But even a leech can only take so much blood in a day. I think we should leave it till tomorrow.’
Merion heard Yara’s voice in his head, infectiously excited. ‘But we’ll be in Daeven Port tomorrow, first thing. Kadabra’s biggest show in weeks. There’ll be no time for it. Better to keep at it, surely, than waste another two days?’ he asked.
‘Well,’ Shan said, thinking for a moment. ‘I suppose that does make sense.’
‘Did you have lunch, boy?’ Lurker sniffed, shuffling around to sit behind Merion.
‘You think you’re so funny …’
‘Oh, I don’t think,’ Lurker flicked his canteen. ‘I know.’
Shan just tittered away.
‘Right then,’ Merion flashed them both a smile and blew his sandy hair out of his face. ‘Let’s have at it. What am I rushing?’
‘Well, as I explained before, certain shades occupy strange gaps between the six points of the Scarlet Star. They’re veins that can we can use to introduce new abilities. Capabilities, I should say,’ Shan repeated her little lecture from earlier. ‘If you were a leech looking to go from reptiles and grow a mammalian tolerance, marsupial would help. But you want to go the other way, so we use amphibian. In this case, I’m going to try you on coqui frog, one of the more interesting shades.’
‘What does that do?’
Apparently Lurker knew this one. ‘Huh, you’ll see,’ he muttered.
Shan plucked a long, curving vial from her case and held it up to a shaft of sunlight sneaking through a gap in the seam of the big tent. ‘This is a ninety-ten reduction, with the highest purity level.’
‘Whatever that means,’ Merion frowned.
Shan smiled. ‘Ninety percent water. T
en percent blood. Very, very pure blood.’
‘See, I just like rushing. I don’t worry about all this technical bullshit,’ Lurker rumbled.
‘You have to be technical, when you’re mixing veins you shouldn’t mix,’ Shan retorted, and Lurker had to nod at that.
‘That’s right,’ Merion added, before sticking out an impudent tongue.
Lurker scowled. ‘I’d put coin on seein’ more than just a tongue come out your mouth in the next minute,’ he said.
‘We’ll see.’ Merion took the vial and knocked it back. It barely tasted of blood at all, except for a slight sourness in the tail of it. Merion winced and then tensed his stomach, praying to be spared another episode of projectile vomiting.
For a long time, nothing happened. Merion just stayed where he was, scrunched up with his elbows tucked in and his fists clenched. He waited but he felt no stir, no spark in his stomach. The magick was normally swirling around his skull at this point, fully formed and ready to fly.
‘Hmm,’ Shan said, coming closer. She had taken more than a few steps back, just to be safe. Merion mimed a retch, and she scurried away again.
‘Got you,’ he smirked, remembering not to relax, in case it pounced. His aunt had taught him that one.
Shan mockingly scolded him before putting a hand to his stomach. ‘Getting warmer,’ she mumbled to herself. ‘It’s just taking a while to react. Any moment now.’ She retreated once again.
Merion could feel it, bubbling up inside his gut. He prepared himself as it surged into his bloodstream. It felt sharp, like metal splinters pricking him from the inside out. Merion gasped and recoiled, curling in on himself. But in a flash it was gone, and soon enough his skull throbbed with it. The magick was pulling towards his tongue, and his throat, and he let it go, curious.
Shan had already plugged her ears. Lurker had too, with his gloved fingers. Merion soon found out why. A piercing screech erupted from his mouth, so loud it felt as though his lips and tongue burned in its aftermath, set aflame by vibration. His own ears screamed. A high-pitched ringing had taken up residence in him, and he worked his jaw to try and rid himself of the dizziness.