Fink’s nose wrinkled. “He gave you Phyros turds?”
“No, plasters. Scabs from dried Phyros Blood. You put them on wounds. Willard gave them to me.”
Fink’s eyes widened. “You have the blood of a god in your bag.”
“Blood of a cob-head god, yes.”
“I thought Sir What’s-his-Bugger didn’t approve of magic.”
“It’s not magic, it’s Blood.”
“God magic isn’t magic?”
“It’s not moon magic, so it isn’t magic.”
“You’re making a jest. You stole these or something.”
“No. It’s the truth.”
After a long moment in which Fink appeared to study Harric’s face intently, he said, “I’ll never understand this stupid island.”
“Which reminds me,” Harric said, displaying the bandage he’d wrapped around his forearm. “Thanks so much for this nice new plague boil on my arm. You didn’t tell me this was coming when you took my strand.”
“Wasn’t time.”
“You should know that in Arkendia, people are hung for these things. They know what they are—call them Witch’s Teats—and I’ll be hung if anyone sees it on the road.”
Fink cringed a little. “Sorry, kid.”
“How long will it last?”
“Month or two, longer if you let me nurse off it—”
“That’s revolting in more than one way.”
Fink bristled, wings and chin jutting. “And starving isn’t revolting?”
Harric raised a placating hand and looked into the imp’s scowling face. “I don’t ever want you to starve again, Fink. But I really don’t want to hang, either. Arkendian witch hunters look for these things, and some of the best will look under bandages. They know.”
“We did what we had to. It was feed on you, feed on the Kwendi ladies, or be caught, and you wouldn’t let me feed on them.”
“That’s true. And I would do the same thing all over again. But if it ever comes to that again, could you pick a spot on my back?”
Fink’s wings sagged. “Yeah. Sorry about that. I wasn’t in my right head. Guess it’s best if you don’t let me get so desperate next time.”
“It’s a deal.” Harric smiled.
Fink’s black tongue flicked over his teeth. “Speaking of deals,” he said, glancing into the sky. “I’d love to sit on this horse’s back end all night, but I need to find Missy and tell her the deal’s off.” His face screwed up in what might have been a grimace of worry, and he twisted his talons like he was wringing them out. “Anyway, you seem all right on your own right now.”
Harric nodded. “Probably better alone right now, actually.”
“In the Unseen, you’re not better alone. Fire like that draws vultures looking for fire kills. And there’s no Phyros with you to scare them off.”
“Then why don’t you stay?”
Fink’s face twisted again. “Better I find Missy before she finds us. Maybe stay near the river, just to be sure. I’ll be back as soon as I have news.”
Fink vanished. Harric sighed and gave Spook another rub behind the ears.
Far to the left, across the moonlit sea of grass, he saw the dark line of willows marking the edge of the river. As he steered Rag toward it, raindrops kissed the skin of his hands and face, and whispered in the dry grass around them. The first rain of autumn, and enough to stir up the scents of dry grass and wildflowers. Spook let out a mewing complaint and shook his ears, so Harric put him back in his basket, and turned his face to the sky.
Alone. Unknown. Only Spook’s purr and Rag’s breath and cadenced steps for company.
Behind him, the Bright Mother had risen to fill the valley with light, and his shadow stretched before him toward the darkness of approaching clouds.
“Price of heroes?” he murmured to the cat. He shook his head. “Freedom isn’t a price. It’s a prize.”
There was triumph in that. There was birth.
And the ache in his heart made it truth.
Epilogue
Fink writhed and gasped for breath as Missy’s iron-cold talons squeezed tight around his skinny neck. The black mists of the moon enveloped them, hiding them from prying eyes.
“He is mine,” said Missy, in her mournful, owl-song voice. “And you are mine. Your game is done.”
“No—” he gasped. “You—don’t understand—”
“You have no blood-soul pact. The boy is rogue. You are rogue. I will consume you both.”
Fink squeaked as she lifted him effortlessly from the ground. The vulture had told her, just as it promised. The poisonous, ungrateful corpse-eater had ruined everything. “Mother—will decide that.” He gasped in pain, prying at her talons with his claws. “You can’t—decide that. I know—things!”
She held him before her like a rat on a stick. Then she drew him, very slowly, upward toward the emptiness behind her hood.
“The Kwendi!” Fink said. “I know things!”
“You know nothing.”
“Stop! I do! I saw the magic! I was there!”
“You saw the Kwendi put weaves in the stone?”
“A different Kwendi—a woman Kwendi—in the Kwendi land—”
Missy hissed and drew him to the brim of her hood. Fink squealed in terror. “You lie.”
“A magic door! Through a door!”
“What door?”
“Every night—let me show!”
His slow progress to the hood halted, but she did not lower him. Silence reigned for long moments in which Fink whined, the cold void inches away, but knew better than utter a word. Soft owl notes echoed from deep in the hood, as if it housed some vast subterranean cavern. Her breath made frost on Fink’s nose. “You will show me,” she said. “You will tell everything.”
Fink writhed and made tiny, frantic nods. “Yes!” But inside, he seethed. He felt like a bug on a pin—helpless, desperate. If he showed her, she would consume him anyway and claim the discovery for herself; she would justify his destruction with the revelation that he had no pact with Harric. If he didn’t show her, she would torture him, or imprison him in some lost nest in the Web until he dwindled to nothing or confessed.
He had to reach Mother before she could act.
Missy lowered him to the ground, but she did not release his throat. Her breath was the sigh of wind over hollow bones. “Show me.”
Fink shivered and nodded, and she released him. As he led her into the Web to lead her, he sent a thought down a strand to Harric.
She knows, kid. Get to the river. Now. It’s your only chance.
*
Author’s Note
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Thanks again, and Happy reading.
*
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About the Author
Stephen Merlino lives in Seattle, Washington, where he writes, plays, and teaches high school English. In 2014, The Jack of Souls won the Pacific Northwest Writers Association award for fantasy, and in 2016, a chapter taken from the novel won a place in Writers of the Future anthology, volume 32.
Stephen lives in Washington State with the most desirable woman in the world, two fabulous children, one cat, and three attack chickens.
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