by Ben Galley
‘That doesn’t make sense. There’s no war any more.’
Farden cocked his head. ‘Is there not? Not all wars take place on battlefields. Not all are fought with armies. One has been raging these past decades. In shadows and silence, and between the lines of songs. It was this war that came to your door last night.’
I hated him then. I hated him for all he knew about this world that I didn’t. I hated him if he lied, and I hated him if it was truth he told. I hated that wedge Farden had driven between me and the memory of my parents, and how he had forced me to doubt them. How dare he.
Farden seemed to guess my thoughts, for he shook his head. ‘Your parents didn’t know. Nobody knows, not even in Krauslung. Secrets are what Malvus deals in, and of them he has many. I’ll give you an example, have you heard of a place called Scalussen?’
The question distracted me. ‘Some old ruin in the ice wastes, so far north that you can end up going south again. Right?’
Farden hummed. ‘So a few of the old eddas up here have escaped Malvus’ attention after all. That’s good to know. Well, girl, Scalussen is where the Last War was fought, and one of the only places left in Emaneska that still stands against Malvus. You would know that if Malvus hadn’t spent years rewriting or erasing all the eddas about it. Much of the old lore has been lost or locked away thanks to him.’
‘Why?’
‘Because they tell a different story from what he wants to tell. Because it keeps people like you none the wiser, and quick to take up arms against whoever he calls enemies.’ Farden angled his head towards the big Siren fellow. ‘Hey Eyrum, what was the Last War fought over again?’
The huge man grunted. I watched his arms bunch as he lifted up his enormous pack. Sinews stood out like ripcords beneath his skin. A double-headed battleaxe was strapped to it. ‘I heard it was over a border dispute,’ he said.
Farden rubbed his grizzled chin. ‘Really? I heard it was over trade routes.’ I caught the twinkle in his eyes as he refocused on me. ‘What did you hear?’
‘I…’ My mouth flapped, unsure of itself. Farden had a point; the tavern skalds rarely sung of it. It was old news. A distant war fought between now-dead kingdoms. ‘Something to do with killing dragons?’
That brought a low growl from Eyrum.
Farden nodded. ‘You’re closer than you think, girl. Goes to show how much this empire doesn’t know—’
He paused as a pine cone crackled beneath a boot. His hand flew to the sword-hilt poking up between his shoulders.
‘Only us.’
Inwick’s white head appeared above the slope of the summit. The paper man followed close by, bent double as he negotiated the boulders and frozen dirt. I wondered how many years his bones had seen. I’d never seen a man so ancient. In these parts, you were lucky to see three-score years. He looked like he’d seen thirty-score.
‘Time’s wasting, Farden,’ he said. ‘We’ll need to move on if we’re meeting the others.’
‘Others?’ I asked.
‘Yes, girl. Others.’
‘What others? More like you?’
Farden stretched to his full height. I heard his joints clicking, and the clank of metal beneath his cloak and tunic. ‘More like you, Hereni.’ At my frown, he flashed white teeth. ‘What? Did you think you were the only one?’
‘I… I thought I was different. Important to you, maybe. That’s why you came.’
Farden reached out a hand so he could haul me from the cold earth. I did it by myself. He laughed, but with warmth not mocking. ‘That worn-out fairytale? The untrained peasant brimming with untold power? An orphan who just so happens to be the key to defeating an evil king? I’m afraid not, my dear. If there ever was such a time as that, it’s long gone, and both the peasant girl and orphan are long dead.’
If Inwick’s tally is correct, which she’ll tell me it is, you are the ninety-sixth we’ve rescued. The ninety-sixth that Malvus has snatched from their beds in the middle of the night and tried to drag south to Krauslung. Child, adult, elder, man, woman, it doesn’t matter to him. He has gangs roaming from Gordheim to Jorpsund, Skewerboar down to Essen, hunting anybody who has felt the stirrings of magick, or like you, managed to use it.’
I crossed my arms in defence of being called a peasant.
‘You may be no different from them, Hereni, but you are no less important. That’s why we came for you.’
As the others busied themselves with gathering the last of their belongings, I considered a brief moment of freedom. I looked back down the hill-slope, contemplating running in the opposite direction. But run to what? I had nothing to my name besides a graveyard of ashes and the borrowed clothes chafing my skin. I lifted up my hands. They were still raw from the previous night, pinched pink by the magick.
Farden’s shout caught me as I stared longingly at the last wisps of smoke hovering over the wintry pines to the south.
‘Coming?’
My feet were unsteady, but they moved in the mage’s direction.
The cold always lengthens a journey. My boots, an inch too big for my feet, did nothing to keep them warm. By the time a weak sun made its debut through the clouds directly overhead, I felt I walked on hooves. My teeth chattered as if they were tired of living, and sought to grind themselves to dust in my mouth. All I could feel were my hands. No matter how many times I plunged into a snowdrift, or how hard the cold wind gusted, they somehow held their warmth.
I walked in the centre of the motley group, as silent as they were. They walked with a determination that I imagined came from already putting half the world beneath your feet. Nothing seemed to bother them; not the miles, the cold, nor the directionless way they meandered through the pines.
Farden led them, with the big Siren close at his shoulder. Durnus next, shuffling in front of me. Inwick brought up the rear. Her hand never left the sword hilt at her side. I wondered whether she didn’t trust me or if it was for my own protection, should more milky-eyed men burst from the woods.
When I couldn’t stand my shivering any more, I turned to her. ‘Aren’t you freezing?’
She shook her head, though her lips were two grey pencil lines on her white face.
‘Magick, girl. Has many uses.’
‘It isn’t very useful to me.’
‘You’re untrained, that’s why.’
I grumbled over that for a moment. ‘Teach me, then. I think my feet are about to fall off.’
She looked past me, and I followed her gaze to catch Farden’s eyes. His nod was almost imperceptible.
‘I could,’ she said, a sigh in her voice.
‘Please?’
‘Fine.’
Inwick stepped to my side, removing her hand from her blade. She wore no gloves, no gauntlets, but when she held out an empty palm, I could feel heat radiating from it.
Her words were flat and rehearsed, as if I was the most recent in a long line of similar conversations. ‘Magick is a river, girl. An invisible river that flows through rock, flesh, bone and sky. It is a river without spring nor estuary, beginning nor end. It is ever-flowing and never-changing. It may ebb and wane, but it is always there, and has been since the gods first raised us from the mud.’
‘You make no sense.’
‘I only make no sense because you don’t understand.’
‘I’m just a peasant girl, remember?’ I said it loud enough so that Farden could hear me. I wasn’t sure if the reply I heard was a chuckle or a grunt.
‘What I mean is that the magick is not within you. It’s not yours, like your soul or your blood, but borrowed. It’s far greater than you, and always will be.’
‘And this is why you never taught at the School of the Written, Inwick,’ Durnus muttered over his shoulder.
It was the first time I had caught a hint of mirth on the woman’s face. Though to call it a smile wo
uld have made even the faintest smirk a maniacal grin. ‘And you did?’ she challenged.
‘A fair point.’
‘As I was saying, if you try to summon your power from inside you, you’re going about it the wrong way. That is likely where you have been going wrong with your experiments.’
I also stopped dead. ‘How do you know about that?’
‘We felt it. If you throw a stone into a body of water, what happens?’
‘It makes a splash.’
‘Ripples, girl. It makes ripples. Once you’re attuned to Evernia’s gifts, you can feel it. For instance, I can feel Farden’s magick like a breeze on my skin. You can feel it too, if you try.’
All I felt was cold and goosepimples.
‘You will. That is how the others sniffed you out too.’
That stopped me in the snow. I felt a great weight descend on my already wounded heart. It was my fault the pale men had come to my family’s door. Was this the story I had written for myself? One of carelessness and betrayal?
Inwick must have recognised the anguish on my face. While the others walked ahead, she stayed by my side.
‘If you blame yourself for everything you don’t know about, girl, you will go mad from guilt. Hel, you were not to know. Blame Malvus if you wish to blame somebody. Like Farden said, he sent those mages, not you.’
It took a while for me to swallow that. It felt like an excuse, not an explanation, and it did little to remove the sour feeling in my chest. Inwick distracted me.
‘Come. There’s more.’
She talked so I didn’t have to, and the more I listened, the more my quaking teeth and dead feet occupied my mind.
‘If the river analogy confuses you, then think of magick as an endless song. You might learn a line here, a lyric there, or borrow a note or two. That is why spells can be written or spoken. At one time that was the only way of using them. Spellbooks used to be prized possessions. Mages used to learn and recite their contents in order to access their power. The wizards of Nelska used to read them aloud in battle. The Written had their spells tattooed into their backs.’
‘But I don’t know any spells.’
‘Of course you don’t. In the years leading up to the Last War, magick blossomed like it never had. You don’t need to know the whys and wherefores for now. All you need to know is that it changed. People with no magickal ability in their blood began to find themselves spouting spells, or scribbling down runes without any training. Within ten years, magick ceased to become the practise of hard workers and noble bloodlines and became almost commonplace.’ That word seemed to irk her, and she cleared her throat. ‘The only way the Arka could control the increase of magick in the world was to summon all of these untrained would-be’s to Krauslung, to train and nurture them. Either that, or risk magick running rampant. That was what Malvus feared then, when he was a lowly member of the Arka magick council, and that is what he fears now. He has not curbed Emaneska’s magick. That is impossible. Instead, he has curbed those who can wield it. Made its use feared and abhorred.’
My mind swam with details. ‘So… how do I get warm? What spell do I need to learn?’
Inwick sighed. ‘That comes later. You clearly have some intrinsic ability and that is enough for basic spells. Harnessing elements is the easy part.’
‘So you say.’
‘Hold out your hands. They are warm, no?’
‘Somewhat.’
‘Then quit your backchat and listen closely. Close your eyes. Feel the warmth in the forest—’
‘It’s winter, woman.’
The slap caught me on my temple. It wasn’t painful, but firm enough to startle me. ‘Concentrate on the earth beneath the snow. Feel the life in the trees. Or the beating hearts of animals in their burrows. There is warmth all around.’
‘Fine.’ I tried to imagine furry beasts hidden in dark holes, far warmer than I.
‘Draw the heat to you. Pull it in.’
I began to shake as I had done with my fists pressed to the well-stones. My arms went rigid with effort.
‘Use your mind, not your body. Magick is not about strength. Look at me.’
I felt my hands growing warmer. Inwick’s fingers grasped mine. I tried to wrench away, but despite her size, she had a grip of steel.
‘Keep pulling. Not just into your hands, but up into your chest, your stomach, down into your legs.’
I highly suspected it was my quivering, or some power of hers flowing into me, but I did feel a meagre heat spreading. A tingling began in my feet, and I remembered what it was like to have toes.
‘Feel it?’
‘Barely.’
‘Then you feel it,’ she said with a tut. ‘I’m beginning to think Farden purposefully seeks out ones with as much cheek as him.’
‘It’s called camouflage, Inwick,’ the mage shouted back at them.
Inwick walked away from me. ‘Perhaps you should show the girl some tricks. Maybe that will inspire her to blunt her tongue.’
Farden threw me a wink. ‘All in good time. See what she makes of the camp, first.’
I was so distracted with tracing the warmth spreading through my body it took me a few moments to register the word. ‘Camp?’
When the meagre sun fell away behind the distant Skolking Mountains, the darkness brought snow and fierce winds once more. The pines creaked as they were shaken about. Cloaktails crackled to the howl of the rushing air. Pausing for even a moment meant snow piling up around boots and legs.
Whatever scrap of power I’d summoned earlier was gone. The effort had conspired with the miles to drain me. Although I could now feel my feet, they were as heavy as frozen lead. Had it not been for Inwick’s occasional hand on my back, or the spare cloak that wrapped around my soaking bearskin, I would have given in and let the nearest snowdrift be my grave. I knew now why my father had always travelled south rather than north. I longed to be doing the same.
‘How much further?’ I cried out. The wind stole my words, and I had to repeat myself several times before Inwick could hear me.
‘Not far!’
The answer was useless. I wanted time and distances. Specifics.
‘How far?!’
My voice was lost in the howl once more. I decided to keep my mouth shut to avoid drowning in snow before I got to wherever in Hel we were going. I forced my slits of eyes to focus on Farden’s glowing hand, several yards ahead and burning with a piercing white light. Torches would have been no match for the blizzard, but his spells were.
Darkness was pressing in at the corners of my eyes when Farden dropped his spell. For a moment, I thought myself lost, or unconscious, but the cold kept me painfully aware of how alive I was. No corpse could have ached this much, or felt the keen knife of the wind so.
Inwick put her arms under my armpits and carried me. I was so preoccupied with pondering how the thin woman could be so strong that I almost didn’t notice the giant pillars of rock looming between the pines.
The huge, wind-hewn obelisks stood in a ring like the points of colossal crown. At their centre was an archway made of blue stone. I had never seen rock like it in those parts. Although the snow clung to the flanks of its standing stones, not a single flake could touch the arch. As Farden raised his glowing hand again, making its surface glisten wetly.
‘What is that?’ I said, with lips as numb as pork rind.
‘Respite!’ called Durnus, who was standing nearest to the rock formation. I sagged in Inwick’s grasp as I watched him raise his arms to the churning sky.
‘What’s he doing?’
‘Magick, girl. You’d better get used to it.’
I cupped hands to my mouth to warm my face with breath. It took an agonisingly long time for the paper man to prepare whatever spell he was casting. I wondered what in Hel these mages wanted with an arch of rock, as pe
culiar as it was. I silently begged them to hurry up and make a fire.
The fight to keep my eyes open became a battle, then a war. As I teetered on the edge of succumbing to sleep, I heard a whoosh and felt a blast of warm air. I came awake with a surprised splutter.
There, stretching between the edges of the arch, was a gossamer curtain. Its surface wavered and rippled independently of the gusting wind, and never did escape its ties to the rock. I saw an orange light dancing on its blurred surface, and heard the fizzing of every snowflake that dared to touch it.
Inwick carried me closer so that we stood in a line with the others.
‘You’re getting quicker,’ Farden called to Durnus.
‘After several centuries, you would imagine so. Who shall be first?’
Eyrum muscled forwards, battleaxe clanking loudly as he strapped it tightly to his pack. ‘Being careful, after last time.’
Farden laughed heartily. I wondered whether he was quick to humour, or whether he had seen so much sorrow in his time that he had to laugh. Something told me it was the latter.
‘I don’t blame you. Took Towerdawn to get that blade out of the wall.’
‘What’s a towerdawn?’ I asked, voice faint.
The Siren turned to me. The odd light of the curtain illuminated the wrinkle of the great scar dominating half his face. He winked with his good side. ‘You will see, girl. You will see.’
All I cared about was warmth. It occupied my mind so completely that it did not shock me when the big man disappeared into the archway, as if it were a pool of water that had forgotten how to lie flat. Light and sparks fizzed around his edges as he vanished.
“What the fuck?” was the sentence I attempted, but my lips were now freezing shut. It came out as a string of garbled nonsense.
‘Farden?’
The mage gestured to me. ‘Let the girl and Inwick go first.’
I felt the hot breath of the woman on my earlobe. ‘Close your eyes and hold your breath. This is incredibly important. Do you understand?’