by Tia Reed
She had a sickening feeling that was a mystery they were not about to solve anytime soon.
Chapter 37
ARUN’S SHIELD WAS up before he hit the water. Keeping it dark while working magic was a skill beyond most of the Inner Circle. The dizzying energy he needed was shooting silver stars across his black vision. His shield was flickering, thinning, dissolving. Delivering him into the jaws of the jabberweis.
Her scream pierced his fogged mind. Her open face, her sparkling smile. He remembered it all, and it kept his drooping eyelids from closing. Kept his lolling head from falling.
Sinking. Sinking.
Her walnut hair. Jabberweis attacking from every angle. Her curious nature. The vicious beasts snapping again and again. Her trusting look. Jabberweis undeterred by the zaps of pain as their teeth locked on the dark shield. Her carefree laugh. Cocooned, trapped, his air running out. Too drained to work magic. Too dizzy to think. Her daring flight. Must mould the shield around his legs so he could swim. Too drained. Her magic. Mind sluggish. One last chance. Her magic. Link. Keep me awake.
Arun? Er, Minoria. You’re faint. What’s wrong? Is Kordahla there?
Keep. . .awake.
A moment of panic. Want a song or something? How about this? Old merry Sai bit berry pie and it splashed right into his eye. Old merry Sai bit berry pie. . .
No more air. Lungs bursting. Heart thrashing. Shield cracking. You. . . safe?
Well if I don’t die of frostbite, I might break my neck by falling down a precipice. Arun? Want me to keep going? Old merry – Aaahhh
Awful song. Awful singing. Shield failing. Follow. . . find quartz. . . seize it. Vinsant’s magic. Such untapped power. It burst through him. The effort to keep his crystal from flaring near drained it. Enough left to strengthen the shield. To mould it around his legs.
He kicked for the shore. The water churned. Two monster jabberweis clashed in front of him. They fought for their prize, mouths biting, legs thrashing, locking, gouging. Blocked. No air, no time. Dive below, five strokes further, his lungs about to explode. Keep moving; keep awake; keep the link up; keep the shield strong. Her easy grace. Blood spurted into the murk. A limp jabberwei drifted past. A host of crocodiles set upon it, devouring it. Good, they might think it was him. Might still be him. No more air. The muted light of the surface so far, so far, so far away. Bubbles streaming out of his mouth. Not one left in his chest.
Dark streaks across his vision. A flash of silver. His life spun out before his eyes. His home in a village on the shores of Lake Arezou. His quiet, patient grandfather, working at his carpentry while four-year-old Arun drew in the sawdust by his feet. His mother’s poignant smile when she came to collect him after a long day peddling the toys his grandfather carved. The day she never returned. His grandfather’s sad eyes when he returned from a week-long search. His grandmother’s empty plate after she spooned most of her share into Arun’s bowl, claiming she had eaten enough. The day she never woke up. The day a hooded and cloaked mahktashaan rode through the village a few years after he had begun to learn his grandfather’s trade. The village boys he could outrun and outsmart, but not outfight, clamouring to be tested for magic. The mahktashaan entering the barn where he was sanding a plank. Arun had brushed the hair from his eyes and left the man to Grandfather, whose arthritic hands dropped tools, whose spine, bent from years of stooping over wood, pained him without relief.
“May I test the lad?” the mahktashaan asked, after easing that stiff pain.
Arun ran the plane over the smooth timber, praying to the Vae he would leave.
“Come here son,” Grandfather said.
“I have no magic,” he mumbled, sending wood shavings to the floor.
The mahktashaan stood before him. He stilled his arms and looked up. Before he could protest, the mahktashaan set a crystal on his brow. The flare of deep green light frightened him to flight. He ran through the village to a tumbled-down temple and threw himself at the mercy of the Vae. Dindarin led him home, long after the mahktashaan should have ridden his black horse out of sight. The cloaked man sat with Grandfather in their ramshackle, draughty room, eating a meagre stew nourished with a few slivers of goat.
His place was here, he argued, looking after the man who had brought him up. “I do not even worship your god. I have been praying to the Vae. Mahktos will reject me and I will die.”
“You have a kind heart,” the mahktashaan said, patting the stray mutt Arun had brought home to save a beating from the village lads. “You have an honourable soul.” His kind eyes rested on grandfather. “Mahktos deems these traits worthy, but neither He nor we force a man into service. It is an honour-bound life, and an honourable one. Your lodgings and meals are included. Your stipend as an apprentice, if you are frugal, will be sufficient to send home a small allowance.
Grandfather struggled up from the wobbly chair and clasped Arun on the shoulders. His eyes moist, he said, “Don’t you dare send money, son, and don’t do this for me. Refuse if this life would burden you, but it is the life your mother would have wanted you to have.” He shook his head as though chasing memories from his mind.
“I will think on it,” Arun said, unable to meet the stranger’s eye.
The mahktashaan bowed his hooded head and left.
“I know you will do what is best,” Grandfather said. Just that and nothing more until Arun rose in the middle of the night to find him smoking his pipe and contemplating the dying embers in the hearth.
“I want to know,” Arun said. “Who was my father? What would he have wanted me to do?”
Grandfather sighed and gestured him into a chair. Arun’s heartbeat galloped. Grandfather might now tell him more than that the man was a traveller. Grandfather might not keep his lips closed as he did when the village boys snickered of a branded outlaw who had dishonoured his mother.
“I can tell you this. He was a mahktashaan, came through when your mother was not much more than a lass. She was willing, she said. When she found out she was carrying you, she refused to send word. You were her gift from Vae’oenka and Mahktos, she said, and you were destined for great things. The mahktashaan was not beholden to her, nor was she bound to the mahktashaan.”
“Then those men are not honourable.”
“They honour their god, who is not one of the Vae.”
“What colour was his crystal?”
Grandfather lowered his eyes and shook his head. “I do not remember.” And though Arun pressed he would not relent.
He sent home money, of course, but he never traced his father. Many a mahktashaan had ridden through the village over the years. No one other than his dead mother had reason to recall which one had visited eighteen years past. His training had been arduous but fulfilling. He had never seen his grandfather again. When news reached Tarana of his death, it was too late.
His life flashed forward. The day he had been inducted. The day he had first set eyes on Kordahla. The day the indigo djinn had terrified the princess at the docks. The day the rose genie had distracted him at Lake Sheraz.
The rose genie was floating before him, her brown hair fanning through the water. Dreaming now. Keep awake. Old merry Sai. Blink. She was still there, biting her lip. Deal. No breath for the word. Maybe she understood. She pushed her face through the shield. Deal. Her eyes were wide with wonder. Had he spoken?
“D –”
She pressed lips soft as silk against his. Blew air into his chest, and kissed him. When she parted, she floated in front of him, her small hands covering her mouth, her cheeks flushed rosier than her skin. She was tinged an odd grey. He had neither strength nor time to ponder it now. Arun kicked up, past the feeding jabberweis.
The link was wavering.
Vinsant, if you’re safe trust me.
Old merry Sai. Old merry Sai. Vinsant was on the verge of panic. Sapping more of the boy’s strength would endanger him. When Arun returned to Tarana he would account for that presumption. He would pay twice over for abusing his
position. Levi would not be lenient. In either case. His death. Would not be quick. Not clean. It didn’t matter. Not if first. . . he could ensure . . . Kordahla. . . was safe.
Kick. . .up. . .head out of water. Needed air. Release shield. Breathe deep. Shield up. Dive so the murdering scum on the boat would not spot him. Keep his crystal dark. Strike for shore. So far, so drained. Pain stretching his chest. His legs burning. His mind refusing to think. Push through it. Push. The pain was undoing him. He might, after all, need to live with his shame. Call on Vinsant once more. Just ten more kicks. Another five. If he was not there after three more, he would risk it. One. Two.
✽ ✽ ✽
Vinsant flicked aside an annoying tug in the corner of his mind. It returned, no stronger than the tickle of a fly upon his skin. It took him a minute to understand someone was trying to link. With all the skill of a practiced mahktashaan, he soared down the link, pinpointed the contact, and tried to connect. The shock of discovering it was Arun, desperate and weak, made him forget his body. His foot slipped off the gleaming track. He wobbled over the steep slope and the link wavered. He fought so hard to maintain it that it was several seconds before he realised his leg had plunged knee-deep into snow. Stopped dead in his tracks, he tried to ignore Padesh’s stare so he could understand what was wrong.
Keep me awake, the minoria said.
There was no understanding grown-ups sometimes. That awful rhyme was the best he could come up with. It had been knocking about in his head since Rosie had teased him.
You. . . safe?
Well if I don’t die of frostbite, I might break my neck by falling down a precipice.
Arun’s attack was unexpected and brutal. It wrenched every crumb of magic out of him. He cried out, trying to grab hold of it. His body lurched, his right foot slid from under him and hit a patch of ice, skidding him off the path. His left leg dragged behind, pulling free of the snow. The precipice he had joked about loomed a few feet away. He threw his weight forward, felt himself sink into the powdery snow. Thank Mahktos he stopped sliding. He lay there singing because, left without magic, snow was soaking through his clothes and he was frozen and drained beyond standing. Padesh would just have to come haul him someplace safe.
Except, he started to slide. He tried to dig hands and feet in, but the mountain grumbled and a layer of snow rushed down and collected him, and he flipped over and flipped again, gathering snow. Busy butterflies if he was not going to end up a human snowball. And levitos, levitos, his quartz was cold and his magic wouldn’t fire and he was exhausted, nothing left to save himself with. Nothing left to give Arun. Old merry Sai. Old merry Sai, he was going to die. Not even enough strength to demand his magic back.
His legs slid into thin air. He tried to grab the edge. One gloved hands cut right through the snow. The fingers on his other gripped an icicle. He stretched up but couldn’t reach the edge. His fingers were cramped, slipping, slicing through the ice.
He fell. Far, far below, snow blanketed the valley. The ground rushed up to meet him. He had to regain enough strength for magic. Had to concentrate. Send his distress across the link. All praise to Mahktos it was still intact. But. . . too weak.
“Going somewhere?” The indigo djinn’s face puffed into a cloud beside him.
“Heeelp.”
The rest of its body popped into sight. It held out its arms and caught him, cradling him like a baby. Even in the frigid air, it stank of decaying fish.
“Put me down.”
“Grateful speck of flea dirt, aren’t we?”
The djinn rocked him. Of all the undignified positions to bargain in! “What do you want?”
“Do you have to ask?”
His hand closed over the crimson quartz. “No.”
“Oh, very well. If you insist.” The djinn opened his arms.
“Waaaiiiittt,” Vinsant yelled, arms and legs flailing as he dropped through wet cloud.
The djinn dived alongside. “Did you say something?”
“Aaahhh.” The ground was coming up fast.
With thumb and forefinger the djinn pinched his robe, arresting his fall. Dangling there, his heart thumping all the way up in his throat, Vinsant had to admit he did not have much choice. Far above, he caught a flash of beige.
“Well, flea?”
A suspicion niggled in one corner of his mind. The djinn could let him fall and take the crystal after he died. “What do you really want?”
“The stakes have gone up. That quartz will be but half your end of the bargain.”
Vinsant shook his head. “Not the Eye of Mahktos.”
The djinn laughed. “You, a puny, uninitiated boy dare to suggest you could destroy the Eye. You dare to believe you could even find it?”
So not even the evil djinn knew where the Eye was. That was something of a relief. “What then?”
“A task. Nothing to tax that speck-sized brain of yours.”
The frightening dive had kicked some vigour into Vinsant’s veins. He reached for his magic. Deep inside he found a trickle of the awe that fired his quartz. He had a feeling it was too dilute to channel to any good. But if he kept the djinn talking, it might have a chance to build. “What task?”
“You are in no position to bargain.”
“I thought that was exactly what we were doing.”
The djinn pushed his oversized face into Vinsant’s. The wicked vermillion eyes reflected his terrified, lonesome self. He had not meant to look up and give Padesh away. The mahktashaan was standing near the precipice, a black smudge far above on the slope. The djinn blew and the smudge shot out of sight.
He was doomed.
“Deal or die, flea.”
“I won’t deal into dishonour. I’d rather die.” He swallowed because he was not sure he had the courage to forfeit his life. “Tell me first.”
The djinn narrowed his eyes. “A Hill Tribe girl will come to Terlaan. An uneducated, maimed, spirit-cursed girl who wishes to turn the world from the Vae. You will discredit her with the shah. Now say the magic word.”
“Um. . . Mahktos?”
The djinn tossed him up. Vinsant rose to the level of the slope, hung there as he tried in vain to propel himself to safety. Padesh, his misguided hope of rescue, was sprawled against a crag, his head lolling in a daze. Tendrils of fear were working their way too far through his veins for his magic to work. He began to fall. This was the end. He needed to deal. But his quartz? Mahktos would strike him down. He would have at best a few more years living in great dishonour.
“Maaahktooos,” he called, closing his eyes because if he did not see the end coming he might be able to resist. He sure hoped death did not hurt.
Who would have thought the landing could be soft? Vinsant cracked one eye open and encountered a wall of indigo. He patted something fleshy, hit something hard, opened his other eye and found himself cupped in the djinn’s huge hand, way below the cliff top, way above the ground. The djinn puffed and Vinsant slid across a crystal joint. Throwing himself flat, he gripped a finger. His heart had never beat so fast.
“Oh, you meant the d word.”
“You try my patience, flea.” The djinn tilted his hand, leaving Vinsant dangling.
His idea was a crazy, perilous long shot but he didn’t exactly have anything to lose. Shaping the vestiges of his magic, he reached out to form a new mind link. “No deal,” he said at the exact moment he touched the djinn’s twisted mind and sought to tap into the indigo crystals. Tugged their magic as Arun had tugged his.
“You dare!” the djinn roared, severing the link the instant it was formed. The djinn flicked him away. Vinsant spun across the chasm along a beam of indigo light.
✽ ✽ ✽
A surge of magic shot through the link. Djinn-tainted power, too great to harness in its entirety, enough to keep him going. Caught between guilt and panic, Arun kicked forward. What mess had Vinsant landed himself in now? He dared not distract the boy with thoughtspeak, didn’t have the strength for it
anyway; could only hope Padesh had the wherewithal to protect him. Forward.
Reeds. Clutch. No air. Shield. Release it. Back up. Need the cover of the reeds.
At last. Arun dragged himself through their endless expanse. No water birds snuggled within. Stillness lurked like a warning. He had to keep moving, drag himself out of range of the predators, hope none stalked below, awaiting the instant he was forced to release the shield to take in more air.
Old merry Sai bit berry pie. Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye.
Vinsant was panicking. Arun snapped the link, struggled on. All praise to Mahktos, his upper body squelched into mud. The bank had to be near. He managed a sluggish trudge through the clinging mire until, at last, he heaved himself into verdant grass. Here at the water’s edge jabberwei basked. He had to keep crawling through the overgrown grass.
The blades swished. His head butted a giant snout. Jaws flew open and snapped. The jabberwei roared as its teeth jarred against his shield. Arun struggled to remove himself but the senseless jabberwei bit on, ignoring its pain, thrashing, screaming, determined to bite through and claim a meal.
One slim, perilous chance remained. Arun lowered his shield as the beast bit down. He channelled his last reserve of strength, blasted its jaws into a million pieces. Teeth speared into his chest. Pain shot through his ribs and into his neck. He could bear it, only, please Mahktos, let the flash of light be encased in the maw. Please Mahktos, let it pass unnoticed. If he was to help Kordahla, Ahkdul must not know he was alive.
Too much to bear. He slumped to the ground, pulled a tooth from between his ribs. The puncture was deep but it had not penetrated his chest. That wound would fester. He could not think about it now. He was too drained to heal himself. Too risky too, if he was to remain dead to the world. He needed rest. Perhaps he could allow himself to close his eyes.
No. Be strong. For her, keep going. Stagger through the blackness streaking across his eyes.
He fell to his knees.
Crawl then. Just keep awake.