Returner's Wealth

by Paul Stewart

  ‘Green havens, some call places such as these,’ Eli told him.

  They skirted the ravine edge until they came to a narrow track that took them down into the vast chasm. Giant trees, moss-encrusted and strung with vines, competed with waxen-leafed ferns and towering conifers, all anchored in shadowed cracks and crevices and growing up towards the brightness of the sky.

  Micah stumbled and tripped continuously as Eli helped him down the steepening track through the ravine forest. Sweat beaded his forehead. His bandages were soaked through with blood.

  Just as Micah felt he could go no further, they came to a vast overhanging spur, the windcarved rock smooth and handhold-free. The track narrowed to little more than a ledge, and they were forced to continue sideways on, Eli in front and Micah close behind, clinging to Eli’s arm. The air roared with the sound of falling water, and Micah looked up to see the waterfall directly in front of them.

  Eli inched himself along the ledge, wet and slippery from the swirling spray. He abruptly disappeared behind the curtain of falling water and pulled Micah in after him.

  Micah looked around blearily. He was standing at one end of a vast cavern concealed behind the waterfall – a cavern that was alive and shrieking with wyrmes of all kinds, the atmosphere ripe with their scaletang and scorched breath.

  There were tiny, translucent wyrmes with long tails and jagged ruffs at their necks prowling the walls and ceiling. Larger wyrmes – some white and tatterwinged, some dark and gnarled, and some with scales of red and green and mustard gold – stalked the stone floor or scuttled in and out of crevices, their talons tapping and scratching on the rock. Others, their wings folded, perched on every available surface, from the moss-covered rockledges to the rough troughs and earthenware pots clustered in the cavern’s dark recesses.

  Their rawking and screeching bounced off the walls as territory was breached and squabbles broke out. Underlying it all, Micah noticed another noise besides – a wheezing panting sound, rumbledeep and snuffle-filled, as though the chamber itself was alive and breathing. He fancied it was coming from the shadows at the back of the cavern.

  A slim silver-grey-clad woman stepped silently out of the shadows, her hands raised in a solemn greeting. She walked towards them, her hollow-cheeked face and bone-thin body gathering years with each step she took. Her age did nothing to diminish her beauty. Her eyes looked feral fierce, and there was something almost predatory about her stabbing gait. Yet when her gaze focused on the cragclimber, her face softened.

  ‘It is a long time since the last time, Eli Halfwinter,’ she said in a soft voice, cracked and quaver-flecked from underuse.

  She turned her unblinking gaze from Eli to Micah, and he felt a frostlicked shudder run down his spine …

  ***

  ‘You are a wyve collector,’ the woman said again, a harsh edge to her fragile voice.

  Micah shrank back as the talon-nails pressed into his cheeks.

  ‘He ain’t no wyve collector,’ came Eli’s voice.

  The woman nodded in terse acknowledgement of the words, though Micah was unable to determine whether she believed him or not.

  ‘He’s just a greenhorn departer, happened upon the wrong place at the wrong time, I reckon,’ Eli was saying as he crossed the cavern floor, indignant wyrmes scattering before him in a scritching of talons and a skirring of wings.

  He stood beside her, crossed his arms, and the pair of them looked down at Micah, who was seated on a rock.

  ‘He stumbled into a craghut I was sheltering in, over in the highstacks country … He needs help, Jura.’

  The woman breathed in sharply, the air hissing over pointed teeth.

  ‘You are a wyve collector?’ she repeated for a second time.

  Micah’s head buzzed. ‘Wyve?’ he said, and turned to Eli questioningly.

  ‘I done told you, Jura,’ the cragclimber told her gently. ‘He’s a departer from the plains, don’t know squat about life here in the wyrmeweald.’

  ‘Hold still,’ she hissed.

  She clamped her bony fingers to the sides of Micah’s head, the nails grazing his scalp. Micah froze, his heart thudding like hail on a flat roof. He felt her thumbs reach round, tracing his burning cheeks. They sought out his eyes, closing the lids and pressing the eyeballs hard into their sockets.

  Her skin was oily smooth. Her hair brushed against his exposed chest, soft and pungent with the tang of sulphur.

  She pressed harder with her thumbs, and Micah began to see flashing lights and pools of red behind his eyelids. From the far end of the cavern he heard a soft wheezing groan. The pressure on his eyes increased and he feared she was about to put them out completely. Then, abruptly, she released her grip.

  ‘I shall help,’ she announced. She pulled away.

  Micah blinked. He could still feel where the probing hands had held him tight. ‘Thank you,’ he said simply.

  Jura snorted. ‘Soon, you may not thank me.’

  She turned away, and Micah watched her heading towards the shadows at the back of the cavern. Several wyrmes rubbed at her legs as she went, affectionate and proprietorial. She disappeared into the shadows and Micah heard the grinding sound of something being sharpened on a whetstone.

  When she emerged a moment later, his horrified gaze fell on the gleaming spike she held in her hand. One end was splintered, and it looked as though it might once have been the sharp end of a much longer lance or spear, though it looked no less lethal for that.

  Jura crossed the floor towards the far corner of the cavern and was lost from sight once more. Micah glanced round at Eli.

  ‘What’s she doing?’

  Eli shrugged and shoved his hands deep into his pockets. Micah, though, had noticed a slight twitch in the man’s usually impassive face.

  He heard soft whispering coming from somewhere deep in the shadows. It was answered by the deep rumbling groan he’d heard before. He glanced at Eli again, but the man’s expression was fixed once more, stoneset grim.

  All at once, there was a roar from the far end of the cavern, and Micah looked back to see a patch of deep red glowing in the darkness. It bathed the surrounding rock, it cast the woman in a crimson halo, and it fell upon something of great size but indeterminate shape.

  The red light intensified.

  It was a stream of fire. Silhouetted against it were the woman’s hands, outstretched as she held the spike in the flame.

  Micah swallowed.

  The roar dwindled to a wheezing gasp, and the red firelight abruptly went out. Jura emerged from the shadows and strode back quickly across the cavern, the spike – now glowing a blinding yellow white – held out before her.

  As she approached, Micah could smell the acrid heat. He turned to Eli, to find that he was no longer standing by his side.

  He looked back at Jura, who nodded, and Micah realized that Eli had moved round to his back. Before he could move, his arms were grasped and pulled behind him, and he felt both wrists being crushed together and gripped tightly by one of the man’s powerful hands. At the same time, an arm was wrapped around his neck, and Micah felt the cables of hard muscle flex at his jaws.

  Jura came closer, her deep green eyes avoiding Micah’s imploring gaze. She had a stick in one hand; the glowing spike was in the other.

  ‘Bite on this,’ she said, thrusting the stick into his mouth.

  Micah did as he was told, too frightened not to. He bit down on the wood. The spike hovered in the air as Jura loosened the bandages and tugged them away until the wounds were exposed. The heat warmed his face – then his chest.

  He struggled, his eyes rolling in his head like a panicked horse. Eli held him all the tighter.

  He felt her hooked nails pluck at the skin around the wound. He felt the heat of the spike get closer …

  ‘What was done must be undone,’ she said softly, i
n that cracked quaver-flecked voice of hers, her eyes gleaming with a fierce determination.

  She pressed the glowing spiketip to the ragged opening of the wound in his chest.

  There was a hiss of blood, and the whiff of burned flesh, as the spike plunged deep into Micah’s body. He bit down into the piece of wood so hard it felt like his jaw would crack, yet nothing could ease the pain. Pain that seared deep into his very core; scalding, blistering, burning. Pain that could not be endured.

  The stick fell from his slack jaw and landed on the floor with a clatter. Micah didn’t hear it drop.

  Sixteen

  Micah was back on the plains and Seraphita was standing in front of him …

  Her dark eyes were wide with astonishment, unfathomable pools of blackness, as she stared back at him. She had come running into the stables to visit her beloved Peshneg, just as Micah had hoped she would. It was the first time he’d had the chance to talk to her since he’d seen her kissing on the tithe-house balcony.

  He’d sneaked out to the stables after work, and had been lying in the hayloft for more than three hours, waiting for this moment to catch her alone. And when he’d heard those tell-tale footsteps in the courtyard, he’d leaped to his feet and climbed down the ladder to confront her outside Peshneg’s stall.

  But the sight of Seraphita’s beauty had snatched his breath away. Now, it threatened to rob him of speech and turn him into a stuttering tongue-tied fool in front of her.

  Seraphita’s face flushed, a delicate shade of crimson that blossomed in her cheeks and spread down her slender neck. Her glistening black hair was loose and tumbled down over her shoulders, which were bare, for instead of her riding clothes, Seraphita was wearing a tight-bodiced gown, sprinkled with gleaming pearls. At her breast was pinned the jewelled brooch with the rearing stallion motif.

  ‘Seraphita!’ Micah said, aware that he should try to keep his voice to a whisper, but failing. ‘I had to see you. It’s as if, ever since your maidenfeast, you’ve been avoiding me. Didn’t you hear me hooting beneath your window like a moontouched owl? Each morning and evening I’ve hidden in the hayloft, but you sent grooms to look after Peshneg. That’s not like you, Seraphita …’

  Seraphita seemed rooted to the spot, her eyes wide, her mouth open and a look almost of panic plucking at her beautiful face.

  ‘Seraphita,’ Micah continued, and the words he’d wanted to speak to her for four long days now, came tumbling out like apples down a cider chute. ‘Who was that I saw you with on the tithe-house balcony, and why were you kissing him? … Seraphita?’

  Micah was painfully aware of the choking catch in his voice; the lump in his throat.

  ‘Seraphita, please … say something …’

  He took a step towards her, and was shocked to see her flinch. It was only then that he tore his eyes away from her face and looked past her shoulder to the doorway of the stables.

  There, silhouetted against the evening light, were two figures. As they stepped into the stables and approached Sera­phita, Micah recognized them with a sickening jolt.

  The shorter of the two, dressed in a rich velvet cloak with a heavy fur collar, and a large soft daycap of braided silk, was Seraphita’s father. His small stoat-like eyes glittered and the nostrils of his sharp nose flared with distaste as he looked at Micah. On the other side of Seraphita, taking her arm and stroking it reassuringly, was the handsome young man she had kissed. He wore an expensive-looking black jacket, fine-tooled silver-tipped boots and a sneering grimace, as though he had caught a whiff of something foul.

  ‘Seraphita, my love,’ he said, his voice a soft and silky drawl. ‘Do you permit all your grooms to address you in this manner?’

  Seraphita glanced at him, then back at Micah, and he saw her face harden, her eyes narrow beneath arched eyebrows and her nostrils flare, until she resembled the two figures on either side of her.

  ‘Oh, this is Micah,’ she said, with a light and easy giggle, her black eyes boring into Micah’s, intense and wintercold. ‘He’s not a groom, he’s just a silly little ploughboy …’

  This time it was Micah’s turn to flinch.

  ‘Last summer, he got it into his poor tousle-haired head that he was in love with me. Followed me round like a millstone donkey. I thought it was funny at the time, but now it has become rather a nuisance. I should have put a stop to his nonsense, but he seemed so pathetic, Caspar.’

  ‘You’re just too sweet and kind for your own good, my love,’ smiled the young man, guiding Seraphita gently by the arm towards the stable door. ‘Come, you can show me that fine horse of yours another time.’

  Seraphita nodded. Caspar wrapped an arm around her and steered her through the door. As she stepped out of the stables, she stole a backwards glance over her shoulder, and for the briefest moment Micah saw a stricken look in her eyes, of tenderness, of regret and heartache. Then she turned back to Caspar and disappeared from view, a brittle bell-like laugh ringing out.

  Seraphita’s father watched them go, his small eyes twinkling in the middle of a face gone flabby with affection, before turning back to Micah. His face was stoneset once more.

  ‘My Seraphita is indeed a tender-hearted child,’ he said in a quiet musing voice, almost as though he was talking to himself. ‘And just like with Peshneg over there, she neglects the whip out of kindness …’

  He raised a hand and clicked his fingers.

  ‘Such sentimentality is not one of my failings. Overseer!’ he barked. ‘See to it that this ploughboy is soundly thrashed at the whipping-post. I shall not have my daughter’s honour sullied!’

  A figure loomed at the door, a heavy hide whip in his fist.

  ‘I’ll see to it, my lord, don’t you worry about that,’ came a horribly familiar voice, and Micah’s brother Caleb stepped into the stables.

  ‘Make sure you do,’ Seraphita’s father rasped, turning away and strutting out of the stable.

  ‘Well, little brother,’ said Caleb gruffly, seizing Micah by the collar and dragging him out into the courtyard. ‘Can’t say I haven’t warned you. Brother or no, you’ll not stand in my way …’

  He pushed Micah over to the whipping-post and tied his arms to the crossbeam.

  ‘Time has come to prove what a fine overseer your brother can be …’

  But Micah was no longer listening. Instead he was gazing ahead, his stare fixed on the far corner of the courtyard, where a little girl sat playing. She was six years old or so, with matted strawcolour hair and a faded dress of blue cotton. She was playing with the beautifully carved wooden horse she’d discovered a couple of weeks earlier, one front leg snapped off from when it had been carelessly tossed from a balcony window.

  Before the first blow fell, Micah’s eyes had filled with tears.

  Micah winced as he bent down. The fiery red weals that crisscrossed his back had cooled some. Now they were tight across his shoulders like an undershirt he couldn’t take off, and only really pained him if he moved suddenly. Like now.

  He shoved the watergourd down into the stream, listening to the bubbles, watching them wink at the surface as the gourd filled.

  Three weeks he’d travelled, three weeks of dusty roads, muddy paths and rocky tracks, the country slowly changing, the air becoming thinner and the going tougher as he left the plains behind and ascended towards the high country. Ahead of him, on the other side of the gently trickling stream, a vast desert of bleached scree and low bluffs stretched out as far as he could see.

  This was the barrier. The badlands. The region he would have to cross to reach the high country:

  The wyrmeweald …

  There was wealth to be had there. Returner’s wealth. He would get it, or die in the attempt. And he would fill his pockets and return to the plains and claim his Seraphita with that returner’s wealth. He climbed to his feet and swung the swollen watergourd over his shoulde
r. But first he’d have to pray that his water held out.

  Seventeen

  The air smelled of something intoxicating sweet. Light was coming in from somewhere, shining red through his eyelids. There were low voices.

  Micah opened his eyes. He was lying on his back on a mattress of aromatic moss. In a cavern. He stared up at the ceiling.

  High above his head, a tiny wyrme was stalking a green-carapaced bug, its body rigid as its angular legs picked stealthily over the pitted rock. It hesitated for a moment, then struck with a darting forward motion, seized the insect in its mouth and crunched into the shell with needleteeth. Before it could swallow, a second wyrme, larger and with a purple crest, shot forward, huge jaws agape. It snatched the bug, the wyrme and all, and scurried away across the ceiling.

  Two drops of blood splashed onto Micah’s chest. He grimaced, and turned his head to the side.

  Eli and Jura were seated next to one another on the rockfloor some way off, their backs towards him, silhouetted against the shimmering curtain of water. Eli’s half-emptied backpack was resting against one crooked leg, the top open, and as Micah watched, Eli leaned forward and plunged a hand inside.

  Micah closed his eyes again.

  ‘I travel alone, Jura. You know that.’

  ‘That is true, Eli. You always have …’ Her fragile voice trailed away.

  Micah breathed in and felt the bandages tighten at his chest. He remembered the sight of the glowing spike in the wyrmekin’s braced fingers; the heat, the pain, the smell of his own flesh burning. The throbbing had gone now, and the wound was beginning to itch. He didn’t move to scratch it, content just to lie there and listen.

  ‘This, this I can use,’ Jura was saying, and Micah heard something like the crumpling of waxed paper.

  ‘Take it,’ said Eli. ‘You’ve surely earned it.’