by Paul Stewart
The whitewyrme landed on the outcrop and stood, neck arching and wings outstretched, over the two sleepers. They didn’t stir as he stared at them.
Had she also been called? he wondered, as he looked down at the girl. Had she been drawn to the boy the way he had been drawn to his wyrmemate? Had she endured the same ecstatic embrace, strange and powerful and savage …
Standing there by the hot spring, Aseel finally understood.
Yes, she had been called, and there had been nothing she could have done to prevent it. Aseel knew that now, yet still he shuddered with loss and sorrow and a sense of betrayal. He raised his forelimbs, the talons spread wide, as if about to strike …
Then, quietly, delicately, he removed the plump damsel fly larvae from his claw tips and laid them on the grey rock beside the soulskin.
Aseel turned away. Flexing his wings, he took to the air and flapped silently away, leaving the boy and girl locked together in their strange unknowable embrace.
Forty-Nine
‘Buyers or sellers?’
The words, soft and sibilant, filled the dark chamber. Leah looked at Solomon, who turned slowly round, his boots grinding on the gravelstrewn rock.
‘Buyers or sellers?’
The voice was wheedling and insistent, and the acoustics of the cavern made it impossible to tell where it was coming from. Leah saw Solomon’s hand grip the haft of his knife. If only they hadn’t left the spitbolt and the sidewinder at the cavern entrance.
‘We have something to sell,’ Solomon said, his own voice echoing round the vaulted cavern.
‘What have you got?’
The voice seemed to be behind them now.
Leah reached out and felt for Solomon’s hand and seized it, and was comforted by its rough yet warm grip.
‘Show me what you’re selling,’ the voice hissed greedily.
Solomon hefted the sack from his shoulder and raised it. ‘This,’ he said.
Leah tightened her grip on Solomon’s hand.
‘It’s live goods,’ Solomon said.
‘You’re after returner’s wealth?’ came the voice, querulous and mistrustful, now from somewhere above.
‘Word has it, you pay well for live goods, Redmyrtle,’ said Solomon.
He let go of Leah’s hand, and swung the sack down to the ground.
‘Show me,’ Redmyrtle whispered close by his ear.
Solomon flinched.
‘And drop the knife.’
It clattered to the ground.
Out of the shadows came a pale milk-eyed wyrme, scabrous and stunted, scuttling on outsized rapier-like talons. It seized the knife, then hissed as a thin golden chain yanked it back into the blackness.
‘Sh … show her, Leah.’ Solomon sounded unnerved.
Leah crouched down and plucked at the knot.
‘Need some help?’ came a whisper.
Leah quivered with revulsion as a hand reached out from the darkness and touched her own. It was dry and gnarled and covered with a mess of blurred black tattoos, and it rested there for too long.
Pulling away, Leah opened the sack and the wyrmeling’s head sprang up, blinking into the gloom. Beyond the pale shaft of light in which they stood, there was a stifled intake of breath.
‘A beauty, ain’t it?’ said Solomon.
‘He,’ Redmyrtle corrected him, her voice now echoing from the blackness at the back of the chamber.
‘It’s a whitewyrme, as I’m sure you know,’ Solomon said, turning his head as he tried to follow the direction of the voice. ‘But if you’re not interested,’ he said, ‘happen we can reach a bargain with someone else.’
‘Not so much hasty,’ the voice rasped, suddenly up close again. ‘What do you want for him?’
‘Make me an offer,’ Solomon said.
For a moment there was silence.
‘Hold out your hand.’
Solomon obeyed, thrusting an open palm into the shadows.
‘Take.’
Solomon pulled his hand back. It contained a dozen or so small, pale-brown stones.
‘Pretty,’ he said, ‘but I’m going to need more than a handful of honeygems for my trouble.’
Redmyrtle hissed. The tattooed hand reappeared and filled Solomon’s palm with a spread of larger gems.
‘That’s more like it,’ Solomon said. ‘And such fine colours. White and purple,’ he said, picking through them with his finger. ‘Blue. Green …’ He looked up, his dark eyes thin slits. ‘I don’t suppose you have any red stones.’
Redmyrtle hissed again.
‘Now a red stone really would seal the bargain.’
Leah held her breath.
The gnarled hand held out a gemstone. It was smooth and red and large as a ripe plum.
Leah saw Solomon’s eyes grow wide. This stone alone, she knew, was worth more than all the others put together. A smile spread across Solomon’s face.
‘We have a bargain,’ he said. ‘The wyrmeling is yours.’
The hand closed round the red stone, and another reached out and seized Leah by the wrist.
‘The wyrmeling …’ Redmyrtle’s voice was honeyed and eager. Her grip tightened. ‘And the girl.’
Leah started violently back. ‘I ain’t no piece of live goods,’ she shouted, struggling to keep her voice from breaking up. ‘Sol would never leave me here, ain’t that right, Sol?’ She heard her own heartbeat thumping at her temples. ‘Sol, tell her. Sol … ?’
But Solomon Tallow said nothing.
Fifty
Heppy awoke. It was that moment of drowsy confusion between dreaming and wakefulness.
In the cavern gloom, she saw her ragged sleeve as she held her hand before her face, and the rope that circled her wrist and snaked up to the rock-spike high in the shadows of the cave wall. But the dream in her head had not quite faded, and the cave and the rags and the chain made no sense to her.
Her father was beside her, his face gleaming in the firelight. They were playing that game they played together, and he was crooning that old lullaby she loved. They must have had a hard hike of it, for she was aware of the bone-ache of exhaustion that gripped her, and also a desperate desire not to be lulled to sleep, for if she did, she was afraid that he wouldn’t be there when she woke up.
She tried to concentrate on the wooden marbles, the gleam of their polished surfaces, and the way they clicked one against the other. But it was no good. She was too tired and too comfortable, and the song wrapped itself around her.
‘I will sing you off to sleep,
I will rock your cradle deep.
I will rock your cradle fine,
For I am yours and you are mine …’
And now she was awake, and the dream was fading. Yet the warmth remained, and the rise and fall of steady breathing. She reached out in the gloom and her hand touched something ridged and scaled.
Something that was alive.
She sat up and saw that she was encircled by a sleeping wyrme, white and sleek, wings folded, tail coiled protectively round her and wedged beneath a long tapered snout. As she watched, the wyrme opened its eyes, deep yellow and penetrating, and looked into hers. Smoke drizzled from its nostrils, and strange sounds like the whispering of the wind and the pitter-patter of falling rain emerged from its throat.
‘Aysss … saaaah …’
Dream-addled and barely aware of herself, a name came into the girl’s head, comforting and strong and needing to be spoken. She lay back and felt the wyrme’s coils tighten around her. She could sense that he, like her, was lost, frightened, alone and seeking comfort in this closeness.
Heppy closed her eyes and melted into the steady rise and fall of his breathing.
‘Asa,’ she said.
Fifty-One
Eli picked up a stick and stirred life int
o the embers of the campfire. He built it up with fresh logs, waited a moment for them to catch, then set a cooking pot on the blaze.
When the water came to the boil, Eli handcupped barleymeal into the cooking pot and the last of the fish from the night before, and stirred it.
The stone prophet opened his eyes, uncurled and sat up. He looked around, his face befuddled, his bleary gaze falling upon the cragclimber.
‘You’re awake, then,’ Eli observed.
Ichabod nodded, then rubbed his eyes on the back of his fisted hands. He sniffed rodent-like at the air. ‘Victuals,’ he murmured.
Eli nodded. ‘A spot of fish gruel,’ he said. ‘Looks like you could use some, preacherman.’
‘That I could,’ Ichabod confirmed, squirming beneath Eli’s intense pale-blue gaze.
‘So, what was it, green liquor or the voices of the ancestors?’ the cragclimber asked coolly as he passed him a steaming bowl. ‘’Cause you weren’t making a whole lot of sense last night. But at least you didn’t try to bushwhack me with a liquid cosh this time,’ Eli conceded.
‘It was neither,’ said Ichabod. He took a mouthful of the gruel. ‘Ever since I was lightning-struck I’ve seen things a lot clearer … No, I had other matters on my mind last night.’
Eli stirred the cooking pot.
‘I’m a useless cowardly failure,’ Ichabod went on, as if talking to himself. ‘Others enter – oh, yes – but Ichabod doesn’t have the courage to follow them. Because I’m useless, useless, useless …’
Eli looked up.
Micah and the kingirl, Thrace, were walking towards the campfire, side by side, the low blanched sun casting long shadows behind them that blurred into one. Micah’s face was flushed and his eyes shone bright as he stole furtive glances at the kingirl striding at his side. He was carrying her kinlance, Eli noticed, and Thrace was holding something in her hands, clasped protectively to her chest. The tight soulskin she wore was unfastened at the neck, the hood hanging loose off one shoulder, while her ash-gold hair fell in soft tousled tresses over the other.
‘Micah, Thrace,’ said Eli as they reached the fire, gesturing towards the ragged figure. ‘This is Ichabod, the stone prophet.’
Micah nodded, though if Thrace had heard Eli, she gave no indication of it. Her mouth was small and tight, and her eyes were red-rimmed as she knelt down beside the fire and let the bundle she’d been clutching tumble into it.
‘Damsel grubs,’ Eli said quietly, and shook his head. ‘Hard to find this time of year …’
Thrace said nothing, but sat back on her haunches and gazed at the roasting grubs in the fire. Micah was about to go to her, but Eli stayed him with a hand.
‘Leave her,’ he counselled.
The previous night, when the boy had not returned from the hot spring, Eli had gone in search of him, and had seen them bathing, Micah and Thrace. He’d turned away, his head full of thoughts of Jura, and his younger self …
When he’d returned to the campfire, he’d recognized the raggedy stone prophet slumped beside it, rocking to and fro and babbling quietly under his breath. And, despite their strange history, Eli had to admit he’d been glad of the company.
As the damsel grubs’ hard carapaces split, the air filled with cracks and sputters and the sweet nutty scent of their toasting flesh. Thrace picked up a stick and pushed the grubs out of the fire, their sizzling skins grey with ash as they smoked on the rock at her feet. Then, fiercely, voraciously, the kingirl seized the grubs, one by one, oblivious to their heat, and devoured them, her sharp teeth tearing at their flesh as her slim body was racked by sobs.
Finally she was sated. She slumped forward, her mouth smeared in grease and ash, and the tears that coursed down her cheeks dripped from her chin, hissing and sputtering into the fire.
Eli looked down into the cooking pot. He stirred the gruel, then ladled some into a bowl. ‘Micah,’ he said, holding it out.
Micah tore his gaze away from Thrace, stared at the bowl for a moment, then shook his head. ‘I ain’t hungry,’ he said.
Thrace seemed to have gained control of herself, for she got to her feet and wiped her mouth on the sleeve of her soulskin. She fastened the collar, adjusted the hood and scraped back her hair. Her face was as white as the soulskin, and her dark eyes were bright and intense as she stared at Eli.
‘Aseel has left me,’ she said simply.
The wind that whipped off the frozen lake was raw and harsh and sharp as knives.
Eli nodded. ‘I saw what you did to Jesse at the gutting tarn,’ he said. ‘Did you make him talk?’
Thrace flinched. ‘The other two kith have the wyrmeling in a sack,’ she said, turning away and looking out across the clear lake. ‘But he refused to tell me where he was to meet them …’
‘By all that is holy!’ Ichabod exclaimed, laying down his bowl and getting to his feet. A smile came to his battered features. ‘Two kith with a sack? It just so happens that old Ichabod might be of some use after all.’
Fifty-Two
Micah reached out and took Thrace’s hand, and was surprised by the heat it gave off. She didn’t pull away, but neither did she respond to his touch, nor look at him, and when he searched her face, he was uncertain whether she was even aware he was there. Her hood was up and her head was raised, and the kinlance gripped in her hand swung purposefully at her side as she walked forward.
A hot flush rose in Micah’s face despite the bitter cold. The sky was sombre grey and full of snow that did not fall as the four of them crested the first crag, and they descended the steep incline on the far side.
When they’d emerged from the hot spring, the kingirl had looked so beautiful, standing before him washed clean of the blood and the acrid stench of the gutting tarn, her smooth unblemished skin glistening in the moonlight. Micah had scarcely been able to breathe at the sight of her, rooted to the spot, his heart hammering in his chest. It was she who had made the first move, wrapping her arms around him and drawing him close, holding on tightly as she pressed her open mouth to his.
The next morning, when they’d awakened, it had been awkward and shy between them. She had clothed herself in the white soulskin once more, the second skin, the slough of her wyrme, and when she had crouched down next to the rock where the damsel grubs lay, she had trembled. And the trembling was nothing to do with him.
Now, as they tramped over the snowy ground, following the raggedy preacherman, Thrace was closed off to him once more, as strange and savage and unknowable as she’d been before they had lain together.
He felt Thrace’s hand grip his arm. They had stopped, and Eli and Ichabod were crouching down behind a boulder.
‘There,’ Ichabod whispered excitedly and pointed.
Ahead of them, across a stretch of screestrewn ground, the pitted red rock of the manderwyrme cliffs stood dark against the evening sky. At their base, flanked by two pillar-shaped boulders, was a dark cave entrance. Some way to the left, on the edge of a steep escarpment amid the jumble of scree, a campfire flickered. As Micah watched, a figure clambered to his feet and stood illuminated by the firelight, his face turned towards them.
‘Solomon Tallow,’ Eli breathed.
Fifty-Three
Solomon Tallow.
There he was, alone and brazen, the shaven-headed leader of the gang of kith who had shamed her and tormented her, and who she had leaped from the speckled stack to escape. He had murdered Jura and slaughtered Jura’s wyrme. He had taken the precious whitewyrmeling …
‘Thrace,’ Eli whispered. ‘Thrace, wait.’
But it was too late. She was already up and running, lance in hand.
Solomon stared at her for a moment, then crouched down and seized the sidewinder that lay on the ground beside him. He drew back the spring, raised the crossbow to his eye.
The sidewinder cracked, and the bolt flew spinning towards Thr
ace. She threw herself to one side and heard it slam against a rock behind her and clatter down the cracks between the boulders. She glanced back.
Muttering furiously, Eli had ducked down and pulled his own crossbow from his rucksack. He loaded a bolt, quickly, expertly, while calling to Ichabod and Micah.
‘You go that way, lad,’ said Eli, pointing off to the right of the campfire. ‘Ichabod, take the other side.’
From above them came the thrum of the string being drawn and a soft click as Solomon Tallow slipped a second bolt into place.
Thrace rose and made a dash for the base of the cliffs, leaping one way, then the other, as she sprang lightly from rock to rock. Behind her, Eli must have let loose a bolt of his own for, up ahead, Solomon hurled himself to the ground.
The bolt whistled, then thudded as it ricocheted off a boulder. Thrace scrambled over the welter of scree towards the kith leader. She saw his big hands were shaking. She saw sweat glisten on his shaven skull. He was frightened, this one. This kith. She saw that. And that was her strength.
‘Thrace, Thrace,’ Eli hissed fearfully after her as she leaped forwards.
She was running now, agile and sure-footed on the uneven boulders as she dashed towards Solomon, vengeance the only thought on her mind. Her lance was levelled at him, cradled in the crook of her arm, just as if she was braced for an attack astride Aseel’s shoulders, attacking in the only way she knew how. She was almost upon him. One leap, one thrust, and she would drive the lance through his vile kith heart. She lunged forward …
Only, she wasn’t on Aseel’s shoulders. She was alone.
Solomon jerked to one side and swung the heavy crossbow that was gripped in his powerful hands. It knocked the thrusting lance aside and slammed into her body with such force that she was thrown to the ground. Before she could rise, he was upon her. The cabled muscles of his arms crushed tight around her neck. His knife pressed into her throat – and Aseel was not there to fell this kith with a flick of his tail, or turn him to ashes with his fiery breath.