Cursed av-2

by Benedict Jacka

  Sonder skated over the exact details of the conversation, which I have to admit I was morbidly curious about. Once they’d gotten past their mutual mistrust, though, it didn’t take them long to strike a deal. Cinder wanted to find Deleo, Sonder wanted to find me and Luna, and there was only one place to start looking. Sonder led Cinder to Arachne’s lair and the rest was history.

  “There was another guard outside,” I remembered.

  “Yeah,” Sonder said. He looked uncomfortable, and I noticed he was carefully avoiding looking at the bodies. “Cinder … dealt with him.”

  “Well.” I looked at Cinder. “I guess I’m not who you were hoping to find, but thanks anyway.”

  “Where’s Del?” Cinder rumbled.

  “Belthas has her.”

  “Where?”

  “I don’t know.” I looked at Cinder. “We team up until Belthas is dealt with or either of us quits. No hostilities until twenty-four hours after that. Deal?”

  Cinder nodded. “Deal. How do we find Del?”

  “By finding Belthas.”

  “Is Luna back there?” Sonder asked.

  I sighed. “No.” I hated having to admit it: Even though there was nothing else I could have done, knowing that I’d left her behind hurt. “Belthas took her.” Sonder’s face fell.

  “So where is he?” Cinder said.

  It occurred to me that Cinder was going to be difficult to deal with. He was brutally straightforward and would remain steady only as long as he could see what to do. Now that Belthas’s men were dead Cinder had no obvious direction, and if things stayed that way he was going to get frustrated quickly. “They worked for Belthas,” I said, looking at the remains. “Maybe they’ll have something that’ll show us where to go.”

  Cinder thought about it for a few seconds. “Fine,” he said grudgingly. “I’ll loot the bodies for you.”

  Sonder looked at the smoking scorched things that had been Belthas’s men and flinched visibly. “You mean …”

  “Relax, Light-boy,” Cinder said, already turning away. “Don’t have to get your hands dirty.”

  “Sonder, I need you to look back at what happened,” I said. “Belthas was here, along with Luna and Martin. Find out what they talked about and see if you can track them.”

  Sonder nodded and turned away, his eyes unfocusing. Reluctantly, I turned towards Arachne. I needed to figure out how to help her before Cinder’s patience ran out.

  Odds are you’ve never tried to give a giant spider a medical checkup. In case you’re wondering, it’s really hard. It’s not like you can take their pulse, and dealing with the fact that they have their skeleton on the outside of their bodies is weird enough on its own. After ten minutes’ examination, I’d managed to conclude that Arachne was alive, which I’d known already.

  Figuring out what Belthas had done was easier. There was a short rod embedded at the back of Arachne’s body in her … neck? Back? Thorax? Whatever it’s called. The thing was about twelve inches long and made out of some iridescent purple metal that caught the light. It was a powerful focus with an active spell working through it. As far as I could tell, it was linked to something else, probably an identical focus with a similarity effect joining them. At the moment the spell was stable. It wasn’t draining Arachne’s magic or life force but she wasn’t getting any better either.

  I ran my hand along Arachne’s back, feeling the stiff hairs brush against my fingers. There was something terribly depressing about seeing her like this. Ever since I first met her, Arachne’s always been one of the few stable points in my world, wise and strong. Having her still and lifeless felt wrong, and I couldn’t help wondering if this was my fault. If I’d dealt with Luna better, figured it out earlier …

  “Hey,” Cinder called. I turned to see something flying towards me and caught it one-handed. I’d been standing on a battered sofa to get a better look and had to sway to keep my balance. I took a look and saw that it was a touch-screen phone. “What’s up?”

  “Password.”

  The phone had a password lock. I took thirty seconds and cracked it, then skimmed through the call and message history. The phone had belonged to Mick, aka Michael, and had apparently survived the blast that had killed its owner. I put it in my pocket.

  “So?” Cinder said.

  “Belthas took my phone. I need a new one.”

  Cinder gave me a look.

  “There’s nothing there,” I said. “Any luck?”

  Cinder gestured at the pile of guns at his feet. The five men had been carrying enough weapons to stock an armoury: submachine guns, pistols, grenades, clips and boxes of ammunition, knives, radios, coils of wire, and what looked like plastic explosive. It was enough to fight a small war-unfortunately, at the moment, it was also completely useless.

  I looked at the iridescent metal rod. “Know what this is?”

  Cinder walked forward and squinted. “Yeah,” he said after a moment.

  “You and Deleo got them from that mage, didn’t you?” I said. “Jadan or whatever his name was. The guy who came up with this bloody ritual.”

  “Yeah.”

  “How do they work?”

  “Dunno.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Got his materials. Didn’t know how to use them.”

  I sighed. “It’s just like last time, isn’t it? You guys never understand what you’re messing with but you do it anyway.”

  “Would have been fine if you’d let us kill that enchantress.”

  “Yeah, well, maybe if you and Deleo had done a bit less collateral damage I wouldn’t have gotten involved.”

  “No.”

  “No what?”

  “Wasn’t why you were helping her.”

  I looked at him. “How would you know?”

  “She acted sexy and vulnerable and made you feel good,” Cinder said. “So you trusted her. Right?”

  I was silent.

  Cinder shook his head contemptuously. “Idiot.”

  The sound of footsteps made us look up to see Sonder emerge from the tunnel out onto the Heath. Cinder walked away. “Sorry,” Sonder said as he approached. “He made a gate but I couldn’t see through the shroud.”

  I nodded. “And in here?”

  “They left three hours ago,” Sonder said. “Belthas, twelve men, Martin, and that woman. They had Luna.” He didn’t look happy. “Martin was dragging her.”

  I thought about Luna and how she must be feeling. She’d trusted Martin and thought him a friend, probably in the hope he’d become a lot more, and he’d betrayed her in the worst way possible. Then there was the question of what Belthas would do with her or if she was even still- I shook my head and pushed the thought away. I needed to focus.

  “Can you take it out?” Sonder asked.

  I looked up to see that Sonder was pointing at the rod in Arachne’s back. “Not without killing her,” I said. “And even if I could, I don’t have the first clue how to fix whatever Belthas did.”

  “I think it was a paralysis spell,” Sonder said. “I only saw bits of it but …”

  I nodded. Ice mages are good at that sort of thing. Sonder looked at Arachne’s motionless body. “Could we get someone to heal her?”

  “Maybe,” I said doubtfully. I stuck my hands into my pockets. “We’d have to-”

  I stopped. There was something in my pocket and I drew it out. It was the fang of some enormous creature, made of some kind of grey stone, heavy and warm and eight inches from base to tip. It was a magical item and a powerful one. I’d never seen it before. I’d checked my pockets just after escaping Belthas and they’d been empty. How had it …?

  “Wow,” Sonder said. He was staring wide-eyed. “What is that?”

  “A gate,” I said. I realised I knew the command word. And it would take me to … “Holy crap,” I said quietly. “It was real.”

  “Where does it lead?”

  “To someone who could fix her.” I looked to see what would happen if I used
it and saw that the fang would cut through the gate wards easily. For a one-shot item, it was incredibly powerful. “It’s designed to take two people,” I said. “User and one other … Crap.” As I looked at the consequences, my heart sank. The spell on Arachne was tied into her life force. Gating her would break the spell and sabotage Belthas’s ritual-but it would be fatal for Arachne.

  Sonder looked at Arachne. “Can you-?”

  I shook my head. “Moving her while that thing’s active will kill her.” As I thought about it, though, my spirits rose a little. “But now we’ve got a way to help her. Just got to figure out how.”

  “Why’s it alive?” Cinder said from behind me.

  I didn’t take my eyes off the fang. “She’s not an ‘it.’”

  “Why’s she alive?”

  “Because Belthas wants to use her for your damn ritual.”

  “So why’s she alive?”

  “Because-” I said, then stopped as I realised what Cinder was getting at. The ritual killed its target-I knew that already. So why had Belthas left Arachne here?

  Because she couldn’t be moved. The spell stopped me from moving her but it would stop Belthas from moving her too. The obvious thing for Belthas to do would have been to have completed the ritual here, already. But he hadn’t, which must mean he wasn’t ready. Maybe Garrick hadn’t been there to stop me from escaping. Maybe Belthas had stationed him there to make sure nobody touched Arachne.

  “He’s going to do the ritual somewhere else,” I said. I turned to Cinder. “Deleo knew bits of it, didn’t she?”

  Cinder shrugged. “Bits.”

  I nodded to myself. “That was why Belthas needed her alive. He won’t try the ritual until he’s absolutely sure it’ll work.”

  Cinder looked at me sharply. “So he still needs Del.”

  “Yeah. And he’ll probably keep hold of Luna too.” I saw Sonder perk up.

  Cinder nodded. “Okay. We kill it.”

  “What?”

  “Ritual needs a live target.” Cinder gestured to Arachne. “Kill it, he has to find another. Gives us more time.”

  I stepped between Arachne and Cinder, glaring at him. “No.”

  “Going to be dead anyway,” Cinder pointed out.

  “We are not touching her.” I stared Cinder in the eye. “You want Deleo. Fine. I’ll help. But you don’t touch any of my friends.”

  Cinder met my gaze. There was a considering look in his eyes and I knew what he was thinking. I’m no match for Cinder. If he decided to kill Arachne, I wouldn’t be able to stop him.

  Then Cinder shrugged. “Got a plan?”

  I thought quickly. “Belthas doesn’t know what’s happened yet. We track him down and take him by surprise while he’s got his hands full with the ritual. Shut it down from the other end. We take Luna and come back here to transport Arachne. You take Deleo and go wherever you like.”

  Cinder thought about it for a little while. “How long?” he said at last.

  “Until what?”

  Cinder gestured to Arachne. “Look and see.”

  It’s easy to make the mistake of thinking Cinder’s stupid. He’s slow and deliberate but he’d seen the obvious point I’d missed: by looking into the future to see when Arachne was going to die, we could learn when Belthas was going to finish the ritual. I looked forward and saw the point at which energy would crackle over Arachne, drawing away her magic and with it her life. I looked away quickly. “Five hours.”

  Cinder nodded. “You’ve got four and a half. Then I kill her before he does.”

  We left Arachne’s lair so Cinder could gate us back. I felt better as soon as I was out in the fresh air, and I saw Sonder taking deep breaths, the colour returning to his face. Burnt flesh has a horrible smell, like charred beef but with a nauseating sweetness, thick and putrid and rich. It smells like nothing on earth and you never forget it. Cinder hadn’t shown any reaction. I guess he’s used to it.

  Cinder gated us to the park near my home and we walked the rest of the way. It was the early hours of the morning, and Camden was as quiet as it ever got. My new phone told me it was two A.M.; it had been seven hours since I’d gotten Sonder’s call. It felt like more.

  The first thing I did once I got home was take a shower. It cost precious time but I needed to think clearly and having my body caked with sweat was a distraction. As I stood under the falling water, I tried to figure out how to find Belthas and stop him from killing Arachne before Cinder did.

  I came out of the shower and dressed in combat trousers, a T-shirt, a jumper, and old dark trainers. I filled my pockets with any items I thought would help, then opened my wardrobe and took out my mist cloak. I stroked it affectionately, feeling the soft cloth ripple under my touch, grateful I hadn’t worn it to Arachne’s lair-though I doubt it would have obeyed Belthas anyway. Imbued items choose their owners. I pulled it around my shoulders and walked out.

  It was very weird to see Cinder in my living room. The armchair he’d picked seemed too small for his bulk, and a cup of tea sat untasted on the coffee table before him. Sonder was pacing the carpet. “Trace the rods,” Cinder suggested in his rumbling voice.

  Sonder shook his head. “It’s a sympathetic link. There’s no trail to follow.”

  “He’ll have wards anyway,” I said. I crossed the room to stare through the doors onto the balcony. A few lonely lights still shone in the windows of the buildings opposite, but everything else was dark. The night had clouded over, and there was no moon.

  “Where would Belthas have taken them?” Sonder asked. He looked on edge, harried.

  “A sanctum,” I said. I was sure of it. “He won’t do something this important except somewhere he feels absolutely safe.”

  “Get your elemental to find it,” Cinder said.

  “I can’t,” I said sadly. “I blew up my caller getting away from Belthas.” It hurt more than I’d thought it would. Without that focus I didn’t have any way of contacting Starbreeze, and only now she was gone did I realise how much I’d depended on her. Starbreeze had always been my ace in the hole, the one I turned to when everything else failed. Losing that safety net all of a sudden was frightening.

  “Okay, look,” Sonder said. “Someone has to know where Belthas is hiding. Let’s call up everyone we know.”

  I nodded, trying to look confident. It was worth a try, even if I didn’t really think it would work.

  It didn’t. There were only a few mages I trusted enough to call in this situation, and at this hour many didn’t answer. Those who did were willing to help but they didn’t know anything this specific. With enough time I could dig it up … but time was something we didn’t have.

  Sonder and Cinder didn’t have any more success. I saw Cinder glance at the time as he hung up from another call and I checked it as well, unobtrusively. Three hours left. I gritted my teeth. I wasn’t going to let it end this way.

  “We could try his office …” Sonder said again.

  I shook my head. “First place I looked. He’s not there.”

  “There might be some leads.”

  “And a bunch of security systems. We don’t have time to get caught up fighting them.”

  Sonder turned away in frustration. “There has to be someone.”

  I was about to answer when I realised what Sonder had just said. “There is,” I said slowly, my mind jumping ahead. “There’s someone who’d know. Luna.”

  Sonder looked at me, puzzled. “But we can’t-”

  “I can,” I said, thinking fast. “Cinder, I need you to gate back to Arachne’s lair and get those weapons. Bring as many as you can carry. Then get some of your own. I’ve got the feeling we’re going to need all the firepower we can get.”

  Cinder tilted his head, shrugged, and walked out.

  “Sonder, come with me.” I walked into my bedroom, Sonder following. I lowered the lights, then lay down on the my bed, carefully arranging the cloak under me. “Wake me in an hour,” I said. “If I don’t wake up
… well, you’ll have to improvise.”

  Sonder looked confused for a second, then his eyes went wide. “Wait, you’re going there?”

  “Shh,” I said quietly. It was hard to relax but I knew I had to. Turning my head to one side, I could see the blinking lights of my alarm clock. Two hours fifty minutes. I closed my eyes, willing myself to sleep and beyond. The cloak seemed to help, soft and drowsy. I felt my mind slipping away. My last thought was to hope Cinder had shut the door behind him.

  chapter 9

  It’s not difficult to reach Elsewhere. It doesn’t even take magic, though most people think it does. It usually takes newcomers a few tries, but once you’ve done it, you can always go back. Travelling there the first time seems to set up some kind of bond that lets you always feel it in your thoughts, somewhere in the twilight between waking and dreams.

  Leaving Elsewhere … well. That can be a little harder.

  I’ve been to Elsewhere but I don’t understand it. On past journeys I’ve done things on instinct and had them work without knowing how or why. One of the few things I’m sure of is that Elsewhere changes depending on who comes to it. When I visit Elsewhere, it always takes the same form: a great, silent city, plazas and colonnades and high walkways bathed in bright white light. Empty but not dead, only sleeping.

  But this time would be different. As I looked into the futures of travelling to Elsewhere, I knew Luna was there already; I’d known as soon as I’d looked into the futures of travelling there. The stories say that there’s nothing dangerous in Elsewhere except what you bring with you-but that can be more than enough. The Elsewhere I was about to see would be one shaped by Luna. I didn’t know what it would be like but I was about to find out.

  I opened my eyes.

  I was standing in a maze of crystal passages, all alike. The walls pressed in around me but I wasn’t underground; by craning my neck upwards, I could glimpse sky. As I looked around I realised I was in a network of canyons, crooked and twisted. The walls, rocks, and even the ground were translucent crystal. The sky above was overcast and grey, thick clouds blocking out the sun, yet somehow, even down here in the canyons, there was enough light to see clearly. Distant whispers echoed through the passages, seeming to form words just on the edge of hearing.