The Seventh World Trilogy omnibus

by Rachel Starr Thomson

  She cut him off. “I am not your enemy, Nicolas!”

  He hung his head. “I’m sorry.”

  She did not answer. When he looked up, she had turned her head and was gazing away over the snow-covered flatlands.

  “I have heard a voice,” he said at last, slowly. “A voice that calls me south.”

  “Does the voice command you to go alone?” Marja asked.

  “No,” he answered.

  “Then don’t.”

  He looked up and met her eyes.

  “We are your friends,” she said. “Your family. All your life you’ve run away from us. Let us run with you this time.”

  Nicolas swallowed and turned away. The light of the pipe brightened Peter’s face and then cast it into shadow again, but in the brief illumination Nicolas saw the concern of a true friend. He turned back to Marja and nodded without looking at her.

  “Come with me then,” he said. A sharp pang filled him as he said the words—whether of relief or misgiving, he could not tell for sure.

  * * *

  That night as Nicolas slept, his dreams came not in pictures but in sound. He thought he heard the far-off notes of a song, but the more he strained to hear it, the more indistinct and distant it became. He reached for it, as though a song was something that could be taken in hand, but it was far from his grasp. He thought he heard himself sigh, then realized it was not he who had done so—something else had sighed, some-thing great and infinitely sad. Something that was all around him.

  A rhythmic striking intruded on his dream. He woke up and opened his eyes. In the dying firelight, Marja was sharpening her dagger on a flat rock. The metal blade sparked on the stone. She was humming to herself. Nicolas fell asleep again with the sound of her voice in his ears.

  He heard no other songs that night.

  * * *

  Iron-hubbed wheels left the snow crushed and bruised with soot as the black coach rolled over the high mountain roads to the fortress of Ordna. Half a dozen soldiers on horseback accompanied it. Black paint covered the windows. The interior of the coach was lit only by a single candle. It swung and jostled in its glass lantern case.

  Miracle gazed at the black windows as though she could see through them, while the candlelight traced a mad dance over her face and hair and dark cloak. The man across from her watched her silently, his face shrouded in shadows and nearly covered by a black hood.

  Hours passed in darkness. The candle had nearly burnt itself out when the coach pulled to a stop. Miracle looked away from the window, turning her face to the door as it opened on a grey world. Cold air invaded the stuffiness of the coach and stabbed her lungs. She ignored the pain and breathed deeply. In a moment a second black-cloaked man climbed into the coach. Once again the door shut; once again all was darkness.

  The candle wax shrank away from the flame until the last of the wick flickered and died, and the coach became as dark and as silent as a tomb. The men said nothing, but Miracle’s captor did not take his eyes away from her.

  The coach pulled once more to a stop. This time, the wheels jarred over rocky ground. The muffled sounds of horses were heard inside the coach. The coachman talking with the soldiers. There was some dispute. It was settled quickly, and one of the harnessed horses neighed.

  Someone yanked the coach door open. A cold wind bore the fading light of evening in with it.

  The black-cloaked men descended from the coach step, and a young soldier ordered Miracle out. She stood, head bent under the low coach door, and the soldier took her hand to help her down. She smiled at him gratefully. He blushed and turned away. She saw the light of shame in his eyes.

  They had stopped to make camp for the night on a graveled circle of flat ground beside the road. Beyond the small camp, the ground sloped down, dropping suddenly in a sheer cliff overlooking a small valley. The mountains around the valley thrust their peaks high. On the other side of the road was a wall of rock. Only the road, stretching out of sight around bends in either direction, offered any hope of escape.

  The coachman tended to his horses while the soldiers unfurled sleeping rolls and built a fire. The black-cloaked men stood apart, watching with their arms folded deep in their sleeves. A soldier, wearing a captain’s insignia, seized Miracle’s arm and threw her to the ground. The cold rocks skinned her palms, but she made no sound.

  “Sleep there,” said the captain. Miracle sank down and wrapped herself in her patched cloak. She closed her eyes. The voice of the Nameless One, the man with the cruel smile, was easily recognizable. “Be easy with her, Captain. There is no call to batter the girl before she reaches our master.”

  “The Overlord of the Northern Lands cares nothing for the health of the strange ones,” the Captain returned.

  “I do not speak of the Overlord,” answered the Nameless One, icy with disdain. “You would do well to respect your true masters.”

  Late in the night, when the moonlight broke through the clouds in frosted rays, Miracle rose soundlessly from her place by the fire. High Police lay all around her. She held her skirts and stepped over one of them without a rustle. The coach horses stood by the wall of rock across the road, neck to neck. One, a chestnut gelding, turned its massive head at Miracle’s approach. She murmured soothingly to it and stroked its neck. It whinnied softly and pushed her shoulder with its nose. She froze as someone in the camp stirred, but all fell quiet once again.

  She took hold of the horse’s bridle and led it away from its fellow, whispering to it as they went, and with a practised spring she seated herself on the animal’s back. The gelding moved uneasily beneath her. Once again she stroked his neck, and touching his sides with her heels, she spurred him back the way they had come.

  After a time the wall of rock gave way, and they left the road. The horse stepped carefully down the boulder-strewn hillside into a small glen, where a frozen stream lay across their path. The gelding was skittish before the ice, and Miracle dismounted. She would leave the animal—she could traverse the steep places of the mountains with more ease on her own feet than on those of a horse, and she would not be so easy to follow. She removed the bridle from her companion’s head. His breath was hot on her hands.

  The ice held steady under her feet as she crossed it. The snow crunched, and the bare trees cast strange shadows in the glen. With the stream behind her, she turned her eyes back to the place she had left. The gelding had not moved. She would have turned to go, but a movement caught her eye. A black-cloaked figure stepped out from the shadows behind the horse.

  “Come back with me,” he said. Miracle felt relief at the voice. It was not her captor who spoke. Neither threat nor cruelty lay beneath his words. It was the young man who had boarded the coach on the journey. Miracle felt the presence of the stream between them and the nearness of freedom beyond it. She held her head high.

  “Why should I?” she asked.

  “Because if you do, I will not tell my companion that you tried to run away,” he said.

  “I am still running away,” she said. “You have not captured me.”

  “I am only a few steps away from doing so. And if by some power you elude me, my companion will find you. I do not want that to happen.”

  Miracle stood still on the mountainside, the moonlight flashing silver in her hair. Her enemy did not move. She looked away from him, turned, and began to climb up the slope. Once again his voice arrested her.

  “Please,” he said. “Please come back with me.” He stretched out a hand to her. Even in the moonlight she could see the ugly black mark that sprawled across his palm: the bulbous body and skeletal legs of a spider.

  Dawn was beginning to streak the sky when they returned to the camp. The black-cloaked young man rode the gelding; Miracle walked alongside it. The soldiers and the coachman still slept, tightly rolled in their blankets, but the fire was already blazing. Beside it stood the Nameless One. His arms were folded. Miracle felt his eyes on her as she entered the camp and sat by the fire.


  Her friend said nothing as he left the gelding and joined them. He sat between Miracle and the Nameless One’s cruel eyes.

  “Wake the camp,” the Nameless One ordered.

  Miracle watched as the young man who had brought her back held his tattooed hand over the fire. In a moment he turned his hand up. Blue flame arose from his marked palm. He closed his fist around it. Tongues of fire licked out between his fingers.

  With a smile, he opened his fist. Sparks of flame shot from his hand, lighting on the faces and hands of the soldiers. They awoke with shouts of pain and anger. Miracle saw burns forming on their skin. The captain jumped to his feet and strode to the fire, his face red.

  “It is late,” said the Nameless One. “Next time do not allow your men to be so lazy. Nor yourself.”

  The captain bit back a retort. His eyes opened wide at the sight of the black-cloaked young man still playing with the fire in his hand.

  The Nameless One crossed to Miracle’s side and sat down so close that she could feel his breath. “You see,” he whispered, “we are also Gifted. You are one of us.” He touched the back of her neck. The tips of his fingernails felt like claws. She pulled away from him, and his face darkened.

  “Be careful,” he said. “You do not want to make an enemy of me.”

  Miracle forced herself to look at him. “Better an enemy than a friend,” she said.

  For a moment his face twisted, but the lines of anger resolved themselves into a smile. She cast her eyes down as he leaned over her. His mouth was at her ear.

  “We shall see,” he said.

  The young man near the fire pulled each of his fingers into the palm of his hand, and the flames he had conjured went out. The spider was blacker and deeper in his hand than before; the touch of the blue fire had brought it to life. He stood abruptly, coming near and laying his hand on Miracle’s shoulder.

  “Will you look over the soldiers before we leave?” he asked the Nameless One.

  Miracle did not look at the man beside her, but she felt displeasure from him. He stood up and moved away from the fire, casting a glance back that made her shudder.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  Her rescuer did not answer. Impulsively, she looked up at him. “Do you have a name?” she asked.

  “I did once.”

  She tilted her head. “Once?”

  The young man nearly smiled again, but this expression was bitter—caustic. “Every day the Order takes a little more of it from me,” he said. “I am less and less who I was.”

  “Who were you?” she asked.

  “My name was Christopher Ens,” he answered.

  Miracle looked over her shoulder at her captor. He was upbraiding the captain in a low voice. “And he?”

  Christopher’s mouth hardened. “He has no name,” he said.

  “You have a master in Ordna?”

  “Adhemar Skraetock.”

  “Are you supposed to tell me this?” Miracle asked.

  “No,” Christopher said. “You are to know nothing more than the master himself tells you.”

  “Then why do you answer my questions?”

  “Because it does not matter. If you join us, you will learn our secrets. If you do not, you will never tell anyone else.”

  Miracle shivered and looked down at the dirty snow beneath her feet. “Would your master kill me?”

  Christopher smiled grimly. “One way or another.”

  The coach was ready. The High Police mounted their horses. Miracle entered the tomb-like coach with the men of the Order. Christopher sat beside her; the Nameless One across from her once again. The candle had been replaced, and Christopher lit the new one. Miracle did not see where the fire came from.

  They did not talk as they rode. As before, Miracle kept her eyes on the black window. She reached up and laid her fingertips on the painted pane, and there they stayed for hours. She knew that the Nameless One’s eyes were on her, but she would not look at him. If Christopher was watching her, she could not tell. The coach slowed its pace until every rock in the road felt like a mountain beneath its wheels. Christopher swept his eyes through the dark interior of the coach.

  “Something is wrong,” he said.

  The door opened, and the captain peered in. “Bandits in the cliffs, sir,” he said. “They have been watching us for miles.”

  “Kill them,” said the Nameless One.

  “They outnumber us,” the captain answered.

  “You are the High Police,” said the Nameless One. “Soldiers of the Emperor himself. Kill them.”

  “Yes, sir.” The captain spurred his horse ahead. The Nameless One fixed his eyes on Miracle.

  “Get out,” he said.

  “There will be danger,” Christopher protested.

  “Yes.” The Nameless One smiled. “Get out.”

  Miracle obeyed. They stood in the center of a narrow pass. The High Police had arranged themselves all around the coach, swords drawn. The snow crunched as Christopher and the Nameless One landed on the ground on either side of her.

  The cliffs erupted with yells, and arrows pelted down. Miracle breathed in sharply as a soldier in front of her fell from his horse, the tip of an arrow showing through the skin at the back of his neck. The bandits leaped onto the horses of the police and drove axes into the soldiers’ skulls. The police fought back with expert skill, fighting until the snow ran red.

  Miracle covered her face with her hands and turned her back to the carnage. The Nameless One grabbed her arm and spun her around. He tore her hands from her eyes, his own flashing with vicious joy.

  “Look on me!” he cried. “See how it ends!

  He raised his tattooed hand to the sky and shrieked with hatred and exultation. The air took on visible substance and twisted. It seemed as though the cliffs shattered. Tortured cries filled the air.

  When the Nameless One lowered his hand, the air became invisible again. The cliffs could be seen to stand as before. The pass was silent. Soldiers, horses, and bandits alike lay dead in the snow, their faces twisted with horror, blood running from their mouths and ears and eyes.

  Miracle looked wildly at the Nameless One. His eyes burned blue like the flame Christopher had played with at the camp. The fire burned into her. She tore her gaze from him, and it fell on the black-cloaked figure that lay at her feet. Christopher.

  She dropped to her knees in anguish beside him. The laughter of the Nameless One filled her ears.

  “You are very alone now,” he said.

  She closed her eyes and tried to stop her ears against him. Beneath her hand, Christopher’s chest rose and fell. Blood gurgled in his throat.

  “Why don’t you heal him?” said the Nameless One. “You have seen my power. Now let us see yours.”

  Miracle did not look up. She touched Christopher’s face. His blood was warm and sticky and black on her fingers.

  “I give you back your name, Christopher Ens,” she whispered, so low that even she could barely hear the words. “If you live, if you rise from this place, know that your life is reclaimed.”

  She closed her eyes tightly and moved her lips without sound. As she breathed in, the power within her rose to meet the air. It flowed gently through her, through her fingertips, into the body before her. Christopher opened his eyes and stared up at her.

  A black-booted foot nudged the side of Christopher’s head. “Get up,” said the Nameless One. “We are still half a day from Ordna.”

  Miracle rose. The staring faces of the dead seemed to cry out to her. Tears filled her eyes, and she took a step toward a young bandit near her. An iron grip on her arm stopped her.

  “You cannot raise the dead,” said the Nameless One. “Come. The master awaits.”

  The coach horses had been spared, but they left the coach behind. Christopher loosed the horses from the harness and mounted one. The Nameless One forced Miracle to mount another, and he swung himself up behind her.

  He leaned forward and whispered, “Well do
ne.”

  Nothing stirred in the pass behind them.

  * * *

  Chapter 4

  A Heartbreaking Pang for Freedom

  Nicolas followed the brook over the border into Italya late in the day. The flatlands stretched away behind the travelers. Before them, the road rose and fell over gentle hills.

  The wind whispered in Nicolas’s ears. He heard voices in it, but could not make out words. Sighing voices—dying voices. Voices from his dream. His heart ached at the sound of them all around, and he wondered who they were. What they were.

  Marja watched Nicolas as they walked. She saw the heaviness in his expression and wondered about the source of it. She wondered, not for the first time, why they were in Italya. She sang to herself often as they walked, a wordless tune she seemed to know from childhood but could not fully remember.

  They slept that night in an orchard. The wind—a southern wind, without the bitter ferocity of the mountain gales—moaned in the bare branches above.

  The full moon was high in the heavens when Nicolas cried out. Marja was at his side instantly. She stroked his head with gentle hands.

  “Hush,” she said. “Hush. All is right.”

  “They are dying,” Nicolas said. He reached up and held Marja’s hand until she thought he would crush it.

  “They are dying,” he said again, and lapsed into silence. His grip on her hand lessened, but she did not let go.

  A light flickered. She looked up. Peter was sitting under a tree, watching, a match in one hand and his pipe clenched between his teeth. His other hand shielded the flame from the wind.

  Marja glanced up to the skies. “It is a full moon,” she said. “A night for dreams.”

  She relaxed her hold of Nicolas’s hand until it slipped away from her and came to rest over his heart.

  In the morning, the sounds of horses and feet filled the orchard. They could be heard from a long way off. When they had kicked dirt over their fire, Nicolas and Peter lay flat on the ground and crept through the dead underbrush to the edge of the road. Marja was already up a tree above them, hidden by a dense tangle of branches.