“Ha! Tell that to my wife!”
But their voices were already fading as Tamerlan blew the whistle beside a canal railing and then Marielle gripped his arm, dragging him down a lonely side street and emerging on the other side near to where the cliffs rose up into the Government District.
Tamerlan felt worry crawl in his belly. What if Lord Mythos wasn’t leaving town at all? What if his plans involved the palace here and Tamerlan’s sister? He swallowed down rising bile. The thought of the Lord Mythos near his sister again brought back too many memories. He looked down at his hands and the memory of them bathed bright in blood made him shudder.
He blew the whistle, hoping Jhinn could hear from so far away, but they were already ascending the stairs up, up, up the white cliffs between the Districts.
“This way,” Marielle said. Her eyes were bright with the hunt. Every muscle tense, every sense employed. She was beautiful as a hunting bird, as a falcon, as a hawk wheeling in the air. He imagined her in another life, soaring on wings with perfect feathers, bucking the updrafts, diving in wide arcs, hunting by sight and scent until her prey was cornered and helpless. As he had been when she’d let him go. As Etienne would be when he was found.
“Tamerlan?” her question interrupted him, and he shook himself. He’d paused as the daydream swallowed him. There was no time for that. None of the Legends were safe and one on the loose wasn’t something to wink at. Not even Grandfather Timeless.
Grandfather Timeless is the most dangerous Legend to be loose! He has plans. And this is his festival.
“Sorry,” he said with a half-smile and Marielle nodded sharply, pulling him through the crowds. “Can you smell which – I mean, can you smell if he’s set one of the Legends free?”
He grabbed her by the arms, pulling her from the path of a rumbling cart at the last second. Her eyes never left her trail. Tamerlan could have traced it with chalk even though he couldn’t see it himself, just by following her gaze.
“I can smell magic. That’s all. And him. I can smell him.”
A pang of jealousy flashed across his heart at the thought of her doing something so intimate as drawing Etienne’s scent into her lungs. Now, why would that bother him so much? Why should he feel jealousy over something he didn’t own and never could?
She stepped out across a surge of people and Tamerlan forced his way forward, using his body to block the crowd from bowling her over. She really wasn’t watching anything except for the scent!
“I think he’s possessed by Grandfather Timeless,” he said as she led him out of the heavier crowds to a small walkway between buildings. A last elbow struck him in the ribs, and he breathed a sigh of relief as they cleared the crowds. Honeysuckle hung heavily on arches over the path and she seemed momentarily distracted by the scent of it before she continued on her path. “It is said that Grandfather Timeless wrote all our lives in time already, before they were ever lived or even conceived of. He chronicled every daydream, every idle thought, every shattered hope.”
She glanced back at him, a mixture of curiosity and revulsion in her expression. Why revulsion?
Girls don’t like men making decisions for them, Lila Cherrylocks offered.
“Then why live life at all?” Marielle asked. “If it’s already been written?”
“Because the joy is in the living,” Tamerlan said simply.
“Joy for who?” Marielle asked as they emerged where a canal ran alongside the Government District.
Tamerlan blew his whistle and then looked down at her. “Well, that’s the big question, isn’t it?”
He winked, but she just shook her head as if he was exasperating her. Didn’t she like thinking about life’s big questions?
Not when she’s trying to get something done.
Jhinn’s little gondola emerged a moment later and he waved to them with a smile.
“Is that what the whistle is for?” Marielle asked, surprise in her face.
“How else would he find us?”
“Good,” she said, her expression sharp, her tone all business. “I think he left town through a back way at the rear of the Government District. I smell water and brass there. I suspect there are locks for the gondola. Let’s go.”
“Still on the trail?” Jhinn asked as Tamerlan and Marielle stepped from the canal step to the gondola he’d just pulled up alongside them.
Marielle scrambled to the front of the boat, sitting on top of the smooth wood that covered the forward compartment.
“This way,” she said, pointing ahead.
Tamerlan boarded a bit more carefully. He’d worn everything that Etienne had provided for him – including metal armor. One false move and the gondola could capsize, and he would sink to the bottom.
He settled himself carefully on the seat.
“Lose the metal,” Jhinn said wryly. “And get ready to row. I have a bad feeling that he’s well ahead of you by now.”
29: Sealed in Prisons
Tamerlan
“I’ve lost the scent. It smells like it’s hours old, but that just doesn’t make sense!” Marielle said, her voice wavering as they reached the bottom of the locks and shot out past the wharves and into the river.
This branch of the Cerulean – known as the North Branch – was rough. A wind was rising, blowing from inland and bringing the scents of growing things and fecund earth.
Marielle stood, holding the ferro and leaning out over a new lantern – when had Jhinn found time to replace that? – and scenting the wind. Her face was screwed up in a mixture of perplexity and frustration.
“It was here a moment ago and now it smells hours old. That makes no sense!”
Makes perfect sense. Grandfather Timeless controls time. I feel like I shouldn’t have to say that.
Lila Cherrylocks must have been insufferable when she was alive.
I didn’t spend much time with idiots, so it wasn’t a problem. Clearly, he’s bending time to his will. You’re lagging pretty far behind. This would be a good time to open the Bridge and catch up!
Of course, she would say that. She was just itching to get out. But what good would having Lila Cherrylocks be in a boat? She couldn’t row any faster with his arms than he could, and she couldn’t bend time.
Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth! You’d be surprised at the kind of things I can do.
Uh huh. Like going off on her own quest and completely forgetting what he was after? No. Tamerlan had learned his lesson. He couldn’t rely on the Legends and he wouldn’t try.
His resolve began to fail after the first few hours in the beating sun.
Marielle had slumped in the bottom of the boat, worn out from trying to smell a scent long cold, while Jhinn and Tamerlan rowed against a hard wind, bucking against the waves battling against them one after another. Even on a good day, it would be difficult travel, but with their current frustration and discouragement, it was worse. It wore at them until Marielle fell asleep. Jhinn and Tamerlan fought the waves in silence. The wind was too loud to hear each other speak and they were too frustrated to have anything encouraging to say.
It was well past noon when they found the hulk of a family boat floating in the river and a few minutes later when they found the boat that had saved them, both families huddled against the harsh wind.
“Your boat looks like it burned,” Jhinn called over the wind. “Mer send you all were saved!”
“Mer had nothing to do with it!” one of the women on the boat said, shaking an angry middle-aged fist at the sky. “It was a man dressed in black. He demanded to know what time it was and when we told him, he lit our boat on fire! He said it was ‘too late.’ As if we have any control over the time of day! We lost everything! Everything.”
Her husband patted her on the shoulder, his own eyes hollow and worn and as Jhinn exchanged consolations with them, Tamerlan felt his blood running cold. He shook Marielle awake.
“Do you smell him now?”
She woke to immediate sharpness,
scrambling to her feet and thrusting her nose forward.
“He was here,” she confirmed. He’s all over this place. It’s fresh. Only a few hours old.”
Jhinn said his goodbyes, and Tamerlan spoke condolences, but Marielle’s eyes were fixed on the horizon as they pulled back into the river.
“Just up ahead,” she called over the wind.
Tamerlan felt his mouth go dry. They were not far behind. In this wind, Jhinn’s fleet craft and two men rowing just had to be enough to overtake the Lord Mythos, possessed or not.
But when they reached the next bend of the river, Marielle was shaking her head again.
“I don’t understand it. It’s like he’s here one minute and then gone the next! The trail has vanished. It smells days old!”
Tamerlan patted her arm.
“It’s okay,” he said. “Maybe we’ll find it again.”
But as she slumped again, discouraged, he felt his own mind racing. What would happen if you had a Legend possessing you who could hop through time? Could you go back and fix mistakes from the past?
Unlikely, Byron Bronzebow said sharply. Things that happened tend to stay happened.
But Etienne was hopping and jumping in time. So why wasn’t he headed to Jingen to fix their mistakes and restore the city? That’s what Tamerlan would do if he was given the chance and he could have sworn that Etienne felt the same way. Of course, if anyone knew how fickle the Legends could be, it was Tamerlan. Maybe Etienne wasn’t getting what he wanted from the Legend any more than Tamerlan usually did.
A Legend inhabiting a person through the Bridge of Legends is not a powerful enough connection to do so great a Feat as restoring a city.
Lila pronounced ‘feat’ like it had a capital letter – like it meant something akin to ‘Legend.’
Legends produce Feats. They are our great acts. Like when I stole the Abercauler Crown. Or when Abelmeyer used his Eye to chain the city dragons. They are our great acts that define our lives and generation. To step back and restore an entire city? That would be a Feat. And to do that, a Legend would have to walk in the flesh.
“But that’s impossible,” Tamerlan said.
Is it? You saw Deathless Pirate’s avatar trapped in the cage, didn’t you?
At the mention of his name the pirate roared in Tamerlan’s mind. Trapped! Trapped under the briny sea!
He was going to go mad with all these voices in his head.
Grandfather Timeless has an avatar, too. We all do. They were sealed up by Queen Mer’s people. Trapped in objects or prisons. But if Grandfather Timeless’s avatar was free, then who knows what he could do.
Perhaps he could turn back time. Perhaps he could undo mistakes.
I’m telling you, Byron insisted. Things done, stay done. It’s madness to think otherwise.
“I’m not mad,” Tamerlan said aloud.
“But you sure sound like you are when you talk to yourself like that,” Jhinn said.
Tamerlan shook himself, swallowing down a curse. Marielle was asleep in the bottom of the boat again. All this scenting was wearing her out. Only Jhinn had seen his slip.
“Did I say that out loud?” he asked.
“Sure. Not that listening to the spirits talk to you isn’t entertaining, but do you think you should encourage them like that?” Jhinn asked. “I think madness will follow you if you walk that road.”
He was right. Tamerlan needed to solve this conundrum without the Legends.
You need us. Lila insisted.
Dragon. Dragon. Dragon.
And encouraging them wasn’t helping.
With effort, he forced them from his mind.
They found a restaurant barge just before dark, and though it would only sell honey cakes and wafers on Dawnspell, they loaded up on them and ate. Tamerlan let the sweetness of the honeycakes fill him as Jhinn looked for a good spot to tie the boat along the edge of the river.
“We can’t make H’yi tonight – if that’s where he’s going. The scent is cold. The night is falling. Our best bet is to wait here,” Jhinn said practically as the gondola slid through reeds as tall as they were. “We can eat. We can rest. Maybe in the morning, we will find something new.”
Tamerlan nodded tiredly.
“Unless you want to try another way?” Jhinn let the words hang in the air, his gaze resting on the small leather pouch he’d given Tamerlan earlier in the day. It contained more of his mixture rolled in paper – at least thirty little paper sticks of it. He could be possessed by a Legend every night for a month with those! He’d tried to hand the bag back, but Jhinn had insisted.
“It’s yours,” he’d said. “I just rolled them up to pass the time.”
“I think rest is a good idea,” Tamerlan said firmly.
Jhinn was already dragging blankets out of his waterproof boat trailer when Marielle spoke into the night.
“I shouldn’t have left them. They needed me and I just went running off like a puppy with a fresh scent.”
“The Harbingers?” Tamerlan guessed. “They’ll be fine. They’re fierce warriors. Besides, if Etienne is up to what I think he’s up to, then you’ll be glad that you took the chance to stop him.”
“Why do I keep losing his scent?” she muttered as if to herself.
“Because he has tricks up his sleeve that we can’t even imagine,” Tamerlan said. “We’ll pick it up again. This can’t last forever.”
It was amazing it had lasted this long, honestly. After all, he’d only had one good fire with his recipe. They only ever lasted a few hours for Tamerlan.
Except, the recipe didn’t have quantities. Tamerlan had just followed his instinct when he combined the ingredients. How had Etienne mixed the ingredients? Tamerlan hadn’t stopped to ask that question. He hadn’t asked how the other man made the formula. The man who had scrawled on the page had failed. And Tamerlan had assumed that when he tried, he’d only succeeded as a matter of lucking out. But what if Etienne had the same luck – but better? What if he’d stumbled on a more potent formula for the recipe? What if he was ... better than Tamerlan?
Tamerlan swallowed, hoping he was wrong. Hoping he was just being paranoid, but as they settled in for sleep in the rocking boat against the river bank, he found it hard to rest. Somewhere out there, someone smarter than him was using his magic. And he’d learned the hard way that being intelligent was no shield at all against evil. On the contrary, it seemed to only amplify the destruction that could be caused.
30: In the Dark of Night
Marielle
The magic had been too powerful. All day, the power of it had assaulted her mind, laying her out on the bottom of the boat sometimes, so that her companions thought she was sleeping when in fact she was struggling to clear her migraine for long enough to be able to smell again.
When the trail was cold it wasn’t so bad – then she only smelled the residue on Tamerlan, but the golden scent of her overpowering attraction to him made the scent of magic so much worse so that every vibration of his voice sent thrills through her like electric shocks. Every casual glance of his in her direction left little shivers pulsing through her. Her own response only amplified the scent so that it spun ever upward in a spiral lifting to the heavens even while she was sure it was actually plunging her toward hell.
She knew what he was. By the admission of his own lips – his own curving, half-smiling lips – he was guilty of the blood of innocents. Anything that drew her closer to him could only break her heart – and yet she was still drawn. Breath by breath, moment by moment she was drawn. The close confines of the boat made it worse. The way he kept watching her as if he were admiring the way she could Scent made it worse. The way Jhinn smirked when he caught her looking at Tamerlan made it worse. Everything made it worse.
And when they hit those pockets of scent – those moments when she could smell Etienne swirling in the madness of magic and something else – something older than the dragon and just as powerful – something that wanted to eat
her alive. When she smelled those, then the pain that filled her head was almost more than she could take, but her lungs wouldn’t stop gulping the magic in, breath after breath until her head was light and she felt as if she might faint.
Twice she’d had to slump to the bottom of the boat, recovering as her head swirled with magic. But her ears still worked even if she appeared to be asleep. She’d hear Tamerlan’s mad ranting and Jhinn’s talk of spirits. And she felt nervous about that.
And even more nervous as the tattoo over her heart throbbed stronger and stronger the further she went from Liandari and Anglarok. She shouldn’t have left them without word of where she was going. She shouldn’t have kept Anglarok in the dark. She should have come clean to them about what she’d seen on that illuminated page. Perhaps, if they were searching for the Bridge of Legends then they might know how to stop this flood of evil spirits entering the world. After all, it was why they were here.
She huddled in her corner of the boat and tried to sleep as the velvet darkness closed in around the gondola. Jhinn had lit the lamp hanging from the ferro at the front of the gondola, but around the tiny pool of light lurked darkness on every side. The bobbing lights of glowbugs in the distance, the soothing calls of birds back and forth, the chatter of frogs, and the chirping of insects were not enough to set her at ease. Not even when her Scenting told her there was nothing nearby in any direction except for river and mud and natural creatures.
She sucked in a deep breath and tried to sleep, curling into her blankets. Tried to ignore the scent of Jhinn – familiar and easy. Tried to ignore the scent of Tamerlan – overwhelmingly tempting, especially now as the sweat of his hard work dried in the balmy warm wind, drawing up his physical musk and stirring it into the golden scent of attraction. He was forbidden fruit. The one apple in the orchard no human should touch. The one sword that if drawn from the stone would ignite a war to kill them all. So why did he smell so delectable?
She reached into her belt pouch, reminding herself that the small conch shell was still there. Her link to sanity. Her link to another way, if she could just keep reaching for it instead of giving into temptation.
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