Bone, Fog, Ash & Star (33 page)

“Stupidity is far from the point,” said Kyreth. “Your father’s life was all that mattered to you. The consequences, the price that
others
might have to pay as a result of your actions, you did not deem worthy of consideration.”

“I thought he was going to die,” said Eliza. “I’m nay making excuses…I didnay know what else to do.”

“Indeed,” said Kyreth. “What of the Cra?”

“The Cra?”

“They have a name for you, you know.
An-murth
. It means blade of death.”

Eliza said nothing.

“Abimbola Broom. You considered the merciful option, I am sure. Handing him over to the Sorma. But instead you punished him, and his family with him.”

Eliza clenched her jaw. “Dinnay ask me to feel sorry for him.”

“I am not asking you to. Merely pointing out that you don’t. Do you think Jalo will go unpunished for your theft of the Gehemmis? He helped you.”

“If I’m in an impossible situation, that’s your fault,” she replied.

“Amarantha is back in the worlds. Witches will have a name for you too, when word spreads about the forest. Will you stop at nothing?”

She lifted her chin. “Nothing,” she said.

“You would kill me without hesitation if it would save your friend, I don’t doubt.”

“It wouldnay take that much.”

“Ah! There is my girl. Do you think you can claim to be
good
, Eliza?”

“I try to be,” she said. “Which is more than can be said for some.”

“No points for effort!” came Malferio’s voice. “How much longer is this going to take?”

“What is most important to you?” asked Kyreth. “To know love, to be good, or to
do
good?”

“To know love,” she answered immediately. “But that’s not to say I dinnay care about being a good person. I try, lah. I do. You should come down here and see what the lake tells
you
. I spec you’d be surprised. Or praps you wouldnay be.”

“Rea would have said that pure intent is the most important thing,” said Kyreth. “To
be
good. She and I differed there. I took the longer view. Our actions are all that touch the world, all that will be remembered when we are gone. To
do
good has been my aim, and whatever I had to
be
, myself, to achieve those aims, I accepted. But when history judges your actions, Eliza, when your story is written into the Chronicles of the Sorceress, what will it say? There will be a list of careless, selfish acts. You will go down in history as a lying, murdering thief who cared only for her friends and family and did nothing for the worlds.”

“Praps,” said Eliza. She shook with the echoes of the screaming trees, the bones of the Cra breaking, their black blood, the Kwellrahg stumbling in the sand, Abimbola Broom on his knees before her. Nia saying
Eliza, don’t do this to me
. “Praps.”

“But perhaps all of that will be overshadowed, forgotten,” said Kyreth. “When you bring me the Gehemmis.”

She hurled the stone at the sky, shattering it. The world rained down in pointed shards and the current carried her fast to the next lake, which was half-frozen. The sky was hidden by a dark reddish cloud covering. The boat moved for a while among shifting plates of ice and eventually got stuck. There was somebody waiting among the evergreens on the snowy shore. Eliza got out of the boat and made her way carefully over the ice, across the lake. She knew who was waiting long before she was close enough to really see her. She knew because the Urkleis in her chest had begun to throb.

“Hello, Smidgen,” said Nia when she reached the shore. “The Lake of the Deep Forgotten! Fancy seeing you here.”

Chapter

~20~

Kyreth rose, the Vindensphere in pieces at his feet.

“That was strange,” said Malferio, who had scuttled back towards the wall when it shattered. “How did she do that?”

“It is almost finished,” said Kyreth. His hands were trembling and the brilliance of his eyes turned the room almost white. “I must go.”

“Go?” shrieked Malferio. He snatched up the empty pipe and waved it at Kyreth. “Go where? You can’t leave me! I need my dose. I can feel this scratching behind my eyes and the shadows are turning nasty again.”

Kyreth looked at Malferio almost as if he was looking through him.

“You will be taken care of, too, Malferio. That is one of my errands. I have chosen a suitable killer for you.”

“Don’t talk about it!” Malferio screamed, panicking. “Give me my dose!”

“Soon we will have the four Gehemmis and the Shang Sorceress here in the Citadel,” said Kyreth. “If she succeeds…she
must
succeed.”

“You’re not listening to me!” Malferio hurled the pipe at Kyreth. Kyreth knocked it aside with a casual wave of the hand.

“It is a pity about the Vindensphere,” he murmured. “I had hoped to take it with me. Never mind.”

“Take it where?” Malferio had curled up on the bed and was looking at Kyreth like a miserable dog.

“To Tian Xia,” said Kyreth.

The floor opened up into stairs and Kyreth swept down them.

“Don’t leave me without my dose!” wept Malferio as the floor closed up again.

~~~

Swarn, Uri, and Ely-Hathana stood on the hill looking down on the dark island.

“The Thanatosi may not be susceptible to Magic affecting the senses,” said Swarn. She was not satisfied with the spell they had worked, which was supposed to refract the essence of a being so that seeking spells and enchanted objects such as the Vindensphere could not locate them. “Nobody knows how they find their prey. It may not be the essence at all that draws them, but some other kind of knowing.”

“Well, if it doesn’t work, there are the barriers we raised around the house,” said Uri cheerfully.

“I do not have great faith in our barriers,” Swarn answered. “We would need a Mancer to keep them up for long.”

“They won’t manage a sneak attack with the barriers up,” said Uri. “And remember, we have two Storm Seamstresses here! They can bring a typhoon down on the Thanatosi, a gale that will sweep them away. No doubt you have a few tricks up your sleeve as well.” He eyed her shrewdly.

“You should rest,” said Ely-Hathana, laying a hand on Swarn’s arm. Swarn wanted to shake off the friendly touch, but resisted the urge. There was no point offending her hosts. They meant well.

“I will keep watch,” said Swarn.

The wizard and the Storm Seamstress returned to the house, arm in arm, and Swarn remained on the hill. It was a beautiful island, but she was uncomfortable with beauty. She missed the barren marsh.

The marsh was a mass grave now, her dragons buried in the swampy ground. After the battle with Nia that had nearly killed her, she had rebuilt her house high on the cliffs, the Irahok mountains hanging over her threateningly, and she relearned what it was to be lonely. She felt she had come to the natural end of a confused and arid life. But she did not die. She lived, wounded, weaker, with only two dragons remaining. The emptiness ahead yawned open every morning when she woke from her dreamless sleep.

Swarn was born with the fight in her. As a young witch, she found relief only in battle. She could not bear to be still. She could not bear company. Her power was a tumult in her veins, a storm that had to be released, one way or another. When facing a dangerous opponent, the restlessness and rage that chafed her unforgivingly in her ordinary life fell away. It all narrowed down to the fight, only the fight. She did not fear death. She did not fear anything. That steely stillness at her core was the closest she came to knowing peace, and victory, every time victory, the closest she came to joy.

The dragons of the cliffs of Batt were the most beautiful creatures she had ever encountered, and the most deadly. In her first battle with a dragon, she brushed up against death and discovered her will to live. She wanted to live! It seemed a revelation. The dragon was wild and vicious and full of magic – like her. She stretched her power to its very limits to defeat the dragon, and for the first time she felt real kinship with another creature.

Swarn did not give the notorious Sorceress Nia much thought until Nia murdered Swarn’s sister, Audra. Swarn and Audra had never been close, but they understood each other, and there was something in that. She wanted to go and fight Nia – a great battle such as those she had known in the past. But together Malferio and the Oracle persuaded her that this was useless. Nia was Immortal and possessed the power of Illusion. She was far more powerful than Swarn and would surely defeat her. They could not kill her, but together they could banish her.

Taken aback by her own grief and rage, Swarn accepted the proposal. She took her sister’s place in the Triumvira, and so Nia was banished. Swarn returned to the marsh with a sense of failure and a deep loneliness weighing on her heart. Who was she, if not a warrior? Who knew her, now Audra was gone?

One day there was a terrible battle on the cliffs. A witch and a dragon, she heard. When she arrived, the dragon was already bowed in submission. A young woman of no more than fifteen or sixteen years old stood before the creature, her pale face flushed with triumph. She wore a black tunic and her long red hair hung in a thick plait down her back. She bore no weapon but a white staff.

“I’ve heard of you,” said the girl, speaking the Language of First Days. “My name is Rea. I want you to teach me.”

Swarn refused, but Rea was not to be put off. She claimed to be the Shang Sorceress, ward of the Mancers. She had sought Swarn out in secret to learn the secrets of combat and potions. Intrigued, flattered, disarmed, at last Swarn agreed to take her on as a pupil. It was immediately apparent that the girl was brilliant, far more powerful and intelligent than anyone Swarn had ever encountered. She lacked only experience.

They talked more than Swarn had ever talked, but it was not idle conversation. Every word had weight,
meant
something, and Rea knew how to be silent too. It was companionship of a kind Swarn had never known. She liked to cook with Rea and hear her tell of Di Shang. They learned each other’s languages. Swarn felt her world expand with an entire new vocabulary. Soon she found herself missing Rea when she was gone, looking forward to her return.

Yes, it was fair to say that she had loved Rea. Perhaps she had never loved anyone else but Rea, in her long life. Eliza had invited her to come to Di Shang and visit her mother but Swarn did not, could not. Perhaps Rom was content with what little remained of his wife, perhaps the mere reminder of the woman she had been was enough for him, but not for Swarn. The Rea she loved had been crushed, and that was the end of it. She developed a fondness for her daughter, a sense of responsibility, but Eliza was not nearly so gifted, nor so pure in heart and thought and deed. She was a confused, emotional child, overburdened with her power, out of place in the worlds. Swarn felt a kind of warmth and a kind of pity for her, but her tired old heart could not bear to love again.

The loss of Rea left her bitter, brittle; Nia’s slaughter of the dragons broke something in her. Their beauty had been what bound her to the world; now they were gone. She went to face Nia to die and Eliza saved her, saved her life. Swarn returned to the marsh with the last of the cliff dragons, but she was changed. She had become old. Swarn thought she was waiting to die, but now, in Lil, she realized it was not death she was waiting for. It was something else whose time had come around.

She had survived all these years in order to perform a greater task. Not to die in a vengeful battle. If there was such a thing as destiny, her destiny was beckoning. She felt it. And if nothing was preordained, then her own free will tugged her in one clear and obvious direction. She had waited too long, stayed too still. Now it was time to act.

Her train of thought was shattered by a high scream coming from the house. She drew her knife from her belt and placed it between her teeth as she ran across the lawn, climbed swiftly up the outside wall, and hurled herself through the window, rolling across the floor and back to her feet in a shower of glass, the knife in her hand now.

Gautelen screamed a Curse at Swarn, but it was clumsy and half-formed, easily brushed aside. She was on top of Eliza’s friend, a blade in her hand. Nell was holding her wrists, struggling and screaming.

Charlie burst through the door and Gautelen swung Nell in front of her, holding the blade to her throat now and facing the other two.

“No Magic!” she cried. “If I hear a spell I will cut her throat before you finish!”

“Wait,” Swarn commanded her. “Do not be foolish. I will show you something to change your mind.”

“Don’t!” cried Gautelen. Her eyes were panicked and the hand that held the knife was trembling. Nell was staring straight at Charlie, who looked from her to Swarn with a desperate, pleading expression.

“Do you see this?” Swarn pulled something white and oblong, like a small flute, from her belt and showed it to Gautelen.