Bone, Fog, Ash & Star (39 page)

The moment Eliza reached for her dagger, something twisted her arm back sharply. Ravens burst out of the ground like big black flowers, shrieking. But Anargul had the Gehemmis already.

“Now the others,” she said grimly.

A lovely, fluting voice overhead called out an unfamiliar word. Eliza looked up. Eight myrkestras were descending on the island. Golden-haired Faeries in flowing, feathered cloaks sat astride them. She looked to the Mancers but they were entirely still, did not even react.

“Faeries!” she shouted. Anargul did not move.

“Cursed them with immobility,” said a Faery cheerfully, leaping from the back of his myrkestra and striding over to Eliza. “Works particularly well on Mancers, since they rather tend to stillness anyway. Mind you, it will only last the day. We don’t want to do anything more extreme until we know for sure whether they’re in league with you, little thief.”

He was still smiling, but there was something dangerous in his eyes. The other Faeries joined him, prodding the frozen Mancers gleefully.

“Very exciting to be the first to find you. No doubt there’s a fine reward in it for us,” the Faery continued jovially. “There will be others coming soon, but things will go better for you if you give us the Gehemmis you stole right away.”

“I gave it to the Mancers a few days ago,” said Eliza, her mind racing. “A liaison was waiting for me in the Irahok Mountains and he took it back to the Citadel.”

“So you are working for them!” the Faery cried. “What treachery! The Faeries will crush them!”

“
Was
working for them,” said Eliza. She saw that a couple of the Faeries had noticed the dark box in Anargul’s hands and they were murmuring to one another. “But then they sent me south to face the Sparkling Deluder. I couldnay even make it to the Dreaming Wasteland. It was a waste of time. I’m nay that powerful.”

“Of course not,” said the Faery. “The Mancers have always put far too much stock in their Sorceresses, if you ask me. Well, so they’ve taken our Gehemmis to the Citadel. How do we know you’re telling the truth?”

“You dinnay think the Mancers would let me carry it around for long, do you?” she asked.

“Then what are you doing here? And what’s
this?”
he reached towards the box in Anargul’s hands.

“I wouldnay touch it if I were you,” said Eliza.

The Faery hesitated.

“My punishment,” she lied quickly. “The Mancers made it hundreds of years ago. They’re the only ones that know how to use it, how to control it.”

“What does it do?”

“When it’s opened, it draws the Magic out of its target,” she said. “If you try to take it from the Mancers, it will open up and take
your
Magic. Mine is already gone. They had just finished using it on me when you arrived. Another blast would probably kill me. They’re the only ones that know how to close it.”

“Nonsense,” said one of the Faeries. “She’s just trying to scare us off. It’s obviously something important.”

Eliza shrugged. “Go on and grab it then,” she said. “I spose I’m to be killed anyway.”

“I will!” cried the Faery, pushing forwards.

“Wait, wait!” said the one who had done most of the talking. “No need to be hasty. We just need to send word, have it investigated. It won’t be long. Better safe than sorry! You,” he pointed to one of the Faeries, who was putting flowers in Trahaearn’s hair. “Send word to the General. Tell him we’ll stand guard here until our orders come.”

The Faery bowed and took off on his myrkestra.

“What about her?” one of the Faeries asked.

“Shut her in the house,” suggested the leader.

Eliza hated to leave the Sparkling Deluder’s Gehemmis in Anargul’s frozen hands, surrounded by Faeries, but she had no choice. She followed the Faery into the house. It looked much more run down than she remembered, as if nobody had lived there for years. Foss lay in the bed, his eyes closed. Ferghal and the Blind Enchanter were nowhere to be seen.

“Is that one dead?” the Faery asked, pointing at Foss in alarm.

Eliza’s heart began to beat like a jackhammer in her chest, but she managed to keep her voice steady: “He opposed their using the box on me. So they used it on him too. Twice.”

The Faery shuddered and strode back out into the sunshine, shutting the door on her. She ran to Foss’s bedside.

He opened his eyes. They were like dark caverns with a faint light glimmering at the back. His skin was loose against the bones of his face. He stirred very slightly when he looked at her.

“Hang on, Foss,” she pleaded. “I’ll think of something, aye. Where are Ferghal and the Blind Enchanter?”

Foss’s lips stretched slightly into what might have been a smile. He lifted a shaking hand and pointed at a tall lamp by the wall. Eliza looked at it, puzzled. It was not a very attractive lamp. It was odd and bulky and…she paused and looked again. It was not a lamp at all, but the Blind Enchanter. He held her backpack in his hands. He winked at her.

Eliza leaped to her feet.

“How did you do that?” she asked, impressed.

“A kind of…Deep Seeing…in reverse,” he rasped out. “With a…glamour…effective if no one…looks too hard.”

“And you still have the Gehemmis?” she whispered. He handed her the backpack.

“You have seen the…Hanging Gardens,” he said. The last two words were voiceless, breath only.

Their eyes met and she nodded. They spoke no more of it. The Blind Enchanter went and lifted his large wooden table aside. Then he stroked the earth floor, murmuring. A trapdoor appeared and opened.

“By the Ancients!” Ferghal boomed, falling silent when Eliza shushed him. He scrambled out, his grizzled face covered with dust. “Cold down there,” he whispered. “Good to see you back in one piece, witchlet! Sooner than we’d expected, but not a mite too soon, may I say.” He indicated Foss with his head. “Why are we being quiet?”

“Faeries outside,” said Eliza.

“And your friends…are coming,” said the Enchanter.

Eliza looked at him in surprise. “My friends? How do you know?”

He smiled at her. “I always know…when someone is coming…here.”

“How will they get past the Faeries?” she asked, her fear returning.

“Send them a…message,” said the Blind Enchanter. “We will create…a small diversion. They must go around…to the west…keeping low and…out of sight. The cliffs…will hide them. There is a…cove there…and…a small cave. The cave leads…to this…passageway.” The long speech cost him a great deal. He leaned against the wall, gasping for breath.

Eliza opened the trapdoor and sent a raven down it, bearing the message to Nell and Charlie.

“What kind of diversion?” she asked. The Blind Enchanter grinned and followed the raven down the tunnel.

Eliza heard the Faery approaching from outside. Hurriedly she shoved Ferghal into the tunnel with her backpack and pulled the table back into place just as the Faery opened the door and entered.

“Not up to mischief, are you?” he asked her.

“There’s nothing to eat in here,” she said. As soon as she said it, she realized how hungry she was.

“They want me to check that this one’s really dead,” he said, uninterested in her remark about food. Eliza watched apprehensively as he went over to Foss’s bed and prodded him. Foss did not stir. The Faery shrugged, leaned down, and pulled a long, shining knife from his boot.

Eliza half-flew across the room, dagger in her hand before she knew she’d reached for it. She clamped one hand over his mouth so he could not cry out and with her other hand she drew her dagger across his throat. Shining blood poured from the wound. She threw him to the ground, voiceless with his throat cut, and drove the dagger deep into his heart, again and again. She knew he was struggling to make a Curse and so she continued to stab him until he gave up. Then she drove her dagger right through him, pinning him to the ground through the chest.

“Blast the Ancients,” she muttered. She shoved aside the table again and opened the trapdoor. Ferghal was crouched in the tunnel, wide-eyed. She pulled her dagger out of the wounded Faery and dragged him to the opening.

“Get him out of here,” she whispered. “Take him to the Blind Enchanter, fast. See if he can think what to do. If he shows any signs of getting his strength or voice back while you’re taking him, then drop him and run, fast.”

“Powers that Be!” breathed Ferghal. The Faery looked murder at him. Ferghal hefted the wounded being over his shoulder and hurried away down the passage. Eliza dragged Foss out of the bed, whispering apologies as she pulled him across the floor and lowered him into the passage as well. Then she shut the trapdoor over him and pulled the table back into place.

She waited alone in the house, heart thundering. The thought that came to her again and again was: I am not strong enough. I can’t defeat them all. I am not strong enough. Again and again, she pushed the thought away. I’ve come this far and I can go a little farther yet.

Two Faeries came in this time.

“Where is he?” One of them demanded.

“He took the dead Mancer,” said Eliza.

The Faeries gaped at her.

“Took him where?”

“I dinnay know,” said Eliza. “He just took him.”

“Nobody’s come or gone,” said one of the Faeries.

“Lah, he left a few minutes ago,” said Eliza.

The Faeries looked at her some more and then at each other.

“Were you watching the door?” one of them asked in a low voice.

“No,” conceded the other. “But we would have noticed.”

“What, do you think I made them both disappear?” asked Eliza sarcastically. “I dinnay even have any powers anymore.”

“So you say,” said the first Faery, then turned to his partner. “You watch her, don’t take an eye off her.”

“Why me?”

“Just watch her.”

Half an hour passed with different Faeries coming in and questioning Eliza. She stuck to her patently false story: that the Faery had simply taken Foss’s body away with him.

“She’s not going to tell us anything different,” said the one who seemed to be the leader. “But I’ve heard humans respond to pain very quickly.” He gave Eliza a cold look.

“So? What kind of pain?” The other Faery in the room drew a sword.

“Don’t kill her,” said the leader. “That won’t get us anywhere. Try burning her.”

Flames licked around Eliza’s ankles, but they were illusion flames and she was still wearing Nia’s necklace. She hesitated a moment too long, trying to decide whether or not she was good enough an actress to feign being burned.

“We need some real fire,” said the leader, scowling. He drew a firestick from his cloak.

At that moment there came a great screeching noise outside and the sound of myrkestras crying out. It took Eliza a minute to recognize the screeching: dragons. The Faery grabbed her by the arm and dragged her outside.

Gold-green dragons were swarming in the air around the eastern end of the island, diving and feinting in the direction of the myrkestras.

“Is this your doing, Sorceress?” demanded the leader.

“I cannay
do
anything!” Eliza insisted. “I’ve no idea why they’re acting up!”

“Look! One of them’s got Ildor!”

Indeed, the Faery Eliza had attacked was hanging and flailing from the talons of one of the dragons. Eliza almost laughed with relief.

“Those are Mancer dragons!” she said. “They must have seen him with the dead Mancer and gotten angry.”

“We’ll have word soon enough. We will wait for our instructions,” the Faery leader ground out between his teeth. “Back inside.”

Another Faery dragged Eliza back into the cabin. She waited there, every muscle tense, the Faery watching her hatefully. What happened next occurred so quickly that Eliza couldn’t quite piece it together in her mind afterwards. The trapdoor was open and the Blind Enchanter hurtling out. The Faery was turning, rising, hand reaching for his sword, as some powder caught him in the eyes. He stood there a moment, frowning, blinking, and then went back to glowering at Eliza as if nothing had happened.

Eliza sat frozen and bewildered on the bed as Ferghal followed the Blind Enchanter out of the trapdoor, lifting Foss. Behind them came Charlie and Nell.

Chapter

~25~

Eliza could not help herself.
She leaped up and ran to embrace her friends. For a moment they were all laughing and talking at once. The Faery showed no sign of seeing any of this.

“What did you do to him?” Eliza asked the Enchanter. “And keep your voices down,” she murmured to the others.

“Potion,” said the Blind Enchanter. “For one hour…he’ll see just what he saw…a few moments…before I threw it at…him. You on the bed…the empty…room.”