Fiery Edge of Steel (A NOON ONYX NOVEL) (28 page)

“I wish
I’d
killed the hellcnight,” I said. Ari stared intently at me, as if seeing me for the first time. In a way, he was. Then he crushed me to him. And so it was that we were a tangle of arms, legs, and lips when I felt
Cnawlece
slowing in the water some unknown amount of time later. Since
Cnawlece
had slowed only once before (during the hellcnight attack), the slowing of our boat produced immediate dread. I climbed off of Ari’s lap and looked out over the rails. Immediately, I knew why we’d stopped.

We were lost.

*   *   *

E
veryone came up. To a person, including Virtus, although he was a tiger, we all looked east, over
Cnawlece
’s front rail, to where Second Branch should be. Everyone spoke at once.

“Where are—?”

“What is—?”

“Is that Second—?”

“Luck, which o’ them is Blandjan?”

“Are we even
at
Second Branch?”

Russ and I each ran downstairs to get our maps and route notes. In less than two minutes we were back on the sundeck, more winded and worried than before. Quickly, we spread the maps out on a group of small tables that Ari, Rafe, and Russ pushed together into the center of the deck.

Though Delgato’s map and mine were slightly different, each highlighted the suggested route of passage for the Shallows. At First Branch (where we’d seen the first bonfire frame), there’d been four choices: the Concelare, the Blandjan, the Naefre, and the Finthanan. We were supposed to take Blandjan, the Lethe’s second branch from the left at First Branch. We had. And for days we’d sailed Blandjan, following the map.

At Second Branch, we were supposed to stay on Blandjan. The map showed only two choices: a small rivulet called the Secernere and a wider continuation of Blandjan. It was imperative that we stay on Blandjan because the Secernere led to Ebony’s Elbow. (Ebony’s Elbow was one of those areas that had a curling whirlpool at its bend; it looked like it led straight into Halja’s underground.) But when we looked at Second Branch on the map, it didn’t match what we saw on the river. As we stared out across
Cnawlece
’s bow, there weren’t two choices with one clear answer, but three with none.

Had Lucifer not been a lord but a farmer, folks might associate him with a pitchfork instead of a lance. And, had that been the case (although it was not), then surely what we looked at might have been called Lucifer’s Pitchfork.

All around us, Halja’s vast, expansive rush lands spread out like a bosky blanket. But in front of us, the blanket was shorn, as if a mighty giant had thrown down a massive iron pitchfork with such violence it had burrowed straight into the ground like a meteor. I could almost imagine the crushing impact . . . the shuddering of the rush lands . . . and the sinking of that imaginary hell-forged weapon . . . so that all that remained was a bubbling, oozy stew.

It hadn’t really happened like that, but the waters of the pitchfork-shaped branch in front of us still boiled and steamed as if it had. Directly above us, the skies were neither clear, nor raining. The sun was setting, but the sphere was hidden behind haze. Instead of a steady circular glow, the brightest light came from flickering, irregular strikes of lightning. The area seemed caught in some evermore out of time, a place where forward motion, the weather, choices, and maybe even destiny itself were eclipsed, buried beneath the ground, covered with swirling mist and churning waters that streamed in one too many directions.

“Is this really Second Branch?” Fara said, repeating her earlier question. Everyone split from the tables and fanned out around the sundeck’s railings. Except for Ari and me.

“Yes,” we called together.

It was wispy, and nearly gone, kind of like the smell of smoke from a day’s old fire. But we could still feel it. The magical remnants of an old bonfire frame. This one had not been recently stocked with fresh wood (which made me wonder if something had happened to the Boatmen who had stocked the bonfire at First Branch). But waning magic users don’t need wood to start fires. And I didn’t want anyone wasting even one second on whether we were actually at Second Branch. So, almost as cavalierly as I might wave a fly out of my face, I lit the bonfire and turned back to the table. Without the wood, it wouldn’t burn long after I left, but for now it served its purpose. Russ and Burr gasped in surprise and everyone refocused their attention on the fork.

“We all know the Lethe reforges itself from time to time,” I said, addressing the group. “Who knows when Second Branch became a three-pronged branch instead of a two-pronged branch. It could have been weeks or months ago, or it could have just happened today, as a result of all this rain. What matters is that we now have a choice to make.”

The exact location of the bonfire frame wasn’t marked on the map. But the bonfires had been markers at one time. So it seemed to me, the only real question was: did we take the path that was marked with fire . . . or not?

While everyone else bickered and dithered, I remembered what Ari had said to me the first time we’d lit a bonfire together:
Lucem in tenebras ferimus.
Into the darkness, we bring light.

He’d likely not meant the words to have any meaning beyond us and that single dark Beltane eve that had occurred last semester. But in the time since, I’d often thought of his words as a Maegester’s rallying cry.

Because wasn’t that our purpose? And wasn’t that what we were trying to do just now? Bring the light of justice into the darkness of Halja’s hinterlands?

For me, there was only one clear choice.

We chose the path marked with light.

T
he mood that evening was restless. It was the first time we’d ever not been sure of our path. Sure, everyone agreed with my suggestion that we take the marked route, but no one really knew if it was the right one.

Since Ari and I had made up, and everyone was just the least bit on edge about where we were going, Burr suggested a casual dinner up top on the sundeck. The dining room had long ago lost its appeal (if it had ever had any to begin with) and, this way, no one would need to stand watch alone. So it was, on a late-summer evening sometime around twilight, that I found myself dining alfresco on the deck of a dahabiya halfway between New Babylon and the sea.

The demons’ nighttime noises were quieter here (a fact I did not dwell overly on—if the
rogare
demons avoided this branch, what did that mean for us?) and, sometime after eight, a slight northeasterly breeze started blowing. Russ raised the sails and Burr set up a folding table, draping it with colorful batik tablecloths and mismatched sets of chunky kitchen china in azure, indigo, and chartreuse. I found it touching that Burr didn’t want to risk Delgato’s fragile matched dining room set for our impromptu picnic and hoped Delgato appreciated Burr half as much as I was starting to.

Despite our circumstances, the scene Burr set for us was undeniably beautiful. Below us, the last of the sun’s rays sparked across the Lethe like a million muted firecrackers while, on deck, nearly a hundred lanterns, votives, and tea lights twinkled and winked at us, a warmer, closer version of the soon-to-be starlit sky. I smiled at the menu (Burr had to have made it for me): charred red snapper, new potatoes with rosemary, and a few bottles of Mumblehead Perry. That Burr was a sly one—by serving pear wine, he neatly sidestepped the question of grapes versus apples for the exactly half Host, half Angel dinner party.

No one had formally dressed for dinner since that first night so Fara and Rafe appeared exactly as they had earlier in the day with Fara wearing black snakeskin pants, high leather boots, and a silver chain-mail jacket, and Rafe wearing a red flannel outer shirt, a faded gray undershirt, and mustard-colored pants splotched with engine oil. With her white gold locks and silver jacket, Fara almost looked like the moon personified, while Rafe . . . looked like he’d just climbed out of a Haljan oil well.

“Are we having engine trouble?” I asked.

“Nothing for you two to worry about,” Rafe said, giving Ari and me a peremptory wave.

Ari said nothing. I was absolutely certain that he wasn’t insulted. Unlike me, Ari was completely comfortable with what he could and couldn’t do as a waning magic user. As he’d told me more than once, it was his younger Hyrke brother who was the mechanic in the family. Machines had never even held a passing interest for Ari. But I was also absolutely certain that Ari barely tolerated Rafe. I knew the only reason he hadn’t started pressing me to replace him was because, out here, there were no other options.

I waited for everyone to be seated, fiddling with my filleting knife, meeting the dead fish’s gaze straight on. (This time I wasn’t worried about getting fish goo on me. I was wearing canvas pants and an old shirt I’d bought at a secondhand store with Ivy. It was white with a huge bouquet of black lilies on the front. When I’d seen it, I’d just had to have it, although the image provoked conflicting emotions in me. Ari had loved it, of course.)

Ari reached under the table and squeezed my hand, his signature flowing into mine like honey, sweet and slow. He looked almost as scrumptious as the meal. His dark looks and partial beard, combined with his rugged fishermen’s sweater and his not insignificant size, made him a strong, solid, and utterly attractive presence by my side. I squeezed back.

“How about a toast?” he said.

I looked expectantly at our Angel friends. Those sorts of things were very much their bailiwick. Fara nodded and cleared her throat, which did nothing to ameliorate the hoarseness of her voice. I sighed inwardly when she picked up her Book of Joshua and flipped it open. “A battlefield blessing,” she croaked.

Sitting, clutching, aching,

My death is in the making.

Drumming heart, stop your riot!

I want my end quick and quiet.

Cold, gray sky, hear my cries.

No time for why or further lies.

With the dead and dying all around,

It’s to the bleeding, I am honor bound.

Only one thing left to do,

Tell my friends—that’s you!

All you meant and more.

In needing, we were rich; in wanting, we were poor.

During Fara’s toast, my mild annoyance had turned to grudging respect for a well-chosen toast I’d never heard before to a feeling of surprise and then suspicion. Had she really meant the sentiment of the blessing? Or had the toast simply been a rote recitation of someone else’s words and feelings?

I hardly had time to ponder. Not to be outdone, Rafe also raised his glass, although his toast turned out to be one I’d heard:

Here’s to a long life and a merry one;

A quick death and an easy one;

A pretty girl and an honest one;

A cold drink—and another one!

Rafe winked at both Fara and I during his toast, but he’d gotten us confused, winking first to me and then to her. And, typical of Rafe, he changed the last line to make it even more irreverent. It was supposed to be
a purpose and a happy
one
.

No matter, we all raised our glasses and drank. I began deboning my fish. There was much less spattering and splattering this time. The beginning of the dinner passed peacefully enough. Angels were good conversationalists and Ari, at least ever since I’d known him, had always been charming and gracious, even in mixed company. If I was the quietest member of our little group, no one remarked on it. Our dinner continued amid the softened tones of low conversation, the tinkling of silverware, the flapping of the sails, and, always, the lapping sound of the Lethe’s murky waters . . . somehow hypnotic and soothing and forlorn and lonely all at the same time.

Around midmeal, we started to sense that something was wrong. We couldn’t see them yet, but all around us, we could feel them gathering. Always, at nightfall, the demons’ sounds were worse, but before, those sounds had been scattered around Halja’s countryside, like the low buzz of bees fertilizing a field. Now the low buzz was more like an angry hiss. It was as if, by choosing this route, we had inadvertently poked a hive. And now an aggressive, lethal swarm was on its ways to attack us.

“Do you feel that?” I asked.

Ari nodded, looking straight at me.

“Nine of them so far,” Rafe said, gazing out into the still-empty, nearly dark rush lands.