Shadow Spell (23 page)

Seth was sitting on a seat built into the small window, studying the faerie spindle closely. Something glimmered on the sill next to him, casting a fiery light. He looked up.

‘Hello, Nin,' he said. ‘I've been waiting for you.'

‘What's that?' Nin stared at the square of flickering colour.

Seth chuckled. ‘It's a cloth of fire.' He looked cheerful, if a little grubby, and Nin noticed that he wasn't wearing his travelling boots. Maybe he thought they'd get ruined while he dug in the pits.

She came over to sit next to him on the window seat, picking up the cloth of fire from the sill. It was so bright she expected it to be hot, but it wasn't. Just warm and with a texture like liquid silk that made her fingers tingle.

‘It's yours,' said Seth. ‘Enjoy it while you have the chance.'

Nin looked up at him.

‘It's the day of reckoning, girl. You know that.' He smiled at her, his green eyes looking straight into hers. ‘Strood could still win the battle. Don't kid yourself that it's a done deal in your favour.'

With a sigh, Nin glanced away from him, her eyes turning to the window. It was filled with greenish glass, the first real window she had seen in the Drift. Sunlight
fell into the room through its bubbly and uneven surface, but on the horizon she could see a line of dark cloud.

‘I know,' she said. ‘But I have to think we have a chance or what would be the point? Look, I've still got this.' She pushed back her sleeve to show Seth the shadow spell.

Seth put out a finger and touched it. ‘You know, for it to have lasted so many decades it must have its own centre of energy, or be connected to something living. Like the sorcerers' spells are fed by the Quick. Or like that memory pearl of yours. That's not a spell as such, but it's the same sort of thing. Its magic stays alive as long as you do, because the memories are a tiny part of you, even though they belonged to other people.'

Nin frowned, turning over his words. And then, suddenly, something vital fell into place.

‘It's not a spell to
find
Simeon Dark,' she said, excitement making her breathless. ‘It
is
Simeon Dark! Well, sort of …' She paused, fitting it together in her head. ‘Strood told Skerridge that for Dark to be safe from the plague he had to be so well hidden that even Dark doesn't know where he is. Like he's already dead and gone, just a memory in people's heads. So his spell disguised him and then took away his true identity.' She gazed at the ribbon in astonishment. ‘I think the ribbon is like his memory of himself all locked up, waiting to be released.'

‘Hmm, clever,' said Seth. He looked thoughtful. ‘The
spell would have to make sure he still had a memory of some sort, though. It couldn't wipe everything, or Dark's new persona would really stand out. Dark would have gone into hiding in the last few days of the Seven, some time
after
the Final Gathering had failed.'

Nin nodded. ‘So a new person popping up who could
only
remember back as far as those last few days would be a bit obvious?'

‘Uh huh. So maybe the spell let his new shape remember some key things, but made him see them from a different angle. Even in his new shape Simeon would remember the Final Gathering, because he was there, but he'd remember it from outside, as if he were someone else watching, not taking part.'

Seth's eyes glinted as he looked at the shadow spell, which shifted nervously under his gaze as if it sensed what he was thinking. It tightened its grip on Nin's arm. She thought she heard it hiss, but was too intent on following the idea to wonder why. Or to notice that Seth used Dark's first name. Almost as though he had known the sorcerer personally. Seth shot her a glance, aware of his slip, but she didn't see that either.

‘Sure, if he was hidden as a Fabulous or Grimm that would work,' she said. ‘It would be weird if he didn't remember the Final Gathering cos according to Skerridge practically every Fabulous left alive was there, watching. He and Taggit were. But if Dark was disguised as a Quick, it would be the other way around and
remembering
the Gathering would be the strange
thing. Most Quick wouldn't be that old. Hen's pretty ancient and even she can only just remember it.' She frowned. ‘Do you think Dark could be pretending to be a woman?'

‘Wouldn't put it past him.' Seth laughed. ‘But he's a sorcerer, so I don't buy all those stories about him hiding as a Quick … unless it's a very powerful Quick, of course. He'd want to be somewhere he could control people.' A fleeting expression crossed his face. Realisation.

Nin nodded. ‘You mean, like, if he can't use magic because he doesn't know he's a sorcerer, then he'll want some other form of power?'

‘Something like that.' Seth waved a hand, dismissing the subject. ‘Anyway, now you're here, do you want your present?'

‘I thought the cloth of fire was it?'

Outside, the line of cloud was eating up the sky, covering the Land with shadow as it raced on towards the hills on the edge of the town. Lightning glimmered in its depths.

Seth laughed. ‘Oh no. The cloth is just a pretty nothing. This is serious.' The laughter faded out of his eyes and he leaned close, then glanced away, as if embarrassed by what he was going to say. Nin felt a flush touch her cheeks.

‘Thing is,' he went on after a moment, ‘I'm not a brave type, not really.' Nin opened her mouth to disagree hotly. After all, he had jumped off the tower with her.

He shushed her with a touch of his hand. ‘I'm not, believe me. So when I find devices to sell, I keep some of them back. Some of them useful, like the boots, and some other stuff.'

‘You mean like weapons?'

He nodded. ‘It's a dangerous world out there! But also things to protect, to keep me safe or to warn me about danger. Only, right now I know that it's not just me in danger. It's not just you either. It's the Land. Everything. And the key to solving it all is you.'

‘I know people think that,' she sighed, ‘but …'

‘It's not guaranteed. Like I said before, Strood could win. But if anyone in the world can undo him somehow, it's you. So, what I want to give you is this … a protective charm, see?' He pulled one of the rings from his finger. It was a thin strip of gold, swirled about with symbols that made Nin's eyes smart to look at.

The darkness was really gathering now as the boiling clouds stole the light, racing over the hill. Seth's face was cast in shadow, but his eyes were still bright, still fixed on Nin. Outside, she heard a shout of alarm as people dropped what they were doing and ran for cover. She jumped as lightning flickered, closer now. Trees began to dip and sway.

Seth held out the ring. ‘Here, take it and wear it. You'll hardly even notice it's there.'

Nin's head was swimming slightly and a rumble of thunder seemed like something she could feel in her bones. The stinging had gone from her eyes and the gold
band gleamed in Seth's hands, calling to her. Before she knew it she had reached out a hand to touch it, then drew back. She pulled her eyes away to look at Seth.

‘You need it more than me, so you should keep it. I'm supposed to be lucky.'

‘Please, Nin,' Seth put his head close to hers. ‘I want to do something to help. Maybe getting this ring is part of your luck, did you think of that?' He smiled into her eyes. ‘Besides, I want you to be safe.'

Nin felt her face redden and glanced away, her gaze instantly caught by the ring, which shone now like fire. Burning in her head. Persuading.

‘Come on.' Seth took her hand and turned it over. ‘This finger, I think.'

He slipped it on.

Now the thunder was close enough to shake the town hall, but Nin didn't hear it. Her world was focused on the ring. As Seth pushed it over her knuckle it seemed to change, its intricate design thinning to a simple twist of silver and one blue stone. And in that moment …

In that moment, she knew what she had done.

‘It changes each time,' Nemus Sturdy had told her once, ‘changes to match the soul it's captured.'

HELP ME!
she screamed, but no sound came out. She would have pulled her hand away, but he was holding it too tightly. Not Seth. Ava Vispilio.

And then it wasn't her hand any more.

When lightning hit the ground just outside the town hall, those Quick who hadn't already fled indoors dived for cover. Even the Grimm took shelter, though the Storm couldn't hurt them. Everything stopped, but only for a while. They all knew it would pass soon. And it had better. The enemy was on its way and there was work to do.

In the dazzle of the lightning bolt a figure appeared, a shape that staggered and fell to its knees in the grass while the heavens opened and rain lashed down in a torrent. Thunder boomed and there was more dazzle, but further away. For a few seconds the rain was like a wall of water, then a curtain that swayed and lifted around the dark shape, now struggling to its feet and lurching across the grass. Then, as suddenly as it had come, the rain lifted and the dark shape was Jonas, running towards the town hall, his face white and his eyes full of weird light.

As he burst in through the door, Doctor Mel looked up, startled, her arms full of blankets.

‘Where's Nin,' gasped Jonas. ‘Please!'

‘Erm … upstairs, I think,' said Mel. ‘Are you Jonas? Don't worry, she's fine. She's with Seth.'

Jonas ran for the ladder. At the top, he burst into the nearest room.

Seth was there all right, but he was no danger any more. The boy was lying on the floor in a spreading pool
of blood. Vispilio's first act in his new body had been to cut the throat of his old one. If the real Seth had been left alive to regain control of himself, he might have told them things about Vispilio that Vispilio didn't want them to know.

There was no sign of Nin.

As Jonas turned to go his eye caught movement through the greenish glass of the window. It looked as if the tops of the hills outside the town had come alive and were stirring like a restless beast. For a moment it didn't make sense and then he realised what it was – the heave and surge of many jostling bodies cresting the rise and gathering there. Metal glinted in the afternoon sun. Lots of metal.

Jonas stood at the top of the ladder and thought for a moment. He knew he was on his own. No use looking to the others for help finding Nin, they had a battle to fight.

Leaving Seth's body where it lay, Jonas went back to the ground floor. Here the main room was quiet, laid out with beds and bandages and potions, waiting for its first casualty to arrive. Those few selected to act as nurses were outside, standing in the sun with their hands shading their eyes, watching the hills. A sense of breathless tension hung over everything.

Tilting his head, Jonas scented the air, searching for any trace of Nin.

Nin was in the cellar, retrieving the pack that Seth had left there and checking through the leftover magical artefacts, looking for anything useful to steal. Or rather, her body was. Her mind was cowering somewhere inside, still screaming with shock.

She was beyond terror. There were no words for what it felt like to watch helplessly as your own hands cut someone else's throat, to hear your brain think someone else's thoughts. To understand that your body was going on with someone else's life as if you weren't there. As if you were nothing, not even a blip on the radar.

She couldn't scream or fight or even cry because none of those things were in her control now. Her view of the world was slightly distorted, like looking through thick glass, but still there. She could hear too, though the sounds were tinny and distant. But that was all. Her sense of touch had gone completely, and if she tried to move, she could feel the instruction leave her mind, but it went nowhere. Her body carried on doing something different, operating to
his
commands. She was
absolutely powerless.

And raging at herself. How could she have been so deceived by lies and charm? How could she not have
seen
what Seth really was?

Trying to calm herself, Nin took the mental equivalent of deep breaths. She pushed the image of Seth from her mind, the real Seth, bleeding and dying. It was too horrible to deal with right now and if she remembered it again she would start screaming and never stop.

You can't feel panic, she told herself firmly, because panic is just chemicals and things in your body and you don't have one of those right now.

It didn't work. She might not have the right chemicals for real panic, but her mind was doing a pretty good impersonation. To do something, anything rather than just howl silently, she watched what Vispilio was doing.

The cellar was lit only by the thing in the corner, the device wrapped in thick cloth that couldn't hide the glow coming from inside. By its golden light, Vispilio had found some amulets and rings to take and was stuffing them into a small bag, already half full of the magical jewellery he had removed from Seth's body. Although the glowing thing in the corner was obviously powerful, he was ignoring it and Nin wondered briefly what the thing did, how much power it really held.