The Etsey Series 1: The Seventh Veil (8 page)

Timothy didn’t want to let go. He wanted to keep fighting. But the waves were closing over his head now, and he could feel the fragile threads of his sanity beginning to unravel.

Help me
, he cried, though to whom he didn’t know.

He felt soft, gentle hands rest on his shoulders; they stilled him, and they quieted his mind.

“Daghata.”

The voice appeared in his head as if it were his own thought. Perhaps it was.

“Daghata, Raturjula D’lor. Daghata dur hi.”

It was a woman’s voice, one he did not know, one that decidedly did not belong in his head, but it felt wonderful and soothing.
My native tongue and my true name both—almost my name, anyway
. The voice was softer and yet stronger than the spell, like a current flowing beneath it, a river no enchantment could ever reach. He didn’t understand what it was or how it was inside him, but he didn’t care. He could not surrender to a spell. But he found he could, quite easily, surrender to this.

“
Ma nur qu’in alah hjarta
,” he whispered. He held fast to the sound of her voice, focused on the place he found her inside of him; Timothy’s eyes fell closed, and he let out a long, ragged sigh as he let himself go, sinking down past the enchantment and into the golden abyss.

Soft, but very strong.

Thin, feminine arms caught Timothy, but they were by no means frail or weak. He looked up at the woman who had caught him, but he could not see her face; it was veiled, allowing him to see through to her eyes and mouth to recognize that she was smiling and looking at him fondly, but he could not see her features distinctly. She glowed as if she, not her clothes, were luminescent.

I don’t understand
, Timothy tried to say, but she put her finger over his lips. The gesture was oddly comforting.

“Do not try to speak,”
she said. She righted him so that he stood beside her. They were of exactly equal height, though she seemed much, much taller. She smiled through her veil and took his hand.
“We will walk now. You must not fight, not until it is time.”

She didn’t wait for him to agree; she simply stepped forward, and Timothy came along with her before he realized what he was doing. For a moment he thought they were in a sort of forest, a real forest as they had back home, not these dour, muddy patches of damp and half-rotted wood. But then, no, they were at the inn again, and he was walking down the hall, Jonathan on his left, the strange woman on his right. Jonathan moved haltingly because of his injury; the woman had no trouble at all, not even with the walls. If Jonathan nudged her toward one, she simply went through it. And from Jonathan’s extraordinary lack of reaction to a gold-glowing woman of astonishing height walking through walls, Timothy had to assume he couldn’t see her, which probably meant he hadn’t heard her speak, either.

Timothy tried to frown. This didn’t make sense.

The woman tightened her hand on Timothy’s arm.
“This is not the time for questions. This is the time for trust. Your friend has asked you to cede to his wisdom in this matter. It will go badly for everyone if you fail to do this.”

Timothy wanted to ask who she was, to demand she explain what was going on, but he didn’t, in part because he knew she would just admonish him again, and in part because he felt so heavy. Jonathan made it look as if it were he leaning on Timothy as they came down the stairs and entered the pub room, but despite his mira’s injuries, it was the other way around. Timothy felt as if he were barely holding on, as if he might slide away at any moment. Sometimes he thought he could see it, a black chasm that opened up beneath his feet, a sucking darkness that would have claimed him were it not for Jonathan on the one side and the strange golden creature on the other.

It isn’t logical
! Timothy wanted to shout. He whimpered instead.

“Do not fight it, or you will be sucked down and much will be lost, Raturjula,”
the woman said.

Jonathan leaned over as well, whispering to him as they passed through the now crowded pub room toward the door. “This will be my brother Charles outside, Timothy. We have an odd, unfortunate history. It’s strange that he is here. He swore he would never come again, and I don’t blame him.” He nodded to the curious eyes watching them, then spoke in Catalian. “The people here are very provincial. They fancy themselves religious because they have a powerful witch in residence, a witch so powerful she is on the witches’ Council. This particular parish is very, very pious. They are strict with rules and order. Aberrations frighten them, but fortunately for us, my family frightens them more. We are their ruling House, and the people know our history, and unlike most parishes, Rothborne still believes in the old magic because they see it every day. You have an advantage in being my equerry. If anything happens to me, produce your seal. Use it to command safe haven.”

Jonathan kept speaking, his voice a soothing monotone, an anchor Timothy could hang his aching mind on. Jonathan, he knew, was simply trying to keep him occupied—telling him things, giving him information, yes, but mostly just talking to engage him. He was whispering now, but he did not stop talking. “Now we are out the door,” Jonathan was saying. “Now we are at the inn yard. I see my brother ahead. Hold on, Timothy. Hold fast.”

Timothy’s head lolled as he tried to lift it to see. He wanted to see the man again. “Something wrong with him,” he croaked in Catalian. “With your brother. Needs help.”

“Shh,” Jonathan said. “Remember, we are here to do whatever the alchemist wants. You won’t break his spell, and you won’t fight it. We are cooperating.”

I want to help. I want to help your brother
. The black chasm opened before him again in his mind’s eye, and he felt himself starting to go down.

The woman pulled hard and fast on his arm.
“You will have your moment to offer assistance to the beloved, but this is not that moment.”

She had spoken in Catalian, and yet it was dialect he had never heard, containing strange echoes that seemed to go back to the dawn of time. The beloved? He frowned at her, but she only smiled and reached up to stroke his face.

“Daghata, Raturjula D’lor.”

Timothy frowned harder at that, because that was the second time she’d called him D’lor. But then the pin in his arm began to ache, and he felt his head swing around in time to see the strangers from the pub room emerge from the shadows. Timothy wanted to look at the one who had said he was Jonathan’s brother—Charles, Jonathan had called him—but he could only look at the other, the taller, thinner one, standing in the center of the yard, smiling serenely with his hands tucked into his pockets.

The alchemist.

“Welcome home, Jonathan Perry,” he said, removing one hand from his pocket to place it over his abdomen as he made a formal bow. “Allow me to introduce myself; I am Martin Smith, a practical alchemist.”

“Ah.” Jonathan spoke casually. “I did wonder what a guild alchemist would be doing this far north. Now I understand: you are one of the renegades.”

Smith waved his hand airily. “We prefer practical alchemists, but yes, you are correct. I am not of the guild.” The alchemist’s eyes darkened; both Timothy and Charles swayed as the alchemist spoke again. “We have business between us, Jonathan Perry.”

Jonathan walked forward, and Timothy came along, his feet all but floating off the ground. The chasm below him was huge now, sucking so hard he felt it in the center of his chest. He looked up at Jonathan’s brother, wondering if he felt it too. He couldn’t tell; Charles Perry simply looked dull and lost, and he kept his head down. Jonathan, however, seemed entirely unaffected, and he continued with Timothy at his side out to the place where the alchemist stood, his only hindrance his ruined leg.

“I can’t see what business I have with an alchemist,” Jonathan replied breezily. “I’m here only for a brief visit; I was injured in the war, and I come to seek healing from the Morgan. I doubt she will willingly tolerate any alchemists in her parish, practical or otherwise.”

The note of warning in Jonathan’s voice made Timothy think the alchemist would be apprehensive, but Smith in fact only seemed to gloat more. “Oh, this
is
unfortunate. I suppose you would not have heard, having been not just out of the parish but of the country. The Morgan is dead. Her Apprentice is standing in her place.” Timothy felt Jonathan’s shock at the news; even as he was still reeling, the alchemist went on. “You might be happier for it, however; her Apprentice is an old friend of yours, I understand. Madeline Elliott.”

Jonathan’s knee gave way, and he leaned hard on Timothy, who in turn had to lean on the woman or he would have fallen to the ground. Jonathan was shaking. Whoever this Apprentice was, the mere mention of her made him very upset. Timothy wanted to comfort him, but he felt the spell pushing at him, holding him back. The vortex in his mind opened wider, and he felt now as if he stood on the edge of a knife, high wind whipping all around him. Only the glowing woman kept him from teetering away.

“Stop it.” Jonathan regained his footing and propped Timothy up again. “Stop pushing on his mind. You have me here before you, which is what you wanted. There is no need to torture my equerry.”

“No, there is no
need
,” Smith conceded, “but it does seem to alleviate some of my frustration at not being able to enchant
you
. Besides,” he added, smiling wickedly at Timothy, “he’s something of a collector’s piece, isn’t he? A Catalian pleasure slave. I thought they had all been tortured to death in the Cloister camps, and yet here he is.”

Court concubine
, Timothy tried to growl at him, but he no more than formed the angry thought and he was reeling again, crying out and sagging between Jonathan and the woman’s arms as his head threatened to split in two.

Smith was laughing. Timothy lifted his head and saw, through blurred vision, Smith leering at him, tucking both hands into his pockets. “And such
will
. I must have him as soon as I deal with you, Mr. Perry. The possibilities simply enchant me.”

“And how do you propose to deal with me?” Jonathan had shifted his grip on Timothy’s arm, gently forcing Timothy’s hand open, and with the gesture opening the finger knife mechanism as well.

Smith pulled his hands from his pockets and guided Charles out in front of him, holding him firmly in place by the shoulders. “With my little pet,” he said, then yanked hard on the back of Charles’s hair, lifting his face.

The pale, dull eyes were no longer blue. They had no iris or pupil, and they glowed a hot, angry gold.

Beside Timothy, Jonathan tensed, then buckled. Then Jonathan roared.

“
Yes
!” Smith cried. He lifted one of Charles’s arms, which Timothy realized held a sword; the alchemist murmured a word, and Charles lifted it up farther on his own, ready to strike.

Jonathan straightened, no longer hampered by his injury. He pushed the release button on the side of his walking stick, sending the casing skittering away on the ground as he raised his own blade. Timothy caught a look at Jonathan, and he staggered back at the ferocious expression on his face and the unnatural red light of his companion’s eyes.

“Daghata,”
the gold woman whispered, holding Timothy up the way Smith was holding Charles, though by his arms, not by his hair. She kept Timothy’s hand inside Jonathan’s grip by the force of her own.
“It is almost time. Keep your hand in his. It is almost time to fight.”

Timothy didn’t want to keep his hand in Jonathan’s. “
I have a demon inside of me
,” Jonathan had said. Timothy had always assumed Jonathan was being metaphorical. And yet if Timothy had to describe what he was looking at now, he would have to say he was looking at something demonic. It was not a virus. Not an infection. There was something else wearing Jonathan’s skin. Something dark and terrible.

A demon. He was not standing next to Jonathan. He was standing next to a demon.

And then, like the flicker of a flame, it
was
Jonathan again, just for a moment. Then it happened again, and again. Charles Perry had nearly drawn the sword fully over his head, and he still looked completely possessed by the alchemist’s spell, but Jonathan was fighting whatever had come over him. The flicker became a beam; the demon vanished, and Jonathan turned to Timothy, wrapping his hand tighter around his friend’s wrist.

“Now!”

Now, what? Timothy wondered. But Jonathan was already swinging them both around. He brought up the blade of his sword stick in time to block his brother’s blow, but at the same time he was raising Timothy’s wrist, lunging hard at the alchemist’s midsection. Jonathan’s leg gave out; he leaned hard on Timothy. Timothy was weak and could not bear him.

The gold-glowing woman caught them both. Then she reached over and plucked the pin from Timothy’s sleeve.

“Now, Raturjula! Now is the time to fight!”

Timothy felt his head clear, the enchantment not gone but pushed back by a great gold ring that expanded out beyond his consciousness. He could see only the alchemist, and with this sudden clarity and narrow focus, he
truly
saw the alchemist. He had one hand on Charles, gripping his hair tightly as he murmured strange words, but his other hand was in his pocket, and his fingers were moving.

Pin and anchor. The pin was in my sleeve. The anchor is in his pocket.

Jonathan was trying to lift Timothy’s hand again, and Timothy realized it was
this
he was aiming for: the alchemist’s pocket. Timothy didn’t fight Jonathan’s direction, only helped it along, standing upright at last and supporting his friend as he drove the small, wicked finger knife straight down across the seam of the alchemist’s coat. Timothy gave it an extra push at the last second so that the knife went into the bastard’s tender skin. The alchemist screamed, and Timothy felt the last of the enchantment break as seven silver stones tumbled out, then shattered against the ground. Charles Perry stumbled, then fell to the ground as well, shaking his head as he woke from his trance. Jonathan was struggling to right himself, but he was staggering hard now. The alchemist was clutching his leg, but he looked up with dark, furious eyes at Jonathan and started to murmur angrily beneath his breath.