The Iron Ghost (51 page)

Turning on Joah, he held out his arms.

There was a moment’s shocked silence, and Sebastian just about had time to register Wydrin’s limp body passing out of sight before Frith seemed to actually explode. In the resulting wave of force Sebastian was thrown bodily across the room, colliding painfully against the metal wall before collapsing on the floor, the god-blade torn from his grasp.

‘Aaron!’ Joah had thrown up a force field of some sort around himself, which was holding off Frith’s numerous attacks. Even so, the mage was bent over with the effort of keeping it in place, his lips twisted into a grim line. ‘Aaron, stop this!’

‘I will destroy you!’ The young lord was a beacon of light, the Edenier peeling off him in bright, shimmering streams. Sebastian could smell sulphur and burning hair. ‘I will destroy all of you!’

The small figure of Ip lay on the floor, disregarded. Sebastian inched over to it, trying to see if there was any life in the girl’s face.

‘We can work together now,’ Joah’s face, twisted and burnt, was all the more terrible for the expression of hope that was trying to blossom there, ‘don’t you see? There’s nothing to get in our way!’

Sebastian pressed his fingers to the girl’s throat. There was a pulse, rapid and shallow. The floor beneath him shuddered suddenly, and he looked up to see that the ceiling above the bright shape that was Frith was beginning to glow a deep, ruby red. The magic was overpowering the Rivener.

‘Frith!’ he shouted, not expecting to be heard over the noise.

‘The woman was a distraction,’ said Joah, ‘your feelings for her, a mistake. Now that she’s dead . . .’

‘We have to get out of here!’ Sebastian tried again.

It was too late. There was a shattering explosion, so loud that Sebastian felt his ear drums cramp painfully, and a deafening screeching noise, which he belatedly recognised as metal being torn apart. The chamber was flooded with weak daylight. Risking a glance upwards he saw that Frith had blown the top of the room off; twisted fingers of blackened metal clutched at the dawn sky. A beacon of green light shot upwards, and Sebastian caught sight of Frith and Joah, their bodies lit from within so that he could see their bones.

As quickly as it had happened, it was over. Frith was swaying on his feet, his white hair standing on end. Joah was on his knees. His eyes looked too wide in the blasted ruin of his face.

‘That was quite the display.’

They all looked towards that voice. That new voice.

Sebastian pulled himself up on his elbows, and his breath caught in his throat. Standing on the far side of the chamber, amongst the debris of the tables and equipment, was O’rin, god of lies and tricks. Sebastian himself had never seen him, but he’d heard both Wydrin and Frith’s descriptions and it could hardly be anyone else; the figure stood nearly eight foot tall, his body covered with a thick cloak of black feathers, his giant bird’s head cocked slightly to one side, as if amused. His yellow and black eyes glistened.

‘I thought it was likely time to check up on you again, young Lord Frith, but I have to say –’ he gestured with his leathery grey hands ‘– I did not expect this. Whatever this is.’

Joah stood with his mouth hanging open. Luckily, Frith recovered himself first.

‘It’s a trap.’ He stepped forward, waving a warning. ‘You must leave, O’rin, immediately. This man means you harm.’

‘The one with the crispy face? Surely not, lad,’ O’rin chuckled. ‘There is little any of you can do to harm a god, you must know that.’

Sebastian scrambled for the god-blade, which had landed some feet away from him in the violence of the explosion, but Joah was faster. His arm twitched and the sword leapt into the air, turning in a deadly arc as the ice melted from it in a shimmer of steam. O’rin caught sight of the shining blue blade and he must have known it for what it was, or else recognised an artefact of his deadly sibling, for he collapsed into a whirling confusion of black birds. In seconds the chamber was full of them, flying in circles and squawking madly, but they didn’t seem able to fly up past the roof, despite the empty sky that was waiting there for them.

Sebastian held an arm up over his face, trying to see what was going on.

‘O’rin? You must leave, now!’

Joah was laughing, the god-blade clutched in both hands.

‘I helped to make a trap for you once before, god of lies. You thought you could evade it for ever?’

The birds flew up still, crashing into whatever invisible force was keeping O’rin inside the Rivener. They fell, one by one, delicate bones broken or simply stunned, until abruptly O’rin was back, lying on the floor, his eyes rolling in his great bird head.

‘Frith?’ he croaked. ‘Why do you trap me so? Did I not help you?’

‘It’s not me,’ Frith cried. The young lord gestured at Joah as though to throw him back with another spell, but all but two of the silk strips from around his arms had disintegrated into ash. Instead he knelt by the god, trying to help him up. ‘This was not my doing, you must believe me . . .’

Joah ran, staggering slightly under the weight of the sword, and brought the god-blade down in a sweeping blow. Sebastian managed to draw his own sword and get its blade in the way, but the god-blade sheared through it as though his broadsword were made of mist, and it continued its deadly journey. The blue sword struck O’rin just below his beak – coming within a hair’s breadth of decapitating Frith too – and split the god’s neck open in one blow. There was a dreadful screech, as of a thousand birds calling at once, and then something that wasn’t blood burst from the terrible wound, black and shining like oil. Frith scrambled away, crying out in revulsion as the substance soaked into the knees of his trousers, but Joah was already there, one hand delving into the torn flesh of O’rin’s neck.

‘Do not do this.’ Sebastian stood with his broken sword useless in his hand. ‘You can still step back from this. Your soul is not entirely damned. Believe me, I know.’

Joah laughed, and with a brief gesture summoned a flickering wall of white light between them. Sebastian touched his fingers to it and wasn’t surprised to find that the wall burnt them, raising painful blisters. Turning away from the two of them, Joah held a handful of the black oily flesh up to his lips and shoved it in his mouth, smearing his beard and chin with the stuff. He chewed and swallowed, and then licked the palm of his hand, while O’rin’s life’s blood seeped through the metal grille underneath him.

‘I can feel it,’ he said.

Frith backed away, gesturing to Sebastian, who snatched up the god-blade from where Joah had discarded it.

‘Oh no,’ said Joah, absently. ‘I don’t think I want that little relic hanging about any longer, not now I have the power to destroy it.’

He lifted one hand, fingers flexing like the legs of a dying spider, and the brightly shining blade softened and then ran, melting like candle wax. Sebastian cried out and dropped it, and within moments it was little more than a stain on the floor. The elaborate silver hilt was untouched.

‘Good, good,’ muttered Joah, turning back to O’rin’s corpse. He didn’t appear to be taking much notice of them now. ‘I can feel it changing me.’ He took another handful of the flesh, pushing it down his own throat slowly. He swallowed hard. ‘It’s changing me inside, and outside, and it’s . . . this must have been what it was like for those first mages, when they struck down Ede and ate her. It must –’ The words dried up. His face had lost all its colour, leaving a gaunt, paper-white mask half ruined with burnt flesh. It seemed to be growing longer somehow, as though it were made of dough and someone were pulling it into a subtly different shape. His eyes wept black tears. ‘I feel strange.’

Above them, the sky that had been clear and blue a moment ago was darkening, turning purple, and then red at the edges. Sebastian could see a rippling, barely visible skein up there, as though a bloody caul had been pulled over the surface of the world.

Frith took his arm. ‘Let’s get out of here.’

The world twisted again, and the last thing Sebastian saw as Frith spirited them away were Joah’s hands, now long and tapered, delving back into O’rin’s corpse.

Ephemeral held her hands under the water, palms facing up. The boggy water was cloudy with silt and algae but she could still see the tiny amphibians swimming there; they were a darker green than her own skin, their perfectly formed limbs kicking wildly, tickling her fingers. She considered clenching her hands into fists, an act that would no doubt crush the creatures into sludge – something she would have done without a thought a year ago. Instead she let her hands fall away, and the swarm of tiny baby frogs vanished back into the tepid waters of the swamp. She thought of Sebastian, now in the city of Skaldshollow, somewhere beyond these swamps and forests. It was strange to be without him, and she found she had a hundred new questions every day, but there was nothing to be done about that; she would just have to wait. She stood up to see Crocus coming towards her, crashing through the water and mud and stirring up a hearty stench.

‘There’s a settlement half a day’s walk from here,’ she said. Ephemeral’s sister was broader across the shoulders than she was, and when she spoke for any length of time her brow would furrow slightly. It still didn’t come easily, to talk so much. ‘Flute and Havoc mapped the place out on their way round it.’ Crocus reached into a pocket and retrieved a slightly damp section of parchment, which she passed to Ephemeral. ‘Here, look.’

Ephemeral turned it around in her hands, tracing a finger around the boundaries of the settlement. It was a very rough drawing of the place, marked out in a dark red wax that Havoc had made for the purpose of drawing maps on the move. Looking at it, Ephemeral felt a twin jolt of jealousy and pride; Havoc was so clever at making things.

‘It is good,’ she said. ‘I will put it with the others.’

Sliding the pack from her back she removed a thick leather tube. Inside were several such makeshift maps, contributed by many different brood sisters.

‘We will go around the village, then?’ asked Crocus. They were walking through the swamp water together, the muck coming up above their leather-clad knees.

‘You know we must,’ said Ephemeral. ‘We must keep out of sight as much as possible. Until we are ready to move.’ Havoc emerged from the trees, recently returned from making maps. Her short hair shimmered around her green face like a halo.

‘There are people nearby,’ she said, her face bright with excitement. ‘A man, a woman and a child.’

‘How close?’

‘A short walk,’ said Havoc, her face growing serious. ‘I can show you.’

Ephemeral looked to Crocus, who shrugged. ‘Quickly then,’ she said. ‘And let us be as quiet as possible.’

Havoc led Ephemeral and Crocus away from the relatively solid area where the sisters had made their camp into a wilder part of the swamp. Around them the last light of the day was a dirty orange, pooling in dribs and drabs on the brown water. The continual buzzing of the insects was growing louder, as though they sensed the coming of the night.

After a time, Havoc crouched low in the water, holding up one clawed hand in warning. Ephemeral narrowed her eyes and yes, there was movement ahead. Between the trees two adult humans were moving back and forth slowly, their eyes on the boggy water that came up to their shins. They both wore aprons that bulged at the bottom, and, as Ephemeral watched, the female one bent down and plucked something from the water, placing it carefully inside the wet apron.

‘What are they doing?’

‘They are collecting these,’ Havoc retrieved something from within her own pack and passed it over to Ephemeral. It was a fat pale lump, hard to the touch. ‘They grow in deep places in the swamp.’

‘What do they do with them?’ asked Crocus. Ahead of them a child had now come into view, obviously less interested in harvesting than its parents.

‘They eat them,’ said Havoc. When her sisters looked at her incredulously, she shrugged one shoulder. ‘Try it.’

Ephemeral sniffed the lump cautiously, before nibbling one of its tumour-like protuberances. It tasted like water and dirt and mushrooms, and yet there was a deep, savoury undertone that made her want to keep on eating. She passed it over to Crocus, who took a large bite.

‘We could probably move closer,’ said Havoc. ‘They could not smell us from where they are.’

Indeed, humans didn’t seem to be able to smell anything much, but even so, Ephemeral felt her stomach tighten slightly. Too well, she remembered how the girl in the red cloak had screamed. She remembered the face of the knight who had come to them in the darkness and killed so many of her sisters.

‘This is close enough.’

The child was jumping about now, taking big exaggerated steps to cause the biggest possible splashes. The male human raised his voice, and although they couldn’t make out the words, Ephemeral sensed distinctly that the child had been admonished for her behaviour.

‘Do you remember being small?’ asked Crocus in a low voice. ‘Do you remember being . . . not what we are now?’

Ephemeral looked at her sister. She was watching the child intently, her yellow eyes following her every movement.

‘I remember the birthing pits. Although it is hazy,’ said Ephemeral. This was not something she had thought about in a long time. ‘I remember closeness, the sense of you all, pressed in around me. The heat of our mother’s fires. The bare flesh of the rock.’

‘I remember being half formed,’ said Havoc. ‘A sense of being incomplete.’

Ephemeral nodded, pleased that Havoc had found the words she could not.

‘It is like the frogs before they are frogs,’ she said, thinking of the tiny animals she had held in her hands. ‘Before they are frogs they are strange things, with no arms or legs. They are unfinished.’

The two adult humans were starting to move away, their aprons heavy with collected tubers. The child was hanging back, apparently unsatisfied with the layer of mud she had already accumulated.

‘We were finished when the blood awoke us,’ said Crocus.