Dead Stars - Part One (The Emaneska Series) (32 page)

Loki raised an eyebrow. ‘For somebody to try to hang you?’

Farden shook his head. ‘For the day when Kiltyrin would give me an excuse.’

‘I see. And how exactly do you expect to get into the Duke’s castle undetected, and have enough time to kill all four of them without raising the alarm? That’s assuming he’s still in this Tayn place, and not elsewhere?’

Farden stared at the quiet flames of the fire. ‘He’s in Tayn. He thinks I’m dead, and therefore has no reason to move. Like I said, the rest I’ll figure it out as I go.’

Loki sighed. ‘And how do you plan to escape once you’ve retrieved your precious Scalussen armour? It would be a terrible waste of time for you to make all this effort to get your armour back, only to die again on the castle steps.’

Farden looked up at the god. He was mimicking Farden’s exact pose: cross-legged on the sand, knees tucked into his elbows, hands clasped around his bowl.
Why send this one, of all the gods to send?
He didn’t seem wise, or ancient, or powerful, or inspiring. He spoke more like a jumped-up stable-boy than an immortal. ‘And what do you know about my armour?’ asked the mage.

Loki rolled his eyes. ‘I’m a god, Farden. Don’t insult my intelligence.’

‘I wouldn’t dare,’ Farden sullenly replied. ‘I’m sure I’ll come up with something.’

But Loki was persistent. ‘And what are you going to do after it’s over? What are you going to do for coin? It’s an expensive habit you seem to have adopted,’ he said with a nod towards the shed.

‘I’ll take what I’m owed from the Duke. I survived before, I can do it again.’

‘I can’t imagine you really settling down with Traffyd and his wife and living the farmer’s life. You might as well keep killing for coin,’ said Loki. Farden wondered if he was trying to antagonise the mage, but he seemed serious enough. He was staring at the stars and counting their shapes.

‘Served me well so far,’ mumbled Farden.

‘And I take it you won’t be using your magick?’

Farden shook his head very quickly and very firmly. ‘No.’ If the mage was a curse, a disease, then his magick was the root of it. Even now, when he most likely needed it the most, the stubborn mage refused to even think of it.

‘I imagined you wouldn’t. It’s a shame, to see such skill go to waste, and especially at a time like this, when it could probably come in handy.’

‘I said no,’ insisted the mage.

‘Well then, I suppose you might be needing these,’ Loki said. He tapped his bowl on a nearby chunk of driftwood, slipped it back into his coat, and got to his feet. The mage didn’t move. He and Whiskers just watched warily. Still with his hand in his coat, Loki crouched down beside Farden. He rummaged for a little while, eyes distant and thoughtful as eyes tend to be when the fingers are doing the looking. Before Farden could ask what on earth he was doing, Loki produced his first item. ‘Mistfrond,’ he said, dropping a strange object on the sand. It looked like something halfway between a pear and a pinecone, but was a reddish pink in colour, and had furry spines that curled around it. Whiskers moved to sniff at it and quickly retreated. Loki explained while he continued to search his pockets.

‘From the shores of the Ghast Sea in the distant east. Grows on a single tree on a single beach each year, and a different beach every time. If you eat it, it will give your skin a fog-like quality, yes
fog
, not frog, for a short while. Makes you very hard to see. It also makes you violently ill, so use carefully.’

Next came a little vial of brackish liquid. Farden wrinkled his lip at it. Loki looked up. ‘Beggarbeet sap. I’m surprised you didn’t see this stuff in Paraia. It smells worse than anything you can imagine. Might be useful.’

‘How?’

‘You said you’d make it up as you went along.’

Loki then dug out a length of ship’s rope, crusted in salt, a long yet impossibly thin dagger for doors and their locks, a hat with a mop of blonde hair sewn into its hem, and two pages that looked as though they had been ripped from a spell book. Farden nudged these warily. ‘I told you. No magick.’

Loki ignored him. ‘A few magick markets discovered a little while ago that burning certain spells had the same effect as reading them out loud. It’s not a popular trend, seeing as it involves the burning of some very expensive books and paper, but for those who can’t manage the feel of magick, it’s perfect. These are light spells. Specifically, bursting spells. They’ll blind anyone.’

‘Where did you get all this stuff?’

‘I told you, I’ve a habit of finding things.’

Farden shook his head. ‘And why should I trust you?’

Loki left his things in a pile by the mage’s knees and returned to his spot on the other side of the fire. ‘Because, mage, you need all the help you can get. You could barely walk twenty miles today. You shake every time you think of your armour.’

Farden resented it, but he was right. He could feel the weakness lurking inside him, as though a leech had wriggled its way to his heart and was gorging itself. It stung to accept the help of the god, but he had to. ‘Fine,’ he said. He gathered the god’s supplies and then got to his feet. As if to prove Loki’s point, his legs wobbled unsteadily. ‘But don’t you get to thinking I’m in debt to you for helping me. Or for saving my life. I didn’t ask for either,’ he said, as he walked away. Whiskers looked up but stayed by the fire.

‘You don’t ask for a lot of things, Farden, and yet they come to you nonetheless. Fate, I believe you humans call it. Besides, I’m just protecting my investment. How exactly am I supposed to deliver a message to a dead man?’ Loki called after him.

For some reason, and despite the warm breeze, Farden shivered as he walked back to his little shack. ‘Don’t worry. I died once. I don’t intend to do it again any time soon,’ he said.
All he needed was his armour back.

Loki waited until he was almost at the door of the shack before asking his last question. He knew the mage wouldn’t answer, but he asked it anyway. ‘I understand blaming us gods for your misfortune. I understand blaming your magick too. I even understand seeking out this sort of life, and burying your past in solitude and nevermar. What puzzles me most of all, mage, is why would somebody who lives like you want to live forever?’

Farden hovered at the door. He felt no anger at the question, no shame, just an intense feeling of puzzlement. After a moment of silence, listening to the breeze and the undulating sea, he stepped indoors and slammed the rickety door behind him.

Farden took a moment to stand in the middle of his dark shack and look around. The faint orange glow of the fire outside threw a little light through the windows. The mattress in the corner beckoned to his tired legs and leaden eyes. The corner of a little cloth bag poking out from under the stove beckoned as well. Farden let himself move toward the latter.

Bending down, hearing his knees click, Farden slid the cloth bag from its hiding place and looked inside. The bag was emptier than he remembered. He looked at the mattress, then back at the bag. He would regret it tomorrow, he knew it, but for now… His body and mind itched to feels its numbing claws, its warm glow, to banish his bothersome thoughts. It had been over three weeks, and his body was crying out for it.
Maybe just a little
, he thought. No pipe, just the good old fashioned way…

Farden stuck his fingers into the bag and pinched a grape-sized amount. Rolling it between his fingers he tucked it between his teeth and his lip while he folded the bag away. He shed his cloak and went to his mattress. As he put his head on his pillow, he began to chew, and the room quickly melted into that foggy haze. That glorious numbness. His eyes drooped.

Suddenly he began to panic. His legs twitched uncontrollably and his chest clenched. A cold fist clutched his heart. Farden sat bolt upright and found a dribble of sweat coursing down his face. The nevermar had turned bitter in his mouth, and between erratic and panicked breaths, he began to gather it together with his tongue and spit it on the floor. Farden scrabbled to press himself up against the wall, and sat there, wheezing and coughing.

It took him several minutes to get his breathing back to normal, and even then his heart pounded like a war drum in his chest. No matter how many times he wiped it away with the back of his hand, the sweat kept coming. The dizziness from the drug blurred his vision, and no amount of blinking would make it go away. It was the feeling of dying all over again, Farden suddenly realised, and it terrified him to his very core. The numbness creeping over his body. Ice water washing his veins clean. Breath becoming slow, tumescent, laborious. Darkness lurking in the corners of his eyes. It was all there. It was horrifying. Farden shivered again, and slowly, ever so slowly, slumped into his mattress so he could curl up into a ball. Tentatively, he allowed himself to fall into a fitful, twitching sleep, full of dark mountains, screaming vultures, and a strange whistling sound.

Outside, on the beach, Loki was still staring at the slow-dancing stars. Some he squinted and narrowed his eyes at, others he sighed for. The fire was slowly dying. A faint finger of cold had crept into the breeze. Loki felt it, but he didn’t mind. On his right, Farden’s rat was crouched in the sand. His beady black eyes were glued to the back door of the shack, as if he were anxiously waiting for Farden to return.

‘What is it?’ asked the god. Whiskers glanced at him briefly and then looked back at the door. His whiskers twitched with every little breath he took.

Eyes fixed on the rat, Loki reached into one of his many mysterious coat pockets and this time he withdrew a little pipe. The musical sort, not the tobacco kind. He ran his fingers along its tiny holes, testing each one. Once he was happy he put it to his lips and blew a low note, one that seemed to swell and billow with the breeze and the hissing waves. The god let this note wander and waver for a minute before allowing it to fall away into the sand. Its lingering echoes were soon joined by a slow melody that seemed to skip and jump from each note to the next. At points it was slightly discordant and haunting, and then suddenly the notes would tumble over each other and gallop, and then slow again. Whiskers turned to watch the god play the little pipe, and then, as the melody ebbed and flowed, the rat rose up onto his haunches and began to dance. His tail flicked back and forth in the sand, and his tiny paws jabbed the air. Occasionally he would squeak along to the tune, and at other times he would close his eyes. Loki leant closer and played along to the rat’s strange little dance.

When he was finished, when the odd tune had faded, the rat settled back down. He watched the god intently. Loki nodded to it, as if thanking him for the dance, and then looked over at the shack, still faintly lit by the orange glow of the dying fire. ‘Didn’t know gods were born,’ he mused thoughtfully. He turned to face the sliver of moon loitering in the south. ‘Next he’ll be assuming we’re immortal.’

“A Written will serve the Arka and the Arka only.

A Written will never reveal his Book to another, nor allow it to be revealed.

A Written is forbidden to breed with Written, mage, or otherwise.

A Written shall not seek to use his powers against his fellow Arka.

A Written will serve the Arkmages, the Undermage, the Council, and the Arka with his life.

A Written, like any mage, is forbidden to consume the poison known as Nevermar.

A Written, if his Book has taken his mind, shall face permanent exile or death.

The penalty for breaking these rules is death by hanging, unless pardoned by the Council.”

The Rules of The Written - Updated Charter of the year 799

F
ar to the east, where the mountains slid into the sea, under the same sliver of white moon, Elessi was staring at the stars. It was a clear night over Krauslung; no clouds had yet been brave enough to come out and bare their nebulous faces.

The maid stood at the edge of the new Nest, one hand resting lightly on a marble branch while the other clutched a shawl about her to stave off the slight but cold wind. At least the oak under her bare feet was still warm from the day’s sun and from the rising heat from the Arkathedral below. Her green dress and apron did their best to keep out the wind. It was content to pester her long brunette curls.

Beyond and below her the city was spread out like a long bed of yellow coals. She had stared at the view for what felt like an hour, and now that her eyes had glazed over with deep thought, the scenery had melted into a single blur of black, bespattered with glowing whites and shades of gold.

Ilios slumbered behind her. As a creature of the desert, he was used to sleeping outside. He loved the fresh air. The Nest was perfect for him.

At first, Elessi had been petrified of the beast, but Tyrfing had shown her how gentle and calm he could be, and she had grown to trust him. In fact, she had grown to treat him like a big and clumsy cat, often scolding him for leaving feathers and fur all over the place, or getting claw marks on the marble, or generally getting in the way. Only Elessi could treat a gryphon like that. Only harmless Elessi could get away with it.