The Blood Debt (6 page)

‘I’ve got it,’ she said, grateful for the opportunity to think about something else. Rummaging in a closet, she wrapped up two small vials in a leather bag and tied her hair in a short pigtail. She picked up her favourite walking stick, one which Sal had carved with simple but potent charms for strength and endurance out of a piece of near perfectly-straight driftwood. The charms sparkled with the Change irrespective of how the light caught them. ‘I’ll be home soon.’

Outside, the sun had begun its lazy drift across the westward quarter of the sky, and she walked with it at her back. Tom had moved the buggy into the dunes, where it would be less conspicuous, and she gave it a wide berth, even though she had no reason to be afraid of it. Buggies were rare in Fundelry; few travellers used them, and the town’s mechanic spent most of his time repairing fishing boat engines and water pumps. This one was an efficient Sky Warden machine, made of black metal and brooding like a disgruntled spider on wheels. Big enough to hold four, it seemed to glower at her as she passed.

‘Be patient,’ she told it. ‘You’ll be on the road again soon enough.’

Then she was hurrying through the dunes to the rendezvous point, a dry creek bed halfway between the workshop and Fundelry. She went into town only when she absolutely had to, and made sure Sal charmed her appearance thoroughly before she did. Her and Sal’s friends knew how to find them, but no one else did. Or so she had preferred to think.

Long-limbed Thess and her young son sat under the shade of a spreading eucalyptus, playing a game involving Thess’s hair and the boy’s small fingers. The sound of Gil’s laughter brought a smile to Shilly’s face. Gil’s father had drowned in a fishing accident the year before. The five-year-old had been uncommunicative since.

‘I hope you haven’t been waiting long.’ Shilly kissed Thess’s cheek and sat next to them, stretching her bad leg out before her. Gil looked up at her, wide-eyed, then shied away. They were as dark-skinned as herself and Tom; on the Strand, Sal’s light skin was the exception. ‘It’s been a complicated morning.’

Thess beamed. ‘We’ve had fun. Haven’t we, Gil?’

‘Mmm,’ said the boy, discovering a sudden interest in the ants exploring stringy bark on the far side of the tree.

‘I have some of the sand I told you about,’ said Shilly, putting the first of the vials into Thess’s lap. ‘Put this in little Gil’s shoes and the itching will go down in a couple of days.’

‘Thank you. I —’

‘And this one’s for you.’ The second vial contained a yellow powder that shifted smoothly, like a fluid. ‘Half a teaspoon in water every morning and I promise you’ll notice the difference. I tried it last week, and —’ She mimed an explosion of energy.

‘Shilly, thanks, but —’

‘It’s the least I can do. I know it’s been a long haul for you.’ She pressed Thess to take the vial. ‘I’d advise against taking this forever, but it’ll help get you out of this rough patch.’

‘I think I might already be out of it.’ Thess dropped her voice. ‘That’s actually why I called you.’

‘Oh?’ Thrown off giving the spiel she had memorised from Lodo’s notes, Shilly stared at her older friend, really looking at her for the first time. Gil wasn’t the only one of the pair sporting a more cheerful demeanour. Understanding suddenly dawned. ‘Not that fisherman!’

Thess shushed her so Gil wouldn’t overhear. ‘Yes.’

‘What was his name? Boone? Boden?’

‘Booth. Last night —’ Thess’s voice dropped even further in volume. ‘He stayed all night. I haven’t woken up with a man beside me for an awfully long time. It felt good.’

Shilly gripped her friend’s hand. ‘I’m glad for you. I am, truly.’

Thess affected a measure of nonchalance. ‘Oh, things will be complicated. Gil doesn’t know yet, and I don’t know how he’ll take it. His father’s family, too, could be tricky. But I’m not doing this for them. It’s for me, and I want it to work.’

‘I’m sure it will.’ Even if it lasted no more than one night, Shilly would regard it as worthwhile. The glow surrounding Thess was palpable.

‘Well, that’s why I wanted to talk to you. Aunty Merinda gave me a tonic, but it’s been giving me terrible headaches. She said that you might know something better, to keep any, um, awkwardnesses at bay, until I’m ready.’

Thess glanced at Gil, who was engrossed in the antics of a gecko he’d disturbed. Her meaning was obvious. Aunty Merinda, the local weather-worker and fortune-teller, was also the chief dispenser of contraception to Fundelry’s womenfolk. She had taught Shilly everything she needed to know long before Sal came to town, and provided valuable advice after the fact, when they had been two young people flung together by circumstances as well as by the bond growing between them. Shilly had been glad for someone trustworthy to talk to, if nothing else.

‘I think the headaches relate to the dose, not the substance itself,’ she said, thinking carefully. She didn’t feel entirely comfortable dispensing advice of this nature, when a single mistake could change the course of a person’s life. But she was flattered that Aunty Merinda thought her capable of offering it. ‘I’ll look into it tonight.’

‘Thank you.’

‘There could be a problem, though,’ she went on, the words hard to come by because the notion was still so new to her. ‘Sal and I are leaving. I don’t know how long for. You’ll have to do without us. Can you tell the others?’

‘Of course.’ Thess examined her closely. ‘Is everything all right? You haven’t been found, have you?’

‘Oh, no,’ she lied, hoping her uncertainty didn’t show. ‘Everything’s fine. We just need to help someone. It won’t take long, I hope.’

Thess looked barely mollified. ‘We’ll miss you. We’ve been spoilt, having you so close for so long. The town won’t know what to do when your charms wear off and all our chimneys block again.’

Shilly felt a rush of affection for her friend, and found herself spontaneously embracing her, clutching her as tightly as she would the mother she had never known. Thess’s warmth was soothing, as was the rich, womanly smell of her. Strong hands gripped Shilly’s back; silence enfolded them, and she was somewhat reassured that all
would
be well.

On the way back to the workshop, Shilly reflected that, although their packs might be light, she and Sal were rich in other ways. They had friends and accomplices all through the town; they helped out in myriad small ways, from purifying water to treating minor ailments; they were making progress in working out how they fitted into the world. They
would
be missed, just as she would miss her home.

The greatest treasure they owned lay in their heads and their hearts. Nothing could take that away from them, no matter where they went or what they did. Golems and ghosts had tried in the past, and failed; Highson Sparre’s Homunculus — or whatever it was — would fare no better.

* * * *

Later that night, when Tom had fallen into a heavy sleep broken by the occasional snore, Sal removed himself to a dark corner of the workshop and squatted on the earthen floor. Their evening meal — rabbit fried in local spices with a side dish of seeds and nuts marinated in honey, washed down with a glass of clear white wine that had been given to them a year ago by a grateful customer — roiled in his stomach like surf on the sands. He had to try something before giving in to his fate.

Shilly had been busy all evening, rummaging through Lodo’s recipes and old notes; some last-hour concoction, he presumed, that they would deliver when they set out the next morning. Even now she fussed and bothered among Lodo’s tools.

Sal closed his eyes and blotted her out. She was still there, but he wasn’t paying her any attention. He did the same to Tom and the rest of the workshop, until he was just a point of awareness floating in the blackness behind his eyes, breathing slowly and deeply.

When he had the rhythm right, he began to visualise.

He stood on the boundary between sea and land, but it was no ordinary beach. The sea glowed like the sun and the land was molten with power. The air crackled. He breathed deeply of it, and strength filled him. His skin felt as transparent as glass, as hot as a lantern left burning too long.

Highson Sparre,
he called,
where are you?
He pictured his true father’s face as he had last seen it: brooding eyes, broad features, skin as warm as dark honey. He took the lines of those features and bent them around a simple charm. The world was seeping into him with every breath. Wherever Highson was in the world, the charm would help him to know of it. He poured all his energy into the effort.

Highson, save me the trouble of leaving and answer me!

A fluttering of wings distracted him. The face dissolved. A burning bird with bones of charcoal circled him, trailing flames. A sea creature made of stone surfaced from the fiery ocean and landed with a crash. He irritably waved them away with a flex of his will. They were symbols: the sea of the Sky Wardens, so familiar to him in his everyday life but always a reminder of his fugitive status; the bedrock of the Stone Mages, who had sent him back to the Strand rather than shelter him from his enemies. That he routinely bypassed the usual teachings and went straight to the source, the borderland of stone and water, fire and air, proved that they were conventions only, and neither essential nor dangerous to cross.

They had, however, successfully distracted him. No matter how he tried, he couldn’t quite reassemble Highson’s image. It eluded him. Or the charm refused to accept the image, and he could only think of one reason why this might be so: if his father was no longer in the world, then the charm would never work no matter how hard or often he tried.

A black sun rose over the burning sea, casting rays of darkness across the land. Burning bird and stone sea creature fled before a rolling hum that grew louder the longer Sal persisted. He knew that sound. He had heard it too many times to ever mistake it. It came from the Void Beneath, and it meant that he was trying too hard. He retreated immediately, unravelling the illusion as he went. The hum faded back into the ebb and flow of his breath, and the darkness of the black sun became the red-tinged oblivion of his closed eyes. The charm dissolved.

It was odd, then, that the feeling that he had been getting close to something remained. Not to his father, but to the tear that had opened in the world, somewhere ...

‘No luck, huh?’

He opened his eyes to see Shilly watching from a position directly in front of him. Time had flown.

The glowstones she had been working by were yellow and dim, almost depleted.

‘No,’ he said, unfolding his legs.

‘Worth a try.’

He sighed. The thought of leaving made his insides tremble with both excitement and fear. And now he was tired, too. He should sleep. They would get precious little of it over the next few days.

‘I keep remembering Larson Maiz,’ he said. ‘How must it feel to die of fright? I don’t want that to happen to anyone I know. To you.’

She reached out to cup his cheek. ‘We all die someday, Sal. Yesterday’s people are tomorrow’s ghosts. And we can’t stay hidden here forever.’

‘I know, but ...’ He stopped, unable to find the words to express what he was feeling. ‘We’ll have to be very careful.’

‘Don’t worry about me, Sayed,’ she said. ‘Or yourself. I’ll be so terrified nothing will get within a hundred metres of us without me noticing.’

Her face was just visible in the yellow warmth of fading glowstones. Her words did reassure him, even though he knew that, like himself, she had little idea of what they were heading into.

‘I love you, Carah,’ he said, knowing that she returned his love as fully as it was offered. Whatever happened, he could depend on that.

* * * *

When he finally slept, he dreamed of the road moving under him as rapidly as the wind, as it had for most of his life before coming to Fundelry. Dafis Hrvati, the man he had thought was his father — who had raised him and loved his mother; who had protected him when she was taken from them by the Syndic and imprisoned in the Haunted City; who had brought him to Fundelry in a vain attempt to save him from his wild talent; who had died at the hands of the Alcaide in order to set him free — rode alongside him. His tanned, weathered hands firmly gripped the steering wheel. He smiled at Sal, and winked.

Sal woke with tears on his cheeks. The feeling of loss lingered,’ and grew stronger as their journey began.

* * * *

The Magister

‘There is power in blood, just as there is power in

air and fire, water and stone. No one would deny

it, but only the most desperate would use it, and

even then not willingly their own.’

THE BOOK OF TOWERS,
FRAGMENT 195

hu led Skender up a staircase that circled a central column no wider than his head. It was difficult to talk, and he had plenty of questions. His knees and back were getting stiffer with every turn around the spiral. As a result, his frustration levels were high and rising.

‘What does this place have to do with mining?’ he called to her.

‘Wait and see,’ returned her muffled voice.

He ground his teeth together and kept climbing, trying to work out the solution to the puzzle. Her reticence on the subject of his mother was almost total. Apart from sly hints and digs at his ignorance, she had very little to say at all, even about their deal and the so-called ‘freedom’ he was supposed to help her attain. She wandered the streets of the walled city without restriction and no one questioned her or got in her way; she seemed, on the face of it, to be as free as he was.

‘You’ve been down in the caves,’ she had said to him as they left the coffee parlour and headed off through the winding streets. ‘Did you notice any sign of digging?’

He hadn’t, but he’d been looking for signs of his mother, not evidence of the city’s mineral wealth or lack thereof.

‘You’re lucky you didn’t stumble across one of the sewage channels,’ she told him with a malicious chortle. ‘Then you’d have seen first-hand what we normally use the old tunnels for.’