‘You too, miss. And thanks for the drink.’ Case wiped away a tear, and wondered why he’d shed it. She’d vanished, but her voice came from the gloom: ‘Be safe, Otherworlder.’
32
The next day brought more hours of sword craft in Faul’s lonely back yard, surrounded by scattered man-sized knuckles of obsidian black stone. When they were done, every part of him ached and some little cuts crisscrossed his forearm where Sharfy’s sword had come a fraction too close. They sat for a breather by the back steps. ‘Who’s going to teach me magic?’ Eric asked.
Sharfy’s reaction surprised him with its vehemence. ‘No!’
‘And why not?’
‘Want to risk going halfway mad?’
Eric laughed. ‘Look, life as I know it is forfeit. Understand? You guys won’t let me go back and read comic books or get laughed at by co-workers ever again. Yeah yeah, I know what you’re going to say, how it’d be impossible even if you wanted to. The point is I am not thinking long term here. I am thinking: what kicks can I get before something bites my head off in a week’s time? To be able to cast a spell, an actual spell, would almost make it all worthwhile.’
‘Make what worthwhile?’
‘Having to see all the dead bodies I’ve seen, we’ll start there.’ Sharfy surprised him by laying a hand on his arm gently. ‘If you don’t already have talent, no one can teach you. You’d know if you had talent because you’d see magic in the air. If you don’t see that already, you won’t learn to cast. Don’t be sad about it. If I had talent, I wouldn’t learn. If you learn, they come hunt you, unless you’re like Loup is, and can stay out of their way.’ Sharfy contemptuously flung the army-issue sword to the ground. During their session he’d cursed the weapon nonstop.
A flock of birds suddenly erupted from the woods’ line of dark green in the distance to their right, with a faintly heard explosion of shrieks and squawks. ‘And what might that be?’ said Sharfy, standing and reaching for the sword again. No one had mentioned the horror of the doomed hunters’ hall since they came here, but they hadn’t forgotten it wasn’t very far away.
Loup suddenly barrelled down the back steps, an excited grin across his face. ‘There they are! There’s our dancing mages! Hoo! She’s back on our tail all right. Far Gaze doesn’t know what to make of her either, you watch!’ Loup jogged off towards the woods, peering at distant things none of the rest of them could see and hopping from foot to foot with excitement. Sharfy ran after him and tried to get some idea what in blazes he was talking about.
On the other side of the yard the man of the house, Lut, was watching Siel push along a wheelbarrow full of bark strips he used for brewing. At that moment she evidently tired of all this toil and hurled the cart sideways, spilling its contents across the ground. She ignored the man calling her back, instead storming directly towards the back steps.
Eric watched her come. ‘These people are feeding us,’ he said. ‘Maybe we should earn our keep.’
‘I’ve earned it by risking my life for weeks,’ she replied, tugging on both braids at once, to indicate extremely pissed. ‘It’s not the work I hate, it’s his blathering. The man won’t shut up.’
She sat heavily on the step beside him. He began to speak but she cut him off: ‘Shh! I have something to say to you and I’m thinking of how to say it.’
‘Fine.’ He waited, watching Lut pile the bark strips back onto the wheelbarrow with much angry talking to himself and headshaking.
‘You’re to be a hero,’ said Siel at last. ‘Good. Do you think learning to use a sword is going to be enough?’
Eric looked at her in surprise. ‘Maybe not. But I’ve asked to learn magic as well-’
‘Do you think magic is going to be enough?’
‘Enough for what? To beat them?’
‘Yes to beat them,’ she snapped. ‘They have magic, so do we. They have swords, so do we. Anfen is a better swordsman than most, though you have only seen him lose a fight to an Invia so you may not believe it. He is not enough to beat them. So even if you could wield a blade like Anfen, and cast like the Arch Mage, would that be enough?’
Another flock of birds erupted from the line of trees. Out in the yard Loup cheered like someone watching a horse race. Eric said, ‘Obviously not, by the way your questions are headed. You’re saying we’d need a lot more such people. How do you propose to get them? I’m trying to become Anfen. It’s why I have these.’ He showed her the cuts on his forearms.
She slapped the step in frustration. ‘Listen! What do we have that they don’t? What weapon, what tool to use, what thing to fall back on, what map to guide us which they are missing? You heard what I told of their history! They do anything they want. They stop at nothing. They kill, steal, kill, lie, kill.’
Now he got it. ‘Principles. Values. We have principles. They don’t.’
She turned to him, brown eyes wide. ‘Yes! Case is usually wrong, but he has them. Do you?’
He was taken aback. ‘Of course I do.’
‘What are they? I’ve heard you betray your friend’s confidence, telling us of his lust for Stranger when he left the room.’
‘Anfen needed to know it-’
‘Yes, he did. So betraying your friend’s confidence was the useful thing to do. Was it right? You lied to my face without batting an eye. Yes, you were scared, but you also wanted to use my body again, and you kept up the lie for days. I waited, I gave you a chance to see there’d be no danger in telling the truth. But you didn’t.’
‘Hey, use your body? Who seduced who?’
She hadn’t seemed to hear. ‘You explained why you lied but you never said sorry. You just panted after me like a dog all through the woods, greedy for more meat.’
There was nothing he could say in his defence, other than: ‘Siel, please, what the hell brought this on?’
‘I’ve looked into your mind and heart and seen nothing there. It scares me.’
Tears slid down her cheeks. He didn’t get a chance to recover from his shock and answer before she’d stormed into the house and slammed the door behind her.
Loup and Sharfy returned, the magician muttering excitedly. ‘They were close! And fighting hard. We’ll see how that works out. Far Gaze isn’t the greatest mage who ever lived, but he’s no weakling. She must be something, that one he’s dancing with! Oh, aye …’
‘Are you sure Anfen’s sleeping in there?’ Sharfy asked him.
Loup nodded, grinning. ‘Out like a blown candle. I even blessed his sleep, so his dreams’ll be peaceful, not full of blood and guts, the poor lad.’
‘Now’s the best chance we’ll get,’ Sharfy whispered, the addict again creeping into his face. ‘How long’s a black-scale vision take?’
‘Depends,’ said Loup. ‘Maybe he’ll go out of body. They got some kick, the black ones.’
Eric barely heard them, too busy replaying Siel’s outburst, trying to find which parts he should accept and which he could debate. Point taken on the lust, but given the stress and circumstances, perhaps a little slack could be cut. As for betraying Case’s confidence, I don’t quite see her point … He came back to the present. ‘Out of body? Does that mean what I think it does?’
‘Means what it sounds like,’ said Sharfy. ‘Body stays here, you don’t. Looks like you’re sleeping.’
‘Where would I go?’
‘Past, future, present, maybe somewhere else altogether,’ said Loup, smiling toothlessly. He lowered his voice as Lut strode past with a crunch of boots on gravelly turf, still muttering angrily about young people’s lack of respect for the land. ‘I heard of people who went to Otherworld, and further places besides,’ the magician whispered. ‘Whatever happens, you’ll see stuff, you believe it.’ He leaned close, eyes gleaming. ‘I heard how you found that scale. No one just finds a black scale like that. That’s meant. Dragon meant you to have it. Why you think I crushed it up like that? I knew It wanted this. It didn’t just want you trading for a few passing treasures. So let’s go inside and see what It wants you to see …’