He began to stand up, and the irks attacked.
There were only a dozen of them; desperate, and brave, and ferocious.
When the rush was cleared, the captain found that the armoured man at his back was Ser George Brewes.
The flagon of water was still unbroken by a miracle. He took a swig, spat, and handed the jug to Ser George.
Ser George leaned on his sword. ‘Feg,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘Irks. I’ve heard of them.’
The captain just panted.
‘Like killing children,’ Ser George said.
The whole sky was a pink-red. Another rock crashed to earth off to their left.
‘You really think we can hold?’ Ser George asked.
‘Yes,’ the captain wheezed. He’d taken a cut on the back of his shoulder. He could feel the blood mixing with his sweat. I need to learn to heal myself. It was trickling down his side – warm, instead of cold.
Why? Why did she turn her back on me?
He made a face.
‘It would be something,’ Ser George admitted.
‘Yes,’ the captain managed.
Toby – unarmoured and unarmed – had survived the rush from the irks. He’d simply run away. Now he was back.
‘I’ve food,’ he said.
His scrip was packed with beef, bread and good round cheeses and Sauce’s men-at-arms fell on him like scavengers on a carcass. His head was patted a dozen times. He had a meat pie for himself. But he always seemed to.
Sauce moved among them. ‘Drink water,’ she said, as if they were children and turned to the captain. ‘Think they’ll try again?’ she asked.
The captain shrugged, and the weight of his armour and the pain in his shoulder defeated the motion completely. So he bobbed his head. ‘No idea.’ He took a deep breath. His breastplate seemed to be too small, and he couldn’t catch his breath. The smoke in the air was burning the inside of his lungs.
It was a very small working, an insidious thing. He saw it as soon as he made the effort.
The air was full of a poison. He couldn’t even see how it was done.
Sauce started to cough.
Harmodius! He called.
I see it, lad.
Do something! the captain shouted in his head.
Lissen Carak – Amicia
His shout came to her as clearly as his anguish.
She was working on Sym’s back, running her hands along the weels left by the lash, and trying to fix some of the deeper issues, as well. The captain’s thoughts were not helping her concentration.
She reached out instinctively. It was in the air. Poison. She read it from his thoughts.
She tasted the air through his mouth, and felt it through his lungs.
She was in him.
Then he slammed his gate shut.
She was standing over Sym, with her hands clenched into fists. Shaking.
Captain! She sent.
He responded.
It’s an unhealing. A curse.
Tell me.
You cannot banish it. You can only heal it.
Another voice. The Magus. I see! Well thought, mistress.
Now it was her turn to raise her defences. Get out! She said it aloud too.
Sym looked at her.
‘Not you, silly,’ she muttered.
Lissen Carak, The Lower Town – The Red Knight
The captain could feel the poison thickening in the air and he didn’t know how to heal. Although now that she showed him, he could see it.
A curse.
The physical manifestation of a curse.
He went into his tower. ‘I need help,’ he said to his tutor.
She smiled. ‘Ask me anything,’ she said.
‘A curse. A physical curse – a poison in the air.’ He went to the door to his tower.
‘He’s waiting for you to open it,’ she said.
‘I think he’s busy, and a lot of people are going to die if I don’t act.’ He reached to door.
‘If it is physical, perhaps we can move it physically,’ Prudentia said. She smiled sadly. ‘I don’t know healing, either.’
‘That’s a fine thought.’ He looked up at his symbols. ‘Wind,’ he said.
‘Yes,’ Prudentia agreed.
He spoke the names. ‘St George, Zephyr, Capricorn,’ he said, and the great ranges of symbols rotated silently.
He touched the door.
He could feel the enemy, and he opened it anyway.
And slammed it back shut.
Lissen Carak – Sauce
The wind came up without warning – first a heavy gust that cooled them, and then a mighty rush of air from the east.
Sauce drew a shuddering breath.
‘Get a scarf over your face,’ the captain shouted. ‘Anything.’
The wind moved the poison – but he could still smell it.
And then he felt the sending. It was gentle as snow, and just for a heartbeat the air seemed to sparkle all around them, as if the world was made of magic.
Lissen Carak – Harmodius
Harmodius watched the Abbess’s working and he could only think of Thorn’s statement that men were too divided.
It was beautiful. The sort of mathematical Hermeticism that moved him the most deeply. In it were the rotations of the planets and the paths of the stars across the heavens. And many other things, thought and unthought . . .
‘You are far more powerful than I had imagined,’ Harmodius said.
She smiled. Just for a moment, it was the Queen’s smile.
‘Who are you?’ he asked.
‘You know who I am,’ she said it playfully. She rose from her seat. ‘I think Thorn will find it very hard to use that trick again.’
Harmodius raised an eyebrow. ‘Trick?’ he asked. ‘It wasn’t Hermeticism. It wasn’t a working. Not as I understand them.’
‘There are more things on heaven and earth than are in your philosophy,’ she said. ‘He uses the deaths of the irks to fuel his curse. It is a very, very ancient way to power magic.’
Harmodius nodded in sudden understanding. ‘But you-’
‘I stand for life,’ the Abbess said. ‘Me, and my God, as well.’ She smiled sweetly. ‘He will not be back for some time. I need to speak to a novice. Pray excuse me.’
Harmodius bowed. As she swept past him, he said, ‘Lady-’
‘Yes? Magus?’ She paused. Her attendants paused, and she waved them on.
‘If we linked, lady-’ he said.
She made a moue. ‘Then you would know all my innermost thoughts. And I yours,’ she said.
‘We would be more powerful,’ he insisted.
‘I am already linked to my novices. And to all my sisters,’ she said. ‘We are a choir.’
‘Of course you are,’ Harmodius said. ‘Gads, of course you are. I’m a fool.’ It was obvious, when she said it. Forty weak magi would still be very powerful indeed, together. But it would require incredible discipline.
Like monks.
Or nuns.
‘I will think on it,’ she said. She smiled.
He watched her go, and then sat beneath the apple tree.
Chapter Thirteen
Thorn
Lissen Carak – Michael
The Siege of Lissen Carak. Day Eleven
The captain took the watch to support our garrison in the Lower Town – a small fortified bastion at the base of the ridge. The Enemy has constructed siege engines – catapults and trebuchets – to attack. Because of the rage of our engines atop the fortress, and because we can launch sorties from the fortress through the streets of the Lower Town, the captain says that the Enemy must take the Lower Town first.
He made two attempts, but both resulted in heavy losses of creatures of the Wild. We lost not a single man or woman yesterday. The Abbess called on the Power of God and defeated the Enemy’s poison air. Many men felt lighter at heart after she prayed.