The Finisher

VIGINTI SEX: Training Up

THE NEXT TWO nights, we practiced our flying. Well, I practiced while Delph hung on for his life. Finally, I slipped Destin off and handed it to him. He turned to run like a frightened Wug facing an amaroc.

“You have to try, Delph,” I said.

He turned back. “Why? You can fly the thing. All’s I need is to hold on.”

“We don’t know what might happen. You knowing how to do it by yourself is important.” He looked doubtful until I said, “You have to, Delph, if you want to come along with me.”

He gingerly took Destin from me. I had uncoiled the chain so that it was longer. Delph was wider at the waist than I was. I helped get it around him and snapped closed a metal hook I had fashioned and added to the chain.

He just stood there. “Now what?” he asked.

“Now what?” I said in amazement. “Delph, you’ve been flying with me for how long now? What do I do?”

“You either run and take off or you just jump,” he replied promptly.

“So don’t you reckon that’s what you want to do?”

“Should I run or jump?” he asked tentatively.

Males. You have to lead them to the water and then show them how to slurp it.

“I don’t care. Pick one.”

“And once I get up there, what then?”

“I’ve shown you, Delph. You know how to steer. You know how to land. Just do it like I did it.”

He backed up, got a running start and leapt. He flew straight and fast. Right into a large bush. I ran over and helped him out. He was coughing and his face was scratched from the prickly leaves.

“I can’t do this, Vega Jane. I’m no good a’tall. Me feet belong on the ground.”

“Yes, you can too do it,” I said firmly. “Now, when you run and leap, point your head and shoulders upward. Then you won’t hit the bush again. To turn, you point with whichever shoulder is in the direction you want to go. To head higher up, point your head that way. To come down, point your head and shoulders down. Right before you land, swing your feet down and you’ll land upright.”

“I’ll bash my head in.”

“You might,” I said. “But if you do, I’ll put it back together and you can try again.”

He looked at me dubiously. “You cannae put no smashed head back together.”

I took the Adder Stone out of my cloak pocket and waved it in front of his face and thought good things. The scratches there vanished. He backed away, looking fearful.

“What is that thing?” he exclaimed.

“It heals, Delph. Scratches and smashed heads. Pretty much anything.”

“It can do that?”

“Yes, it can,” I replied, though I had no actual experience with fixing smashed heads.

On his fourth attempt, Delph soared into the air, flew for about a quarter mile, made a long, if ragged, bank, turned back toward me and landed. On his feet. He was so excited at his success that he snatched me off the ground and whirled me around at such a fast pace I thought I would be sick.

“I did it, Vega Jane. I’m like a bird, I am.”

“A very big bird,” I replied. “And put me down before I vomit on you.”

I decided to show Delph the Elemental. When I first pulled the tiny spear from my cloak pocket, wearing my glove, it was not very impressive to him. And considering it was barely three inches long, I could hardly blame him. But when I focused my thoughts and asked the Elemental to return to its normal state, it grew in my gloved hand to its proper length and assumed its dazzling golden color.

Delph exclaimed, “How in the bloody Hel does it do that, Vega Jane?”

“It doesn’t matter to me how it does it, Delph,” I said. “It’s only important that it does it when I need it to.”

He reached out to take it, but I stayed his hand. “Only with this, Delph,” I said, holding up the glove.

“If you touch it without the glove, what happens?” he asked.

“Neither one of us wants to find out, do we?”

He slipped on the glove and hefted the Elemental. I looked over at a tree about thirty feet distant. “Think in your mind that you want the Elemental to hit that tree. Then throw it that way, like a spear.”

Delph looked doubtful, but he scrunched up his face — which was a bit comical, though I hid my smile — took aim and let fly.

The Elemental traveled a few yards and then dove into the dirt. Delph looked over at me, smiling. “Cor blimey. Is that all it does? Har!”

I took the glove from him, picked up the Elemental, thought about what I wanted it to do and let it fly. The tree disintegrated in a flash of light when the spear struck it. I held out my gloved hand, and the Elemental flew back to it, like the hunter hawks I had seen Duf training up.

Delph had thrown himself to the dirt when the Elemental hit the tree. When he looked up, I gazed down at him with what I hoped was a sufficiently patronizing look.

“No, that’s what it does, Delph. Har!”

Soon, Delph could hit just about anything with the Elemental. I didn’t know if it would be necessary when we tried to pass through the Quag, but I didn’t know it wouldn’t be either.

Late that night, Delph and I sat at my digs in front of a meager fire while Harry Two snoozed at our feet. Making up my mind, I stood and said, “Now you need to see something.”

“What?”

I slid my trousers down.

“Vega Jane!” he exclaimed, looking away, his face as red as a raspberry.

I ignored this and lifted up my tattered shirt and my shirtsleeves, exposing my belly and my arms. “Look, Delph. Look.”

“Cor blimey, Vega Jane,” he said, his voice shaky. “You gone mental or what?”

“It’s not what you think, Delph. I’ve got my under thingies on. Look!”

He slowly turned his head back. His gaze ran up along my legs to my belly and up my arms. His jaw fell. “What in Noc’s name is that, I ask ya?”

“It’s the map through the Quag. Quentin Herms left it for me. He had it on parchment. But I was afraid to keep it, so I inked it on my skin.”

He drew closer. “The way through?”

“And I’ve memorized all of it, Delph. But you need to as well.”

“I wouldnae b-b-be staring at your … at your Wu-Wugness,” stammered Delph, turning away once more.

I frowned. “Well, you’re going to have to, Delph. If you want to go. We both have to know the way, just in case.” I held up the Quag book. “You well know what awaits us in there.”

For the next thirty slivers, Delph studied the marks on my skin as I walked him through the map of the Quag. I would do this for as many nights as possible until the directions were firmly entrenched in his brain. As the slivers passed, Delph’s eyes slowly closed. Soon he was snoring in his seat. I lowered my shirt and drew up my trousers, sat in my only other chair and looked through the book on the Quag.

Harry Two whimpered a bit at my feet. I looked down and thought he might be having a bad dream. I wasn’t sure if canines could dream, though I didn’t see any particular reason why not. And anyway, Harry Two was quite a special canine.

I slowly turned page after page in the book, taking in as much information as I could. Quentin Herms had been as meticulous in documenting the Quag as he had been making pretty things at Stacks. But the things he had documented and re-created in these pages were not to be taken lightly. On nearly every piece of parchment there was something that could kill you. Like a creature that was three huge bodies attached. And while you might be able to cleave them apart, the book warned that Woe be to the Wug who forgets that destroying one part of the thing does not equal victory.

But there were some beneficial creatures as well, including something called a Hob that would help you so long as you gave it a small gift each light. Cheeky blighter, I thought, trading kindness for coin.

I finally closed the book and peered into the fire. One smoldering log caught my attention. Its bark was reddened, nearly transparent because of the bite of flames. My grandfather and my parents — swallowed whole by fire.

But it was my grandfather who had initiated the flames. He had wanted to go. Morrigone was imploring him to stay. And he had gone anyway. And now my parents had gone too. And perhaps they had done so because they wanted to leave as well.

Which meant they had chosen to leave us. No, to leave me.

Well, I could not burst into flames to leave Wormwood, but I could go through the Quag to do so. For now that was my overriding obsession. To leave Wormwood and find my grandfather and my parents, because they were not dead. They were simply no longer in Wormwood. Which meant they were somewhere else. Which meant there was somewhere other than Wormwood.

Now another emotion seized me and I sat down on the cold stone floor and did something I almost never did. I started to weep. I rocked back and forth. I hurt all over. Almost like I had been swallowed by fire myself. My skin felt burned and blackened. I was gasping for breath, so hard was I crying. It was like I had saved all my sessions up to let it loose now.

I was startled when I felt it.

The big arms wrapped around me. I opened my eyes and there was Delph sitting next to me, holding me and weeping along with me.

Harry Two had awoken as well. He had sidled over to us and was inching my hand up with his snout. Trying to make me look at him. Probably trying to make me feel better. But it’s hard to feel better when your entire family has left you.

And done so by their choice.

“’Tis okay, Vega Jane,” Delph said into my ear, his warm breath tickling my skin. “’Tis okay,” he mumbled again.

I touched his hand to let him know I’d heard. But it would not be okay.

Nothing again would ever be okay.

But come what may, I was going to leave this place.

Because I had come to learn that while Wormwood was full of many things, the truth was not one of them.

And the truth was what I needed.

I had nothing else left.