The Pilgrims

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 …’

They gathered in the room’s far corner while Anfen snored deeply at the other end. ‘He’s out for a good while yet,’ said Loup. ‘But these are his rules we’re about to break, so hush or we’re in it, deep. Here’s the story. We’re taking a quick nap. Anfen, he don’t understand visions, thinks it’s risky.’ Loup looked suddenly angry, twisting his whole face into a curdled bunch of wrinkles and beard. ‘Oh aye, can be, but so’s taking a step outside at night. And you can’t stay inside all your damn life, just cos you might kick your toe out there!’

‘Easy …’ said Sharfy, a hand on his shoulder.

‘Oh aye.’ Loup nodded. His face uncreased, his toothless smile returned. ‘Who’s to say? We might just learn stuff that’s useful. Aye, you sometimes do.’

‘You’ve done this before with black scales, right?’ said Eric.

Loup stared into the distance. ‘Once. Girl who did it wouldn’t say what she saw, but she was … different, after. Glad she went, oh aye. Went on for big things, that one, riches and power. Whether it was what she learned in her vision, or what she’d have done anyway, not for me to say. I miss her.’ He sighed, eyes distant for a moment. ‘Black visions fade too, sometimes. Might just pass out and wake up, see the vision itself sometime down the track. Hope you’re not riding a horse or walking a ledge when you do!’ He turned to Sharfy. ‘You done red ones and green ones, aye? Done gold?’

‘Not gold,’ said Sharfy. ‘Done purple, bronze.’

‘Aye, bronze! That’s wild enough, there’s your out-of-body. Still, let’s see what black puts you in for. Rare treat, a black one!’

‘Let’s start,’ Sharfy said impatiently. ‘Eric, spare a pinch?’

Eric opened the small leather pouch.

‘Some red in mine,’ said the soldier, taking a small battered pouch from his pocket, inside which was a tiny amount of ground red-white powder, fine as table salt.

‘You and your mixing. Pure black for me,’ said Loup, gums glistening. ‘And enough left over, Eric, for more down the track, if you’re wanting. But don’t you do it without me there to help you! Not without risk, oh no. And now listen close, so you know what we’re about to do. We’re about to put in our bodies, in our minds, a little piece of the Dragon itself. Fathom? This little scale, all crushed up, still a little bit alive, is made of the great god-beast’s very stuff. Full of secrets, it is, and knowledge.’

By opening the leather pouches, it felt like whatever they were about to do had already begun, that they’d slipped already into some heavy moment that could not reverse course in time. Loup set down four cups before him, three empty, one filled with water. Sharfy’s ugly scarred face eagerly lit up, reminding Eric suddenly of goblins and inviting a moment’s doubt he resolved to ignore.

Loup poured a dribble of water in the other three cups, pinched a small amount of black powder and added it, stirring each in turn with his gnarled finger. Eric’s cup got the greatest share. He couldn’t tell if this was a courtesy to him, as the finder of the scale, or whether Loup had other reasons.

‘It’s a kind of knowledge minds like ours can’t hold,’ Loup continued. ‘Unless you think your hands can hold a mountain. You get half a thought of It — not even! A flicker of noise across Its sleeping mind — and your mind, why, it’ll bend just trying to hold it. Just a few grains of Its scale, that’s enough. And it’ll send us through the very sky, brain all full of the same magic that made the world.

‘The red, if you must mix,’ Loup said to Sharfy, who added a pinch of red scale to his cup. ‘When I say,’ said the magician, a glint in his eye, ‘drink it up. Simple as that; hard part’s the crushing. Takes the strength of a mountain to crush up even an old piece of Its skin. Drink, then we’re away. See you beyond, and Eric, I’ll give you a push over there, if you need it. Drink now!’

His mouth was full of grit. He managed not to gag, but it was a battle to swallow the mix. He fell back, hands to his throat as his airways seemed to close off. From the corner of his eye, he saw Sharfy doing likewise, then rolled his head the other way, where Loup — Loup just watched him, eyes gleaming.

Then he woke to the folk magician shaking his arm. It was dark. ‘Awake, at last!’ Sweat ran into Loup’s beard and covered his torso. A more relieved face Eric could hardly imagine. He sat up and groaned.

‘He’s back!’ Loup stood and did a little dance, elbows cocked.

Eric’s head felt like it had been put through a washing machine. ‘What happened?’ he slurred. ‘How long’ve I been out?’

‘Hours,’ said Loup, smiling. ‘I thought you’d slipped away for good! That can happen sometimes, you know. Spirit goes out of body, sometimes don’t find its way back. Happens more’n you might think.’

Eric looked at him in disbelief. ‘Thanks for the warning.’

‘Ah, you were safe with me right here. What’d you see? Gave you a push over there, but I lost you after that.’

‘I don’t know what I saw. A lot.’ He thought back, sifting through the pictures like trying to recall an old dream. It fell through his hands the second he reached for it, then was gone. ‘Something to do with Kiown and the others …’

‘Pff, I saw that. Right at the start, that was, before I gave you a push higher up. Don’t you bother with that old news. What else?’

‘Nothing. My head’s completely blank.’

‘Ahhh! She’s faded on you!’ Loup regarded him thoughtfully. ‘You’ll see it. It’ll come, likely some night before sleep, not far from now. Means you was showed something you’re not meant to see just yet. Maybe given some instruction, but your head can’t know what it is, or you might think to do otherwise! Gotta be felt right down in your bones, whatever it is.’ Loup’s gummy smile was so close Eric could smell his sour breath. ‘I followed you in. Out my own vision, into yours. Good at that, I am. Not all mages can do it. Not even the old schools, who thought they knew it all. Lingering around, you was, all confused, so I gave you a boost up high. Meant to follow you, then something grabbed you. Whoo! Did it what? Oh aye, grabbed you hard and yanked you away so’s I couldn’t see. Didn’t want me to see whatever was meant for your eyes! More to you than there seems, don’t you doubt it. And here, you’re just back now!’ Loup laughed and shook Eric’s arm like they’d shared a grand joke.

‘He’s back?’ Sharfy came in and crouched by Eric’s mat. ‘What’d he see?’

‘Nothing yet!’ said Loup, growing more excited. ‘He’ll see it when the Dragon wants him to. Could be a day from now, could be a week or more. Knew it, I did! It was all meant, that whole group of things: him finding the scale, me crushing it up, now the vision. What else? Maybe all of us being here in this very house, and whatever comes next, good or bad. As It wills! Anfen’s being a fool.’

Eric lay back — whatever he’d been through had made him sleepy. ‘So, the boss found out.’

‘Yep,’ said Sharfy. ‘You were out too long. He twigged you weren’t just sleeping. Not happy with us. And if anything goes bad in the next few days, it’ll be our fault. You watch.’

‘What was your vision like?’ Eric asked Sharfy.

‘Not saying,’ Sharfy answered, face grim.

‘Ah, he blames the black scale,’ said Loup, grinning wide. ‘That pinch of red’s what did it. Warned you about mixing, I have. Sometimes gives it a kick, but black scales don’t need a kick. Skewed you to a bad place, eh?’

‘Not saying,’ Sharfy repeated, and he seemed a little pale.

Anfen came back inside. He quickly examined Eric as though for physical injury, but said nothing. ‘Ready to hear me out now?’ said Loup. ‘I’m telling you, I saw something important. Real or no, you should hear it.’

Anfen shook his head and kept tensely silent over on his mattress, running a dead stone over his blade.

‘He’s not happy,’ Eric whispered.

‘Nope. That was a fine sword of his, and that Invia snapped it like a stick,’ said Loup. ‘Eskian blade. Heck, it made me sad, wasn’t even my sword.’

‘I get the feeling that’s not what’s bothering him,’ said Eric, though he marvelled again at the often scattered dots Loup managed to connect.

‘He’s got to understand something about us,’ said Sharfy. ‘We’re never gonna be like his old unit was. Not as disciplined, never will be. We can scrap all right, survive in the wild. We got the balls to come on a mission like this in the first place, can keep our mouths shut about where we been, s’long as they pay us what they promised. That’s going to have to be enough.’

‘How high up the chain of command was Anfen, in the army days?’

‘First Captain, rank below General,’ said Sharfy. ‘Youngest ever to make that rank, best swordsman around, in his day. There’s a tournament, Valour’s Helm. Use blunt wood swords so no one’s killed. Best sent in from all cities, best from the castle. Week long, it runs, whole lot of smaller tournaments before it to pick the cream. Even Free Cities send their best, kind of a truce. Anfen won it four years running.’

‘Three,’ said Loup.

‘Three, four, may as well be ten. No one won it twice, before him. He’s nearly a decade older now; I reckon he’d be a chance to win it still.’

‘But you’d give him a good fight, wouldn’t you?’ said Loup, grinning.

Sharfy considered this question very carefully. ‘When I was younger, maybe I’d make him sweat, but he’d win. Now he’d cut me up in three seconds, if I really went at him.’

‘And I might,’ Anfen said from across the room. ‘Among my virtues is uncannily good hearing. I was waiting for you to add it to your list.’

Sharfy winced.

‘Valour’s Helm was pointless,’ muttered Anfen, running the dead stone over his blade with aggressive tugs: scrape, scrape, scrape. ‘You said it yourself. Blunt wooden swords so no one gets hurt. Three years running I was best at wielding a piece of tree barely fit for firewood. Some of those others would have spilled my guts on my shoes with their own swords.’

Anfen tossed the sword aside as though afraid he’d be tempted to vent his anger by using it. ‘You think I’m pining for elite soldiers, Sharfy,’ he went on. ‘Not really. It’s common sense not to do magic rituals when a powerful mage stalks your company. And to tell your leader when you’re being followed by one. Siel knew, Loup knew, even Case knew before I did. And let’s not even mention Kiown’s idiocy at the wagon train, which was so stunning I’m almost in awe. Would you people think about this, please? In my pocket is a charm, with a message on it that may change the course of all history: they have shown us their fear and their weakness. All we have to do is get this charm back to the Mayors. Not to mention two Pilgrims with heads full of priceless knowledge. Yet, we are extremely lucky to be alive right now, and not in castle dungeons being slowly tortured. You of all people, Sharfy, should be wary of that.’

Sharfy’s face darkened, jaw clenched.

‘If this were the army,’ said Anfen, ‘the castle’s or a city’s, on a campaign with one hundredth as much at stake, most of you would be headless in a roadside ditch. And I’d side with the officer who did the cutting.’

Siel gave Eric and Sharfy a look that said, maybe you should just keep your mouths shut. So they did, and soon Faul bade the birds good night.