Dead Stars - Part Two (The Emaneska Series) (6 page)

‘You cannot travel with us. That sort of magick is god-trickery. Your journey is by foot, cousin.’

‘You rest tonight. You will need it.’

Samara fidgeted, as if eager to prove herself that very second, right there on that mountaintop. But the daemons were having none of it. As they began to fade back in the mists, as their bodies began to deliquesce and trickle into the darkness, their voices rattled the shale. ‘We will be watching,’ said Hokus.

Valefor’s grin was the last to fade. ‘Sleep tight.’

And so it was that Lilith and Samara were left staring at the gathering darkness, a fire of stones and a sticky silence between them. The girl pondered her frustration, her unsteady future, her looming task, and the fate of failure, while Lilith contemplated her own doom, knowing she had just leapt a little closer to it.
The far north
, she quivered.
Anywhere but there
.

She remembered an old phrase she had once heard from a drunken sailor. He had crossed her palm with coin, and she had cast his stones in the pipe-smoke air of a bilge-ridden tavern. He had been sacked from his merchant ship, given a bottle of wine for his troubles, and cast into the city. Lilith had asked him the reason behind his sacking. His gruff, addled answer had been two simple words that at the time, she hadn’t understood.

Surplus to requirements.

All of a sudden, Lilith understood him perfectly.

For a while, neither of them spoke. Samara kicked at the rocks and fought off unconsciousness while Lilith stared at the fire. Night descended on them and their mountain, and soon they were stranded in a black void, with only the odd flames and their twisted shadows for company.

‘You’ve got no respect,’ muttered Samara, finally.

‘Now you know how it feels.’

‘They’ll see you dead, if you keep acting like that around them.’

‘I’m touched by how much you care.’

‘Don’t care one inch for your skin,’ Samara coughed. ‘I may need you, is all,’ she added quietly.

‘You forget, girl, that I am a seer. I know my journey, even if I can’t see yours. Don’t you worry. I’ll make it jus’ fine to the north. Those daemons won’t touch me,’ she whispered, stretching out on the shale, feeling her old back click and moan. She found her pack and the thick, square object hiding in it. A book crammed with bloody pages.
Her insurance
, she inwardly sighed. That’s what it had been designed to be, when all this was over. A little bargaining power, a little something to stave off her fate. Keep her in blood for a little longer. Fat chance of that now. Not if they were heading north. She’d brought up the child, done her work. Now she was baggage, being dragged to the place she’d avoided for years, to an ice field, to black rocks, to a dripping knife… she shuddered as the old vision flashed through her mind once again.
So soon…

Samara shrugged. That was all the sentiment she had to offer, it seemed. ‘You just watch your tongue around them. And don’t be dragging me back, either. This is a race now.’

Samara ended her sentence by booting a flat pebble into the black void. She didn’t hear it land and Lilith didn’t reply. She had nothing to say to the little girl and her callous words. After all these years, she’d grown quite accustomed to them.

With a frown and a curse, Samara lay down on the shale, and finally gave in to her exhaustion. The darkness of sleep quickly took her. Only one thought wandered through her mind before she slipped away.

It was a thankless task, bringing the world to its knees.

“You can put a sailor on dry land, but you’ll never turn his gaze from the sea.”

Old Arka proverb

‘I
’m not used to men throwing up at the mere sight of me, but as I know how you tend to react to ships, I’ll let you off.’

The words floated to Farden on a murky sea of darkness, muffled and adrift. There is a fine line between dreaming and waking, and Farden found himself straddling it. Sleep sucked him downwards, while the orange light sneaking through the slits of his half-cracked eyes bore him up. He felt like a man halfway into a warm, and not entirely unpleasant, bog.

A hand gently pressed on his chest, and he was slowly brought back to the world of the living. Wood was the first thing he saw, staring down at him. Still wreathed in the remnants of his dreams, the sleepy-eyed mage could imagine faces in the knots and whorls of the oak beams, like the faces in the candles he used to carve. They wrinkled their faces at him.

‘Farden,’ said a voice, and another face came into view. This time it was a real one. Lerel stared down at him, a faint hint of concern on her features. There was also a hint of impish humour there too. ‘Did you hear what I said?’ she asked.

‘You look different.’ Farden squinted at her. This was not the Lerel he knew from his crumbled memories. Not her at all. Her dark hair was shorter now, cropped and cut close to her jaw-line and neck. The tips of her ears peeked through it. Rings of silver and gold hid there. He looked down at the hand resting on his scarred and sweaty chest. He looked so pale against her nut-brown skin. The Paraian tattoos on the back of her hand led a swirling path up her arm, slipping under her shirt, and blossomed across her neck, like fingers of ivy. Another reached down from behind her ear. Desert script. Newer than the rest.

Her mahogany-brown eyes roved over his grizzled and gaunt face. He imagined the same expression being worn by a merchant assessing a rusty antique. She sniffed, her nose wrinkling for a moment. Still as feline as ever. ‘Fifteen years will do that,’ she said.

‘Lazy,’ he mumbled.

Lerel smiled. ‘What did you say?’

‘It’s what I used to call you,’ he said. ‘In a room just like this one. On a similar voyage. When you were a cat.’ It felt as though he had lived three lives since then. A foreign time, misty, rusted.

‘I remember,’ Lerel reached below the bed with her other hand and produced a wooden bucket. It was empty, for now. ‘See?’ she asked, with a wry smile.

Farden groaned. He took a deep breath, rubbed his eyes, and ran a hand through the matted mess that was his beard. ‘How long this time?’

‘Barely a day,’ she answered. She leant closer to wipe a patch of sweat away with a cold towel. Farden couldn’t help but flinch. His skin was hot. ‘Tyrfing told me. It’s the nevermar again. Not just seasickness.’

‘Mmhm,’ hummed Farden, avoiding the answer.

‘Well, looks like you sweated most of it out for now,’ she said, wiping her hand on a nearby towel.

‘I just need to rest.’

‘No, you need a bath. And a shave. And some food. And some good sea air.’

‘I’m allergic.’

‘To which one?’

‘To all but the food.’

‘You’re a liar. Get up.’ Lerel slapped his chest lightly with her hand. Farden tried not to show that it hurt. His skin was so thin and sensitive. It felt as though she was made of thorns.

‘Fine,’ he winced. He made a little circular motion with his finger, and she nodded.

‘I know, I know.’ She went to stare at the opposite wall, impatient hands resting on her hips. Farden took his time getting up. He had no choice. Dizziness pounced as soon as he raised his head. He squinted at the bucket and told himself no.

With a throaty groan and a lot of effort, Farden arranged himself into a sitting position and put his bare feet on the soft floor. It took a moment to realise that it wasn’t wood that his toes were kneading, but thick carpet. ‘Gods,’ he muttered. ‘Carpet. This ship must be special.’

‘Done yet?’ Lerel moved to turn around but Farden grunted for her to stay still. A shirt had been left on the end of the bed. Red, like Lerel’s. Like the ship’s uniform. He stiffly put it on.

‘Finally,’ she said, as she heard the mage get to his feet. His head nearly brushed the ceiling. ‘This way, come on.’

Farden had no choice but to follow. She opened the door and pushed him out into the corridor. ‘My boots?’ he asked, tossing his little cabin and bed a forlorn look, as they were dragged away from him.

‘You don’t need boots in a bath.’

‘Oh for f…’

‘No arguments, mage. You smell like we just caught you with a hook and line.’

‘He smells worse than that,’ called Nuka, from the end of the long corridor. The barrel-shaped man filled its whole width. He wore a wide grin. ‘I’ve had to batten down the hatches. Keep the men from mutiny.’ He leant casually against the wall, with one foot tucked behind the other. ‘When you’ve shown that stench to his bathing, I need you at the charts, m’dear. You know these waters better than the rest of us.’

‘Aye, Cap’n,’ replied Lerel as she shoved Farden down another corridor.

‘Aye, Cap’n?’ echoed Farden with a smile, as he was nudged and prodded towards his soapy doom. ‘Charts? You’ve really taken to this sailing thing, haven’t you?’

‘As I said, fifteen years is a long time. There’s a lot you’ve missed,’ she replied. Farden might have been mistaken, but there could have been a tinge of regret, or perhaps the tiniest hint of resentment in that reply. He stayed quiet until they reached the bathroom.

It was a square affair, no bigger than his cabin, and no different either, save for a wide copper tub sitting right in its centre. Steam choked the air. The smell of soap and cleanliness made his nose itch.

‘The door locks from the inside, so nobody will disturb you. Take as long or as little time as you want, but if you come out smelling the same as you went in, I’ll have your uncle come below-decks to show you how it’s done,’ she said, hands on hips yet again, stern, yet subtly playful. Farden shook his head.

‘Yes ma’am,’ he said, and began to close the door.

Lerel leant forward. ‘And Farden?’

‘Yes?’ he poked his head out of the door. Lerel gave him a quick kiss on his cheek and then grimaced as she was stung by his matted beard. She rolled her eyes and began to walk away.

‘I’m glad you’re back,’ she called over her shoulder.

Farden watched her until she disappeared around the corner, a bemused smile on his grizzled face. He locked the door as she’d instructed and turned to confront the dreaded bath. He shrugged off his shirt and dipped a finger in the steaming, soap-slick water. Vials of perfumed oils and scrubbing brushes had been left on the side. The mage shook his head.

‘Fine,’ he sighed, and hoisted himself into the near-scalding water. As he melted into it, he could almost feel the dead skin and dirt flaking away. He let his eyes droop and his body sink. It had taken a decade to get him into a bath. Oh, how he had missed it.

In the end, it was a probably a miracle he didn’t drown. When Farden awoke nearly two hours later, the water was almost ice cold and his skin had shrivelled to a prune-like texture. He quickly hoisted himself out of the tub, muscles shaky and unsure of themselves.

Farden wobbled his way to the door, threw on a robe, and shuffled down the corridor. The ship was alive with noise. All around him the creaking of a ship at full speed sang in harmony with the roaring and hissing of waves sliding over wood and iron, the orders of the officers, and the occasional
whump
of something going on above decks. Farden pulled his robe about him and found his way to his door. It was unlocked, and the room empty.

Somebody had put a pile of fresh clothes on his pillow. Not his usual sort of wear, but all he had. His old clothes were nowhere to be found. In all likelihood, they had been tossed overboard. The folded pile shivered and twitched as Farden reach for it. Farden caught sight of a tail and seized it, hauling a large rat out from a trouser leg. The mage peered at its furry features. ‘Whiskers,’ he muttered, once he was satisfied it was indeed his rat. He was on a ship after all. Nothing goes together like a rats and ships. How glad he was that he had remembered to bring him, hidden in his cloak pocket.

Farden placed Whiskers back on the bed and got changed into the crisp, scratchy clothes. Ship’s trousers, the thick cotton sort, dyed a dark red. A cold white shirt with too many buttons. Thick socks that hugged his damp feet. A pair of black leather boots with waxy laces. A cloak, the sort he liked, with a low black hood and pockets upon pockets. Farden put it all on.

He discovered a razor underneath the pile of clothes. It was the cut-throat kind, with an ivory handle. It had a curly
T
carved into its handle. Tyrfing’s. Farden twiddled it around in his fingers while his other hand ran around his face and neck, pulling at the wiry strands and long locks. Farden pulled a face. A clean start needed a clean shave. It was a small decision, but, like ants, they often carried the most weight.

Farden cast about for a mirror, grimacing at the thought of facing his reflection again, but thankfully he found himself without. He used his towel to dry his face and then began to carve away the thick black hair that had infested his jaw and cheeks. Whiskers teetered on his back-legs, watching the wisps of black hair fall to the wood. Farden winced with every tug of the blade. He’d imagined a blacksmith, of all people, would have kept his razor sharp.

It took half an hour of scraping and grunting, but in the end he got every last hair his calloused fingers could find. He ran his hands around his sore, reddened face and pulled a strange smile. He didn’t need a mirror to know it looked better.