The Unmaking (36 page)

“We have sworn an oath!” said Emyr. “The battle with Nia was always Malferio’s, not ours. We are well rid of it. Let the witch and the Sorceress settle matters between them alone.”

“What of the Mancers?” Jalo pressed on. “I volunteer personally to lead a small group of Faeries to Di Shang. Perhaps we may recruit some witches or wizards to assist us and try to break the Curse upon them. This need not be an official mission, but rather one that is close to my own heart, as it will lead to the protection of my friends. May I have your permission to do this, your Majesty?”

“Jalo!” exclaimed Nikias. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

Alvar responded gravely. “Why would Faeries help Mancers, Jalo? There has never been friendship there. It is best you stay here. There is much to do in building this new kingdom and we could use a fine mind such as yours.”

“I beg you to reconsider,” said Jalo stiffly, directing his words to Emyr rather than Alvar. Alvar looked annoyed and stepped back, shooting a hard glance at an anxious Nikias.

“It is not in our interests,” said Emyr simply. “The humans should leave and let that be the end of it. You should concern yourself with Faery matters, as befits your rank. Enough trouble has come to us from relations with outsiders.”

“Your Majesty,” began Jalo, his throat suddenly quite dry. “Think of the havoc Nia’s victory will lead to...”

“I have spoken, Jalo,” said Emyr harshly, leaning forwards. “Do not shame your mother and father by asking me again for what I have already refused.”

Nikias looked quite alarmed by this. Jalo bowed deeply and left them.

~~~

Nell could see as soon as Jalo returned what the outcome had been. She grabbed his hands and looked up into his sad, handsome face.

“So they willnay help,” she said. “But
you
can help us, Jalo. Take us to the Hall of the Ancients. We can rescue Swarn, aye, get her to the Citadel. It might still be possible.”

“I dinnay recommend going anywhere
near
Nia,” said Charlie. “We need to get to Di Shang quickly, find Eliza, and bring her back here where she’ll be safe.”

“I agree,” said Jalo unhappily. “I fear there is little we can do for the witch. And I think your Sorceress friend will have to keep a low profile here. Outsiders are going to be particularly unpopular for a while to come.”

“We cannay abandon Swarn. She’s our friend too!” cried Nell. “Sort of, lah. We dinnay need to fight Nia, just grab Swarn and get out of there.”

“She’s made her choice, aye,” said Charlie. “She went to fight Nia on her own.”

“It’s the wrong choice!” Nell shouted at him. “She’ll be killed, and there will be nobody to help Eliza, nobody to free the Mancers. We have to help her.”

“I’m with Nell on this one,” Ander spoke up firmly. “I dinnay know the witch well, but we’ve made a journey together and I know you dinnay leave your comrades to get killed.”

Nell realized she was still holding on to Jalo’s hands and let go. “We need to leave right away,” she said.

“Even if she is still alive, I don’t see how we will help Swarn,” said Jalo a little peevishly.

“You’re a Faery, lah,” said Nell. “Dinnay you have any powers?”

“Illusion won’t work against her, because she wears the King...Malferio’s blood,” said Jalo. “I suppose I could try a Curse.”

“What kind of Curse?”

“I don’t know. Blindness, Terror...”

“What about both? Blind and terrify her and we’ll whiz off with Swarn, aye.”

“She would break my Curse. She is very strong,” said Jalo.

“But praps not soon enough!” said Nell. “All we need is a little time.”

“She’ll strike before he gets the Curse out,” protested Charlie. “You dinnay know anything about Nia, Nell. We cannay best her.”

“Then we arrive once the battle has begun,” said Nell. “She’ll be busy fighting Swarn. We surprise her with a Curse she wasnay expecting, then fly like mad for the Crossing.”

Ander looked at her admiringly. “You’d be good in the military, aye,” he said.

Nell grimaced at that. “Will you do it, Jalo?” She saw him hesitate and added, “You’re nay afraid, are you?”

Jalo stiffened. “If I can be of service in any way, it will please me greatly.”

Nell looked at Charlie.

“If it goes wrong, I’m nay staying to fight,” he said. “I’ll head straight for the Crossing to find Eliza, and you’ll be with me.”

She wanted to hug him, but something held her back. She nodded her head. And so it was settled.

Chapter

~21~

S
warn had returned to the marsh for her weapons
, where she saw firsthand the devastation Nia had wreaked. She could not kill Nia, who had the immortality of the Faeries, but she could make her suffer and she meant to. With a curt word, she put out the enchanted fire that still smouldered on the ruined house and then searched the smoking rubble for her two best spears and her bow and arrow. She had hoped to arrive at the Hall of the Ancients before Nia, to prepare herself, but the journey was long and it was late morning on the day they had appointed when she left the dragons in the mountains and sent them east. They were the last of the dragons of the cliffs of Batt, the fiercest race of mortal dragons in Tian Di. She would not risk their lives in this battle. Alone, she began the long trek up the mountain.

When she arrived it was close to nightfall. The Hall of the Ancients loomed on the peak, far above the swirling sea of cloud, a dark stone tower inscribed with runes and ancient symbols. Its entrance ways were various, many of them secret, unseen by those who did not know them. But Swarn knew the place well, knew the rune to touch that would open the base into a door. She made her way along the cool, dark tunnel to the inner wall, which parted before her with a groan. She stepped into the circular Hall. Nia was already there, her tiger pacing restlessly. From the grottoes above, worn statues of the Early beings looked down on them – Dragon, Faery, Mancer, Mage, Demon, Man and Beast.

“I was afraid you weren’t going to come after all,” said Nia. “And what about your dragons? You haven’t brought them?”

Swarn heaved one of her spears straight at Nia, immediately followed by the other. The first was too quick for Nia to dodge but she caught it, staggering backwards with a gasp. The second she managed to avert, but she could not immediately break or cast aside the other
–
it stuck firm to her hands. Swarn raised her bow and sent a volley of arrows at Nia, who broke the spear and raised up a barrier. The first arrow drove through the half-erected barrier and caught her in the shoulder. Swarn closed her eyes and her ears, shut off her worldly senses to protect herself against Illusion. She had to rely on her instinct. She took an enchanted knife from her belt and hurled it. She felt it knocked aside, hitting no mark. It skidded back to her across the stone floor. She could feel Nia’s Magic pressing around her, seeking to disarm her, but Swarn’s weapons were powerful and her control of them absolute. The spear that Nia had dodged returned to her hand. She felt Nia move, swiveled accordingly, and hurled the spear again. Nia caught it and struggled with it. Fearing she might break this second spear too, Swarn caught up the knife on the ground before her and dove into Nia, knocking her backwards. They landed hard on the floor, Swarn on top, the spear between them pressing into Nia’s ribs. Swarn resisted the temptation to open her eyes, to smell or listen. Her knife was inches from Nia’s face, but Nia had a grip on her wrist and the grip burned. Never mind. Swarn had been burned before, and badly. This was nothing to dragon flame.

“I will cut that pretty face off before you kill me,” Swarn hissed. “For Audra, for Rea and for the dragons.”

The tiger was upon her then, tearing at her arm with its powerful jaws. She switched the knife to her other hand, swung it towards the tiger’s neck, but before she could cut its throat a tremendous force threw her back towards the wall. She struck it hard and all the air went out of her, but she managed not to drop the knife. For a moment her senses burst open, but the instant she smelled fire she clamped them shut again. She felt Nia approaching with the spear, wrestling with its Magic. She wanted to use Swarn’s own weapons against her, just to show off, but it would take her time to pervert such strong enchantments and this was to Swarn’s advantage. Her right arm had been torn badly by the tiger and was of little use to her now. With her left hand she hurled the knife again towards Nia. The arrows had come back to her quiver. Blocking the pain from her savaged arm as best she could, she fired off a second volley, these ones toward the tiger, but they were all sent off course and the knife too clattered to the ground. Swarn felt her concentration clouding and quickly repelled the Confusion. Slow, she was slow not to have known it was coming before it began. She lunged forward, laying hands on the spear Nia held. For a moment they wrestled for it and, because the spear was hers and all its power yearned towards her, Swarn won. She tried to drive it into her enemy but her hands began to fumble it suddenly. Again she had to pour all her power into fending off the Confusion.

“You look silly running around with your eyes closed and your face all pinched that way,” said Nia. “I don’t
have
to use Illusion, you know.”

Swarn felt something hurtling towards her. She opened her eyes and saw only a fog, thick and white, and then the thing struck her and she crashed to the ground, stunned. It was one of the carvings come loose from the wall. The stone head of a dragon.

“The Ancients would call it sacrilege,” rasped Swarn. “You murder their Oracle, desecrate their temples, destroy the Hall they built!”

“The Ancients don’t
care
,” Nia replied, and another great statue, this of a Mage, broke free of the wall and flew across the Hall, slamming into Swarn. The Confusion pressed hard against her mind. She forced it out, and as she did so she was struck yet again. This time she felt her ribs cave in beneath the blow. She gasped for air and pain shot through her. She accepted the pain this time. She could not hold off the pain as well as the Confusion. Somehow Nia had her spear again and she wasn’t sure how it had happened. With all her will she tugged it towards her, and it pulled Nia to her. She wrenched the spear away.

“I
will
kill you with your own spear eventually,” said Nia in her ear. “The only question is how close to dead you’ll be when I get to it.”

Swarn cleared her mind with an agonizing breath. It was nearly hailing slabs of stone and statues now. She locked her mind on one and caught hold of its flow, swung it round towards Nia. It shattered in the air before it struck the sorceress and Swarn felt a crushing blow to the back of her neck. She was flat on the stone floor, and opened her eyes without meaning to. Flames sprang up around her. She leaped above them, hanging onto her spear, which hovered in the air at a gasped command. Balancing on her spear, she reached into her pocket and hurled a sleeping powder at Nia. Nia brushed the potion from her, but it slowed her for a moment, and Swarn’s spear shot from under her, straight for Nia’s heart. She tried to dodge it but wasn’t quick enough and the spear went through the same shoulder that had taken the arrow wound. Nia cried out in rage and pain as the spear’s enchantment coursed through her bloodstream. Without her spear to stand on, Swarn had plunged into the flames below, but crawled free of them, rolling over to put them out. She could smell her own flesh sizzling.

Nia wrenched the spear from her shoulder, shuddering violently. She tried to hurl the spear at Swarn but it would not go, so she battered the witch with stones, half-burying her in them. Dazed, Swarn lay beneath the heap of rock and for a moment she could not move. It was all the time Nia needed. Clutching the spear with her two hands, she fought it to the finish. It broke with a thunderous clap and she gave a yell of triumph. Swarn was slowly, painfully, pulling herself out from under the rubble. The Confusion came upon her so quickly and powerfully that it took her whole. She fell back, bewildered, lost. Nia smiled, then heard her tiger growl warningly. Something large and white was flying towards her, and she heard the words of a Curse. Her vision began to cloud and a thread of icy fear wove its way into her blood. A Faery. She shook off the Curse with an angry shout, then hurled the bottom half of the broken spear into the myrkestra, which plunged straight to the ground, dead. The Faery rolled upright immediately, drawing his sword and beginning the Curse again. A dragon was coming at her from the other direction, pouring fire from its mouth. Nia pointed a finger in either direction and spoke two spells at once. She sent the dragon and its two passengers flying back into the wall and baffled the Faery’s tongue so he could not finish the Curse. The next instant, Jalo found himself bound with the same silver chains that Alvar had put on Malferio, and Charlie was no longer a dragon but trapped in the form of a cockroach.

“There,” Nia said a little breathlessly, smiling at Jalo and shrugging off the last clinging shadows of the unfinished Curse. “Isn’t it convenient I hung onto those chains, you naughty pactbreaker. Won’t your new king be cross when he hears what you’re up to?”

Nell was sprawled on the floor, banged up and winded from the dragon suddenly flying into the wall – this had not been in any way part of their attack plan. The cockroach scuttled to Nell’s side. She had not for a moment really believed they would fail – she didn’t have much experience with failure – and so she was slow to realize what was happening. Ander had spent a long time in the army, however. He had not really believed they would succeed and was quick to assess the new situation. He saw that Nia had neutralized the two new attackers who posed any kind of practical threat – the Faery and the Shade – and would now turn her attention to the witch. He knew what she would do even as she did it and he acted without thinking. The mission, after all, was to help the witch, to get her out of here. He was already up on his feet and running when the other half of the broken spear left Nia’s hand. He knocked it to the ground, picked it up and turned on the Sorceress. And then it was hard to say what happened, but the spear shaft was in her hand again rather than his and a moment later it caught him full in the chest. Nell could see the point of it come out his back, but it didn’t register, even as he staggered and then fell back amid the broken statues cluttering the ground.