The Veil Weavers (14 page)

I discovered I could work and watch, so with my eyes focused below, my hands touched and healed. I reached in to the next tear and let magic flow through me. Soon, as I touched one broken end, the other would call out to me. I could reach a little further, a little higher, and it would be in my hand, longing to be repaired.

Slowly I found every place the nexus ring had crossed the veil, carried by Gronvald and Aleena, even Maddy and me. I rewove every tear at every doorway.

Then the ochre monster turned on me. I could hear her burbling:

Humans bad.

Human in veil.

Stop human.

Almost too fast to see, she lobbed a giant mud ball at me. It engulfed me, trapping my arms and legs, covering my face. I couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe. I fought down panic, and then tried to relax into it, to travel with it, like I’d travelled through the earth the last time I’d been in the magic world. Being ochre. Being mud. I didn’t need to breathe. I was the earth boy.

All connection to the crows fled – they were terrified of being buried alive. I was fine with it; I loved the deep magic in the earth. I settled into it, a thick, dark world. Then I heard the ochre monster again.

“Earth boy?” she burbled. “Human boy earth boy?” She paused, as if she was thinking about what this meant.

She knew me from when I’d travelled through the earth? She recognized me?

Earth boy touching veil.

Earth boy.

She stepped up to me as I hung in the veil, and gently sucked off the mud, pulling it back into her own body.

Shaking, I reached into the veil, searching for the last tear.

Gronvald stepped from the rock face, dripping murky wet rock dust. Maddy looked up at me, still
working in the veil. She could see I needed more time, and
I could see she was determined to give it to me. I shivered as I realized it was her turn for sacrifice.

She flipped up the hood of her cloak, pulled it close, and shook herself. As the cloak settled around her, she became...not invisible, just less...less noticeable, somehow, as the grey of her cloak faded into the grey of the rocks. Then she settled low and started to creep forward, hidden under her cloak. What was she going to do, leap up and yell, “Boo?”

My hands reached and tugged and magic flared, as I started repairing the last tear, thread by thread. Gronvald must have known I had almost succeeded, because now he turned to me, his face dark with hatred.

That’s when Maddy stood, directly in his path. But she didn’t yell. Instead, somehow, with a twitch of her cloak, she transformed herself into a spider, soft grey like her cloak, Maddy-sized and terrifying.

I knew it was Maddy and still I saw spider and was afraid. It was huge, with too many legs and too many eyes, all focused on Gronvald. He leapt back with a scream of terror and then stood frozen in fear. This would be the perfect moment for a ray of sunlight, but the clouds were solid.

I reached and connected, trying to use whatever time she could give me.

She watched me work, holding Gronvald, waiting. I could see the strain, spider legs quivering, a hint of Maddy showing through like a shadow.
Oh, Maddy
, I thought,
hold him, just a little longer. I’m so close. Just – a – little – longer.

And then I was done. I raised my head and nodded, and she sighed with relief.

The moment Maddy relaxed, Gronvald broke through his fear, raised a boulder as large as a beach ball and hurled it at Maddy. She screamed and ducked and the spider illusion vanished. The rock sailed over her head and smashed behind her.

With a roar, Gronvald raised a second, larger rock, and flung it even harder. It flew straight at Maddy, too fast for her to jump clear. I screamed, and Brox leapt forward, shielding her. The rock hit his head with an enormous blow.

He staggered and sank to his knees, head down. I held my breath, waiting for him to fall over, dead, but he shuddered and slowly stood, the side of his face a bloody, pulpy mess.

Blood flew as he shook his head. It looked like he was struggling to see, one eye smashed, the other covered in blood. And still, he looked fearsome.

He blinked and charged Gronvald, his head down, horns gleaming. Before Gronvald could turn or run or lift a rock, he was sailing into the air, straight at me in the veil.

Gronvald smashed into me, crushing the air out of my lungs, but the veil held, shuddering back and forth, crackling with magic. Gronvald struggled, but we were both caught, unable to pull away.

Hanging in the veil, we could see it was weakened, even though I’d repaired the holes. Magic was leaking through the veil itself, a soft golden flow into the human world. Gronvald reached up and touched it.

“Help me,” I said. “Help me fix this.”

I knew he’d understood, for just a moment, and then he shut it down, his face twisting in hate. He leaned towards me, his hands reaching for my neck.

Below me, I saw the ochre monster fling a huge ball of mud at Gronvald. I ducked, tucking my head against his chest. The mud hit him in an explosion that splattered across his back and up his head. Mud oozed over his hair and into his ears.

I pulled back, watching the look of shock on his face as the mud began to harden.

Gronvald fought it, still determined to stop me. His hands were huge and strong as they settled around my neck. He smiled as he watched me turn red.

I reached into the veil and tried to shift time. The veil moved past me, faster and faster, but I discovered that, filled with magic, I could control it, slow it, search for the perfect moment.

When his hands shifted to get a better grip, I gasped, “It is the will of the gathering.”

He flinched but didn’t let go.

“It is the Will of the Gathering,” I insisted.

He hesitated.

I found the moment I wanted, and shifted time. Then I yanked us both into the human world, in a tangle of troll and boy and sunlight.

Gronvald was almost entirely coated in mud, but sunlight found the tip of his nose, and he turned to stone as the last bit of dripping mud crept over his face. The mud hardened, encasing the stone troll in a layer of deep orange.

I lay panting for a moment, then stepped back through the veil, careful to find the right time.

The ochre monster had been watching for me. Once she saw me safely returned, she walked away, muttering with little burbles of pleasure:

Earth boy fix veil.

Earth boy fix veil.

“She’ll sleep now,” said Vivienne, calling to me from near the river.

“Where’s Gronvald?” Maddy asked.

“He’s a mud-covered statue,” I said.

“Will he thaw?”

I glanced up at the army of trolls on the hillside. “He’s covered in mud. I don’t know if it’s permanent or not. The sun can’t reach him unless the mud washes off. Maybe he’ll be there forever.”

Aleena, Vivienne and Maddy tended to Brox.
All around us the crows mourned their dead in an eerie silence. I wanted to rest and mourn with them but the veil called me back.

My repairs weren’t enough; the veil itself was more fragile than before. Searching the veil into the future, I could feel it shredding.

I stretched out my arms and let magic flow through me. Slowly I rewove it, layering in more magic. It had to protect this world for all of time.

I could hear Maddy and the others walking up the hill, excited by their success. And I could feel their horror when they saw me, blazing with power, arms stretched wide across the veil. To them, I must look like a spider’s prey caught in a web.

“Josh, no!” Maddy cried. “Stop!” Tears streamed down her face.

Crowby landed on her shoulder and muttered gently, and Vivienne softly woofed against her hand. Together they waited, while I wove myself deeper and deeper into the veil.

The crows gathered on the ground, in complete silence. It felt like a funeral, like maybe they thought it was mine, but they didn’t try to stop me. It felt more like they were honouring me.

I rewove every hole, every worn spot, making the veil strong again, the way the Ancient Ones made it. Then I did more. I wove the veil deeper and tighter, so that human changes could never touch the magic world. And then it was enough and I closed my eyes and sank into the veil.

Chapter Eleven

Dreaming

I
dreamed of Maddy sobbing.
Brox injured,
Vivienne tending him. The crows lined up in front of the veil, heads bowed. They were as silent as they’d been for their crow funeral, like they were mourning the dead.

Aleena watched tears roll down Maddy’s face. As she watched, tears leaked out of her own eyes and crept down her cheeks. She touched them, and looked at her fingers, astounded.

She touched Maddy’s tears, and then she turned to the veil. To me, suspended in it, a part of the veil.

Aleena stepped up to the veil and slipped into it, joining me. She leaned down over my hands and touched my fingers to her face. I dissolved into her tears and fell to the ground, leaving Aleena in my place, a part of the veil.

Chapter Twelve

The Ancient Boy

I
only remembered bits after that.
Madd
y and Vivienne rolling me up in my cloak. Cawing all around me. Tugging at the cloth. A single caw, and then a rush of wings and a feeling of rising. Somehow I imagined my crows were lifting me. I was floating and then I was on Vivienne’s back. Face in her fur, comforted by the musky smell, the soft warmth. My cloak tucking itself around me, gently cradling me, holding me tight so I wouldn’t fall off.

From far away, I heard Brox saying, “Tell Keeper, and then find Greyfur and Eneirda.” This was followed by a long caw from Corvus, and soft crow mutterings near my ear. Crowby. I smiled.

Then Maddy fussing, and Brox saying, “Carry him gently.”

Swaying on Vivienne’s back, and Vivienne singing. I couldn’t make out the words, but it was something my mother sang when I was a baby. I let it carry me to sleep.