The Dresden Files is copyright Jim Butcher. This story is licensed under the Creative Commons as derivative, noncommercial fiction.
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Summary: When a routine exercise in intelligence gathering is interrupted by a dying man, Daniel Archdale, Ordained Herald to the White Council of Wizards, finds himself assigned to a dangerous mission that will lead him to the deepest reaches of the Nevernever. The journey will be perilous but if he fails, the death toll will be immense. OC main character, set Post Changes.
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Who am I? That's a good question. My full name is Daniel Julius Archdale, though as a Wizard and Ordained Herald of the White Council I don't say that aloud much. My friends call me Danny and, for better or for worse, that included those at the table around me.
"I raise $10," I said and threw the money into the pot.
"I see your ten," said Flin. "And raise you the first laugh of an orphaned child." He then proceeded to chuck a small glowing coin into the pot. I just sighed.
Flin is an under baronet pro tem in the Seelie Court, or something equally low ranking and innain. That technically makes him a Lord of the Summer Sidhe, if only barely and possibly only in a good light and if he got out of the bed on the right side that morning. It also means you couldn't trust him.
"No," grumbled Adam in his earth-deep voice, and, really, how else would a clay golem speak? He was made to be an emissary to the outside world by one of the more reclusive Nevernever powers. I'm sure his creators never envisioned his uses vis-Ã -vis poker rules.
"Adam's right," I said and gave Flin a look which rolled off him like water off a duck. Intimidating I'm not. "Table rules. Bets must be in United States of America currency, as defined by statute and legal in all ways. No fairy gold, no glamours, no transmogrified Chairmen of the Federal Reserve. Cold hard cash or at least paper."
"Oh fine," said Flin and rolled his golden eyes. Really the motion was only a few steps short of a flounce. "In which case I raise $100."
I resisted the urge to hiss. $100 is a lot of money, at least for me. The White Council pays me well enough but not so I could drop a Benjamin on a single hand. Still I had a good hand. Three Threes, a Jack, a King and a second up my sleeve if I truly needed it. If the worst came, losing a little money could even help with my true task here tonight.
Adam folded but Arborax met the bet.
"Call," I said and threw in a $100 note. "Let's see the cards."
I placed mine on the table, a low three of a kind. Arborax just had two pair, which put me well ahead. Then Flin put his hand down, showing three Sevens, a One and an Ace. He smiled like a cat as he raked in the pot. Never trust a faerie, even to be untrustworthy. Still there were more hands to go.
Adam took the deck, we all threw in the $10 auntie and he began dealing out cards. I, meanwhile, slipped back into table small-talk. We were speaking Waytalk, the hodgepodge language used by travellers in the Nevernever, mother tongue to none, spoken by millions. I picked my words carefully.
"So Flin," I said, "how's the family? I heard your uncle was injured by a dingonek."
He nodded as he looked at his cards, face otherwise impassive. "Much improved. The Lady Gwendolen has sent him a potent healing tonic."
Flin's uncle is Lord of the Bramble Marches and one of the more important people in Summer. He's also the noble employing Flin as a herald but I never got the impression he liked his nephew much.
"Nasty business," I said. "Who's giving you orders these days?" That might be pushing things but it was late in the night and we'd all been drinking, even if in Flin's case that meant a sparkling brew distilled from starlight, imported from the deep Nevernever were such things were possible. It wouldn't have worked on a more powerful sidhe (they simply couldn't release information in such an unbalanced fashion) but the chains of faerie power held Flin yet loosely.
"My Lady Aunt," said Flin.
"Your magic tutor?"
He nodded and then motioned at Arborax. "Do move along."
Arborax tooed-and-froed for a moment before throwing in $5, not a serious bet even by our table's feeble standards. Given his sizable spending last hand, I was betting on an act. It wasn't like he needed the money. He had a budget I could only dream of. Great Dragon's had deep pockets, even dead ones.
My hand looked like it might be promising (three Hearts, a Jack of Spades and a forlorn Three of Clubs) so I saw Arborax's bet, despite the fact that he could well have a good hand. Flin raised another $10. Adam put in the required $15 but didn't otherwise react. He was a conservative player and still learning the game. That was why we were only playing Five-card draw. Arborax ponied up the rest of the money but didn't push things further and neither did I.
"Three cards," said Arborax in his lilting Waytalk, and dropped that number on the table. Adam dealt him replacements from the deck.
"Two," I said, and gave away my Jack and Three. What I got back made me smile on the inside, another two Hearts. Flush.
"One," said Flin and tossed a card down.
While Adam dealt himself two cards, I turned to the rest of the table. "Has anyone else had problems with dingoneks?"
The expression on Arborax's face said more than words could have, and his heavy equine nose cast a deep shadow as he scowled. Even Adam's ember-red eyes darkened.
"Horrible things," said Arborax. "I wouldn't be surprised if the Dragon Princes ride forth against them. There have been attacks upon our protectorates."
The Dragon Princes were the high nobility of the Towering Mountains, the regional power Arborax called home. Each was a match for a White Council wizard, magically speaking, and rode a small-d dragon steed. They were deadly and not the sort of people anyone sensible wanted to face in a fight. I sure as hell didn't.
"And the White Council?" said Flin. A faint smile tickled the edge of his lips on his too-pretty face.
I had to frown at that but these things involved give and take. "We're worried," I said honestly. There had been much muttering back in Edinburgh, at least among those members who kept an eye on the Nevernever, and my orders to find out what was going on were fairly unambiguous. "We don't have extensive Nevernever holdings but if they should breach the Faerie border they could cross over to Earth itself. That would be bad."
"This one saw the Valley two days past," said Adam in a voice like grinding boulders. It was quite possibly his longest speech of the night.
Like a flipping switch, Adam was the centre of attention. Flin asked, "Where?"
"Three score leagues off the Sea of Monsters."
That was close, far too close. The Valley (or as I liked to call it The Land Time Took Up Drinking to Forget) was the nesting site for the dingoneks and other creatures too, chipekwes, jago-ninis, inkanyambas, ngoubous and God only knew what else. It was a migratory piece of Nevernever geography. According to what records I'd been able to scrounge up, it had last been active over a century ago, when it ravaged the Congo region of Africa, killing people, animals and spirits with equal blood-lust. It had spent the time since dormant in the deep Nevernever, those strange but wonder filled lands far from Earth, where metaphor could be as real as stone and the basic building blocks of reality began to fail. That it would come this close was a bad sign.
It was also very valuable information, and almost made tonight worth it by itself. As I've said before I'm an Ordained Herald for the White Council. That means I'm a messenger. I can walk safely into the heart of Winter if I have the right missive in my hands, secure in the knowledge that the Unseelie Accords make my person sacrosanct, at least in theory. That's true but it is also only part of the truth. The full truth is that I'm also a spy, an agent sent out of gather information and talk to people.
It's not even some terrible secret. We all are, Flin, Arborax, and even Adam, for all that he probably doesn't think of it in exactly those terms. Herald and spy, message-carrying and espionage: they always have and probably always will go together. You foster contacts, make friends, become proficient at getting places in a hurry and keep your eyes open. You just don't talk about it.
The silence hung for three long seconds before Arborax dropped two $10 notes on the table. I matched it and raised five. Flin saw the $25 bet but didn't increase it. Adam folded. Arborax called and I did the same.
"Let's see some cards." I dropped my hand and smiled a smile which almost split my face. "Hearts flush."
Flin cursed as he dropped his own Straight, and Arborax just frowned as his own Three of a Kind was beaten.
"Come to papa," I said as I reached for my winnings. I never got the chance. A man covered in blood staggered through the door and collapsed almost at my feet.
Perhaps I should take a moment to describe where we were. How many places, after all, could a Summer sidhe, a golem, a dragonized human and a White Council wizard meet to drink, play cards and engage in a little light espionage on the side? Well in practice there are quite a few such places but in this case it was the Hall of Hermes, the demesne of that once great god located deep in the Nevernever. As near as anyone can tell, Hermes retreated to his Hall one thousand five hundred years ago and went inactive shortly after. He's still there, even today, sitting at the head of the room on his throne, skin gone grey and body lifeless. You get use to it. There's even a book on when or if he'll eventually wake up. I'm not part of it; it's sucker money.
What I'm trying to get at is this: the Hall of Hermes is not the kind of place random people just stagger into. Still, the stranger did exactly that.
I dropped to my knees at once, game forgotten.
Blood covered the man. It stained the ragged remains of his clothes and matted his hair. Even as I watched it oozed from the deep wounds cut into his flesh. In fact there was only one thing which could be truly said to still be intact, and my eyes opened wide when I saw it: a dispatch bag, one of the heavily enchanted carrying cases given to Ordained Heralds of the White Council. Just like the one I had.
I rolled the figure over, blood staining my hands, and looked down at his face.
"Burkwater!" I said as the features registered through the injuries. He was a Herald. No, not just a Herald. He was the Herald, the best of us. He'd done amazing things, probed the depths of the Nevernever in ways seldom seen. He'd also been away on a mission since before the end of the Red Court War, two months before.
"Wizard Archdale," he said in Latin, his voice made barely comprehensible by random stops and starts. His eyes swam in and out of focus.
I scanned his injuries almost without thinking. They were bad, very bad and equally lethal. It was a miracle he made it this far. For all that Water Magic was theoretically one of my strengths, they were well beyond what I could hope to heal. Still, I had to try; I had to do something. Leaving a fellow Wizard and Herald to die on the ground was unthinkable.
"Stay strong, Burkwater," I said, willing with all my mind for it to be so. "I'm going to do what I can."
His hand shot out and grabbed mine. For all that he was dying, his grip was like iron. "The pouch," he said. "Get— Get the pouch to the Council." His eyes swam in and out of focus. "The war— Vital for the..."
With more effort than I really should have needed, I wrenched my hand free. "You can give it to them yourself."
His flesh was hot, feverish, but I didn't have time for that. I pulled a piece of white chalk from one of my coat's many pockets and began drawing on the ground.
Healing is more or less the definition of a complicated spell and that means a circle. I drew it in a great sweeping arc around where I knelt, a single unbroken line. Next came the pentacle, a five-pointed star inside my circle, the very symbol of magic under human control. Inside the five outer segments, I sketched runes and sigils, aids which would take some of the strain off me. Finally I began searching for ritual foci. They were perhaps the most important part of all, anchoring the pentacle's elemental points and making it truly potent.
I set my drink from the table down at the water point; intoxicating water, it might be, but I couldn't be picky. Next came fire and one of my pockets offered up a nightlight candle. Earth came after that, and I set down a thumbnail sized quartz crystal, cut from its natural form but using only human muscle and simple tools. Wind followed earth and I drew my air-knife from my belt. I used it for my air evocation and it was well aligned with such energies. That just left one last element, the master point which bound all the others.
"Spirit," I said to myself as I patted pockets. "Need something for spirit."
"Here," said Flin and threw me his glowing coin, the captured first laugh of an orphan child. Couldn't get much more spirit than that. I caught it out of the air and sent him a thankful smile.
It was time to begin. I placed the coin at the appropriate point and sat myself at the very centre of the circle, inside the pentagon formed by my pentagram. It was here that I would control my spell, the magical heart of all I aimed to work. With only three deep breaths for preparation, I closed my eyes and reached out with my mystical senses.
For a big spell like this I needed energy, lots and lots of energy; the Hall of Hermes shone with just that. In my mind's eye I could feel my friends standing in a half circle, watching me intently. I could feel the barman behind his bar. I could feel the group of owl spirits who sat at the table next along from ours. I could feel the dozen other messengers who filled the room. And, of course, I could feel the great god himself, sitting upon his throne. Dead or alive, I didn't care. All I knew was that waves of power rolled off Hermes, infusing the Hall, sustaining it and giving it form, purpose and substance.
I grabbed as much of that power as I could and clutched it to me, drinking it in until my mind burned and my brain threatened to dribble out my ears. Once I reached that point, I took one more gasping breath, reeled in my senses and opened my eyes.
Holding the energy skewed my vision, almost like being drunk. The chalk lines of my circle, pentacle and runes seemed to twist and turn as they sprawled in all directions. I gritted my teeth and forced them to make sense with pure will power. They resolved, order arising from chaos, and I saw what to do. I reached out with my hand and touched the runic mark for will. There was potential there, a bubble in my mystical senses, like a distorted piece of plastic just waiting for a single nudge to jump back into shape. I gave it exactly that. In my mind I pared off a tiny charge from the energy I held and shoved it out. My circle cracked like a misfiring car and energy whirled through it.
The circle, pentagram, ritual foci and runes all thumbed with power, but even so it was the barest of bare bones. A ritual of this scale really needed extensive preparations. It needed more foci, items for mind, body, heart, and the five senses at least. The area needed to be ritually cleansed. I needed to be ritually cleansed, purified waters to wash clean my body and meditative tranquility to bring my mind into perfect laser-like focus.
It didn't matter. There was no choice.
The spell came together in my mind, supported by the pentacle and runes, and held in place by the circle. Even with such aids, the scale of my task seemed insurmountable. Healing is hard, very hard. As a rule of thumb, you need the same level of biological knowledge to heal with magic as you would through purely mundane means. I don't have that level of knowledge; few people do. What I did have was the ability to cheat.
I fed power into the spell, a slow dribble. Each drop of energy forged a link between my body and the proxy-Burkwater held in my mind, a magical construct formed of my will and his blood, red on my hands. Magically speaking it was him, or would be once I broke my circle and let the energies loose on the wider world.
And that was my cheat: thaumaturgy, the ritual connection between two objects. My body was hale and hearty and his was injured. Force the state of one on the other, mine onto his, as above, so below. My wizard instincts said it should be possible. My common sense screamed that I was going to kill myself. I just had to hope the first voice and not the second was correct.
Time passed, and each moment was an agony as I simultaneously fought to contain the energy I held and work it into my spell. By the thirty-second mark my chest ached and every breath was a battle. By the one minute mark I was near delirious, only controlling the magic by the mental equivalent of finger tips. But I held on. Each moment meant more thaumaturgic links. It made my spell that bit stronger. It gave Burkwater one more chance to live.
Then it was time.
With a flicker of will I broke my circle and released my spell. It slammed into Burkwater like a hammer. His body arched and a scream tore from his throat. The gashes in his flesh began to close and my own cheeks tingled in thaumaturgic sympathy.
It was working. I beamed. It was working!
The wounds in his chest began to close and he screamed all the louder. I tried to do what I could, guiding the spell, helping it with the few pieces of anatomical knowledge I did possess. That was when it all went wrong.
Burkwater's scream stopped, as sudden as a gunshot, and my spell tore loose from his body. Backlashing magical energy slammed into me and marked my body with bruises from head to toe, in perfect mimicry of Burkwater's wounds. It threw me out of my now inert circle and across the Hall. Burkwater collapsed to the ground, dead. I collapsed to the ground, alive but in pain.
For almost twenty seconds I hurt too much to move, but I knew I had to. Gritting my teeth and marshaling every ounce of will I possessed, I pushed myself up and looked around. Burkwater lay on the ground where my spell had flung him, body bereft of life. That wasn't unexpected, feared, yes, but even as I lay on the ground I knew it to be true. No, what struck me was that his dispatch bag was gone and so was Flin.
My first reaction was incredulity. Dispatch bags are created by the Senior Counsel. They're protected by powerful enchantments to prevent unauthorized access and linked to their companion Herald's body, mind and soul, inseparable. Even in death they could only be picked up by a true member of the White Council, meaning me.
My eyes flicked to Flin's coin were it lay forgotten inside the broken circle and then opened wide. "An open debt!" I said aloud, back in Waytalk again, then swore. In accepting the coin I'd created a debt between Flin and I, and he'd used that to take my place in the eyes of the dispatch bag's enchantments. It was more magic than I thought Flin capable of.
"Damn damn damn," I said as I pushed myself fully upright. "That rat bastard. Never trust a fairy. Which way?"
Arborax gave me a commiserative smile and pointed to one of the four doors. For all that he was my friend, he wouldn't interfere in something like this and neither would Adem. This was a private matter between the White Council and the Summer Court. This was spy business.
"Take the body into a back room and put a circle around it," I said to Adam and Arborax as I snatched up the ritual objects from the failed ritual. I'm not ashamed to admit I felt a lot better with my air-dagger on hand again. "I'll own you one."
Adam nodded his ponderous head. That much he could do. Arborax likewise indicated his assent.
With that, I snatched up Flin's mostly empty glass off the table and dashed out the door.
Among Hermes' many accolades is God of Crossroads so it should come as no surprise to anyone that four great roads spilled away from his Hall. They were wide and thick, in the roman style, and boundary stones sat along their lengths, defining and limiting them. That last was very important in the Nevernever. Without the stones, the roads would shrink and expand at whims all their own.
I stared down the one Arborax had indicated. Ghostly transparent figures walked the road, echoes of travellers past and possibly even future. They moved in both directions in almost uncountable numbers, from the infinite distance to right before me. Flin was not among them. He was either hiding himself or, more likely, had jumped off at some point. This was fast getting complicated but I'd feared for the worst and planned accordingly.
From around my neck I drew my spirit-compass, an enchanted item I'd made using equal parts research and gut-instinct, and a disproportionate investment of money. A dozen needles sat on its face, each made from a different metal, and an interlocking network of dials ran around the edge.
With swift sure movements, I aligned the dials, selecting the sigils for 'Find', 'Fae' and 'Individual'. I touched Flin's glass to the last mark and forged a thaumaturgic link using my will. Then I hit the metaphorical go button.
The compass buzzed and the needles spun, aligning in ways which only made sense to someone learned in the mysteries of the Nevernever. Fortunately that included me. Moving with all the speed I possessed, I took off after Flin.
He'd left the road only a hundred meters along its length, travelling into a thicket of black, twisted trees. The shadows which lurked at the thicket's heart looked especially deep. At any other time I would've gone around, found another way, but I didn't have the luxury of restraint. I tore into them, compass clutched against my chest, my other hand holding my air-dagger.
Twisting black branches blocked my path and tore at my clothes but I ducked and dived between them. A squirrel with burning red eyes and tiny fangs took one look at me before scampering away. Magic tingled against my wizard senses, like changing air pressure, but I'd expected that too. This path had led Flin from Hermes' realm to somewhere else. It would take me there too.
I emerged from the trees into a basalt world. Hexagonal columns the size of skyscrapers towered above me and disappeared away in all directions, with narrow gaps in between. Hazy giants, somehow even bigger than the columns, walked among them, but all were a long way off. In the extreme distance I could just see the sea, a narrow slash of gray-blue. In between it and me was the running figure of Flin, tall, fluid and full of sidhe grace. He was also running faster than I could ever hope too.
Sometimes the unfairness of the universe really got to me.
Flin was of the sidhe, one of the lords of Faerie. That meant he was downright superhuman when it came to physical things. If I wanted to catch him, I'd need to think smart. Luckily I am a wizard.
The closest basalt pillar seemed to grow even bigger as I strode towards it. As I did, I returned my compass to around my neck, slip my air-dagger back into its sheath and drew it's never twin.
My never-knife is a work of art. It has a seven-inch blade and a five-inch handle, and an interlocking network of runes and sigils cover every inch of both. I've bathed it in the elemental streams of the deep Nevernever, had it blessed by spirits of travel and freedom and spent over a year slowly aligning its energies to mine. In short, it's the Rolls-Royce of Nevernever travel. Despite all that, I was pleasantly surprised when it held up well as I carved a two foot wide circle on the basalt face of the pillar.
"Here goes nothing," I said as I closed my eyes and placed my left hand in the circle. It closed with a snap as I channelled a spark of energy into it. Once it was steady, I a pointed my knife at the ground and spoke my spell. "Anapiesma!"
The whiplash movement of energy needed for evocation always leaves me feeling like a large part of my chest has been ripped out, but it is useful. For a brief moment the ground disappeared beneath my feet but it returned almost as quick.
When I opened my eyes it was to a pitch-black cave. Despite that, I could see fine. What, after all, was the point of creating a dark, scary place if no one could see all the work you put into the details?
My hand was plastered against a large stalactite and my ritual circle smoldered there. Water dripped down too close walls and invisible eyes watched me from the far shadows, which concealed a lot more than the rest of the phantasmal dark.
"Right, no pressure," I said to myself as I strode forward, counting stalactites. Flin had been about twenty pillars ahead of me. Add five more to be safe and you got...
"Twenty five," I said and tapped the pillar.
Something chittered just out of sight but I didn't have time. If it came at me my best defence would be the plan I was already enacting. It was time to realm shift again.
Using my never-knife, I carved another two foot circle into the stalagmite, a bit less uniform than last time but I couldn't afford to be picky. That done, I touched the centre, closed it with a flicker of will and pointed my knife straight up in the air. "Anapiesma!"
Transition was worse the second time. I reappeared in the basalt world, breathing heavily, my knees shaking. But I'd made it and that was the important thing. Bright sunlight shone from above and booted feet struck stone from just around the corner. Flin. Despite that I really wanted to curl up and have a rest, I prepared myself for a fight.
Tip number one for fighting faeries. Don't. Tip number two, with a few exceptions they are physical enough that brute force is a viable strategy.
In a single swift motion, I drew my air-dagger, moved around the pillar and stepped right into Flin's path.
"Aema!"
Wind tore from my air-dagger, a hurricane of blunt force. This focus was a cruder tool than my never-knife but that had its advantages. It blew Flin off his feet. He smashed into the ground, rolled and came to a skidding stop.
Magic on that scale always hits me hard, but I'd expected the drain and kept my feet. With outwardly sure steps I advanced, hiding my growing weakness. "Give it back, Flin." He clutched the dispatch bag to his chest.
He tried to roll to his feet but I had no intention of letting that happen. With a swipe of my dagger, I called another wind. "Aema!"
It was weaker this time, both because I had less to give and to conserve my strength, but it was still enough. Wind caught Flin mid roll and flung him through the air, right into one of the pentagonal basalt pillars. There he stayed, ass above head, having learned his lesson.
"Hand it over."
Flin smiled at me from the ground, a cheeky expression on his upside down face, like a child caught sneaking a cookie before dinner. It was only a little spoiled by the blood running down his face.
"Why Danny," he said, "what a surprise. Sorry to run off from our game but I have pressing business to take care of."
"Cut the games," I said. "That—" I pointed with my air-dagger "—is White Council property."
"Once was, once was," said Flin. "Now it is a treasure of the Summer Court of the Sidhe."
"It wasn't yours to take."
"Ah," he said and his smile was the cat who'd got the cream, "but it was yours to give."
"Give it back."
He looked at me, right in the eye. "No."
And that was the most annoying thing. As these things were judged in the Nevernever, he could well be in the right. In accepting his coin, I'd created a debt that let him step in and take my place were the satchel was concerned. If I took it back by force, a formal complaint from his uncle could find me in the wrong. There was probably enough doubt that I could get away with demanding a dual, and take the bag as a prize if I won, but I really didn't want to do that. If for no other reason, the choice of weapon would be his and he could take me apart hand-to-hand. For another he was my friend, even if I wasn't feeling very friendly right that moment. It was time for another track.
"You'll never get it open," I said.
"Oh I wouldn't be so sure," said Flin. "Summer has many people wise in the ways of such things. Even if I can't, I'm sure your masters would pay a handsome ransom for its return."
That was true. "If it's a ransom you want, come with me. I'll promise you right now, we'll pay well." And it would probably come right out of my salary.
As Flin considered my offer, I sensed movement behind me. A too-long shadow spilled out from one of the pillars and I had a thought, a very bad thought.
"Flin," I said, trying to keep calm. Panic could tip it off. "Where are we?"
"Hum, where? The Giant's Causeway of course."
Ah. "And that's the Sea of Monsters over there."
"Correct, but why should that..."
I could see the realization dawn on his face even upside down. The Sea of Monsters... Where Adam had seen the Valley only two days before. Even those forty-eight hours could mean very little; time was strange in the Nevernever.
Trying to keep calm I turned and saw it, a dingonek, stalking out from the shadows. It was a sight fit to chill my blood.
"Truce?" I said, almost under my breath. Flin heard and agreed all the same.
Let me take a moment to describe a dingonek. Start with the lean form of a hunting cat, a malk, maybe, or a jaguar. Next scale it up to eighteen feet long. Once you've got the size right, add the armoured skin of a scaly anteater, the striking tail of a scorpion, a pair of sabretooth fangs and the horn of a rhino, sharpened to a needle point. Sounds bad, right? Well it's worse. That skin, it can take a point-blank shot from a high-powered rifle, the poison from its tail will eat through most magical defences and on the charge, its horn can do a passable imitation of an unstoppable force. And that didn't even touch upon its overt magical abilities: the manipulation of shadow and still water. It could slink through the Nevernever like nobody's business. My trick with the pillars wouldn't help me with this; the dingonek would only follow.
"Could you reach Earth from here?" said Flin, speaking low. From the corner of my eye, I could see he was now the right way up.
I shook my head, not taking my gaze from the stalking dingonek. "Not from this deep in the Nevernever. If I had time to perform a ritual, maybe. Could you hold it off for half an hour?"
It was Flin's turn to shake his head.
"What about a veil?" I said. The inhabitants of Faerie were generally good at such thing but I'd never seen Flin do more than parlor trick glamoury. "Could you make us invisible?"
"Not against this beast's eyes," he said. "They are not a talent of mine."
"One more thing," I said, and licked my lips. Now wasn't the right time but there might not be a better one. "Your uncle, did he win his fight with the dingonek."
"Oh yes," said Flin as he levered himself fully upright. "Stabbed it right through the eye with his spear. It was dead in thirty seconds."
"And it still injured him badly?"
"Thirty seconds is a lot of time."
I readied my will. The dingonek charged. "Dikhoto!"
If the spell I'd used against Flin was a battering wind, this was a cutting one. Blades of sharpened air slashed at the dingonek's face. They tore deep gashes but didn't penetrate the armoured skin to the soft tissue beneath.
The dingonek roared, the sound a cross between a lion and a snake, and re-angled its charge towards me, horn lowered. Sparks shot up from where its claws dug into the basalt floor.
My limbs felt like lead (too much magic with no chance to rest) but I clenched my jaw, summoned up my strength and threw myself to the side. The dingonek tore past, then Flin was there, his hands up raised. Summer Fire appeared within them and he flung it out, unfocused blasts which burst like hand grenades against the dingonek's armoured hide.
It let loose another cry and whipped around, scorpion tail flung out like a counterweight. I attacked again, this time with a single air blade, launched right at the beast's left eye. The effort left me staggered and seeing double, but brought results. The eye almost exploded and the dingonek scrambled as it back-pedalled, tail rising to strike anyone attempting to close. The shadows under its belly deepened and then rose up, distorting its image like a poor quality veil.
"It's repositioning, not retreating," said Flin. Again he conjured Summer Fire, and this time it was blinding white. The shadows around the dingonek disappeared, like cobwebs to a blowtorch, but so did the dingonek itself.
"Illusion," I said, then swore. I turned a circle, scanning for danger. "Come here, Flin." From my jacket I plucked another piece of chalk (this one neon green) and tossed it to the ground. Once Flin was at my side, I used my foot to pull it in a circle around us both. When done, I closed it and held out a hand. "Mutual survival says you should help."
"But of course." The smile was slightly mocking. The ability of Summer sidhe to be annoyingly superior even in the face of death never ceases to amaze and irritate me.
Flin took my left hand and channeled his power: the magic of Summer. It flowed into me, a seemingly infinite stream of life, vitality and fire. It was the magic that let weeds shatter stone. It was the magic that let life triumph in even the harshest environments. It was the magic which fuelled the fury of the classical Greek hero. It was wondrous — the siren song of the Nevernever, distilled and given life and form — and even as I held it, it was healing me, restoring my stocks of energy and unfogging my mind. I wanted nothing as much as to hold and hoard it forever but my life was on the line. With gritted teeth I thrust it into the circle.
A throbbing curtain of green and red fire roared up around us. Fern like patterns rolled across its surface and its power pressed against my senses. The loss of Summer's power left me feeling hollow but still much improved on before.
"Pretty," said Flin. "Do you do parties?"
"Shut up, Flin."
The dingonek was still out there somewhere. I scanned for it and saw something else: the dispatch bag, lying forgotten against the basalt pillar. Flin must have abandoned it to save his life, just like a faerie. It was while my attention was thus diverted that the beast struck.
Intellectually I knew the scorpion sting of a dingonek could eat through most magical defences. That was a potent ability but I only had a general idea of what it meant. My book learning didn't live up to the truth.
The stinger slammed into my circle on an arc which would have ended in my chest. Shatter lines of black energy speared out from the impact point but that was only the outwards manifestation of an entirely different problem. Raw focused animal will speared through my circle, up the magical connection which bound it to me and into my skull.
I screamed and stumbled back, the dingonek's attack doing to my mind what its claws would happily do to my body. In a very real sense a Wizard's will is his magic and I'm nothing to write home about in terms of strength. It would tear me to shreds.
On instinct, I broke the connection binding me to the circle. That didn't cause the circle to instantly fail but without me to support and sustain it, it wouldn't have a hope of withstanding the attack being levelled against it. Already the wall of energy was degrading. The black shatter lines attacked every inch, and it wouldn't last long. We didn't have minutes left; we had seconds.
"Flin," I said as I pushed myself back up. "We need to split up. I'll realm shift you down, deeper into the Nevernever. I go up, back towards Earth. It can only chase one of us and if I can work this circle right, it might not realise either of us are gone until it's too late."
For a brief moment I saw something which might have been concern on his face but I was probably imagining it. Only fools force human qualities on the sidhe, fools and men who'd soon be working off hundred year debts in drudge servitude. He was probably just worried about the debt he would owe me if by some angel-wrought miracle we both survived.
"Do it," he said.
"Right."
Moving as fast as I could, I drew my never-knife and scored a second circle inside the first. Outside the dingonek continued its assault, coming closer and closer to destroying the outer circle for all that it was formed of wizard magic and Summer fire both.
"Hand inside and seal," I said and when Flin had done that, I looked at him, for possibly the last time. He might have tricked me and stole the dispatch bag but expecting otherwise from the Fae was like expecting water to be dry. He was still my friend. "Good luck. You'll probably appear in an underground cave, full of stalactites. There's something there, in the true dark, so move swiftly and escape."
He nodded and I readied my never-knife, the tip pointed towards the ground at Flin's feet.
"Good luck, Daniel Archdale," he said and I could feel the tingle of my true name in those words, or two thirds of it anyway.
I gave him a tight smile and said one word: "Anapiesma!"
Flin disappeared in a flash of purple light and I staggered on my feet, feeling like a large chunk of my chest had been scooped out, possibly by an ice cream scoop. In the same moment, the dingonek smashed through the outer circle. My weakness was all that saved me. The beast's scorpion tail slammed through the air where I'd been but I was several feet to the left, wobbling to stay upright.
It whipped around and I didn't even attempt magic, just threw myself to the side again. It pounced, mouth open, saber-fangs gleaming with spittle, and clipped me on the shoulder. I crashed to the hard ground. The only thing keeping me alive at this point was luck. It was faster than me, faster than a sidhe even, and I was only a rapidly tiring wizard.
From where I lay I stabbed out with my air-dagger and thrust all the energy I could grab into a spell. "Aema!"
It was a buffeting wind this time, a hurricane condensed down into a battering ram only a half-dozen feet across. The spell caught the dingonek in the side and threw it clear, right into one of the giant basalt pillars. I'd like to say there was a sickening crunch of broken bones but it barely seemed to feel the impact. It landed like a cat, turned and hiss-roared at me, shadows writhing around its limbs, body and head.
I stabbed out again with my air-dagger, a blade of wind blasting from the blade's edge. It streaked right towards the dingonek's remaining eye, but the dingonek sensed it coming. There was a flash of shadow and my air-blade shot off to the side, where it cut a deep wound in the nearest basalt pillar. Tail slashing from side to side, the dingonek advanced.
My weariness was bone deep, as bad as it had ever been. The dingonek glared at me, its remaining eye filled with animal cunning. It had already learnt to deflect my wind attacks and they were my main form of offensive evocations, since I had little talent with fire. If I wanted to win this fight I would need to do something it didn't expect. I had the perfect trick.
I'm not good at veils (my spirit evocations are too tied with the Nevernever) but that's only a problem if you come at all problems from the same angle. Even as the dingonek advanced I slipped my air-dagger back into its sheath and drew my never-knife, holding it in both hands. I gathered energy and said, "Thrauo!"
My will flashed out, twisting local Never-space, and the universe shattered at my command. It became a dozen constantly spinning mirrors, throwing splintered reflections in a hundred different directions. My head was a confused mess as I levered myself up, only partially from exhaustion. The dozen dingoneks looked only slightly better. Their lips pulled back and their remaining eyes darted wildly. Already the mirrors were disintegrating, fraying at the edges, becoming opaque, but they might give me enough time.
I swayed on my feet, dropped my never-knife and just managed to draw and raise my air-dagger one last time. This spell was not a one way veil. It scrambled all light, mine and the dingonek's both. The only difference was that I knew the secret; I knew the pattern and what to watch for.
"One," I muttered to myself as I saw my back spinning past. That was the signal to start counting.
"Two." This time it was a reversed version of my face.
"Three." For one perfect moment, all the mirrors showed true. I pointed my dagger right at the dingonek's already ruined left eye, gathered every ounce of my will, bound it as tightly as I could, made the slight alteration I wanted and let it fly. "Aema!"
The wind ripped the dagger from my hand, whipping it forward as fast as any bullet. It slashed through the intervening air, straight and true, and right into the dingonek's brain. I collapsed forward, all my muscles numb. The very moment my limp body touched the basalt floor, the dingonek went crazy.
A hundred shattered images showed the dingonek attacking invisible enemies on all sides. It slashed, bit, clawed and struck with its horn. Its scorpion tail stabbed again and again, beating holes in the ground. Shadows spun like a whirlwind, trying to do God only knew what. For thirty seconds it attacked in mindless frenzy, then it stopped, just stopped, tail frozen mid lunge, mouth open and sabre-tooth fangs bare. The next second its limp body fell to the ground, dead. I was scarcely in better condition.
For almost ten minutes I couldn't move. Irons chains bound every cell in my body to the ground. Finally, though, my utter exhaustion started to fade. Gradually, bit by bit, piece by piece, I felt my reserves rebuilding themselves. I wouldn't be fully mended for a while (not until I ate well and slept better) but it would do for now.
Muscles groaning, I swept up my never-knife and pushed myself upright. The dingonek was definitely dead. I could feel its escaping energies with my mystical senses, the potent power it had held so close in life now released in death. In better times I would have tried to harvest as least some of the windfall but attempting such a ritual now would surely kill me. Instead I stooped only to retrieve my air-dagger and turned my mind to other things. I needed to save my strength for my return to White Council territory.
And on that note...
Burkwater's despatch bag still lay abandoned were Flin had left it. I hobbled towards it and picked it up. The simple cloth buzzed against my fingers. It was protected against intrusion, defended by enchantments laid down by some of the most powerful wizards currently alive. Only eight people could open it and one of those was dead. Wizard Burkwater, its former master, was the latter and the former were the seven members of the Senior Council. That didn't mean I couldn't give it a good feel, though.
My questing hands scouted the shapes concealed by the cloth. There was something bulky in it and the heft spoke of some substantial weight, like a large lump of stone or metal. That was all I could tell, though. Squeezing it as small as I could, I shoved it into my despatch bag, crumpling a couple of unimportant missives in the process. With that done, I breathed a sigh of relief. While inside my dispatch bag my prize was safe, and my task became a lot easier. It also meant I could turn my attention fully to escape.
The Giant's Causeway stretched away in all directions, a basalt world of hazy giants and colossal hexagonal pillars the size of skyscrapers. It seemed to go on forever and it might well do so. In the Nevernever shear area is worthless (a mere plaything for anything with power to enforce their will) but land is something else entirely. Land is what area happens in and there are always ways in and out, boarders, gateways, and bolt-holes wrought in ages past, places where Nevernever realms overlap and interact.
I turned a slow circle, searching for anything which might indicate such a place. With luck I'd be able to find the black trees I'd used to arrive and from there travel to the Hall of Hermes, but nothing was ever certain in the Nevernever. Fortune was with me and I did see the trees, twenty-five pillars away, just where they should be, but I also saw something else. Blocking me from the Sea of Monsters was a rift in the world, a v-shaped opening which led to a dense jungle.
My blood ran cold.
It led to the Valley, the Land Time Took Up Drinking To Forget.
My hands shook as I pulled a collapsible telescope from one of my pockets and raised it to my eye. It was a cheap thing, only a few steps above Christmas cracker level, but it helped some. The Valley grew larger and if anything my blood ran colder.
Dozens upon dozens of dingoneks moved in and out of the rift. The ones heading out disappeared in flares of shadow but it was the ones who returned which worried me. They carried bodies in their teeth, the physical corpses of fae, fluttering spirit forms and the remains of other stranger things, unknown outside the Nevernever.
Bodies and beasts both disappeared into the Valley, a place of dense jungle trees cast in the deepest greens. I could just spy other things there too, the gigantic neck and head of a jago-nini, the brilliant red frill of a ngoubou.
I turned and ran.
~~~
Summary: When a routine exercise in intelligence gathering is interrupted by a dying man, Daniel Archdale, Ordained Herald to the White Council of Wizards, finds himself assigned to a dangerous mission that will lead him to the deepest reaches of the Nevernever. The journey will be perilous but if he fails, the death toll will be immense. OC main character, set Post Changes.
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Google Docs Index here. Google Docs version here. Fanfiction.net here
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Who am I? That's a good question. My full name is Daniel Julius Archdale, though as a Wizard and Ordained Herald of the White Council I don't say that aloud much. My friends call me Danny and, for better or for worse, that included those at the table around me.
"I raise $10," I said and threw the money into the pot.
"I see your ten," said Flin. "And raise you the first laugh of an orphaned child." He then proceeded to chuck a small glowing coin into the pot. I just sighed.
Flin is an under baronet pro tem in the Seelie Court, or something equally low ranking and innain. That technically makes him a Lord of the Summer Sidhe, if only barely and possibly only in a good light and if he got out of the bed on the right side that morning. It also means you couldn't trust him.
"No," grumbled Adam in his earth-deep voice, and, really, how else would a clay golem speak? He was made to be an emissary to the outside world by one of the more reclusive Nevernever powers. I'm sure his creators never envisioned his uses vis-Ã -vis poker rules.
"Adam's right," I said and gave Flin a look which rolled off him like water off a duck. Intimidating I'm not. "Table rules. Bets must be in United States of America currency, as defined by statute and legal in all ways. No fairy gold, no glamours, no transmogrified Chairmen of the Federal Reserve. Cold hard cash or at least paper."
"Oh fine," said Flin and rolled his golden eyes. Really the motion was only a few steps short of a flounce. "In which case I raise $100."
I resisted the urge to hiss. $100 is a lot of money, at least for me. The White Council pays me well enough but not so I could drop a Benjamin on a single hand. Still I had a good hand. Three Threes, a Jack, a King and a second up my sleeve if I truly needed it. If the worst came, losing a little money could even help with my true task here tonight.
Adam folded but Arborax met the bet.
"Call," I said and threw in a $100 note. "Let's see the cards."
I placed mine on the table, a low three of a kind. Arborax just had two pair, which put me well ahead. Then Flin put his hand down, showing three Sevens, a One and an Ace. He smiled like a cat as he raked in the pot. Never trust a faerie, even to be untrustworthy. Still there were more hands to go.
Adam took the deck, we all threw in the $10 auntie and he began dealing out cards. I, meanwhile, slipped back into table small-talk. We were speaking Waytalk, the hodgepodge language used by travellers in the Nevernever, mother tongue to none, spoken by millions. I picked my words carefully.
"So Flin," I said, "how's the family? I heard your uncle was injured by a dingonek."
He nodded as he looked at his cards, face otherwise impassive. "Much improved. The Lady Gwendolen has sent him a potent healing tonic."
Flin's uncle is Lord of the Bramble Marches and one of the more important people in Summer. He's also the noble employing Flin as a herald but I never got the impression he liked his nephew much.
"Nasty business," I said. "Who's giving you orders these days?" That might be pushing things but it was late in the night and we'd all been drinking, even if in Flin's case that meant a sparkling brew distilled from starlight, imported from the deep Nevernever were such things were possible. It wouldn't have worked on a more powerful sidhe (they simply couldn't release information in such an unbalanced fashion) but the chains of faerie power held Flin yet loosely.
"My Lady Aunt," said Flin.
"Your magic tutor?"
He nodded and then motioned at Arborax. "Do move along."
Arborax tooed-and-froed for a moment before throwing in $5, not a serious bet even by our table's feeble standards. Given his sizable spending last hand, I was betting on an act. It wasn't like he needed the money. He had a budget I could only dream of. Great Dragon's had deep pockets, even dead ones.
My hand looked like it might be promising (three Hearts, a Jack of Spades and a forlorn Three of Clubs) so I saw Arborax's bet, despite the fact that he could well have a good hand. Flin raised another $10. Adam put in the required $15 but didn't otherwise react. He was a conservative player and still learning the game. That was why we were only playing Five-card draw. Arborax ponied up the rest of the money but didn't push things further and neither did I.
"Three cards," said Arborax in his lilting Waytalk, and dropped that number on the table. Adam dealt him replacements from the deck.
"Two," I said, and gave away my Jack and Three. What I got back made me smile on the inside, another two Hearts. Flush.
"One," said Flin and tossed a card down.
While Adam dealt himself two cards, I turned to the rest of the table. "Has anyone else had problems with dingoneks?"
The expression on Arborax's face said more than words could have, and his heavy equine nose cast a deep shadow as he scowled. Even Adam's ember-red eyes darkened.
"Horrible things," said Arborax. "I wouldn't be surprised if the Dragon Princes ride forth against them. There have been attacks upon our protectorates."
The Dragon Princes were the high nobility of the Towering Mountains, the regional power Arborax called home. Each was a match for a White Council wizard, magically speaking, and rode a small-d dragon steed. They were deadly and not the sort of people anyone sensible wanted to face in a fight. I sure as hell didn't.
"And the White Council?" said Flin. A faint smile tickled the edge of his lips on his too-pretty face.
I had to frown at that but these things involved give and take. "We're worried," I said honestly. There had been much muttering back in Edinburgh, at least among those members who kept an eye on the Nevernever, and my orders to find out what was going on were fairly unambiguous. "We don't have extensive Nevernever holdings but if they should breach the Faerie border they could cross over to Earth itself. That would be bad."
"This one saw the Valley two days past," said Adam in a voice like grinding boulders. It was quite possibly his longest speech of the night.
Like a flipping switch, Adam was the centre of attention. Flin asked, "Where?"
"Three score leagues off the Sea of Monsters."
That was close, far too close. The Valley (or as I liked to call it The Land Time Took Up Drinking to Forget) was the nesting site for the dingoneks and other creatures too, chipekwes, jago-ninis, inkanyambas, ngoubous and God only knew what else. It was a migratory piece of Nevernever geography. According to what records I'd been able to scrounge up, it had last been active over a century ago, when it ravaged the Congo region of Africa, killing people, animals and spirits with equal blood-lust. It had spent the time since dormant in the deep Nevernever, those strange but wonder filled lands far from Earth, where metaphor could be as real as stone and the basic building blocks of reality began to fail. That it would come this close was a bad sign.
It was also very valuable information, and almost made tonight worth it by itself. As I've said before I'm an Ordained Herald for the White Council. That means I'm a messenger. I can walk safely into the heart of Winter if I have the right missive in my hands, secure in the knowledge that the Unseelie Accords make my person sacrosanct, at least in theory. That's true but it is also only part of the truth. The full truth is that I'm also a spy, an agent sent out of gather information and talk to people.
It's not even some terrible secret. We all are, Flin, Arborax, and even Adam, for all that he probably doesn't think of it in exactly those terms. Herald and spy, message-carrying and espionage: they always have and probably always will go together. You foster contacts, make friends, become proficient at getting places in a hurry and keep your eyes open. You just don't talk about it.
The silence hung for three long seconds before Arborax dropped two $10 notes on the table. I matched it and raised five. Flin saw the $25 bet but didn't increase it. Adam folded. Arborax called and I did the same.
"Let's see some cards." I dropped my hand and smiled a smile which almost split my face. "Hearts flush."
Flin cursed as he dropped his own Straight, and Arborax just frowned as his own Three of a Kind was beaten.
"Come to papa," I said as I reached for my winnings. I never got the chance. A man covered in blood staggered through the door and collapsed almost at my feet.
Perhaps I should take a moment to describe where we were. How many places, after all, could a Summer sidhe, a golem, a dragonized human and a White Council wizard meet to drink, play cards and engage in a little light espionage on the side? Well in practice there are quite a few such places but in this case it was the Hall of Hermes, the demesne of that once great god located deep in the Nevernever. As near as anyone can tell, Hermes retreated to his Hall one thousand five hundred years ago and went inactive shortly after. He's still there, even today, sitting at the head of the room on his throne, skin gone grey and body lifeless. You get use to it. There's even a book on when or if he'll eventually wake up. I'm not part of it; it's sucker money.
What I'm trying to get at is this: the Hall of Hermes is not the kind of place random people just stagger into. Still, the stranger did exactly that.
I dropped to my knees at once, game forgotten.
Blood covered the man. It stained the ragged remains of his clothes and matted his hair. Even as I watched it oozed from the deep wounds cut into his flesh. In fact there was only one thing which could be truly said to still be intact, and my eyes opened wide when I saw it: a dispatch bag, one of the heavily enchanted carrying cases given to Ordained Heralds of the White Council. Just like the one I had.
I rolled the figure over, blood staining my hands, and looked down at his face.
"Burkwater!" I said as the features registered through the injuries. He was a Herald. No, not just a Herald. He was the Herald, the best of us. He'd done amazing things, probed the depths of the Nevernever in ways seldom seen. He'd also been away on a mission since before the end of the Red Court War, two months before.
"Wizard Archdale," he said in Latin, his voice made barely comprehensible by random stops and starts. His eyes swam in and out of focus.
I scanned his injuries almost without thinking. They were bad, very bad and equally lethal. It was a miracle he made it this far. For all that Water Magic was theoretically one of my strengths, they were well beyond what I could hope to heal. Still, I had to try; I had to do something. Leaving a fellow Wizard and Herald to die on the ground was unthinkable.
"Stay strong, Burkwater," I said, willing with all my mind for it to be so. "I'm going to do what I can."
His hand shot out and grabbed mine. For all that he was dying, his grip was like iron. "The pouch," he said. "Get— Get the pouch to the Council." His eyes swam in and out of focus. "The war— Vital for the..."
With more effort than I really should have needed, I wrenched my hand free. "You can give it to them yourself."
His flesh was hot, feverish, but I didn't have time for that. I pulled a piece of white chalk from one of my coat's many pockets and began drawing on the ground.
Healing is more or less the definition of a complicated spell and that means a circle. I drew it in a great sweeping arc around where I knelt, a single unbroken line. Next came the pentacle, a five-pointed star inside my circle, the very symbol of magic under human control. Inside the five outer segments, I sketched runes and sigils, aids which would take some of the strain off me. Finally I began searching for ritual foci. They were perhaps the most important part of all, anchoring the pentacle's elemental points and making it truly potent.
I set my drink from the table down at the water point; intoxicating water, it might be, but I couldn't be picky. Next came fire and one of my pockets offered up a nightlight candle. Earth came after that, and I set down a thumbnail sized quartz crystal, cut from its natural form but using only human muscle and simple tools. Wind followed earth and I drew my air-knife from my belt. I used it for my air evocation and it was well aligned with such energies. That just left one last element, the master point which bound all the others.
"Spirit," I said to myself as I patted pockets. "Need something for spirit."
"Here," said Flin and threw me his glowing coin, the captured first laugh of an orphan child. Couldn't get much more spirit than that. I caught it out of the air and sent him a thankful smile.
It was time to begin. I placed the coin at the appropriate point and sat myself at the very centre of the circle, inside the pentagon formed by my pentagram. It was here that I would control my spell, the magical heart of all I aimed to work. With only three deep breaths for preparation, I closed my eyes and reached out with my mystical senses.
For a big spell like this I needed energy, lots and lots of energy; the Hall of Hermes shone with just that. In my mind's eye I could feel my friends standing in a half circle, watching me intently. I could feel the barman behind his bar. I could feel the group of owl spirits who sat at the table next along from ours. I could feel the dozen other messengers who filled the room. And, of course, I could feel the great god himself, sitting upon his throne. Dead or alive, I didn't care. All I knew was that waves of power rolled off Hermes, infusing the Hall, sustaining it and giving it form, purpose and substance.
I grabbed as much of that power as I could and clutched it to me, drinking it in until my mind burned and my brain threatened to dribble out my ears. Once I reached that point, I took one more gasping breath, reeled in my senses and opened my eyes.
Holding the energy skewed my vision, almost like being drunk. The chalk lines of my circle, pentacle and runes seemed to twist and turn as they sprawled in all directions. I gritted my teeth and forced them to make sense with pure will power. They resolved, order arising from chaos, and I saw what to do. I reached out with my hand and touched the runic mark for will. There was potential there, a bubble in my mystical senses, like a distorted piece of plastic just waiting for a single nudge to jump back into shape. I gave it exactly that. In my mind I pared off a tiny charge from the energy I held and shoved it out. My circle cracked like a misfiring car and energy whirled through it.
The circle, pentagram, ritual foci and runes all thumbed with power, but even so it was the barest of bare bones. A ritual of this scale really needed extensive preparations. It needed more foci, items for mind, body, heart, and the five senses at least. The area needed to be ritually cleansed. I needed to be ritually cleansed, purified waters to wash clean my body and meditative tranquility to bring my mind into perfect laser-like focus.
It didn't matter. There was no choice.
The spell came together in my mind, supported by the pentacle and runes, and held in place by the circle. Even with such aids, the scale of my task seemed insurmountable. Healing is hard, very hard. As a rule of thumb, you need the same level of biological knowledge to heal with magic as you would through purely mundane means. I don't have that level of knowledge; few people do. What I did have was the ability to cheat.
I fed power into the spell, a slow dribble. Each drop of energy forged a link between my body and the proxy-Burkwater held in my mind, a magical construct formed of my will and his blood, red on my hands. Magically speaking it was him, or would be once I broke my circle and let the energies loose on the wider world.
And that was my cheat: thaumaturgy, the ritual connection between two objects. My body was hale and hearty and his was injured. Force the state of one on the other, mine onto his, as above, so below. My wizard instincts said it should be possible. My common sense screamed that I was going to kill myself. I just had to hope the first voice and not the second was correct.
Time passed, and each moment was an agony as I simultaneously fought to contain the energy I held and work it into my spell. By the thirty-second mark my chest ached and every breath was a battle. By the one minute mark I was near delirious, only controlling the magic by the mental equivalent of finger tips. But I held on. Each moment meant more thaumaturgic links. It made my spell that bit stronger. It gave Burkwater one more chance to live.
Then it was time.
With a flicker of will I broke my circle and released my spell. It slammed into Burkwater like a hammer. His body arched and a scream tore from his throat. The gashes in his flesh began to close and my own cheeks tingled in thaumaturgic sympathy.
It was working. I beamed. It was working!
The wounds in his chest began to close and he screamed all the louder. I tried to do what I could, guiding the spell, helping it with the few pieces of anatomical knowledge I did possess. That was when it all went wrong.
Burkwater's scream stopped, as sudden as a gunshot, and my spell tore loose from his body. Backlashing magical energy slammed into me and marked my body with bruises from head to toe, in perfect mimicry of Burkwater's wounds. It threw me out of my now inert circle and across the Hall. Burkwater collapsed to the ground, dead. I collapsed to the ground, alive but in pain.
For almost twenty seconds I hurt too much to move, but I knew I had to. Gritting my teeth and marshaling every ounce of will I possessed, I pushed myself up and looked around. Burkwater lay on the ground where my spell had flung him, body bereft of life. That wasn't unexpected, feared, yes, but even as I lay on the ground I knew it to be true. No, what struck me was that his dispatch bag was gone and so was Flin.
My first reaction was incredulity. Dispatch bags are created by the Senior Counsel. They're protected by powerful enchantments to prevent unauthorized access and linked to their companion Herald's body, mind and soul, inseparable. Even in death they could only be picked up by a true member of the White Council, meaning me.
My eyes flicked to Flin's coin were it lay forgotten inside the broken circle and then opened wide. "An open debt!" I said aloud, back in Waytalk again, then swore. In accepting the coin I'd created a debt between Flin and I, and he'd used that to take my place in the eyes of the dispatch bag's enchantments. It was more magic than I thought Flin capable of.
"Damn damn damn," I said as I pushed myself fully upright. "That rat bastard. Never trust a fairy. Which way?"
Arborax gave me a commiserative smile and pointed to one of the four doors. For all that he was my friend, he wouldn't interfere in something like this and neither would Adem. This was a private matter between the White Council and the Summer Court. This was spy business.
"Take the body into a back room and put a circle around it," I said to Adam and Arborax as I snatched up the ritual objects from the failed ritual. I'm not ashamed to admit I felt a lot better with my air-dagger on hand again. "I'll own you one."
Adam nodded his ponderous head. That much he could do. Arborax likewise indicated his assent.
With that, I snatched up Flin's mostly empty glass off the table and dashed out the door.
Among Hermes' many accolades is God of Crossroads so it should come as no surprise to anyone that four great roads spilled away from his Hall. They were wide and thick, in the roman style, and boundary stones sat along their lengths, defining and limiting them. That last was very important in the Nevernever. Without the stones, the roads would shrink and expand at whims all their own.
I stared down the one Arborax had indicated. Ghostly transparent figures walked the road, echoes of travellers past and possibly even future. They moved in both directions in almost uncountable numbers, from the infinite distance to right before me. Flin was not among them. He was either hiding himself or, more likely, had jumped off at some point. This was fast getting complicated but I'd feared for the worst and planned accordingly.
From around my neck I drew my spirit-compass, an enchanted item I'd made using equal parts research and gut-instinct, and a disproportionate investment of money. A dozen needles sat on its face, each made from a different metal, and an interlocking network of dials ran around the edge.
With swift sure movements, I aligned the dials, selecting the sigils for 'Find', 'Fae' and 'Individual'. I touched Flin's glass to the last mark and forged a thaumaturgic link using my will. Then I hit the metaphorical go button.
The compass buzzed and the needles spun, aligning in ways which only made sense to someone learned in the mysteries of the Nevernever. Fortunately that included me. Moving with all the speed I possessed, I took off after Flin.
He'd left the road only a hundred meters along its length, travelling into a thicket of black, twisted trees. The shadows which lurked at the thicket's heart looked especially deep. At any other time I would've gone around, found another way, but I didn't have the luxury of restraint. I tore into them, compass clutched against my chest, my other hand holding my air-dagger.
Twisting black branches blocked my path and tore at my clothes but I ducked and dived between them. A squirrel with burning red eyes and tiny fangs took one look at me before scampering away. Magic tingled against my wizard senses, like changing air pressure, but I'd expected that too. This path had led Flin from Hermes' realm to somewhere else. It would take me there too.
I emerged from the trees into a basalt world. Hexagonal columns the size of skyscrapers towered above me and disappeared away in all directions, with narrow gaps in between. Hazy giants, somehow even bigger than the columns, walked among them, but all were a long way off. In the extreme distance I could just see the sea, a narrow slash of gray-blue. In between it and me was the running figure of Flin, tall, fluid and full of sidhe grace. He was also running faster than I could ever hope too.
Sometimes the unfairness of the universe really got to me.
Flin was of the sidhe, one of the lords of Faerie. That meant he was downright superhuman when it came to physical things. If I wanted to catch him, I'd need to think smart. Luckily I am a wizard.
The closest basalt pillar seemed to grow even bigger as I strode towards it. As I did, I returned my compass to around my neck, slip my air-dagger back into its sheath and drew it's never twin.
My never-knife is a work of art. It has a seven-inch blade and a five-inch handle, and an interlocking network of runes and sigils cover every inch of both. I've bathed it in the elemental streams of the deep Nevernever, had it blessed by spirits of travel and freedom and spent over a year slowly aligning its energies to mine. In short, it's the Rolls-Royce of Nevernever travel. Despite all that, I was pleasantly surprised when it held up well as I carved a two foot wide circle on the basalt face of the pillar.
"Here goes nothing," I said as I closed my eyes and placed my left hand in the circle. It closed with a snap as I channelled a spark of energy into it. Once it was steady, I a pointed my knife at the ground and spoke my spell. "Anapiesma!"
The whiplash movement of energy needed for evocation always leaves me feeling like a large part of my chest has been ripped out, but it is useful. For a brief moment the ground disappeared beneath my feet but it returned almost as quick.
When I opened my eyes it was to a pitch-black cave. Despite that, I could see fine. What, after all, was the point of creating a dark, scary place if no one could see all the work you put into the details?
My hand was plastered against a large stalactite and my ritual circle smoldered there. Water dripped down too close walls and invisible eyes watched me from the far shadows, which concealed a lot more than the rest of the phantasmal dark.
"Right, no pressure," I said to myself as I strode forward, counting stalactites. Flin had been about twenty pillars ahead of me. Add five more to be safe and you got...
"Twenty five," I said and tapped the pillar.
Something chittered just out of sight but I didn't have time. If it came at me my best defence would be the plan I was already enacting. It was time to realm shift again.
Using my never-knife, I carved another two foot circle into the stalagmite, a bit less uniform than last time but I couldn't afford to be picky. That done, I touched the centre, closed it with a flicker of will and pointed my knife straight up in the air. "Anapiesma!"
Transition was worse the second time. I reappeared in the basalt world, breathing heavily, my knees shaking. But I'd made it and that was the important thing. Bright sunlight shone from above and booted feet struck stone from just around the corner. Flin. Despite that I really wanted to curl up and have a rest, I prepared myself for a fight.
Tip number one for fighting faeries. Don't. Tip number two, with a few exceptions they are physical enough that brute force is a viable strategy.
In a single swift motion, I drew my air-dagger, moved around the pillar and stepped right into Flin's path.
"Aema!"
Wind tore from my air-dagger, a hurricane of blunt force. This focus was a cruder tool than my never-knife but that had its advantages. It blew Flin off his feet. He smashed into the ground, rolled and came to a skidding stop.
Magic on that scale always hits me hard, but I'd expected the drain and kept my feet. With outwardly sure steps I advanced, hiding my growing weakness. "Give it back, Flin." He clutched the dispatch bag to his chest.
He tried to roll to his feet but I had no intention of letting that happen. With a swipe of my dagger, I called another wind. "Aema!"
It was weaker this time, both because I had less to give and to conserve my strength, but it was still enough. Wind caught Flin mid roll and flung him through the air, right into one of the pentagonal basalt pillars. There he stayed, ass above head, having learned his lesson.
"Hand it over."
Flin smiled at me from the ground, a cheeky expression on his upside down face, like a child caught sneaking a cookie before dinner. It was only a little spoiled by the blood running down his face.
"Why Danny," he said, "what a surprise. Sorry to run off from our game but I have pressing business to take care of."
"Cut the games," I said. "That—" I pointed with my air-dagger "—is White Council property."
"Once was, once was," said Flin. "Now it is a treasure of the Summer Court of the Sidhe."
"It wasn't yours to take."
"Ah," he said and his smile was the cat who'd got the cream, "but it was yours to give."
"Give it back."
He looked at me, right in the eye. "No."
And that was the most annoying thing. As these things were judged in the Nevernever, he could well be in the right. In accepting his coin, I'd created a debt that let him step in and take my place were the satchel was concerned. If I took it back by force, a formal complaint from his uncle could find me in the wrong. There was probably enough doubt that I could get away with demanding a dual, and take the bag as a prize if I won, but I really didn't want to do that. If for no other reason, the choice of weapon would be his and he could take me apart hand-to-hand. For another he was my friend, even if I wasn't feeling very friendly right that moment. It was time for another track.
"You'll never get it open," I said.
"Oh I wouldn't be so sure," said Flin. "Summer has many people wise in the ways of such things. Even if I can't, I'm sure your masters would pay a handsome ransom for its return."
That was true. "If it's a ransom you want, come with me. I'll promise you right now, we'll pay well." And it would probably come right out of my salary.
As Flin considered my offer, I sensed movement behind me. A too-long shadow spilled out from one of the pillars and I had a thought, a very bad thought.
"Flin," I said, trying to keep calm. Panic could tip it off. "Where are we?"
"Hum, where? The Giant's Causeway of course."
Ah. "And that's the Sea of Monsters over there."
"Correct, but why should that..."
I could see the realization dawn on his face even upside down. The Sea of Monsters... Where Adam had seen the Valley only two days before. Even those forty-eight hours could mean very little; time was strange in the Nevernever.
Trying to keep calm I turned and saw it, a dingonek, stalking out from the shadows. It was a sight fit to chill my blood.
"Truce?" I said, almost under my breath. Flin heard and agreed all the same.
Let me take a moment to describe a dingonek. Start with the lean form of a hunting cat, a malk, maybe, or a jaguar. Next scale it up to eighteen feet long. Once you've got the size right, add the armoured skin of a scaly anteater, the striking tail of a scorpion, a pair of sabretooth fangs and the horn of a rhino, sharpened to a needle point. Sounds bad, right? Well it's worse. That skin, it can take a point-blank shot from a high-powered rifle, the poison from its tail will eat through most magical defences and on the charge, its horn can do a passable imitation of an unstoppable force. And that didn't even touch upon its overt magical abilities: the manipulation of shadow and still water. It could slink through the Nevernever like nobody's business. My trick with the pillars wouldn't help me with this; the dingonek would only follow.
"Could you reach Earth from here?" said Flin, speaking low. From the corner of my eye, I could see he was now the right way up.
I shook my head, not taking my gaze from the stalking dingonek. "Not from this deep in the Nevernever. If I had time to perform a ritual, maybe. Could you hold it off for half an hour?"
It was Flin's turn to shake his head.
"What about a veil?" I said. The inhabitants of Faerie were generally good at such thing but I'd never seen Flin do more than parlor trick glamoury. "Could you make us invisible?"
"Not against this beast's eyes," he said. "They are not a talent of mine."
"One more thing," I said, and licked my lips. Now wasn't the right time but there might not be a better one. "Your uncle, did he win his fight with the dingonek."
"Oh yes," said Flin as he levered himself fully upright. "Stabbed it right through the eye with his spear. It was dead in thirty seconds."
"And it still injured him badly?"
"Thirty seconds is a lot of time."
I readied my will. The dingonek charged. "Dikhoto!"
If the spell I'd used against Flin was a battering wind, this was a cutting one. Blades of sharpened air slashed at the dingonek's face. They tore deep gashes but didn't penetrate the armoured skin to the soft tissue beneath.
The dingonek roared, the sound a cross between a lion and a snake, and re-angled its charge towards me, horn lowered. Sparks shot up from where its claws dug into the basalt floor.
My limbs felt like lead (too much magic with no chance to rest) but I clenched my jaw, summoned up my strength and threw myself to the side. The dingonek tore past, then Flin was there, his hands up raised. Summer Fire appeared within them and he flung it out, unfocused blasts which burst like hand grenades against the dingonek's armoured hide.
It let loose another cry and whipped around, scorpion tail flung out like a counterweight. I attacked again, this time with a single air blade, launched right at the beast's left eye. The effort left me staggered and seeing double, but brought results. The eye almost exploded and the dingonek scrambled as it back-pedalled, tail rising to strike anyone attempting to close. The shadows under its belly deepened and then rose up, distorting its image like a poor quality veil.
"It's repositioning, not retreating," said Flin. Again he conjured Summer Fire, and this time it was blinding white. The shadows around the dingonek disappeared, like cobwebs to a blowtorch, but so did the dingonek itself.
"Illusion," I said, then swore. I turned a circle, scanning for danger. "Come here, Flin." From my jacket I plucked another piece of chalk (this one neon green) and tossed it to the ground. Once Flin was at my side, I used my foot to pull it in a circle around us both. When done, I closed it and held out a hand. "Mutual survival says you should help."
"But of course." The smile was slightly mocking. The ability of Summer sidhe to be annoyingly superior even in the face of death never ceases to amaze and irritate me.
Flin took my left hand and channeled his power: the magic of Summer. It flowed into me, a seemingly infinite stream of life, vitality and fire. It was the magic that let weeds shatter stone. It was the magic that let life triumph in even the harshest environments. It was the magic which fuelled the fury of the classical Greek hero. It was wondrous — the siren song of the Nevernever, distilled and given life and form — and even as I held it, it was healing me, restoring my stocks of energy and unfogging my mind. I wanted nothing as much as to hold and hoard it forever but my life was on the line. With gritted teeth I thrust it into the circle.
A throbbing curtain of green and red fire roared up around us. Fern like patterns rolled across its surface and its power pressed against my senses. The loss of Summer's power left me feeling hollow but still much improved on before.
"Pretty," said Flin. "Do you do parties?"
"Shut up, Flin."
The dingonek was still out there somewhere. I scanned for it and saw something else: the dispatch bag, lying forgotten against the basalt pillar. Flin must have abandoned it to save his life, just like a faerie. It was while my attention was thus diverted that the beast struck.
Intellectually I knew the scorpion sting of a dingonek could eat through most magical defences. That was a potent ability but I only had a general idea of what it meant. My book learning didn't live up to the truth.
The stinger slammed into my circle on an arc which would have ended in my chest. Shatter lines of black energy speared out from the impact point but that was only the outwards manifestation of an entirely different problem. Raw focused animal will speared through my circle, up the magical connection which bound it to me and into my skull.
I screamed and stumbled back, the dingonek's attack doing to my mind what its claws would happily do to my body. In a very real sense a Wizard's will is his magic and I'm nothing to write home about in terms of strength. It would tear me to shreds.
On instinct, I broke the connection binding me to the circle. That didn't cause the circle to instantly fail but without me to support and sustain it, it wouldn't have a hope of withstanding the attack being levelled against it. Already the wall of energy was degrading. The black shatter lines attacked every inch, and it wouldn't last long. We didn't have minutes left; we had seconds.
"Flin," I said as I pushed myself back up. "We need to split up. I'll realm shift you down, deeper into the Nevernever. I go up, back towards Earth. It can only chase one of us and if I can work this circle right, it might not realise either of us are gone until it's too late."
For a brief moment I saw something which might have been concern on his face but I was probably imagining it. Only fools force human qualities on the sidhe, fools and men who'd soon be working off hundred year debts in drudge servitude. He was probably just worried about the debt he would owe me if by some angel-wrought miracle we both survived.
"Do it," he said.
"Right."
Moving as fast as I could, I drew my never-knife and scored a second circle inside the first. Outside the dingonek continued its assault, coming closer and closer to destroying the outer circle for all that it was formed of wizard magic and Summer fire both.
"Hand inside and seal," I said and when Flin had done that, I looked at him, for possibly the last time. He might have tricked me and stole the dispatch bag but expecting otherwise from the Fae was like expecting water to be dry. He was still my friend. "Good luck. You'll probably appear in an underground cave, full of stalactites. There's something there, in the true dark, so move swiftly and escape."
He nodded and I readied my never-knife, the tip pointed towards the ground at Flin's feet.
"Good luck, Daniel Archdale," he said and I could feel the tingle of my true name in those words, or two thirds of it anyway.
I gave him a tight smile and said one word: "Anapiesma!"
Flin disappeared in a flash of purple light and I staggered on my feet, feeling like a large chunk of my chest had been scooped out, possibly by an ice cream scoop. In the same moment, the dingonek smashed through the outer circle. My weakness was all that saved me. The beast's scorpion tail slammed through the air where I'd been but I was several feet to the left, wobbling to stay upright.
It whipped around and I didn't even attempt magic, just threw myself to the side again. It pounced, mouth open, saber-fangs gleaming with spittle, and clipped me on the shoulder. I crashed to the hard ground. The only thing keeping me alive at this point was luck. It was faster than me, faster than a sidhe even, and I was only a rapidly tiring wizard.
From where I lay I stabbed out with my air-dagger and thrust all the energy I could grab into a spell. "Aema!"
It was a buffeting wind this time, a hurricane condensed down into a battering ram only a half-dozen feet across. The spell caught the dingonek in the side and threw it clear, right into one of the giant basalt pillars. I'd like to say there was a sickening crunch of broken bones but it barely seemed to feel the impact. It landed like a cat, turned and hiss-roared at me, shadows writhing around its limbs, body and head.
I stabbed out again with my air-dagger, a blade of wind blasting from the blade's edge. It streaked right towards the dingonek's remaining eye, but the dingonek sensed it coming. There was a flash of shadow and my air-blade shot off to the side, where it cut a deep wound in the nearest basalt pillar. Tail slashing from side to side, the dingonek advanced.
My weariness was bone deep, as bad as it had ever been. The dingonek glared at me, its remaining eye filled with animal cunning. It had already learnt to deflect my wind attacks and they were my main form of offensive evocations, since I had little talent with fire. If I wanted to win this fight I would need to do something it didn't expect. I had the perfect trick.
I'm not good at veils (my spirit evocations are too tied with the Nevernever) but that's only a problem if you come at all problems from the same angle. Even as the dingonek advanced I slipped my air-dagger back into its sheath and drew my never-knife, holding it in both hands. I gathered energy and said, "Thrauo!"
My will flashed out, twisting local Never-space, and the universe shattered at my command. It became a dozen constantly spinning mirrors, throwing splintered reflections in a hundred different directions. My head was a confused mess as I levered myself up, only partially from exhaustion. The dozen dingoneks looked only slightly better. Their lips pulled back and their remaining eyes darted wildly. Already the mirrors were disintegrating, fraying at the edges, becoming opaque, but they might give me enough time.
I swayed on my feet, dropped my never-knife and just managed to draw and raise my air-dagger one last time. This spell was not a one way veil. It scrambled all light, mine and the dingonek's both. The only difference was that I knew the secret; I knew the pattern and what to watch for.
"One," I muttered to myself as I saw my back spinning past. That was the signal to start counting.
"Two." This time it was a reversed version of my face.
"Three." For one perfect moment, all the mirrors showed true. I pointed my dagger right at the dingonek's already ruined left eye, gathered every ounce of my will, bound it as tightly as I could, made the slight alteration I wanted and let it fly. "Aema!"
The wind ripped the dagger from my hand, whipping it forward as fast as any bullet. It slashed through the intervening air, straight and true, and right into the dingonek's brain. I collapsed forward, all my muscles numb. The very moment my limp body touched the basalt floor, the dingonek went crazy.
A hundred shattered images showed the dingonek attacking invisible enemies on all sides. It slashed, bit, clawed and struck with its horn. Its scorpion tail stabbed again and again, beating holes in the ground. Shadows spun like a whirlwind, trying to do God only knew what. For thirty seconds it attacked in mindless frenzy, then it stopped, just stopped, tail frozen mid lunge, mouth open and sabre-tooth fangs bare. The next second its limp body fell to the ground, dead. I was scarcely in better condition.
For almost ten minutes I couldn't move. Irons chains bound every cell in my body to the ground. Finally, though, my utter exhaustion started to fade. Gradually, bit by bit, piece by piece, I felt my reserves rebuilding themselves. I wouldn't be fully mended for a while (not until I ate well and slept better) but it would do for now.
Muscles groaning, I swept up my never-knife and pushed myself upright. The dingonek was definitely dead. I could feel its escaping energies with my mystical senses, the potent power it had held so close in life now released in death. In better times I would have tried to harvest as least some of the windfall but attempting such a ritual now would surely kill me. Instead I stooped only to retrieve my air-dagger and turned my mind to other things. I needed to save my strength for my return to White Council territory.
And on that note...
Burkwater's despatch bag still lay abandoned were Flin had left it. I hobbled towards it and picked it up. The simple cloth buzzed against my fingers. It was protected against intrusion, defended by enchantments laid down by some of the most powerful wizards currently alive. Only eight people could open it and one of those was dead. Wizard Burkwater, its former master, was the latter and the former were the seven members of the Senior Council. That didn't mean I couldn't give it a good feel, though.
My questing hands scouted the shapes concealed by the cloth. There was something bulky in it and the heft spoke of some substantial weight, like a large lump of stone or metal. That was all I could tell, though. Squeezing it as small as I could, I shoved it into my despatch bag, crumpling a couple of unimportant missives in the process. With that done, I breathed a sigh of relief. While inside my dispatch bag my prize was safe, and my task became a lot easier. It also meant I could turn my attention fully to escape.
The Giant's Causeway stretched away in all directions, a basalt world of hazy giants and colossal hexagonal pillars the size of skyscrapers. It seemed to go on forever and it might well do so. In the Nevernever shear area is worthless (a mere plaything for anything with power to enforce their will) but land is something else entirely. Land is what area happens in and there are always ways in and out, boarders, gateways, and bolt-holes wrought in ages past, places where Nevernever realms overlap and interact.
I turned a slow circle, searching for anything which might indicate such a place. With luck I'd be able to find the black trees I'd used to arrive and from there travel to the Hall of Hermes, but nothing was ever certain in the Nevernever. Fortune was with me and I did see the trees, twenty-five pillars away, just where they should be, but I also saw something else. Blocking me from the Sea of Monsters was a rift in the world, a v-shaped opening which led to a dense jungle.
My blood ran cold.
It led to the Valley, the Land Time Took Up Drinking To Forget.
My hands shook as I pulled a collapsible telescope from one of my pockets and raised it to my eye. It was a cheap thing, only a few steps above Christmas cracker level, but it helped some. The Valley grew larger and if anything my blood ran colder.
Dozens upon dozens of dingoneks moved in and out of the rift. The ones heading out disappeared in flares of shadow but it was the ones who returned which worried me. They carried bodies in their teeth, the physical corpses of fae, fluttering spirit forms and the remains of other stranger things, unknown outside the Nevernever.
Bodies and beasts both disappeared into the Valley, a place of dense jungle trees cast in the deepest greens. I could just spy other things there too, the gigantic neck and head of a jago-nini, the brilliant red frill of a ngoubou.
I turned and ran.
