The Unmaking (The Last Days of Tian Di, #2)(89)

For a moment, none of them moved. Then the cockroach became Charlie, Swarn rose slowly to her feet, and Nell threw her arms around her best friend.

“So you are the Shang Sorceress,” said Jalo, with deep respect.





Chapter


22

The ravens had all disappeared now. Nia’s tiger paced around his Mistress in circles, snarling at the group. Nia struggled to speak, but she could not move her tongue.

Eliza unchained the Faery. They gathered around the body of Ander Brady.

“Is that the police chief from Holburg?” asked Eliza, shocked.

Nell bent down to close his staring eyes and Swarn pulled the end of her spear from his body. Jalo removed his cloak and laid it on the ground. Together they lifted the large man onto it and wrapped it around him.

~~~

They made their camp on the mountainside. It was a cold night but Jalo created a roaring bonfire with his firestick and they gathered around it.

“Is it customary to...burn your dead?” asked Jalo.

“We’ll take him back to Holburg,” said Nell. “He should be cremated and buried there. Nay here.” She said here with real loathing, as if no place could be as barren or as heartless as this place.

~~~

“Today is the Day of Feasting,” said Nell sardonically. None of them was hungry.

“It’s almost tomorrow,” said Eliza.

“The Day of Dancing,” said Nell. She began to laugh, then stopped abruptly and closed her eyes.

There was a distant rumble of thunder. In the ruined Hall at the top of the mountain, Nia’s tiger let out a desolate roar.

~~~

There was a storm off to the north, moving away from them, further into the distance. Nell and Charlie fell asleep wrapped in blankets by the fire. Uri Mon Lil nodded off in the middle of updating his book and, at last, Jalo dozed as well.

Eliza looked at Swarn. Her clothes were soaked in blood, particularly around her right shoulder, and her face was swollen and bruised. She sat very still.

“Are you injured badly?” asked Eliza quietly.

“Yes,” said Swarn. “But I’ll live. What is the Magic you did?”

“The main bit wasnay Magic at all,” said Eliza. “I used the Sorma techniques of taming and healing – that was how we disassembled the monster. That was enough to stop it from doing any harm, but I remembered what you told me about the wizard who Made the dragons and was absorbed by them. I was gambling that anything a being Makes could draw Magic from its Maker. You and the Mancers taught me that the Magic in the worlds is what was left here by the Ancients, the Magic of their Making, but I’m nay even sure...” Here Eliza took a deep breath, and then she said, “I’m nay sure the Ancients left Tian Di. I think maybe Tian Di absorbed them.”

Swarn listened but said nothing.

“I’ve felt how alive the worlds are with mysterious powers that...lah, it seems true, but I spose it doesnay matter. If I could control the thing Nia Made, I thought I could control her Magic. Praps not use it myself but at least direct its flow. I got the idea of a deadlock from Wennot’s Sixth Law. Only her own Magic would really be strong enough to bind her.”

“Wennot?” inquired Swarn.

“A Di Shang scientist. Equal and opposite force...something Nell told me about.”

“Her pride was her downfall, as is often the case,” mused Swarn. “She couldn’t resist performing the Magic of Making, dangerous as it was. You must keep the Urkleis safe, Eliza.”

Eliza could feel it in her chest, a hard, bitter lump, aching.

She said, “The Oracle told me that victory would only come for me with sacrifice. She said I would cut my own heart out.”

Swarn nodded slowly, staring at the fire. “I doubt that is meant literally,” she said. “You could try to interpret it, but sometimes hints of the future are best left alone. Have you sacrificed much for this victory?”

“It doesnay feel like a victory,” said Eliza.

Swarn nodded again and let the subject drop. “You have brought the Vindensphere,” she said. “How did you take it from the Citadel?”

“It was easy to take, aye,” said Eliza. “I think the Citadel knew what I meant to do with it.”

“What do you mean to do with it?”

“I have to find Kyreth. I dinnay know if Nia has killed him, but if he’s alive he might be the only one who can break the Curse on the Mancers.”

Swarn gave Eliza a long, steady look, as if weighing something. “You asked me once why your mother hid you from the Mancers and I did not tell you,” she said at last. “I thought the knowledge would be a burden, as it was for her. She learned something from the Oracle that broke her heart, Eliza.”

“What was it?”

Even as she asked she realized that she knew what Swarn would say.

“Kyreth is Nia’s father,” said Swarn heavily. “You should know everything, Eliza, before you seek him out.”

~~~

Jalo, Charlie and Nell wandered among the trees. Eliza, Swarn and Uri Mon Lil were working some Magic together and had asked for no distractions.

“It’s cold,” said Nell.

“We could be at the seaside in summertime,” suggested Jalo, looking at the bare trees and the snowy crags overhead.