Part 10 (1/2)

'As It wills,' Siel murmured.

That mentality again, Eric thought. Something 'just is'; there's little curiosity in these people to look closer, to ask why and how. Is it because they can see their G.o.ds? Or since there's magic, there's been less need to break the world down to its nuts and bolts?

Gorb had evidently given up trying to climb the grey dead tree by the window, not trusting it to hold his weight. He'd gone through the arch to the whirlpool's steps, and now his footsteps thudded slowly up the winding staircase. 'Strange, down there,' he said, nodding to where the water swirled and burbled. 'Sounds, down below. Almost like voices, mixed with wind.'

And Loup hadn't wanted me to go down there, Eric thought. He made us climb that f.u.c.king tree and risk our necks. I'd understand what the voices said is that why?

'Who are you?' said Loup.

'I'm the one you yelled and threw things at,' said Gorb. 'Then you invited me up here for lunch. Now you don't know me. You're mighty confused, even for a mage.'

'Not you, him!' Loup pointed at the squirming bald man tucked under Gorb's arm.

'Oh. This's Bald. He got lost and almost starved. So I fed him and looked after him and he hung around and made things for us. But you have to keep an eye on him. He gets edgy when he's got nothing to make or take apart. And you should probably know that there'll be trouble here soon, because of Bald.' Gorb set the emaciated, crazed-looking man down. Bald lunged for the gun still in Gorb's hand.

'Here, I'll take the bullets out,' Eric said, 'before you kill someone with that.'

'It won't kill anyone,' Gorb a.s.sured him, 'just makes a noise that hurts your ears. Bald, what did you do to that soldier anyway?'

'I have established the thing's purpose,' Bald rasped in a voice so terrible it would have suited any comic-book arch-villain Eric had encountered.

'Easy now,' said Loup nervously.

When Gorb handed over the Glock, Bald made a pained sound, then sat himself away from everyone else, face downcast, not moving a muscle.

'What's this about trouble?' Loup asked the half-giant.

Gorb had got almost through his ponderous explanation of events at the village when there was a thock! sound outside, then another. An arrow sailed through the broken window and skidded to a halt near the stairwell.

At the water's edge were ten men in chain-mail, two with longbows in hand. They ceased their fire.

'Stay down all of you, pretend you're not here,' said Loup irritably. He went to the window and called down, 'Save your arrows, idiots! Strange times these, you'll soon have better things than my house to shoot at.'

'Your house?' called up the group's leader. 'The locals say your house wasn't here, last week. Nor were you.'

'What of it?' said Loup. 'This land's not claimed by Tanton, are you from? Not by your city or any other. p.i.s.s off. Where I live's my business.'

'Where is the half-giant and his murdering friend?'

'Ehh?!'

'Where is the Pilgrim? Send those ones down and we'll leave you be.'

Loup cackled hysterically, thumping down on the window sill. 'Do you think the lot of you together's enough to over-power a half-giant, if there was one here? Lucky there ain't one! Never seen one angry, have ye? I have, oh aye! More'n once.'

The group's leader laughed grimly. 'There are means to deal with such creatures, and we have them. It is his ”friend” we want, an Engineer of our city. Send them down with the Pilgrim and it may all end peacefully.'

'No such thing as Pilgrims. Old myths. Go away or I'll set you on fire.'

'Don't threaten us, fraud,' said the leader while the other men laughed. 'We are told you have the Pilgrims here.'

'Oh there're two of them now, aye? Who's the fraud? Leave me be. You interrupted my nap.'

The men strode cautiously into the lapping waves, while their leader waited at the water's edge. 'Fan out,' he called to them. 'Have a shot trained on the other windows.'

'Don't come nearer!' said Loup.

The soldiers were soon halfway across the water. 'So, old man! What magic have you? Where is your fire?'

Loup stuffed a knuckle in his mouth. He looked to the others for help, when the air was filled with a hissing noise. A horrible scream sounded below. Then it was a chorus of screams. White steam gushed up from the waters, suddenly churning and bubbling like a cook-pot.

A touch late, Loup began a theatrical waving of his arms. The men, shrieking and dropping their weapons, raced back to the sh.o.r.e, where one ran in blind circles, howling with pain. The rest quickly stripped off their leggings and fled, backsides pink and scorched. Their captain gaped up at Loup then backed away. The water calmed and serene waves again curled languidly across it.

'Ahey! See that? Safe here, all right,' cried Loup to his gaping companions, affectionately patting the window sill. 'What's more, I'm starting to wonder if this old house wasn't built for us! Maybe they knew you were coming, eh, Eric? They left the pantry full after all. Let's eat!'

THING IN THE WOODS.

1.

The uppermost of the tower's three floors had eleven beds laid out, four of them recently slept in before Loup had arrived to find the place abandoned.

Now Siel alone was still awake despite the quiet song of breeze and gently lapping waves, which had eased the others to sleep. This strange magic house didn't like her; she could sense it longing to give her nightmares. Dreams sometimes gave her things worse to confront than all the grisly offerings of reality. She dreamed she were living a simple happier life, knew love, had children. In this dream life she'd never killed, never known war or battle. She dreamed of her mother and father growing old, she dreamed of looking after them. Dreamed of their praise, their embraces.

It had been a mistake to pick a bed two down from the Engineer. Though Bald was quiet now, his earlier snoring came with occasional convulsions which threw his thin body over his creaking bed. In the afternoon Eric had at last given in to the Engineer's sulking pleas and let him examine the gun (not before taking out its deadly little pellets). 'He'll make more guns,' Gorb had claimed. 'Those dolls, well, he helped me make them.' The half-giant had been shamefaced, caught in his earlier fib. 'I did their faces. He did the joints and did the things that made them go. We were a team.'

Wind sighed across water. A cool gust blew up from the stairwell, with the hint of a human voice sadly murmuring, Won't you come and speak with me? Siel had imagined rather than heard its message, she knew. But still she rose and descended the steps. She walked between the odd black structures on the second floor, all still moving with hypnotic liquid motion. The shallow pool of water glimmered. Even Loup had no idea of the purpose of these devices.

She gazed around at it all then spat in disgust, no doubt displeasing the house further. Disgust at those aloof, cowardly wizards who'd suffered their defeat, then hidden in comfort through nearly three centuries, pa.s.sive through so much evil, lending no help to the common people who worked and died to avenge them.

She went to the broken window and gazed out. The waves below lapped with their patient insistence, edged with luminous traces of silver. For a time she gazed at them, lulled almost to sleep, till movement at the sh.o.r.e caught her eye. Something big very quickly crossed the thirty or so paces to the tree line. It seemed only a blurred patch of night, but a glimmering flash of gold and silver trailed it; a puff of beautiful cloud which fell in hard sparkling pieces to the ground in a rain of bouncing gems. They made a faint sound, like tinkling bells. The lumps of beauty melted into the gra.s.s.

Siel exclaimed in wonder. Her heart beat fast. And, there! Movement by the trees, the glimmer of eyes inhuman, more beautiful than human: ancient and knowing and smiling eyes, peering right through the window into her own. An invitation to come outside, the eyes spoke it as loud as words. Come and play.

A gust of air pushed from behind her, drafting up from the stairway, almost as though the tower was urging her: go on. The tower that didn't like her. That had tripped her up, had tried to make her fall from the window ledge, which surely wished her ill ...

And yet she found herself up on the window sill, stepping onto the thin but firm tree branch out there. Her bow and knife were back by the bed she'd slept in, but she had little thought of that. Down the trunk she slid, landing hard on the little patch of turf around the tree's base, hesitating before putting one bare foot down in the slow-moving waves.

In the dark woods, the eyes were gone from where she'd seen them, if they'd been there at all.

The water was cold. The screams of the burning Tantonese soldiers echoed in her mind. One step, two steps ... soon she was far enough in that she would not avoid being cooked if the waters boiled again. She ran the rest of the way, puffing, filled with adrenaline. She crouched at the water's edge and caught her breath.

And only here, now, did she wonder what in blazes she was doing, walking unarmed into the clutches of some unknown power. This was so unlike her she was tempted in a fit of self-reproach to finish the job, walk headlong into the consequences and make sure her punishment was complete.