Lessek's Key

TRAVER’S NOTCH

‘That coffee smells great,’ Steven said, opening a saddlebag and rooting around for the last of the venison strips. ‘When I was driving from Charleston to Denver, I must have drunk three gallons of the stuff.’

Mark looked up from where he had been carefully pouring hot water through one of the filters Steven had stolen from Howard’s kitchen. ‘I can’t wait. I’ve grown so used to tecan, I’m worried I’ve lost my taste for it.’ On the outskirts of Traver’s Notch, a farm had provided milk, cheese, bread and vegetables to complement their venison. Mark had negotiated for a small metal pot for the brewing of coffee. Now he gripped the thin paper filter awkwardly between two fingers and trickled water slowly through the mound of ground coffee, trying to imitate the timing of their coffee maker at home. ‘It’s not the easiest thing in the world,’ he admitted, ‘but so far, it certainly smells like coffee.’

‘I think it smells like burned dirt,’ Garec said. ‘And you prefer this muck to tecan? Look at the colour of it!’

‘You need learn to have some faith, Garec,’ Steven said. ‘Just wait until you try some with a little milk and a few drops of that sugar extract Gilmour pretends he doesn’t carry in his tunic next to his three hundred pipes.’

‘Don’t listen to him, Garec,’ Mark said, ‘you want it barefoot.’

‘Barefoot?’

‘Exactly,’ Mark nodded, ‘as it comes, direct from the pot, none of that creamy, sugary nonsense, just insert the needle and open the IV.’

Garec looked askance at the foreigner. ‘I think Steven’s way sounds better,’ he said, ‘but neither sounds good!’

Gilmour broke in, ‘That aroma does bring back memories. My last cup must have been outside Gettysburg. Jed Harkness from Maine had a pot that brewed it right beside the fire, the water bubbled up in a little compartment, first clear, then brown and then almost black. It was wonderful…’ He sighed, and pulled his cloak close around his shoulders. It had grown noticeably colder in the days since they had resumed normal travelling, without the aid of what Garec had dubbed the Larion push. The ground was hard this morning and there was frost on the leaves and shrubs. The sky was slate-grey, and a glimmer in the southeast was all the sun they had seen that morning.

‘Don’t admit that, Gilmour,’ Mark said, ‘you’re showing your age.’

‘I am?’ He looked at Steven. ‘You’ve calculated the difference. How old would a two-thousand-Twinmoon grettan like me be in Colorado?’

Steven breathed a sigh through his nose. Mark recognised it: his maths sigh, a deep breath that said, there are numbers and figures lining themselves up inside my head, so don’t interrupt.

‘That’s about two hundred and eighty years old, Gilmour.’

‘Holy shit.’ Mark stopped pouring and stared at the former Larion Senator. ‘I have to apologise, Gilmour. The fact that you have any memories from your last visit at all is an impressive feat, never mind that they come from a time when my mother’s mother’s mother’s mother was still in nappies. And I am embarrassed for my world that this little cup of trail coffee is the first you’ll have to drink in a century and a half. I wish I could take you to the diner on I-84 just across the Newburgh-Beacon Bridge. That’s the best coffee in America. I used to run up there when I was on break from school just to get a mug. It took all day.’

‘If we ever get through this, I promise I’ll go with you for a cup.’ Gilmour forced a smile and rubbed his neck bruises absently.

‘Speaking of which,’ Steven changed the subject, ‘we’re about a Twinmoon early to meet Gita and the rest of the Eastern Resistance – when we made plans to meet in Traver’s Notch, we thought you were dead. We figured we might need them to get us across the border.’

‘Had I been dead, you would have needed them,’ Gilmour said. ‘But given our current situation, it’s just as well that she is rallying the remainder of the Falkan forces here, for if we do succeed in vanquishing Nerak, we’ll need a fighting force – however ramshackle they may be – to help with any pockets of occupation personnel who make the decision to stand fast.’

‘I think they would relish that assignment,’ Mark agreed. ‘So how do we get across the border?’

‘Magic, or if we don’t want to be noisy, we creep in after dark, between the pickets,’ Gilmour said. ‘It’ll be the only way – unless you fancy fighting your way through Malakasian soldiers whose sole purpose is to keep me – and Kantu, I suppose – from re-entering Gorsk.’

‘No, that’s fine,’ Mark said quickly, ‘I’m quite happy with door number two.’

Traver’s Notch was a small village nestled between hills in a ridge running east to west along the Falkan-Gorsk border, south of the Twinmoon Mountains. The only road into town led between the hills through a miniature pass that ran up the draw and then down a series of gentle switchbacks until it reached the main town on the valley floor. It wasn’t hidden – several homes and what looked like shops were clearly visible on the slopes above the city – but flanked to the north as it was by deeper valleys and steep foothills, Traver’s Notch was well protected and easily defensible from any force, either approaching over the mountains or along the Falkan plain. It looked like it was engaged in a daily battle to keep from being swallowed entirely by the mixed hardwood and evergreen forests that spilled over from Gorsk.

As they crested the final hill, Traver’s Notch spread out before them. Steven guessed the valley was over a mile wild and perhaps half a mile across, with most of the buildings tucked neatly into the great natural bowl. A narrow river ran through the middle of the valley, and the centre of town, spanned here and there by bridges. Along the river were a handful of large stone buildings, colourful standards waving in the midday breeze.

Steven had no idea what they represented, but he gestured in their direction. ‘That looks like as good a place as any to start looking for the inn.’

‘What good will that do us?’ Garec asked. ‘I can’t imagine Gita managed to get the passwords up here already.’

‘You’re probably right,’ Steven agreed, ‘but let’s see if we can find the place, figure out which innkeeper she meant – and make certain we all know the code.’

‘Some maths thing, right?’

‘Why am I not surprised?’ Mark rolled his eyes.

‘Hey,’ Steven said, ‘be grateful! If it hadn’t been for my maths obsession, we never would have made it this far.’

‘Oh yes, I forgot,’ Mark said. ‘Malagon’s safe-deposit box, right? Your telephones and calculators problem?’

‘Yup,’ Steven answered proudly. ‘Jeff Simmons will never believe it.’

‘I have to admit, I was impressed,’ Gilmour said. ‘It was one of the more harrowing moments of my life – and we’ve already determined that I’m older than most civilisations.’

‘It’s not that bad, Gilmour,’ Mark said, ‘there are plenty of civilisations far older than you.’

The others laughed. They found a barn where they paid to stable their horses for a few nights, then crossed a sturdy wooden bridge into the main part of town. At the far end of the span, a merchant was selling pelts, flagons of warm tecan and blocks of cheese from a cart. He was a short, thin man, and grimy. His gloves, cloak and leggings were in tatters; on his head, he wore a scarf of some sort, badly made from the hide of an unrecognisable animal. Steven glanced at it furtively, afraid it might raise its head and snarl at him, but he nodded affably to the fellow as they moved past the impromptu store. His cart was not much more than a slatted wagon with a pair of boards nailed to each corner creating space for hanging pelts. The tecan smelled good, but with the lingering aroma of freshly brewed coffee on his mind, Steven ignored the temptation.

‘Wine, sire?’ the merchant asked. His voice was gravel underfoot. ‘Or maybe some cheese, sire?’

‘No, thank you,’ Steven said.

‘A splash of tecan then, sire?’ As the filthy man stepped out from behind his cart, Steven was able to see just how pitiable he was. One leg dragged, and he shuffled along in an ungainly creep that made Steven think of every war B-movie he had ever seen, and every character actor who had ever dragged his broken form up the Normandy beaches for entertainment’s sake.

‘No. Thank you again,’ Steven insisted, moving away more quickly.

‘Right, then, sire,’ the crippled salesman persisted, ‘maybe I’ll carry your bag then, sire? Maybe carry it for you? What do you think, sire? Maybe for a copper Marek or two?’

‘All right, look,’ Steven turned with a frustrated shrug, his hands raised in surrender. ‘I will give you a copper coin if you will go back to your cart and leave us in peace. Agreed?’

‘Sorry, sire. I can’t take it if I don’t do something, sire… something, sire. You need something carried, sire? Your bags? Maybe I’ll see to the horses, sire? They tethered across the bridge, sire?’

‘Yes,’ Steven gave up. ‘Our horses are tethered across the bridge, but I have already paid for them to be well cared for. You wish to carry my bags, but you’ve left your stand. Aren’t you worried someone will come along and steal your goods?’

‘No, sire, oh no,’ the man answered. ‘I’m well known here. This is my bridge, sire. Everyone knows me here.’

‘I see.’ Steven looked to the others, his eyes begging for help. ‘Anyone have any ideas?’

‘Go ahead, Steven,’ Mark encouraged. ‘Let him carry the saddlebag. You’re going to give him a couple of those kopeks, anyway. Let him haul the stuff.’

‘He’s dragging his leg,’ Steven said as if only he had noticed.

‘He has made that fairly obvious,’ Mark answered, ‘but he doesn’t seem bothered by it. Go ahead. And if he runs, I’m sure we can catch him. He’s not going to be competing for any international records in the hundred metre sprint, let’s face it.’

Steven hesitated a moment longer, then handed over the saddlebag. ‘Here you go, but if you run off, I’m going to break your neck. Do you understand me?’

‘Of course, sire. I’ll not run off, sire. Where are you going, sire? Maybe I know the way.’

Steven was irritated by the way the little man ended each phrase with sire – it got under his skin. Steven regretted giving up his bag.

‘And the stick, sire?’ The intrepid salesman gestured towards the hickory staff.

‘No. I’ll carry the stick, my friend.’

‘Very well, sire. Very well.’ He scratched at his chin for a moment, turned to the others and asked, ‘Any bags, you sires?’

‘No,’ Garec answered for the rest of the company, ‘we’re doing just fine on our own.’

‘Very well, sires. Very well. Where are you going?’

Steven answered, ‘We’re looking for an inn.’

‘Which one, sire? There are many here in the Notch, sire, many.’

‘I’m not sure of the name, but it’s got a yellow and red standard, a sign depicting a bowman at the hunt. Do you know it?’ Steven flexed the fingers of his right hand into a fist several times, as if working out a cramp; something was bothering him.

‘I do, sire. This way, sire. It’s not far. Good food in there too, sire. Comfortable beds, cool beer, warm stew, sire. A wise choice you make going there, sire.’ The little man pushed passed Steven to lead them through town and as he did, Steven caught a hint of something familiar, a faint aroma, maybe lingering around the man’s clothing. It wasn’t overt, almost a memory of something. Coffee? Was he remembering the coffee, or was this something else?

‘This way, sire, this way.’

‘Right.’ Steven shook his head and flexed his fingers again. They were stiff. He needed to get out of the cold, to eat something other than old venison strips. But the coffee had been delicious.

Was it coffee?

Steven sidled up behind the man as he turned a corner into the wind. Though he inhaled deeply, he couldn’t pick up the scent; he decided that he must be really tired, or at least thirsty for another pot of Howard’s French roast. Once they were settled, they’d find a bigger pot and brew up a cauldron of the stuff… ‘Inside,’ he whispered to himself, ‘inside someplace warm.’

‘Yes, sire. Yes. Inside. Someplace warm, the Bowman, a clean place, sire. Good food, cool beer, sire. Follow me.’ The little man had heard him. Making surprisingly good time on one ruined leg, he half-hopped and half-scurried. Except for the bridges, the streets were either dirt or cobblestone, and the tree-lined boulevards, tidy dwellings and clean shops gave the place a sense of having been well cared for. In fact, there was nothing about Traver’s Notch that Steven found disagreeable – he thought it might be a pleasant place to spend a few days when he located Hannah again.

Calling back to Gilmour, he asked, ‘What kind of industry keeps this place going?’

‘Mining,’ the old man answered. ‘Look up there.’ Gilmour gestured towards an area of the valley wall that had been hidden during their descent and Steven saw the telltale sign of lode shafts dug deep into the mountains, great triangular swaths of brown dirt and rubble, tailings spilled in teardrops marking the hillsides from top to bottom.

‘Mining, sire. Yes, mining,’ the merchant turned and spoke only to Steven, as though he were passing on a secret. Lowering his voice, he added, ‘Mining, sire. It ruined my leg, sire. Can’t do it any more, sire. See?’ He dropped the saddlebag and drew up his hose to expose what remained of his lower leg.

Steven gasped at the carnage: the vivid scars looked as if they had been drawn by a child with a crayon, a roadmap of recent pain. The skin bulged in unlikely places too; Steven guessed bones had been fractured in multiple places and left to knit themselves together in whatever arrangement they saw fit. ‘Good Christ,’ he whispered.

‘Yes, sire, he is,’ the little man mumbled, dropping his leggings back into place.

‘What’s that?’ Steven asked. ‘What did you say?’

‘Nothing, sire,’ he said, ‘I didn’t say anything, sire.’

Steven caught the aroma again, something tangy and pleasant, but not coffee. He stopped and sniffed at the air again.

Mark looked at him quizzically. ‘What’s up?’ He clapped a hand across Steven’s shoulder.

‘Do you smell that?’

‘Nope. What is it?’

‘I can’t put my finger on it, maybe it’s just me, but I keep getting a hint of something-’ He paused, sniffing again. ‘You sure you don’t smell anything… anything from home?’

Mark tested the air again. Nope. Sorry.’

‘All right, it’s me going mad.’ Steven moved along after the crippled ex-miner. ‘I just need a couple of nights in a bed, that’s all.’

‘Yes, sire. A bed. The Bowman, they have comfortable beds, sire. Warm stew, cool beer, sire.’

‘Would you stop that?’ Steven asked as politely as he could.

‘Stop what, sire?’

‘Stop calling me sire. I’m not- well, I don’t need to- yes, just stop. Can you do that?’

‘Yes, sire,’ the man grinned and pointed towards a two-level building at the top of a short rise. ‘The Bowman, sire. There it is, sire. Come this way. It’s a shortcut, sire.’ He moved off through a small wooded area, a city park maybe, that ran along the edge of the brook and cut off the corner between the street and the inn at the top of the rise. ‘Just through the trees here, sire.’

Steven followed him in, glancing back to see Garec shrug and gesture him forward. Mark came after and Gilmour trailed behind, gazing along the street, an inquisitive look on his face, as if he had dropped something and didn’t know where to begin searching for it.

‘You all right, Gilmour?’ Steven asked.

‘Oh, yes, for a moment I thought I felt something back there, but then it was gone.’

‘This way, sire. This way,’ their guide insisted, ‘here, through the trees, sire, a shortcut.’

‘Right, right, we’re coming,’ Steven said irritably. Looking back again, he saw Gilmour hesitate. The grove of trees was small but relatively thick, and the old man appeared strangely well-lighted outside the overhanging branches.

Steven’s foot splashed through a puddle, invisible in the darkness beneath the trees. ‘Ah, shit,’ he said. ‘Look at that; now my feet are wet. I’ll be so glad to be under a roof again. Do you think they have hot and cold running water?’

‘I wouldn’t get my hopes up,’ Mark answered as he moved ahead of Garec. ‘From the look of this ground, it must have rained or snowed here recently. That doesn’t bode well for us heading into those hills. We’ll be slogging through drifts in no time.’

The crippled merchant muttered something and Steven froze. ‘What did you say?’ Shadows of dying leaves, faded dusty brown, were caught in scattered puddles marking the trail through the grove. Steven watched his own shadow pass over a puddle. Ahead, the little man had stopped, turning to wait for them. Steven moved forward and inhaled deeply again, still seeking the curiously elusive aroma he had detected earlier. He flexed his fingers.

Mark’s voice came to him, as if from far away. ‘I agree, I am so owed a hot bath. A shower would be even better, but I know that won’t happen.’ Steven heard Mark’s boots slosh through the same puddle, and waiting, holding his breath, he heard the Falkan miner’s reply.

‘Yes, sire. Yes. Hot water. They have hot water at the Bowman, my prince.’

Mark looked ahead. ‘What was that?’ He gave a startled cry when Steven whirled on their guide, swinging the hickory staff in a deadly arc. The staff, glowing with rage and ancient power, sliced through the cool air, leaving its own contrail. It didn’t appear to slow as it passed through the man’s body and tore through clothing, sinew, flesh and brittle, undernourished bone to emerge on the other side.

Mark watched in horror as the small man simply fell apart. Save for the terrible look in Steven’s eye and the heartrending scream that accompanied the attack, it was an almost comical caricature of death as the broken man split at the waist. There was no blood, though, no wet entrails. Nothing splashed up to hit Mark except for the backsplash from the puddles he danced through to get clear of the hickory staff, still aglow with rage.

Holy shit, Steven!’ Mark fell backwards into Garec, who stumbled, but managed to keep both of them upright. ‘What did you do?’

Steven was standing over the remains of their guide and staring at Gilmour. ‘You didn’t feel it?’ he asked calmly, ‘how could you not feel it?’ Neither Garec nor Mark spoke.

Gilmour stammered, ‘I thought I did – out there on the street, I thought – I don’t know.’ His neck throbbed and his ribs burned as if they had been rebroken. ‘I don’t know what’s wrong with me.’ He lowered his eyes to the ground.

‘No time for that now!’ Steven was agitated. ‘He’ll be back. I don’t know where he is, but he’ll be back. Can you cloak us?’

‘I-’

‘Gilmour!’ Steven barked. ‘Can you do it? Can you cloak us?’ The old man’s form stood out stark against the trees. ‘Well? Can you cloak us?’ he asked again.

‘Are you sure?’ Gilmour took a few tentative steps forward.

Without replying, Steven knelt beside the body and dug through the threadbare clothes until he found what he was looking for.

‘Yes,’ he said firmly, ‘I’m sure.’

Gilmour’s features hardened and a glimmer of angry confidence flashed in his eyes. ‘Then we must run, as quickly as possible. Come, right now, back the way we came. It’s the shortest path out of the valley.’

‘Can you cloak us?’

‘I don’t – I’m not certain… I’ll try, but we must run anyway. A cloaking spell won’t protect us for long.’

Mark regained his composure and yelled, ‘Steven what the hell is going on? You just hacked that guy in two. Jesus Christ, you killed him in cold blood. What’s this about?’

Steven tossed his roommate the thing he had removed from the dead man’s clothes: a crumpled red, white and blue pouch of Confederate Son chewing tobacco. ‘I knew I smelled something. I smelled it that day when he came after me in the mountains. Believe it or not, I could smell it on that old ram’s breath as it was pressing its face through the windshield of Howard’s T-Bird. This bastard had been chewing it sometime today.’

‘But how can that be?’ Mark didn’t know whether to look to Gilmour or to Steven for his answer. ‘I thought he had to-’

‘I don’t know,’ Steven said abruptly, ‘but Nerak’s back and he’s here, right here somewhere.’ He kicked the dead body aside, retrieved his saddlebag and began running back towards the street. ‘Come on. There’s no telling what he’ll do when he gets over the hit he just took.’

*

Nerak roared and the middlenight darkness that had swallowed him shuddered. Huge monolithic towers, ornate with carvings and stained-glass, rose up before him and collapsed beneath their own weight, the thunderous echo of destruction in their wake. Cities grew, withered and died before his scream faded and the light came, brightened, blinded him momentarily and then passed away. Smoke from gigantic forest fires rose in billowy clouds, lending colour to the night and choking off the cries of souls trapped for ever in his cavernous prison. Part of him was back inside the Fold. How had that happened? He could feel the earth, the frosty grass and the chill of the little river that passed through Traver’s Notch, but he couldn’t see them.

He screamed again, and his rage rattled the nothingness. Great stone keeps, palaces of granite and mortar, welled grandly up from the abyss, only to shatter in a hailstorm of grey and black stones. Reaching out with his mind, he found himself, dazed and wandering in the foothills outside Traver’s Notch. With careful concentration, Nerak elbowed his way back through the Fold and into northern Falkan.

He would kill Steven Taylor; nothing in the past thousand Twinmoons would come close to the pleasure he would enjoy torturing that boy for all time, an immortal prisoner for ever in pain, in an endless, empty cave.

It had been that rutting stick again. What had Fantus done to that thing? It had to be the most complicated and intricate spell the old milksop had ever done. He would get that stick. And that saddlebag had contained the key. It was inside a jacket, a colourful jacket of some foreign material, hidden inside the bag so as not to draw attention to the foreigners. But it was there. He would take the brown leather saddlebag and the wooden staff.

Steven Taylor had swiped at him in the Blackstone Mountains as well, but that had been when he had come as a grettan. Nerak had underestimated its strength that night and he had underestimated it again in Traver’s Notch. He had Jacrys to blame for that; the spy had never mentioned the power of that stick. He himself had not been able to detect it, even with his most sensitive and delicate webs. No matter. Jacrys’ day of reckoning was coming as well.

Reunited with his Eldarni form, Nerak tried to move back towards Traver’s Notch. He would wipe out the entire valley, eradicate every last person, in one swift and decisive blow. He would teach them to harbour his enemy, whether they knew what they were doing or not.

But something was amiss and he couldn’t make the connection complete. It wasn’t physical, whatever kept him from rejoining the frayed ends of his spirit, but something intangible, a gap in who he was and who he had been moments before Steven slashed at him.

Whatever had happened, Nerak was forced to take time to mend the rift Steven had torn in his being. That boy was dangerous; he would be Nerak’s next target, no matter that it was earlier than he had planned. He had figured to use Hannah Sorenson – she was easier to reach – but the hickory staff changed things. It would be Steven Taylor, and he would provide the final pieces to a puzzle he had been trying to complete for over a thousand Twinmoons. And it would be soon.

Struggling – and failing – to reconcile the twin halves of himself in the forested hillside above Traver’s Notch, Nerak’s anger overwhelmed him. ‘Steven Taylor!’ he screamed and entered a broad walnut tree, exploding it outwards into thousands of jagged splinters. The blast was deafening, and knocked a frightened forester to the ground. As he swirled about between the trees, Nerak felt better. He chose another, an old maple that still boasted a few bright red leaves, and blew it apart from within, shattering the relative silence and knocking the forester down for a second time. The devastation felt good, but Nerak wanted to be back in Traver’s Notch, watching Steven Taylor’s face as he first killed the bowman and then took the ignorant South Coaster. ‘My prince,’ he whispered contemptuously as he flitted through the trees.

When Nerak came across the terrified woodsman, he took him effortlessly, as he had done to so many others, so many times over the Twinmoons. They were all there to serve him: children, horses, women, it didn’t make any difference. The last one’s leg had dragged, broken worthless cripple that he was, but he had worked the cart, enjoying a mouthful of good South Carolina tobacco while he waited for Fantus to lead his pathetic little company across the bridge. That one hadn’t screamed either; too shocked or too rutting sorry for himself – many of his victims forgot to scream. Too surprised that it could possibly be happening to them – proud trash, that’s what they were. The woodsman had been no exception: he had stiffened for a moment as the life drained from his body, his hopes and dreams and memories pooling in a puddle at his feet. Nerak picked up the man’s axe, wiped his bloody wrist on his leggings and started back towards town.

Nerak looked down on Traver’s Notch and contemplated the valley. He couldn’t detect Fantus or the others anywhere below. He considered wiping the Traver’s Notch slate clean, as he had in Port Denis – it wouldn’t take much: a simple gesture and a few key words to call up the web of mystical power he had woven over the Twinmoons and Traver’s Notch would be gone.

But the dark prince hesitated. ‘If you do, they’ll know you’re back,’ he rationalised. He needed Fantus to believe him gone, perhaps for ever, but certainly struggling to recover from Steven Taylor’s attack – but this time he had surprise on his side, and he wouldn’t hesitate. He knew where the key was hidden. Steven Taylor and Fantus – Fantus! – were his biggest problems, so he would take one of them first, quickly and without warning. His desire to see if Steven Taylor screamed in the moment before death was overwhelming. He strode down into the town, intent on finding the party and discovering the answer for himself.

Then he stopped. ‘They’re making for Sandcliff,’ he said out loud. ‘They have the key and they’re heading for Sandcliff Palace.’ He started laughing. ‘What a perfect tomb for you, Fantus.’ He cast a fast-moving spell out and over the ridge to the east. He would find them; it wouldn’t take long. ‘Enjoy your journey, Fantus,’ he shouted. ‘Be sure I’ll be back to perform your rites.’

‘You have to do it,’ Gilmour shouted as they forced their way through the forest along the base of the ridge.

Steven shook his head. No, I can’t. I don’t know how.’

‘But you do. You have to trust that you do.’

‘You know the spell. All right, you were a bit flustered back there and I don’t know what’s wrong, but you need to get your wits back, Gilmour. You didn’t feel him, but we’ll worry about that another time. Right now, you have to figure out a way to keep him from finding us.’ Steven was adamant.

‘That’s my point,’ Gilmour said. ‘Any spell I use right now, he’s going to find me. We’re too close. He’ll sniff me out in no time.’

‘I don’t know how,’ Steven stammered, looking to Garec and Mark for help. ‘Yes, you do,’ Garec said. ‘Think of the night you saved me. If you hadn’t been there, I would be dead.’ He still wore his bow over one shoulder, but except for Mark’s lessons, he hadn’t nocked an arrow since leaving Orindale.

‘I can’t just call it up,’ Steven argued. ‘It wells up when it wants to – I’m lucky to be able to manipulate it at all.’

‘That’s not true,’ Mark stopped. The others turned to wait. ‘Steven, that’s not true and I think you know it.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Remember when you used the staff in the foothills? You broke it against that Seron’s back and it was obvious that it was more than broken, because it didn’t just break like a stick breaks, it damned near shattered in your hands. You decided that it shattered because you had used it in anger to wound that Seron maliciously and that there was something about the staff that refused to be used like that. Isn’t that right?’

Steven nodded. ‘It always feels most right when I use it in a – well, in a compassionate way. I know that sounds stupid, because I’m fighting, but when I use it to help our cause and I show mercy, it’s stronger – it’s at its most powerful when I am controlling a situation so that no one gets hurt or killed.’

‘But that’s when the staff responds to your needs, to our needs, and I believe it does, Steven, I agree with you. Sometimes the magic does come of its own volition, but I don’t think you realise what you are capable of doing. I’ve seen you call up the magic – Hell, Steven, I’ve seen you do it without the staff. That day when Lessek’s key kept knocking you down at the dump? I’d bet dollars to doughnuts you were calling the magic up there, too, all the way back at home.’

There was an explosion behind them that echoed along the ridge. Steven turned to continue riding, but the others stood fast. ‘That was him,’ Steven said. ‘He’s back.’

Mark ignored him. ‘Steven, tell me why the staff didn’t shatter that day in the hills when you got so angry with Garec, you two almost killed each other?’

Steven recalled the morning with embarrassment – it hadn’t been his finest hour in Eldarn. By the end of that day, his leg was bitten through and he was bleeding to death in the snow. If Lahp hadn’t been shadowing him, he would have died alone that night. ‘I don’t know why. You’re right, I did it in a rage and the staff should have broken against that tree.’ He shrugged. ‘Can we discuss this someplace else?’

‘No,’ Mark said, ‘Something else happened that morning and it happened again our first night in the cavern.’

Steven was sweating despite the chill.

‘I could see home, Steven. It took a while to figure out what it was, but when you slashed through that big pine, I could see the corner of Miner and Tenth. There was neon. At first, I couldn’t believe you had missed it. It was a clear view across the Fold. And then in the cavern, the little campfire went out the moment you fell asleep. It was as if the thing needed you to be awake to keep it burning. Garec and I woke you up and asked you to start another fire, a real fire, with one of the logs from the Capina Fair.’ Mark smirked recalling their awkward raft. And you did it.’

‘So?’ Steven was nervous, as he continued to glance back along the ridge he was only half-listening to his roommate. ‘So what’s your point? I’ve made fifty fires. They’re not that hard to do. The staff is always ready to get one going – they’re something this company needs.’

‘You’re not paying attention!’ Mark almost shouted.

‘Steven, that night you started a fire without the staff,’ Garec said. ‘You sat up, glanced at the fire-pit, called up a nice little blaze and went right back to sleep. The staff wasn’t anywhere near you.’

‘And that night, I saw home again,’ Mark said, ‘the 10-minute lube joint on the corner, that awful orange sign we can see from the driveway.’

Steven knew the sign – he had seen it as he ran towards Miner Street after realising Lessek’s key had been hauled away to the city dump. He looked at his friends. ‘So what? What do you want me to do? I’m telling you I can’t just turn it on like a faucet.’

‘And we’re telling you that you turn it on like a faucet all the time,’ Mark said. ‘I’m not trying to manipulate you. I’m telling you the truth. Why didn’t the staff shatter against that tree in the Blackstones?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Yes, you do, Steven and so do I. It wasn’t the staff’s magic that knocked the tree down.’ Mark stared at him, unblinking. ‘It was yours.’

‘Oh, good Christ, Mark,’ Steven was flustered. ‘Do you not get it? Nerak is coming here to kill us, right now. I don’t have any magic. I’m a bank teller, for shit’s sake, and a pretty poor bank teller at that. I don’t know where this magic is coming from. Maybe I have done from time to time without the staff, but I’m quite sure it’s the staff’s magic. Maybe it’s around me like a cloud. Maybe it works if the staff is nearby. Maybe-’

He was interrupted by another explosion, as devastating as the first, from somewhere on the ridge above them.

‘How did you know?’ Mark pressed, ‘just now, how did you know it was Nerak?’

‘I smelled tobacco juice on his breath.’

‘But there was more, wasn’t there? And it didn’t come from the staff.’

‘I… I don’t know. Maybe, yes.’

‘Yes,’ Mark said, ‘yes, because Gilmour didn’t feel him there and the staff didn’t feel him there. He was well hidden, Steven, but you felt him, didn’t you?’

Steven nodded, almost imperceptibly. It was true. He had felt Nerak, smelled him, even disguised as that broken little man. His hands had stiffened and he had balled up his fists in an effort to stretch them. He had thought he was tired, or cold, but he had felt something. The tobacco juice had simply confirmed his suspicions.

‘And you tagged the dog-piss out of him,’ Garec interjected. ‘Was that the staff, or was that you?’

Steven looked at Garec and then at Gilmour. The old man had said nothing. ‘It was both, I think,’ Steven answered. ‘I lashed out, and I know the staff’s magic was there, it just blew up in my hands, but there was some of the other in there as well.’

‘So you do it,’ Mark insisted. ‘You cloak us now, because anything Gilmour does to hide us will be like lighting a signal flare.’

‘Okay. I’ll try.’

‘No. Don’t try, Steven, just do it. When you came back through the Fold, you were certain you could take it over. We needed maths, magic and compassion. How in all Hell you’re going to do it, I have no idea, but you were confident. That’s what we need you to do right now, recapture whatever it was that had you believing so strongly.’

‘You said, “We can paint the damned thing yellow if we want to!”,’ Garec quoted.

‘That’s right,’ Mark slapped a hand hard against Garec’s back. ‘That’s what he said. Well, Steven, get painting.’

Steven took a deep breath. It was hard to concentrate, knowing Nerak was so close by; he didn’t know how to keep his mind focused. Turning to Gilmour, he asked, ‘Is there a spell I should try?’

Mark interrupted, ‘No. You don’t need one. In all the time we’ve been here, you haven’t uttered one spell. I want you to do just like you did in the cavern with that wall of fire or those flying rocks. You needed them. You imagined them and ka-blam!, they were there. I saw what was left of the grettan that attacked you. It looked like someone rammed a Tomahawk missile up its ass. And you did that after you lost consciousness – and while the ugly bastard was having your leg for a snack. Steven, you just gave Nerak the first beating he has taken in five generations. He had no idea what hit him.’

Steven nodded seriously, listening carefully now to what Mark was saying.

‘I’m almost sure of it now,’ Mark went on, ‘he has no clue what’s inside that stick of yours, and even less notion that you have found some hidden power inside yourself, or inside this world or between you and the staff or- well, shit, who knows? But as long as he can’t feel you, he has to fly blind. That gives you the upper hand.’

Steven looked again to Gilmour, ‘What do you think?’

‘I think for the time being, I can be of little help.’ His neck and his ribs had ached since the moment Steven slashed through Nerak’s disguise and he had a terrible suspicion that it was he who had allowed Nerak back into Eldarn, when he had opened the book of Lessek’s spells. In trying to learn what he needed to defeat his old nemesis, he had opened the gate for Nerak to come back: that rush of warm, humid air, that had been Nerak. Gilmour had failed again.

‘That doesn’t instil me with a lot of confidence,’ Steven replied.

‘Mark is right, though,’ the old man said, ‘remember the way you saved Garec that night on the beach.’

Steven tried to corral his thoughts and recall the energy he felt battling the wraith army, the power at his fingertips when he called up the wall of fire, the way his knowledge of physiology had transferred itself to the staff when he healed Garec’s injuries. He let all the images wash over him, bringing whatever insight they might have. He remembered the dump, the thin air that took his breath away when he climbed the fence, and then the thick air, dense with potential and power, that he had reached out and felt swallowing his hand. It had pressed back against him as he watched three tears open in the Fold. He concentrated: Nerak was close by and searching for them right now.

How could he create a cloaking spell without knowing what a cloaking spell ought to do? Did they need to be invisible? He was certain that was beyond his reach – but invisible to Nerak’s power? That might work… but how to think it? What to feel? Gilmour was supposed to be the sorcerer, not him.

Well, Steven, get painting. He heard Mark and Garec urging him on, could feel their eyes on him. He felt embarrassed… ‘This isn’t working,’ he sighed.

‘Why? What’s the matter?’

He looked around. ‘Let me try it over there. Maybe that’ll help.’ He dismounted and moved off a little way into the woods, away from where the others could watch him so closely. He heard something large and fast rush by overhead – at home, it would have been a low-flying jet, but here – here, he knew it was the dark prince, casting about for them. Hurry up, he told himself, Steven, you’d better hurry up.

He sat down on a moss-covered boulder and focused his attention inward: the wall of fire, Garec’s lung, the great pine in the Blackstone forest – but again he was derailed by his inability to think of how a cloaking device should work. ‘This isn’t going well,’ he called back to the others.

‘Take your time,’ Mark encouraged. ‘We’re fine. We’ll watch and listen. You don’t think about anything but keeping us hidden, protected from his sight.’

Protected from his sight. They needed camouflage. Camouflage, like the absurd head-to-toe drapings Howard used to wear for his annual trip to Nebraska during goose season. He remembered Myrna saying, ‘I can still see you, Howard. You’re still here? I can- oh wait, I almost lost you there for a minute, but there you are. I can still see you.’

Focus, Steven. You’re not focusing. Hidden from sight – how do we get hidden from sight? We need to be camouflaged but not invisible. Howard might have been invisible to the geese, but he was never invisible to Myrna. Myrna. Think, Steven.

Another seeking spell rushed by overhead. Steven recoiled reflexively and opened his eyes. ‘He’s getting closer.’

‘Keep at it! I know you’ll get there.’ Mark’s confidence was infectious, but it didn’t help. It was cold. He wished he had put on the ski jacket from his saddlebag before moving into the brush. He would start wearing it beneath the cloak; that would be warm, as warm as a heavy blanket, a wool ‘That’s it,’ he cried, looking back at the others.

‘What’s it?’ Garec asked, but Steven didn’t answer. His friends had already begun to come more sharply into view, framed in front of the acrylic canvas of the forest as trees, shrubs, fallen leaves and scattered rocks all began slowly to melt together, to soften into a malleable whole. Reaching out, he could feel the air, that familiar sense that it had grown more dense, as heavy as the most humid day he could remember: Mexico, or New Orleans in the summertime. He wore the air like a glove, a perfect fit, and Steven turned his hand over and over, gaining a sense of how he could push and pull, manipulate and build from this perspective.

Well, Steven, get painting – yes, painting a woollen blanket, one with holes in the weave, holes he could see through, but that was fine, they needed to see where they were going. It was the perfect camouflage – was someone under there? Of course. No one could become invisible… but you couldn’t tell who was hiding beneath that old blanket. Mark had said something about a blanket, the comforting feeling of falling asleep on the floor or the couch and waking up later covered by his mother’s wool blanket. Why had Mark mentioned that? It had something to do with Karl Yasztremski and the Red Sox, with his father and Jones Beach out on Long Island.

Without realising what he was doing, Steven walked back to where his friends watched, thrilled that he had succeeded in calling up the magic, yet still dumbstruck at the breadth of his power. He held aloft the hickory staff and gestured with it from horizon to horizon, east to west, and then north to south. It glowed a faint red where his palms touched it, much as it had the night Gilmour rebuilt it from splinters he found scattered across the ground.

Mark traced the line of the staff in the air; he was looking for something in particular. When he found it, he nodded grimly to himself. Steven was camouflaging them, protecting them from Nerak’s sight.

When he was finished, Steven leaned the staff up against his horse’s flank, turned to the others and said, ‘That should do it. I’m not sure how long it will last, but I think I can do it again if I have to.’

‘What did you do?’ Gilmour asked. ‘I felt nothing, no ripple, no tension, no spark, and if I felt nothing, I’m sure Nerak has no sense at all of what just happened.’

‘I put a blanket over us.’

‘A blanket?’

‘Yeah, an old blanket my mother used to keep draped across the back of the couch.’ He smiled at Mark. ‘It was your idea.’

‘My dad, and those pictures in the hall,’ Mark said. ‘I knew it was working.’

‘How?’

‘Abe is running a sale on Bud and Bud Light. I saw the poster.’

Steven nodded and climbed back into the saddle. ‘Let’s get out of here. Which way, Gilmour?’

‘East, my friends.’ He did not look well, but he patted his horse and led the others through the Falkan forest.