He hesitated.Then said, with a hitch in his voice, ‘I told you, she isn’t my daughter.’
‘Oh?’Again the denial, which Fola struggled to believe.Lyn’s behaviour and the similar auras she saw when she looked at them through the loupe testified to their relationship.‘You’re totally certain?’
Lyn stepped forward, his eyes murderous, the tip of his blade a handspan from Fola’s eye.‘No more tricks, I said.I’ll have answers, or I’ll cut you down where you stand.’
‘Fine.’Fola shrugged.‘If the folk out there die, it’s on your head.I’m in Parwys investigating the haunting.I deduced, by various means I’d be happy to demonstrate for you later, that your daughter was in some way involved.The events of this evening only confirmed my suspicions.I mean your daughter—the girl, whatever—no harm.I want to understand what has happened here and put it right, as best I can.’
She did not mention her more personal interest: that careful and sustained study of Siwan’s strange blend of souls might yield clues to the nature of the First Folk.Clues that would, at the very least, help Fola convince the research board to lend her the resources she so desperately needed.Fola had learned even before departing the City to emphasise altruistic motives rather than selfish ones.If she was lying, it was only by omission.Whatever her other reasons, she did, genuinely, want to help.
‘And who are you that we should trust you?’Lyn demanded.
And here, always the difficult question.In this corner of the world there could be no knowing how Lyn would react to the truth.Did he know of the City?If so, how did he conceive of it?As a place of wonder, beauty, and the promise of power that might be wielded to aid his daughter?Or as the Mortal Church imagined it: a rot in the heart of the world, a symbol of the capriciousness of the First Folk and the depravity of those who accepted and indulged in their gifts?
Before she decided on an answer, the other entrance to the tent flew open.A woman burst in, dressed in black robes stitched with stars, her hair the shining grey of the full moon, clutching a fist-sized piece of milky quartz with a blood-red core.The woman halted a pace into the tent and took in the scene—the girl unconscious on the ground, Fola standing over her, and Lyn menacing with his wooden sword.Then her eyes found the burn scars in the rug.They widened until Fola thought they might tumble from their sockets.
‘I know those runes,’ she said, breathless.‘Llewyn, lower your weapon.’
Lyn—or Llewyn—looked to her, brow furrowed, eyes sharp and questioning.
‘Do what I say,’ the woman snapped, then turned her attention to Fola.The rigidity in her posture told of fear, but her eyes were full of awe.‘I am sorry for him.He has never left this corner of the world, and does not know what you are.’
Well, this is interesting.
‘And what am I?’Fola asked, not quite certain how to proceed.
‘A Sorceress of Thaumedony, the City of the Wise,’ the woman said.She dipped her head.‘I am Afanan.I knew a member of your order, many years ago, when I was young.A good and powerful man.But that was far from here, nearer the heart of the world.He saved my life, as you, it seems, have saved Siwan’s.’She knelt, feeling the girl’s forehead with the back of her hand.‘Better than I could have done.Llewyn, put that away.You’ll have no need of it with this one.’
Begrudgingly, Llewyn—as it turned out—lowered the sword.It still held its wicked, curving edge, and he seemed tense and ready enough to lop Fola’s head off at a twitch.
‘How did you come to Parwys?’Afanan asked.
‘By a long and winding road,’ Fola said, adopting the affect the woman seemed to want from her—aloof, mysterious, powerful.At that moment, as though they were actors on a stage and had practised the cue dozens of times, Frog burst through the tent flap behind her in a flurry of wingbeats and settled on her shoulders.He chirruped in her ear and cocked his head in agitation.Fola seized on the drama of the moment.‘There isn’t time to tell the tale now,’ she said.‘I will do what I can for the injured, and then return, and then we will exchange our stories.Agreed?’
Afanan and Llewyn shared a glance before Afanan said, ‘Agreed.’
They whispered together over the girl’s sleeping form—Llewyn’s voice taking on a harsh, agitated rasp—while Fola turned to the wounded outside.There were many injured, but most with no more than a few palm-shaped bruises on their backs or arms, as though a wraith had briefly pawed at them, only to let them be.As though they had beentestingthem, and decided to do no more harm.Curiously, almost every person of unusual morphology had only light bruises; they had been probed, but not attacked.The badly wounded, of which there were a dozen in the immediate area of the stage, were almost all beyond her help.The wraiths had dealt violence to them with nightmarish savagery, ripping and tearing until some were left little more than heaps of meat and splintered bone.
There were a handful—those the wraiths had fallen upon towards the end, before the girl’s fit was quieted and the undead were chased away—who had been stricken with horrible bruises, or joints pulled out of alignment, or chunks of arm or leg muscle torn away.There were few extra limbs or eyes among them.
To these, Fola offered smears of healing balm and linen bandages, working quickly and efficiently and conscripting the help of the strange-faced juggler she had ordered about earlier.Soon enough other members of the troupe joined in the effort—the heavyset gentleman who had portrayed Vangar Cilbran and the captivating behorned young man who had been the Beast-King.Their names, she soon learned while they worked together, were Trick, Harwick and Damon.Thrice she had to step away on the pretence of conjuring more balm—in fact, she merely put the bottle to Frog’s beak and let him dribble the stuff.By dawn they had done what they could to stabilise those on the brink of death and ease the pain of their suffering.
While they worked, Fola mulled over the events of the evening, and where the trail of clues might lead next.
* * *
The cloud-dappled sky had begun to blush with sunrise when Colm, nursing one arm and with a knife still drawn, stumbled into the pavilion turned triage tent.‘There you are,’ he muttered, and collapsed to the ground, his massive chest heaving.Hand-shaped bruises dotted his shoulders.A long, hairline gash traced down his injured upper arm and wept blood between two sets of fingers.The troupers helping Fola stared wide-eyed at the intruder.
‘By the Stones, it’s Ulik Four-Axes,’ Damon muttered.
‘A friend of yours?’asked Harwick.
‘My employee,’ Fola muttered.‘Conspicuously absent in my moment of need.’
‘Excuse me, I was taking the initiative,’ Colm said, then lowered his voice as Fola knelt to see to his arm.‘Caught sight of one of those Church knights skulking about, before the wraiths had their way with the festival.Thought I’d follow him a bit.Get a sense of what he was up to.Had a neck like a cat’s spine, able to compress and extend.’He shook his head.‘Hard to describe, when you try to put words to it.’
‘And what was he up to?’Fola said, gently easing Colm’s hand open to expose the wound beneath.A cut from averysharp blade, that ranverydeep.The pale yellow of fat and the white of bone showed through as she washed away the blood with her waterskin.If not for the leathery outer layer of Colm’s hide, he would have lost the arm, she was sure.She poured the rest of her balm onto it and set about with a bandage, and felt vaguely guilty for imagining he had wasted the evening in a bar or brothel.
Colm winced.‘Following you, it turned out,’ he said.‘Always a few paces back, stretching his neck for a better view when needed.Up to the minute the sky went bat-shit and wraiths started attacking people.He ran.I followed, at a good distance.The wraiths had little interest in me, only a few so much as touched me—but the knight caught on and turned to fight.Remember that bastard in the woods?’Colm shook his head.‘This one was leagues worse.More skilled, I mean, with two horns of light burning at the crown of his head.Moved like a river.Dunno how else to describe it.Fast, but strong, too.More than his frame looked, anyway.Was all I could do to keep his blade off me in that first flurry of attacks.’A defensive expression crossed his face.‘He surprised me, is all.’
