22​ Somewhen

NO MORE THAN half a second had passed. A power within Taver had awoken, menacing and terrible, and he would use it. He felt a tingling sensation along his neck and spine, his arms, and legs. His feet and palms itched. The last time he’d felt it this strongly had been during Beezer’s lesson, but now it continued to grow.

The Fetch’s movements had slowed, time bending to Taver’s will. Its claw began to close about his friend’s neck, to crush her, to rip her apart. But the Fetch paused, making a deliberate turn of its misshapen head. For the first time, it noticed him. Taver saw it reaching out for him, until something caused it to hesitate.

***

TEZCAT DIDN’T LIKE being crushed against a wall. It hurt. Despite the pain, she reached out to touch her magic. Poor ol’ Nisk, she thought, as she forced the headless corpse of her friend to its feet, arms flopping about, legs moving in lurches. The Fetch had mangled Nisky, but she managed to get her as far as the mirror, and its covering.

She loved Taver, though it weren’t like that; he was her friend, and in some odd way, her family. She just didn’t have the words to tell him. Tezcat didn’t like words. They came from thinking. Feelings were what mattered, and she felt. Still, he was stupid.

All that power bubbling inside of him, and he didn’t know? Spectralic magic, more power than any breather had possessed in centuries. She weren’t sure how many years that was, but it sounded a lot. Beezer had known the truth about him. The mage had warned her to stay silent, though. He needed to find out for himself. She didn’t understand why, but she’d obeyed. No one broke their word to Beezer.

She felt Taver awakening to his power, but the Fetch had noticed too. She just needed to give him a chance, time to gather himself.

So, on instinct, she entered the Fetch, like she’d done with Bors and that poor boy in Vasara. Not that she understood how she did it. It just sort of happened. The Fetch was a dead thing, and controlling dead things was what she did. Nisky was still tottering towards the mirrors, but she could manage two things at once. She hoped.

Tezcat’s eyes opened, and her claws reached out to rip Taver to pieces. She wailed in horror, and fought to control the creature. A thousand wills battled her own. It took all her strength to fight them off, but they were determined. Tezcat sensed another will, a breather’s mind, hidden, but not hidden well enough. Rade Wyn controlled the wights and therefore the Fetch, but Tezcat sensed her confusion at the undead girl’s presence. The wight’s crowded her, tore into her mind, and began to loosen her grip on the Fetch.

‘Taver,’ she cried, realising she couldn’t hold on, ‘do it!

‘Do it now!’

***

PAIN COURSED THROUGH Taver, and he screamed. The Fetch stepped back from him, appearing bewildered. It sensed the new threat from him, maybe.

Nisky’s headless corpse tottered to its feet and advanced along the wall to the left. Its movements, considering how damaged the body was, were erratic and uncoordinated. It wasn’t Nisky come back, of course, but Tezcat up to her usual tricks. Good ol’, Cat!

The Fetch whirled as the corpse reached the mirrors, and tugged on the rope. The tapestries collapsed to the floor in a cloud of dust, revealing the polished mirrors. The Fetch turned back to Taver with a shriek, claws reaching out to destroy him. Something caused it to hesitate, to hold back.

‘Taver,’ yelled his friend. ‘Do it! Do it, now!

Of course, she had known. Maybe she’d planned it this way, herself and Nisky together, both knowing what was inside of him. Like the fool he was, he had only figured out his role at the last possible second.

He focused his spectralic magic, concentrating on the mirrors, remembering that day in class with the woodlice. The mirrors felt the heat of magic, their surfaces starting to bubble. Spears of molten bronze shot outward to impale the Fetch, forming hooks at the ends. It shrieked, a sound bringing blood to Taver’s nose and ears. A sound to split stone, dust cascading from the ceiling. Within the mirrors, twin vortices formed, pulling the spears back inside. A flailing Fetch went with them.

It fought back. Whips of shadow lashed the floor, walls, and ceiling. One snapped close to Tezcat’s head, gouging chunks of stone. Taver felt the sting as splinters flew, but he focused his mind, concentrated harder. Nothing but a woodlouse, if a rather large and angry one.

He now formed molten ropes from the mirror’s surface. These whipped outwards and entangled the Fetch, containing its power.

The creature’s form wavered, and split apart as individual wights attempted escape, but Taver’s confidence in his powers had grown. He simply formed extra ropes to entangle the escapees. The mirror devoured the wights, shrieks ceasing in an instant.

The Fetch was gone.

Both Taver and Tezcat fell to the floor. Getting to his feet, he helped her up, before stumbling towards the mirrors to gape at the vague impressions of trapped wights within. Their forms faded, until the mirrors hung as silent and unremarkable as before.

***

WHEN TAVER TURNED, feeling euphoric at their victory, a chill touched his spine. His smile vanished. Tezcat was walking away from him to join the ghost-woman who had appeared again.

‘I likes the new look,’ said Tezcat turning to face him with a giggle, and Taver’s heart broke.

He glanced down at one of his shoulders. He could feel them, along his neck and spine. His horns had grown, ripping through his clothing. He realised his height had also increased as well as his muscles. With a little concentration he allowed his body to settle, and revert to his normal appearance.

‘Wait,’ he cried out. ‘You weren’t killed. I mean you’re still here, whole, and well. There’s no need for her to take you now. It’s safe now.’ He’d deal with Rade soon.

‘I is the last, Tav. All them others is with her, even Nisk. I has to go.’

He felt the tears flowing down his face, ticking his chin. ‘I wanted to protect you. To keep you safe. After all that has happened, I’ve failed you.’

Tezcat laughed, a delightful sound, and one he’d miss. ‘I is always gonna miss how stupid you is.’

His jaw dropped. ‘What?’

‘You has saved me. I is goin’ home.’ She glanced up at the woman as she said those last words.

‘I’ll never see you again, will I.’

The ghost was smiling at him, making those moon-eyes Tezcat had described, only he saw something else, sympathy maybe. It was a comforting gaze, which along with Tezcat’s next words, gave him hope. ‘I doesn’t knows much about what’s coming, but I is gonna wait ’til I sees you again one day.’

The woman’s form faded, and Tezcat fell dead. Taver saw her spirit rise, suspended for a moment above her body. He thought she winked at him.

Then, she was gone.

He gave a start as he realised her body wasn’t there either. Nisky’s had vanished too. ‘I guess,’ he whispered, ‘I will see you again, Cat ... somewhen.’

***

AS HE LEFT AN EMPTY Reaper’s End, he halted outside the main gateway in the curtain wall. A woman stood blocking his path. A woman he thought he’d known.

‘Ral,’ she said in hoarse voice, ‘you’re alive.’ Rade Wyn looked tired and drawn. Summoning the Fetch, combining it with the wights, and then controlling it, must have taken a lot out of her, never mind the battle that preceded it. Perhaps its destruction had affected her too.

‘I told you, that isn’t my name.’

‘It is the name I gave you.’

‘A different time, a different me. Perhaps, one day I will choose to own it again, but not today.’ The loss of Tezcat was too raw.

Her eyes widened a fraction. ‘Then, you know.’

He gave her a brief nod.

She shook her head. ‘Everything I’ve done was to protect you. You don’t know what they were. They had to be destroyed. Now, the world is safer. The living can build a new one, free of the scourge of undeath. You and I my son, we can start afresh, and you can have whatever name you like.’

Taver laughed though there was no humour in it, and he saw her face pale. He didn’t care what she felt. He realised he cared nothing for her at all. ‘Don’t you mean what they are. You don’t understand do you; it is you who failed. You didn’t destroy any of them, not a single one.’

‘Impossible!’

He shrugged, indifferent to whether she believed him or not.

Confusion turned to anger in her face, her gaze sharp as a dagger. The tiredness had vanished and he wondered if it had been real at all, or just another lie. ‘You cannot run from your blood, Ralan, from who you are. If you do, you will know nothing but pain. I can help you recover your memories.’

Taver stepped passed her, shouldering her from his path. She staggered to the side. ‘You failed.’ He halted, speaking over his shoulder. ‘Oh, and it was I who dealt with your Fetch. Step careful, mother, or I may have to deal with you too. Astra Dar gave me life long ago and in repayment, today, I give you yours.’

‘Ralan ...’ It was barely a whisper.

‘Do not cross my path again, Rade Wyn. I know you, and what you are now. I also know myself.’

He glanced back, and felt pleasure at the flinch in her face, at the fear in her eyes. He walked away, not knowing if he would see his friend again. A new life awaited him, however. A power slumbered within his soul, born of living magic, and for now he had all the time in the world to relearn it.

A power perhaps, to challenge the angels themselves.

This Ends

Reaper’s End

A PLAGUEBORN NOVELLA