Authors: Kim Falconer
‘I’m saying, think calm and serene and you’ll experience calm and serene.’
‘I promise I’ll be as happy as summer solstice the moment you stop thinking of me as an old man.’ He hoped that would keep her quiet for a moment. It didn’t.
‘More of your circular arguments! An’ Lawrence, I’m not the cause or the effect of your moods.’
‘Oh, but you are.’ He laughed, and she tossed him a look that sent fire up his spine.
I hate to interrupt the philosophical discourse, Rowan, but you do realise they’re following, don’t you?
The voice of his temple cat swept into his mind, a familiar touch. He spotted her running ahead, her buff-coloured coat vivid against the stark red landscape. Her ears were pointed forward, like radar scoping the distance.
‘Who’s that, my lovely?’
The demon dogs.
‘Who’s what?’ Kreshkali asked, not hearing Scylla’s part of their dialogue.
‘Lupins. Apparently not far off.’
How close, Scylla?
he asked.
Very.
Can you be more specific?
How far can you throw a stone?
He straightened his spine and studied the landscape. Ravines and fissures cut their way through the barren hillside, scars on an ancient face. Giant red boulders jutted out from the land at strange angles. They reminded him of the half-buried statues of the old gods, abandoned or forgotten on Gaela’s distant islands of Rahana Iti. The rotting husks of dead oak trees lay scattered like so many broken limbs. Only two healthy trees stood in the distance, shading the fence line ahead. He had no idea how they survived but it was a refreshing view.
I can’t see the Lupins anywhere
, he said to Scylla.
That doesn’t mean they aren’t nearby.
In front or behind, my lovely?
We’re surrounded.
Right. Good to know.
When they reached the gate, An’ Lawrence dismounted, mopping his brow. The sun shone relentlessly now that they’d disabled the solar shields. It had taken less than a year for the continuous rain to stop. The Earth was drying out. Kali said balance would return, eventually. He hoped it would be in his lifetime, and the sooner the better. He’d known nothing like this heat, even in the desert plains of Corsanon. It wilted almost everything it touched.
‘Look at the apple trees,’ Kreshkali said. ‘They’re as sound and fresh as any stock from Gaela.’
He examined them, rubbing a green leaf between his fingers and thumb. These specimens didn’t appear to be affected by the acid rain, heat or seismic activity. ‘Strange. There’s been no replanting this far out. How’d they get here?’ The land rejuvenation corps hadn’t ventured past the outskirts of Half Moon Bay. Finding this growth, miles from the settlement, didn’t make sense.
‘Strange indeed,’ she said, leading her mare closer to see for herself. ‘Look at the blooms. It’s not even spring.’
The smoke-grey branches sprouted small leaves clustered around tiny pink and white blossoms. Kreshkali leaned in to inhale the buds as her mare nipped a lower twig. ‘Oh, no you don’t.’ She backed the mare up, pulling the twig from the horse’s mouth. She studied it. ‘Rowan. This tree doesn’t just look like Gaela stock. It is Gaela stock.’ She eyed it closely.
‘Let me see.’ He pushed his horse’s nose away as he examined it. ‘Demons. It is.’
‘A new piece to the puzzle?’
‘It seems that way.’
What’s the fuss with the fruit tree, Rowan?
Scylla approached, her shoulder blades rising and dipping with each stride. She rubbed her cheeks against his leg.
The Lupins seem a more important consideration at the moment, don’t you think? And water. I’m thirsty.
A howl echoed in the distance and her hackles rose. An’ Lawrence stroked them down, feeling the vibration as she growled. The horses sidestepped, swivelling their ears to listen behind.
‘Scylla, are they inside the gate?’ he asked aloud.
No, but I suspect they will be soon.
An’ Lawrence ran his stirrups up and loosened the girth a notch. ‘Can you talk to your puppies, Kali? Tell them to back off? They’re making me nervous.’
‘They make everyone nervous.’
‘But not you.’
She smiled. ‘Not me.’ Her head tilted towards the gate. ‘You think you can bust us in?’
He passed his reins over as his horse minced forward and back. Kali was having similar trouble.
‘Perhaps a calming spell first?’ he said.
‘Good idea.’ She sent a waft of energy towards the mounts, light and soothing. He felt it from where he stood; it was like a warm breeze after a storm. Immediately the horses stilled, their heads lowering, ears relaxed. One cocked a hind leg and swished his tail.
‘And the Lupins?’ An’ Lawrence asked.
The howling sounded closer. Kreshkali looked over her shoulder and shrugged. ‘They aren’t listening to me much these days.’
‘Would they jump the gate?’ He pointed at the spiked entrance and the miles of head-high fencing on either side.
‘I don’t see why not.’
‘Best keep moving, then.’
Kali reached into her saddlebag and handed him an axe. The horses startled as a black shape darted behind them and disappeared into a ravine. ‘Steady, now. We’re going to hack our way through those locks,’ she said to the horses. ‘And find the estate on the other side. There’ll be water there, and shade, and splendid stables and a manor house, if the old photographs are any indication.’
‘You really think it still stands? It’s been centuries, Kali, and not kind ones,’ An’ Lawrence said.
‘Optimism, Rowan?’
He answered by raising his axe and letting loose a swing. He aimed to send the blade deep into the first padlock, but it bounced back, nearly flying from his
hands. The sound reverberated through the wrought iron and into the ground. The green-broke mounts braced their front legs, eyes wide and nostrils flaring in spite of the calming spell. ‘Demons, Kali,’ he said after several more swings. ‘What’s this stuff made of?’
‘Titanium alloy.’
‘What?’
She smiled. ‘Throw a little magic into it, Sword Master. It’s just metal.’
He glared at her. ‘Are you mocking me?’
‘If you want to see it that way, be my guest.’
He shook his head and took a few more swings, boosting his strength with a blast of energy that lit up the axe like blue lightning. On the third swing, the axe flew clean out of his hands, sailing past Kreshkali and the horses to land in the serpentine rock behind them. The axe head was buried to the hilt.
‘Stop,’ she said, holding up her hand. ‘This isn’t working.’
‘You’re kidding. I thought I was getting somewhere.’
She led the horses down the fence line and tied them. ‘There must be a spell on it.’
‘Now you tell me?’
‘Now I know.’
Don’t all locks have a key?
Scylla asked, staring at An’ Lawrence. She sat gingerly on the hot red earth, her tufted ears languid in the heat.
Yes, Scylla, they do. But this key is lost.
Are you sure?
He hesitated.
Not when you say it like that.
‘There wouldn’t be a key, would there?’ he asked Kreshkali. ‘Or a way around?’
She shook her head. The fence stretched out for as far as the eye could see in both directions. ‘Not today. Not for us. We could climb over, but that would mean leaving the horses behind. Not an option.’
More howls wafted on the wind.
‘Don’t tell me they have the key?’
‘It’s a possibility,’ she answered. ‘He had to entrust it to someone.’
Another shadow darted behind a boulder, or was it the same one? It moved too quickly to tell. Scylla leapt up, growling. Her hackles spiked, making her appear double in size. Kreshkali brushed dust from her hands before stroking the feline’s head. ‘It’s all right, Scylla. The Lupins don’t want to hurt you.’
The feline hissed.
Really? Is that why my fine white belly fur still bears a scar from a Lupin blade? What kind of wonderland does she live in, Rowan?
‘What’d she say?’ Kreshkali asked, her hands on her hips.
‘Pardon?’
‘I can tell she’s talking to you.’
He coughed. ‘It’s hard to translate.’
‘Give me the highlights.’
‘She…disagrees.’
‘I can imagine.’ Kali laughed. ‘Let me put it this way, Scylla. The Lupins don’t want to hurt you
any more
.’
Scylla turned her head away.
‘Let me see what I can do,’ Kali said, stroking the temple cat again before turning towards the gate. She pushed up her sleeves and lifted the thick twists of chain that looped the central post. She touched the locks gently, as if they were small creatures. ‘What’s your secret, my little ones?’ she asked. ‘Why so tight? Don’t you recognise me? A child from the one who made you? Come now. Won’t you let us pass?’
An’ Lawrence screwed up his face as he retrieved the axe and brushed bits of rock from the blade. The edge looked like jagged teeth. ‘It’s a lock, Kali. Not a stray cat. You can’t coax it into…’
‘Shush.’
Her eyes softened. All her focus went into the padlocks. As she held them, she released a warm wave of energy that surrounded the metal. Particles of light hovered like fireflies around her hands. Thunder rumbled on the horizon. In the stillness that followed, the locks clicked, letting go their hold. She unwound the chain and gave the gate a shove, swinging it as wide as her smile.
An’ Lawrence crossed his arms. ‘Done, and well done,’ he said. ‘Can I ask why we didn’t do that in the first place?’
‘I like watching you sweat.’ She winked as she strode through the ancient iron gate. ‘Let’s hurry along, Rowan. We need to water the horses, and the Lupins are following, you know.’
‘Of course,’ he said, biting the words. ‘And while I get our mounts, might you be so kind as to tune in and see if there’s a banishing spell on the estate? I wouldn’t want to be turned to stone on such a lovely afternoon simply because I don’t have the right sort of look about me.’
‘More like the right sort of DNA, I imagine.’
‘That too, then.’
She sighed. ‘I already did.’
‘And?’
‘Luka Paree must have laid down a ripper.’
He slowed in his tracks. ‘Can you dispel it?’
‘It’s a little more complex than that. I don’t know what we’re up against, really. It’s very old magic.’
‘Great.’ He untied the horses. ‘Can you at least lock the gate behind us?’
Kreshkali stared into the distance, not answering. An’ Lawrence led the horses through the gateway, his eyes on the woman.
‘The Lupins?’ he prompted. ‘What’s your call? Shall we lock them out?’
‘They have a right to be here too. You know that.’
He had more than one argument ready, but as he looked behind him, he nodded and mounted up. ‘Lead the way, Kreshkali. We, and the dark demons of the underworld, shall follow.’
She offered neither smile nor frown but turned her mare towards the west and trotted on.
Kreshkali jogged beside the Sword Master, her mind tuning in to him. He was adjusting rather well considering recent events. He’d met his grown daughter—one he’d never known—for the first time, been swept from his world to a place both foreign and hostile, battled the technologies of ASSIST and taken up the challenge of expanding the tattered coven in what was left of this harsh, post-technological world. Now she was asking him to accept the Lupins—the strange shape-shifting creatures of her ancestor’s creation—as eagerly as one might take on a litter of hunting dogs. And they were far from that. Not bad for a man with his moon in the fixed sign of the Scorpion. Change didn’t come easy for such a placement, nor did letting go of grudges, but he’d handled it with near effortlessness—if you didn’t count the grumbles, scowls and derogatory comments.
She pulled out her compass again and then redirected them slightly more to the southwest. They travelled in companionable silence. The subtle breeze was lifting the heat of the day and erasing the tensions from the recent earthquake.
‘Here come your minions,’ An’ Lawrence said, pointing skyward. ‘Looks like they’ve got news.’
The Three Sisters, blue-black ravens from Gaela who had taken quite happily to this other world, swooped and darted overhead. Unlike most visitors, they found delight in the strange, decimated and
unpredictable environment. They whooshed past her, cawing out like mad pipers, flapping and blustering. She laughed. They were definitely excited about something. She hoped it was more than a rotting carcass on the other side of the hill. ‘What have you found, my beauties?’
‘Probably a chunk of obsidian shaped like a wing,’ An’ Lawrence said. ‘Or an old cow skull.’
‘I think it’s more than that this time.’
Temple halls! Big ones! Many trees. Live trees. Many nests! All very old but still fresh. Everything shiny and bright. Water too. Drink and bath and frolic. Come quick, ride hard and see with your own eyes, Mistress! Glorious home!
They cawed their news, diving by the riders a few more times before shooting off.
We follow, my lovelies!
‘I take it they spotted something significant?’ An’ Lawrence asked.
‘Indeed.’
‘The manor?’
‘Seems so.’
‘It still stands?’
‘It does, at least from their point of view.’
‘They’d be excited by a rubbish heap.’
She raised her eyebrows at him and he chuckled.
‘I meant, that’s great news. I can’t wait to see for myself!’
‘Thank you, but it would be more convincing without the sarcasm.’ She smiled in spite of his expression.
After looking for remnants of a road and finding nothing but endless packed clay and rocks, she wondered how easy it would be to find Paree’s mansion in the thousands of rolling acres. Wherever the road had been, it was now buried under rock or lost to
erosion. Cracks cut through the land and there was no sign of the trees that used to line the old driveway. Of course, there were very few trees left in this region, so it wasn’t much of a surprise. Still, she believed that on her ancestor’s estate both flora and fauna would be preserved. There was enough energy in this land to preserve the whole world—and from the sound of the Three Sisters, it had protected the estate at least. Of more immediate interest, there was water—and that meant survival. They really were running low.