Wolf Tide Read online

  At the sight the Fairy fell groveling on his face. He pawed at her feet.

  ‘Stop that!’ She flinched away. ‘What’s wrong?’

  He raised his head, slid a finger across his lips, promising silence.

  ‘Oh, my God, I wouldn’t do that!’ She dropped the cutters and squatted beside him. ‘I’m not going to hurt you. These are to cut off the irons. I want to free you.’ Why wasn’t he saying anything? Because he was not allowed, of course. ‘Talk to me! Ask me your questions!’

  ‘Who sent you?’ he whispered.

  ‘Nobody. I came of my own accord.’

  ‘Who knows of this?’

  ‘Just my uncle, the Patriarch. Nobody else.’

  ‘Why would you free me?’

  ‘Because I will never, never keep a slave, that’s why. All I want is a business partner.’ Damn it, she was crying again. She wiped her eyes on her sleeve. ‘Look, I run an investigation company. I’ve got a big job on, and my Fairy colleague’s disappeared. I need someone who can work charms. Security charms. Can you do that? Tell me if you can do that!’

  ‘I can.’

  It was probably a lie. Who wouldn’t lie at a moment like this? ‘Never mind. I’ll free you anyway. And if you decide you want to work for me, you’ll just have to do your best. All right? Say something!’

  He swayed. ‘What are your terms, mistress?’

  ‘My terms!’ Her mind shrilled in terror. Why hadn’t she prepared? Even lawyers sometimes missed loopholes and ended up signing their lives away. He is a treacherous lying Fay, don’t make the mistake of thinking he’s human. Quickly! But she was lightheaded with exhaustion. I have nothing left to care with. Let him do what he likes.

  She heard her mouth formulating sentences as they knelt together on the floor: ‘Well, you would work for me and… and seek to promote the prosperity of my business. I’d be in charge, but you can have your own area of responsibility, which would be security… stuff. But, um, if I ask you something, you must always tell me the truth—you need to promise that.’ Her mind went blank. What else? Think! ‘Oh, and I’ll pay you a fair wage. And you can stay here if you want. There’s a spare room. Will that do?’

  There was a long silence.

  ‘Have I forgotten anything?’ No answer. ‘I command you to tell me at once if I’ve forgotten something!’

  ‘You have forgotten to say I must not kill you,’ he whispered.

  ‘Shit!’ Her heart bounced against her ribs. ‘Thanks. Um, you are also to promise that you won’t kill me. In fact, you must promise that you will do me no harm whatsoever.’ She groped for legal-sounding phrases. ‘Or cause any third party or inanimate object to kill me or do me harm. The same goes for any member of my family. You mustn’t harm them or cause them to be harmed. Whatsoever. In perpetuity.’ That had to cover it. ‘What do you say? Tell me.’

  Another silence. ‘If you will free me,’ he whispered at last, ‘I will agree to your terms, mistress. A handshake will bind me to it. Except for this—you will pay me no wages until I have paid back your two hundred gilders.’ He swayed again.

  ‘No no, don’t be silly. I’m more than happy to—’

  He fell back unconscious.

  ‘Oh my God, are you all right? Shit!’ His eyes were open, staring at the ceiling. She should have fed him! What the hell did they eat? Cream and honey, like the old tales said? She lurched to the pantry for a jug of milk.

  ‘Here. Drink this! Drink it!’

  But his eyes had glazed. He was dying.

  ‘No! You can’t die!’ She was going to have to touch him. She slid a cringing hand under his neck and raised his head and shoulders. A scream of horror nearly escaped her. He weighed nothing! A sack of gull quills and dried cuttlefish. Hollow. They really were hollow as dead flies. Her hand waggled as she put the lip of the jug to his mouth, tilted it. Milk rushed everywhere. Was any going in?

  Suddenly he spluttered. Then reared up, seized the jug and drank. Drank it dry. Light came back to his eyes.

  ‘Ready?’ She put the jug aside.

  He wiped his mouth and stripped off his ragged shirt. Skin and bones. When had the bastards last fed him? He held out his right hand.

  She grasped the cutters and took his hand. No! She gagged. The flesh was already growing over the iron.

  ‘It’s going to hurt. I’m sorry.’

  He made no sound as she set to work, gouging the blades into his palm. Was there no end to this night’s horrors? His blood spilled out like liquid opals, ran down the cutter arms, over her hands. She gagged again. Her fingers slipped. Deeper, she’d have to cut the flesh away to get enough purchase. Her own blistered palms started to bleed. Still he made no sound. But then, they never did. There, she’d got a hold now. She gripped the handles. Bore down. But she wasn’t strong enough.

  ‘Give me strength!’ she sobbed. ‘Please, St Pelago, please.’

  Then with a dull nick! she was through. They wrangled together with the spiked iron loop and at last he ripped his hand free. The manacle fell with a clunk.

  And still the Fairy said nothing, simply held out his left hand.

  One last push, she told herself. Save us, I sound like a midwife. There was surely enough gore, enough anguish. But what was she birthing? Who even cared any more? She gripped her cutters and began again.

  Nick!

  The second iron dropped to the floor.

  A sigh. The Fairy raised both mangled hands aloft. He gazed at them, turned them this way, that way. Blood ran down his forearms, drip, drip, from his elbows on to the floor. Suddenly he cocked his head. Listened. She heard him hiss.

  Then he turned his gaze on her.

  No, he wasn’t human. Whatever it was looking out at her through those eyes, it was not human. But he won’t kill me. We have a deal. Fairies never go back on a deal.

  Except—oh dear God!—they had not yet shaken hands.

  ‘No!’

  Too late. The Fairy bared his fangs—they’d grown back! He snarled at her in Fairy: You are a something.

  ‘No. Please!’

  ‘You are a simpleton,’ he repeated in High Galen. ‘Quickly!’ He seized her as she tried to crawl away.

  ‘Please don’t kill me!’

  ‘Give me your hand!’ Their palms slithered in his blood as he gripped her. ‘I agree to your terms.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘This solemn contract binds us, Anabara Nolio.’

  Oh dear God, what was he, that he knew her name?

  ‘Quickly! Repeat my words!’

  ‘What… what should I call you?’

  ‘You freed me, you must name me. Now. The first thing you think of.’

  ‘Um… Thwyn?’

  ‘The first!’ He gripped her hand so hard she cried out. ‘That was the second.’

  She cowered. Fiery light rippled under his skin. This was no lowborn Fay scum. ‘But the first was just a… a thing, not name.’ That thing the Patriarch had prayed he’d never see.

  He shook her. ‘Say it!’

  ‘Paran. This solemn contract binds us, Paran.’

  He released her hand and stood. ‘Get up. They are coming.’

  ‘Coming? Now?’

  ‘Now—as you waste time.’ He hauled her to her feet. She cried out again—monstrous impossible strength! ‘They are at the Gullgate. They intend to seize me and cage me again. And school you never to open your lips to a soul.’

  ‘Oh my God!’ She made the sign. ‘Then why did they let us go?’

  ‘To bring the fear into your home.’

  ‘But—How do they know where I live?’

  He kicked the irons. ‘Tracking charms.’

  ‘Get rid of them! Oh God save us!’ she wept. ‘We’ve got to hide!’ But where? They’d break the door down, ransack the place. ‘Out the back. To the Precincts.’

  He caught her arm. ‘Too late. They are in the street. Hush now! You should sleep.’

  ‘Sleep? Are you mad? I’m—’

  Suns
hine was streaming in through her porthole window. Anabara stretched under her feather quilt. God, she was stiff. What was wrong with her? She felt like a tenderized steak. Bad dreams, too. A night full of them. Running from Tressy rivermen or something. Punting against the tide. She had a feeling it had ended badly. Ah well. Just her subconscious going over the worries of the day; the whole library fiasco, and whether she was mad to risk a trip to the—

  Wait. What day is this?

  As if in answer, the Minstery bells began to peal. One after another the city’s shrine bells picked up the sound. Sunday! She sat up. Hell, her hands hurt—a mass of raw blisters. And they were covered in some kind of silvery stuff. She froze. There was something she was not quite catching hold of. Some eel of a dream—there! But again it slipped from her. She pushed back the quilt and got out of bed. Ow, ow, ow. Saints in heaven, she was still in her clothes. They were filthy. What the hell was I doing last night? Rolling in a pig trough? Was I drunk?

  She was halfway down the stairs when the memory burst over her. She sank on to the step. The nightmare played back. Every detail. There was no waking out of this. The Fairy, that bundle of rags she’d bought—oh sweet Saint Pelago, what kind of thing was he? His name was Paran—her own stupid fault. Why did she have to go and think that word? Ill-omened, ill-omened. Why am I such a fool? If only Linna was still here to save me from myself!

  The events of the night flickered again like sheet lightning across her closed eyes. But there was a blank at the end. She remembered her panic—the men were coming, they were in the street. What had happened next? Had she been knocked out? How could she possibly have slept? Unless—Had the Fairy charmed her? She began to tremble. And the deal—what stream of folly had she blurted out? Even Butros with all his legal wizardry wasn’t going to be able to extricate her from this mess! And even now the creature was downstairs, waiting for her.

  Well, she couldn’t sit here for the rest of her life. It must be faced sometime, whatever it was. Let’s get it over with. She hauled herself up and hobbled down the rest of the stairs. He won’t harm me. He cannot harm me. Please don’t let him harm me. She took a breath and opened the door.

  Yes, he was waiting for her.

  Clean and dressed. Where had he found clothes? She’d heard somewhere that the manacles made them all look identical, but even now he was free he still looked… nondescript. Like, well, your average lowbred. He was neither fair nor dark. Not tall, not short, not ugly, not beautiful.

  ‘Good morning, slept you well?’ Lord, she sounded like her old Other Tongues primer. ‘Sorry, is it all right if we speak Commons? Or Galen? I’m afraid I always messed about in Fairy lessons.’

  ‘Galen.’

  ‘Thanks. Listen, last night: what—’

  ‘Stop.’ He came close and looked down into her eyes. He was tall. She must have forgotten. ‘I am bound by your terms to answer with the truth.’ His speech was soft and uninflected. As expressionless as his face. ‘Be sure you wish to hear the truth before you ask me anything.’

  Not human, she thought again, not human. Black eyes, taut skin across angular features—that’s what made them look so hungry. Predatory. That, and the zigzag teeth.

  ‘Did the rivermen come for us?’ she whispered.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But you charmed me so that I slept through it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He must have carried her to bed! Hollow, but freakishly strong, strong as soldier ants. Don’t think of it. ‘What… happened to them?’

  His eyelids flickered. Quickly. Like a lizard’s.

  ‘No!’ She backed away. ‘That’s fine. Don’t tell me.’ But now the not knowing was worse. Horror upon horror unfolded in her imagination. She squashed the images to the back of her mind. ‘What if they send someone else? My door—’

  ‘I’ve charmed it. And the windows. Nothing can enter here with ill intent.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Her lips quivered. ‘Sorry. I’m not normally this pathetic.’ If she was hoping for reassurance it was in vain. ‘I should probably eat something. Are you hungry?’

  ‘I ate last night.’

  ‘Good! Excellent!’ The hearts of his enemies! ‘Well, I’ll just, um, get some clean clothes and head for the bathhouse. I need to…’ She gestured at herself.

  ‘A word before you go. You need not fear me.’

  ‘Yes, absolutely. I know that. You promised not to harm me.’ She put on a smile.

  ‘And yet you do fear. You fear I am a monster. That I eat the hearts of my enemies. That I killed those men in ways too horrible to imagine. Isn’t that what you’re thinking? Small wonder you fear!’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ This was mortifying. ‘It’s just that… Look, I genuinely believed I wasn’t prejudiced. But clearly I am. All the old myths keep rearing their heads. Sorry.’

  He reached out to her. ‘Feel.’

  Do it. She made herself take his arm in both hands. The weight of it shocked her. And the skin was… non-human. Like… What was it like? Yes—the animal man, came to school with his menagerie, gave her the big snake to hold, dense coils, supple strength under her fingers.

  ‘Right. Not hollow, then.’ She tried again to smile. ‘Sorry. I’m an idiot.’

  ‘The mind plays tricks.’

  ‘Yes.’ She let go of him, managed not to wipe her palms. ‘I hope you’re not in too much pain. Your hands. Where I had to cut them.’

  He held them both out to her, turning them over. Palms, backs, no scars, nothing.

  ‘But—’

  ‘It was a long night,’ he said. ‘The mind plays tricks.’

  ‘Weird.’ She shook her head. ‘I’ll probably feel better when I’ve eaten. Then we should talk about—’

  ‘Tomorrow,’ he said. ‘This is the Day of Rest.’

  A short way up Skuller she found a low windowsill and sat to eat the breakfast she’d bought. The bells had fallen silent. The righteous were at prayers and the unrighteous were in bed, or sleeping it off in the Guard cells. Or re-hashing last night in the bathhouse. Sundays in the steam room, that was where you picked up the juiciest gossip. Yeah, and she’d be the hot topic today, turning up in this state.

  She took a sip of chocolate and leant her head back against the closed shutters of the cobbler’s. High cloud in the blue this morning. Wisps, like carded cobwebs. Well, I’m still here. The sun is still shining. And I still haven’t a clue what I’m going to do. But thank you. She drank some more chocolate and turned her attention to food.

  What the hell was this stuff on her hands? Like she’d been massacring snails in her sleep. Suddenly her memory churned. Her palms were slippery on some tool, there was something she was wrestling to do. Give me strength! She felt again the jolt of that dull nick!

  It was Fairy blood! The chocolate slopped. She almost dropped her honeycake. Her heart battered in her chest like a caged pigeon. The mind plays tricks? No, the Fairy was playing tricks on her mind. But how? He’d promised not to lie to her—that was in the deal. You must tell me the truth, that was what she’d said. Uh oh—he hadn’t lied. Just made her think she was imagining things. Treacherous as serpents. They all were. Or was that just more ignorant prejudice?

  Well, one thing was certain—she’d feel better after she’d eaten. She peeled back the paper and devoured the honeycake, careful not to touch it with her fingers. What were the properties of Fairy blood? No, she wasn’t even going to let herself think about it. A Larridy gull swooped down. She drained her drink, and tossed him the last crust. He seized it and soared off.

  There, the simple homely magic of hot chocolate and honeycake! And a long hot soak and a massage would cure anything else. She levered herself back to her feet and limped up the hill to the bathhouse. She’d worry about this later.

  CHAPTER 7

  The sun shone through turquoise glass of the dome. It was like the seabed down here in the steamy twilight. The bathers might have been mermaids. On the walls of the hot rooms mosaics glittered, scene
s from ancient Gull mythology—the whale gods, the first warriors arriving in their longboats and driving out the demons of Larridy long before the first Galens arrived.

  Anabara drifted in and out of sleep as she lay on the marble slab. Now and then the shrieks of the washer-girls echoed from the women’s beauty room as they painted one another’s toenails, and gossiped about their conquests. She’d had to endure Jennet Pettyfrock’s tiny piggy eyes scrutinizing her in the foyer. Asking her if she’d enjoyed a nice bit of rough last night. Silly cow. She’d flirt with a temple door if it had a knob on. Couldn’t credit that there were other ways of measuring success than how popular you were with men.

  But in here it was still. Still as the ocean floor, with the waves lapping, the soft hands moving in ripples over her body. Gentle today. The Candacian bath attendants always sensed what you needed. Afterwards she drowsed in the lounging room, skin glistening with almond oil. The scent of verbena and poplar drifted from the censers. Let me lie here forever. Far away the Minstery bells were pealing again for service end.

  Uncle Téador! She had to get a message to him to say she was all right.

  The jolt set her pulse racing once more. I should get back, she thought. But home was not home any more. Not with that thing in her house. Why had she said he could stay with her? Pity, perhaps. That bedraggled broken wretch. And now it was clean and clothed. It stood up on its hind legs and addressed her in High Galen in its sssoft snake-like voice. It would not lie, but it would deceive her in a thousand ways until she feared she was going mad.

  And tomorrow she would have to go with him to the library. Another cold wash of dread: the scholasticus was going to ask for his papers. Paran was no longer an illegal slave, but he had no Freeman Pass. Good forgeries took time. And how was Loxi going to react to his new workmate? He must never find out Paran was an ex-slave, or he’d flip. Oh God, was nothing ever going to be straightforward again?

  Yanni. Yanni would know what to do. No! She’d vowed to when she set up her business that she would not keep running to big brother to sort the world out for her. And Uncle Téador was already carrying all the woes of The Way on his shoulders. It wasn’t fair to drag him into this. Grandmama? No way! Linna had enough to think about with the baby coming. Loxi was part of the problem. Cousin Rodania? Huh. Anabara would rather sit bare-arsed on a sea urchin than go to Ms Perfect for assistance. I have no-one, no-one to confide in.