Hero Page 6

  The walls of the witch’s spellcasting lair were opaque and dull; they contained none of the flecks that caught the lantern light like fairydust. Crystals did not grow here, nor did any other living thing. Strange spells had long since stripped this cave of any color or life it had ever had. Nothing remained except madness and ancient bones covered by centuries of calcified rock. As he always did when he entered this chamber, Peregrine prayed to Lord Death that these fallen warriors did not know the insanctity of their resting place.

  Betwixt sneezed several times in succession at the foul odor. Peregrine fought back tears himself at the stench, so much worse than usual this time, like burned flesh and urine. He quickly located the source: the witch’s infernal cauldron. Had she filled it with Earthfire?

  “I brought the map,” he called out, his body still mostly obscured by the steam from the cauldron. “I’ll just put it here for you.” He tossed the map onto the closest table and turned to leave as quickly as he’d arrived.

  “Thank you, my dear.” The words were even in tone, sober, seductive. When the witch channeled this much of the dragon’s magic, her demon aspect was fully visible. Her skin darkened to lapis lazuli and her hair took on an ethereal indigo sheen. Her knobby fingers were tipped with rough claws, and her horns seemed to have grown. Her hollow eye sockets were black enough to mask the face of Lord Death himself.

  This was the true face of the witch—the true face of all witches, though their demon aspects varied by element. As the fey were children of the gods, witches were the children of demons. This particular witch was a lorelei: a water demon.

  “I do wish you would stay,” said the lorelei. “This magic will be one of my finest works.” Cwyn hopped anxiously from pillarstone to pillarstone, flapping her wings and stirring the air. The bracelet of stones at the witch’s wrist burst to life with an inner fire.

  This display of power frightened Peregrine; he took small comfort in the fact that it would lay the witch low for some time in the aftermath. “I worry about you, Mother. I fear this magic is too taxing for you.”

  “You’re a sweet girl,” said the lorelei, meaning nothing of the sort. “Hold the map for me, darling.”

  So much for getting out quickly. “Of course, Mother.”

  Intoxicated by the sheer pressure of magic filling the room, the compulsion to do the lorelei’s bidding overwhelmed him. He shuffled to the table to retrieve the map where he’d tossed it. Betwixt remained glued to his skirt; Peregrine almost tripped over the chimera twice. In his hands the map buzzed with energy, as if reinfused with the life of the animal from whose skin it had been made. The steam made the hairs on his arms and neck stand on end.

  The lorelei’s voice echoed, deep and melodic:

  “From Earthen fire let cauldron bubble,

  Reveal to me Woodcutter trouble.”

  Sparks of lightning from the cauldron cracked against the cave walls. The cauldron’s contents became a small sun, blinding with a bright yellow light. Rooted in place by the spell, Peregrine could not turn his face away.

  The map began to bleed.

  Somewhere north of Arilland a pinprick of blood welled up out of the skin and ran, dripping onto the ground and instantly vanishing into smoke like liquid flame. The map turned to ashes in Peregrine’s fingertips and danced away on the gale-force drafts of wind now swirling about the room.

  Relieved of his duty, Peregrine felt his limbs tense and come back under his own control. He slowly backed away from the lorelei and her cauldron. He froze when she turned in his direction, away from the cauldron, but the rapture on her empty face was not directed at him. She was focused on the bird.

  The ball of the bright yellow light from the cauldron swallowed Cwyn, holding her just above the fire in the center of the cavern. The raven began to spin—or the colors around her did—either way, Peregrine’s stomach rolled sickly on the bird’s behalf. Betwixt’s low growls vibrated through Peregrine’s skirt and into his legs. The chimera’s snake tail wrapped around Peregrine’s wrist and guided him slowly backwards, away from the spell.

  From the reflection in the moat, Peregrine watched the ball of light and feathers in the center of the room spin faster and faster. Then it began to grow larger and larger. Peregrine swayed. He blinked several times. Lights flashed. His head throbbed. He closed his eyes. Blood roared through his head. He slipped, lost his footing, stumbled into the water. He opened his eyes.

  The roaring was not in his head. From far above, pieces of the cave ceiling began to fall all around the lorelei. Fingerstones trapped her in a crystalline cage before crumbling to the floor. The rumbling got louder and the pieces got larger. A tiny shaft of daylight hit her hair, and then another, reflecting blue on the walls around them. The lorelei threw back her head and screamed to the sky.

  The witch was making a hole in the mountain.

  Terror swept through Peregrine. The lorelei could bring the mountain down with her insanity. If she woke the dragon, the world would soon be finished with them all. The lorelei needed to harness the dragon’s magic for her infernal spells. Surely she wouldn’t be so stupid, but he knew she had the potential. Right now, he had no idea what Fate had in store for him.

  Betwixt, however, had other plans. The snake tail yanked his arm, almost pulling it out of the socket. Peregrine landed quite unceremoniously on his backside in a lump of skirt and hair and chimera. He rolled under a very large, very old outcropping and prayed it would be enough to withstand the chaos.

  Before them, in a raven’s shriek and a shower of glittering blue calcite, the ceiling collapsed.

  5

  Earthbreaker

  SOMEHOW, MAMA had fresh bread in the oven and a bowl of fruit on the table by the time the gray-sailed ship weighed anchor. Papa and Peter were hard at work on the well, pumping out water into buckets and testing each. Papa was worried that the salt brought by the new ocean might taint the groundwater. Saturday had a vision of bodies shriveled up beside the lapping waves, crusted in crystals and parched to death. She wondered if she could solve this problem as easily as she’d caused it, but trying anything now would put Thursday and her crew in jeopardy.

  Mama had ordered them all to diligence save Monday, who had held up a graceful finger and stopped Mama mid-sentence. So Monday was the only one who watched over the ship that carried their beloved, long-lost, pirate-wed sister until her feet touched the meadow now acting as a reluctant shore.

  “She’s here!” Monday ran down to meet the skiff. Saturday watched to see if her eldest sister’s feet touched the ground.

  Saturday and the rest of the working brood paused to look at Mama, who wiped floury hands on her apron and said, “Well, let’s go, then,” as if she’d been waiting impatiently for hours. The words broke the spell, and they dropped their pails and pots and made their way toward the shore. Having banished the dark clouds far to the west, the shining sun sparkled mercilessly on the magical sea.

  Monday embraced Thursday with an eye for never letting go. Saturday could only make out two tanned arms wrapped about Monday’s pale satin waist and a mop of burnished copper curls buried into Monday’s shoulder.

  When she was near enough, Thursday escaped Monday’s heavenly clutches and almost tackled Saturday in her enthusiasm.

  “You’re stronger than I remember,” said Saturday. “And skinnier. And shorter.”

  Thursday threw back her head, gave a raspy laugh that scared the gulls, and kissed her sister on the cheeks. “Well met, Earthbreaker,” she said. “I am here to escort you on your travels! My humble boat is at your service, Mama.”

  Mama’s joy at the reunion quickly hardened. “Then you know about Tesera.”

  “Yes,” said Thursday. “I cannot imagine.”

  “But—” Saturday started, and then silenced at the look Thursday gave her. Effectively, the Woodcutters had lost most of their daughters over time: Monday to marriage, Tuesday to Death, Thursday to her Pirate King, and Wednesday to Faerie. Sunday, in the pa
lace, was still close enough to home, and Friday’s apprenticeship wouldn’t be forever . . . but it was enough to make Saturday keenly aware of what it would be like to never see one of her sisters again. For all that she wished it aloud sometimes, she never really meant it.

  “You saw this in your spyglass?” Mama asked.

  “I did.” Thursday still looked pointedly at Saturday. “In a manner of speaking. Mine is a very different sort of glass from the one that summoned us here.”

  “What was it supposed to do?” Saturday asked cheekily.

  “Does it matter? Sea glass isn’t supposed to be shattered into a million pieces . . . but I should have expected nothing less from you. Where’s your bag?”

  “My bag? But . . . how do you know . . . ?” And then Saturday remembered the properties of Thursday’s enchanted spyglass. It could not only see across leagues to other sides of the world, but it could also see certain events through time. Thursday must have known that Mama would want Saturday to accompany her.

  Finally, a chance to leave the towerhouse, and on a pirate ship to boot! But what should have been excitement over a journey on the high seas was dampened by the thought that Saturday would spend the whole trip looking for Trix’s dead body floating among the waves.

  “Erik ought to go with you,” said Monday. “He can accompany Mama and Saturday to their destination once they reach the northern shore.” Erik bowed deeply to Monday, as if she had just bestowed upon him some very important royal honor.

  Thursday tilted her head a moment in thought and then said cheerily, “The more the merrier! Always nice to have another hand on deck. Mama, Saturday should really get a move on before the ocean dries up again.”

  Saturday considered the new horizon. Was that even possible? Anything was possible today, it seemed.

  Mama clicked her tongue. “You heard her, Miss Molasses. Fetch your things so we can be off.”

  Saturday grumbled sullenly and stomped back into the towerhouse, compelled to collect her things at Mama’s enchanted behest. Clever Thursday, using Mama to shoo her along. Peter followed her up to her room, as Saturday knew he would. He was the only one besides Papa—and Thursday, apparently—who knew about her bag.

  Though she had been quite young, Saturday clearly remembered the day Thursday ran off with the Pirate King. There had been little warning. Thursday had spent the morning as usual, full of chores and breakfast and stories. She’d disappeared sometime that afternoon. No one thought to look for her until dinner. Wednesday came down from her aerie and delivered the note Thursday had left upon her tidy bed, and that was that. The Woodcutters were left with nothing but a sheet of paper and an echo of bright laughter on the wind.

  That day, little Saturday rescued an old feedbag from the barn and started putting things in it, readying for her own journey. The feedbag became an old pillowcase, then a laundry sack, and finally a threadbare messenger bag that Friday had mended for her after a certain amount of bribing and begging. The summer of her sixteenth year, Saturday had been so sure that adventure would call her that she took the bag to work in the Wood every day.

  She was ready for anything, but anything never came.

  The summer had passed uneventfully, and she stowed the bag in her room once again. She’d found a hinged floorboard beneath her bed, cleaned out what looked like ash and dried leaves and bound sticks to make room. It was the perfect hiding place.

  Now Saturday shimmied behind the stout headboard and Peter got a firm grasp on the footboard. Together they shoved the bed aside. Peter hopped onto Saturday’s mattress and sat cross-legged while Saturday fetched the bag.

  “You must be thrilled,” said Peter.

  Saturday was not especially thrilled about breaking the world, but that wasn’t what he meant. She always knew what Peter meant. “Overjoyed,” she said sarcastically.

  “Unemployed,” rhymed Peter.

  Saturday wasn’t in the mood for games. In one great yank, she extracted her bag from its hiding place. She plopped both it and herself on the bed beside Peter. Almost as an afterthought, she added the ebony-handled brush to its contents.

  “I knew this day was bound to come.” Peter made a face at the bag. “When will I see you again?”

  “When there are stars in the daytime.” Judging by Peter’s forlorn expression, he wasn’t really in the mood for games either. “Oh, Peter, don’t worry. I’ll be home as soon as I find Trix.” Even as she said them, the words sounded like a lie. Jack hadn’t come home either, once upon a time.

  Peter caught Saturday’s upper arm in a grip that would have bruised any of her other sisters. “You haven’t killed Trix. He’s fine. The animals will help him. They always do.”

  But the animals couldn’t have helped him if they had all died in the flood as well. “He’s fine and I’ll bring him back,” she said determinedly.

  “Just make sure he’s safe.” Peter’s voice was soft now. “Only bring him back if he wants to come.”

  The idea was preposterous. “Why would he not want to come home?”

  He indicated the bag between them. “Adventure is the vice of all Woodcutters.”

  It was true enough; even with its one castle-worthy tower, the tiny cottage was stifling. “Fine. I will make sure Trix wants to come home before I tie him to a horse.”

  Peter nodded, taking her sarcasm as oath. “And protect Mama,” he added.

  “Mama doesn’t need protection. She could kill a bear by staring at it.” Or by telling it to die.

  “Will you please think about someone other than yourself for five seconds?”

  “I’m thinking about Trix,” said Saturday. She hadn’t stopped thinking about Trix; the guilt and litany of unanswered questions were taking their toll on her.

  Peter growled at the ceiling. “Gods, you drive me mad.”

  “That makes me glad,” Saturday rhymed.

  “You make me sad,” said Peter.

  “I’ll find our lad.”

  “I’ll stay with Dad.”

  “You’re going to miss me so bad,” said Saturday, even though she really meant it the other way around.

  “Yes, Whirlwind, I am.” He caught her up in a hug and then stared at her face, as if memorizing it. She did the same, etching in her mind her brother’s sky-blue eyes, his wind-tossed sandy hair, the line of his eyebrow, the curve of his lips, the shadow of stubble on his dimpled chin, the freckle beneath his right eye. He hugged her again. “Don’t forget about me while you’re off adventuring.”

  “I’ll bring you back a chest full of gold and a pretty girl to keep you company.”

  “See that you do.”

  She wanted to linger with her beloved brother, but the moment Saturday slid her arm through the strap of her bag, the compulsion to comply with Mama’s order became irresistible.

  “And one more thing.”

  “Seriously, Peter?” Saturday walked backwards down the steps so that she could see her brother deliver whatever preposterous addendum he had in store.

  “Try not to stink too badly.”

  “I will sleep with pigs, just for you!” She leapt down the last half-flight and sped across the sitting room with Peter hot on her heels.

  “I think I’m going to be sick,” Mama said on the skiff to Thursday’s boat. She had finished braiding Saturday’s long hair and was now unable to distract herself with anything else.

  Thursday patted her hand. “I’m sorry, Mama. This new sea is a rough one. Once we get to the ship you can lie down in my quarters. My cabin boy will fetch you anything you need. And if she gives you any lip, you have my permission to throw her overboard.”

  Mama smiled a little at the jest, but kept her lips tightly shut. Her skin turned faintly green. She breathed deeply, swallowed hard, and pinched the skin between her left thumb and forefinger. Why didn’t she just tell herself to not be sick? Mama’s stubbornness truly knew no bounds.

  Erik worked hard at the oars, fighting the waves that tried unceasingly to pun
ch and toss them back to shore. Mama pushed Saturday away to heave what remained of the accursed porridge over the side. The shove caused Saturday’s sheathed sword to knock into the side of the skiff and almost topple her into the water, but Erik’s hand shot out to steady her.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  Erik only grunted before returning his attention to the waves, and Saturday officially gave up being polite. She was about to board a pirate ship, after all.

  Once on the ship, Saturday was glad to have her sword at her side to keep her from succumbing to the sickness that already held Mama in its thrall. Thursday ushered Mama into her quarters at what Saturday assumed was the front of the boat. The aforementioned cabin boy was a skinny little thing in a stocking cap, but Thursday expected her to lug Mama’s belongings anyway. Saturday had offered to help, but the cabin boy just narrowed her big blue eyes and gave a scowl worthy of Saturday’s own.

  Realizing her assistance was neither required nor wanted, she excused herself to explore the deck of the ship. The rest of the crew busied themselves around her, calling out orders she didn’t understand. Saturday held fast to the railing and turned her face into the wind as the sails caught and moved them out to sea.

  A large shadow passed over the sun; she shielded her eyes with a hand to see a few birds with very large wings diving into the ship’s wake. Three were white; one was smaller and dark, but with a wingspan just as wide as that of his fairer cousins. The white birds seemed more skilled at snatching prey, though the dark one was just as adept at thieving from the others’ beaks.

  “Mollymawks,” said a voice behind her. “The dark one is a frigate bird. Don’t see many of those this far north. But then, one doesn’t typically see the ocean this far east.”