done? When was the last time you had to make a tough decision?”
Katya simply stared at Silus for a moment, and then shook her head, grabbing Zac’s hand and walking away. The boy looked over his shoulder at his father, tears pouring down his face.
Silus was done with this; done with everything. He looked up at Kerberos.
“Do something,” he whispered, but the god remained impassive, and Emuel didn’t stir.
Silus wiped the back of his hand across his face. “Kelos?”
“Yes, Silus?”
“Did you get what we need?”
“Yes.”
“Then can we go home?”
“Yes, Silus. Let’s go home.”
CHAPTER TWENTY- FOUR
The palace at Da’Rea sat listing to one side, like a ship taking on water. Almost half of it had fallen into the tunnels beneath the city; the remaining portion was a blackened skeleton, its grounds littered with the corpses of dwarves and elves alike. Silus could see no sign of Orlok and his comrades, and he wondered whether the dwarf was amongst the dead or whether he had abandoned the city after the destruction of the palace. The bay was crowded with the wreckage of ships, some still ablaze. In a few places he could see survivors clinging to the flotsam, calling out to compatriots or giving voice to their grief or pain. Very few vessels had survived the assault, but Silus was relieved to see that one unharmed song ship remained, still anchored at the quay.
Keldren looked at the ruins of his former home and Silus saw the beginnings of tears in the wizard’s eyes.
“Did we have to return?” he said. “There is… nothing left. If you’re trying to make some sort of a point…”
“I take no delight in your suffering, Keldren,” Silus said. “We have returned because we need that song ship.”
“I don’t understand. Are we going to sail through time?”
“In a sense, yes.”
In the world’s Ridge Mountains they had made a pyre for Emuel’s body, laying him beside the corpse of the dragon. Katya had enfolded the boy in one of the creature’s wings; Silus had been about to ask her why, but the look she gave him halted the question before it could be formed. It had taken them many hours to collect enough wood for the blaze — little grew this high above the world — yet Silus had endured the search in silence, a penance that was not nearly enough to pay for what he had done. When the wood was ignited and smoke began to shroud Emuel’s body, he had wished that Bestion was still with them. The priest would have known what to say, would have sent Emuel’s spirit into the hereafter with a few suitable words. As it was, no one came forward to say a eulogy for the boy. All stood in silence as he burned. At one point the wood beneath Emuel shifted, sending a sheet of lilac flame high above the pyre, and, for a moment, the hiss of escaping gas sounded like a voice raised in song.
Later, as they gathered around the heat of the embers — wrapped in their cloaks, breaths misting before them — Silus told them of his plan.
“When we return, we’re going to want to ensure that we’re found by the Final Faith as quickly as possible.”
“ The Final Faith! Are you out of your mind?” Katya said.
“Hear me out,” Silus said, as more voices rose in protest. “The peninsula must be united against Hel’ss, and who holds the balance of power on Twilight, who has the largest army on the peninsula? The sooner we can make Katherine Makennon aware of the true nature of Kerberos and the threat Hel’ss poses, the sooner we will be entrusted to aid in the battle.”
“Okay, but how are we going to attract the attention of the Faith?” Kelos said.
“We make sure we return in style. We steal a ship. More specifically, we steal a song ship. We know that Makennon has been trying to recover the Llothriall, so we give it to her. Or, at least, something that looks like it. If we return in a song ship and skirt the western coast of the peninsula, the Faith will be on us in seconds.”
And so they had returned to Da’Rea and there boarded the last intact song ship in the bay.
The wind took the sails and the ship began to move out of the harbour and, despite the smoke rising over the city behind them and the detritus that cluttered the surface of the water, Silus felt his spirits rise. The sea had always been a balm for his suffering, the salt spray and the pitch and yaw of the waves provided him with something very like comfort. When this was all over, he and Katya would find a quiet little coastal village and there they would take up the life they had been so brutally torn from. They would have more children, and he and Zac would teach them the fisherman’s trade. Silus could almost smell the sharp odour of a fresh catch and hear the rapid tattoo of fish tails flapping on boards.
When he turned to see Katya and Zac, sitting on a thick coil of rope by the mainmast, the smile on his face died. His son was huddled into his wife’s arms, looking at Silus as though he didn’t recognise his father. No, there would be no going back to their old life. They had all travelled too far from each other for that to ever be a possibility. When this was all over, they would part ways and the best that Silus could hope for was that his son would not grow up to hate him.
Silus heard a snatch of Keldren’s song, as the hatch to below opened and Dunsany and Kelos climbed onto deck. Kelos had discarded his robe, it having become all but shredded in the battle with the dragon. His bare arms were criss-crossed with many scars, some of them still weeping, and his face was a patchwork of bruises. In his hands he held a crystal decanter filled with a thick amber fluid.
“Used to contain brandy,” the mage said, gesturing with the vessel. “Rather good brandy as it turns out. Don’t worry, I’m sure any residue won’t have diminished the potency of the dragon’s blood.”
“And you’re sure the spell will work this time?” Silus said. “I don’t want us to be stranded millions of years from now.”
“This time, without a doubt, the spell will work. Keldren has helped me prepare and we have gone through the nuances of the spell several times just to be sure. No casting on the fly this time. I’ll get us all home, don’t you worry.”
“Okay, Kelos. Let’s get this over with.”
Silus went to stand at the prow. Even with the strong wind gusting over the ship’s rail, he could smell the heavy incense of magic — cinnamon and burned stone — as Kelos unstoppered the decanter. The mage first poured the dragon’s blood over his hands, and used the remaining contents of the vessel to paint various symbols onto the deck. He muttered to himself as he inscribed each character, a look of intense concentration on his face. Dunsany knelt beside him, holding a book open before his friend, which Kelos consulted from time to time as he laid down the arcane script of the spell. When the last drop of blood had been used, he got back to his feet.
“Technically, you know, this is necromancy,” Kelos said to no one in particular. “Not my field at all. But Keldren has briefed me on the ins-and-outs of it, and it really isn’t that much more complicated than the practise of elemental magic. Of course, one thing that any act of necromancy requires, to be effective, is a death.” Kelos glanced at his feet, beside which sat a wicker cage that occasionally shook and emitted a cluck. “Necromancers generally prefer to work with human death, or deaths. But, really, the nature of the death isn’t important. Necromancers are just naturally attracted to melodrama, preferring a human death — or twenty — to empower their spells. Fortunately, I am not as enamoured of such ostentatious gestures.” Kelos paused. “Dunsany, I know exactly what look you are giving me, and I will ask you to stop it now. Thank you.
“Anyway, for this act of sorcery, the death in question will be given by nothing more significant than this chicken.” Kelos produced the bird from the wicker basket and held it against his chest. “And we need to do nothing more dramatic than this.” With a twist of his right hand, he broke the chicken’s neck. Kelos then produced a dagger and slit the creature’s throat, sprinkling its blood liberally over the symbols on the deck.
“No, my friends. The death is not the dramatic part of this spell at all. This, however, you will find far more
