The Pilgrims

extremely pissed. ‘It’s not the work I hate, it’s his blathering. The man won’t shut up.’

She sat heavily on the step beside him. He began to speak but she cut him off: ‘Shh! I have something to say to you and I’m thinking of how to say it.’

‘Fine.’ He waited, watching Lut pile the bark strips back onto the wheelbarrow with much angry talking to himself and headshaking.

‘You’re to be a hero,’ said Siel at last. ‘Good. Do you think learning to use a sword is going to be enough?’

Eric looked at her in surprise. ‘Maybe not. But I’ve asked to learn magic as well-’

‘Do you think magic is going to be enough?’

‘Enough for what? To beat them?’

‘Yes to beat them,’ she snapped. ‘They have magic, so do we. They have swords, so do we. Anfen is a better swordsman than most, though you have only seen him lose a fight to an Invia so you may not believe it. He is not enough to beat them. So even if you could wield a blade like Anfen, and cast like the Arch Mage, would that be enough?’

Another flock of birds erupted from the line of trees. Out in the yard Loup cheered like someone watching a horse race. Eric said, ‘Obviously not, by the way your questions are headed. You’re saying we’d need a lot more such people. How do you propose to get them? I’m trying to become Anfen. It’s why I have these.’ He showed her the cuts on his forearms.

She slapped the step in frustration. ‘Listen! What do we have that they don’t? What weapon, what tool to use, what thing to fall back on, what map to guide us which they are missing? You heard what I told of their history! They do anything they want. They stop at nothing. They kill, steal, kill, lie, kill.’

Now he got it. ‘Principles. Values. We have principles. They don’t.’

She turned to him, brown eyes wide. ‘Yes! Case is usually wrong, but he has them. Do you?’

He was taken aback. ‘Of course I do.’

‘What are they? I’ve heard you betray your friend’s confidence, telling us of his lust for Stranger when he left the room.’

‘Anfen needed to know it-’

‘Yes, he did. So betraying your friend’s confidence was the useful thing to do. Was it right? You lied to my face without batting an eye. Yes, you were scared, but you also wanted to use my body again, and you kept up the lie for days. I waited, I gave you a chance to see there’d be no danger in telling the truth. But you didn’t.’

‘Hey, use your body? Who seduced who?’

She hadn’t seemed to hear. ‘You explained why you lied but you never said sorry. You just panted after me like a dog all through the woods, greedy for more meat.’

There was nothing he could say in his defence, other than: ‘Siel, please, what the hell brought this on?’

‘I’ve looked into your mind and heart and seen nothing there. It scares me.’

Tears slid down her cheeks. He didn’t get a chance to recover from his shock and answer before she’d stormed into the house and slammed the door behind her.

Loup and Sharfy returned, the magician muttering excitedly. ‘They were close! And fighting hard. We’ll see how that works out. Far Gaze isn’t the greatest mage who ever lived, but he’s no weakling. She must be something, that one he’s dancing with! Oh, aye …’

‘Are you sure Anfen’s sleeping in there?’ Sharfy asked him.

Loup nodded, grinning. ‘Out like a blown candle. I even blessed his sleep, so his dreams’ll be peaceful, not full of blood and guts, the poor lad.’

‘Now’s the best chance we’ll get,’ Sharfy whispered, the addict again creeping into his face. ‘How long’s a black-scale vision take?’

‘Depends,’ said Loup. ‘Maybe he’ll go out of body. They got some kick, the black ones.’

Eric barely heard them, too busy replaying Siel’s outburst, trying to find which parts he should accept and which he could debate. Point taken on the lust, but given the stress and circumstances, perhaps a little slack could be cut. As for betraying Case’s confidence, I don’t quite see her point … He came back to the present. ‘Out of body? Does that mean what I think it does?’

‘Means what it sounds like,’ said Sharfy. ‘Body stays here, you don’t. Looks like you’re sleeping.’

‘Where would I go?’

‘Past, future, present, maybe somewhere else altogether,’ said Loup, smiling toothlessly. He lowered his voice as Lut strode past with a crunch of boots on gravelly turf, still muttering angrily about young people’s lack of respect for the land. ‘I heard of people who went to Otherworld, and further places besides,’ the magician whispered. ‘Whatever happens, you’ll see stuff, you believe it.’ He leaned close, eyes gleaming. ‘I heard how you found that scale. No one just finds a black scale like that. That’s meant. Dragon meant you to have it. Why you think I crushed it up like that? I knew It wanted this. It didn’t just want you trading for a few passing treasures. So let’s go inside and see what It wants you to see …’

They gathered in the room’s far corner while Anfen snored deeply at the other end. ‘He’s out for a good while yet,’ said Loup. ‘But these are his rules we’re about to break, so hush or we’re in it, deep. Here’s the story. We’re taking a quick nap. Anfen, he don’t understand visions, thinks it’s risky.’ Loup looked suddenly angry, twisting his whole face into a curdled bunch of wrinkles and beard. ‘Oh aye, can be, but so’s taking a step outside at night. And you can’t stay inside all your damn life, just cos you might kick your toe out there!’

‘Easy …’ said Sharfy, a hand on his shoulder.

‘Oh aye.’ Loup nodded. His face uncreased, his toothless smile returned. ‘Who’s to say? We might just learn stuff that’s useful. Aye, you sometimes do.’

‘You’ve done this before with black scales, right?’ said Eric.

Loup stared into the distance. ‘Once. Girl who did it wouldn’t say what she saw, but she was … different, after. Glad she went, oh aye. Went on for big things, that one, riches and power. Whether it was what she learned in her vision, or what she’d have done anyway, not for me to say. I miss her.’ He sighed, eyes distant for a moment. ‘Black visions fade too, sometimes. Might just pass out and wake up, see the vision itself sometime down the track. Hope you’re not riding a horse or walking a ledge when you do!’ He turned to Sharfy. ‘You done red ones and green ones, aye? Done gold?’

‘Not gold,’ said Sharfy. ‘Done purple, bronze.’

‘Aye, bronze! That’s wild enough, there’s your out-of-body. Still, let’s see what black puts you in for. Rare treat, a black one!’

‘Let’s start,’ Sharfy said impatiently. ‘Eric, spare a pinch?’

Eric opened the small leather pouch.

‘Some red in mine,’ said the soldier, taking a small battered pouch from his pocket, inside which was a tiny amount of ground red-white powder, fine as table salt.

‘You and your mixing. Pure black for me,’ said Loup, gums glistening. ‘And enough left over, Eric, for more down the track, if you’re wanting. But don’t you do it without me there to help you! Not without risk, oh no. And now listen close, so you know what we’re about to do. We’re about to put in our bodies, in our minds, a little piece of the Dragon itself. Fathom? This little scale, all crushed up, still a little bit alive, is made of the great god-beast’s very stuff. Full of secrets, it is, and knowledge.’

By opening the leather pouches, it felt like whatever they were about to do had already begun, that they’d slipped already into some heavy moment that could not reverse course in time. Loup set down four cups before him, three empty, one filled with water. Sharfy’s ugly scarred face eagerly lit up, reminding Eric suddenly of goblins and inviting a moment’s doubt he resolved to ignore.

Loup poured a dribble of water in the other three cups, pinched a small amount of black powder and added it, stirring each in turn with his gnarled finger. Eric’s cup got the greatest share. He couldn’t tell if this was a courtesy