Galaxy's Edge Magazine: Issue 4: September 2013 (6 page)

“There’s no one on the platform,” Isabella says. “Where are the members of the Parliament?”

“Too scared of the Worm,” I say. “It likes eating mages.”

“Draven could be telling the truth,” Isabella says. “You and he will be the only ones in position to touch the new King.”

Yes. Isabella will be dead. It will be Draven and I. And then I realize. “No,” I say. “Draven’s twin will still be there.” Isabella is blank-faced. “You’ll be dead,” I say. “I’ll be un-twinned.”

It takes Isabella a moment to understand. “You won’t be able to cast spells. And he will.”

“Maybe not. His twin must be close to dying.”

“But not dead yet.”

“It doesn’t take much power to kill someone, not if they can’t cast spells,” I say. “There are no witnesses.”

“He’s not a murderer,” she says. “Don’t ask me how I know, but he isn’t. I feel it.”

I feel it too. He is not a murderer. He is a liar, but everyone lies. The elders of the Parliament claim virtue, but they are tyrants. I remember when I was still a member. Our fellow mages proclaimed their plans for the final spell and their twins smiled and nodded. Great spells that would bring glory upon their dead twins. They lied. The spells were always for themselves. But I was the only one who fled. I was the only one who did something about the lies. And Isabella is right. I lie to myself and I always have.

I try to lead the way across the square, but my legs will not move. There is no burning in my chest and the scuttling spider in my lungs is gone. I try to tell Isabella I am no longer in pain. My head will not move. Why is everything so quiet? It is like I am underwater and it takes me a moment to realize Isabella is screaming something.

I focus and her words become a little clearer. She is screaming my name. “The tower,” I gasp. It takes a couple of attempts for her to hear me, though I shout back.

Isabella starts across the square and the band of flesh between our bodies stretches as my feet drag across the cobblestones. I feel nothing. A third of the way across the square, I blink, and when I open my eyes, we are halfway across. Isabella has stopped. She is slapping my face. The world is silent and the slaps are happening to someone else. I am behind a glass shield, an ant in an ant farm, watching the world burn. I want to sleep. If I sleep, I don’t have to murder her.

No. We must find Draven. No matter how brightly the beacon burns, he will not see us at ground level. If he isn’t flying inside Emily, it doesn’t matter what happens. We will die before he can find us.

I don’t know if Isabella has enough life for me to cast anything more than the beacon spell. It might kill her and I will be left alone and powerless on the tower with the Worm rampaging through the city. But there is no choice. Most of the spells I learned at the Parliament are too powerful. I need something small.

I blink and then we’re lying on the ground, my face numb against the cobblestones. Isabella grits her teeth and we stand. I feel no pain. Her muscles bulge as she sucks my life. Even so, there is no way she will be able to climb to the top or walk more than a few more steps before I die. I have to cast something.

My face is an inch from hers. I can’t think of what spell to cast. The damage to her face from the last spell has disappeared. Her beauty is like seeing the ocean or a mountain for the first time. It makes me feel insignificant. As children, we were identically plain. Now she is a Goddess and I am a hag.

Childhood. There was a rhyming spell all twins learn as children, a small, stupid spell. A spell to make vegetables taste like boiled sweets. The words were simple, but it was a song-spell, needing the rhythm and notes to be correct.

I almost remember the cadences, but it is like catching soap bubbles on the wind. As soon as a word of the lyrics is at the tip of my tongue, I lose it again.

I blink and when I open my eyes, everything is grey as the inside of a cloud. “Isabella!” I cry out, but I don’t know if my lips move. I have to cast the spell. I close my eyes and sing.

Isabella’s scream echoes around the square. I open my eyes. Everything is watery and blurred, but it is no longer grey. A half-animal moan of agony keens and then dies in Isabella’s throat. The spell has drained her, but it seems to have failed. Is that possible? And then I catch the taste of something on the air. It is the flavor of the sky just before a lightning storm, sharp and dangerous. “The Worm Nil,” I say. “I can taste it coming.” The Worm’s flavor changes. Its taste changes according to its intentions. In a way, I can read its mind and I know it hungers for magic.

The prickling on my tongue intensifies. “It’s coming for us,” I say. “Magic is a beacon. We need to climb.” Another spell might enable it to find us.

My eyes sting and I wipe them with the back of my arm. Isabella comes into focus. I stifle a gasp. The spell didn’t take much power, but Isabella is an old woman. Her skin is as wrinkled as an unmade bed, her hair grey and lank.

“You have to carry me,” Isabella says, her voice weak. I gather her in my arms. She is kindling and twigs. Oh gods, she can’t support the beacon spell, let alone the inducement spell. I freeze. Maybe if we hide, the Worm will miss us.

Isabella digs her fingers into my forearm. “Go,” she hisses. I scuttle across the square, Isabella’s feet hitting the stones at irregular intervals.

The Worm’s ozone intensifies. It is hunting, not sure of where the magic is coming from, only knowing someone was stupid enough to cast when the King is dead.

I reach the stairs. Isabella’s eyes are open and fierce, but the rest of her looks so fragile that I worry she will blow into dust if the wind blows the wrong way.

I am strong, stronger than I’ve been for years. I’d forgotten what it is like to be able to breathe unencumbered. It is glorious to move without pain.

I climb the stairs, supporting Isabella’s weight. It is laborious, but part of me sings at the exertion.

We reach the top and Isabella slumps against the platform. People fill the streets, but few travel along the Road of Tears. Instead they flock to the eastern gate or to the shore, fighting to board fishing boats. They are frightened the Worm will travel along the glass road again. But the eastern gate is too small to accommodate the vast crowds pouring in its direction. Thousands will be crushed to death.

And those on the boats will be no better. There is only an hour or so until the Burning Sea bursts into flame again. By the time they hijack the boats, the water will be on fire. The only safe passage is the southern gate via the Road of Tears but I can taste the Worm outside the gate.

“Is Emily in the sky?” Isabella says.

There are many oathbound flying through the sky. Most are travelling beyond the city walls, but there are still enough remaining above the city to make it impossible to know which one is Emily. None are close enough for Draven to see us.

A ghost of a smile traces Isabella’s lips. “Do you think I will get a statue for powering a beacon?”

“Maybe he’ll come close enough to see us,” I say. I can’t keep the desperation out of my voice.

She touches my face, the motion slow and pained. “You’re so beautiful. Is this what I looked like?”

No oathbound fly close. I scream Draven’s name, but my words are lost into the sky. The sun sinks and little fires gutter and die on the Sea’s surface. Soon the flames will roar waist-high. The hijacked boats will burn.

A great grinding sound sets my teeth on edge. The southern gate is trembling from the Worm battering the wall, searching for the source of magic. The walls are indestructible, but the gate is iron.

A single oathbound floats above the Road of Tears. It must be Draven, searching at our last location. Why doesn’t he
think
? It is silent except for the whoosh of wind and the Worm’s battering against the wall. The crowd on the western gate is a boiling mass. There will be screams and the crack of bones as the weak are trampled underfoot. And on the sea, the launched boats are already catching fire. If we were closer, we’d smell the roasting flesh.

“I love you,” I say and cast the beacon spell. Isabella screams and screams and screams. I force myself to keep staring at her as she ages and withers in front of my eyes. Her eyes sink deep into her sockets, two wet black stones, and then she closes her eyes. Her face wrinkles until deep cracks traverse her cheeks. She is utterly still and the only way I know she is alive is the faintest stir of breath against my cheeks. Every part of my body crackles with joy.

At the spell’s final word, light emanates from my fingers and I hold a tiny star in my hand. It is cold, clear and brilliant. And useless. Draven may find us, but Isabella doesn’t have enough power to cast much more. At least the beacon might lead Emily and Draven out of danger.

The southern gate glows cherry-red. The sky over the gate darkens as Worm-brought storm clouds gather, and then black fog leaks through the gate. The darkness thickens until the glowing gate vanishes.

I pray to the Gods Isabella doesn’t believe in, but Emily vanishes into the darkness. “Look up!” I scream, but of course he cannot hear me. In between blinks Isabella’s eyes film over with white cataracts. I look back into the blackness. “I dreamed of him,” she says.

I am staring so intently that it takes a second for her words to register. “What?”

“Every night, there has been a man in my dreams,” she says. “I didn’t know it was him until he stepped out of Emily. I dreamed he was the love of my life.”

A chill runs through me. Mage dreams are prophetic, but the dream cannot be true. I have never heard of a twin having the same dream as a mage. “I have it too,” I say. “You dream of him and then you’re alone. But I’m still alive.”

She coughs wetly. “No,” she says. “I am alone, but with Draven. You’re dead.”

As the star’s light gutters and dies, Emily shoots out from the blackness. Behind her, the black fog dissipates as a howling wind washes it away.

The Worm has melted the southern gate and hot iron slag coats the road. It passes through where the gate used to exist. It should not fit. It coils above the city like a brewing storm, yet its head slides through the gates, its width endlessly narrowing as the body slides through. When I look at it directly, it is not there. I can only see it out of the corner of my eye, a featureless tube of night and nothing and air.

Emily rises until she is clear of the buildings and the street. But they travel toward the Burning Sea, not toward us, and the Worm follows them. I can taste its frustration. The beacon has attracted its attention, but Emily’s presence has confused matters. She is a creature of magic. The Worm turns its impossible head and chases her.

I start to recite the beacon spell again. Isabella barely has enough life left, but there is no time to ask for her permission. Her hair falls out in soft, grey clumps and when she screams, I see she has no teeth. When her scream dies, her eyes close and she is a genderless mummy. “I’m sorry,” I whisper, but she does not respond.

The star burns in my hand again. The Worm shifts from its pursuit of Emily and turns down the Road of Tears. Its howl increases in volume until it is the only sound in the world. Tin roofs flutter through the air and whole buildings roll down the street. Farther down the road, people flee, but the wind pushes them off their feet. The road’s fused glass softens ahead of the Worm and the people burst into flame. The Worm rolls over them, leaving charred bodies pressed into the cooling glass.

It knows where we are now. The Worm is starting to taste me. As I become used to the gradients of its flavor, I understand it more. I have a taste of its thoughts, which is more than I can say about Isabella. The irony forces a sob from my guts.

The Worm howls down the road and there is a hint of terrible sadness in its flavor. The Worm is full of sorrow. And its flavor gives me a strange insight. It is driven to destroy magic and its drive is the source of its sorrow. I try to taste more, but the wind shifts too much.

Isabella whispers something. I look away from the unfolding horror and press my ears to her lips. It takes two or three attempts before I understand.

“
Let me die
.” Her voice is agonized. This is not her desire for glory. This is agony. Even in the moments before I cast the last spell, I didn’t want to die, but she is much closer to dying than I was then. I am not a murderer; I am a torturer.

Emily flies away from the Worm, travelling fast enough that she will be past the city walls within seconds. She is on fire, flames trailing as she streaks through the sky. But the Worm stops and extends its impossible neck to swallow them.

It looms over them, vaster than mountains yet too small to be seen. Its mouth opens, a storm cloud, a hurricane, the abyss at the end of the world. Leave them alone. Please God, miss them.

And miraculously, the Worm retreats. It returns to the Road of Tears and starts travelling toward the Tower. No, it wasn’t a miracle. The Worm understood my thoughts. As much as I can taste it, it can taste me. I open my mouth and poke out my tongue. The taste of sorrow is almost overwhelming. It is the taste of ashes, the taste of cakes at a wake, the taste of wine after long years of loneliness and regret. The Worm consumes magic users and magical things. All other destruction is incidental. It must do what it does and its sorrow at its own nature flavors the wind.