Shadows (24 page)

Mara clambered over the prow and splashed into the water, ignoring the icy bite of it as she hurried ashore, blankets clasped, not even looking to see if Chell followed her. She headed straight for Keltan, sitting astride a horse next to Hyram. “You were in time?” she gasped out.

He nodded, grim-faced.

From his own mount, Hyram looked down at her, face cold and grim and unyielding as a Mask. “How could you?” he said, the words strained as though it hurt him to speak. “How could you tell them how to find us?”

“I . . . I didn't . . .” Mara gasped out, stung to the heart; but Hyram turned the horse and rode away.

She looked back up at Keltan. “Keltan . . .”

“It was a near thing, Mara,” he said softly. “And not everyone escaped. We sent out . . . Edrik sent out . . . one of the regular patrols to try to harry the Watchers, slow their approach. None . . .” He swallowed. “None of them came back.” His eyes bore into hers. “One of them was Tishka.”

Mara felt as though she'd taken a dagger to the heart. “No,” she gasped.

“Yes,” said a new voice, cold as the sea that had numbed Mara's feet as she splashed ashore. She turned to see that Edrik had ridden up into the spot vacated by his son, his face outmatching Hyram's in grimness. “And she was only one of a dozen who fell giving us time to evacuate. We used rockbreakers to bring down the cliff face behind us and block the beach. It will take them time to find their way over or around that. But it will not stop them. The Watchers will come north after us. And where will we go, here in the Wild?” He glared at her. “Keltan says you did not betray us on purpose,” he growled. “I am willing to . . . entertain . . . that notion. But it does not matter. Whether you intended it or not, you have destroyed the unMasked Army. You have destroyed all of us. And without us . . . who will ever stand against the Autarch?” He reined his horse around so sharply it neighed in protest, and rode after his son.

Mara looked to Keltan, but with a look almost as bleak as Edrik's, he, too, turned and rode away. She glanced at the others of the unMasked Army, hoping for some smile of welcome, some hint she was not universally hated, but the men, women, and children who had fled the Secret City seemed sunk in their own misery and weariness. Most had simply sat down where they had stopped moving, clutching their meager belongings to their chests. Prella did catch her eye, and give her a small smile; but Alita's look was as cold as the wind and Kirika and Simona did not look her way at all.

Only one person came toward her: the Healer Ethelda, picking her way slowly through the clusters of refugees sitting on the icy, stony beach. Ethelda looked years older than the last time Mara had seen her, just weeks before, her face wan and pale as the gray wintry sky. “Mara,” she said, touching Mara's shoulder. “I am pleased you're all right.”

“You're the only one,” Mara said miserably. “Everyone thinks I betrayed them.”

“And did you?” Ethelda said.

Mara looked down at the stony beach. In helpless shame, she clenched the fists holding the blankets clutched to her chest. “I didn't mean to,” she whispered. “I didn't think I had. But I . . . I said too much. I mentioned Catilla's name. And Stanik knew her. Knew about her father. knew about the caves. He . . .”

Ethelda sighed. “It's of little comfort, I know, but you're hardly the first youngster to think she could pull the wool over a grown-up's eyes only to find out the grown-up is smarter than imagined.” A brief smile flickered across her face, but went out like a candle in a storm. “But most youngsters don't then blast the grown-up and a goodly portion of the city wall into oblivion.”

Mara shot her a startled look. “How did you—”

“Keltan told me,” she said in a low voice. “Mara, I've warned you about the dangers of—”

“He killed my father,” Mara said, and her fists clenched even tighter, not in shame now, but in fury. “He killed my father, and I killed him.”

“But you drew magic from—”

“I took what I needed and I did what I had to do.” She had been feeling miserable and penitent since she'd landed, but now it felt like a hot flame had kindled inside her breast, burning brighter and brighter. “I told Stanik about the unMasked Army and Catilla to try to save my father, because that was what I had to do. I'm sorry it worked out this way, but I would do it again. And I would kill Stanik again. Or all those Watchers the ground swallowed up. Or the ones in the boat. Or—”

Ethelda was staring at her, face horror-struck. “You've killed
more
? Even since Stanik?”

“I've killed the ones I had to,” Mara said. The flame inside her leaped up. Suddenly she was keenly aware of all the magic around her, bound up in all the bodies on the icy shore, bound up in the body of the old woman in front of her. She wanted to pull it to herself, rip it from them, feel that wonderful/horrible pain/pleasure again.
And why shouldn't I? Why shouldn't I punish them? How dare they judge me, hate me, blame me, when I only did what I had to, only—

She gasped, and loosened her clenched fists, and crumpled to the ground, weeping, the blanket slipping, exposing her back and shoulders to the cold air. What was happening to her? How could she think such things? She'd killed because she had to, not because she enjoyed it . . . hadn't she? She'd only taken magic from others at need, not just because she could . . .

Hadn't she?

Ethelda was kneeling beside her, pulling her blanket back into place. She reached out and clasped Mara's hands. “Mara,” she said gently. “Now do you understand what I have warned you about, over and over again? Your kind of magic, your special Gift . . . it's addictive. The more you use it, the more you
want
to use it. The more you
need
to use it. And at the end of that road lies the Autarch . . . or worse, the Lady of Pain and Fire and all the other nightmarish figures of legend and terror.”

“But . . .” Mara choked out, “. . . but if I hadn't used it, we would never have escaped.”

“I know,” Ethelda said. “I know. But . . .” She took a deep breath. “Well, done is done. Look at you. Wrapped in a blanket, and bare feet on this beach? You'll freeze your toes off if we don't get you warm and dry.”

Mara nodded dully. “I can't really feel them now,” she said. “I don't think I can walk.”

“I'll carry you,” said Chell from behind her. He reached down and gathered her up as easily as if she were a baby. She snuggled her head to his shoulder and closed her eyes, suddenly exhausted. “Clothes? Shoes?” she heard Chell ask.

“There aren't a lot to spare.” Ethelda sounded worried and helpless. “I don't know who—”

“I have her spare clothes.” Mara's eyes flicked open again and she turned her head to see that Keltan had returned, on foot this time. He was staring at her, nestled in Chell's arms, with a strange, strained expression. “We left our packs with Edrik when we sneaked into Tamita, so they came back with us.”

Chell nodded. “Where?” he said.

“This way.” Keltan turned and strode toward the head of the long line of refugees. Ethelda followed. Mara closed her eyes again to avoid the stares of the children. Maybe it was her guilt that made her read accusation in those wide, white eyes.

Maybe it wasn't.

“Where is Catilla?” Chell asked as they walked.

“Catilla is at death's door,” Ethelda said. “The shock of the attack on the Secret City . . . the cancer . . . I can do nothing without magic.”

Mara stiffened so suddenly Chell stumbled a little and stopped to stare down at her. “Magic!” she gasped. She turned her head toward Ethelda. “I have magic!”

“No!” Ethelda snapped. “You must not—”

“Not that kind of magic. An urn . . . not a lot, but some . . .”

Hope warred with disbelief in Ethelda's expression. “Truly?” she whispered.

“In the boat—”

Ethelda gasped, turned, and stumbled back toward the beached fishing boat.

Mara let her head drop back against Chell's chest. “I hope there's enough,” she mumbled.

She closed her eyes again.

She felt something change. Chell's arms felt different. The air felt different. The light. The sound . . .

Her eyes jerked open. Chell wasn't carrying her, her father was, her father as she had last seen him, naked, head twisted grotesquely to one side, tongue protruding, eyes staring . . . and Keltan had turned into Stanik, leering at her, and the unMasked Army were all dead Watchers, limbs twisted and distorted, ribs showing through shattered chests, bloody, blank-eyed, teeth bared in the rictus of death. She screamed, and screamed again, and kicked and writhed until she freed herself from her father's grip and dropped to the ground, the impact driving the air from her lungs so she could scream no more; all she could do was gape soundlessly as the dead, her dead, crept closer and closer, arms outstretched to tear her apart . . .

A hand slapped her face, hard, stinging. The dead vanished. She found herself lying on the ground, blankets twisted around her, ribs aching. Chell straddled her on his knees. “Mara?”

She gulped air, sobbing. “I'm . . . I'm back,” she said. She pulled the blanket tight around her again, feeling chilled to her core by far more than the cold; as if her body as well as her mind had fallen into that maelstrom of the dead. “Keltan?” she gasped.

“I'm here,” he said, and the concern she heard in his voice warmed her a little.

“You said you have my pack from when we went south?”

He nodded. “Your clothes are—”

“Never mind the clothes! The potion. You know the one. There's some left in my pack. If we can light a fire—”

“Fires are already being lit,” Keltan said. “Edrik gave the order. He decided we all need to rest, warm ourselves, and have some hot food.”

“But the smoke,” Chell said. “The Watchers . . .”

“They already know we've come this way,” Keltan said grimly.

“The potion!” Mara cried. “Boil water, put in the packet, give it to me. Hurry!”

“I will.” Keltan scrambled up and ran ahead.

Chell gathered her up again in his arms, grunting only a little with the effort as he straightened and carried her after Keltan. “What happened?” he said in a low voice.

“Nightmares,” she whispered. “Those I killed with magic . . . those who die near me . . . I see them. As they were in death . . . or worse. They're in my head, and they come for me when I sleep.”
And sometimes even when I'm awake
, she added silently.

“You didn't have them in the boat,” Chell said. They were thirty or forty paces from a driftwood fire where Keltan knelt among a cluster of people.

“The sea . . . seems to help,” Mara said. “I don't know why.”

They reached the fire, the people around it falling silently back. Keltan had placed a small pot filled with water among the coals on one edge of the fire. He picked up a backpack lying at his side and held it out to her. “Here are your clothes, and your spare shoes.”

Chell set Mara down on her bare feet. Holding the blanket with one hand, she took the pack with the other, then hesitated. “I'll hold the blanket as a screen,” Chell said gently. “I won't look.”

Mara's face flamed, remembering her clothes vanishing in a puff of fire and smoke on the boat. “You've already seen,” she said. “But thank you.” Keltan's eyes widened, then narrowed, his expression so outraged that despite everything she had to fight back a giggle. “Turn around,” she told him primly, and he did so, though his stiff back spoke volumes.

Chell closed his eyes. She unfolded the blanket, carefully keeping it between her, Keltan, and all the rest of the unMasked Army as she put it into Chell's hands. Goose bumps erupted as the cold air hit her exposed flesh, and she hastened to don the warm, dry clothes from her pack. “All right,” she said. “You can look.”

Chell opened his eyes and lowered the blanket as she sat on the beach and pulled on her spare socks and shoes, not as sturdy as the boots she'd lost when she'd intercepted the blast from the Watcher boat offshore from the Secret City, but far better than bare feet on the cold stones.

She took the blanket from Chell and tied it around her neck as a makeshift cloak, since the one thing she lacked was a proper coat, then sat by the fire, sticking her still-chilled feet as close to it as she could. The steam rising from the now-boiling pot smelled as wonderful as she remembered, though Keltan dipped a cup into the liquid and handed it to her with a look of disgust. She sipped the potion, hardly noticing how it scalded her mouth and tongue as it soothed . . . whatever it was it soothed; her soul, she guessed, scraped raw by the use of too much magic of the wrong sort.

It could keep the nightmares at bay, too, or at least make them less horrifying . . . but there were few packets left, and the effect would not last long.

Best not to dwell on that. Feeling more like herself, she let Keltan pull her to her feet. “Where's Edrik?” she said. “I need to—”

But at that moment a youngster ran up to them, puffing, his breath coming in clouds. “Healer . . . Ethelda . . . wants you,” he said to Mara, then made a beeline for the fire and stood warming his hands there. “Yuck!” he said, making a face. “What's that smell?”

“It is . . . um,
powerful
, that restorative of yours,” Chell said as he, Keltan, and she made their way back along the beach toward Ethelda. “Is the taste as unique as the smell?”

Mara laughed. “It smells and tastes wonderful to me. But if you don't have the Gift . . .”

“I've smelled it a few times now,” Keltan said from her other side. “You never really get used to it.”