The Named (22 page)

I find Abby sitting up waiting for me. She looks better, and I think the small amount of healing from last night followed by a day without poison has helped already. Those circles around her eyes are nowhere as dark tonight, and her energy level seems stronger too. ‘Will you read to me again?’

‘Of course.’ As I sit in the seat, I take the familiar poetry book from her hands.

She takes it back and lays it face down on the bed. ‘But first we’ll talk.’

Uh-oh. ‘Sure. What do you want to talk about?’

She sighs blissfully. ‘I haven’t been outside these walls for so long, you must tell me everything that’s going on.’

It’s a big ask, especially considering I don’t have any
idea. Sure, the Citadel endows me with the correct accents and understanding of the era’s culture, but it doesn’t give me memories or information on current events. Seeing my blank expression, Abby pats my hand. ‘I’m going to call you my lucky charm.’

It’s a wonderful compliment.

‘I’ve never felt so good since you arrived. Promise me, Judith, you’ll never go away as long as you live. And when I’m married and have my own family, you’ll work for me, or I’ll work for you, whichever of us marries the wealthiest man.’

Quite a plan, and the most a woman of this period could ask for, I guess. But it’s not my idea of an ideal life, and I have to let her know I won’t be around then. ‘I won’t be here for very long, Abby. I’m working because my family needs a little extra money to help us with our move.’

‘Oh, no! Where are you going? Not west, I hope. So many people are moving west. You are all so brave.’

I shrug noncommittally and she takes my news well. ‘Never mind, but we shall write. Oh, how I love to write! One day I will write to the lawmakers.’

Her enthusiasm has me intrigued. ‘And what would you say?’

She peers at me closely and whispers, ‘I shall ask these men to pass a law that will allow women the right to have our say.’

I lean right back in my seat, admiring this girl who may be very ill but is incredibly courageous. I pretend to have a drink in my hand that I’m holding up high. ‘Hear, hear. I’ll second that.’

We talk for ages, not noticing the time drifting past. She tells me about her grandmother who teaches her to
read and write. Abby makes it clear how strongly she believes all girls should be educated, and proves herself incredibly conversant in so many areas. Her broad knowledge leaves me stunned.

‘How do you know so much?’ I feel compelled to ask.

‘I read, of course.’

She reads all right, and not just poetry, but history, theology, drama and politics as well.

Ultimately, Abby grows tired, and as I read her the last poem for the night, she drifts off to sleep. As soon as she does, Ethan comes in, glancing around and over his shoulder, then crosses the room to look out the window, peering in all directions. ‘I thought you were never going to stop her talking.’

Oh no, did we really talk that long? ‘She has a wonderful spirit, way ahead of her time.’

He groans impatiently. ‘Speaking of time, you know we don’t have much. Have you started to heal her yet?’

‘I was just about to when you walked in.’

He makes an impatient gesture with his hands. Something’s gnawing at him. I’ve never seen him quite so … disturbed. ‘You have to hurry.’

‘What’s wrong? What’s the rush?’

‘You want to know what’s wrong? Marduke is here. Marduke!’

‘I thought so.’

He looks at me with wide-open eyes. ‘You’ve seen him?’

‘No, but I felt his presence this afternoon. He’s in that woman’s house.’

‘Margaret. He’s protecting her. I tried to deal with her earlier today, but Marduke interfered. So he knows the Guard is here.’

‘Great! Well, what can we do to get rid of the two of them?’

He moans as if he’s being forced against his will. ‘We have to forget Marduke for now. We’ll just deal with the widow Wittman. That’s our mission. And I have an idea.’

I realise what he’s saying. ‘You want to wait till she comes back here, like she does every morning with the poison?’

‘Yes. Now hurry. For my plan to have a chance to work, Abby must be cured.’

‘So we can make a fast exit back to the Citadel.’

‘Exactly – before Marduke makes an appearance. It’s not up to us to deal with whatever that creature is. Let the Tribunal worry about him.’

I start working on Abby while Ethan quietly paces from the door to the window and back again. Occasionally he whispers to me to hurry, but I’m going as fast as I can. There’s a lot of scarring to work through before getting to the poison deep within her cells.

Just as dawn starts to make an impact on the horizon, I sit back in my chair thoroughly exhausted.

‘Is she healed?’

I nod and groan softly, all my weary body can manage. I didn’t realise healing could be so draining, but then I’ve never attempted anything that lasted more than a few minutes. This session took hours.

The rooster crows, signalling the start of the day.

‘Well done! Now go and sit by the window, I’ll do the rest.’

But getting up seems like an enormous task.

‘What’s wrong? Are you ill?’ Ethan asks worriedly.

‘Drained.’

‘Oh, no!’

‘Sorry. I didn’t know it would have this effect.’

He half drags, half carries me across the room, sitting me down by the window. ‘Don’t worry. We’ll be out of here in a few minutes.’

‘I sure hope so. I could sleep for a thousand years.’

Standing in the centre of the room, he closes his eyes and works his magic. He creates an illusion, an interesting one at that. He has filled the room with a wide array of water pitchers, some made of glass, some glazed clay or china. They’re everywhere, at different levels, all filled to the brim with sparkling clear water.

I lift one eyebrow, questioning.

‘A momentary distraction. I want her off guard long enough to glimpse into her eyes. To do that I need her to stare long and hard. It’s a long shot. I’m just hoping to find something distinctive to identify her.’

‘And if you do recognise her as a member of the Order? What then?’

He partly exposes a dagger from his shirt.

I gulp at the sight, thankful that my skill is healing. I think about that other skill that hasn’t revealed itself yet and my body shudders. What could it be? I hope it’s useful, like healing, and not something that can be used for killing.

The sound of the door clicking open jerks me from my thoughts. It’s the woman, Margaret. The assassin. She steps into the room, and halts at the sight of the hundreds of water pitchers. She must see me sitting by the ledge, and Ethan standing in the centre of the room, but it’s as if the pitchers are hypnotising her. I realise that Ethan’s illusion is more than it appears, for Margaret’s eyes, in the shadow of her deeply hooded
cloak, remain fixed to the water jugs, moving slowly from one to the other. She seems to have forgotten her purpose for being here.

She turns in slow motion and now Ethan is directly in front of her, attempting to get a good look deep into her eyes. It’s the only way one of us can be identified while in the past. The woman is obviously in a daze and appears not even to see Ethan before her. His head cocks to one side, his eyes squinting as though he recognises the woman in front of him, but then his shoulders lift slightly. ‘I think she’s wearing some sort of concealment,’ he whispers.

‘Like an eye mask?’

‘Yeah.’ He shrugs, then sniffs. ‘But she smells familiar.’

‘I know. It’s her perfume. A flowery, soapy smell. Yet how is that possible? Wouldn’t her scent stay with her physical body in her bed?’

‘Of course.’

‘So what now?’

The woman spins round suddenly as if she has found a way to break through Ethan’s spell. But before she gets a chance to act, or work out what’s going on, Ethan grabs her from behind, pinning her back to his chest.

She grunts, pushing hard against his arms.

‘Tell me,’ Ethan hisses in her ear. ‘What is Marduke doing in this time?’

The woman inhales deeply, air hissing through her nostrils. ‘You may as well kill me now for I’ll tell you nothing.’

Just as her last word is out she starts to disappear; and suddenly Ethan staggers forward with nothing but air in his arms.

I look around frantically in case she’s only transported herself and not left this time period. ‘What happened? Is she gone?’

Ethan finds his balance, spinning around. ‘I don’t know …’

With these words Ethan’s illusion starts to break up. One after another the pitchers explode, the sound of shattering glass and ceramics rends the air. My arm flies up to cover my eyes. ‘Hey, what’s happening?’

Ethan comes towards me with his head buried beneath a protective arm. Just as he reaches me, his illusion disappears completely amid a burst of flashing green light, and we look at each other for a moment, wondering what on earth is going on.

‘Are you all right?’ Ethan asks.

I nod, still getting my breath back from the suddenness and the violence of that illusion gone insane. ‘We have to get out of here.’

‘Exactly.’ But just as he takes my hand and starts to call Arkarian, a large image starts generating before us. As it takes deeper form, a sense of evil fills the room with such intensity it grows suffocating. Even before his shape fully forms, I realise who our visitor is – Marduke.

He raises his hands in the air and all the light in the room starts to swirl and form a spiralling rainbow drawn to his palms. He flexes his fingers and this swirling light quickly disappears, emptying into his hands, every last ray and beam.

The room becomes completely dark except for Marduke’s one glowing yellow eye.

Ethan looks stunned, hardly breathing. I start worrying about his health, realising with a deep sinking
feeling in the pit of my stomach, that this is the first time he has come face to face with his worst nightmare. And while he won’t see anything in this darkness, he can make out Marduke’s form from his glowing eye. ‘Ethan, are you OK?’

He gathers his senses quickly. ‘I could do with some light.’ Keeping his eyes on the huge man before us, he feels his way to stand directly in front off me.

Instinctively I lift my feet, hugging my knees, and try not to inhale too deeply. The smell now is nothing like the flowery scent Margaret left behind, but that of something rotting, something foul.

Marduke’s hands begin to glow as he motions Ethan aside. ‘It’s not you I want. At least, not yet.’

‘What is it with you? What do you want with Isabel?’

‘She’s the first pawn to set my plan in motion.’

‘What plan?’

‘What do you think? I tire of these games you play. It’s time the score is finally settled.’

‘What are you talking about? Neither Isabel nor I have ever harmed you. We don’t know you, except in our dreams …’

Marduke becomes irritated with Ethan’s questions. ‘You,’ he says, flexing his glowing fingers directly at Ethan, ‘I will deal with later.’ Blue streaks of lightning flash from Marduke’s fingertips as he motions them first at Ethan, then at the opposite wall. Instantly, the room fills with brilliant electric colour; and Ethan is catapulted horizontally through the air, crashing against the far wall.

Marduke turns his head to look at me and smiles with half a mouth. ‘And now –’

But Ethan interrupts him, staggering quickly to his
feet, and screaming. It’s a cry meant to distract Marduke.

It works.

Marduke groans, annoyed. ‘You are either stupidly courageous or simply impatient for death.’

‘Impatient for death,’ Ethan replies in a hoarse voice, and, with his right hand held out, wills his dagger to his palm. ‘Yours.’

Marduke lifts his massive hands once again, but this time Ethan is faster. He screams for a second time, a cry of rage, then hurls the shining blade across the room.

The dagger slashes straight into Marduke’s shoulder, wounding him. Blood wells up and spreads down his left arm.

Marduke roars. The sound ought to wake the entire house and surrounding neighbours, but Abigail doesn’t stir, and neither does the house. It must be under some sort of enchantment.

Marduke yanks Ethan’s dagger out of his flesh. Blood spurts, sending Marduke into a frightening rage. He rampages like a crazed animal around the room, grabbing Ethan and crushing him inside his massive arm. For a second I fear Marduke may have broken Ethan’s back with the vicious jolt, but then Ethan jerks forward, trying to break free of this huge man’s hold. But Marduke is filled with a rage-induced strength that quickly reduces Ethan’s thrusts to mere pathetic twitches.

‘Watch,’ Marduke hisses, pointing the dagger straight at me, his glowing hands lighting a path like a torch. ‘Watch her die by your own blade.’

The dagger shimmers in his hand a second before
slicing through the air as Marduke flicks it straight in my direction. I see it coming, but can’t move to save myself. My exhaustion from the healing session is still affecting my limbs, and moreover I think Marduke has thrown a spell over me. My eyes remain fixed to the glistening, blood-soaked blade.

The last thing I hear before the dagger hits, slicing deeply into the centre of my chest, is Ethan’s impassioned scream. ‘
Arkarian
!’

Chapter Thirty-one

Ethan

Arkarian delivers us straight into the healing room in the Citadel, a room made entirely of brilliant shimmering crystal. With trembling arms he lays Isabel on a narrow table. ‘
What happened?’

She looks so pale, her hands clutched tightly around the dagger jutting out of her chest, blood soaking her white nightshirt from neck to waist. ‘What does it look like?’

Arkarian loosens Isabel’s fingers, takes the dagger between his two hands, firmly but gently pulling it out and covering the wound with the palms of his hands. ‘Who did this?’

‘Marduke, of course! Didn’t you see?’

‘The room was black.’ Arkarian’s voice is flat.

‘You can heal her, can’t you Arkarian? This is the healing room, isn’t it?’

He turns to me, tears coursing down his face, a sight that chills my spine. ‘Ethan,’ he says slowly, ‘Isabel has a blade in her heart. She is already dead.’