Galaxy's Edge Magazine: Issue 4: September 2013 (5 page)

“What happened the last time a mage thought they could kill the Worm? How many people died?” I say.

Draven flicks a glance my way and then looks at Isabella. “Maybe three thousand died twenty years ago,” he says, his voice almost lost in the wind’s noise. “But that is not what will happen this time.”

Isabella leans sideways to hear better and I must follow. He smells of soap and rose water, but beneath is the odor of his dying twin. Its eyes open for a second, salt-white and blind, and then they close again.

“What spell will kill the Worm?” Isabella says.

Draven raises his hand and for a moment I fear he is about to run his fingers through Isabella’s hair. I hold my breath. “I have looked into the histories,” he says. “There have been four attempts to destroy the Worm Nil.” At the word
destroy
, he clenches his hand and then he opens it, waggling his fingers with a smile. I exhale. “Each attempt has angered the Worm, worsening its destruction. Thousands more die than is necessary.”

We float through the air at tremendous speed, passing over the mountain-graveyards formed from Worldstalker bones. Our shadow darkens the Forest of Silence where the trees eat those foolish enough to speak. And then we are following the Firewater River which flows to the Burning Sea, upon which the city of Firewater sits. In the shadows of the mountains, the Sea gutters with a low blue flame and the hellfish burn as they leap from the surface. By mid-morning, the shadows will have passed, the flames will have died, and the hellfish will be edible.

Draven continues to speak. “No one has thought about
when
the Worm stops its destruction.”

“You are going to induce the new Ever-dying King as soon as the old one dies,” Isabella says.

Draven smiles, genuine delight in his grin, and he locks gazes with Isabella. “As soon as the new King is born, the Worm vanishes. If we bring the New King forth from the ground early, then the Worm’s damage will be limited. It took no skill to write a modified inducement spell, but it takes skill to say it.”

“Cast it yourself,” I say.

“Any mages who approach your skill have already drained their twins.”

“The first person who touches the new Ever-dying King will be the regent until the new King comes of age, won’t they?” I say.

He talks again, too fast and too smooth. “My father died fighting the Worm Nil. I’ve always dreamed of stopping it.”

“So you’ll be regent to honor his memory?”

“Emily said you were a hypocrite,” he says. “You didn’t leave the Parliament to save your sister. You left because they didn’t agree with you how to use spells. You spout fine words about the tyranny of the Parliament, but if the chance to do good comes about, you run the other way.”

“Don’t lie,” I say. “This is for your own glory.”

“Mary,” Isabella says. “You must cast the spell.”

“So he can gain the throne for the next eighteen years?”

Before I can continue, Draven interrupts me. “Emily was your friend, but she lied about me. I am a good man. Love turned sour breeds lies, and she lied.”

She never wrote about him at all except to say she had a new lover. He was going to somehow save her twin Susan. And he didn’t, and then she wrote:
I hate him
and nothing more. He was less important to Emily than she thought, it seems. I decide to bait him. “She told the truth.”

“If you cast the spell, you will be there when the new King is born,” he says. “You can be the first one to lay your hands upon him.”

This catches me so off-guard that I can do nothing but stutter. He has offered me the regency. “I…cannot.”

“She told me you hated how the Parliament casts spells due to greed rather than where they’d do the greatest good,” he says. His eyes flick up to look at Isabella, back to me, and then into space again. “The Parliament would have to obey you. You could ensure that spells are only cast for good.”

“You would throw away such power?” I say. His hand hovers above Isabella’s knee, but does not touch it. I want him to put his hand on my thigh and slide it beneath our dress. I want him to kiss me. How can I be so weak?

“I will have done more good than any mage in history if the Worm Nil sleeps,” he says. “What is the regency compared to that?” His eyes shine and I want to believe him. The Worm will be stopped and I will be the regent. Thousands of lives will be saved and the entire Parliament under my control. The tyranny of my fellow mages could be finally undone. Yet it would cost Isabella her life.

“I want to speak to the Ever-dying King before he passes,” I say.

“You can see him, but he won’t speak to you,” he says. “He is in so much pain that his mind is broken.”

There is nothing more to say, and we sit in silence as we fly closer to the city. Draven and his twin sit on the other side of Emily’s interior. His twin doesn’t open its eyes. All three of us slide glances past one another.

Emily catches a gale and quickens her flight. We fly over the sprawling city of Firewater. The noon sunlight has killed the flames and fishermen on shore are pushing out their boats. The city buildings have not changed since we left. In ancient times, our nation was nothing but sand and heat and burning water until enough mages murdered their twins to change the weather and then the land. The buildings are still those of a desert city, bricks as white as vulture-picked bones and the rippling curves of red-tiled roofs as far as the eye can see.

We descend, scraping the top of the city’s walls. They are made from the black diamond bones of Worldstalkers and their impervious ramparts have repelled numerous hordes over the centuries.

“We will give you my decision tomorrow,” I say. Isabella opens her mouth to protest, but I raise my hand to stop her. “Isabella and I will talk
alone
and then I will decide.”

We land. The milling crowds in the street glance at us for a second and then return to what they were doing. There are no cries of horror at Emily’s appearance. Isabella says what I have been thinking. “They didn’t look at her. How many oathbound are there in the city now?”

“The Parliament has conducted many trials lately.” Draven pauses. “They have been suppressing opposition before the Worm wakes. There will be chaos and they take no chances.”

Emily splits and we exit onto the road. I look at her, hoping to see some semblance of recognition in her eyes, but there is nothing. Because I’m not watching where I’m going, I stumble and look down. A soft curse escapes my lips. We are upon the Road of Tears. Once it was known as the King’s Road until the last time the Worm Nil traveled upon it.

The road is the widest in the city and bisects Firewater. What was rock is now fused glass six feet deep. We stand above a young man. His face is unburned, but the rest of him is charcoal-black. His eyes are blue and his mouth is ajar, as if he was lost in thought. The dead soldier is both handsome and familiar. I look from the soldier’s face to Draven’s.

“This is your father, isn’t it?” I say.

Draven and his twin squat onto the road. Draven touches the glass above his father’s face. “I never knew him. I was conceived before the Worm woke.” The sweat on his fingers leaves streaks on the glass as he withdraws his hand. “He was a peasant, but the Parliament conscripted him. My mother was pregnant.”

He stands. “Walk the road and then tell me casting the spell isn’t the right thing to do. I will meet you here at dawn with a modified inducement spell.”

“What is your twin’s name?” Isabella says.

His face hardens and he strides inside Emily. The exit seals. For a moment I imagine there is suffering in her eyes, but I am fooling myself. They are as blank as the eyes of dead fish. Isabella calls out, but Emily elevates.

We both watch until she is a distant spot in the sky, and then I have to rub my stinging eyes. Isabella watches longer, her eyes watering.

I press my fingers into my temples. I cannot think; The pain is too much. “We don’t know what his damn spell is going to do until we say it, do we?” I say. “The Parliament hasn’t lured us back to punish us. They want us to do their dirty work.”

Isabella snorts. “That’s ludicrous.” She leads the way off the glass road and down the side streets.

“Where are you going?” I say, but she does not respond. We crab-scuttle and she watches for potholes. She is steady-footed while my feet skitter on the glass. The life drained from Isabella by my last spell has already dissipated and now she is draining me faster than ever. My limbs move a fraction of a second behind my thoughts and Isabella is a little glossier of eye and hair.

People keep their heads down and scurry off the road as we approach. “They’re scared of us,” Isabella says. “Remember when we were mobbed for favors? The Parliament was always scared of you. You made them look bad, the way you talked about what good your spells would bring when you finally cast them.”

“You miss being the center of attention,” I say. My tone is harsher than I intended, but Isabella remains serene.

“Yes,” she says. “I miss thinking that when you finally caved in, I’d be famous.”

“Where are we going?”

We round a corner. She has brought us to the marketplace where the Traders of Sorrows ply their wares. The marketplace is empty except for the Traders. They sit in enormous steaming glass tubs filled to the brim with water, their girth filling the tubs from center to rim. Their eyes are black slits and the rest of their bodies are salt-white. Nostrils are two upward-curved slashes, mouths lipless holes. They have no fingernails on their stubby fingers, no hair on their heads, nor ears or wrinkles. Nobody knows how the Traders work their magic without twins, or why they trade sorrows for no apparent benefit to themselves. The Traders have been here since before Firewater was founded. They might have been here before mankind.

The nearest one focuses its black eyes upon us. Isabella forces me to walk and stand in front of it.

“Swap your guilt,” she says. “Swap your bloody guilt, so you can do what needs to be done.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

She slaps me hard across the face. “Wake up Mary,” she says. “You love being a martyr so much you’ve destroyed all my dreams.”

I rub my stinging cheek. “You hurt me.”

“You can’t put it off any longer,” she says.

“What if he’s a liar?”

Her eyes are flat. “I’ve never believed in your Gods or your heaven. When I die, there will be nothing. My death will mean nothing unless you do this, but your bloody pride means more than my dreams, doesn’t it?” Her tone softens. “Trade your guilt. Please!” And then she is crying, her face crumpled; Isabella, who is always so serene and perfect. “
Please!
”

I choke out the words. “If I could die for you…”

Her face steels. “But you can’t.” She turns her head to the Trader. “How much sorrow is the King’s dying pain worth?”

The Trader almost looks surprised. “To take his pain is to take his life.”

“I propose trading his pain for my broken dreams,” she says and extends her hand to the Trader.

“Your proposal is acceptable,” it says and it moves to kiss her hand, sealing the bargain. I try to stop her, but she brushes my hand aside without difficulty. The Trader kisses her hand and then it shudders and its eyes roll back in its head.

Isabella gasps, but the King was an old man and she handles his dying pain with a grit of her teeth. Bells start to peal, signifying the death of the Ever-dying King and the Worm Nil’s coming. Within minutes crowds rumble through the marketplace. None stop for the Traders; they are fleeing the city.

“What have you done?”

Isabella closes her eyes. “You have no guilt now. I’ve forced your hand. We find Draven, and then you cast the spell.”

There will be a way out. There has to be. Isabella heads back to where Emily landed. My lungs burn, but we cannot slow down. The crowds buffet us. The Worm Nil will kill them all. I know it in my bones. Thousands of ordinary people. They are not cursed with deciding whether to murder their twin, but neither do they have the power to save themselves. The gods have placed them as pawns, but I am a queen upon the board. I could save them all.

There are so many of them and I realize that Draven will never see us if he’s in the air. “The King’s tower,” I say. “I’ll cast a beacon spell.” Isabella sets her jaw and nods. The quickest way to the King’s Tower is to pass through the slums. We scuttle through the twisting and narrow streets as quickly as we can. Shouts and cries ring out. The stink of tears, fear and sweat is overwhelming.

We stop to let the crowd pass. The front of our dress is covered with blood, though I do not remember coughing. It does not matter. After the beacon spell, Isabella might be dead. The crowd thins for a moment and then we are scuttling down less-crowded streets until we have reached the Grand Square, where the statues of heroes (twin and un-twinned alike) ring the King’s Tower.

The tower is a pillar of flesh, topped by a vein-streaked heart as wide as a house. While the King lives, the heart beats. When he dies, the heart is still until the new King is born. Around the tower’s stem winds a wooden staircase. It leads to a platform encircling the heart.