3
The Zaratan swam on as the sky began to darken, pausing only to chew on the occasional patch of river weed that floated by. It swam with new purpose, and they ate up the distance quickly, even if their surroundings looked much the same. Every minute that ticked by was a blessing, for it meant they were going further and further away from the orcish part of the ether, where the orc shamans and the Wyverns they rode would undoubtedly have already begun their pursuit.
As they waited for the swamps to end, cold became their greatest enemy; the damp air sucking the heat from their bodies to leave them shivering against the faint warmth of Lysander’s downy sides. Fletcher left Ignatius draped around his mother’s shoulders, while Athena curled up in her lap. Alice twisted her fingers absently through Athena’s fur, a distant smile playing across her lips as the Gryphowl purred and chirruped.
A dull lethargy began to take hold of them as time passed by – and Fletcher could barely muster the energy to move at all. He wondered if it was the after-effects of Jeffrey’s darts … or the ether’s poison slowly taking hold.
When night fell, they produced a small wyrdlight and ate the last of their supplies from the mission – salted pork from Briss’s kitchen and bruised bananas harvested from the jungle. It was simple fare, but Alice wolfed down the pork with feral jerks of her head, as if she had not tasted meat in years. Fletcher gave her his own portion, and he didn’t know whether to laugh or cry as she sat back with a mindless groan, clutching her distended belly. Moments later she was almost asleep, her head resting on Fletcher’s shoulder.
Fletcher’s vision of his mother, for the brief time he had known her as Alice Raleigh, had been of a gentle, beautiful woman, full of love for her only child. Now, he found himself the caretaker of a lost soul with a broken mind and no memory of even herself, let alone her son. Yet, as he gently wiped the oily stains from the corners of Alice’s mouth, he found his heart breaking for her. How could he hold his disappointment against her, after all she had endured? He loved her just the same.
They used the last light of dusk – if you could call it that in this alien world – to check their supplies. They even had some spare dry clothing, which they changed into surreptitiously, using Lysander’s body as a makeshift wall between boys and girls.
To Fletcher’s surprise, they discovered that they had kept all of their weapons, though most of the gunpowder had become soaked in the water. Sylva’s arrows had all been lost, but Fletcher had some to share, and Cress had seven remaining crossbow bolts too. Yet, in this environment, they all knew that it was their demons that would be their most useful tools, and Fletcher felt a pang of pity for Sylva. She had no demon or mana any more.
As they sheathed their weapons and settled for the night, Fletcher turned his mind to the petals. There were roughly one hundred in the sack Cress had managed to save, though in the dark it was hard to tell. And even as he sorted through them and counted them under his breath, Fletcher could sense their effects waning, the strange lethargy they were all feeling building with every minute. Soon each breath became laboured, until it felt like he had just climbed Vocans’ west staircase. He was alarmed at how quickly the protective power of the petals seemed to be wearing off, and suddenly the diminished supply in this sack seemed a pitiful protection against the deadly ether air.
Seeing the others dozing, Fletcher realised it was too dangerous to sleep – he might never wake up if the effects wore off in the night.
‘I need another petal,’ he panted.
‘I didn’t want to be the first to say it,’ Cress sighed, cracking open her eyes and plucking one from the sack.
Sylva and Othello followed suit, and even Alice allowed Fletcher to place a petal in her mouth without complaint, swallowing it down when Fletcher gently rubbed her throat.
‘What was that, five hours?’ Fletcher asked, instantly feeling strength returning to his body.
‘More or less,’ Othello agreed. ‘That’s almost five petals a day, each. At least in our world’s time – I know the cycles of night and day vary in the ether.’
‘Do they? I should have paid more attention in class,’ Cress grumbled.
‘Don’t worry, we learned this in second year,’ Othello continued. ‘The ether’s days are around ten hours in winter and forty hours in the summer, but our years and seasons are the same length. That’s how we’re able to predict the migrations that pass through Hominum’s part of the ether. It’s winter now so … we should probably get some shut-eye; it’ll be light in five hours or so.’
Fletcher listened intently. He was a year behind Othello, and with his focus on the Tournament, he had forgotten much of what he had learned in his demonology and etherwork lessons.
‘You’re missing the big picture,’ Sylva snapped, her voice cutting through the darkness and making Fletcher jump. ‘We’ll go through five petals every five hours. How long before we run out and are slowly poisoned to death? There can’t be more than a hundred petals in that bag. That’s one hundred hours each. Ten day-night cycles in the ether.’
Fletcher’s mind raced. That came to a little over four days in Hominum-time. Four days until they lost the use of their bodies, and, eventually … died.
‘Well, surely there will be some of those flowers around here,’ Fletcher suggested, but already his heart was sinking.
‘Do you see any?’ Sylva asked, motioning at the submerged bushes around them. ‘I’m sure the flowers exist in the orcish part of the ether somewhere – it’s the only way they would have so many of them. But not here. These swamplands must be on the very edge of their territory – that’s probably the only reason the orcs haven’t found us yet.’
‘Well, does it really matter?’ Cress muttered.
‘What the hell do you mean? Of course it bloody does,’ Sylva retorted.
Fletcher frowned. It wasn’t like Sylva to curse.
‘Guys, take it easy,’ Othello said nervously.
‘No, I want to know,’ Sylva growled, shaking off Othello’s hand as he tried to calm her. ‘I want to know why she thinks the only thing that’s keeping us from keeling over, foaming at the mouth and spasming and twitching to our deaths doesn’t matter.’
‘It doesn’t matter because we’re all going to die here anyway!’ Cress shouted. And then, to Fletcher’s astonishment, she burst into tears.
‘One hundred hours, two hundred hours. Who cares,’ she sobbed, hiding her face in her hands. ‘There’s no way back.’
Sylva froze, her angry retort dying on her lips.
‘Hey,’ Sylva said, shuffling closer to her. ‘I just … with Sariel dead and now the petals … I was lashing out. I’m sorry.’
She wrapped her arms around Cress and buried her head in the dwarf’s shoulder.
Despite their circumstances, Fletcher and Othello smiled at each other. After all of Sylva’s suspicion and distrust, it seemed that she and Cress could finally let their defences down and see each other for who they truly were.
Fletcher let them hug it out a few beats longer, but knew he could not leave it at that. They needed a plan, or even just a sliver of hope. He cleared his throat.
‘It’s not a hundred hours until we die,’ he said, lacing his voice with confidence he did not feel. Sylva pulled away from Cress, and he saw her face was also damp with tears.
‘What do you mean?’ she said.
‘We just have to find some more petals,’ Fletcher continued. ‘That’s all. Think about it – the flowers must exist in both Hominum’s and the orcs’ part of the ether, so it’s got to be a common plant. I bet Jeffrey’s journal has all the information we need on what they look like and where they grow.’
‘OK,’ Cress said, her voice barely above a whisper. ‘So we search for them. But … what about getting home?’
‘We aren’t able to create a portal back to our world from here, or even another part of the ether, not without some sort of new keys,’ Othello said quickly. ‘It’s been tried before.’
‘Great,’ Sylva said despondently.
‘But … we can go back through a portal that someone in our world has already created.’
‘So what are you suggesting?’ Cress muttered. ‘That we somehow turn this Zaratan around, make our way back to where we started, avoid the Wyverns and shamans, find a portal they’ve just opened, jump through, fight our way out of wherever we end up and then hightail it through the jungle to the Hominum border with half of orcdom in pursuit? No thanks.’
‘You’re right,’ Fletcher said, holding up his hands in surrender. ‘We’re definitely not doing that. We’re going to get as far from the orcish part of the ether as possible.’
‘Then what?’ Othello asked. He and Cress looked confused, but Fletcher could see the beginnings of a smile playing across Sylva’s face. He took a deep breath.
‘We’re going to get out of these swamps and traverse the ether – until we find Hominum’s part of it.’