Twenty-Eight

Violet light arced, crackling, between Samuel and Toinette, between Toinette and John, between John and Erik, and finally inward, following the channels of the circle into the three swords that stood on end in the center. There, the signs painted on the metal attracted the light, captured it, and held it in twisting sigils of purple fire.

Toinette held her concentration, feeling power running through and out of her like water through a funnel. Another four breaths brought the end, and indeed Erik began the Latin chanting then, thanking and dismissing the forces that had aided them. “…et non erit,” he concluded, with a severing gesture of one hand. The otherworldly force that had joined the four of them and connected them to powers yet more otherworldly than that vanished. Toinette sat heavily on the sand.

“We did it,” said John, with a glance at the swords.

“Aye,” said Erik, breathing heavily. “They’ll be potent against darkness. For a while yet.”

“How long is ‘a while yet’?” Samuel asked.

“A year and a day, generally. Or so I remember.” He shoved damp hair out of his face. “It’s the first time I’ve done this, ye ken. We haven’t often had the need of fighting cursed beasts. I’m only glad I remembered enough of what Artair taught to get it right.”

Samuel cocked his head, birdlike, and asked, “Did you all learn magic?”

“All of us that Artair had charge of,” said Erik. “Some more than others. As with other skills, it had mostly to do with our individual talents. But we were all dragged in by the ear a fair bit of our day.”

“I had more dragging than you.” Toinette smiled wearily. She, Erik, and Artair’s younger children had all preferred other activities to magical study. Cathal would always rather have been fighting; Moiread had enjoyed stories but had been uninterested in the complicated logic of the Upper Worlds. Erik had simply not had the will to command forces most of the time, and Toinette had found the whole matter vaguely troubling, another mark against her humanity.

“And he didn’t teach us this spell exactly,” Erik said, drawing her back from the past. “When you know what planets govern what, and what angels rule which realms, and the symbols that go wi’ all of them, it often becomes a matter of putting logs together to form the house you want.”

John gave him a sideways glance. “So, you don’t know that these swords will harm any of the cursed beasts.”

“No,” said Erik, too tired to be defensive, as John was too tired to be very accusatory. “We’ll not know until we try.”

“Hmm,” said John, but didn’t protest further. “Same with the protective spell?”

“Less so. Wards against surprise attacks are familiar to me, and I know one that will even turn weapons—for a very short time, mind. What they’ll do against creatures warped by magic, I couldn’t say. But we’ve not had any threats on the beach, and up in the glen, the house itself should be shield enough.”

Watered wine tasted lovely. Toinette closed her eyes and concentrated on that, letting the voices around her fall like raindrops past her ears. The spell hadn’t been as draining as the scrying; she thought she was regaining strength with practice, but she also knew there’d been no resistance. That argued for the curse being only a curse, without the will to interfere.

The problem was, she badly wanted to think so. It would be so very good if they only had to find their way to the center, break a skull or throw a ring into the ocean, and be free. Toinette would rejoice to have that be the case—and knowing what she wanted, she knew too that she couldn’t entirely trust herself when evidence seemed to lead to that conclusion.

She rubbed at her temples. “Who gets the swords? I’d argue against the two of you, as you’ve other skills now.”

“And not us,” said Erik, “for the same reason.”

Darkness floated before her eyes. Toinette pushed it to the sides, sorting through her mind for names and impressions, memories of battle. “Sence,” she said and felt certain of it, though she knew he was untried. When none of the others objected, she went on with less assurance. “Franz, if we can count on him not to be nervy about the magic. I’ll have to have a word with him about it. And then…I don’t know. Does guile outweigh age?”

“Are you asking, Captain?” Samuel’s voice was respectful, but not hesitant.

“I am, if you’ve any thoughts on the matter.”

“Then I’d say to give it to Raoul, and not Marcus. The man who takes one of those weapons will be on the front lines.”

“Marcus has been in the midst of a battle or two, if you’ll recall,” Toinette replied.

“And done well,” said John, putting his thoughts in and surprising Toinette as he went on, “but he does better away from them. We don’t know yet what the swords will do, or how they’ll work. Marcus is most useful in command—assuming you’re not around, of course.”

“Of course,” said Toinette.

Even more than earlier, they didn’t speak of plans very far in the future. That day they’d enchanted the swords; the next day, they’d cast the rites of protection; to know what would come after that, they’d need to talk. Nobody mentioned the talk, nor what would come of it, but they would in time.

* * *

“I’m willing to go. So are most of us, I’d think,” Marcus said, and his glance around the fire didn’t leave very much room for protest. “The thing is, Captain, I’m not sure we wouldn’t be more of a hindrance than a help.”

Naturally it was Marcus raising the issue, Erik thought. He’d have expected no less from the man. He saw too that Marcus’s face was drawn tight and his hands knotted together. The Hawk’s first mate had no love for what he was saying.

“Even with the swords?” Raoul asked. The enchanted blades lay by the side of the fire, not too close and carefully wrapped. Men’s eyes kept darting to them and away as they talked; Raoul’s lingered longer than usual.

“The swords might let you kill,” Erik said, “but you can still be killed much easier than I can, or Toinette. There’s little we can do about that here.”

Cathal’s wife, Sophia, had invented a compound that would give considerable protection to mortals, but it was as yet far too costly to produce in quantities and took months for a bottle. Not having anticipated needing it, Erik hadn’t bothered to ask; none of them had the skill to make it, nor did the island have the needed elements.

“Also,” said Marcus, “there’s fire. That tends to spread. If you have to use it, and you have once already, best that you not have to worry about one of us getting in the way.”

That sobered even Raoul. There were few among the men, likely, who hadn’t seen fire kill, whether from burning arrows in battle or untended hearths in winter. It was a bad death among bad deaths.

Erik stretched his own hands out toward the campfire, felt the warmth distantly, and studied his fingers in the dancing light. He’d a few marks: an English arrow, barbed and ensorcelled both, had pierced the meat of his palm just beneath his thumb; lesser wounds from fighting the elk, though mostly healed, were still red and raised. “As a matter of tactics,” he added, “if the force behind this all can think, it might not do badly to split its attention. It may send its lesser troops after you. With fire and magic—with plain steel, for creatures more akin to the plants than the elk—you might hold them off well enough. And I’d be saving my strength for the greater foes.”

“You?” asked John, looking from Erik to Toinette with narrowed eyes. “I’d have thought you wanted the captain along.”

“I did this to you,” Erik said with a shrug. He looked straight across the fire at them all, not letting emotion enter his voice. “All of you. I couldn’t in good conscience ask anyone else to come with me. We don’t know what’s out there—how strong it is, or what it can do.”

“But we’ve seen some of it,” Toinette said, “and what we do know is we’re the ones best equipped to fight it. Think like a tactician, man, not a monk.”

He heard in her voice the echo of her less-diplomatic younger self: Don’t be a fool if you can help it. Hearts don’t do anyone any good.

Erik cleared his throat. “Tactically, then, there are three points to weigh as I see it. Will both of us stand more of a chance than one? Likely. But should one of us stay behind to defend? And what if we’re transformed?”

“Bugger,” said John, which seemed to sum things up nicely.

“The Templars’ bones were human,” said Samuel. “There was nothing twisted about them.”

“They were human,” said Sence. “At the start.”

“True,” said Toinette, her face blank, “but that could go either way too. Our blood might make us more capable of resisting. At the least, we know a bit of how bodies change.”

Erik, who’d thought he would have to make that point, was silent. They all were. Fish cooked untouched on the skewers until it started to blacken and Franz lifted it away from the frames. Nobody made any move to claim it.

Finally Marcus stood up, not to make any great pronouncement but to pace over to the cave entrance and back again. “It’s a gambler’s question, isn’t it? And I say we stake it all, for what good will we gain by holding back? If you fail, we die, and if we die more slowly than otherwise, how much of a blessing will that truly be?”

“And if we succeed,” Erik said, “but don’t come back? Breaking this spell might take blood. I’ve heard of such things. Or we and the being behind this might end as Arthur and Mordred did, killing and being killed at the same time. What, then, for you?”

“You can teach us the spell before you go,” said Samuel.

“And we can crew the ship,” Marcus added, though his face was white and he didn’t look at Toinette. “Our numbers won’t be good, but we can manage. Men have, before.”

“Honestly,” Toinette said, though she had to clear her throat before she spoke, and even then her voice was at first the groan of a rusty hinge, “I’m the least necessary of you lot. You’ve all got strong backs and good heads. Marcus can give as sound an order as I can and can read the sky and the sea just as well.” She smiled. The fire didn’t quite make it a rictus. “I had been thinking, before this, that it’d soon be time for me to leave him in command. If…well, if things go as Erik says, I’ll not even have to fake my death. Saves me a bit of effort, no?”

“Captain,” said Marcus, his eyes shining a little in the firelight, “do shut the hell up.”