46

To the Waters and the Wild

Jotham and Candle left the Keep through the giant hole in the wall, climbing down over the rubble. Candle could feel eyes boring into her back, and she was glad to follow Jotham over the brow of the hill, to a dip in the valley where they could transform into their dragon selves unobserved.

"No need to upset the humans more than necessary," said Jotham, who seemed to be in a good mood. His golden eyes were dancing, and even though his hair was still full of dust his grin was as broad as ever. He produced a vial of sea water which he handed to Candle. "Let's go home so we can talk properly. It seems we have some catching up to do."

Home, Candle thought, where is home? Was it the smoking ruin of her childhood? The aerial redoubt atop the Spear? Wherever her teammates ate and slept and trained? Or could it be with Jotham in his mountain? She really didn't know, but she was intensely grateful it would not be a tiny cell somewhere in Gwavas Keep. She was a little apprehensive to see how Jotham lived. The dark caves where she had found him, deep in the underbelly of the mountains still haunted her dreams from time to time. She couldn't imagine living like a worm in a tunnel. Especially a blind worm.

They flew through the golden afternoon light as the sun sank towards the horizon, their wings beating against the current rising of the Enchantments. Flying through the clouds was every bit as glorious as Candle remembered and her blood sang through her veins. Every wing beat released something of the tension of the last few days, and even better there was no sign of Belias in the air.

Her dragon eyes were so sharp, every creature and detail was clear on the ground below. As her eyes swept the sweeping mountain slopes below her eyes picked out a solitary human figure, slow moving and walking on the slopes. It was a bent, elderly figure, an old woman, picking her way along the fell, her white skirts flapping in the headwind. It was her old friend, Candle realised with shock - the weather lady with whom she had shared her stolen birthday cake on the eve of the winter solstice, so very long ago now. She must have survived the devastation at Hanternos.

Candle's heart leapt and she landed in the dip of the hill, transforming into her human self and running up the hill towards the old dear. The old lady was walking slowly at the crest of the high hill, her wrinkled and benign face turned upwards. Her unseeing eyes didn't turn towards Candle as she approached, and she gave no sign that she was aware of her presence.

"Are you alright?" Candle asked. "I thought you had died, with everyone else, at Hanternos. Do you have somewhere to go? Someone to look after you?"

"Candle?" asked Jotham. "What are you doing?"

"She comes from the village," Candle explained, "from Hanternos. She's always wandering about on the slopes. We can't leave her here, she won't be safe. I never did know where she lived."

"They are coming," said the old lady, turning her face away from the sun, frowning into the wind. "It's too late now."

"You need to come with us," said Candle. "We'll make sure you are somewhere safe."

The old lady turned her head towards Candle, as if straining to hear something faint and far away. But then she turned and walked away."

"Oh no," said Candle, walking after her, "please come with us?" She looked back at Jotham. "She's always been a bit strange," she said.

"Candle?" Jotham was looking at her with an odd expression on his face.

"We can leave her with the Own," said Candle, warming to her theme. "They'll make sure she is alright."

Jotham laid a heavy hand on her shoulder, and turned her towards him.

"Candle, there's no one there."

Candle looked back at the old lady, who was clearly visible, the material of her skirts flapping in the stiff breeze.

"She's right there."

Jotham shook his head.

"There is no one there. Perhaps she is a spirit? Or a vision sent from the demon?"

Candle stared at him.

"No! I've always known her."

She ran after the old woman, reaching out her hand to touch her arm. Her fingers passed through the woman's body like mist. The old lady didn't react, but carried on walking towards the cliff, her unseeing eyes gazing at the skies. Candle stood, staring after her in shock.

"Come on," said Jotham, turning away. "We need to talk."

Jotham's mountain cave was but a short distance away, as the dragon flew. Candle followed him down as he came to rest on a lofty mountain ledge. Candle landed behind him with a little less grace, having misjudged the speed of her approach. There was a sheer drop below and naked cliff above. There was no way anyone would be able to get there without being able to fly, she thought, with some satisfaction. The ledge opened out at the back into a large airy cave with a small waterfall tumbling down one side, forming a pool in the centre. The edge of the waterfall was lined with ferns and orchids. The evening light was dim and green, and the air slightly misted with spray. Currents of magic stirred everywhere, like a living thing, and she realised it must be twilight.

"What stops the spirits from coming through," she asked, "from the Night Nation?"

Jotham pointed one shining black talon to the runes limned with moonsilver that she had missed on her first appraisal. They were worked into the very rock of the rugged cave walls.

"I have no need of your barbaric iron doors," he said, grinning. He shimmered and turned into a man. Candle looked around the cave looking for distraction. She was loath to change back into a human, she felt more comfortable in her dragon scales. Fortunately there was plenty to feast her eyes on. One side of the cave was littered with giant bones. On the far side, away from the waterfall and the mist was a fire pit surrounded, rather surprisingly, by battered old arm chairs and messy piles of books. A rune lined doorway led back into the blackness of the mountain. She turned her back on that and examined the furniture instead with a smile. She raised an eyebrow.

"Not what I imagined," she said. Although to be honest, she wasn't sure what she had imagined. Jotham's domestic living arrangements had always remained a mystery.

"Where do you expect me to read?" asked Jotham, rather offended by her expression. She shrugged, her wings stirring restlessly against the moss of the waterfall.

"I never pictured you reading at all," she said.

"I've been reading about demons," he said.

"Oh." She knocked over a pile of books with her tail and hissed.

"It's easier to read as a human," he said, pointedly. "I mean clearly your current form is superior in every other way, but -"

She reluctantly shimmered into her human form. The cave looked enormous from her tiny human body. She missed her dragon self already and she was now bone dry. Belias ghosted into being like a black mist leering at Candle, as if she had called him.

"If you do as I say," he whispered, into her ear, "you wouldn't need this creature to protect you. If you slit his throat while he slept and sent his soul to me...you would become powerful beyond your wildest dreams. His strength would become yours." Candle looked away, trying to ignore his mutterings. "It would be easy," Belias continued, "he would not be expecting it...He trusts you."

"He's here," she said, "the demon."

Jotham snarled softly, looking around for the demon, even though he knew it was invisible.

"So what in the Night happened? I told you to stay away from your brother. It was a risk to take him on without me..."

Candle filled him in, with as few words as possible and Jotham listened intently, perched on the arm of one of the battered couches like a great hulking gargoyle. He listened without comment as she told him of the destruction of Hanternos, his eyebrows drawing together as she told of the appearance of Rasmus and her subsequent capture. He murmured his approval when she told of how she had escaped the cell, but showed no real animation until she got to the part where she had found the moonsliver runes in the pool at Gwavas.

"Runes!" he said, leaping up in agitation. "In the pool beneath Gwavas?"

"Only during twilight," said Candle. "I don't know their purpose."

"Show me!" he demanded. "No, not in the air, on the floor."

She drew the rune that had caused the obsidian black explosion and his face grew thunderous. When she drew the one that had caused the time jump, he knocked her hand away from the floor, scuffing the rune with his foot. She looked up at him in alarm.

"Forget you ever saw that one," he said, his voice harsh. "And never draw it again! You came very close to destroying not only yourself but everyone at Gwavas as well. If just one of them had had iron on them somewhere-" He shook his head, his eyes dark. "It doesn't bear thinking about. Was that the last one? No?"

She drew the last rune, the rune for guw, the light spear that had killed her brother, and looked up at Jotham anxiously.

"This one you can use," he said, begrudgingly, and his expression softened as he looked at her anxious face. "And I'm glad you had the means to deal with your brother. It would have been a shame if you'd died. But in the future don't go playing with strange runes you don't know the meaning of? Not unless you want to die and are prepared to take a lot of people with you. Do you understand?"

She nodded, and he sighed, falling back on the battered couch.

"I suppose I should teach you properly," he said. "So you can defend yourself without blowing up half of the countryside. But carry on, you haven't got to the demon yet."

So she told him the rest, and he sat and listened, a thoughtful expression on his face.

"So it's here right now?" he asked, looking around, sniffing, his eyes narrowed.

"Yes. He follows me, it never leaves unless I'm touching water. My soul is lost. There is nothing I can do."

"We can kill him," whispered Belias. "Together, we can kill him. I can show you how. His blood would taste sweet."

Jotham's brow furrowed as he looked at her.

"But you never gave it anything?" he asked.

"Give me his blood, Mistress. Let's drink his blood."

“It doesn't matter, I think my brother gave my blood to him when I was young. I belong to Belias."

"That's right."

"I'll never be able to get away."

"Never."

There was silence as Jotham thought about this.

"I don't want to hurt anyone once I go mad. You've seen what Rasmus did. What can happen."

Silence.

"But you are not mad."

"Soon."

“Not yet."

"You have not used the demon's gifts? You have not given him anything of your own free will?"

"No."

"Soon."

"But...he talks to me all the time. He's always here whispering, saying the most dreadful things. Showing me things."

"You are worried for what you might become?"

"Will become," she corrected. "Everyone says, I cannot escape this fate."

"Why fight it? Embrace it."

"And of course humans are the fount of all knowledge and wisdom!"

"Have you ever heard of anyone who escaped their demon?"

"There is no escape."

Silence.

"No," he admitted at last. "I have not."

She lay back against a battered chair, the tiny kernel of hope that had been brewing in her chest dashed.

"But," he continued, "the fact that you have given him nothing - that this was done to you, not of your own action. It must make a difference. I have some ideas...."

"I don't want to hurt anyone," said Candle, lying flat on her back, staring up at the spirits dancing gently in the mist of the waterfall. "I would rather kill myself than become ... like Rasmus."

"Do not be afraid," Jotham said, at last, "you have my word. If that is what you are worried about - I will kill you myself before I let you be used by a demon. I won't let you slip into madness behind my back. You can resist him, I'm sure of it. And if you don't - I mean it. I won't let you suffer."

"You would do that?"

"I promise."

"You promise to kill me? You won't let me hurt anyone?"

"I promise."

Candle took a deep breath, relief flooding through her.

"Then tell me what ideas you have to get rid of him.